Ben C Smith

What is your point? Was he supposed to march into Rome, sword in hand? I have said it before, and I will say it again; people in the position Paul and his fellow Jews and Christians found themselves in cannot enact their will (or the will of their God) upon society at large. The best they can do is to found alternative communities based on alternative values.

And I do not fully understand that last clause.

Ben.

ETA: Refer to Luke 22.25-26 for a good picture of what I mean by alternative communities with alternative values; the Jesus in Luke cannot do much for or against the kings of the gentiles, but he can issue the servant command to his own followers.

show_no_mercy

Well there's that tradition that black people inherited the curse of Ham...

Zeluvia

The story of Noah and his son's is the most important part of the bible when it comes to racism. Like the hatred for homosexuals, you have to get all up in the old testament to find where these attitudes are justified.

There was a debate after the discovery of the new world on the status of native peoples because They could not be found in the bible, as descendants of Noah, therefore, they did not have souls.

Every "race" was deemed to be descended from one of the sons of Noah.

aa5874

Race is not really based on color, only that some races are easily identified by their skin color.

Josephus in his writings made mention of different races of people with no reference to skin color. Race is not a modern concept at all.

Toto

25 Jesus said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

Paul could not have abolished slavery in the Roman Empire, but did he advocate equality between men and women in the church? If he did, it was not forceful enough to persuade the editor who had him say that women should keep silent in church and listen to their husbands.

Is the presumed communalism of primitive Christianity history or myth? Do you think it really existed once there were more than a few hundred Christians?

Toto

The word "race" (corresponding to the Spanish "raza") has an alternative meaning of ethnic group or nation.

rhutchin

Certainly common in the OT, e.g.,

And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. (Exodus 3:17)

rhutchin

Agreed, but color can be used as a differentiating characteristic among broad categories of people.

The Dagda

I think the good Samaritan is a passage that decries "racism". But you have to understand that at the times The Bible was written racism didn't exist, it was simply tolerated.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LS_Uvg56U_o

This pretty much sums up the differences between modern history and racism. The NT certainly advocates tolerance of all peoples.

Ben C Smith

There is Galatians 3.28, already quoted.

There is also the evidence of Romans 16:

1. Several women are described as having toiled (κοπιαω, the same term Paul uses of his own missional endeavors in 1 Corinthians 4.12; 15.10; Galatians 4.11; Philippians 2.16 and of leaders in general in 1 Corinthians 16.16; 1 Thessalonians 5.12) in the Lord.
2. The most likely original reading for the name of the second person in Romans 16.7 is Junia (feminine), not Junias (masculine), and the wording would probably make this woman an apostle.

In Philippians 4.2-3 Euodia and Syntyche are said to have striven with Paul for the gospel.

1 Corinthians 7 is the model of reciprocity between the genders. Does the wife have duties to the husband? Very well, and the husband has duties to the wife. Does the husband have authority [εξουσιαζω] over the body of the wife? Very well, and the wife has authority over the body of the husband. Is it for the husband to eschew divorce? Very well, and it is for the wife also. Should the husband of an unbelieving woman remain with her? Very well, and so should the wife of an unbelieving husband. Is the unbelieving wife sanctified through the believing husband? Very well, and the unbelieving husband is also sanctified through the believing wife. Is the unmarried man free to do the work of the Lord? Very well, and so is the unmarried woman. Does Paul prefer men to remain single and celibate for that reason? Very well, and Paul prefers women to remain single and celibate for the same reason. This language is almost as prevalent, and every bit as repetitive, in this chapter as our modern he or she language.

The later editors and pseudonymous authors of the Pauline corpus lacked the Pauline (and dominical) egalitarianism, and sought to restore a measure of good old Greco-Roman (Aristotelian) social order.

I think it was the proposed ideal. I do not know how often it was really achieved. And I doubt it endured beyond the first generation or so.

The fate of all radicals is to be tamed into mere liberalism by the next generation... and often into conservativism in the generations that follow. (I recently caught a snippet of a Focus on the Family radio program which was dedicated either to reading or to acting out a story by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. My irony meter went haywire. Tolstoy was a radical Christian pacifist and Christian anarchist whose classic book The Kingdom of God is Within You and lesser known letter to a Hindu helped to inspire Gandhi, among others, and who would have been positively repulsed by virtually everything that Focus on the Family represents.)

Ben.