This is a continuation of my response to R.G. Price’s Case Against the Historical Christ. Like last time, we continue to look at Paul’s letters.
Many statements in the letters of Paul only make sense if Paul does not view Jesus Christ as a historical person
R.G. makes the claim that the letters of Paul only make sense if he didn’t believe that Jesus was a historical person. Is this correct?
This is a fairly lengthy section of Price’s post on the Jesus Myth. However, I’m not going to spend near as much time responding to it. I will not respond to each passage he presents but will make just a few observations.
One set of passages that Price shares are where Paul seems to speak of the coming of Jesus as a future event rather than a past event. This is supposed to be an argument that Jesus had not just appeared in history.
The problem is that the doctrine of the second coming of of Jesus is thoroughly embedded into the New Testament. This is not just in Paul but in the Gospels and elsewhere. The early Christians believed that Jesus had appeared and that he would come again. This is not a good argument against a historical Jesus.
The other thing Price does is share metaphorical statements that use aspects of the life of Jesus. Being crucified with Christ is an example. This must mean that the cross meant something other than a historical event.
This argument neglects to take seriously Paul’s aims in his letters. As argued previously, Paul was not trying to write a biography of Jesus. But he was trying to bridge between Jesus and the experience of the Christians. We are to be crucified with Christ, we are to be raised with Christ. These things are more than just historical events but they are not less than historical events.
Finally, I want to say something about the scope of Price’s claim. He says these letters “only make sense” according to this interpretation. The problem with this is that until the late eighteenth century, everyone thought they made perfect sense with a historical Jesus. Even today, the majority of not just Christians but scholars of all stripes still believe these letters make sense with a historical Jesus.
