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  • From: "Chris Tilling" <chris AT christilling.de>
  • To: <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] Scholars who deny a Pauline divine-Christology
  • Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 16:39:04 +0200

Dear Tony,

Thank you for your comments.
 
>You probably know from reading Larry Hurtado's tome, 'Lord Jesus Christ'
>that this point of non-opposition to Paul's Christology by his
>Jewish-Christian critics actually favours a high Christology contra Dunn.
>Hurtado argues that this (Paul's Christology), was not a subject of debate
>for them as was the Torah because the absence of any opposition to this
>belief revealed rather a common acceptance of such a high Christology by the
>earliest Jewish Christians.
Yes, Hurtado's 'Lord Jesus Christ' is a magnificent volume and one of only a few books to be published in the last 50 or so years that ought to be compulsory reading for anyone working in NT Christology.
 
Firstly, I wonder if you have a page reference in 'Lord Jesus Christ' for the argument you outlined above. I had a quick skim through my copy but couldn't find it as you described.
 
Until then, I would suggest that Hurtado's position is a little bit more complicated (see also his earlier publication 'Pre-70 C.E. Jewish Opposition to Christ-Devotion', JTS, 1999):
 
1) Directly involved in Hurtado's criticism of Dunn's argument (i.e. that because Paul experienced no opposition to his Christology it couldn't have been divine) he argues that Dunn 'works with only two possibilities: monotheism could either have remained intact or been broken' (p.45, 'Lord Jesus Christ'). Hurtado, on the other hand, suggests that we should maintain a more flexible position.
2) Hurtado also suggests that one of the motivations for Paul's (then Saul) earlier persecution of the church could have been for their Christology (hence this opposition came only from Jews and not from Jewish Christians). Dunn, on the other hand, points out the lack of evidence for this (in his recent review of Hurtado's book in the Expository Times). And it is likely that Dunn, on this point, is correct. Either way it doesn't matter as ...
3) I'm not sure that Dunn's line of reasoning can actually be made 'to favour a high Christology' as you say Hurtado claims: Either all Jew and Gentile Christians believed unanimously in the highest possible Christology (and therefore there was no opposition to Paul's statements, devotion and practices) or nobody believed it, and Paul was not understood to be claiming it (as Dunn says). Either way, the argumentation (that you outlined so well) remains an argument from silence, and cannot, therefore, speak either for or against a divine-Christology in Paul. What it does do is raise the stakes! Either all believed it or none.
 
Thanks again, Tony, for your comments.
 
All the very best, Chris Tilling.
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