III. Hipótesis y Variables
3.2 Hipótesis Específicas
Paul, with Luke as a fellow traveler, does not write of the life of Jesus on earth, but it is not because he is unaware or deems it unimportant, but because the promised Jewish Messiah is also Lord of Creation. It not so important for the Gentile world to know that the Jews have a Messiah and that he is Jesus and yet such knowledge comprises the essential roots of the message. Nowhere in Luke or in his Epistles does Paul show that he is inclined to deny his Jewishness. He is conscious of his own roots and the background of the reign of God on earth. In Acts 20:17-35, his
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farewell address to a Jewish-Gentile assembly in Ephesus, he streams his Jewish heritage into the explosive outreach of which his present has become a part. Paul always knows that the gospel is to the Jew first, also to the Gentile, yet he knows his own vocation is different from that of other apostles and even Jesus. He does not diminish Jesus, but rather magnifies him. When he refers to himself as the minister to the Gentiles, Paul is the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles (Romans 15.16). When he refers to Jesus as the minister to the circumcision, it is “in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” (15.9)
Perhaps Paul’s hardest scrutiny was that which began to proceed from the ‘Tubingen School of New Testament Interpretation’ in the middle of the 19th century, which unleashed a deluge of historical-critical conclusions that seemed to be watershed. At first Baur’s postulations of conflict among early Christian groups and especially between Paul and Jerusalem apostles, were unpopular, but gained traction over time. Its founder, Ferdinand Christian Baur, lent authority to the Early Christian Ebionite sect, something of an alter ego movement to the Marcionites. For Marcionites, Jesus was only divine and for Ebionites he was only human. If only divine, he could not be Jewish. If only human, he could be only Jewish. Baur asserted from Clementine’s writings used by Ebionites in the 4th century that they rejected Paulinism as heresy and that they, the Ebionites, represented the tradition of Twelve Apostles. Baur could not hold his position without a low of Acts, else a fuller- orbed Paul would be revealed. For Baur, Luke’s Paul shows, “discrepancies…show very seriously the want of historical truth” in
Acts.211 Later, Walter Bauer developed this viewpoint that conflict created
211
Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul: the Apostle of Jesus Christ: his Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings, Translated Eduard Zeller (Edinburgh:Williams and Norgate, 1873), 110
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orthodoxy in the respect that various doctrinal viewpoints existed contemporaneously and expressions that eventually came to be known as “heretical” were the organic Christianity of Jesus and the Apostles.212
Although fascination with the Tubingen School’s take on documents attributed to Paul has abated, Higher Criticism lives in various form, as described by R. V. Pierard,
… the school with its emphasis on dialectical conflict within the early church, rejection of Pauline authorship of most of his epistles, and completely antisupernaturalistic outlook contributed significantly to the development of a historical - critical approach to the Bible that completely ignored the divine element in it.213
Because the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Epistles do not share the same emphases, with Paul in Acts being a living out an evangelistic narrative while his Epistles’ emphasis is freedom from the law and justification by faith, scholars whose approach is devoid of devotion cannot conceive of Paul’s Gospel as consistent with that of the Twelve and for them it follows that Luke has deliberately reinvented Paul
to fit him to the narrative that earlier relies on Peter’s experiences.214 It is this
writer’s belief that without faith in the veracity of the Gospel’s subject and mission, it is impossible to clearly see the picture that Luke-Acts paints as more than a romantic
212 Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, translated by Robert Kraft and Gerhard Kroedel, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), Bauer sees the original faith at a disadvantage inasmuch as it could not gain the support of Rome. He writes “Rome… was from the very beginning the center and chief source of power for the "orthodox" movement within Christianity,” and “The course of Christianity was directed toward the West from the very beginning. One could almost say that it was driven straight into the arms of Rome by its development. Many a crucial matter might have been different if the actual Orient had not simply excluded the new religion for a long time, thus making it impossible for marked and undiluted eastern influences to become operative” 231, 232. 213 "(Tubingen School, Tubingen)." BELIEVE Religious Information Source web-site.
2007. A Christ Walk Church Public Service. (December 26, 2010) ( http://mb-soft.com/believe/indexaz.html ) 214 L. Keck and J. Martyn, eds. Studies in Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 330-50
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portrayal of the church’s beginnings that amounts to little more than propaganda. Among the matter that dirties the lens of the researchers who cannot see the splendid and justifiable universality of this redemptive mission is their knowledge of and frustration or indignation over injustice and atrocities with the complicity of systems of power in the name of Christianity. It is impossible to fathom the character of the mission and at once be antisupernaturalistic. The critics like Beare and Huck who of Paul’s writings assert that, “there is not a word to suggest that he has ever heard the story of the empty tomb,” reflective of the school that separate Paul from
the Twelve, eventually move toward a denial of physical resurrection.215 Paul’s
Gospel has to do with the resurrection, whose mandate and appeal transcend
Israel,216 but is completely consistent with the message of the Twelve. Identifying
the empty seat left upon Judas Iscariot’s defection, the Twelve sought a replacement to “become with us a witness to his resurrection.”217
Although we know nothing of Matthias’ testimony, and many others of the Apostles, Paul, we know well. He stands tall in history and although the Gospel advances to many nations concurrently with Paul’s lifetime. We know more of his story because of his biography in Acts and his epistles. He is known as the Apostle who takes the Gospel beyond Jewry, and the world would never be the same.
Alongside Paul are mentioned Augustine and Luther as champions of the justice of God and salvation by faith and grace. This comparison is not altogether fair to Paul because the overarching impetus for his preaching was the resurrection. If there was
215
Francis Wright Beare, and Albert Huck, The Earliest Records of Jesus: A Companion to the Synopsis of the First Three Gospels (New York: Abingdon, 1962), 241
216 Acts 17.31 Paul declares, “…because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
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conflict among them, in this he is not the slightest bit different from the other apostles. Proclaiming the resurrection, Paul confounded Greek philosophers (Acts 17.18) and exposed the fundamental defect in the priestly order (23.6-8). Later before imperial authorities he explained the grounds of his arrest, “It is with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day.” The fact that “we shall be certainly united with him in a resurrection like his” is the basis of his hope. The goal of the race that was his life was to “know him in the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” (Phil. 3.10) The only reason for being like Jesus in his death is because his death was not final. Paul could embrace death because it no longer had a sting, the grave no longer a victory (1 Cor. 15.55-56). This truth was exhilarating and accounts for how Paul could even boast in death, the death of Jesus (Gal. 6.14). He exhorted the community to share in the boast corporately, in what we know as communion. Each time the gathering of believers ate their bread and drank their wine together it was a proclamation of that death, “until he comes.” (1 Cor. 11.26).
Paul taught many themes, but not even the best of them; justice, faith, and grace, they all mean nothing to him if there is no resurrection.
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your
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sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.218
3.7 Conclusion
The mission of Jesus is persistently carried by the marginalized and principally for the marginalized (signified by “first to the Jew, and then to the Gentile”) throughout the world. When the Gospel links with political before the divine power, it will doubtless stray from its purpose and become subject to the vagaries of power. The Apostles’ plights, Paul in particular, cast light on how the politically powerful church not only is at variance with the mission of Jesus. Further, a politically powerful church obfuscates the perceptions of the constituents of the church, the people who presumably opt to identify with that mission. This development results in divided loyalties between eternal and temporal authority. It is devastating to all too many people and societies in such measure that demands the question of this thesis, inasmuch as Jesus claims that, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other…”219
218
1 Cor. 15.14-19 219 Matthew 6:24
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