Most People Insist That Two Separate Being Can Never Be One

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^‘I know your life as a [fisherman/stonecutter/dung harvester] is horrible, hard, and nasty, but if you’ll just follow me and do as your told, you’ll get a sweet deal when you die.’ - Religious hucksters, dawn of civilization-present day.

Boru

Very true, including many nominally Xian ones. I remember watching a Prosperity Gospel money appeal to find out what their approach was, and it was much, much worse than I imagined.

However Paul's 'return' was the exact opposite of that.

In 2 Corinthians, he is responding to a request for an updated CV listing his achievements, because his authority had been challenged. This was standard in C1 Greek society- the idea being to portray him as a hero.

In one of the darkest examples of humour I can think of, he lists (2 Cor 11) the beatings and sufferings he's had to endure, the very inverse of heroic achievements. If Jesus suffered, the ultimate role model, Christians must expect to suffer as well, goes his argument. “I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”. You want a CV? It's written in the scars on my backside.

And you can expect the same, he says to the Corinthians. Who know that already (2 Cor 4).

And he said the same thing to the Philippians (ch1) and to the Thessalonians (1Th 2,3).

I mean I might have got the rhyming scheme wrong on We Didn't Start The Fire, but I filled one verse off the top of my head easily, with plenty of material left for at least another couple of verses e.g. above. Everyone in C1 Mediterranean knew becoming a Xian was going to be very, very painful.

Rather than getting rich, as the leaders of this persecuted organisation, the earliest disciples got badly hurt for their troubles.

(Bold mine) 

Which is pretty neatly self-explanatory: You just expostulated that Christians were expected to suffer as a way to emulate Christ. So why is it a mystery that they were willing to suffer (and even die early)? I'm unsure why this behaviour strikes you as a puzzle. It doesn't even speak to the legitimacy question - all it shows is that the sufferers believed that Christ was divine, not that he actually was.

Boru