Amaleq13

Maccoby (Talmudic scholar) argues this in The Mythmaker. He argues that the Gospel portrait of Jesus being opposed by Pharisees is not authentic. According to Maccoby, Jesus' teachings are close and/or identical to Pharisaic teachings and the arguments attributed to them are not Pharisaic. He considers it more likely that Jesus was opposed by the Sadducee High Priest as a political threat. This pattern continues after the execution with continuing persecution of Jesus followers eventually employing Paul for that purpose. Within this context, it is highly unlikely Paul would be a Pharisee. Maccoby points to the depiction of Gamaliel in Acts as a more accurate portrayal of how Pharisees would respond to Jesus. Not with persecution but with cautious optimism.

More convincing (IMHO) and less dependent upon Maccoby's overall thesis, however, is his dissection of Paul's arguments compared to known Pharisaic thinking. I think Maccoby makes a pretty good case that Paul offers arguments that are contrary to Pharisaic thought. For example, Paul's reference to Deuteronomy in Gal 3:13 where he tries to explain how incredible the sacrifice of Jesus was by claiming he had deliberately taken on this curse. The Pharisee interpretation of this verse in Deuteronomy, however, was that the curse is upon those who leave the body hanging over night.

capnkirk has much more familiarity with Maccoby than myself but I'm not sure he is reading this thread. I've never known him to be reluctant to explain Maccoby's theory, though.

Bernard Muller

As written by Cicero (1st century BC), this text alludes to immortality of the soul and an abode (for the good ones) in the heavens, when the bad ones would swirl around the earth and below the moon. The mortal body perishes at death, but the mind/soul survives. There are many similarity with Paul's thought, including a visit to the heavens (and back) by an earthly (in a dream).
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancie...republic6.html

Kirby wrote:
Paul might have thought of that. Pharisees were heavily borrowing from the Gentile world, as it seems. For Paul the heavenly/spiritual body is a finite & discernable entity, which shall not be naked (but immortality seems to provide the clothes) (2Cor5:2, 1Cor15:53-54).

Best regards, Bernard

judge

Excellent point. We can see the same idea in Augustines writings on the subject.

Man whose nature was to be a mean between the angelic and the bestial was created in such sort that if he remained in subjection
to his Creator as his rightful Lord, and piously kept his commandments, he should pass into the company of angels and obtain without the intervention of death a blessed and endless immortality; but if he offended the Lord his God by a proud and disobedient use of his free will, he should become subject to death and live as the beasts do

City of God (Book XII, p.21)

Man was to have been changed or transformed into an eternal incorruptible state.

And again on the resurrection ....(emphasis mine)
"Now previous to the change into the incorruptible state which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, the body could be mortal (capable of dying), although not destined to die . . . In like manner was man's body then mortal; and this mortality was to have been superseded by an eternal incorruption, if man had persevered in righteousness, that is to say in obedience: but even what was mortal was not made dead except on account of sin.
For the change which is to come in at the resurrection is, in truth, not only not to have death incidental to it, which has happened through sin, but neither is it to have mortality (or the very possibility of death) which the natural body had before it sinned."

The Merits and Forgiveness of Sins (Book 1, p.5)

These explanation may play havoc with us as we are not used to thinking about "adam" the way they did. But to understand the arguments they used we may have to think like them

Infidelettante

In The Mythmaker Paul and the invention of Christianity Hyam Maccoby makes a strong case that Paul was not a Pharisee.

Some of his points are:

Gamaliel's defense of Peter in Acts reveals the true attitude of the Pharisees toward the early followers of Christ and so it is very unlikely a Pharisee would have worked for the Sadducean High Priest as Paul says he did in persecuting them.

Paul’s language and logic are Pharisaic only on the surface. Close examination shows Paul had very little understanding of Pharisaic thought.

Paul quotes from the Greek Septuagint. His writings reveal he may not have known Hebrew, impossible if he were a Pharisee.

Jesus was a Pharisee and the only teachings the Pharisees would have disagreed with were introduced by Paul after his conversion so there could have been no conflicts between the Pharisees and the early followers of Christ on religious grounds. The negative portrayal of the Pharisees in the gospels is a false one which supports Paul’s false claim to have been a Pharisee who persecuted the early church.

It’s a very interesting book and I’m going through it for the second time. Paul remains a puzzle skeptics should learn to use on the theists. Dig deep and there is very little of Paul that makes sense.

JT

judge

I don't think Paul does quote from the greek septuagint.
A good example of this is in Ephesians chapter 4 where he quotes psalm 68.

The quote he uses does not agre with the greek LXX or any hebrew version we have either!
It does howver agre with the aramaic targum of the psalms.

At times the HB quotes in the NT seem to agree with the LXX at times they seem to agree with the Hebrew texts we have today and at other times they seem to agree with the aramaic targums we have.

In other words the version they may have used no longer exists.
They were perhaps Aramaic targums (translations) that no longer exist, or hebrew versions that no longer exist.
We know from the DSS that there was a HB used then that is at times different from the version we received from Massoretic jews.

Mageth

Originally posted by judge
I don't think Paul does quote from the greek septuagint.
A good example of this is in Ephesians chapter 4 where he quotes psalm 68.

The quote he uses does not agre with the greek LXX or any hebrew version we have either!
It does howver agre with the aramaic targum of the psalms.

That may not be such a good example, as Ephesians is considered by most scholars to be a Pauline forgery written much later than the time of Paul, perhaps between 80-90 CE.

Bernard Muller

Judge:
Many quotes of the OT from Paul, 'Hebrews', '1 Clement', pseudo-Pauline epistles, gospels, etc. do not fit well anything. Some are cut & paste (sometimes from different texts), presented out of context, or/and with deletions & additions & rewording, all of that to fit their agenda or, in some case, because done from memory. Eph4:8 is typical as being agenda-driven. The "you" is replaced by "he". The "he" is Christ, but the "you" in Ps68:8 is God. Christ gave gifts to men (allusion to salvation) but in the Psalm, God is getting gifts from men.

Eph4:7-8 Darby "But to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ. Wherefore he says, Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men."
Psalm68:18 NKJV "You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive; You have received gifts among men, Even from the rebellious, That the LORD God might dwell there. "

Best regards, Bernard

Vinnie

I'm reading Maccoby now, and Crossan, and a bunch of other stuff

Bernard, I didn't list Meier to show "one scholar believes x". I cited five pages of text that have arguments and explanations from Meier. I consider Meier's volumes to be must reads for those who seriosuly study the HJ (which I consider you to be one of them).

Opinions on Josephus in relation to Pharisees have been legion.

Some view him as 1) anti-Pharisee, others, 2) pro-Pharisee 3) others think 3) diverse sources used by Josephus led to contradictory reports on Pharisees, still others think 4) Josephus shifts from anti-pharisee in War to more pro Pharisee in in Antiquities, yet some say 5) Josephus is nither anti or pro-Pharisee. He is pro Rome. When any group disturbs Roman pece he slashes them and finally, some thing 6) Josephus was never too fond of the Pharisess but at the end of his career the Pharisees had increasing influence and so Josephus jumped on the winning team.

The sixth seems likely to me. Josephus let up in his anti Phariseeism over time (as the wounds from the delegation sent to remove him healed) and jumped on the bandwagon. This is why he declared himself a Pharisee from the beginning. His religious statements are self-contradictory.

Josephus might not have liked it, but he jumped on the wagon none the less.

Vinnie

Infidelettante

From Maccoby: “The indications from Paul’s writings are that he knew very little Hebrew. His quotations from the Bible (which number about 160) are from the Greek translation, the Septuagint, not from the original Hebrew.�

Maccoby uses the example of the quotation from I Corinthians 15:55 “O death where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting?� saying it differs from the Hebrew which says, “Oh for your plagues, O death! Oh for your sting, O grave?�

JT

Edited to correct Maccoby’s quote of I Corintians 15: 55 which reads, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?�

judge

Quote:

From Maccoby: “The indications from Paul’s writings are that he knew very little Hebrew. His quotations from the Bible (which number about 160) are from the Greek translation, the Septuagint, not from the original Hebrew.� Maccoby uses the example of the quotation from I Corinthians 15:55 “O death where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting?� saying it differs from the Hebrew which says, “Oh for your plagues, O death! Oh for your sting, O grave?� JT Edited to correct Maccoby’s quote of I Corintians 15: 55 which reads, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?�

The Dead Sea Scrolls seem to fall into two categories.

1.The texts found at the eleven qumran caves and some fragments from masada (these texts agree with the LXX) ref. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 132, pp.15-26,
2.Those texts found at desert caves in the Wadi Murabba'at, the Nahal Hever, and the Nahal Se'elim. this group appear to reflect the hebrew text we use today.

Of the first group Professor Siegfried H.Horn Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan states that
'Paleographical studies show that the earliest Qumran scrolls were produced in the third century BC, and that the latest was in the first half of the first century AD The biblical text material from Masada predates the capture of that mountain fortress in AD 73, so all of the Qumran and Masada manuscripts were produced before the end of the first century AD''

The second group apparently were placed in these caves after 100 A.D.
Anyway the point is that at the time of Christ it seems that a hebrew version of the old testament was in use that is slightly different to the one we obtained from the jews in the middle ages.
Professor Horn says... 'I am quite sure that Matthew quoted from a Hebrew text that agreed with the Vorlage that the Greek translators [of the LXX] used.'

It seems that Paul,also, might have merely used a hebrew or aramaic text that agreed with the LXX against the massoretic hebrew text.
We know such a text existed from the DSS