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  • From: kraft AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Robert Kraft)
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Some Basic Observations/Queries
  • Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 00:57:54 -0500 (EST)


I reluctantly joined this enthusiastic new list, fearing that it could
easily increase my "work load" (= keeping up, being responsible), and
regretting the tendency to isolation from the larger context of early
Christian studies that it can encourage. But since I'm here, and have just
scanned through the first daily digest that has reached me, as well as
through the orientation materials that were supplied, and are on the net,
permit a few crusty comments:

1. In transliteration of the Greek, do we really think that people will
write <gk>CRISTOS</> rather than <gk>XRISTOS</>? The use of X for chi is
well established in TLG "Beta Code" (with C for ksi), and would seem to me
to be more natural than the opposite that is prescribed for the list. And
several times in the digest I just scanned, the X = chi transliteration is
used, rather automatically. I recommend reconsideration.

2. On the issue of "undisputed/disputed," my own practice has been to
divide the letters into various subgroups (see my Paul course materials),
of which "group 1" (sometimes known as "computer Paul," in recognition of
the somewhat simplistic stylistic studies of A.Q.Morton many years ago) is
the most probably authentic, if we assume that the historical Paul wrote
anything that survived (a major assumption!), and is comprised of
Galatians-Romans, and 1-2 Corinthians (perhaps 1a and 1b would be
appropriate). I would dispute that Philemon, Philippians and 1
Thessalonians are "undisputed," although the questioning voices are quite
weak these days (fading away with F.C.Baur?). And "disputed" is simply too
broad a category to cover all the rest, which also deserves to include
"Laodiceans" (why not by the same author as Philippians?) and "3
Corinthians" (facing similar issues to the Pastorals), if not the Nag
Hammadi "Prayer of Paul" (why Paul?) and the Paul/Seneca correspondence
(why in Latin?).

3. Was Paul "converted"? From what to what? I'm under the spell of my
doktor-Vater, Krister Stendahl, in continually reminding my students that
the Paul of Galatians thinks of the key event as a "call" within the
context of his Judaism, not as some change in religions (or the like). And
that Pauline studies is properly an aspect of the subject matter of the
IOUDAIOS list deserves underlining.

Enough for now. The nuances of the "apocalypticism" discussion mostly
escape me. I think the Paul of 1 Cor 15 sees a real end in historical
sight, in a process that is already underway and that puts "imperious
demands" (to borrow Schweitzer's terminology from the final chapter of the
Quest) on him to act as he does with respect to the "news" that he
possessively ("MY gospel/news") disseminates. Trying to compare this to
the voice of Yeshua/Jesus as it reverberates off the dimpled walls of its
cave-like recorders is a fairly futile exercise, I'd say.

I like to raise questions ("to study is to question" -- put it in Greek
and attribute it to Paul?); don't expect me to supply answers! At least
the list is off to an enthusiastic start. Happy birth!

Bob
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
kraft AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html



  • Some Basic Observations/Queries, Robert Kraft, 03/31/1999

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