Newton's Cat

Romans

1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,

2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)

3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

5 By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:

6 Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:

7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

10 Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

11 For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;

12 That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

14 I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.

15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Newton's Cat,

Are you suggesting that all the text in red are later additions? I would quite agree with this. The text reads much more smoothly when we take them out.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

BALDUCCI

I agree...nice example, and very typical of large swathes of the NT

Chris Weimer

Oh yes, very nice. Nevermind that you have no evidence at all for this baseless assertion...

Chili

I disagree but maybe that is because JC doesn't owe me anything.

Clouseau

What about Romans? Does this thread have anything to do with Romans?

DCHindley

What Newton's Cat has done here (I am assuming it is his own composition) is very similar to something I have been working on for about 30 years. If he has discovered anything close to what I think I have, then it has everything to do with Romans, even the entire Pauline corpus of writings.

If one tries to follow the logical progressions of arguments, one is confronted with a bewildering mess of apparent digressions. In some cases it appears that the arguments never get concluded.

When I tried this about 20 years ago, I was able to find conclusions to almost all of the lines of argumentation. The clauses and sentences that did not directly correspond to these lines of argument were bracketed off for later analysis.

After having done this to several letters, it became evident that in the Greek there were peculiarities to each set of data that suggested stylistic differences.

QEOS is always anarthrous in the bracketed material (i.e., "god" as in "divinity" and is usually a modifier describing some characteristic of Jesus/Christ), but takes the definite article in the lines of agreement (i.e., "The [supreme/real]" God).

KURIOS is used in the opposite manner in the lines of argument (anarthrous, except in quotations from the LXX, = clearly serving as a circumlocution for Hebrew YHVH, and taking the definite article in the bracketed materials = always referring to Jesus/Christ).

The bracketed materials ranged from short phrases and clauses apparently intended to tell the reader what Paul was "really" talking about, to commentary to hymns to Christ to long segments of household and moral codes. The commentaries seemed to be defensive in tone and frequently assert something far at variance to what the lines of argument seemed to be saying.

This kind of odd mixture of an argument can be discovered in all 13 Pauline letters (disputed and undisputed). The fully developed arguments are almost always about the relationship between "faithful gentiles" and circumcised Jews. They all depend on the key argument that Abraham (well, actually Abram at that point in time) was declared righteous in God's eyes at the point he believed God's promises to him and his descendents, but before he had himself circumcised. This key argument concluded that faithful gentiles should be understood as Abram's spiritual descendants and thus heirs to the same promises. In other words, faithful gentiles and circumcised Jews could and should associate together.

In the section that Newton’s Cat cited, the complete lines of reasoning are as follows:

ROM 1:1a Paul,
1b - 7a [...]:
7b Grace to you and peace
7c [...].
8a First, I thank my God
8b [...]
8c for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.
9a For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the good news
9b [...],
9c that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers,
10 asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.
11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,
12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.
13a I want you to know, brethren, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well 13b [...].
14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish:
15 - 18 [...].

The bracketed material is as follows:

ROM 1:1b a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the good news of God
2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures,
3 the good news concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh
4 and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
6 including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ;
7a To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints
7c from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
8c through Jesus Christ
9b of his Son
13b as among the rest of the Nations
15 so I am eager to preach the good news to you also who are in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the good news: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "He who is righteous shall live through faith." (Habakuk 2:4)
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unGodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth


I'm willing to dinker with the bracketed material, as some of it may be genuine, but generally if I bracket it I felt that it had some sot of relationship to other bracketed materials, and didn't voilate the sytlistic "rules" I had previously identified.

Simplistic, perhaps. Interesting, for sure.

Dave Hindley
Newton Falls, OH USA

Clouseau

This argument is not found exclusively in Paul. Neither can it be said to be Paul's hobby-horse.

Surely, from the OP, Newton’s Cat takes the view that Paul invented Jesus as Christ rather than made an attempt to broaden the gospel to Gentiles.

DCHindley

It shouldn't make any difference if other writers take up a similar theme. There will allways be overlaps. I would suggest that "Paul" knew nothing of Jesus at all. The Paulines as we know them were edited by a Christian redactor and published in their current form. The faithful gentile angle was common to both movements.

The Paul movement has a "good news" that faithful gentiles could claim the same promises, and perhaps the same social priviliges, as Jews, and was composed of gentile members of Jewish households, or their retainers, with paul - a more or less observant Jew, urging them on.

The Christ movement, by contrast, had a "good news" in which Jesus was seen as a divine saviour figure, Christ, and worshipped in a manner resembling a mystery religion, and comprised of or led by gentiles who had once converted to Judaism, experienced a severe disappointment, and lapsed, now seeing themselves as the "true" Israel.

Dave

Clouseau

[QUOTE=DCHindley;4522864]It does rather discount the view that it was all Paul's idea.

Why is that?

Evidence for this?

That's circular, until and unless it can be proved that there was a Paul movement.