2. Commenting on divorce does not make one a teacher.
The point is that Paul specifically cites and instruction of Jesus.
For teachings on divorce (which correspond to Q in Matt 19:6,9/Lk 16:18): 1 Cor. 7:10 tois gegamekosin paraggello, ouk alla ho kurios/ to those having been married I command, not I but the Lord...
contrasted with 1 Cor. 7:12 tois de loipois lego ego ouch ho kurios/ to the rest I say, I not the Lord...
He also states distinguishes his teachings from Jesus again in 1 Cor. 7:25- peri de ton parthenon epitagen kyriou ouk echo/ concerning the unmarried/maidens i have no command from the Lord.
What is important is not only that Paul is citing Jesus' instruction, but that he makes clear to differentiate what Jesus taught from what he (Paul) is teaching. If Jesus were entirely a matter of mere revelation for Paul, there would be no reason to do this.
3. The gospels mention a Last Super, borrowing from Paul's Lord's Super and incorporating it into a narrative.
Talk about starting with incorrect assumptions. Both the gospels and Paul mention a last supper. This could be because 1) one is dependent on the other or 2) both independently refer to a historical event or 3) both independently refer to an event thought to be historical by the early christians. What evidence suggests literary dependence, i.e. that the gospel authors were familiar with Paul's letters? Luke, who clearly a part of and knowledgable about the early christian church, and was occasionally around for the events s/he describes in acts, still was not aware of Paul's letters. We can see this clearly by the divergence between Acts and the epistles and a lack of awareness of Paul's version of events in Acts. In fact, the substantial stylistic, lexical, and grammatical diversion of material common the gospels and Paul make any speculation of dependence baseless.
4.Wrong, Paul explains that his and Peter' apostleship was appointed by God. Galatians 2-8 Nothing indicates otherwise.
“These are two separate assertions: (a) that Saul did not know much and (b) that he did not care much and they are independent of each other. I wish to concentrate here on “a,” the view that Saul had an empty head as far as the historical Yeshua was concerned. It is preposterous.
Recall what we already know from the chronology of Saul’s religious career. He was a persecutor of the Yeshua-faith. Whatever else that may have entailed, he certainly was in position to learn a lot about Yeshua. How he assimilated that information is another matter, but recall that three years after his conversion he secretly went up to Jerusalem and spent fifteen days living with Peter (Cephas) and, also, he met Yacov (Galatians 1:18– 19). Now, in more than a fortnight of intensive discussion with Peter he must have been tutored in all the basic actions and sayings of Yeshua as Peter knew them. Further, Saul obviously was being examined not only on his own character, but on his knowledge and ideology. The one-time audience with Yacov, direct heir to the headship of the Yeshua-faith, has the appearance of a viva voce examination of a doctoral candidate by a stern External Examiner. Saul passes, manifestly: he knows his Yeshua and his interpretations are within the acceptable boundaries of the plasticities of the time.
And recall that fourteen years later, Saul went up again to Jerusalem and this time went through a complex negotiation with the Jerusalem believers, headed by Yacov, Peter and John, the son of Zebedee. Whatever else occurred there, each side clearly expressed its knowledge and interpretation of the life of Yeshua of Nazareth and, again, Saul’s work received the imprimatur (Gal 2:1– 9). Saul may not have enjoyed his relations with Jerusalem, but he certainly was informed about the life of Yeshua.
Further, he continued to have interactions – sometimes unpleasant ones – with representatives of the Jerusalem church and probably with other Yeshua groups from outside of Jerusalem (Philippians, Galatians, Second Corinthians, all stem from such occurrences). He knew not just the life story of Yeshua, but was directly acquainted with at least one, and probably all, of the brothers of Yeshua. His third visit to Jerusalem, which resulted in his imprisonment, certainly gave him a chance to become closely reacquainted with the Jerusalem church. And Saul was knowledgeable about (and mostly horrified by) other traditions of the Yeshua-faith, especially those that were strongly spiritualist (see Second Corinthians). Each version of the faith of course implied not only a different complex of immediate religious experiences on the part of the specific community of believers, but also variant traditions of what characterized Yeshua while still on earth. Thus, Saul, being as knowledgeable as anyone among the Yeshua-followers about the varieties of the faith, was inevitably highly knowledgeable of the traditions concerning the historical Yeshua.
These inferences derive from direct evidence in the epistles of Saul. They should not even slightly surprise us, given our background knowledge of late Second Temple Judaism. For the religiously alert – and the Yeshua followers were nothing if not hyperattentive – the world was one great spider web, the hub of which was Jerusalem, and any motion any place on the web was transmitted through the entire reactive lattice. Even if we had not the compelling evidence of Saul’s ties to the centre, we still would assume he was picking up, almost tactilely, every variant of Yeshua’s life story and the vibratory signals of each significant variation of interpretation. Saul himself was constantly sending and receiving letters, detailing messengers and instructing emissaries; communication was his business. So, Saul knew his Yeshua.”
Akenson, Donald Harman.
Saint Saul : A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus.
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. pp. 171-173.
5. Paul mentions a Lord's brother, nothing he says nor any apostle writer gives us the impression that James is a literal brother, or that anyone met an actual Jesus.
Sure it does. Paul uses of the genitive in a particular grammatical/syntactical way to indicate kinship. See e.g. Schweizer's section on
der persönliche Genitiv der Abstammung in his
Griechesche Grammatik or "The genitive of origin and relationship" in
A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature.
Nazareth was unheard of prior to gMark.
You love classical fallacies. Do you know what argumentum ex silentio means?
. Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Ioshu in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘saviour’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’)
