by The Prophet » Tue May 24, 2016 1:51 pm
> The creed of 1 Cor. 15.3-7 was an extremely early creed that had been passed on verbally for decades before Paul committed it to writing.
We don't know that the Corinthians creed is actually pre-Pauline, but there are solid arguments that it is, so I'll grant that it's possible he didn't come up with it. However, I'll note that Paul himself would insist that he didn't learn it from anyone; he claims quite strenuously in Galatians that "the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ."
We certainly don't know that it was "passed on verbally for decades". The earliest evidence we have of it is 1 Corinthians; even if an argument can be made that it predates Paul, there's no way to know by how much it predates Paul. Most importantly, though, bringing it up is a non sequitur. You can't cite orally transmitted doctrinal creeds to support the existence of orally transmitted biographical narratives. 1 Cor 15 begins with Jesus' death and resurrection (known, by the way, "according to the scriptures", not according to any historical source), and does not relate anything he said or did.
> Instead, Mark was gathering his evidences and resources to portray Jesus as Mark and thousands of others were truly convinced he was: the Messiah, the incarnation of God himself.
I don't dispute that he was doing just that (although I'm not sure on the "thousands" part). But as I've stated, that is a very good motive for making up the stories. Indeed, it's a better motive for fabrication than it is for accurate recording, as reality is typically far more mundane.
> This is odd for you to say since previously you said "he's a terrible historian."
Not at all. One can be excellent at faithfully and accurately copying what others have written, and incredibly skilled at finding the relevant documents, and still be a terrible historian.
> Paul's story is the theological sequel, not a biographical redux.
This still misses my point, particularly since Paul shows no knowledge of the biographical details in the first place. Yes, Paul was writing doctrinal letters, not telling the story of Jesus' life. I get that argument. But why would those biographical details never come up?
Pliny the Younger wrote a lot about Pliny the Elder. Tacitus was interested in the elder Pliny, so he wrote a letter to his friend the younger Pliny asking for details about his uncle's heroic death, the circumstances of which were "so memorable that it is likely to make his name live forever". So Pliny the Younger wrote back, giving an extensive eyewitness account of about 1500 words. (About half the length of Galatians, one of Paul's shortest letters.) We learn that Pliny the Elder died of respiratory failure after breathing the ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He gives as much detail as he himself witnessed, and what those present told him. Tacitus was intrigued, so he asked more questions and wrote again, asking what the younger Pliny did in the following days. Pliny the Younger obliged with another detailed letter.
That's what letter writing about a famous person looks like. Humans are curious about their heroes, and want to know things about them. We know that people were eventually curious to know things about Jesus, because we have over 40 gospels, hundreds of forged letters, and half a dozen Acts, the vast majority of which are universally considered inauthentic. Indeed, the letters of Paul are overflowing with interest in Jesus' death, and what it accomplished, and what words Jesus revealed to his apostles; it beggars belief that Paul and his congregations were interested in that and nothing else.
You'd expect something to come up just by happenstance. Paul reveals, as minor asides, things like baptizing the dead (1 Cor 15.29), fear of what angels might do if Christian women don't cover their hair in church (1 Cor 11.9-10), or the fact that Christians will one day judge the angels (1 Cor 6.3). We can learn countless incidental details about early Christian belief from Paul, not because he was focused on telling us about such things, but because you can't avoid passing references like that in correspondence. Those kinds of details pop up for all kinds of subjects, but not for the life of Jesus, which is improbable unless Paul knew no such details.