The crucifixion as a fact known and not a novelty in Paul

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Giuseppe
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The crucifixion as a fact known and not a novelty in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

When Paul says that he is preaching only ''Christ crucified'', it seems that he is preaching a novelty.

Righlty Dujardin remembers that it's not entirely correct:
Paul reports (I Cor 2:8) that Jesus was crucified by the demons as a fact known and admitted by the group to which he belonged, and not as a novelty recently announced.
(Ancient History, p. 76)

The ''novelty'' was the revelation of that ''fact'' to the outsiders, but for the group of Paul that revelation wasn't a novelty.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: The crucifixion as a fact known and not a novelty in Paul

Post by Secret Alias »

Clement of Alexandria would take the 'only' as proof of a mystery and as part of the secrecy surrounding a mystery cult. The context of the statement in Corinthians proves that I think.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Re: The crucifixion as a fact known and not a novelty in Paul

Post by Giuseppe »

So you are saying that the fact that Paul was preaching ''only'' a crucified Christ implies that Paul wasn't saying deliberately more esoteric things about that same crucified Christ.

But so the corollary of the your claim is that the Christ did other things, in addition to 'only' be 'crucified'.

I would like no historicist apologies, here.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Bernard Muller
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Re: The crucifixion as a fact known and not a novelty in Paul

Post by Bernard Muller »

But so the corollary of the your claim is that the Christ did other things, in addition to 'only' be 'crucified'.
Paul wrote about a minimal Jesus (but also, for Paul, pre/post-existent as a heavenly deity) who, from "Israelites, ... whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh ..." (Ro9:4-5 YLT) and "come of a woman, come under law" (Gal4:4 YLT) (as a descendant of (allegedly) Abraham (Gal3:16), Jesse (Ro15:12) & David (Ro1:3)), "found in appearance as a man" (Php2:8) "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Ro8:3), "the one man, Jesus Christ" (Ro5:15) (who had brothers (1Co9:5), one of them called "James", whom Paul met (Gal1:19)), "humbled himself" (Php2:8) in "poverty" (2Co8:9) as "servant of the Jews" (Ro15:8) and "was crucified in weakness" (2Co13:4) in "Zion" (Ro9:31-33 & Ro11:26-27) (http://historical-jesus.info/djp1.html#skandalon).

Cordially, Bernard
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