Paul's value?

@fmf said
Has what I revealed about my personal beliefs with regard to Paul affected your personal beliefs with regard to Paul?

I don't change my beliefs overnight. If something were to change, it would involve a process.

For now, I need to learn more about the major differences in what Paul preached versus what Jesus preached. I don't know enough yet about the "atonement" issue, and exactly who preached what.

It's surprising to learn that some scholars believe that Paul taught a different message than Jesus....which dive claims is not true.

@chaney3 said
It's surprising to learn that some scholars believe that Paul taught a different message than Jesus....which dive claims is not true.

You should read around the subject, there is loads of stuff on the internet. Don’t confuse different with meaning contradictory.

@chaney3 said
It's surprising to learn that some scholars believe that Paul taught a different message than Jesus....which dive claims is not true.

Despite what some scholars believe, billions of Christians accept and believe that Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. It's not just divegeester.

@chaney3 said
For now, I need to learn more about the major differences in what Paul preached versus what Jesus preached. I don't know enough yet about the "atonement" issue, and exactly who preached what.

If you don't like reading words on the page or on the screen, watch some YouTube videos, maybe.

@fmf said
Despite what some scholars believe, billions of Christians accept and believe that Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. It's not just divegeester.

I wasn't speaking about the encounter, which is a matter of faith. I was more concerned with conflicting messages.
(Not different as dive pointed out)

Edit: if Paul met Jesus, then preached a conflicting message, that would be worse than lying about the whole thing.

@chaney3 said
I wasn't speaking about the encounter, which is a matter of faith. I was more concerned with conflicting messages.
(Not different as dive pointed out)

If the encounter really happened and Jesus really told Paul what the message was supposed to be, then the perception of "conflicting messages" is yours and not Paul's and Jesus'.

@chaney3 said
if Paul met Jesus, then preached a conflicting message, that would be worse than lying about the whole thing.

So you are willing to believe that Jesus spoke to Paul but you think Jesus might have been doing something that was tantamount to lying? Is that more or less the nature of the penny that's dropped for you on this thread?

@chaney3 said
I wasn't speaking about the encounter, which is a matter of faith. I was more concerned with conflicting messages.
(Not different as dive pointed out)

Edit: if Paul met Jesus, then preached a conflicting message, that would be worse than lying about the whole thing.

if Paul met Jesus, then preached a conflicting message, that would be worse than lying about the whole thing.

And if Paul never met Jesus AND preached a "conflicting message"?

@fmf said
So you are willing to believe that Jesus spoke to Paul but you think Jesus might have been doing something that was tantamount to lying? Is that more or less the nature of the penny that's dropped for you on this thread?

You are misunderstanding my point!!

@thinkofone said
The great theologian Soren Kierkegaard, writing in The Journals. Quote:
"In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Marti ...[text shortened]... splaces it.[/b]"

Pasted from <http://www.wizanda.com/modules/article/view.article.php/article=52>

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish existential philosopher whose work I actually did enjoy, to some degree.

Schweitzer was famous for his wealth and his recording techniques for Bach. He was not renowned as a theologian, as far as I know, but wrote some passionate stuff about how w eare all humans and have to live out like Christ, right?

I do not see either of these men as authorative.

@chaney3 said
You are misunderstanding my point!!

I don't think I am. I think I am getting to the very heart of the point. I've told you what I don't believe. Don't take my word for it. It all comes down to a matter of faith. If you need to research the subject in order to get a clearer idea of what it is exactly what you have faith in, then you should go and do that research.

@philokalia said
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish existential philosopher whose work I actually did enjoy, to some degree.

Schweitzer was famous for his wealth and his recording techniques for Bach. He was not renowned as a theologian, as far as I know, but wrote some passionate stuff about how w eare all humans and have to live out like Christ, right?

I do not see either of these men as authorative.

Schweitzer was famous for his wealth and his recording techniques for Bach. He was not renowned as a theologian, as far as I know, but wrote some passionate stuff about how w eare all humans and have to live out like Christ, right?

Evidently the Encyclopaedia Britanica does not share your view:

Albert Schweitzer, (born Jan. 14, 1875, Kaysersberg, Upper Alsace, Ger. [now in France]—died Sept. 4, 1965, Lambaréné, Gabon), Alsatian-German theologian, philosopher, organist, and mission doctor in equatorial Africa, who received the 1952 Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts in behalf of “the Brotherhood of Nations.”

I do not see either of these men as authorative.

From what I've seen, you mindlessly accept as truth whatever the "Church Fathers" say. The point wasn't that they're "authoritative". The point was that the truth is there for those who earnestly seek it.

If one were to dismiss St. Paul and those who wrote the Bible, one starts a chain reaction, and who knows what you end up with at the end! You then just pick and choose what you believe about Christianity, and you are now putting yourself above people whom God appeared to personally, as if you are some special authority.

The Bible being what it is, people have no choice to pick and choose. Only the extremely disingenuous claim that they don't. There's a reason that there are so many denominations and that Christians have held and continue to hold completely contrary views on so many subjects.

@fmf said
I think it's generally accepted that Paul’s contributions are the oldest portion of the NT - i.e. approximately 30 years after Jesus was executed by the Romans - so they were written maybe 10 or 20 years before the Gospels. Paul doesn't mention the virgin birth, nor any miracles, nor the empty tomb, nor does he mention any physical resurrection [only a spiritual one], and he also ...[text shortened]... suggests the story about Judas committing suicide wasn't made up until maybe a decade or more later.

From 1 Corinthians 15:

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

So you are saying that this is purely a "spiritual" resurrection? He appeared as a spirit?

The word 'appear' doesn't necessarily imply this in Greek.

Spiritual resurrection is argued for in a few ways, including by claiming that some terminology Paul uses when discussing the resurrection of Jesus is compatible with a spiritual interpretation of the resurrection. Before I begin, I’ll just note that the contrary to the commenter above, Greek ōphthē, which is a conjugation of ὁράω (horao), simply means “to perceive with the eye” (has nothing to do with spiritual sight) and so can’t be used to open up the possibility that this was a spiritual vision and, thus, a spiritual resurrection, any more then I claiming to have seen a lion with my eyes implies that I saw a spiritual lion from heaven.

https://faithfulphilosophy.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/paul-and-the-physical-resurrection-of-christ/

We also have this observation on the context:

This rather remarkable context should alert us to the fact that Paul has been teaching of a physical resurrection. Paul is writing to a predominantly Greek church. If Paul was merely speaking of a non-physical resurrection (which, to a Jew, is something of a contradiction of terms), it is doubtful that he would have met with such skepticism. As discussed above, the Greeks already believed in the immortality of the human soul. Their skepticism was reserved for the Jewish belief in a physical resurrection. Yet, in this letter, Paul is clearly addressing Greek-oriented skepticism in his teaching of the resurrection. Why would such skepticism arise? Because the Corinthian church's background denied, indeed did not have any place for, a bodily resurrection. It would have had far less trouble accepting Paul's doctrine of the resurrection if that doctrine emphasized a purely spiritual phenomenon

As Craig Blomberg explains:

"At any rate, the position of some in the Corinthian church is specified in verse 12 (How can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?"😉, and it is to this challenge that Paul responds. By denying the resurrection, the Corinthians were almost certainly not denying life after death, virtually everyone in the ancient world believed in that. Rather, they would have been disputing the Jewish and Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection and endorsing one of the more Greek forms of belief that limited the afterlife to disembodied immortality of the soul (cf. 2 Tim. 2:17-18)." 1 Corinthians, Craig Blomberg, 294-95.

http://www.christianorigins.com/resbody.html

I think that St. Paul definitely believed in the physical resurrection, and with his Christian associates he would have been well familiar with it.

There might not be clear, irrefutable proof that he believed in the physical resurrection in the sense of a direct statement, but it requires significant reading in to believe that he would not have thought that Christ was physically resurrected.

@thinkofone said
Schweitzer was famous for his wealth and his recording techniques for Bach. He was not renowned as a theologian, as far as I know, but wrote some passionate stuff about how w eare all humans and have to live out like Christ, right?

Evidently the Encyclopaedia Britanica does not share your view:
[quote]Albert Schweitzer, (born Jan. 14, 1875, Kaysersberg, Upper A ...[text shortened]... extremely disingenuous claim that they don't. There's a reason that there are so many denominations.

The early Church fathers believed in St. Paul. They accepted him as one of them, and his doctrines were clearly compatible. The apparition to him was sincere.

If we believe that God has worked to preserve His Word among us, why would we believe that all of Christianity has been hijacked until the 19th and 20th century when you really start to get these radicals appearing that suggest that St. Paul is illegitimate? Why should we believe in some conspiracy that St. Paul was wrong from the very start...? That he threw some kind of crazy coup d'etat?

It's purely speculation -- speculation from people who either want to radically innovate the Church, or who want to see it destroyed.

@philokalia said
From 1 Corinthians 15:

[quote]3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers ...[text shortened]... reading in to believe that he would not have thought that Christ was physically resurrected.

I don't believe that Paul had any communication with Jesus. It is one of the reasons I am not a Christian.