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  • From: "John Dickson" <dicksonj AT bigpond.net.au>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul on John the Baptist.
  • Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 19:41:23 +1000


Rick Richmond asked and noted:
> If The Baptist is the fountain head of the Palestinian Jesus movement, as
> all four Gospels imply, how can it be that Paul knows nothing about John?
Or
> more specifically, How is it that in all of the material ascribed to Paul
> there is not a single word about John the Baptist.

Rick, I always find the assumptions behind such questions/proposals
historically suspect. We have a corpus of just a handful of letters. Nothing
can be made of such silence, in my opinion. We must recall that without 1
Corinthians (and the Corinthian believers' prior abuse of their fellowship
meals) we would have no idea that Paul knew a highly formulated 'Lord's
Supper' tradition. While one must not exaggerate Paul's knowledge of the
early Jesus-traditions, we must always keep in mind two facts: a) in the few
letters we possess Paul demonstrates clear knowledge of some Jesus
traditions; b) he claims to have spent two weeks in the mid-30's with
Cephas/Peter and with Jesus' brother, James. (I would add also that Paul's
prior persecution of the church suggests to me that even prior to his belief
in Jesus he had some knowledge of the crucified ring-leader. For now though
I will leave this argument to one side).
Is it reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the traditions which happen to
be mentioned in our tiny collection of epistles represent Paul's total
knowledge of the events surrounding Jesus? Even without the claim of Gal
1:18-20 I would say, it is not. However, this text forces us all to ask:
would Paul have spent a fortnight with Peter (and some time with James), in
all likelihood even staying in his home (EPEMEINA PROS AUTON), and not have
heard a wealth of stories about Jesus' career? I challenge anyone to offer a
coherent answer in the negative.
Thus, I propose that Paul's knowledge of Jesus' life must have included (in
broad terms if not in intimate detail) much of what Peter and James
themselves knew. Whether these latter two knew the traditions corresponding
to our Gospels is another question but that Paul knew a truncated
second-hand version of what Peter (and James) knew seems a reasonable
conclusion.
The question that then becomes intriguing is: Why are there so few
Jesus-traditions in the small collection of Pauline epistles we possess -
what rhetorical, 'theological' or pastoral factors gave rise to this
literary phenomenon? I have no intention of offering an answer here.
Kind regards,
John
John Dickson
Department of Ancient History
Macquarie University
Sydney, Australia
http://www.users.bigpond.com/jdickson/







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