Amaleq13

I would be more persuaded by your claim if it was supported by something actually written by Paul.

Dharma

How would one think that "Abraham is the father of ALL nations" when Abraham himself could not establish a single nation for the tribe of Israel in their own book?

How can one justify the concept of "nationhood" through Judaism when they were a wandering nationless tribe for the most part of their history and other tribes and kings had their own nations earlier?

Rick Sumner

My chief problem with Macoby is that his suggestion that Rabbinics are accurately representative of a Judaism from centuries before. Real life isn't quite as static as Macoby imagines. If we think of Rabbinics as something of an evolution (which seems more realistic), we should expect to find cruder examples of it early on. I wouldn't go quite so far as to call Paul a Rabbi, but definitely familiar with early Rabbinics.

Nobody discusses it, anywhere, and virtually every minute point of the Law was debated. If anyone had sought guidance in the places you suggest, shouldn't we expect to find evidence of it?

I'd suggest that Paul (and likewise his opponents) were struggling to find guidance on a point that most thought (perhaps including Paul and his opponents, prior to their conversion) would be axiomatic--Messiah comes, Gentiles convert. How wasn't much of an issue--it would simply happen.

I'd suggest our specific knowledge is all but non-existent--Christian authors, and apologists like Josephus and Philo, neither of which can really be trusted to be painting an accurate picture.

What Pagan beliefs do you think Paul would be acquainted with that had a sacrificed godman? As Celsus has discussed at length here and at Ebla, it seems that the dying/rising Godman was a false category all along. A holdover of Fraser's tendency to make everything a fertility god.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

First of all, "ALL," is your own spiffy addition to my words. If you're going to put it in quotes, implying that it's taken from me, please post it accurately.

Secondly, Paul doubtlessly got the idea because scripture says so. Gen.17.4-5. That's Paul's source on the matter, after all.

Our concept of nationhood is decidedly different from the one Paul held in antiquity.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Dharma

Gee wiz, if I were quoting you I would be quoting you...I am not quoting you, I am using quotes for emphasis, I am talking about inferences made by Paul from the Old testament story of Abraham, about Abraham being the "father of multitudes" which is invariably interpreted by some Christians to mean ALL nations.


This is a MAJOR blunder by Paul. He is interpreting 'father of multitudes" to mean "ALL".

Rick Sumner

I'm not sure how any of this is relevant to the current point being debated.

Rick Sumner

Dharma

so are you now saying this is a bad translation of Paul:

"not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all,"

Now how does Abraham become the "the father of us ALL"?

Dharma

Paul is in direct contradiction of Jesus' own saying, "before Abraham, I am" Why in heaven's name would Christians care about becoming the seed of Abraham or circumcision, if they could simply believe in Christ, who was before Abraham? For Christianity to be solely Judaic, the entirety of the New Testament cannot be understood.

Also Christ states "YOUR FATHER ABRAHAM", not my father ( if he was Jewish):

Jn. 8:56: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad"

Again, my viewpoint is that the New Testament has multiple influences, not only Judaic and is a Greek attempt at syncretization of the major religions of the time. Christianity was formulated at Antioch, where there was a major Jewish population and a Greek King of Seleucids line, and thus it had to answer primarily to the Jews as long as the Greeks had their "sun God"..

Rick Sumner

Paul isn't justifying himself to his converts, he's justifying himself to his presumably Jewish opponents.

And the gospel of John wouldn't be written for another seventy years or so, what it says is really quite irrelevant to understanding Paul.

Further, the question of whether or not Christianity is solely Judaic really has no bearing on my post (which was the one you were responding to). I was addressing a specific Pauline position.

Huh? Are we to conclude from this that Jesus wasn't Jewish, or that the author of John thought that Jesus was not a Jew? You're kidding, right?

Such as? None of this follows from anything you've offered so far.

I'd love to see some evidence of this. The closest I can think of is Acts 11.26, which of course says nothing of the sort. And, of course, Paul who saw Christianity as simply an extension of Judaism (hence debate over how to enter the covenant), probably wouldn't care much more or less than any other Jew about Greek gods.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Dharma

The Gospel of John and Paul's interpretation were both written well after the supposed death of someone who might've existed named "Jesus"...

The point is that the Gospel of John is a part of Christianity just as the Paul's teachings are well after Jesus (we might never know if a Jesus ever existed as a human being or if it's purely myth)
Christos is a Greek word which was used for annointing GREEK gods NOT Jewish ones...I wonder why you think the Jewish Paul would be not Jewish enough to call this entire new religion by a Greek title rather than the Jewish title of the "messiach"...? I also wonder why the cross (a non-Jewish symbol for solar worship) was used as well if this were solely a Jewish religion and why this new sun God had similar healing powers as Apollo, the Greek sun God, and of course these stories about Jesus the healer and his death on the cross were in nearly all the Gospels.