Re: PAREDWKA/PARELABON
Carlton Winbery (winberyc@alex1.linknet.net)
Wed, 1 Jan 1997 09:31:40 +0400
Carl Conrad wrote in answer to Eric Weiss;
<omission>
>>Other than switching the order of the PAREDWKA and PARELABON phrases,
>>these seem to me to be pretty much the same formula. Why, then, does
>>Price assume that in 1 Corinthians 15:3 Paul is talking about receiving
>>his gospel from men when in 1 Corinthians 11:23 he says he received his
>>knowledge of the last supper from the Lord? Could not Paul have received
>>his 1 Cor 15:3 gospel also from the Lord, and he just omitted the APO
>>TOU KURIOU - and thus there would be no contradiction with Galatians? Am
>>I missing something here?
>
>I think that the apparent contradiction is evident enough--but it is the
>sort of contradiction of which one finds several in the Pauline
>correspondence, and I think that most, if not all, of these apparent
>contradictions are to be explained by the contextual differences of
>correspondence to different groups. Nowhere are these differences more
>striking than between Gal and 1 Cor, and I think that the reason is that in
>Gal Paul is concerned to defend his gospel against what he believes,
>rightly or wrongly, are Judaizers, while in 1 Cor he is concerned to
>protect his gospel from a congregation that appears to be transforming it
>into a Greek mystery religion. Consider, for instance, the ethical
>parenesis in the two letters: in Gal Paul underscores "freedom from the
>Law" because he believes that his opponents are pushing for observance of
>the Mosaic Law, while in 1 Cor he is combatting a proto-gnostic doctrine
>that those who have GNWSIS can do whatever they like because PANTA EXESTIN.
>
>So: in Gal he emphasizes his independence from human authority and
>underscores his dependence upon direct revelation from Christ (but it
>should be noted that he also says in Gal that he checked with Jerusalem
>authorities to see if he was "running right"); in 1 Cor however, his
>concern is rather to combat a tendency in the Corinthian congregation to
>stress independence of members from the "body of Christ" in such a fashion
>that each believer relates directly to Christ above. But that runs counter
>to Paul's insistence that the believer's relationship to Christ is BOTH
>personal AND corporate; therefore he here insists that the gospel message
>is a tradition shared by the whole church, and that the way the Corinthians
>are tending to interpret it, denying the reality of resurrection, runs
>counter to that clearly-fixed tradition. In sum, I think that pragmatic
>considerations are sufficient to explain this apparent contradiction.
>
>Incidentally, what's the URL for this Higher Criticism site? It sounds
>interesting.
>
There was a good book written dealing with the basic question in this post.
I think that it was by A.M. Hunter. The title, I think, is _Paul and His
Predecessors_. It was written in 1940, but not published until 1950
because of the war. In it he used the same language mentioned by Eric, the
evident hymnic materials, other confessional statements and creedal
formulae to argue for Paul's dependence upon the pre-pauline materials in
Paul's letters. Unfortunately, I could not get a copy of the book, but I
read it and made notes in the Library in New Orleans. I'll dig out the
notes and add other materials cited by Hunter later.
Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
Fax (318) 442-4996
Phone (318) 487-7241