Duvduv

So he first went to Jerusalem to meet "Cephas" yet he states that he was unknown to the "churches of Judea" only AFTER he had gone to Syria and Cilicia and not before? And what does the little side statement about Judea have to do with his travels to Syria and Cilicia? Verse 21 sounds like it should come at the end. In any case, he already met Cephas and James, but was UNKNOWN to the "churches" (what churches?) of Judea.

And it's funny that he says he was persecuting the "Church" and only THEN mentions how he had been advancing in Judaism AND before that set apart from his mother's womb. The events should be in REVERSE order.

In any event, the report of the people in Jerusalem was that they heard of his persecution of THEM ("us") as if the report came from somewhere else entirely, not themselves, but the author doesn't say WHERE he was doing the persecuting, which must be why the author of Acts tries to set it straight but obviously did not see the text in Galatians since if he was persecuting in Jerusalem how could the people mentioned in Galatians not have known him?

18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas[b] and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me.

spin

So you say. But Paul as a conservative Jew aggressively dealing with the equivalent of heretics (such as messianic Jews) does make sense. However, what Paul didn't bargain on is that god had plans for him: "messianism is alright. In fact, let me introduce my saviour..."

(Members of our beliefs. Hence, "us".)

Why are you talking about persecuting in Jerusalem? There is no sign of it.

LegionOnomaMoi

Why not? First, the notions of both individual "christian" (or Jesus sect) communities and the conception of these as components of a collective unified community are not mutually exclusive. Second, we find repeatedly in Paul "the ekklesia" in addition to the plural. Third, there are parallels of this type of thinking (independent communities representing a unified single community) in e.g., the qumran documents. And finally, we even find "the ekklesia tou theou elsewhere in Paul e.g., 1 Cor. 10:32. In fact, 1 Cor. 10:32 provides evidence as to how Paul conceptualizes the community. He advices them to be inoffensive/blameless kai Ioudaiois kai Hellesi kai te ekklesia tou theou. Paul, by claiming to be a Pharisee, is at least aware that there are different groups/sects within Judaism. So by distinguishing the "community of God" from "Jews" he isn't necessarily distinguishing them from Judaism, whatever that meant. He is, however, distinguishing a unified "true" community (in his mind anyway) compared to other groups/races/whatever.

The point, however, is while projecting the modern conception of "the church" into Paul's use of ekklesia is quite problematic, the idea that Paul did not have a sense that the various communities composed of followers of Christ could be conceptualized as a dispersed but unified community, and/or that Paul did not actually do this, is not supported by the evidence.

Duvduv

It is kind of ambiguous, but what seems to come out is that the folks in Jerusalem heard a report from ELSEWHERE that in that UNNAMED location the believers were being persecuted.

But isn't it strange that assigning the event to Jerusalem in Acts does not cause any redactor to see a problem. But again, it is just as likely that the writer of Acts never saw Galatians. But whoever decided to canonize them should have been concerned about this glaring discrepancy and to fix it......

After all, why wouldn't the author of Galatians want to reveal the location of where Paul was persecuting just a short time after the crucifixion considering it wasn't in Judea, and by that short time there were already "churches" in Judea though the persecution was against one "church of God."

GakuseiDon

Pygmies.

spin

But it requires a hindsight of unifying the notion of the churches.

And in all cases but two it is rather clearly a specific church. But I spoke to this in the post you are responding to.

As you are not yet showing any solidity to your arguing, I'd have to know exactly which passages you are referring to. And Qumran is a very different situation.

Paul is talking to the Corinthians. The obvious reference in the passage is the church of god that is at Corinth. He's not talking about Jews around the world, nor Greeks around the world, but those that the Corinthians come into contact with. If you Corinthians go to the assembly give no offense to those you find there.

Then we get Paul making a general comment a little later in 1 Cor 11:16, "we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God". What happened to the singular? In

You are basically changing the subject. You aren't dealing with his use of the term throughout his writings. An ecclesia is a meeting of people. I don't think your 1 Cor 10:32 example works, which leaves the two that I specified earlier. The ones that don't fit in suspicious contexts.

But then, you are stating this without evidence other than your attempt with 1 Cor 10:32. What makes you think that Paul had an abstract notion of "the church"?

I think it's highly suspicious that the only times we certainly get abstract notion of the church it is related to Paul persecuting.

spin

I don't see you getting far with the reasonings above. We're talking about Paul and there are well known problems of trying to make sense of Acts in respect to Paul. Acts is much closer to established christianity than Paul.

Bernard Muller

to Spin,
I agree with you for the most part. I want to add:
The churches of Judea in Christ must have known a few things about Jesus (because they were in Christ). Were they fully Jewish Christians? We can only guess.
The beliefs of the "pillars" in Jerusalem were probably not Christian. But they believed in the Kingdom to come soon (as heard by JtB and Jesus) and the Kingdom would be for poor Jews. Later they enlarged the membership to God Fearers. Their Jesus was no more than a dead prophet.
Peter had direct experience with Jesus but certainly did not hear from him the replacement of the Law.

sotto voce

What did Paul teach that conflicts with established Christianity?

Duvduv

Considering that the gospel of Christ of Paul seemed to suggest that others couldn't be completely "in Christ" anyway, it's interesting how the author of Galatians could consider others "in Christ" without Paul himself.
What was the revelation of others that was comparable to Paul's among the Jews in Jerusalem providing for faith in the Christ?