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corpus-paul - Re: Did Jesus or angels speak to Paul?

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  • From: Steve Black <sblack AT axionet.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Did Jesus or angels speak to Paul?
  • Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 10:07:57 -0700


I would like to enquire if it is allowed to even discuss on this list (or
any related lists) whether Paul did (or even could) have actually received
information from a resurrected Jesus or from angels. It seems to me that
to disallow this possibility completely shows a rather closed 'mind set'.

I understand that in the current scientific age a belief in spiritual
things is looked on by some as a kind of 'mental weakness',...

I think this is a matter of context. Within a scholarly biblical discussion, I think the best we can do is to say that Paul *believed* he had revelations from "the great beyond" (or whatever). It is kind of like Jung's approach to religion. He took as factual the mental impression within his human subject and bracketed out the question of whether this content was "real" or not. It was a fact inasmuch as it actually existed *as* a mental impression. I see no other way of maintaining a scholarly conversation that will not deteriorate into an some type of confessionalism (or anti-confessionalism). Perhaps if the context for the discussion is not a scholarly biblical one - like perhaps one within the church - perhaps then this issues might be approached rather differently. Within this type of forum of biblical scholarship, I think we must stay with with what we can know and steer clear of metaphysical speculation. To do otherwise would certainly undermine the foundation of our shared conversation, and would certainly shift the whole focus of the conversation onto philosophical debates, which would be a serious distraction.
--
Steve Black
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, BC
---

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

-Robert Hunter From SCARLET BEGONIAS




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