Rick Sumner

And all of that works fine, so long as we strike "Jesus and the crucifixion are at the core of. . ." That isn't the core of the gospel that is uniquely Pauline, and is not what he--repeatedly--emphasizes has been revealed by God and scripture. We might quibble over how much "salvation through faith" is Pauline rather than Lutheran/Augustinian, but the gist works for me.

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. I invite the reader to determine for themselves whether or not you're reading Galatians or reading into it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

I know no such thing and I don't recall you ever suggesting otherwise the numerous times I've pointed this out. And your argument continues to give this appearance as long as you insist that 1:12 must refer to everything Paul believed about Jesus.

Yes and I will continue to call it as it appears unless and until you offer clarification. Everything you've written in our discussions suggests you consider Paul's reference to "gospel" to always mean everything he believed about Jesus.

Still dragging out that tired straw man? If I had presuppositions, they were in your direction but I have since been convinced against them. In reality, all it requires is for one to just read Paul's letter as a whole without presuppositions. The story that results from your position, as you described in the original thread in which we discussed this, is simply incoherent and unbelievable. You have Paul persecuting generic messianists for no known reason and going to visit some important generic messianists for approval (who may or may not have been associated with the persecuted messianists) who, other than some sort belief about "a messiah", have no apparent connection to anything Paul preached. Lastly, the story your position produces utterly fails to explain why Paul differentiates his "good news" from those who preached circumcision as though that was primary.

The context certainly does suggest Paul is referring to the "good news" he uniquely taught to gentiles as opposed to those teaching them that adherence to the Law was required. And the context certainly does not suggest that anything else about Paul's "good news" was opposed or even different from the other.

Rick has already provided a better answer than I could. Paul is talking about his unique, gentile-specific, "good news" from the opening through 12 except where he refers to those preaching an opposing "good news".

Save this bullshit for someone more easily intimidated.

spin

Yup. And that's bunk too.


spin

spin

Just show me an earlier gospel that has Jesus and the crucifixion at its core. Otherwise you are being loose with the facts. And I think that's just what's happening.

What Paul emphasizes repeatedly throughout Galatians is faith in Jesus rather than practising the law. His gospel against the other gospel.

Paul talks of being made just through faith in Galatians ("for if righteousness/justification comes through the law, then christ died for nothing", 2:21 -- and you wanna say that christ and crucifixion isn't at the core of Paul's unique gospel). "In christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accounts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love." (5:6) Umm, faith in what?

If you must take the easy way out. I'd prefer to bludgeon the evidence out of you, rather than watching you duck and weave... and chicken out -- sting like a butterfly, float like a bee.


spin

Amaleq13

Weird how you calling it bunk completely fails to make it a less credible reading of Galatians.

spin

Just that it doesn't deal with the text. And you also can't deal with the text. Instead, you're now left saying someone can say it better than you. We agree on that, because it's what I've been saying as well. Rick's rescue has left you where you started, nowhere. You have to get yourself out, but you've abandoned the text and Rick's abandoned you.

All I've done is propose that the gospel that Paul taught was that which he received by revelation in Gal 1:12. I've said what that gospel basically is: the faith in Jesus which brings righteousness made possible by the crucifixion. Paul throughout Galatians contrasts his Jesus-centered gospel with the necessity of following the law. All you learn about the others' beliefs is what Paul tells you, which is not much, but we know it isn't centered around faith in Jesus, but around observance of the law.

We also know that Paul's "conversion" was seen as a turn towards the beliefs he'd persecuted, which is underlined by his seeking support from the pillars of the extended community in Jerusalem, but that only brought out the differences between them. Not Jesus but the law. Not faith but works. Paul got no joy from them.


spin

gurugeorge

Back to basics:

The "good news" is news of a victory won: that is Christ's (spiritual) victory.

The version of this "good news" that Paul derived from the Jerusalem crowd was continuous with the Messiah myth (it's a variant of the Messiah myth) and threfore it was Jew-oriented - i.e. it was a victory won for the Jews, albeit spiritual and not military.

Paul, in a flash of genius, simply extended the "victory on behalf of whom?" to the Gentiles.

There's room for this conceptual extension because it's a spiritual victory (and not merely a military victory that would have put the Jews on top and logically blocked gentile salvation by the Messiah, unless of course you were a Jew and thought everyone would be happier ruled by the Jews).

aa5874

"Paul" was a genius? And what "victory" are you talking about?

This is the letter writer in 1 Corinthians 1.23 What genius? What victory?

This is a letter writer in 2 Corinthians 11-24-25 What genius? What victory?

The letter writer was preaching "foolishness" to the Gentiles and was a stumblingblock to the Jews and was getting his butt beaten to a pulp. The letter writer was a disaster.

"Paul" the letter writer was bad news.

gurugeorge

Hehe might have known you'd show up

My understanding of the meaning of the word "gospel" is that it's pre-Christian usage was that it was the kind of news a herald delivered of a great victory won.

If "Paul" is using it in a metaphorical sense (i.e. cleverly riffing off the greek word), he can only mean some kind of victory that his Messiah won.

Otherwise, why was the word "gospel" used?

Since it can't have been a military victory (i.e. the kind of great military victory against the Romans that the expected Messiah might have won), and since there are strong indications of spirituality in "Paul" (in fact, of a kind of spirituality that faintly resembles a cross between Gnosticism and "old time religion", complete with glossolalia, prophecy, etc.), a spiritual victory would seem to be the obvious candidate.

Unless you can think of another kind of "victory" that might have been meant, such that use of the term "gospel" was relevant (i.e. made sense as a metaphor)?

That some people didn't find his message to be the good news he found it, or that he was persecuted for it, or that people didn't "get" it (in various ways), is irrelevant to how the Jerusalem people and he conceived it.

(Note: the above is neutral to HJ/MJ of course. Obviously I think the time-reversal, putting the Messiah in the past, was just a mythical trope that later developed a hardened historical quality; but a similar logic to the above would have been operative if there was an HJ, for most of the kinds of HJ I've seen touted.)

aa5874

Does the word propaganda ring a bell?

Justin Martyr wrote about christians who appear to have no knowledge of "Paul" with his revelations of "foolishness and stumblingblock".

Justin Martyr had the the memoirs of the apostles, the direct gospel from Jesus, not the propaganda and straw-man gospel, a product of dreams or hullucinations, of "Paul".