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Ch. 4: Background Knowledge (Christianity) (On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier)

#143: Jan. - Mar. 2016 (Non-Fiction)
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Flann 5
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Re: Ch. 4: Background Knowledge (Christianity) (On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier)

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DB Roy wrote:The lack of a true church of apostolic succession that Acts tries to foist off on us is nowhere more apparent than Paul's letter to the Romans where he calls Jesus the "son of God in power" as well as descended from David. These were the two camps that he was to address in Rome--one Jewish and one pagan--both with very different views. Paul would have no reason to do that than he was trying to draw them together. By saying "son of God in power," he was likely making wiggle room because that's not the same thing as saying that Jesus was the son of God but rather was a man that was given some measure of God's power. He wasn't an actual descendant of God. By doing that, now Jesus can be a metaphorical son of God and could still be descended from David. If there was any kind of a church with central authority, why wasn't it settling this dispute instead of Paul who wasn't even accepted as a true apostle by many other apostles? If Paul was working for this church, why wouldn't he just say so? That would certainly give him undisputed authority.
You are concocting a non existent dispute out of your imagination D.B. Paul is writing to Gentile Christians in Rome though there may have been some Jewish Christians in that church also.

It's clear from Romans chs.9 to 11 that he's addressing Gentile Christians. If you think Paul doesn't have a high Christology in Romans then you can't have read it with your eyes open.

I suppose you want chapter and verse here? I'll get back to you with them.
https://carm.org/paul-think-jesus-was-god
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DB Roy
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Re: Ch. 4: Background Knowledge (Christianity) (On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier)

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Re: Ch. 4: Background Knowledge (Christianity) (On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier)

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Going thru my library, I found this 1996 book that I had not really read since I bought it several years ago. It's called The Apocryphal Jesus -- Legends of the Early Church edited by J.K. Elliot (Reader in Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds) and published by the University of Oxford Press. In a chapter entitled "Stories relating to the Growth of the Church" the author writes about all the various books of Acts and not just the one in the NT, although it is certainly no more believable than the others. He writes:

The eponymous hero of all these Acts is, to a large extent, a stock character. He is a fearless champion for Christ, displaying prodigious deeds of courage, performing spectacular miracles, delivering himself of effective speeches, defending in public his faith, withstanding hardship and suffering deprivation (including imprisonments and torture), and typically dying as a martyr. Paul in the Acts of Paul is not the historic figure discerned in the New Testament letters. Peter is not the disciple recognized in the canonical gospels. They and the other apostles, John, Thomas, Andrew, who figure in the different Acts are each merely a personification of the obedient apostle venerated as an ideal figure in the areas where the stories originated.

Elliot points out that these Acts were very popular among Christians of that period and what they read while their churches were growing and evolving. But these were 2nd century Christians. What great heroes of the church were first century Christians reading about? And who and where were those heroes? And where are the writings their exploits were written on?
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