Reli 104 1st Edition Lecture 17 Outline of Last Lecture II Review Jesus the apocalypticist III The historian and the problem of miracle IV Jesus deeds and activities V The associations and disputes of Jesus Outline of Current Lecture II Problems in reconstructing the historical Paul III A brief biographical sketch Current Lecture I Problems in reconstructing the historical Paul Pseudepigrapha literally means a book that is inscribed with a lie There are some books that claim to be written by somebody who didn t write them Book whos author claims to be written by somebody who didn t write it Scholars talk about the books in NT pseudepigrapha Books outside are known as forgery Know forgery happened in ancient world o Our knowledge of the problem know about it cause people talk about it in the ancient world some writers would complain about it was a lot harder to figure out if a book was forged or not in ancient world b c didn t have data retrieval bases why would they do that Ancient people talk about why they wrote forgeries sometimes b c they wanted to see if they could get away with it to make money off of it Main reason b c people wanted there books to get read If you were a nobody and you write a letter whos gonna read it If you sign it apostle Paul people will read your letter Way to get views out into the churches o Specific instances 50 instances in first 400 years of Christianity Anytime people talk about forgery in ancient sources they condemn it Often said by NT scholars that people in the ancient world didn t look down on act of forger its an acceptable practice that is WRONG Look at every instance and they condemn it Why would people do it if it was widely condemned first and second timothy and Titus claim to be written by Paul but most scholars don t think that he wrote them More debate about Ephesians collosions and second thesalonians Probably weren t These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute written by Paul for evidence to come That means that if you want to study Paul have to stick with books that he wrote The occasional nature of the letters o Paul s letters were occasional By that don t mean that he occasionally wrote letters What I mean is that Paul s letters were written for certain occasions If you want to know what Paul s talking about have to figure out why he s writing the occasion o situation missionary who started different churches in Turkey and Greece Set up church by converting people and then leave to go to another city to convert people there After he left a city and church behind he would hear about problems they were having and he would write a letter to deal with their problems The letters we have from Paul are these letters Letters written to deal with problems of his churches o Have to know context that s another way for saying have to know occasion Sometimes hard to know what occasion Paul is addressing Also might be things really important to Paul that he doesn t mention because he didn t have an occasion to meantion it Only talked about things that had problems in church Example First Corinthians chapter 11 Paul is writing to church about celebration of Lords Suffer Weekly meal commemorating Jesus death and resurrection Take bread body and wine blood and remember death through this meal In Corinth problem with celebration b c rich people came early were bringing good food and wine When poor people came nothing would be left Everyone in the body of Christ is supposed to be unified meal is to represent unification but meal in Corinth is not unified Paul thinks this is so important he says that b c they aren t celebrating it properly god has made some of them sick and that s why they are dying Only passage in all of pauls letters that he mentions Lords supper If we had lost this letter wouldn t know how important it is The problem of Acts o book of Acts is largely about Paul s missionary work But as you know from debate some people don t think the book of Acts is historically reliable Its wrong in a lot of the details that is shown from what Acts says about Paul and what Paul says about Paul Paul s message Well that s a problem o if you want to know what Paul said stick to 7 undisputed Pauline letters II A brief biographical sketch Paul prior to his conversion o one area where book of Acts agrees with Paul Paul tells us a little bit about his life before he becomes a Christian someone after Jesus death who believes in Jesus Before he became a Christian he was a Jew After he converted to be a Christian he was also still a jew Before was a Jew that wasn t a Christian Paul grew up a highly religious Jew outside of Palestine Doesn t tell us where he came from acts said he came from Tarsus but fair to say he grew up outside of Paletsine Native language was Greek books written in Greek Grew up in Jewish diaspora dispersion of Jews outside of Palestine Helenistic Jew outside of Palestine who grew up very religions Jew Was a Jewish Pharisee Paul says PHilipians 3 and Gallations 1 says that he was highly religions Jew who kept the law of the Jews He was blameless before the Law of god given by the Torah Paul didn t become a Christian because he felt guilty he felt righteous But he came to realize that the law was not the way to be right with God Paul in persuing his path or righteousness began as a persecutor of Christians There were no Jews on the planet that thought a Messiah person was die and be brought to heaven Jesus was an unknown world preacher that got on the wrong side of the law Paul was insensed by this because what struct him as a ludicrous claim that Jesus was the Messiah o then something happened where he converted from being opposed to Jesus to preaching Jesus Paul s conversion in book of acts 3 accounts of Pauls conversion o The vision Paul himself doesn t talk about seeing the light he only vaguely mentions what he sees when he had a vision He does indicate that he had a vision of Jesus he saw Jesus Jesus has been killed 3 years before this When paul had a vision of Jesus what was he supposed to think If he saw him then he is still alive or alive again Off this vision Paul believed that Jesus had raised from the dead and that changed everything for Paul o Implications Eschatological understanding of the end of time Like Jesus Paul was an apocalyptisists Pharisee at end …