Well, that was a very interesting exchange, and I hope people can compare your response to the original and not simply accept some kind of conclusion that none of these considerations (in the way that they were expressed in my post, as they're distinctly weaker in the retelling) have any merit whatsoever. I think we covered the bases, but the reader can construct their own version of what all the epicycles would be if we went back and forth a bunch of times.spin wrote:Some responses to Peter:
Argument by reversal:
The process of inverting Pauline statements to reveal his opponents' views does not work—at least as attempted here. Paul is talking specifically to the Galatians and contrasting the views of his opponents with what he specifically taught those Galatians. There is no opportunity to see the references to Jesus in these statements as bearing any relevance to what his opponents believed.
Gal 5:2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
The Galatians have been told that they should accept circumcision, but Paul tells them that Christ will be of no advantage to them. There is no reflection on his opponents' views on Jesus in this. There is no indication that the opponents knew anything about Jesus.
Gal 5:4 "You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace."
The Galatians have been told that to follow the Jewish way of other proselytes to Galatia they need to follow the law (to become justified). Paul tells them that seeking justification through the law will sever them from his Christ, having fallen from grace.
One cannot derive opponents' views about Jesus through the process of inversion as it does not take into account the audience or Paul's pastoral relationship with those he writes to. What is being inverted may contain more information about the supposed original than can reasonable be derived.
It is Paul who is bring the views disturbing his Galatians into contrast with Jesus. It is Paul who is separating the opponents from his Jesus.
Circumcision does not exclude people from justification through Jesus, for circumcision and uncircumcision are irrelevant to Paul's Jesus cult. Otherwise he might not be eligible for his own religion. But those who make circumcision important to their life—Paul tells the Galatians—are severed from Jesus and have fallen from grace. Paul continually tells the Galatians the choice is Jesus or the religion of his opponents. He is not simply contradicting his opponents, but preaching to the Galatians about Jesus.
The process of inversion is liable to assumptions about what to invert. How does one discern what was derived from the opponents and what was not?
Argument from the irrelevance of Jerusalem to Paul
The assertion "The others, such as James and Cephas, are a threat to Paul's authority because they also make claims regarding Jesus Christ" contains the unjustified link to Jesus. We don't know anything about the messiah of Paul's opponents. If we can judge by the story of the messianic proselytizer Apollos mentioned in Acts 18, people preached the Johannine cult of the coming messiah without any knowledge of Jesus. One can be a messianic prepper without any notion of Jesus and one can proselytize a non-Jesus messianism.
Paul before his trip to Jerusalem was a lone wolf preacher, who had no backing, unlike those who were sent by the Jerusalemites. By interacting with them Paul is upping his creds. He has a relationship with the people in Jerusalem and supports the poor there. He suddenly stops being a loner and can place himself into a wider context. Thus, by his trip to Jerusalem his raises his credibility to potential proselytes. It is not important what the Jerusalemites believe, but how Paul can sell his Jesus messianism.
The letter to the Galatians sells the notion that the people in Jerusalem with their insistence on living the
law just don't get it. On the other hand Paul runs with the big guys in Jerusalem so he is someone with an improved claim to apostleship. The trip to Jerusalem is good brand placement.
Argument by retrojection of the terminus technicus "apostle"
The term "apostle" at the time Paul wrote indicated a person who was sent with orders, with a mission. It could not have developed the sense carried by the later christian terminus technicus. The contrary seems to be that a whole technical vocabulary was born in the head of Paul, who received his gospel (and its vocabulary) from a vision. We must scratch the imputation that Paul used the term "apostle" in any christian sense. Terms develop specific significances within linguistic communities over time. We can understand the term apostle from Gal 1:1, which indicates that an apostle was usually of men and/or from men. Paul's mission however came from God. Paul's use of the term was the common usage: he just claims that God gave him his orders. Being an apostle does not imply a commission from God to make converts to the Jesus religion. Just Paul's apostleship. Those who attend Paul would have the same view of their apostleship. They could be described as apostles sent by any recognized organization. Paul contrasts his job as apostle from others by claiming his apostleship was from God, which allows him to compete in the proselytism game, while not having been sent by anyone.
Cephas and Apollos, by virtue of their ambulant proselytizing, could be called apostles sent by Jerusalem or some other such entity. The status of James is ambiguous: although he is implied to be an apostle in Gal 1:19 he does not appear to have been sent anywhere, though he does send people. If we can judge by 1 Cor 9:5, he is separated from people called apostles, "the other apostles and the brothers of the lord and Cephas".
Paul didn't put up his apostleship at the beginning of 1 Thes as he does in all his other letters, despite mentioning it in 1:7. Perhaps he didn't see it as such a badge at the time. Yet he feels he has to clarify his status as apostle in various ways, including 1 Cor 1:1 "called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God". Paul does not use the term "apostle" in any christian sense, yet he sees himself as sent by God on a mission, which makes him an apostle on behalf of God.
We know Paul's view of Cephas in Galatians is quite ambivalent. I don't know if that view is improved in 1 Cor. One cannot glean from the mentions of Cephas in 1 Cor that he believed in the messiah called Jesus. One can say that he was a messianic proselytizer. Was he any different from the Apollos mentioned in Acts 18:25 "who taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John"? That story has Apollos being informed of Jesus by Priscilla and Aquila, but he had been proselytizing for John's messiah, a Christ before Paul began preaching Jesus. Was that what Apollos was doing in 1 Cor and Cephas likewise? Paul doesn't tell his readers. He does however take advantage of their work.
One cannot place too much significance on the term "apostle" as generally used in Paul's writings. He gives the term special significance only when applied to him (and perhaps his) through his sentiment of have been sent by God.
(My guess - first argument is highly difficult to sustain, first to be thrown out. Third argument is not totally bad, but fails to be conclusive, because it relies on the reader making some kind of a naive, prima facie reading stick, when it's not explicit. The second argument has the greatest staying power to be debated ad nauseam, but spin's view is that it's completely wrong, because we have different opinions about what is more likely in a general way. Overall, the opinions are justified only on the razor's edge one way or another, IMO -- we've literally cut the debate down to whether the Messianists called their Messiah Jesus, nothing, or something else -- and this somewhat thin-wedge delicate debate is going to be hard to win, no matter how you slice it.)