(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

There should be a "Paul Seminar," like the Jesus Seminar but focused on Paul. I haven't been very successful in finding sources that focus a lot of attention on who he was, what he believed, and what it was that he was trying to teach. I've seen little focus on which sources Paul drew from and what his influences were -- and too little focus on who redacted his writings and why, and on who wrote in his name pseudepigraphically. I think such an examination would be very fruitful.

I keep getting pulled into Paul's writings, because he wrote some of the most interesting passages in the New Testament, and because many of his peculiar idiosyncracies come through. Paul also appears to have struggled considerably over the idea of divine justice versus divine mercy.

My views on Paul have changed a bit in the past few months. Much of this has come from pulling on strings and exploring what appear to be significant shifts in Paul's views over the course of his life, reflected in his writings -- but very difficult to discern because of the way these writings have been edited and redacted.

Here is where I stand on Paul at the moment. I am convinced that before the epiphany that made him a Christian, Paul was either a member of the same Jewish sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, or a sect very much like it. I will follow many scholars in calling them the Essenes. The Essenes had a number of beliefs that clearly influenced Paul's writings:

• Belief in the resurrection of the righteous at the coming of the messiah;


• Belief in the impurity of flesh and earthly desires;


• Belief in achieving personal purity by way of abstinence from meat, wine, and sex;


• Belief that the Lord chose, before creating the world, a spiritual elite. This includes the patriarchs Abraham and Moses. In times of wrath and destruction, the elite are granted salvation (such as Noah and Lot).


• Belief that a great apocalyptic war between good and evil was about to be waged.


• Belief that "sinners" face divine wrath resulting in torment and destruction.

Paul's epiphany did not change these beliefs -- in other words, Paul continued to think that these beliefs describe the Lord's plan to judge the earth and humankind. But Paul, after his epiphany, came to believe that God's resurrection of Jesus signaled a new covenant of mercy. This new covenant offered a way to avoid destruction for those who were not among the chosen elite -- that is, it represents literally a victory over death. There are overtones to Paul's argument that echo the Gnostic argument that Christ brings salvation from the fate established for humankind by the archons (the "powers and principalities").

His writings also show evolution on his beliefs regarding the Law of Moses. Perhaps he felt he had to find a way to reconcile the idea of mercy he believed was represented by Christ, with the justice and wrath he found represented in the older writings and beliefs. He settled on the idea that the transfer of divine will to written code went horribly awry, and became, instead of an instrument of salvation that fostered spiritual growth, an instrument of discord. Thus the message of Christ represented for him a call to "renew" the spiritual law, in accord with innate understanding that each of us already possesses, and use this to replace the old written law.

Paul was clearly disturbed with the implications of this and couldn't bring himself to fully embrace antinomianism -- so Paul follows his arguments by teaching that while all things may be "lawful," not all things are expedient -- and so he searches about for ways to rationalize, without invoking divine law, restrictions for his readers on sexual and dietary matters. For example, while he argues in I Cor. 8 that Christians cannot consider meat sacrificed to idols as "defiled" for reasons of divine law, they should refrain from eating it because it disturbs their fellow Christians who are "weak." Likewise, in I Cor. 6-7, he advocates celibacy not on the grounds of divine law, but using the argument that the body is a temple and that sex, particularly "unnatural" sex, defiles that temple.

Paul also writes of Christians as being members of the body of Christ, and seems to have believed this in an almost literal way.

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I would describe a "spiritual monist" as one who believes that there is fundamentally only one "stuff" out of which everything in the cosmos is made. Contrast this with dualism, which posits the existence of a spirit/flesh distinction, or a saved/unsaved distinction, or a sacred/defiled destinction.

The word "too" was a typo. My apologies. :)

[davidould.livejournal.com]

It's also worth recognising that one can have a Partite understanding of humanity without attaching to it the Platonic values that are so assumed.

I think Biblical Christianity does this, it has a definitely partite view of humanity but doesn't turn the dichotomy into a "matter is bad, spirit is good" morality. Rather we end up with "matter is mortal and will be resurrected, spirit/soul is eternal"

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree. The Jewish tradition is partite as opposed to dualistic, but Paul I think crosses the line into dualism. He describes flesh as "corrupt" and spirit as "incorrupt," and shows what I would call a nearly pathological mistrust of pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. In I Corinthians 7 he made that view clear, describing even sexual pleasure within a marriage as of marginal acceptability. He would prefer, he wrote several times, that even within a marriage that Christians remain celibate.

It's not clear that Jesus bore the same mistrust of physical pleasure. But even so, it's clear from reading a lot of the early Christian literature (I'm referring not to Gnostic works but to orthodox texts like "The Acts of Paul and Thecla" and "The Passion of Felicity and Perpetua") that sex was hated so much that even femininity was seen with mistrust.

[davidould.livejournal.com]

but Paul's description of flesh as "corrupt" is more to do with the fact that it's limited in life.

There's also his use of "sarx" which, in Christian thinking, doubles for both flesh and sinful nature. The Christian theology that the life is tainted with sin is not Platonic.

I'm not sure, either, that your representation of 1Cor7 is nearly accurate. Paul postively encourages sex within marriage. Hardly a marginal acceptability.

As for your last paragrpah, I'm sorry but I just don't see it. It simply doesn't bear any relation to the scripture that I read every day.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

but Paul's description of flesh as "corrupt" is more to do with the fact that it's limited in life.

I think the overall tone of Paul's comments in I Cor. 15 and elsewhere display a strongly negative view of flesh. For example, in I Cor. 15:42-47 he draws a strong distinction:

flesh/physical nature (psychikos)	spiritual nature (pneumatikos)
sown	raised
perishable	imperishable
dishonor	glory
weakness	power
Adam	Christ

I think the fact that Paul uses the same word for "flesh" and "sin" is itself an indication of Paul's attitude towards flesh.

And then there's this (NRSV):

[I Corinthians 7:5] Do not deprive one another except perhaps for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control.
[6] This I say by way of concession, not of command.
[7] I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind, and another a different kind.
[8] To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am.
[9] But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

In the above, Paul encourages the reader to be celibate during periods of heavy prayer -- as if to say that even sex within the context of a marriage will somehow detract from one's dedication to God. He makes it clear also that he would much rather see Christians be celibate, but makes "a concession" in understanding that not all of them have the ability to remain celibate. Later he writes,

[I Corinthians 7:27] Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.
[28] But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a virgin marries, she does not sin. Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that.
[29] I mean, brothers [and sisters], the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none...
[31] ...For the present form of this world is passing away.

[sable-twilight.livejournal.com]

Okay, what would I be if I believed that the spirit/divinity/life force/etc. were intertwined, and interdependent, that one could not exist with out the other, and that there is a spirit or soul or what have you that does continue on in some form after the death of the body without assigning value judgments as to if the spirit or physicality is "better"? Does that even make sense or am I really conflicting myself? (I almost feel like I'm playing the Lucas Arts PC game Afterlife and it's assignment of letters to describe the settings spiritual philosophies here.)