Corpus-Paul

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

At 11:49 AM 5/7/99 -0400, you wrote:

>I understand apocalyptic in this discussion to refer to the possession of a
>secret knowledge. Is that correct?

I did not so take it.  That would be esoteric strands of Judaism.  The two
are not mutually exclusive, but they are different.

>I understand we have the Essenes at Qumran and the various apocalyptic
>writings. I don't see that we can generalize from these.  Josephus did not
>have an apocalypic view of the world.  He seems more representative to me,
>but it is impossible to know.

I take it just the other way.  Judaism was fragmented and the overwhelming
majority of movements had in view the victory of God over the godless
heathen oppressors.  Apocalyptic was born of crisis, and sought an end to
the crisis in the direct intervention of God.  Christianity too was such a
movement in its early days.

>We have no writings from the Pharisees.

Not quite correct.  We have lots of stuff from a certain Pharisee named Paul!

P.S.- Liz- I am going to be in NYC the first week of June.  (On vacation).
Any hints as to what to do beside the regular stuff?

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Petros Baptist Church- Pastor
Quartz Hill School of Theology- Adjunct Prof. of Bible

fax- 978-231-5986
email- jwest AT highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest