Transcript Paul’s “Corinthian gospel” - UCSB Department of English

Paul’s “Corinthian gospel”
First paper
• First, some background for the first essay:
• The “interpretive tendencies” of Matthew and Luke.
• Matthew written for a Jewish-Christian audience,
probably at Antioch; concern for Torah (Law).
• A concern for interiority, righteousness.
• Quite bitter toward “non-believing” Jews.
• Luke written for mostly gentile Christians, conceived for
a broad Hellenistic audience.
• Strong on “social gospel” – concern for poor and
maginalized of society.
• Emphasizes role of women in ministry of Jesus.
• Sees the Christian movement as a part of the Roman
world; complex historical vision of things.
1 Corinthinans – fourth lecture
• Paul’s letters are the earliest Christian
documents that survive.
• 1 Corinthians is another non-narrative text, not
“officially” a gospel, but containing Paul’s
“gospel” -• -- in an isolated, significant narrative moment.
• And 1 Corinthians gives us a window onto a
significant, mid-1st-century, Christian community.
• An apparently large, quite diverse, urban
community in “Greek” (i.e., Greek-speaking)
world.
• Corinth is on isthmus between Aegean Sea and
Adriatic, an important port city.
• It was a Christian community founded by Paul.
Paul
• An “apostle,” but only after the fact – never knew
Jesus during the latter’s lifetime.
• A Hellenized Jew, living in the diaspora (=
“dispersion,” refers to Jews living outside
Palestine).
• Born in Tarsus, in Asia Minor, Greek-speaking,
though he knew some “Hebrew” (actually
Aramaic).
• Saul his Hebrew name; Paul the Greek version.
• Gives us much information about himself in his
Epistles.
• Says he initially persecuted the early Christian
movement, then became part of it.
• Acts of the Apostles creates elements of a
biography for him.
Paul and the “sociological problem”
of 1st-century Christianity
• Three different Christian groups in terms of culture and
cultural orientation.
• 1) Palestinian Jews who are initial part of Jesus
movement: language is Aramaic, religious understanding
entirely Jewish, centered on temple in Jerusalem.
• 2) Hellenized Jews of diaspora who also are part of
Jesus movement: language is Greek, attempt to follow
the Law, but living outside Palestine makes fulfilling law
difficult. Read Scriptures in Greek (“Septuagint”
translation of H.S. into Greek.)
• 3) “Greeks”: Gentiles (= non-Jews) who have come to
the movement in various ways; not circumcised, don’t
know the Law. Culture is Greek, or at least non-Jewish.
Paul the “founder of Christianity”?
• Paul has been called the real “founder of
Christianity.”
• He is certainly the most powerful, energetic, and
influential figure in the early Christian
movement.
• But to call him “founder” simplifies much and
obscures the role of the Palestinian
communities.
• He doesn’t see himself as foundational.
• Better to see him as a “second founder” of the
movement among diaspora Jews and gentiles.
Paul and Jerusalem “church”
• Leader of Jerusalem Jesus community was
James the Just (or Righteous), brother of Jesus.
• In Galatians we learn of Paul’s difficulties with
this group, including Peter.
• Problem centered on circumcision.
• Acts of Apostles suggests a resolution of the
conflict.
• But Paul in Galatians doesn’t indicate resolution.
• And thereafter Paul appears to have addressed
only diaspora and gentile communities.
Paul’s conversion
• Acts represents it as a sudden call – light and a
voice, as in Caravaggio’s painting.
• But Paul himself speaks of it as a process that
required meditation and withdrawal (in Epistle to
Galatians).
• And not consultation with Jerusalem disciples.
• His conversion represented a new
understanding of Judaism, new understanding of
the Law.
• A mystical experience, one of liberation from the
Law.
• A new understanding that solved problems of
diaspora Jews.
• Which profoundly disturbed the Jerusalem Jesus
community.
Paul’s inferential portrait of
Corinthian Community
• A community that was large and divided,
rich/poor, high/low classes, mostly “Greeks” but
some Jews, differing educational levels, taught
by different disciples.
• Cephas and Apollos are mentioned.
• But Paul insists on his primary role with
community (4:14)
• Differing religious backgrounds, experiences
(“ecstatic utterance”).
• Differing ethical understandings, differing sexual
practices: lawsuits, sexuality, marriage, virginity,
slavery, circumcision, meat from the temples.
• Even hairstyles! (11: 4-7)
Women in Corinth
• From what Paul says, we can also infer that
women were taking a significant part in
Corinthian worship, certainly speaking in the
meetings.
• Paul’s discomfort at this indicates some of the
cultural split: he’s a Jewish teacher; the women
are from gentile cultures.
• The passage about veiling possibly suggests
practices based on Greek mystery cults
• He also speaks of “Cloe’s people” (1:11) at the
beginning, presumably a “house church” led by
Cloe, which is a woman’s name.
• Reading between lines, we can see that women
had a significant role in Corinth.
The rhetorical organization of the
letter
• It doesn’t proceed in a linear fashion, logically
laying out its argument.
• Instead, it unfolds in an oral manner – see 1: 1416 – tending to develop its subject by circling
around it.
• The great passage on love in chapter 13 comes
as a kind of concluding idea rather than as a
principle that would be laid out at the beginning
to establish a moral position.
• Does this suggest Paul’s way of teaching – not
laying out an organized set of beliefs, but
responding to immediate needs?
• Only at end does he come to a narrative of his
gospel: 15: 1-11
Center of Paul’s gospel
• His narrative at chapter 15:
• Christ “died for our sins in accordance
[i.e., in agreement] with the scriptures.”
• He was buried, then “was raised on the
third day in accordance with the
scriptures.”
• And he appeared to a succession of
people.
• And finally to Paul.
• And the consequence of this raising is that
all believers will be raised, that death will
come to lack reality.
What’s not in Paul’s gospel?
• Teachings, sayings of the historical Jesus.
• Paul never quotes Jesus, refers only rarely to
one of his teachings.
• Paul never recounts miracle or healing stories.
• These sayings and stories must have been in
circulation when Paul was writing in the 50s.
• But Paul seems to have little in the Jesus who
lived and taught in Galilee and in Jerusalem.
• And even the story of his death is significant
mainly in terms of the meaning that it has for
Paul.
Why?
• Was the human, historical Jesus, for Paul,
bound up with the Palestinian, Jerusalem
communities?
• Were the sayings, teaching, healings, etc. less
significant for Paul than the meaning he
assigned Jesus as “Christos,” the divine
saving figure?
• For Paul, less “Yeshua” than “Christos.”
• Note the contrast of Paul to Q and the
“sayings” tradition.
• Saving event is in a sacrificial death, not in
teaching.
Paul and the narrative Jesus
traditions
• Did Paul reject, perhaps implicitly, the pericopés
of teaching, healing, exorcism?
• And reduce the narrative of the passion to the
“narrative of significance” in 1 Corinthians 15?
• Of course familiar narratives of the canonical
gospels were still a generation away.
• But there must have been contemporary
traditions of these narratives.
• But Paul takes no notice of them, of what would
be expressed in the written gospels.
• What could this rejection mean?