Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul gives us the first extant written account of the Lord’s Supper.

He starts with the well-known phrase, “On the night our Lord Jesus was betrayed…”

But, “betrayed” may well not be the right translation.

Many Greek verbs have three voices — the active and passive ones we know in English, and a “middle” voice, a sort of reflexive voice.

Now, the Greek verb παραδίδωμι looks the same in middle and passive voice. But, it has different meanings.

In the passive, it does mean “betray.” But, in the middle, it normally means “hand over,” as in hand over someone to authorities. A similar meaning is “hand up.”

Good and real critical New Testament scholarship believe this is what Paul means. He never, in the epistles he clearly wrote, talks about a Passion Plot, a Roman arrest, or the melodramatic literary angle of a turncoat named Judas.

For more on παραδίδωμι see Liddelland Scott. In the NT, per Strong's, note that all translations of "betrayed" or "handed over" in other passages involve an agent, unlike here. More from other lexicons.

That gets us to the first “pseudo-Paul.” In addition to it being quite certain that Paul never wrote the “Pastoral Epistles” of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, which weren’t written until the end of the first century CE, or even early in the second, an earlier pseudo-Paul (or two) is believed to have written Colossians and Ephesians. Relations between these two books are unclear, but both likely were written no later than 30 years after Paul’s genuine books, by someone closer to the Pauline mileau than the Pastoralist of another 20-40 years later.

Well, both Colossians and Ephesians discuss what can certainly be called “esoterica,” whether they are talking about issues that can clearly be labeled Gnostic or not.

In Colossians 2:20, “Paul” tells his readers, “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world….” The word in Greek, στοιχεια, is a word with plenty of use in Gnosticism, although it has plenty of pre-Gnostic use as well. As an “elemental principle,” it can be understood as a stage to be overcome by the Gnostic initiate’s battle to return to the All.

NOTE: "Gnosticism" is a handy hook in the headline, more than "proto-Gnostic," "pre-Gnostic," "quasi-Gnostic," or "Gnosticizing." I know that the question of when Gnosticism started, what "full blown" Gnosticism entails, ie, a philosophically "necessary" minimum list of items, and related issues are a minefield. And, you have folks like some from Westar/Polebridge land who claim that Gnosticism never existed, which I reject.

So, tying together Colossians and 1 Corinthians, did Paul mean that Jesus was actually “handed up” to the “elemental powers”? In other words rather than the soteriology of the Pastoral Epistles, themselves connected with similar soteriology stances of dying-and-rising eastern Mediterranean savior gods, was Paul instead talking about Jesus as a sacrifice to Gnostic powers? Also, whether "Gnosticizing" or not, see this commentary that suggests the option that God, not Judas, was the one doing the handing up.

It seems likely. Mystery religions, after all, we know had their own mystery-fellowship dinners, from which it is believed Paul borrowed ideas that he fused into Passover concepts to produce his “Last Supper.”

If that’s the case, the genuine Paul was more a proto-Gnostic than later followers, let alone conservative Christians today, might want to accept.

Update, Oct. 17, 2022: Per the one good idea I got from a Westar book I read earlier this year, I no longer think that mystery religions were the main non-Jewish source of ideas for Paul to develop the Eucharist, setting aside that Synoptic-Johannine division means we don't know that Jesus was eating a Passover meal anyway. Rather, I see Paul as being influenced by the symposium-like meals that Hellenstic guilds held, usually monthly or so, in cities of any size, devoted to their patron deity as part of that. In other words, Ephesian silversmiths met and had a "symposium," and likely with Artemis as patron. Per the likes of some scholars dividing the Pauline church's observations into a "Eucharist" and an "agape meal," this idea isnn't brand now.

But, such borrowing does not undercut the possibility of Paul being a proto-Gnostic.

Also, if that’s the case, pseudo-Paul of Colossians either didn’t understand the genuine article that well, or else thought that others’ interpretation of him had gone too far, or else did understand him well and deliberately reinterpreted him.

How, then, did we get to Mark, the first gospeller, creating the "betrayal" story?

A combination of misreading Paul plus creative reading of the Old Testament, namely something like Psalm 69:22-28, and Psalm 109:6-12.

Peter allegedly took these verses that way in Acts 1.

In Gnostic and semi-Gnostic Christianity, the idea of Judas as Jesus' twin, as in Judas Thomas (Aramaic for "twin") certainly added to Gnosticizing takes on the idea of Jesus' betrayal.

As for "who was Judas"? Well, his second name, "Iscariot," has caused critical scholars puzzlement as well. It has sometimes been considered to be "Ish Kerioth," or "man of Kerioth." Problem — that is a village in what is today the Kingdom of Jordan, or biblical Transjordan, and all of Jesus' other disciples are described as coming from Galilee. Others claim it derives from the Latin "sicarius," which in the plural came to be used for dirk-wielding Jews knocking off Romans and collaborators and hoping to start the revolution. After all, all three Synoptics have Simon the Zealot as a follower, one of the Twelve. ("Cananaean" in Mark is simply the Aramaic word for the Greek "Zealot," and either an indication that Mark was trying to hide something, or, along with some of his geographical befuddlement, an indication of how clueless he was.) Problem — Josephus says the Sicarii didn't arise until the late 50s CE. However, Mark could have used it anachronistically.

In any case, it should also be noted that Paul created the Eucharist. And, he had no Judas in it. And, Jesus likely wasn't betrayed. Indeed, as an interlinear clearly shows, earlier in that same chapter of I Corinthians 11, where Paul claims the direct revelation of the Eucharist to him (he does, and critical NT scholars who claim he got this information from the Jerusalem gang are full of it), another form of the verb παραδίδωμι is used by Paul to talk about the revelation he is "handing on" to the Corinthians.

And, I'm nowhere near alone on the issue. Fitzmyer, among "name" biblical scholars, believes Paul invented the Eucharist. See more on this issue, including what the Didache may or may not tell us, and more, on base-level discussion, at Wiki. Among other scholars of modern times seeing the Eucharist as an invention by Paul, and even more "radically" than Fitzmyer, are Robert Funk and Roy Hoover in "The Five Gospels." See especially pages 139-40. See more specific to Paul from this blog site citing Hyam Maccoby, among others.