Toto

Yes, this is what the epistle attributed to Paul says, but someone is just making it up. There is no reason to read Genesis 22 as referring to a single "seed" or assuming that the "seed" was Christ.

If you have faith in Microsoft products, does that mean that you can claim to be adopted by Bill Gates and claim some inheritance from him? :huh:

judge

Don't know about the didache, but Justin did try to use the OT in Dialogue with Trypho.

Ok fair enough. But maybe it was not what yahweh had been saying all along.
Maybe it was more than mankind was now ready to hear that racial differences and the racism should be left in the past (which to me, is the thrust of Galatians).

Previously the nations had operated and worshipped quite seperately, and with fairly barbaric laws at times (just check out the OT laws).

This may have been inevitable at that stage in our history, but now next stage was ready to be faced.

This seems to be a major message in the NT. Now there is "no longer jew nor greek". The "wall of seperation" was coming down.


Well yes the whole thing is puzzling and mysterious, and even moreso if we imagine aliteral yahweh literally dictating the OT (or the new).


I can just imagine him thinking the same of you!

Strong similarities I agree.
I hope some of this makes some sense.

Solo

You will note that Paul has nothing to go on scripturally for his thesis that faith in Christ surpasses the law of Moses.
Gal 3:10-14 e.g. would have been (and no doubt, was,) seen as an apostate reading of the tanakh generally and Deut 27:26 specifically.

But that's rhetoric, arnoldo. For Paul, the personal was theological, if you know what I am saying. He could not love anyone in particular, only humanity in the abstract.

Why not ? Paul himself was acutely aware of his 'foolish' appearance. (1 Cr 1:26 : 'but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise...'). Besides, you should know the Greek philosophers considered madness a gift of gods. Socrates in Phaedrus: "our greatest blessings come to us through madness (δια μανιας)". And like Paul, Socrates uses this paradoxically, as madness was looked upon the same way in Athens in 4th century BCE, as it was in Corinth in 1st century CE. Paul's social acceptance hinged on his ability to present himself as a genius struck by God's madness (which Socrates would have classed as "prophetic") and interpret this madness in those who were similarly afflicted, as the coming of Jesus Christ at the end of the age.


But like all manics, Paul was an agitator too, was he not ?
He too was conceited beyond the acceptable norm when he proclaimed himself the bearer of truths and secret wisdom that God hid from everyone else in the whole history of humanity. You can't see that ?

I'll grant you that Paul was much more ethically grounded maniac than the sybarites he fought with at Corinth, just as Winston Churchill would have a distinct advantage in the self-control department if it turns out that Hitler was a bipolar too.

Jiri

Solo

If you have faith in Microsoft products it does not matter what else you believe. You are beyond redemption

Jiri

storytime

Sarah, Hager, Kenturah, were all wives of Abraham. Probably more but these are mentioned. Each produced a firstborn son for Abraham.

Ishmael was already blessed and did not need a promise, and so the covenant of promise went to Isaac whereof "the seed" in Jacob called Israel would be recognized as receiving the promise through Isaac. In Israel the covenant was completed.

The one seed to whom the promise was predistined is Jacob called Israel.

Esau, the brother of Jacob received nothing. No blessing. God hated Esau.

Esau was Edomites, people God hated. God loved Jacob who produced Israelites. God loved Israelites.

Sons of Kenturah also did not receive the promise. Nor did all the cocubines who bore children for Abraham.

And what of Lot, the son of Sarah and Haran who was Abraham's brother, making Lot Abraham's nephew?

And Abraham's father, Tera, whose daughter was Sarah and half sister to Abraham. (Abraham got a lot of mileage out of that situation)

See how tricky it has become?

arnoldo

It's not tricky at all, in fact Paul addressed this issue in Galatians 4:21-28. And as previously noted Galatians stresses the importance of "adoption" rather than birth order.

storytime

But faith alone could not qualify as an adoptive process for acceptance into the family of God. OT command of God doesn't allow it. Circumcision of flesh and heart was the required protocol.

The wall of separation came down when a convert obeyed the required command of circumcision. Equality in this form discounted Jew or Greek as being separate.

The cross may be symbolic of Christianity but it holds no validity in Jewish doctrine. Paul didn't tear down the wall of separation as he maintained the doctrine of circumcision for Jews and no circumcision for Gentiles. Basically all Paul did was give Gentiles hope of joining the family of God[body of Israel], with entrance through the back door, so to speak. Also, it doesn't look to me as if Paul was recruiting Gentiles for a new religion outside Judaism. And he didn't change the religion of Jesus the Jew in his Judaism.

Why would Ephraim need to be adopted into the family of God[Israel] when he was already judged as part of the "seed" of promise as a son of Joseph? Jacob made the decision placing both of Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Menasseh, in his own house name of Jacob-Israel. Jacob then told Joseph that his other sons born to him in Egypt would be in Joseph's house name. This presents a separation of sons in House of Jacob-Israel, and House of Joseph-Egypt. Neither presenting Gentiles[idol worshipers] in a faith only doctrine.

arnoldo

If you could provide a quote that Paul was promoting circumcision amongst the Jews that would be greatly appreciated. Paul's opponents, on the other hand, were clearly promoting continued circumcision amongst the jews as well as the gentile converts. The choice amongst the gentile converts ultimately sided with Paul's (faith in the seed of Abraham) versus faith in cutting of the foreskin.

On a side note a hypothesis that Paul suffered from a DSM-IV disorder can be discounted if we take into account the context of Paul's boasting (which to the western mind can be seen as manic). Duan E Watson writes a chapter entitled Paul and Boasting (starting paged 77) which can be read here;

Paul and Boasting

Solo

Paul's boasting is only one of a number of indicators that Paul was bipolar. Paul's idee fixe that had been crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6, Gal 2:20, Gal 6:14) and that the euphoric, ecstasy (2 Cr 12:2-7) as revelation of paradisiac existence in afterlife is a reward for the stoic acceptance of life (in flesh) as suffering, would be today - without much of a doubt - be seen as articulation of bipolar disorder.

Watson's view you link to is interesting and he makes some important points about the Judaic traditions and boasting of one's relationship with God. But I do not agree with some of his key conclusions. Watson, for example thinks that Paul defends not only his apostolic authority in 2 Cor 10:13, which indeed he does, but also his honor. Paul himself repeats a number of times that he cares nothing about the judgment of other men, he understands the crucified Christ he preaches is folly to the Greeks. He repeatedly calls his teachings a folly (μωρία) and says that they are unavailable to the unspiritual man (1 Cr 2:14) Hence, he would not be defending his honor in the conventional sense Watson believes he did.

Watson also believes that Paul displayed irony in the "fool's speech" (2 Cor 11) using a tactic of affecting foolishness and being unskilled in an argument. I do not see Paul being ironic in the first section of the passage. He is being hortatory (11:4), then mostly defensive (5-11), saying in effect 'this is how you are repaying me for all I have done for you' , and finally expodes in a not-unfimiliar full-bore 'ad hominem' attack (12-14). A threat of divine retribution follows (15).
Paul becomes biting sarcastic in 17-18, and starts to boast of his persecutions, with an obvious fascination with the inventory of bad things that has suffered in his mission, including accidents and bad weather (23-30). Paul raves 'like a madman' (παραφρονέω) which alludes to his appearance when he is in the grips of Spirit. His boasting of weakness (the sign of genuinness of Paul's apostolic agency) ties to his 'paradoxical empowerment' by the cross (2 Cor 12:9, Gal 6:14). The problem for the psychologist of course is that one cannot love one's enemies or boast of one's weakness, without betraying signs of cognitive fusion

Jiri

storytime

The only scripts I found that support Paul's maintaining circumcision for Jews are these:

"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law[of Moses]; but if thou be a breaker of the law[of Moses], thy circumcision is made uncircumcision[unworthy]." (Rm.2:25)

"What advantage, then, hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way, chieflybecause unto them were committed the oracles of God." (Rm.3:1-2)

It looks like the point Paul was making to his brethren Jews was in the question: Why be circumcised if you are going to break the commandments of Moses?

Paul points out to his brethren Jews that "We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles" must also have faith as Abraham before he was circumcised, wherein Abraham obeyed God through faith, being uncircumcised, believed that God would do as he promised.

Paul's gospel is different than the gospel of Jesus, and the gospel of Jesus is different than OT commands of God for the people of Israel. I can find nothing in OT scripts that present Jesus as legit, and everything presenting him as a false prophet.

Paul's boasting seems to be in his aptitude to teach as a scholar. He boasted of his languages, his debating skills even if implied, his gifts of the spirit, so to speak. Basically Paul wanted people to know he was a learned Pharisee of the Pharisees, an educated man. I see Paul wanting to convey a message to the Gentiles while Peter, James and other apostles tackle their fellow Jews. But I also see a conspiracy of Paul first enacted by Peter whom Jesus called Satan.