CyberGroup Discussion - The New Testament

INTRODUCTION
Marcus Borg has focused our attention thus far with efficient words and images. The dull and exhaustive sort of thing all too lften the characteristic of theological writers is gone. And now we have an insight how he does that. He focuses himself. The chapter opens with him recalling his visits to the ground that Paul walked. And his choices? Thessaloniki - the oldest letter - the oldest part of our New Testament. And Phillipi - where Lydia lived - his first European convert.
Paul is the most important individual after Jesus in the birth of Christianity. He was responsible for its spread into the world. 13 books are attributed to him - scholars consider 7 are his. In addition to his own writing, the book of Acts gives an account of Pauls work although it does not completely support the letters. Borg will depend primarily on the seven letters.

PRE-DAMASCUS PAUL
Our anti-Semitic bias is brought about partly by misunderstanding Pauls beginnings and Borg well summarizes Paul's life. Born a Jew in Tarsus (Turkey). Roman citizen. He was very well educated, multilingual, a pharisee, a student of Gamaliel, and deeply committed to Judaism. He was also a tentmaker and thus able to make his living in any place.

POST-DAMASCUS PAUL
Borg coins the phrase "Jewish Christ-Mystic" to first describe the new Paul. 5 years after Jesus crucifiction Paul had his "Damascus Road Experience" which changed him from a persecutor of Christians to their most ardent advocate. The story is the earliest first hand account we have of a mystical experience. It includes the traditional elements of a mystical experience, formost among them the "knowing" replacing "believing". He then "saw" and was baptised. Baptism became for Paul a dying and a rising to new life with Christ. His own experience then was thoroughly part of his message and his mission.

PAUL the MISSIONARY
  About 25 years were spent travelling about the Greco-Roman world. Possibly as much as 10,000 miles! It was a life of extreme adventure and hardship.
  He was not a street corner preacher, but rather visited the urban Jewish communities that existed all over the Mediterranean world. His pattern was to visit, to proclaim Jesus, to build a church with a team of local persons and move on. It was then in this context that his famous letters came about, for in this way did he maintain support to these congregations.
  These people were not many. An estimate is 2000 Christians by the year 60 scattered in groups of 10 to 100 in size.

PAUL'S MESSAGE
  We tend to create a whole theology from his work, but they were not generated by Paul as that. They were rather responses to difficulty and conflict in community to which he would write. The agenda is not Paul's, it is the churches that write and whose concerns are implicit in the letters of Paul.
  LYDIA. Borg ponders on why Lydia would convert. Paul had a mystical encounter with God. But why would a "Gentile God-Fearer" like Lydia convert? He considers Paul would have 1 - declared Jesus the Messiah, 2 - told of Jesus death, 3 - told his personal story of conversion on the Damascus Road, 4 - told how Jesus was blind to divisions like Jew/Gentile, male/female., and 5 - the end of the age was near. That is, Paul was likely to have added together the stories of Jesus and Paul himself.
  JESUS IS LORD. This is the prinicple Pauline declaration. This use of "Lord" meant Jesus ideas replaced others in authority - like the equality issues, and that the dominion system was coming to an end. It meant lordship did not belong to Caesar but to Jesus.
  IN CHRIST. He uses this phrase 165 times. It is also central to his thinking. It stands in dialectial opposition to the phrase "IN ADAM". In these two phrases Paul declares his thinking. That we live in the state of Adam, and by grace come to live in the state of Christ.
  Today we think in terms of personal freedom of choice - to choose good over evil. Borg says that was not Paul's thinking. For Paul, sin and death had "dominion". It was the default condition of the human race. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. We have no power to be else. But God offers us this new thing. The freedom to be "In Christ" to replace the bondage of being "In Adam". This freedom is an exalted state - a new life.
  The characteristics of this new life are those things Paul spoke so eloquently and poetically of in 1 Corrintians 13 and Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
  FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. For Paul we all need then to die to the old and be re-born to the new life. Baptism then creates the symbolic participation of the new Christian with Jesus in his death and resurrection. Even the images of death have aspects important to this transition, for we are to present ourselves sacrifices to God. We are to surrender to this new agenda and so discover a new way of seeing and living.
  SOCIAL VISION. The equalitarian vision of community of the early Christians is also found in Paul. the celebration of eurcharist was both practical and symbolic for here the rich and poor would eat together.
  JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. This idea of Paul is a consequence of the others but it took the Reformation to seize it and recognize it's importance. Again we need to reflect on the implicit anti-Semeticism in Christianity. We often see the "LAW" as oppressive and cruel. Paul is not attacking Torah which he in many places shows respect for. Similarly, we must remember that "Jewish tradition taught that God forgives repentant sinners and provided means for mediating forgiveness."
  Rather Paul is reflecting that as found throughout history in secular and religious society, that the old way was one of trying to "measure up" - it was life according to performance. It was also not a matter of who is going to heaven - a later distortion of theology. It was not about replacing "works" with "faith".
  A NEW WAY OF THINKING. The abolition of a system of requirements. About relationship with God. That the freedom to live in this new style was a GIFT of GOD. The evidence of this new life was the above qualities centered on love. It was about the radical idea of equality in community - all equal before God.
  CHRIST CRUCIFIED. Another central idea. The symbol of the "Path of Transformation". It is crucial to notice the paradox presented by a crucified messiah. Messiah's were always conceived as powerful, as saviours of change, as overthrowers of those who had usurped power. Here was a messiah who lost the battle with power, so how could this be a display of power? First it was a display not of power but of God's love for us. Second it was by living life the new WAY, that the dominion system was to be overcome. Paul acknowledged this as a "stumbling block" but also as the heart of God's message.
  PAUL KILLED. Borg also ponders Paul's death. How incredible that Christianity alone of the world religions has both its founders killed. Perhaps their message makes domination systems then and now tremble?

Click on the 3 sections below for materials according.
SUMMARY	REFERENCES	COMMENTS