mrmoderate

And maybe people like this are just plain wrong. From his writings it would seem that Maccoby was obsessed with anti-Jewish issues and saw this attitude everywhere. T.S. Elliott wrote Christian oriented material so he must be anti-Jewish, right? Paul, even though is claimed to be of the Pharisee himself, lived and died a good Jew.....but, because he felt that Jesus was the Messiah he must have made it all up, right? Gimme a break, Maccoby was just another bigot. Maybe a bit more diplomatic about how he discredited those who he did not like or ideas that he did not agree with but a bigot none the less.

It is however a shame when the world loses anyone who makes us think. I hope Mr. Maccoby is where he believed he would be.

Toto

Excuse me. Are you trying to trivialize or deny Euripean anti-Semitism?

T.S. Eliot was a man of his time, and his time was full of anti-Semitism. Are you saying that there is no anti-Semitism in his work? (A casual web search pulls this up: Do you have anyone other than Paul's word that he was a Pharisee and lived and died a good Jew?

Please do not throw the word "bigot" around in such a loose and baseless fashion - it may possibly lose its meaning.

Al Kafirun

Ditto

Amaleq13

I got the impression that you had not yet read Maccoby. I know I haven't found that to be the case while reading The Mythmaker. His primary concern, with regard to Judaism, is that the Pharisees are inaccurately represented as opposing Jesus when he thinks it more likely that they would have either supported him or viewed him with a cautiously optimistic or neutral opinion.

Paul also claims he is willing to "be" whomever he is addressing in order to get his gospel message accepted. If Paul was such a "good Jew", why would he have been repeatedly beaten by his fellow Jews whenever he tried to preach his gospel? Reading his letter to the Galatians, one gets the distinct impression that Paul considers his Judaism a thing of the past.

It is statements like this one that make me doubt you have actually read Maccoby. Actually, it makes me wonder if you've read Paul because he clearly considers Jesus to have been much more than "just" the Messiah. In fact, Maccoby's thesis is that Paul has invented almost all the beliefs of Christianity except the belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

mrmoderate

It is ridiculous to accuse me of claiming that anti-Jewish attitudes do not prevail. I know that they do and always have. That does not make people like Maccoby right for seeing anti-Jewish sentiment within everyone that did not agree with him. The screams of "anti-semetism" are about as overdone as the screams of "it's because I'm black". Not every issue has to do with race.

Paul was not a Jew? How conveniently members of this forum just discount whatever they don't want to be by saying it just wasn't so. For all we know, Maccoby wasn't a Jew either. After all, Grey Owl turned out not to be an American Native Indian as he was thought to be. Oh yea, turns out Grey Owl was a Jew.

Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah were the only Jews who beat Paul and other followers of Jesus. Of course, the only way for today's bigoted Jews to keep up the anti-Jewish rheteric that they claim from the New Testament is to claim that all of the writers who are described as Jews were lying. This is the same mindset that the 4th century Romans had when they created the anti-Jewish attitude in the Roman Catholic Church.

I'm sorry, but bigot is not too strong of a word to be used for someone who distorts literarture to cause racial seperation. White Supremists, Muslims and some Asian cultures do this all the time.

Al Kafirun

There's more to Paul not being a Jew than the say so of a couple of folks. Maccoby points out his often convoluted and failing attempts to sound Pharisaic even while speaking with a clearly held belief in apocryphal Jewish texts and Pagan tradition. Then you have the claims about his Pharisaic education that seems to fall through, followed by the infamous admission of engaging in the noble lie (setting the standard for evangelical Christianity for centuries to come).

Rather than argue... just go out and read his books or the excerpts released as articles. Even if you don't agree with the conclusions you'll see where he was coming from.

Toto

I do not recognize Maccoby from your description. You have presented no evidence that he distorted literature, or that he intended to or did cause racial separation. He is providing one of many interpretations of a few historical figures.

Please do not use the word bigot again unless you can support it.

Al Kafirun

Mel Gibson is just being a good Catholic with 'The Passion', but Hyam Maccoby reconciling the NT with Jewish history makes him a bigot? It'd be a lot easier if Christians just re-wrote the NT with a specific Indo-European setting and no discernible past.

Amaleq13

Where is your evidence that Maccoby has accused anyone of "anti-Jewish sentiment"?

This continual evidence of sloppy reading does not suggest I should rely upon your summaries of the references you claim to have read. It has already been explained to you that Maccoby presents a strong argument against the notion that Paul was, as he claimed, a trained Pharisee. He goes on to suggest it is possible he wasn't even a Jew but, if I am reading him correctly, Maccoby appears to consider it likely Paul was the child of "God-fearers". According to him, it was not unusual for such children to make a complete conversion at some point.

The evidence of Acts in its depiction of Gamaliel's response to Jesus' followers denies your assertion. Where is your evidence that Jews beat those who followed a messianic claimant?

It is far more credible to claim that Paul was beaten because his gospel contained claims that were contrary to Judaism and that does not include calling Jesus the Messiah. Claiming that belief in Jesus rendered the Law ultimately irrelevant or claiming that gentiles did not need to conform to the Law yet could be considered members of the "chosen", on the other hand, might cause anger in the Jews of Paul's day.

You seem to me to be trying to introduce a personal agenda where it is clearly inappropriate and irrelevant.

Javaman

I'll repost here that Hyam Maccoby's The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity is on sale for under $7 at Barnes&Noble if those that hadn't actually read it wanted an inexpensive copy. I haven't read anything I'd deem bigoted in this book.