Day: June 11, 2012

2012-06-11

When Is Paul’s Silence Golden?

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
Tags: , , , , , , ,

English: Engraving requestin silence from visi...
English: Engraving requesting silence from visitors, Notre-Dame de Senlis (Photo credit: Rama at Wikipedia)

The Casey-Holding Theory of Pauline High-Context Culture

We were treated recently to another dose of apologia run amok in Maurice Casey’s “frightful” diatribe against Earl Doherty. Following in the footsteps of fellow apologist, J.P. Holding, Casey explains away Paul’s silence regarding the earthly Jesus by a misapplication of Edward T. Hall’s cultural context paradigm (ref. Beyond Culture).

According to the Casey-Holding Theory, Paul was silent about Jesus in his epistles because (quoting Casey):

Paul’s epistles were written in a high context culture, which was homogeneous enough for people not to have to repeat everything all the time, whereas American, European and many other scholars belong to a low context culture, which gives them quite unrealistic expectations of what the authors of the epistles ought to have written.

By the time Paul was writing his letters “in a ‘high-context’ realm,” Holding states:

There was no need for Paul to make reference to the life-details of Jesus or recount his teachings, for that had been done long ago.

However, in “Interpreting Evidence: An Exchange with Christian Apologist JP Holding,” Kris D. Komarnitsky neatly brushes aside the argument by using Holding’s own words against him, writing:

Continue reading “When Is Paul’s Silence Golden?”

19. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 19

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Earl Doherty

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Guest Posts, New Testament
Tags: , , ,

*

The Pauline Epistles – Part Two

.

COVERED IN THIS POST:

  • “Words of the Lord”: from earth or heaven?
  • Why doesn’t Paul quote Jesus more extensively?
  • The epistles exclude an historical Jesus
  • Paul’s conversion chronology
    • Paul’s crash course on Jesus from Cephas and James
  • How much interpolation in Paul?
  • Surveying the counterarguments
  • Ehrman answering G. A. Wells
  • Why did Paul not use Jesus’ miracles to prove the imminence of the kingdom?

.

* * * * *

The Witness of Paul

(Did Jesus Exist? pp. 125-140)

.

The Teachings of Jesus in Paul

In this category, Bart Ehrman has precious little to work with. (He has actually referred to the two parts of Jesus’ Eucharistic pronouncement at The Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 as “two sayings,” an attempt at ‘padding’ I’ve never seen before!) Now his focus is on the two little “words of the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 7:10 and 9:14. Not only are these precious little, they are of paltry substance compared to the great ethical teachings of the Gospels, on which Paul and every other epistle writer has not a word to say.

The first is given by Ehrman as:

But to those who are married I give this charge—not I, but the Lord—a woman is not to be separated from her husband (but if she is separated, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and a man should not divorce his wife.

Ehrman refers to this as a paraphrase of

. . . a saying of Jesus [as in Mark 10:11-12] in urging believers to remain married; that this is a saying tradition going back to Jesus is shown by the fact that at this point Paul stresses that it is not he who is giving this instruction but that it was already given by the Lord himself. (DJE? p. 125)

Ehrman would do well on the staffs of New Testament publications like the NEB who regularly wear Gospel-colored glasses when doing their translations. His “it was already given by the Lord himself” nicely conveys a saying delivered by Jesus in the past, which Paul knows through oral tradition. But if those glasses are set aside, one gets a very different impression. And one that fits what the text actually says:

To the married, I enjoin—not I, but the Lord . . .

The words are saying that the Lord enjoins you now: ‘It is not I who enjoins you this way, but the Lord who enjoins you this way.’ In the present, not the past. How is the Lord doing this in the present? Through Paul as his spokesperson.

From earth or from heaven?

Ehrman makes only a cursory reference to a prominent thread in mainstream scholarship over the last several decades which sees Paul and other Christian apostles/prophets proclaiming words which they believe they have received directly from the Lord in heaven. Werner Kelber (The Oral and the Written Gospel, p.206) says: Continue reading “19. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Pt. 19”