Was Paul ridden with guilt? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
We’re continuing our look at Paulogia that can be found here and today, points 7-9 will be covered.
Point 7 is that the story of Jesus spread orally with the emphasis being on recruiting new members to the movement instead of transmitting accurate history.
Paulogia appears to paint this as an either-or. It seems unheard of that you could recruit new members to the movement by transmitting accurate history. The implicit assumption is “If we tell the history accurately, we won’t get members” and “If we want to get members, we need to downplay the history.” Of course, there is no interaction with how oral societies communicate their stories.
There’s still nothing also on why this story. Why tell stories about a crucified Messiah? If you’re trying to embellish and rewrite the history, then surely one of the first statements you would want to eliminate is crucifixion. You could have resurrection without crucifixion. Jesus went into Pilate’s residence at the head of a mob and was killed in the attempt, but He was resurrected as a hero of the movement. Nope. Jesus suffers the capital penalty that was the worst in shame at the time.
Paulogia also says that the Gospels weren’t written until decades later. I suspect he is thinking of the communication being like a game of telephone with individuals talking to individuals, when it would be more stories being told in group settings. The groups would have certain members in them who would make sure the stories were told accurately. There is no interaction with people like Dunn or McIver or Bailey or others on oral communication as was said.
Now we get to Paul who had a non-veridical vision of the allegedly-resurrected Jesus. And what was the cause of that vision? Let’s say it all together boys and girls!
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE!
Yes, it’s that magic term atheists like to throw out when they don’t know anything else to say. Paulogia also compares this to PTSD. Over what? Who knows?
To get to Cognitive Dissonance again, there is no reading of someone like Festinger. There is an allegation that Paul is wrestling with guilt, but that is just Paulogia throwing his own culture onto the Biblical one. In the Biblical one, as in many honor-shame cultures, behavior was done to earn the approval of the group or some other external source, such as God, and was not based on internal feelings or conscience.
What does Paul have guilt over? Killing Christians? He would have seen that as a service to God. Paulogia also says he wanted a new purpose in life, because obviously rising up the ranks in Jewish society and being an up and coming star in that field was just not worth it. Obviously, he needed to attach himself to this shameful group that gave him persecutions instead.
As for Paul being prone to hallucinations, again, this is Paulogia’s stance. Evidence they were hallucinations? Well, that doesn’t happen. Why? Because there is no God that can provide visions? If so, that is part of the claim that needs to be demonstrated. Readers know I have plenty of times made my case for theism here.
Finally, Paul met the apostles, but they did not see eye to eye. Paulogia says this explains the lack of information about Jesus’s ministry in his epistles. Once again, Paulogia is pressing his own low-context culture on a high-context society. In a high-context society, background knowledge on the part of the reader is assumed. (It would be ironic if we found out that Paulogia also complains about alleged Christian bigotry after he has pushed his own ideas of how society works onto the Biblical culture.)
Paulogia also says that this is evidence Paul’s visit was not to talk about the life of Jesus. Yes. Because obviously, when he met with the apostles and conferred with them, they were just talking about the weather or all that time or perhaps how the Jumping Jehoshophats were going to do in taking down the Egyptian Eagles in that year’s chariot races.
So once again, we have nothing but weak cases from Paulogia that run on speculation upon speculation and ignore the culture of the time.
We’ll look at the rest of the work tomorrow.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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