Posted: Jun 30, 2013 1:59 pm
Really a dreadful mess:
On this 'theory' we must conclude that christians weren't taught about the resurrection since Paul feels compelled to talk about it. A lot.
Now is this what Casey believes to be the case?
Or is this an unintended consequence of an ad hoc high- versus low-context culture explanation for the absence of an historical Jesus in Paul, which of course needs further ad hoc explanations to make it come out 'right'?
The article itself is worth a read, but the comments are very enlightening indeed!
One poster linked to this article:
In fiction the 'method' of the obscurantists would be called a 'willing suspension of disbelief'.
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. This is one basic reason why Paul says so little about the life and teaching of Jesus. To some extent, his Gentile Christians had been taught about Jesus already, so he could take such knowledge for granted. He therefore had no reason to mention places such as Nazareth, or the site of the crucifixion, nor to remind his congregations that Jesus was crucified on earth recently.
On this 'theory' we must conclude that christians weren't taught about the resurrection since Paul feels compelled to talk about it. A lot.
Now is this what Casey believes to be the case?
Or is this an unintended consequence of an ad hoc high- versus low-context culture explanation for the absence of an historical Jesus in Paul, which of course needs further ad hoc explanations to make it come out 'right'?
The article itself is worth a read, but the comments are very enlightening indeed!
One poster linked to this article:
Because if you look at it more closely, what is often presented as a scholarly debate between those who think Jesus was a myth and those who think he was an actual person looks more like a professional conflict between those who want to examine the question and those who don't want anyone to entertain any doubts about the matter. Historians versus obscurantists might be a more apt term than mythicists versus historicists.) Hick has accurately described the cutting edge of practice in theological seminaries and departments of New Testament studies when it come to the question of Jesus' existence, namely, that it is treated as if there were no question. And it is the cutting edge in those places just as much today in 2012 as it was when Hick said so in 1986. The question is how much this cutting edge resembles anything which could be legitimately be considered an academic cutting edge.
http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/2012 ... e-way.html
In fiction the 'method' of the obscurantists would be called a 'willing suspension of disbelief'.