Origins Of Christianity

[Politesse]

Christianity should be called Paulism. Like all Christians who followed pick and choose what to follow.

Some did, at the time. Though Paul vehemently disapproved. In the first of his preseved letters to the Corinthian church, he wrote:

"... When one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not acting like mere human beings?

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care."

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Jews were and are very parochial.

Are?!?!?! Seriously? Parochial as in insular? As in keeping themselves apart? Well, if that is what you cannot help but think, so be it. Maybe you mean something else by "parochial". If not, then so be it.

With regards to the "were", your presumption is both unimaginative with regards to human natures as well as uninformed. For instance, the matter of insularity was at the core of the differences between the Alexandrian and the Judean Jews around the time of Jesus. The Alexandrians kept themselves distinctive, largely if not primarily by their diet, but they did not insist on self-segregation. Then again, not all Judean Jews held to the self-segregation notion. For example, even the apostle Peter did not. Well, at least not always.

In Acts 10, Peter visits with the gentile Cornelius, and Peter announces that “God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. ... I now realize how true it is that God is no respecter of persons”, that God does not show favoritism or partiality “but accepts from every nation any one who … works righteousness.”

 

[steve_bank]

Ye, insular.

In American orthodox communities like in NYC Jews do business among themselves and families have little contact outside the community.

In the 70s I knew a Jewish woman who got engaged to and married a Catholic. I knew her parents, they had no propeller.

Some in her extended family shunned her, she became a non- person.

American Jews are analogous to Christians in that they range from liberal to moderate to conservative to wacky extremes. The insular nature of Jews goes back to the OT.

I speak from experience, I grew up multicultural before somebody invented the word.

You can quote bible-babel to your hearts content.

In the extreme we see Jewish nationalism expressed as Israeli Zionism. Suppression and dehumanizing Palestinians as inferior from the founding of modern Israel.

Seizing land because god gave it to them thousands of years ago.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Ye, insular.

In American orthodox communities like in NYC Jews do business among themselves and families have little contact outside the community.

Okay. You mean(t) that some Jews in the past were - and some Jews even today are - parochial, as in insular. That's true. It is also true that such insularity is not and has not been unique to Jews.

 

[steve_bank]

Christianity should be called Paulism. Like all Christians who followed pick and choose what to follow.

Some did, at the time. Though Paul vehemently disapproved. In the first of his preseved letters to the Corinthian church, he wrote:

"... When one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not acting like mere human beings?

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care."

I still still have no idea what it is you are arguing for and what you actually believe. If you go by the words abutted to Jesus to follow Jesus be a Jew. Prophets and Mosaic Law.

For every biblical quote to make a point there is in the bible ia counter quote.

Modern liberal Christians dispense with Paul's misogyny and have female ministers. Some accept gays and have gay ministers. Paul dispensed with Jewish norms. Modern liberals dispense with Paul's norms.

Pete Butigeig is a married gay conservative Christian. Probably an abortion to Paul and any Jew odf the day.

I don't care either way. If a gay chooses to be Christian that is his or her choice, if it works for them good for them.


Christianity has never had anything to do with the values of a 2000 year old Jewish rabbi and prophet.

 

[steve_bank]

Ye, insular.

In American orthodox communities like in NYC Jews do business among themselves and families have little contact outside the community.

Okay. You mean(t) that some Jews in the past were - and some Jews even today are - parochial, as in insular. That's true. It is also true that such insularity is not and has not been unique to Jews.

Did you go to a bible college?

This fascination with Jews by Christians is weird.

This is off topic. The topic is orgns of Chuistinity.

 

[Politesse]

Christianity should be called Paulism. Like all Christians who followed pick and choose what to follow.

Some did, at the time. Though Paul vehemently disapproved. In the first of his preseved letters to the Corinthian church, he wrote:

"... When one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not acting like mere human beings?

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care."

I still still have no idea what it is you are arguing for and what you actually believe. If you go by the words abutted to Jesus to follow Jesus be a Jew. Prophets and Mosaic Law.

For every biblical quote to make a point there is in the bible ia counter quote.

Modern liberal Christians dispense with Paul's misogyny and have female ministers. Some accept gays and have gay ministers. Paul dispensed with Jewish norms. Modern liberals dispense with Paul's norms.

Pete Butigeig is a married gay conservative Christian. Probably an abortion to Paul and any Jew odf the day.

I don't care either way. If a gay chooses to be Christian that is his or her choice, if it works for them good for them.


Christianity has never had anything to do with the values of a 2000 year old Jewish rabbi and prophet.

Why would my personal beliefs be relevant to anything but an irrelevant ad hominem attack? If your claims cannot be substantiated with evidence, no criticism of my character can help you rationally make a case for them.

If you feel a scriptural argument obviates those presented, by all means present it. Simply telling me that you think a counter-argument might exist means nothing.

You say that Christianity has nothing to do with its founder, and only to do with the needs of Christians in the present. But very nearly all if not indeed all modern Christians see Jesus as the founder of their faith. If the ding an sich of Christian history is neither what actually happened in the past nor what is believed about the past in the present, what is it? What is it that you believe Christianity should be, if not what Christians want it be, and why should anyone follow your teachings on matter rather than the positions they have already taken?

 

[steve_bank]

Criticizing and correcting others while never taking a position which can be reviewed and critiqued is weak especially from one who claims to teach mythology at the college level.

It is an old tactic in corporate, government and yes academic politics.

So in your view what is the origins of Christianity as we see it today? You once identified as Pagan-Christian. How would you reconcile a Jesus who reinforced Mosaic Law with Pagan practices of the day?

 

[Politesse]

Criticizing and correcting others while never taking a position which can be reviewed and critiqued is weak especially from one who claims to teach mythology at the college level.

I'm not taking any position beyond what was clearly stated in my posts, so what's the confusion? We don't start every conversation with a long testimonial about our personal religious beliefs in academia, what possible relevance could that have?

So in your view what is the origins of Christianity as we see it today?

That is an impossibly broad question, and I don't think anyone could answer it both concisely and accurately. Christianity as now understood - and there is very little consensus on what exactly is or is not Christianity to begin with - has been shaped by two thousand years of history on four continents among thousands of cultures and languages. There is no one answer to that question and cannot be, in part because some of Christianity's modern offspring share some parts of that history and others do not.

But if you are asking me where the first Christian movements began, the earliest groups that would recognize and answer to that name, my answer is in the Galilee sometime around the start of the 1st century. I've yet to be convinced of any of the conspiracy theories placing the faith in 4th century Rome, etc.

There are a lot of mysteries concerning 1st and 2nd century Christianity, though. I have found it to be a most interesting area of inquiry over the years. I don't share your passion for taking "positions" on every question. When it comes to the particulars of Jesus of Nazareth or the beliefs and actions, any scholar of that time period will tell you that the only honest answer to specific questions is "we do not really know, but here are some interesting ideas that have bern proposed". You may notice that every academic study of early Christian movements starts with just such a disclaimer. Why would it be beneficial to claim certain knowledge concerning uncertain events? Or to whom would it be beneficial? No one I would consider reputable. Where there is scant evidence, certainty should be likewise scant.

How would you reconcile a Jesus who reinforced Mosaic Law with Pagan practices of the day?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but Jesus' movement absolutely did merge with "Pagan" practices of the day as it spread across the Greco-Roman world. Even the earliest of Christian texts and libraries are chock full of elements of other contemperaneous traditions. Indeed, Christianity surely was a Pagan (which means something akin to "bumpkin" or "hillbilly" in Latin) movement when it began, from the standpoint of someone like a Roman priest. It was not well respected at first, and its rites were clearly considered dangerous by those who declared them religio illicita in the Empire.

 

[DBT]

The wording in Galatians has it - "For I certify to you, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not devised by man" - yet what Paul taught and wrote was devised by man, Greek philosophy being the work of man.

That "gospel I preached" is, as Politesse says, the "message I preached", and that message is not the words used but, rather, an understanding which is merely represented by the words used. It is a message and an understanding which continually surpasses all attempts at expression; it regards and focuses on matters beyond the limits of language. It is, nonetheless, an understanding which itself calls for some sorts of expression, because it is an understanding hoped to be communicable for beneficial internalization by others.

The fact that previous expressions and forms of thought can be utilized in Paul's attempt at communication shows that the understanding which always requires yet further development and ever newer attempts at expression is, nonetheless, an understanding which is never uttely alien to what the audience already grasps. For the sake of any benefit for others that might come to fruition, it is absolutely essential that the speaker include references to matters already familiar to the others. This is simply a fact about humans and about how humans develop understandings.

Even if a divinity inspires an understanding, even if a divinity inspires a furthered development of understanding, communication and inspiration by that divinity is limited by (the limits of) human language. Even if a divinity provides what amounts to transcribed words, those words are not sufficient for - and are not identical to - human understanding, certainly inasmuch as words themselves very often do not assure immediate understanding on the part of those exposed to the words.

The fact that Paul or anyone else refers to or utilizes expressions authored previously (even by other human persons and regardless of the status of those persons) does not contradict or preclude the actuality of inspiration, even divine inspiration.

''The gospel I preached is not devised by man'' excludes anything that may have been ''devised by man'' regardless of who is preaching it. That many others may have preached 'the gospel'' just kicks the can down the road.

If whatever is preached or taught is linked to ideas or concepts that have been devised by man, the claim that ''the gospel I preached is not devised by man'' is false.

 

[DBT]

#3. Acts 26:14: “And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

This unusual phrase is a direct quote from line 1624 of the Greek tragedy Agamemnon by Aischylos.

This is likewise not exactly a quotation, and likely not a reference. The line in the play is "Do not kick against the goads lest you strike to your own hurt."

Apparently the author of the article took some liberties of his own, yet It doesn't appear to make much difference to the meaning of the verse;
''And when we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.’'' - KJ

Quote:
''One thing that many people do not know about the New Testament is that it actually contains several direct quotes from certain ancient Greek writers. In fact, there are a total of at least five quotes from four different Greek writers found throughout the pages of the New Testament. The following is a list of all of all the known quotations.''

The verses are given in full with the quotations written in bold:


#1 and #2. Acts 17:27-28: “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.“

"For we are also his offspring", is the quotation? Peter is preaching to an Athenian audience and quotes a Greek poet? That seems like a very likely thing to do in fact... "For in you we live and move and have our being" is more of a reference than a quotation - it reverses the sense of the original line.

The issue is related to his claim, "for I certify to you, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not devised by man," when this can be shown to be false, that some of what he taught clearly comes from man, in this instance, Greek philosophy.

What is 'the gospel', according to this author? Do you believe thay he meant "a literalist reading of every word of a small selection of the public letters I sent to the churches"?

The issue is the question of Paul using the work of Greek philosophers to flesh out his own teachings, which is clear that he did, even while claiming that his work did not come from man, which it clearly did.

That is the problem. The claim of divine inspiration when the evidence supports the opposite, that much of what Paul wrote was neither original or divinely inspired.

Firstly, Paul did not write The Acts of the Apostles, from whence came the pasage I was discussing, nor was the passage about him. Or are you claiming that he did write Acts?

Secondly, Paul made no such claim about "his work", but about "the message I preached". What do you believe he meant by "the message I preached"? I think it would be difficult to claim that Paul thought his letters were written by someone other than him, aside from his scribe of course. His letters are not the message he preached. The message he preached was Christ crucified, and he preached it in person. The letters are a follow-up.

The message is whatever he preached and taught, which clearly includes his use of Greek philosophy, some of it practically copies of quotes by philosophers.

The book of Galatians is attributed to Paul;
The Apostle Paul is generally accepted as the author of the book of Galatians. It is one of the Pauline epistles, meaning it's one of the letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament. - AI Overview.

Where ''the phrase "my preaching is not the work of man" is found in the opening verses of Galatians (Galatians 1:1, 11-12), where Paul emphasizes that his apostleship and message were not derived from human authority but directly from Jesus Christ and God the Father''.

 

[Politesse]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

 

[DBT]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

It's not a problem that he used the work of Greek philosophers. The issue is that he did not acknowledge or give credit to the source of the material he used to flesh out his preachings....the Greek philosophers who's material he copied, instead claiming that "my preaching is not the work of man."

That is the problem. The false claim of divine authorship, that what he preached ''is not the work of man.''

 

[Politesse]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

It's not a problem that he used the work of Greek philosophers. The issue is that he did not acknowledge or give credit to the source of the material he used to flesh out his preachings....the Greek philosophers who's material he copied, instead claiming that "my preaching is not the work of man."

That is the problem. The false claim of divine authorship, that what he preached ''is not the work of man.''

So if I say that I am a secular writer uninfluenced by Christianity, but upon studying my writings on secular philosophy you find that in three of my books there are the following phrases derived word for word from the Bible:

1: "Now Copernicus, there was a man after my own heart, not a rebel by nature but willing to be made a rebel by circumstance."

2: "Am I certain that the economic marginalization of spiritualist charlatans will ultimately result in a corresponding social marginalization of their claims about the body? Of course not, but I will say that the writing is on the wall."

3: "I would like to begin by acknowledging my partner, for though this volume was a labor of love, it was also a labor of quite a lit of late night editing!"

That would establish to you that I am lying about the secular origins of my beliefs, and that my "material is copied from the Bible", "without acknowledging or giving credit" to the Jewish origins of my philosophy?

 

[DBT]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

It's not a problem that he used the work of Greek philosophers. The issue is that he did not acknowledge or give credit to the source of the material he used to flesh out his preachings....the Greek philosophers who's material he copied, instead claiming that "my preaching is not the work of man."

That is the problem. The false claim of divine authorship, that what he preached ''is not the work of man.''

So if I say that I am a secular writer uninfluenced by Christianity, but upon studying my writings on secular philosophy you find that in three of my books there are the following phrases derived word for word from the Bible:

1: "Now Copernicus, there was a man after my own heart, not a rebel by nature but willing to be made a rebel by circumstance."

2: "Am I certain that the economic marginalization of spiritualist charlatans will ultimately result in a corresponding social marginalization of their claims about the body? Of course not, but I will say that the writing is on the wall."

3: "I would like to begin by acknowledging my partner, for though this volume was a labor of love, it was also a labor of quite a lit of late night editing!"

That would establish to you that I am lying about the secular origins of my beliefs, and that my "material is copied from the Bible", "without acknowledging or giving credit" to the Jewish origins of my philosophy?

Again, the issue here is a contradiction between the claim of divine inspiration, Paul claiming that what he preached was not the work of man, yet what he preached was demonstrably the work of man, the works, thoughts and ideas of Greek philosophers.

Both can't be true. Either it is divine inspiration/ not the work of man, or it is the work of man and his claim of divine inspiration/ not the work of man is false.

 

[Politesse]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

It's not a problem that he used the work of Greek philosophers. The issue is that he did not acknowledge or give credit to the source of the material he used to flesh out his preachings....the Greek philosophers who's material he copied, instead claiming that "my preaching is not the work of man."

That is the problem. The false claim of divine authorship, that what he preached ''is not the work of man.''

So if I say that I am a secular writer uninfluenced by Christianity, but upon studying my writings on secular philosophy you find that in three of my books there are the following phrases derived word for word from the Bible:

1: "Now Copernicus, there was a man after my own heart, not a rebel by nature but willing to be made a rebel by circumstance."

2: "Am I certain that the economic marginalization of spiritualist charlatans will ultimately result in a corresponding social marginalization of their claims about the body? Of course not, but I will say that the writing is on the wall."

3: "I would like to begin by acknowledging my partner, for though this volume was a labor of love, it was also a labor of quite a lit of late night editing!"

That would establish to you that I am lying about the secular origins of my beliefs, and that my "material is copied from the Bible", "without acknowledging or giving credit" to the Jewish origins of my philosophy?

Again, the issue here is a contradiction between the claim of divine inspiration, Paul claiming that what he preached was not the work of man, yet what he preached was demonstrably the work of man, the works, thoughts and ideas of Greek philosophers.

Both can't be true. Either it is divine inspiration/ not the work of man, or it is the work of man and his claim of divine inspiration/ not the work of man is false.

You're not quite getting the point. Would you agree that in my example, the presence of three phrases that originated in the Bible make my entire corpus of mostly secular writings an uncredited pastiche of "the words, thoughts, and ideas of Jewish priests"?

 

[DBT]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

It's not a problem that he used the work of Greek philosophers. The issue is that he did not acknowledge or give credit to the source of the material he used to flesh out his preachings....the Greek philosophers who's material he copied, instead claiming that "my preaching is not the work of man."

That is the problem. The false claim of divine authorship, that what he preached ''is not the work of man.''

So if I say that I am a secular writer uninfluenced by Christianity, but upon studying my writings on secular philosophy you find that in three of my books there are the following phrases derived word for word from the Bible:

1: "Now Copernicus, there was a man after my own heart, not a rebel by nature but willing to be made a rebel by circumstance."

2: "Am I certain that the economic marginalization of spiritualist charlatans will ultimately result in a corresponding social marginalization of their claims about the body? Of course not, but I will say that the writing is on the wall."

3: "I would like to begin by acknowledging my partner, for though this volume was a labor of love, it was also a labor of quite a lit of late night editing!"

That would establish to you that I am lying about the secular origins of my beliefs, and that my "material is copied from the Bible", "without acknowledging or giving credit" to the Jewish origins of my philosophy?

Again, the issue here is a contradiction between the claim of divine inspiration, Paul claiming that what he preached was not the work of man, yet what he preached was demonstrably the work of man, the works, thoughts and ideas of Greek philosophers.

Both can't be true. Either it is divine inspiration/ not the work of man, or it is the work of man and his claim of divine inspiration/ not the work of man is false.

You're not quite getting the point. Would you agree that in my example, the presence of three phrases that originated in the Bible make my entire corpus of mostly secular writings an uncredited pastiche of "the words, thoughts, and ideas of Jewish priests"?

That's not something I'm arguing against.

My point is purely and simply about an apparent contradiction between Paul's claim that what he preached is 'not the work of man,' yet he demonstrably did use the 'work of man' in his ministry, his preaching, teaching, letters, etc.

That's all, they can't be true. One is a claim (not the work of man), the other is there for all to see and read.

 

[Politesse]

Why wouldn't Paul use Greek philosophy or idioms? He spoke Greek and lived in a Hellenistic world, dominated for more than three centuries by Greek scholars, novelists, playwrights, and tyrants. It would be more surprising if the letters were written in Hebrew.

Let's flip this around. If there were zero references to Greek thought or idiomatic speech, would you accept that as evidence of divine authorship? Why or why not?

It's not a problem that he used the work of Greek philosophers. The issue is that he did not acknowledge or give credit to the source of the material he used to flesh out his preachings....the Greek philosophers who's material he copied, instead claiming that "my preaching is not the work of man."

That is the problem. The false claim of divine authorship, that what he preached ''is not the work of man.''

So if I say that I am a secular writer uninfluenced by Christianity, but upon studying my writings on secular philosophy you find that in three of my books there are the following phrases derived word for word from the Bible:

1: "Now Copernicus, there was a man after my own heart, not a rebel by nature but willing to be made a rebel by circumstance."

2: "Am I certain that the economic marginalization of spiritualist charlatans will ultimately result in a corresponding social marginalization of their claims about the body? Of course not, but I will say that the writing is on the wall."

3: "I would like to begin by acknowledging my partner, for though this volume was a labor of love, it was also a labor of quite a lit of late night editing!"

That would establish to you that I am lying about the secular origins of my beliefs, and that my "material is copied from the Bible", "without acknowledging or giving credit" to the Jewish origins of my philosophy?

Again, the issue here is a contradiction between the claim of divine inspiration, Paul claiming that what he preached was not the work of man, yet what he preached was demonstrably the work of man, the works, thoughts and ideas of Greek philosophers.

Both can't be true. Either it is divine inspiration/ not the work of man, or it is the work of man and his claim of divine inspiration/ not the work of man is false.

You're not quite getting the point. Would you agree that in my example, the presence of three phrases that originated in the Bible make my entire corpus of mostly secular writings an uncredited pastiche of "the words, thoughts, and ideas of Jewish priests"?

That's not something I'm arguing against.

My point is purely and simply about an apparent contradiction between Paul's claim that what he preached is 'not the work of man,' yet he demonstrably did use the 'work of man' in his ministry, his preaching, teaching, letters, etc.

That's all, they can't be true. One is a claim (not the work of man), the other is there for all to see and read.

And I'm trying to say that your means of proving that point is absurd. Using three idiomatic phrases or common quotations from a language is not the same thing as copying the thoughts and philosophies of all the writers in that language, or any of them for that matter.

And also that textual literalism is a bonkers starting point for understanding Paul's claim of divine inspiration. There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that Paul himself believed that every word he ever wrote was divinely inspired. He said that his message/proclamation/gospel was inspired, yes, and there are a few places where he describes a particular answer to a question as prophetically inspired. But it does not follow that he thought nothing he had ever written came from him. That idea of Biblical inerrancy, paired with divine authorshjp comes from a very different culture, which arose centuries after Paul's death. It is not a reasonable interpretation of Paul's letters.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

My point is purely and simply about an apparent contradiction between Paul's claim that what he preached is 'not the work of man,' yet he demonstrably did use the 'work of man' in his ministry, his preaching, teaching, letters, etc.

That's all, they can't be true. One is a claim (not the work of man), the other is there for all to see and read.

What is it that makes the apparent contradiction even apparent? One possible explanation can be found in an earlier remark:

''The gospel I preached is not devised by man'' excludes anything that may have been ''devised by man'' regardless of who is preaching it.

By that reasoning (or on that basis), since language itself is devised by man, it is logically necessary that anything and everything preached is devised by man. The problem with that perspective is that it both begs the question against the possibility of divine inspiration and sets a bias that effectively precludes consideration into alternative ways in which to understand/interpret Paul's remark.

That reasoning can be used constructively to shift focus to and highlight the fact that it is humans who devise human understanding. Is Paul claiming that he had no understanding of what he preached before he preached it? Surely not. Is Paul claiming that his understanding is irrelevant to what he preaches? No. He is not claiming to be a mere mouthpiece for divinely produced expression; that would be more the sort of attribution which has been applied to the Quran and Muhammad.

Anyhow, it has already been noted that a message can exceed or transcend the words used to represent the message. This means the message is not the words used, and it is possible to use phrases that have been used previously by others without also having the same message which was associated with those previously expressed words.

 

[DBT]

My point is purely and simply about an apparent contradiction between Paul's claim that what he preached is 'not the work of man,' yet he demonstrably did use the 'work of man' in his ministry, his preaching, teaching, letters, etc.

That's all, they can't be true. One is a claim (not the work of man), the other is there for all to see and read.

What is it that makes the apparent contradiction even apparent? One possible explanation can be found in an earlier remark:

''The gospel I preached is not devised by man'' excludes anything that may have been ''devised by man'' regardless of who is preaching it.

By that reasoning (or on that basis), since language itself is devised by man, it is logically necessary that anything and everything preached is devised by man. The problem with that perspective is that it both begs the question against the possibility of divine inspiration and sets a bias that effectively precludes consideration into alternative ways in which to understand/interpret Paul's remark.

That reasoning can be used constructively to shift focus to and highlight the fact that it is humans who devise human understanding. Is Paul claiming that he had no understanding of what he preached before he preached it? Surely not. Is Paul claiming that his understanding is irrelevant to what he preaches? No. He is not claiming to be a mere mouthpiece for divinely produced expression; that would be more the sort of attribution which has been applied to the Quran and Muhammad.

Anyhow, it has already been noted that a message can exceed or transcend the words used to represent the message. This means the message is not the words used, and it is possible to use phrases that have been used previously by others without also having the same message which was associated with those previously expressed words.

It's not that language is devised by man, Paul was not preaching on the subject of language, but theology.

His claim that what he preached was not the work of man refers to theology, not language or anything else.

Paul in effect said that he received his revelations on theology directly from God, not man. That what he preached on matters of God came not from man, but God.

Which given the content of his work is clearly not the case.