The Origin of Paul's ReligionMachen, J. Gresham (John Gresham)
Religion
The Origin of Paul's Religion
Machen, J. Gresham (John Gresham)
Bible. Epistles of Paul -- Theology; Paul, the Apostle, Saint
including Paul, had a spiritual rather than a physical conception of
the risen body of Jesus; there was no extended intercourse, it is
supposed; Jesus appeared to His disciples momentarily, in heavenly
glory.
But this entire representation is diametrically opposed to the
representation in the Gospel of Luke and in the Book of Acts. If
there is any one writer who emphasizes the plain, physical character
of the contact between the disciples and their risen Lord, it
is the author of Luke-Acts. In proof, it is only necessary to
point to Acts x. 41, where it is said that the risen Jesus held
table-companionship with His disciples after He was risen from the
dead! But that is only one detail. The author of Acts is firmly
convinced that the contact of the risen Jesus with His disciples,
though not devoid of mysterious features, involved the absence of
the body of Jesus from the tomb and an intercourse (intermittent, it
is true, but including physical proofs of the most definite kind)
extending over a period of forty days. Nothing could possibly be
more directly contrary to what the current critical view regards as
the real account given in the primitive Jerusalem Church and by the
apostle Paul.
Yet on the basis of that modern critical view, Von Harnack and
others have maintained that the book in which so false an account is
given of the origin of the Church was actually the work of a man of
the apostolic age. It is no wonder that Von Harnack's conclusions
have evoked an emphatic protest from other naturalistic historians.
Luke was a close associate of Paul. Could he possibly have given an
account of things absolutely fundamental in Paul's gospel (1 Cor.
xv. 1-8) which was so diametrically opposed to what Paul taught?
He was in Jerusalem in 58 A.D. or earlier, and during years of
his life was in close touch with Palestinian disciples. Could he
possibly have given an account of the origin of the Jerusalem Church
so totally at variance with the account which that church itself
maintained? These questions constitute a complete refutation of Von
Harnack's view, when that view is taken as a whole. But they do not
at all constitute a refutation of the conclusions of Von Harnack
in the sphere of literary criticism. On the contrary, by showing
how inconsistent those conclusions are with other elements in the
thinking of the investigator, they make only the more impressive
the strength of the argument which has overcome such obstacles.
The objection points out the antinomy which exists between the
literary criticism of Von Harnack and his naturalistic account of
the origin of Christianity. What that antinomy means is merely that
the testimony of Acts to the supernatural origin of Christianity,
far from being removed by literary criticism, is strongly supported
by it. A companion of Paul could not have been egregiously mistaken
about the origin of the Church; but literary criticism establishes
Luke-Acts as the work of a companion of Paul. Hence there is some
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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