Why Paul never quotes Jesus

[schillingklaus]

It is time to step towards the source of Luke, which added the consumption of the paschal lamb to the previously version of the cena in the triple tradition. Like the cup, eschatological words are supplied.

However, there is a substantial difference between the easchatological words in the source of Luke and the eschatological words in the siource of Mk/Mt. While in either case, Jesus is said to drink the cup not again before the kingdom come, Luke does not indicate that he would drink it again in the kingdom. This emphasizes that the impending death is seen as a trigger of the coming of the kingdom.

Still, there is no bread, and it would be absurd given that there is no bread (only azymata) available on paschal eve; which again identifies Jesus as a sacrificial lamb, as inherited from the source of the triple tradition. The bread of the eucharist is also considered by the author of this stage to have been instituted separately in the feeding miracle.

This is the situation of the evolution of the accounts of the Cena until the arrival of the inter-paul-ator, 1 Cor 11:23-26.

[spin]

Your reference to being born of a woman "could be applied to literally anyone who was born Jewish" and is of no relevance.

It's only relevant insofar as it shows Paul claims Jesus was born on earth. Saying he was "born to a woman" indicates that Jesus was not essentially a divine spirit who simply appeared to be in human form but did not actually take on a fleshly human body.

Complete eisegesis. You are not working fromo the text, but trying to make excuses for your dogmatic interpretation. If Paul wanted to give him the status you want, all he'd have to have done was to say "James, the brother of our lord Jesus" or similar. You haven't absorbed my post on κυριος.

A brother to a god-man is different than a brother to a man. As such, we shouldn't expect these scenarios to be treated identically.

Try reading Paul:

Rom 1:3, "born of the seed of David according to the flesh,"
Rom 4:1, "our forefather according to the flesh"
Rom 9:5, "patriarchs, of whom comes Christ according to the flesh"

Gal 4:32 One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise.
Rom 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
Rom 9:8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
Rom 8:13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

As I've pointed out twice now, when Paul talks of fleshly relations he does add "according to the flesh" to signal to readers that he's not dealing with spiritual mattes.

Indeed. And "flesh" has a negative connotation to Paul.

Your first clause above is just misguided. I said 1) "brother" indicates a believer and 2) "of the Lord" is a separate notion that could give "enhanced status".

This status must be quite enhanced, considering "brother of the Lord" has only been applied to a single person in Christian history.

Please read the post again. Especially this notion:

A term that can refer to two different things without contextual clues leads to confused communication, but Paul's aim is to make sense to his readership. This can't happen if you don't know what a term he uses means. On practical grounds Paul's use of "the Lord" as a substitute for a name should be seen to refer to only one entity.

That's the problem. You're assuming Paul was adroit at communication. The fact that he continuously referred to Jesus as 'lord Jesus Christ" or "Jesus Christ our lord", while referring to God as "the Lord", indicates otherwise. It would confuse his readership. It's so confusing, in fact, that even the earliest Church Fathers assumed that whenever he referred to "Lord", he was referring to Jesus.

It is quite ironic that you try to label what I said "eisegesis" then demonstrate the notion of eisegesis. I simply pointed out some evidence as to the validity or lack thereof of the assertion that Gal 1:19 was talking about a brother of Jesus. It's just evidence.

Well you opened the door for it. You call it evidence. It brings in preconceived notions that Jesus' family rejected him to imply that James must not be his brother.

"Could we honestly expect the author of Acts to bless James with a filial relationship to Jesus?" Well according to the pundits, Paul did just that. And Acts was written many decades later, so you'd expect what Paul said would have been taken on board by then, if it were veracious, but apparently it wasn't....

Paul said James was the Lord's brother in a solitary verse. I'd expect what Paul emphasized to have been taken on board by then. In any case, Acts never says that James wasn't the Lord's brother.

I tried.

This should have been sufficient for you to stop and think:

Rom 1:3, "born of the seed of David according to the flesh,"
Rom 4:1, "our forefather according to the flesh"
Rom 9:5, "patriarchs, of whom comes Christ according to the flesh"

The examples should have dissuaded you from insisting.

1. the seed of David according to the flesh
2. our forefather according to the flesh
3. of whom comes Christ according to the flesh

These are all statements of fact. No negative connotations per se. It's only when flesh is contrasted with spirit. You can't talk about the line of David, of Abraham or of the patriarchs without it being of the flesh. So generally brothers to Paul are intended as brothers in belief, in spirit. To talk about biological brothers you'd expect him to signal the fact, as with the above examples.

The last example should even blast the message loud enough for you to hear. If Paul could say it there about Christ, stressing biology, then he could just as clearly have said James "the brother of Christ according to the flesh"... if he wanted to talk about family relations. He plainly doesn't: there is not a reason in the text for you to consider he had Jesus in mind in Gal 1:19. It's just retrojection.

End.

[GakuseiDon]

1 Cor 15:3-11 is extremely problematic, not the least because it renders the logic of 15:12-19 a waste of breath arguing for resurrection when there ostensibly are resurrection eyewitness accounts in verses 4-7.

Yes it is problematic

How is it problematic? 1 Cor 15:3-11 talks about how Jesus is seen by others after his resurrection. 1 Cor 15:12-19 is about a general resurrection of the dead, which some say will not happen.

Paul argues that if there is no general resurrection of the dead by God, then Jesus also was not resurrected by God. Since Jesus was resurrected, therefore that is evidence that there is a general resurrection. Paul and the others who saw the resurrected Jesus offer testimony (1 Cor 15:11) that God raised Christ, which Paul sees as providing evidence that there will also be a general resurrection of the dead:

1 Cor 15:11 Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

So how is it problematic?

[spin]

GakuseiDon: "So how is it problematic?"

13 "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen"

But we are supposed to have just had testimony that Christ had risen. Paul didn't have such testimony, otherwise his reasoning doesn't make sense.

[davidmartin]

I always assumed that some of Paul's opponents were saying that human life is eternal, there is no resurrection because there is no death it is an illusion, to God all are alive as Jesus says himself. But be that as it may, 1 Cor 15:3-11 is problematic because it is a wrote set piece that could be a later interpolation to harmonise with the gospel accounts of the witnesses. The larger point i was making is one doesn't need this to put forward the idea that there were previous Christians because they are mentioned in many places elsewhere so even if this were an interpolation there is consistent evidence the movement did not start with Paul

[GakuseiDon]

GakuseiDon: "So how is it problematic?"

13 "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen"

But we are supposed to have just had testimony that Christ had risen. Paul didn't have such testimony, otherwise his reasoning doesn't make sense.

I don't understand your point, I'm afraid.

Paul is arguing (in my opinion) against those who believe that Christ was raised by God but also believe that there is no general resurrection of the dead. I think that means 'dead bodies in their graves or in the seas' in context. The argument over whether the dead are raised from their graves is one that is addressed by Paul and other Christians up until at least Tertullian. Most pagans AFAIK believed that souls, freed from their dead body, rose to heaven or went elsewhere. Jewish beliefs differed over the question. Early Christianity comprised a variety of beliefs, it seems, depending on the belief those early Christians were converted from.

To paraphrase Paul: "To those who believe that Christ was raised by God but don't believe in a general resurrection of the dead in their graves, then how can you believe that Christ was raised? If there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead, then Christ can't have been raised either. But we (Paul, Cephas, James, others(?)) have testified as to have seen the risen Christ, so we know that Christ was raised. Therefore there is also a general resurrection of the dead."

Isn't that what Paul is saying? Paul goes on in 1 Cor 15 to talk about the actual bodies being raised, which is an extension of his argument earlier in 1 Cor 15:

1 Cor 15:35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
...
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

[davidlau17]

This should have been sufficient for you to stop and think:

Rom 1:3, "born of the seed of David according to the flesh,"
Rom 4:1, "our forefather according to the flesh"
Rom 9:5, "patriarchs, of whom comes Christ according to the flesh"

The examples should have dissuaded you from insisting.

1. the seed of David according to the flesh
2. our forefather according to the flesh
3. of whom comes Christ according to the flesh

These are all statements of fact. No negative connotations per se. It's only when flesh is contrasted with spirit. You can't talk about the line of David, of Abraham or of the patriarchs without it being of the flesh. So generally brothers to Paul are intended as brothers in belief, in spirit. To talk about biological brothers you'd expect him to signal the fact, as with the above examples

In each of those three examples, Paul is talking about ancestral Jewish heritage, not immediate family relations. When he speaks of immediate familial relations, he uses no qualifiers.

1 Cor 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife.
Rom 16:13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother—a mother to me also.

Additionally, in each of the ancestral examples you listed, there is a negative underlying connotation. Despite your insistence, they are not mere statements of fact. Paul is pointing out that the Jewish people share ancestral heritage with eminently righteous figures (David, Abraham, the Christ) - once you read beyond the immediate passage in question, it becomes obvious what the implications are. Although they share this esteemed heritage, fleshly heritage is nothing to boast about. Read just three verses after your third example: "it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants" (Rom 9:8).

If James was a brother according to both flesh and spirit, qualifying it with "according to the flesh" would take away from him sharing brotherhood according to the spirit. "The Lord's brother, according to the flesh" (i.e. not the spirit).

It appears that you want to end this discussion, and I'm inclined to agree. If you truly wanted to convince me that Paul did not mean the brother of Jesus when he said the "Lord's brother", I'd recommend not accusing me of being dogmatic or retrojecting my own biases onto the text. Such accusations will naturally lead to defensive responses.

[schillingklaus]

Now it is time to move on to the interpaulation, 1 Cor 11:23-26.

Here we see, for the first time, the institution of the bread, absent in ther proto-synoptic sources; in addition, there are words of instituting the cup, but they differ from the proto-synoptic words. However, there is no change of theological significance of the cup: The last cup, shared by Jesus and his gang, announces the end of the known world, which is subject to the old covenant; instead, the kingdom, ruled by the new covenant, is expected due to the impending bloody sacrifice of the Christ.

The cup is thus justified as a fulfilment of a prophecy by Jeremiah, according to which at some point, a new covenant would be struck, replacing the sacrifices of Exodus.

By absolutely no means whatsoever does 1 Cor 11:23-26 say that the cup contains the blood of Jeesus and that it is to be drunk as such: This is all but later invention.

These verses unite the institution of bread and wine, previously in two different and typologically unrelated places of the gospel story, in one pericope. In addition, it establishes the order bread-wine. This is an innovation when comapred to Jewish Christian practice, as seen in the Didache, where the cup is prioritized.

By uniting bread and wine in one place, it was also necessary to give the bread a new significance. Unlike the cup, it has nothing to do with the bloody sacrifice of Jesus, but would eventually be required to feign doing so.
While it used to represent knowledge and teaching in the feeding miracles and the Didache, it is now equated with the body of the Christ, which is the church. The interpolator of 1 Cor 10:17 explains that there is one loaf but many believers. The sharing of that one loaf thus symbolizes the unity of the church, although its members are scattered all over the world, a scriptural description of the people of Israel.

[spin]

GakuseiDon: "So how is it problematic?"

13 "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen"

But we are supposed to have just had testimony that Christ had risen. Paul didn't have such testimony, otherwise his reasoning doesn't make sense.

I don't understand your point, I'm afraid.

Paul is arguing (in my opinion) against those who believe that Christ was raised by God but also believe that there is no general resurrection of the dead. I think that means 'dead bodies in their graves or in the seas' in context. The argument over whether the dead are raised from their graves is one that is addressed by Paul and other Christians up until at least Tertullian. Most pagans AFAIK believed that souls, freed from their dead body, rose to heaven or went elsewhere. Jewish beliefs differed over the question. Early Christianity comprised a variety of beliefs, it seems, depending on the belief those early Christians were converted from.

To paraphrase Paul: "To those who believe that Christ was raised by God but don't believe in a general resurrection of the dead in their graves, then how can you believe that Christ was raised? If there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead, then Christ can't have been raised either. But we (Paul, Cephas, James, others(?)) have testified as to have seen the risen Christ, so we know that Christ was raised. Therefore there is also a general resurrection of the dead."

Isn't that what Paul is saying? Paul goes on in 1 Cor 15 to talk about the actual bodies being raised, which is an extension of his argument earlier in 1 Cor 15:

1 Cor 15:35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
...
41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

And yet these supposedly eye witness accounts of the resurrection Paul's logic just doesn't deal with. "Look, Jesus has been raised and these guys saw it. In fact 500 geezers saw him, so obviously Jesus was raised. Against that, however, if you lot still want to believe that there is no resurrection for you, I'll gormlessly say Jesus wasn't raised."

Paul's logic works much more clearly without there being resurrection stories (and the other superfluous and misleading stuff) preceding it.

Verse 12 often starts with "Now" which just isn't appropriate. The word δε usually indicates a contrarity/adversity, eg "but" as in "But if Jesus is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say there is no resurrection..." Paul states that he proclaimed his message in 15:2 and here in 15:12 he is arguing in support of that message. 15:12-19 is arguing at length in favour of resurrection, which would be redundant if the eye witness accounts in 15:3-7 were original. All that was necessary in that case was "As Jesus was raised and seen by many, how can you deny there is no resurrection?" Or "If Jesus didn't demonstrate resurrection, then what did everyone I mentioned see?" In fact you understand Paul's thought without the muddle in 15:3-11 (which in itself has numerous problems). People lose sight of what Paul is saying because of the impact of the inserts. They grab all the attention and the rest fades into the background. It seems to me that orthodoxy has achieved its purpose and done a grave injustice to Paul.

[GakuseiDon]

Paul's logic works much more clearly without there being resurrection stories (and the other superfluous and misleading stuff) preceding it.

Verse 12 often starts with "Now" which just isn't appropriate. The word δε usually indicates a contrarity/adversity, eg "but" as in "But if Jesus is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say there is no resurrection..." Paul states that he proclaimed his message in 15:2 and here in 15:12 he is arguing in support of that message.

It sounds to me that you think that Paul is saying in 15.12 that:

"But if Jesus is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say there is no resurrection [of Jesus]"

Am I reading you correctly there?

Because it reads to me that Paul is saying:

"But if Jesus is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead [of everyone else]"

15:12-19 is arguing at length in favour of resurrection, which would be redundant if the eye witness accounts in 15:3-7 were original.

I see. I agree that it would be redundant if Paul is talking about the resurrection of Jesus only in 15:12-19. But it is not redundant if the point is the resurrection of everyone generally. Would you agree with that?