Paul the Christ

2003-10-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

Paul's Christian Constitution by David Arthur Walters Christians tell me that Paul's goal was to create a vertical Church hierarchy. I do not think so. I am not a Christian and I have not been to bible schools, but I have read a few of Paul's letters and some of the writings attributed to Luke. What do I know for certain? Very little. I do know that the biblical texts were edited and that

2003-10-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

I am justified by history. "Paul is irrelevant. You can't feel or experience the past," a historian friend of mine who thinks history is a "mistake", insisted yesterday. I think we can experience the past to a certain extent. In any event, I think it is wise for a student of history to at least imagine how it felt to live during a particular period studied, to get a feeling for it. I'm not a

2003-10-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes live in the Now. "History is a mistake", said my friend, a historian, when I mentioned Paul the Christ. I know how he feels, since nothing is perfect, but I do not approach the past with the assumption that it is a mistake. As far as times goes, the past is all I can know. I encounter it whether I like it or not, and I do so with a curious attitude. First of all, I want to know what

2003-10-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

Have faith in The Herd. by David Arthur Walters Luther identifies many kinds of righteousness, for instance the righteousness of the emperor, the Torah, the parents, and so on. But "over and above all these there is the righteousness of faith or Christian righteousness, which is to be distinguished most carefully from all the others. For they are all contrary to this righteousness, both

2003-10-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

The philosophy of history. The expression philosophy of history is self- contradictory. Whereas a particular philosophy implies at the least some sort of rational, systematic understanding of its subject matter, the experience of history requires a lucid consciousness free of systematic prejudice and open to the intuition and confession of the absurd. For example, Hegel assumes that history

2003-10-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

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2003-10-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

Paul's success was a miracle. Paul's success was a miracle. Perhaps he was a Christ if not the Christ. Jesus, whether historial or a phantasm, might have been a convenient screen upon whom Paul deliberately projected charisma, providing an objective but mysterious persona for adulation, one difficult to challenge since no longer concretely present. In any event, one would certainly have to be

2003-09-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

What's for dinner? The Lord's Supper must be taken literally: the sacrificed Lord must be eaten, at least according to the 1551 Council of Trent which set forth the doctrine of transubstantiation, or substantial change, that anathematized the doctrine of consubstantiation, or substantial mixing. Following the prehistoric tradition, the priest serves as cook at the religious mess - the pope

2003-09-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Was Paul a Cannibal? by David Arthur Walters The interminable professional interpretation of sacred texts is not always dull: exegetics can sometimes be downright scandalous. For instance, certain German historians and theologians interested in putting transcendental Christianity into a material historical context associated the Lord's Supper with the cannibalistic feasting ceremony at the

2003-09-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

Diremption A ''diremption'' is a violent divorce or split, sometimes identified as a "fall" into self-conciousness which presents an objective world in opposition to the willing subject, now conscious of itself as an independence restrained, therefore, at once, dependent for its existence on outside forces to which it must respond in one way or another to perpetuate its existence. Hence human

2003-09-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

Thought for Food We are all cannibals come to think of it and to speak figuratively about it. And how else might one speak? What might one say without resort to analogies? What abstract thought cannot be boiled down to particular concrete experiences? When Pierre Cabanis made his infamous statement, that thoughts are secreted by brains just as bile is secreted by livers, the idealists were

2003-09-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

Universal Reasoning Paul's words, that we live and move have our being in God, were taken to heart by Nicolas Malebranche, a French Cartesian philosopher and theologian who was ordained when he entered the congregation of the Oratory in 1664. He is known for propounding two doctrines: the Vision of God doctrine, that we see all things in God; and the doctrine of Occasionalism, that God is the

2003-09-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

Paul's Curse by David Arthur Walters Christian bigots and critics who despise Christian bigotry often use Paul's Curse, as set forth in his angry letter to the Galatians in Asia Minor, to prove that Christian doctrine provides that everyone who does not believe in Christian dogma will be damned to hell. Paul used strong language, twice repeating, for good effect, the curse: "But even if we

2003-09-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Germans took the Jew out of Jesus Prior to the Great War, several German theologians were preoccupied with taking the Jew out of Jesus. Ironically, Paul the Jew was their model. Paul was of course a de-Judaizer, not in the sense of ridding Christianity of Judaism, but rather in the sense dropping certain torah prescriptions such as circumcision as a prerequisite of entering the Christian faith

2003-09-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

The Last Days last a long time "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God -

2003-09-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

Stop talking dirt "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen," advised Paul, and I think it is good advice for everyone to follow - three days a week. To refrain even one day from unwholesome talk would not be easy - that much I know from personal experience. Some of

2003-09-15T14:52:00.000-07:00

Enlightened Atheists I am astonished when people who profess liberation disparage past leaders of the liberation movement as if those leaders had been reactionary conservatives. For instance, Paul, in Christian religion, and Hobbes in philosophy. Of course Paul was set against Peter by the German Protestors, who were atheists as far as the Church was concerned. Paul, who wrote the Magna

2003-09-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

Against the Law by David Arthur Walters It appears that Paul's letters were edited by conservatives a generation or so after his death; for instance 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. And 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus were written in his name to propagate the conservative view. Furthermore, authoritarian and sexually chauvinistic passages were interpolated into 1 Corinthians and Romans, and