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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A matter of priority.
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
A friend of mine, a counsellor, described a conversation he had recently at a philosophy group meeting. A feeling was expressed about the relative importance of Jesus and St.Paul.
Not as silly as it sounds. Some people were impressed by the teachings (and actions -especially healing) of Jesus, but found these very sparsely referenced in Paul's letters.
Chronologically vis-à-vis publication, the Pauline epistles came first. Could it be that the gospels were in part an effort to put the record straight?
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
I think your question assumes the Gospel writers had access to at least some of Paul's letters. Is there anything in the gospel texts to support that more directly?
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Of course if the old traditions are correct, Paul wasn't there among Jesus' disciples when he was teaching and healing and all that. So what would he know about them? When he refers to the words of institution, he says, "What I received from the Lord, I also passed on to you...."
Not what I witnessed. What I received. Whether he received this in some direct revelation, or being told it by one of the apostles counts as "receiving from the Lord," we don't know.
IIRC the only other time he quotes Jesus directly he says something not in the Gospels, viz., "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Where he got that from is anybody's guess. One can imagine him asking someone who was there, "Did Jesus say anything about generosity?" and the person says, "Well he did say it's more blessed to give than to receive." So Paul writes it down. That's speculation of course.
It seems to me that he doesn't talk about Jesus' life and teachings because he didn't know much about them. He got it at second hand, and his task as he saw it wasn't relaying biographical information about Jesus, but fixing problems in young churches. We know from the gospels that Jesus didn't do a lot of ecclesiology. Hence not a lot to quote from.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Yes, I understand all that (I'm not sure the original inquirers did). But what some of them didn't get was this: Famous people (Like Wesley for example) were actually converted to Christianity as a response to Paul's letters.
So their inspiration was not direct from Jesus, but third-hand from Paul, a relatively late witness. Yet Paul seems to have as much authority - in practice - as Peter, who was with Jesus throughout his (Jesus') ministry.
I think a lot of problems arise in the minds of non-Christian thinkers whose liberal upbringing doesn't sit well with Paul's morality - which they read as something much harsher than that of Jesus.
Paul was very shirty when Mark stopped accompanying him on his travels. Was this the Mark who wrote the first gospel? We don't know what the argument was about, but it is reasonable to suppose, isn't it, that the earliest gospels were being collated before the death of Paul?
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I think you're seeing conspiracies everywhere again.
Paul had an impact on lots of people precisely because he left so much written material. Peter et al left less.
As for Paul's morality being harsher than that of Jesus--you do realise that what hope we have of universalism turning to be true comes almost wholly from Paul's letters, while the scary passages about hell come from Jesus in the Gospels?
There's also all those uncompromising dreadful scary passages about counting the cost, and "narrow is the way, and few there are who find it," and so on.
I think you've got it backwards here.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Paul was very shirty when Mark stopped accompanying him on his travels. Was this the Mark who wrote the first gospel? We don't know what the argument was about, but it is reasonable to suppose, isn't it, that the earliest gospels were being collated before the death of Paul?
It's definitely associated with him.
He definitely gets shirty about taking him back on after "he had deserted them at Pamphylia" (where he's John AKA Mark & Mark).
We don't know that he left with an argument, we just know ** "John left them to return to Jerusalem" (where he's John AKA Mark & John).
(and we know he was from Jerusalem from Peter's release in prison, and that his mother was a Mary*, so at least tied down with the early church).
So I think John AKA Mark is fairly well tracked for the start. And is well placed to have 1 1/2 hand knowledge.
The later references in Paul's letter could be a different Mark(s). Though the Barnabus connection in Colossian's suggests not. But in any case don't say much except that he is still around and getting on ok with Paul (which suggests either one of them changed their mind if it were doctrinal, or it was only ever about competence).
However there's no internal evidence to suggest the writer (compare to Acts, and the sudden appearance of 'We', and from then from the introductions to Luke). Though the traditional author of Mark-young man in garden-John Mark, does hang together.
**I suppose if you wanted to go into pure speculation for a story, it would be an excellent point for a rushed Mark's gospel to have been written, explaining the endings
*which narrows it down a lot ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ 02. July 2016, 21:43: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I've always assumed the (John) Mark who wrote the gospel was the same one over whom Paul and Barnabas split. Isn't there also a tradition that Mark got most of the material for his gospel from Peter? If that is true, then we do sort of have a Peter vs Paul version in the Epistles and the earliest gospel.
But I don't think it's really "versus" because they are doing different jobs. When Paul wrote the Epistles, all the witnesses to Jesus' life and ministry were still alive, telling stories, travelling around doing their own ministry and presumably sharing their own memories of Jesus. A few decades in (and when they realized that his promise to return "soon" wasn't likely to mean "before any of you die") it must have become apparent that someone should start writing these stories down to preserve them for future generations, and the obvious people to do that would have been either those who knew Jesus first-hand, or those who had made a point of listening to and recording the memories of those who did. One of whom (not an eyewitness, but a researcher) was Paul's buddy Luke.
Having written a fair bit of Biblical fiction, including some set during Paul's ministry, I must say I am tickled by the idea of Mark dashing off this rushed gospel, and then Paul and Luke sitting around one night on the road and Paul saying, "This 'gospel' thing Mark's written is really slapdash ... typical of him ... just copying down random stories Peter told him in any old order, and what's with the ending? If somebody's going to write down the story of the Lord's life, it should be someone who actually knows how to do research and write a story." And Luke going, "Hmmmm... let me think about that ...."
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Isn't there also a tradition that Mark got most of the material for his gospel from Peter? If that is true, then we do sort of have a Peter vs Paul version in the Epistles and the earliest gospel.
But I don't think it's really "versus" because they are doing different jobs.
I think that's basically right. The version I've heard repeatedly, and makes a lot of sense to me, is that Mark basically wrote down the preaching material of Peter, with Peter arrested in Rome and facing his death (or, maybe already dead). What Peter did when he walked into a new place was tell people stories of Jesus, what He did and said, and sharing the invitation to "come, follow me". I also think that was basically what all the Apostles, including Paul, did. There was probably a requirement when the gospel was preached to Gentiles to provide some background - in the form of retelling parts of the OT, or putting things in terms familiar to Greek philosophers (as Paul does on Mars Hill, for example). It's notable that Paul the only time Paul refers to what he received it's a story about what Jesus did and said - the events of the Last Supper.
Once the church is established then there is an increasing need to sort out a practical theology. It starts in Acts when the gospel spreads to the Gentiles, Cornelius at first and then when a dispute breaks out in Antioch about circumcision of Gentile believers.
The Gospels represent the first of those two strands - the presentation of the words and deeds of Jesus. The Epistles the second - the outworking of the faith in a practical theology.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
Assuming that the Luke who travelled with Paul (and who is behind the Acts of the Apostles) is the same Luke who is behind the Gospel, it's hard to imagine that Paul didn't have access to the majority of the same evidence that Luke relies on for his Gospel.
It is clear that there was a fair amount of Gospel material in circulation (oral, and probably written too) before it took final form in the Gospels that we know today, and it is also clear that they can't possibly include everything that was known about Jesus and his ministry, or even everything he said and did.
It's hard to see why Paul would need to reference things that were common knowledge among the Christian communities and not relevant to the particular issues he was addressing.
It would be interesting to try and find points where you could clearly say that Paul could have made his point much more forcefully if only he had referenced such-and-such an incident found in the Gospels.
After that it's very much a judgment call on whether the Jesus found in any one of the Gospels is the same as the Jesus in any of the others, or in Paul. There will be differences, of course, but not necessarily greater differences than can be accounted for by the purpose and occasion of the text. Where do you draw the line between different aspects of the same person/ministry, and these writers are talking about totally different people/events?
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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