Is Romans 13:11 a Failed Prediction?

[Bernard Muller]

1Th 4:16-17
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first;
then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.

I mentioned these verses just to show that expected "day of the Lord" would be very noticeable by anyone .

And if we look at 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
the big event was supposed to happen before all the believers of Paul's audience then, including Paul himself, died.

Cordially, Bernard

[iskander]

"It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body. For God had made man thus (that is, as an embodied spirit), and had willed that he should remain in incorruption. But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again."

On the Incarnation of the Word , Athanasius, St. Archbishop of Alexandria (c.296-c.373)

Yes, Death may come unexpectedly and some people claim to smell its approach.

Anasthasius says we were created " an embodied spirit to remain in incorruption , [ immortal ]". Hell was not popular yet and the " original sin " was still unknown.
Is 'salvation from death' all what Paul has in mind? --independently of the timing.

[readyforchange]

What about Paul's mini-resurrection account in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8?

You correctly mention 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8, and this fragment is best discussed together with 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25. Most of all the first half of the first verse of these fragments is interesting (underlined):
• 1Cor 11: 23: ‘For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, …’
• 1Cor 15: 3: 'For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, …’
Image Paul, who became a member of the young Christian community less than five years after Jesus’ death, and who had intense contact with the apostles who told him as eyewitnesses everything he wanted to know. If the sentences above were Paul’s, he would have said something like ‘Peter told me that the Lord Jesus took bread on the night he was betrayed …’ or ‘Through what I know from the apostles I realize that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, …’ These two opening sentences give a strong impression that their author speaks about things which happened at least two generations before, and that was not Paul’s situation. Also, if we look at the content of both fragments, we see two small syntheses which can hardly be attributed to Paul more than a decade before the first word of the Gospels was written. These syntheses belong to a later, more developed stadium of Christianity. So in my opinion these two fragments carry the signature of a second century editor of Paul’s original letters. The purpose of this forgery was to change Paul’s messianistic message, his propaganda for a future unnamed messiah, into propaganda for Jesus-the-messiah-from-the-recent-past. Another method of the forger(s) was to change ‘Christ’ or ‘the Lord Christ’ into ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’. Nestle-Aland shows that ‘Jesus’ has been added several times and labels these additions as ‘of doubtful authenticity’, a cautious way to say ‘not original’.

Below I also repeat a part of a recent post in another topic on this forum:

“In my opinion 1 Cor 5, verse 5 gives a fine view on the working method of the copiers/editors of the Pauline epistles.
“… you are to deliver this man to satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
The footnotes show that there are four textual variants of ‘in the day of the Lord Jesus’.

They go as follows:
• In the day of the Lord
Εν τῇ ἡμερᾁ του κυριου

• In the day of the Lord Jesus
Εν τῇ ἡμερᾁ του κυριου Ιησου

• In the day of the Lord Jesus Christ
Εν τῇ ἡμερᾁ του κυριου Ιησου Χριστου

• In the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
Εν τῇ ἡμερᾁ του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου

The ‘day of the Lord’ (or ‘day of revenge’) is a key concept in the Essene Dead Sea Scrolls, and in short it describes the day when Jahweh will come to put an end to the oppression of the Jews, to harshly punish their enemies (in an atmosphere of war and all kind of calamities) and to bring His messiah to power to rule over a liberated and prosperous Israel. So the Lord in this concept is Jahweh, not an unnamed Christ nor Jesus the messiah. Paul uses this concept time and again in his letters, and in my opinion he always uses it in its original Essene, eschatological sense. Which means that all the words at the end of the sentence following ‘kuriou’ (bold and underlined) are later accretions, ‘Jesus’ as well as ‘Christ’. Note also the future tense, so Paul looks forward to the future great day of the Lord.”

Frans, I really appreciate your detailed insight. I had not considered the first half of the first verses of the 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8 and 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25 fragments in the way you describe. You mention that if Paul had intense contact with the apostles within the first 5 years after Jesus' death and the apostles, as eyewitnesses, told Paul everything he everything he wanted to know, then Paul should have instead written something like, "Peter told me that the Lord Jesus took bread on the night he was betrayed …’ or ‘Through what I know from the apostles I realize that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, …". I agree, as if Paul was in direct communication with Peter and the other apostles soon after Jesus' death, one would think Paul would sprinkle in recollections of those conversations in his letters. However, I think there could be a flaw with this theory. In Galatians 1, Paul goes out of his way to attest that he did not receive his gospel about Jesus from other people nor meet with the apostles immediately after his conversion on the road to Damascus. In Galatians 1:15 - 2:10, and if I have my math correct, Paul claims that from the time of his conversion until 17 years later, he only saw Peter and James a total of 15 days, during the third year after his conversion (Galatians 1:18). Paul claims he saw none of the other apostles at that time. Granted, 3 years is relatively soon after his death. But Paul's main point was that he got his gospel message for the gentiles straight from Jesus and did not need to consult with the apostles. So if that was Paul's position, then in his letters to gentile converts, Paul would have wanted to avoid referring to conversations or guidance he could have received from Peter and the other apostles. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for the info about 1 Corinthians 5:5 and the "day of the Lord" concept with Yahweh as the messiah. I checked the NSRV, and verse 5 ends with "day of the Lord", without Jesus or Christ at the end. Did not notice the textual variants there.

[iskander]

"It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body. For God had made man thus (that is, as an embodied spirit), and had willed that he should remain in incorruption. But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again."
On the Incarnation of the Word , Athanasius, St. Archbishop of Alexandria (c.296-c.373)

Yes, Death may come unexpectedly and some people claim to smell its approach.

Anasthasius says we were created " an embodied spirit to remain in incorruption , [ immortal ]". Hell was not popular yet and the " original sin " was still unknown.
Is 'salvation from death' all what Paul has in mind? --independently of the timing.

Is Romans 13:11 a Failed Prediction?

Athanasius writes , " For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again.".
Adam and Eve were created immortal, but disobedience made them mortal : that is they will return to non-existence.
Jesus made humanity immortal again , as an obedient second Adam. Evil people return to non-existence when they die .

Saint Athanasius says the soul of the sinner is mortal, but later on the Church declared all souls to be immortal.
Is saint Athanasius one heretic saint???


Apostolici Regiminis
"Apostolici Regiminis was a papal bull issued 19 December 1513, by Pope Leo X, in defence of the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the immortality of the soul.
Leon X then declares that it [ the soul ] is of its own nature immortal, and that each body has a soul of its own.
This doctrine is said to be clear from those words of the Gospel, "But he cannot kill the soul", and "he who hates his soul in this world preserves it for eternal life". Moreover, if the condemned doctrine were true, the Incarnation would have been useless, and we should not need the Resurrection;"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolici_Regiminis

[FransJVermeiren]

Frans, I really appreciate your detailed insight. I had not considered the first half of the first verses of the 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8 and 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25 fragments in the way you describe. You mention that if Paul had intense contact with the apostles within the first 5 years after Jesus' death and the apostles, as eyewitnesses, told Paul everything he everything he wanted to know, then Paul should have instead written something like, "Peter told me that the Lord Jesus took bread on the night he was betrayed …’ or ‘Through what I know from the apostles I realize that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, …". I agree, as if Paul was in direct communication with Peter and the other apostles soon after Jesus' death, one would think Paul would sprinkle in recollections of those conversations in his letters. However, I think there could be a flaw with this theory. In Galatians 1, Paul goes out of his way to attest that he did not receive his gospel about Jesus from other people nor meet with the apostles immediately after his conversion on the road to Damascus. In Galatians 1:15 - 2:10, and if I have my math correct, Paul claims that from the time of his conversion until 17 years later, he only saw Peter and James a total of 15 days, during the third year after his conversion (Galatians 1:18). Paul claims he saw none of the other apostles at that time. Granted, 3 years is relatively soon after his death. But Paul's main point was that he got his gospel message for the gentiles straight from Jesus and did not need to consult with the apostles. So if that was Paul's position, then in his letters to gentile converts, Paul would have wanted to avoid referring to conversations or guidance he could have received from Peter and the other apostles. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for the info about 1 Corinthians 5:5 and the "day of the Lord" concept with Yahweh as the messiah. I checked the NSRV, and verse 5 ends with "day of the Lord", without Jesus or Christ at the end. Did not notice the textual variants there.

RFC, first one thing on the ‘day of the Lord’ concept: in this concept Yahweh is not the messiah, but on His day He will send His messiah to liberate Israel from its Roman oppressors and to rule His people in His name.

Then about Paul’s conversion: I will discuss it in a short and a long way.

The short one
As Paul is supposed to have converted after Jesus’ life, this revelation is fiction. If Paul didn’t have contact with anyone who knew Jesus during his lifetime, how should we imagine this revelation? And if I follow this unrealistic hypothesis for one moment, I only see that this ‘divine’ intervention was a low quality one, because after this revelation Paul did not know anything more about Jesus. All Paul’s epistles are proof of that.

Then the long one
First I want to make an introductory remark. I think we’d better concentrate on Paul’s own account of his conversion. In your post you speak about Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus and immediately afterwards you mention Galatians. I think this way of mixing things up doesn’t help the discussion. The story of the conversion on the way to Damascus is not from Paul’s hand, it is later propaganda from somebody else’s hand. So let’s concentrate on Galatians 1:11-24.

In verse 12 the revelation of Jesus Christ is mentioned. What persons or communities are mentioned in the following verses?
• In verse 13: the church of God, not the church of Jesus or Jesus Christ
• In verse 16: Yahweh’s anonymous Son, not His Son named Jesus
• In verse 22: the churches of Christ in Judea, not the churches of Jesus or Jesus Christ in Judea
• In verse 24: they glorified God, not Jesus (or God and His messiah Jesus).
I see a remarkable discrepancy between the revelation and what follows, as in the following verses there is not a single name that builds on the ‘Jesus’ of verse 12.

Also the content of this passage is questionable.
• As Jesus was a man of flesh and blood, maybe this revelation would have yielded some concrete information? Deeds? Teachings? Miracles? Home region? Passion, death, resurrection?
• Why doesn’t Paul hurry to the ‘real’ apostles to discuss all these highly important things?
• And when Paul meets Cephas after three years, what information on Jesus does this meeting yield? In two weeks a lot can be told. We don’t hear anything about this. Because this information was not important to Paul? Or because it simply didn’t exist?

I believe this passage makes perfect sense if we see Paul’s conversion as a conversion from Pharisaic Judaism to another Jewish faction, the messianistic Essene faction (which produced Christianity later in the first century CE). This explains why this revelation doesn’t yield any detail. First Paul thought that messianism was reprehensible, and then he made a U-turn and became a propagator of the future (and therefore anonymous) messiah. This is exactly what Paul explains in verse 13 to 16. But there is more than only his conversion to Essene messianism. Paul had a new, personal and contested goal: to propagate the Jewish messiah amongst the gentiles. This new goal explains why he is reluctant to visit the leaders in Jerusalem: he is far from sure that they will approve of his unprecedented mission amongst the gentiles while the Jerusalem leaders saw the future messiah as the liberator of the Jewish people only.

So in my opinion this passage makes perfect sense if we eliminate one single word, the word ‘Jesus’ from verse 12. In this case there is no textual evidence (in variant readings) for this intervention. However, elsewhere in Galatians there is an added ‘Jesus’: ‘And those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.’ (5:24)

In an earlier post I mentioned Paul’s orientation to the future. This is also present in Galatians, for example in 6:9: ‘And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.’ At the future day of the Lord it will be harvest time.

[readyforchange]

Frans, thanks for the clarification on the "day of the Lord". Good point that Paul's Damascus conversion accounts are only found in Acts, and I think the 3 different conversion accounts in Acts include some contradictions. I identify as agnostic now but only recently starting seeing Bible outside of a Christian worldview, so it's a little hard to get my mind around a different concept of Paul's letters (but aware that many scholars dispute his authorship of the pastorals, 2 Thessalonians, and a couple more letters). Reading Galatians 1:13, 16, 22, and 24 more closely, I can see your points there. That's interesting, regarding Paul converting from Pharisaic Judaism to messianic Essene faction - had not thought of that before. I see the future reference in Galatians 6:9. As an aside, I just noticed Galatians 6:11 - "See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand!". That verse seems completely out of place for the context of the surrounding verses and seems to provide evidence that there was pseudepigrapha taking place with Paul's letters. I have also noticed 2 Thessalonians 3:17.

[FransJVermeiren]

I identify as agnostic now but only recently starting seeing Bible outside of a Christian worldview, so it's a little hard to get my mind around a different concept of Paul's letters (but aware that many scholars dispute his authorship of the pastorals, 2 Thessalonians, and a couple more letters).

RFC, below some suggested reading for a fresh outlook on Paul:
• Beck, Norman A., Anti-Roman Cryptograms in the New Testament - Symbolic Messages of Hope and Liberation
• Walker, William O., Interpolations in the Pauline Letters
• Segal, Alan F., Paul the Convert
• Crossan, John D. and Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul – How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom
• Vermeiren, Frans J., A Chronological Revision of the Origins of Christianity.

[Ben C. Smith]

I believe this passage makes perfect sense if we see Paul’s conversion as a conversion from Pharisaic Judaism to another Jewish faction, the messianistic Essene faction (which produced Christianity later in the first century CE). This explains why this revelation doesn’t yield any detail. First Paul thought that messianism was reprehensible, and then he made a U-turn and became a propagator of the future (and therefore anonymous) messiah. This is exactly what Paul explains in verse 13 to 16. But there is more than only his conversion to Essene messianism. Paul had a new, personal and contested goal: to propagate the Jewish messiah amongst the gentiles. This new goal explains why he is reluctant to visit the leaders in Jerusalem: he is far from sure that they will approve of his unprecedented mission amongst the gentiles while the Jerusalem leaders saw the future messiah as the liberator of the Jewish people only.

So in my opinion this passage makes perfect sense if we eliminate one single word, the word ‘Jesus’ from verse 12. In this case there is no textual evidence (in variant readings) for this intervention. However, elsewhere in Galatians there is an added ‘Jesus’: ‘And those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.’ (5:24)

Would you similarly remove "Jesus" from all of the genuine Pauline epistles (whichever ones you regard as genuine, minus whichever other passages you regard as likely interpolations)? Or would you limit your observation only to Paul's personal history? Do you think that Paul himself added the Jesus stuff in the course of preaching to gentiles? (And, if so, why? Whence did it come?)

Also, while certainly granting a heavy future orientation in the Pauline epistles, I would have to wonder about the elements of salvation history that are viewed as past events, as the crucifixion and resurrection appear to be. Did Paul add those elements, too, or did later authors add those to Paul?

[FransJVermeiren]

Would you similarly remove "Jesus" from all of the genuine Pauline epistles (whichever ones you regard as genuine, minus whichever other passages you regard as likely interpolations)? Or would you limit your observation only to Paul's personal history? Do you think that Paul himself added the Jesus stuff in the course of preaching to gentiles? (And, if so, why? Whence did it come?)

Also, while certainly granting a heavy future orientation in the Pauline epistles, I would have to wonder about the elements of salvation history that are viewed as past events, as the crucifixion and resurrection appear to be. Did Paul add those elements, too, or did later authors add those to Paul?

Indeed, I believe ‘Jesus’ is added to a future and unnamed Christ in all genuine Pauline epistles. I have discussed Paul extensively in my book, here I only give the most obvious arguments:
• Manipulation of texts was the rule instead of exception in Antiquity.
• There is proof of interpolations (some of them post-70 CE) in the Pauline epistles.
• There is textual evidence that ‘Jesus’ has been added several times in the Pauline letters (although, of course, for many ‘Jesuses’ there is no textual evidence).
• The future orientation of Paul is manifest. There are no arguments in Paul that he had a second coming of Jesus in mind.
• ‘Jesus’ is mentioned by name in Paul’s letters, but Paul is in no way familiar with Jesus.
• The text makes more sense when it is messianistic message is repaired.
• The ‘day of the Lord’ example earlier in this topic shows the working method of later editors and copyists.

My answer to your question if Paul added ‘Jesus’ in the course of his preaching to the gentiles is negative. The crucifixion and resurrection were future events, they didn’t happen around 30 CE but during the war of het Jews against the Romans. Paul the propagator of the future Christ to the gentiles is recuperated as Paul the propagator of Jesus Christ to the gentiles. This was possible and attractive after Mark had antedated the events described in the Gospels from 70 CE to approximately 30 CE. That way Paul the precursor was changed into Paul the follower.

Concerning the authenticity of the Pauline epistles, I believe the two letters to the Thessalonians are both from Paul’s hand. Thessalonians 2 chapter 2 is heavily mutilated, as Titus is staged in verse 3 and 4: ‘Let no one deceive you in any way: for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.’

A part of my work on Paul is an attempt to reconstruct his letters in their original state. Below I reproduce what might have been the original state of 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 1 to 12, of course without the mention of Titus, as Thessalonians 2 is supposed to have been written around 50 CE and Titus’s capture of the Temple is dated August 70 CE with certainty. I translate ‘kurios christos’ as ‘anointed king’.

Now concerning the coming of our anointed king and our assembling to meet him, we beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you this? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the (anointed) king will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming. The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Paul’s reasoning is entirely focused on an unnamed anointed king and his adversary, an anonymous lawless one. Afterwards these two opponents have been metamorphosed into a personalized Jesus Christ and a still anonymous though recognizable lawless Titus (in an interpolation).

[Ben C. Smith]

Indeed, I believe ‘Jesus’ is added to a future and unnamed Christ in all genuine Pauline epistles. I have discussed Paul extensively in my book, here I only give the most obvious arguments:
• Manipulation of texts was the rule instead of exception in Antiquity.
• There is proof of interpolations (some of them post-70 CE) in the Pauline epistles.
• There is textual evidence that ‘Jesus’ has been added several times in the Pauline letters (although, of course, for many ‘Jesuses’ there is no textual evidence).

I tend to agree with all of these. Of course, however, affirming that interpolations exist in quantity is a far cry from accurately identifying those interpolations.

• The future orientation of Paul is manifest. There are no arguments in Paul that he had a second coming of Jesus in mind.

If there were, what would prevent you from declaring them to be interpolations?

The crucifixion and resurrection were future events, they didn’t happen around 30 CE but during the war of the Jews against the Romans.

So all of the passages in Paul that place the crucifixion and/or resurrection in the past are interpolations, too, right? (Most of the first half of 1 Corinthians 15, for example.)