Amaleq13

Wouldn't the author consider a gathering of those with faith in Christ to be a gathering of those with faith in God?

These are, from a Christian perspective, obviously equivalent metaphorical descriptions of one's faith. One is not literally the slave of the entity called "Christ". One has become a metaphorical slave to the concept represented by faith in Christ.

Not necessarily given Lord = God though, for a Christian, the reverse would be axiomatic.

One who has faith in God is not necessarily one who has faith in Christ.

Don't be obtuse, Ted. Are you genuinely thinking about what Paul is trying to convey or are you only focused on defending your position?

"We all believe the same things about Christ and that entails a complete change in our view of and reaction to the world" = "We are in Christ" and "We are members of Christ"

These are clearly references to one's faith in Christ rather than an actual individual. The only question is whether there is any explicit indication that "Lord" and "Christ" are being used synonymously in these metaphorical references to Christian faith.

TedM

I get what you are saying, but to be "in Christ" is to have faith in the being, Jesus Christ.

It looks to me like they are being used synonymously.

Your rendition, for example:

doesn't seem very fluent. Why toggle back and forth between God and Christ when making a point like this? It makes more sense to me that Paul is referring to his "Lord Jesus Christ" simply as "the Lord".

But, maybe that's just me.

ted

Amaleq13

You know it means far more than that.

Why toggle back and forth between Lord and Christ?

It seems a strange choice either way.

TedM

Less so, since Lord is a title Paul used for Christ (ie, "Lord Jesus Christ").

spin

?? The lord said to my lord...

TedM

Yes, there are some other passages that aren't so clear either. Paul wasn't the only one who did that.

spin

This one is perfectly clear, if you understood the simple grammatical difference I noted. Kickstart the brain, TedM.


spin

TedM

Yup, I did miss your point. But, the passage certainly was NOT perfectly clear, since it was one of the main messiac passages according to the Jews looking for that kind of thing. Also, while you give an example of 'toggling' that to you makes sense, it uses "the lord" and "my lord". That's different than contrasting "the Lord" with "the Lord Jesus Christ".

ted

Malachi151

Back to the passage at the center of this:

This just seems so odd to me. This reads like:

I DID NOT SEE ANYONE ELSE I SWEAR, oh, except that brother of Jesus guy.

Why would he mention him only in passing here, as an afterthought? If you take the "only James..." part out, it actually makes more sense.

It makes more sense that he would be so assertive. The "I swear" part is about NOT SEEING anyone else, not about seeing the brother of Jesus.

In addition, as has been pointed out, several scholars have noted linguistic oddities with the area of the text, Gal 1:13-2:14.

spin

You are making heavy weather of this. As I said earlier:

Most people want to make Paul confused because he uses "lord" in two distinct ways. I have argued that the few cases where the term kurios, as an absolute form rather than as an epithet, is clearly used for Jesus are in disturbed texts. (To explain, when the term kurios is used with a qualification ["my lord" or lord of something] or as a part of a reference to an entity ["peter potter the lord"], it is not an absolute form of the term.)

Check out Mark 12:9, which talks of o kurios tou ampelwnos, "lord of the vineyard", or Matt 24:50 ("the lord of the servant"), or Luke 10:2 ("the lord of the harvest"); these are metaphorical uses which require one to understand the literal use of the descriptive or titular o kurios in each case. The reference "my lord" is just a titular. In the LXX, the non-titular o kurios always referred to YHWH.

If you still can't get the distinction I've made -- a distinction which I think is transparent --, then there isn't much else I'll be able to say in order to help you understand.


spin