centric model which adds an epicycle to account for the motion.
The metaphor I'm using in the post is the comparison between the left (sun-centered) and right (earth-centered) models. On the right you must account for the data by adding an epicycle. But that makes the model, and is visually obvious, too "re-worked." The paradigm shift occurs by rejecting the epicycles and adopting a whole new view, moving to the leftward sun-centered model, the Coperican Revolution. No more epicycles.
I always thought they were used by circus performers suffering from serious allergies..
when Scott came out to Pepperdine almost three three years ago now.
which speaks too the point.
"kinda like a car salesmen"
Act 2:30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins he would set one upon his throne; Act 2:31 he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he left unto Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
Act 2:32 This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.
HOW DOES THE FATHER MAINTAIN RIGHTEOUS JUDGEMENT BY CURSING A RIGHTEOUS MAN..."god with us"
(UNDER LAW, SIN SEPARATES..."DEATH") AND THIS IS BEFORE RECONCILIATION OR WHAT PAUL CALLS VINDICATION IN TIMOTHY.
reference being " a Shuan Penn movie" can't remember his name?
I'm not sure how to either agree or disagree with your comments. I agree with most of the separate points that you make, but disagree, I think, with the gist of what you say--but I'm not even sure of that.
Here's the point. In the earliest gospel account (that is rich enough to follow a narrative progression) Jesus is depicted as teaching his disciples about both his death and resurrection, and both are key to the gospel--the good new of the kingdom being at hand: the Son of Man will be the one who leads the kingdom AND will be the one who is resurrected in the way Jesus foretold his disciples.
So I guess it's your first point that I think need to be questioned, but also the other four to the extent that they may incorporate the gospel announced by Jesus in the Gospel According to Mark. I'd have to say the same thing about Richard's points in the post--because one must decide prior to knowing what to do with Paul's recital of the Apostle's shorthand version of the gospel whether it is to be informed by Mark, for the crucial reason that mark purports to give us an insight in Jesus' view of this.
Personally, Mark is crucial to grounding Tillich's view of the gospel--a view I noted in a comment to Richard already here. It's a view that makes Jesus' intentional overturning of the existing orders the centerpiece of its hermeneutical strategy.
But its a core question in another very interesting way: it takes a big step toward full-blown orthodoxy as defined by what Lewis called "mere Christianity": the consensus of the Church over 2,000 years. The question here is about whether that consensus seems to be true to a strong reading of the earliest narratives. And the proto-narrative--and therefore THE earliest--would be Jesus' own.
Forgive me, but it's THE question for biblical scholarship.
If I could be 18 again, addressing that question is what I would do with my life.
I agree with the factual aspects of what you claim, but would note that whether Paul's theology, including his understanding of salvation--is consonant with Jesus' view is a question of extrapolation--including whether Paul ought to have done so (extrapolated) at all. Very tricky question, and entirely over my head, I'm sorry to say.
You say that Paul 'extrapolated.' He seems to say that he did no such thing as far as I can tell. For example, he says in Galatians 1:11 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source; instead I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ.
I think we need to go back a little bit further than Paul. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus stated that God's promised Reign had finally come. He said that THAT was the 'gospel'. We have to has ourselves what Jesus meant by that. The answer to THAT question is the key to understanding the NT (and St Paul, specifically) understanding of the 'gospel'.
He refers, surely, to the road to Damascus experience. The extrapolation is what he did with his revelation, theologically speaking--and with the tradition handed down to him, which surely he used as an interpretive lens in dong his theology. But he certainly did do theology, including work on the idea of the gospel and salvation--unless, of course, that too was experienced as directly as the Damascus experience... Not.
Great, great analogy. "This really is a Copernican paradigm shift, moving from a me-centric story to a Jesus-centric story." And the shift is really that great.
As I read the description of what transpired on the Damascus road, I find nothing about the gospel content. What is clear there is that Jesus is God. After that Paul went away into Arabia for three years. Interestingly, that is where Mount Sinai is located and where God gave Moses the law. Anyway, either he got it somewhere by revelation not requiring any human input as he said or he 'extrapolated' which certainly takes the teeth out of it. Because, now we are dealing with 'Paul's gospel' and not Jesus' gospel.
Paul saw the resurrected Christ. The resurrection ties these two narrative elements of Mark together: (1) Jesus' intentional march to Jerusalem to meet his death, and (2) that "the kingdom of God is at hand." It does so in Jesus teaching in Mark by identifying the Son of Man--to be the leader of the kingdom--with the one who is resurrected (Mark 10.34). So, seeing the resurrected Christ is exactly the piece that set up the Marcan gospel. I'm slightly bewildered that you are "replying" to my comment and don't have that central idea in mind.
Paul, I'm more with you on this than with McKnight. Or at least what I see is that saying the sum total of the gospel is that Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised, and appeared afterward--that's St. Paul's gospel, not that of Jesus. What about what Jesus actually taught? Yes, St. Paul's near-death experience or vision has captured people's imaginations (and their death anxiety, leading to the focus on personal salvation). But Paul was not concerned about what Jesus actually wanted people to know--Paul's overriding, passion is always for the glorious Christ of his vision. And the more we look only at the death and what came after, the less we pay attention to the lessons of the living Jesus about our responsibility for the Kingdom of God. The more we look at "but Jesus was God who will save us," the more we're off the hook. It's a whole 'nother gospel.
My great teacher Tom Olbright said that the task of Nt theology was unification. Whether readers agree or not, taking the canon as a whole....Jesus, Paul, the epistles, Acts and the Revelation, defining the gospel which is arguably the Reason for it all, is a most important task. Do we conflate, determine the core, cynically pronounce the testimonies of faith a disaster of contradictions? For my part, the joy of the quest for unity in asking "What is the gospel?" is a worthy quest indeed!
This has a very familiar ring to something Tom Wright wrote in a small book called 'What Paul Really Said'. The book is well worth a read for those who haven't already, and situates Paul within the Biblical witness without the many unhelpful beliefs that have come to surround him. The chapter I'm quoting is entitled 'Herald of the King'.
"The word 'gospel' and the phrase 'the gospel' have come to denote, especially in certain circles within the church, something that in older theology would be called an ordo salutis, an order of salvation. 'The gospel' is supposed to be a description of how people get saved; of the theological mechanism whereby, in some people's language, Christ takes our sin and we his righteousness; in other languages again, I admit my sin, believe that he died for me, and commit my life to him. In many church circles, if you hear something like that, people will say that 'the gospel' has been preached..."
And how does Wright define the true meaning of 'the gospel' as it was understood by Paul?
(Reflecting on Romans 1:1-5) "God's gospel concerning his Son. A message about God - the one true God, the God who inspired the prophets - consisting in a message about Jesus. A story - a true story - about a human life, death and resurrection through which the living God becomes king of the world. A message which had grasped Paul and, through his work, would mushroom out to all the nations. That is Paul's shorthand summary of what 'the gospel' actually is."
I'm interested in what your answer to the following question might be.
By the way, my answer is Mark 1:15 (i.e., "The