Corpus-Paul

["Tim Gallant" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Brand" <jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca>
To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Did Paul break the Law?


> John Brand wrote:
> > 'Christos,' of course, is Greek for the Hebrew mashiach. The Aryan
> > cognate would be 'atman' which is understood to be the higher self or
> > spirit.

Jeffrey Gibson writes:
> Cognates are words which linguistically share a common root.  I'd be
> grateful if you'd show how "atman" and "mashiach" are related
> linguistically.

John responds:
I stand corrected. 'Atman' is not a cognate for 'mashiach.' 'Atman'
as a 'life principle' would have semantic fields which overlap with
the Greek  'logos' and 'mashiach' would be closer to ho logos, would
it not? Thus, Christ is the incarnation of logos. Heraclietus used
logos as the life principle of which we are all manifestations.

etc etc

--------------

John, I still do not see where you have demonstrated anything about the term 
Christos. I stand by what I said: I see no evidence that the ancient 
Greco-Roman world had any particular expectation about *this term.*  (Nor do 
I have any idea why you think 'logos' and 'mashiach' are related. But even 
if they were, Paul doesn't use either term in a fashion resembling your 
description.)

As for sundry broader expectations (not denoted by the term) that you 
delineate - I guess I just have to ask, "So what?" The real question is how 
far Paul's message meets and/or challenges those expectations. Naturally, 
any expectation of a coming individual who will improve the state of affairs 
is going to have *some* overlap with any other. I don't think anyone has 
ever denied that. But none of this helps us understand Paul much, if at all. 
It may help us understand how some of his initial hearers may have heard 
some of what he said, and also how they may have been confronted by it. But 
beyond that, all we can do is guess at Paul's missional preaching by means 
of the content of his letters - unless, of course, we give credence to the 
reliability of the testimony of Acts (as I do).

We need to beware of "parallelomania." And in this case, we don't even have 
the terminology square.

As for the mysteries, they were by no means universally accepted, as far as 
I can tell. It seems to me that far more often, Paul's message impinges upon 
the imperial cult and the imperial claim to absolute authority, than upon 
the mysteries.

But the bottom line is that in all of his letters, Paul presupposes a world 
of thought governed by the Old Testament Scriptures (or, if you will, an Old 
Testament Scripture-world re-visioned through Christ and the Spirit).

If we want to understand how Paul's hearers would have heard him 
(particularly on first hearing), we will need to study the matters you bring 
up, to a greater or lesser degree (presuming their accuracy, and it looks to 
me like you are running together a bunch of things). But if we want to 
understand Paul himself, we will need to dig into contemporary Jewish 
thought and, more definitively, the Old Testament. We can only guess at how 
good he was at bridging the gap between the two, which may be an interesting 
exercise, but I doubt it will get us all that far as exegetes.

So it seems to me.

tim

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church

http://www.timgallant.org
tim | gallant site group