Paul’s “Corinthian gospel”

1. Paul’s “Corinthian gospel”

2. Caravaggio, Conversion of St. Paul, Rome

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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 notconsultation 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.

10. 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)

11. 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.

12. 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: 14-16 – 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

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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?