Introduction
Numerous Bible scholars have noted the parallels between the ideas and metaphors of Jesus and Paul.
If the Letters of Paul were written before the gospels, Paul does not write about the Beatitudes or the Lord’s Prayer but he gets the Lord’s Supper.
An in-depth vision from Jesus to Paul or Something Else: The Jesus-Paul Debate
THE JESUS-PAUL DEBATE:
FROM BAUR TO BULTMANN
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#1
…The Lord Jesus … took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this; whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
The Authentic First Letter of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 11: 23-25
Also see:
The Gospel According to Luke 22: 19-20
Matthew 26: 26-29
Mark 14: 22-25
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“Paul cites the Jesus-tradition in various ways.
Sometimes he quotes the tradition explicitly and almost verbatim (as with his account of the Last Supper).
Sometimes he quotes the tradition explicitly but very freely… (as with the divorce sayings).
Most frequently, he draws on the tradition freely and incorporates Jesus’ teaching into his own teaching without explaining that he is doing so (as with the echoes of the Sermon on the Mount in Romans).”
Source for the above edited quote:
David Wenham, “Paul’s Use of the Jesus Tradition: Three Samples.”
Gospel Perspectives, vol. 5, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament,
1985, p. 28.
Call down blessings on your persecutors–blessings, not curses. – Romans 12: 14
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you spitefully. – Luke 6: 28
These verses have the same meaning.
The Beatitudes could be an extrapolation from Paul’s thoughts.
Dr. Ehrman,
Was there an in-depth vision from Jesus to Paul for Paul to get verbatim Jesus and Jerusalem Church accounts (for example, the last Supper, ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
As a second example, here, these verses have the same meaning:
Call down blessings on your persecutors–blessings, not curses. – ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you spitefully. – ** you do not have permission to see this link **
The Beatitudes could be an extrapolation from Paul’s thoughts, based on his in-depth, knowledge dump via vision from Jesus. // I am thinking Oral Tradition from Paul could be a first draft, while later, with the gospels, thoughts are extrapolated, organized, and polished more.
These are two examples, but there is a Jesus-Paul debate which speaks of how Paul was or was not so indifferent to the accounts of Jesus’s life presented in the gospels.
Question: How do you explain the verbatim and similar accounts in Paul with the gospel accounts? Was it the powerful conversion vision or did gospels use Pauline letters to crystallize gospel accounts of Jesus?
Thank you.
Bart Ehrman
Catchy one-liners and set liturgical sayings are teh ones most likely to be repeated in very similar ways in different contexts, without literary dependence (think of how many people say the Lord’s prayer the same, but NOT because they are reading the same texts; it’s just how they learned it.)
Jesus and two other men were not crucified under the watch of Pontius Pilate.
Not fitting the Biblical narrative, the Samaritan Redeemer (the principal of whom) and one other person (the most potent of those that fled away) were slain together under the watch of Pontius Pilate.
Josephus’ Account
[Since Moses himself never came beyond Jordan, nor particularly to Mount Gerizim, and since these Samaritans have a tradition among them … that in the days of Uzzi or Ozis the high priest (1 Chr. 6:6), the ark and other sacred vessels were, by God’s command, laid up or hidden in Mount Gerizim, it is highly probable that this was the foolish foundation the present Samaritans went upon in the sedition here described…]
So they arrived armed and thought the discourse of the man probable. As they abode at a certain village called Tirathaba, they got the rest together to them and desired to go up the mountain in a great multitude together. But Pilate prevented their going up by seizing upon the roads with a great band of horsemen and footmen who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village. When they came to an action, some of them they slew, others they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of whom and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain.
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The Jerusalem Church had a set liturgical saying for the Last Supper which explains the verbatim Last Supper verses at ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
Reply
You are saying Paul picked up Communion liturgy from his in-depth vision from Jesus–Jesus was adamant about how he wanted to be remembered that he communicated that to Paul by vision; and, because the Beatitudes are not connected to liturgy, they do not appear verbatim in any of the letters of Paul?
Bart Ehrman
Catchy one-liners and set liturgical sayings are the ones most likely to be repeated in very similar ways in different contexts, without literary dependence (think of how many people say the Lord’s prayer the same, but NOT because they are reading the same texts; it’s just how they learned it.)
Jesus declared, “This is my blood … drink.”
James declared, “Brothers, listen to me! … abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, AND FROM BLOOD. For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” Acts 15: 13, 20-21.
The catchy one-liners and set liturgical sayings of the Last Supper was no part of the Jerusalem Church connected with James. James accused Paul and threatened him with punishment for saying circumcision was unnecessary. He surely did not bend on this.
Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats ANY blood—I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people.
…I have given the blood to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar…
Leviticus 17: 10-11
Victor Paul Furnish (author of the posted article)
Wrede’s position is that Paul was NOT Jesus’ expounder and successor. Wrede believes that Jesus’ emphasis on the fatherly providence of God “scarcely finds an echo in Paul…”
p. 350
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Bruckner says, Paul, in the main, disdains the earthly life of Jesus, considering it not a “revelation” but an abrogation of the messianic nature of Christ, … a time of “weakness” which leads to death. … Paul’s letters themselves reveal no influence of the personality of Jesus upon the apostle’s Christology. His Christology is entirely and more clearly explicable in terms of Paul’s own theological perspective … [consisting] of Paul’s combining the ideas of
incarnation
and
dying-rising
with
the Jewish messianic idea.
Steefen
Jesus as incarnate what? Everyone is incarnate. Bart might say incarnate angel (but an argument has been made that Bart is in error: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Dying-rising – has Paul been dipping in mythology?
At best Paul sees Jesus as a weak messiah? [Paul does not get into the suffering messiah who dies vs. the Davidic messiah who comes after the suffering messiah.]
Victor Paul Furnish p. 353
Arnold Meyer speaks of the vastness of the gulf separating Jesus and the “strange speculations of St. Paul.” … Meyer speaks about “the warping influence [upon Paul] of the Rabbinic schools …” He contrasts the urban Paul with the rural Jesus.
Steefen
He goes on to say, what we get in the gospels are disciples experiencing the life of Jesus Christ moreso than Paul who only experienced the post-death-and-resurrection spirit of Jesus Christ. So, there will be emphasis differences between the two approaches to Christianity.
Regarding Paul’s gospel of Christ dying for our sins, that is misleading Judaic sacrilege: humans are not to be presented or accepted as ritual sacrifices in Judaism.
Matthew Chapter 26, Verse 28
This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Paul got that from Jesus.
Steefen
That is a corruption of Judaism that has been tied to Christianity. Maybe the power of Paul forced that into the gospels written after Paul’s career. There is NO human sacrifice presented or accepted in the religion of Temple Judaism. Period.
I bet if Jesus said when you force Rome’s hand to crucify me, my blood will be poured out for the forgiveness of sins; and, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power, Jesus probably would have been stoned like Stephen instead of his death being delayed for crucifixion. The Babylonian Talmud said Jesus was stoned to death and then hung.
No, do not count me as a Pauline Christian.
And what if people’s sins are not death penalty crimes? What is Jesus dying for, then?
By the same token, what were the animals dying for at the Temple, then?
It is one thing to donate animals to God so priests and the poor can have some animal protein. That is a gift.
Let’s get comprehensive and authentic:
“Understanding Biblical Sacrifice (Korbanot)”
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The article states:
There were three basic kinds of korbanot: Animals, grain, and money. Animals would be killed, grain would be burned, and money would be donated. Sometimes, when a person didn’t have any animals to sacrifice, they would offer grain or money instead (see for example Leviticus 5:11, 5:18, and 14:21).
The kohanim were called “those who come close to the Eternal” (Exodus 19:22), showing that their job of offering korbanot involves closing the distance between human beings and God. Indeed, God tells Moses to build the sanctuary where the korbanot are offered so that God can “dwell among” the people of Israel (Exodus 25:8). So, offering korbanot was one way of bringing God and the Israelites closer together.
Steefen
Well, forgiveness of sins is a way to get closer to God: sacrifice to come close to God.
Steefen
No. Unacceptable. You left out “human sacrifice” for sins that do not rise to the punishment level of death penalty. And then there is the metaphor with the explicit text of this is my body and this is my blood, eat and drink.
No, no, no: absolutely NO.
Victor Paul Furnish
Weiss admits one basic difference between Jesus and Paul: Paul’s exaltation of Jesus to the status of God, his
“religious veneration” of him.
p. 354
James Moffat
Jesus did not preach justification ; Paul did.
p. 356
Steefen
I disagree: “Your faith has made you well.”
In so far as Paul’s thought did differ from Jesus’ teaching, these differences are to be explained
by ” three distinctions of experience” :
(1) Jesus never knew the sense of dependence on the authority of another,
whereas Paul lived as one ” under authority “;
(2) Jesus never knew a sense of guilt such as
was crucial in Paul’s experience;
(3) Jesus, unlike Paul, never sensed the law as an intolerable tyranny.
Pick up at the top of p. 358
Heitmuller
He takes account of the arguments of those who insist that Paul, due to his contacts with the
twelve disciples, must have known more about Jesus than his
letters reveal, but insists that there is nothing in his letters which
leads us necessarily to postulate that possibility. The frequent
assertion that Paul’s missionary preaching contained more about
Jesus’ life and personality than we find in his letters Heitmiiller
regards as a conjecture which the sources really do not permit,
and concludes that, on the basis of our sources, we must only
suppose Paul’s missionary preaching to have centred on Jesus’
incarnation, obedience, crucifixion, and resurrection.
Machen
” Paul was a disciple of Jesus, if Jesus was a supernatural person;
he was not a disciple of Jesus, if Jesus were a mere man.”
” A missionary preaching “, Machen said, ” that included no
concrete account of the life of Jesus would have been preposterous.
The claim that a crucified Jew was to be obeyed as Lord and
trusted as Saviour must surely have provoked the question as to
what manner of man this was.”
Steefen
“A missionary (Paul) preaching that included no concrete account of the life of Jesus would have been preposterous.”
Pick up at Section II, top of page 361.
Victor Paul Furnish, PhD
Wrede carries forward Wendt’s insistence that Paul was essentially rabbinic in his theological background and impulses, contrasts this with Jesus’ Pharisaic background, and criticizes both Wellhausen and Harnack for regarding Paul as Jesus’ expounder and successor. Wrede believes that Jesus’ emphasis on the fatherly providence of God ” scarcely finds an echo in Paul,” and doubts “whether the Pauline picture of the future can be considered a propagation of the original thoughts of Jesus.” Also with respect to morality and ethics Wrede finds Paul departing from Jesus’ teaching.
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page 350
Victor Paul Furnish, PhD
Meanwhile, the ” Chicago School ” of social-historical research was dominating American biblical studies, and its chief spokesman, Shirley Jackson Case, had brief but significant comments on Paul’s view of the historical Jesus. Paul ” could have written a gospel that would have been quite as accurate and extensive as the Gospel of Luke “, he opined, but he unfortunately ” had no interest in such an enterprise “.
Case mentions several factors which resulted in Paul’s indifference to the matter: his supreme concern for
“the heavenly Christ”
his eschatological expectation, and
his need, in the face of attacks upon his apostleship, to minimize the significance of historical contact with Jesus.
One who, like Paul, claims to possess the mind of Christ, need have no concern for seeking out ” traditional information about the life and teaching of the earthly Jesus.”
Victor Paul Furnish, PhD
Hans Windisch insists that the apparent paradox of continuity and divergence between Jesus and Paul is due to
a mixing, in Paul’s letters, of
a Jerusalem Gospel
and
a Damascus Gospel.
Windisch maintains that the alternative, an “historical Jesus/preached Christ,” is false.
In the Synoptic Gospels we have a Christ other than the one met in Paul.
It is Christ Jesus, the one met by the earliest disciples, the authentic disciples, in Galilee and Jerusalem,
and who were there forced to a decision in a completely different manner than Paul had been forced to a decision.
It is the Christ who was living before there was an apostolic kerygma (the apostolic proclamation of salvation through Jesus Christ) concerning him,
before Paul–before the gospel which originated in Damascus.
Pick up at top of p. 364
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Professor Ehrman
Neither Jesus nor Paul saw himself as departing from the truth of Judaism and the Jewish God.
Steefen
False. For Jesus to ask for the literal or metaphorical consumption of his body and blood is to depart from the truth of Judaism and to depart from the Jewish God. For Paul to de-prioritize the Law is to depart from the truth of Judaism and from the Jewish God.
BDEhrman
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