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Social Consciousness in the New Testament: Jesus and Paul — A Contrast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

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Not infrequently one meets scholars and laity who envisage Paul, the apostle, as a revolutionary and Jesus as a non-violent, non-aggressive person (except perhaps for his cleansing of the Temple). Is this view correct ? It will be the plan of this paper to suggest—but by no means to come to a firm conclusion-—that the opposite is true. When I speak of ‘Paul’ I shall be speaking of the Pauline school, not necessarily of the individual apostle, and when I speak of Jesus I shall not always distinguish between the ipsissima vox, the very voice of Jesus, and ipsissima verba, the very words of Jesus, as redacted by the evangelists. Further in examining Pauline theology we must remind ourselves continually that in all likelihood the apostle never saw one of our written canonical gospels.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

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2 Paul gives us no information about his position on niddah (impurity of women).

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13 Hengel, Martin, Judaism and Hellenism, volume 1, E.T. Fortress Press, 1974, pp. 1517Google Scholar speaks of Jewish mercenaries in the Greek armies and their influence in the Diaspora.

14 This pericope may not be genuine Pauline material, see Gnilka, J:, ‘2 Cor. 6:14‐7:1 in the light of the Qumran texts and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs’ in Paul and Qumran, edited by Murphy‐O'Connor, J., Priory Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1968Google Scholar and Gärtner, B., The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament, Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 4956CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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38 The author realises that she has not used a redactional critical methodology but is preparing this at more length in a book probably to be entitled The Evolution of Social Consciousness in the Judaeo‐Christian Tradition.