Ted Hoffman

We see it all the time even in government. Disagreeing politicians showing up in public shaking hands and declaring that they are not enemies. You are pushing for a naive reading of the text and asking us to shut out all else that Paul says contra the Jerusalem group just to accomodate your interpretation, which is leaning on one thin strand.
Let me turn your question back to you: what specifically did they agree on and where does Paul state that they agreed on that specific issue?

Ben C Smith

Do you see staunch pro-lifers listing anti-abortion positions and insisting that their opponents agree with them?

Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 gives a creedal summary and insists that the other apostles preach the same thing, to quote Doherty.

Already answered. They agreed that Jesus had been crucified, buried, and then raised again. I gave you the evidence from Galatians and from 1 Corinthians 15. You gave me a quote from Doherty which agrees with my own contention.

Ben.

Solo

Paul told Cephas, i.e. the senior member of the party at Antioch, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews ? Did I read that right ?

So, tell me then, what did the "compeling" of gentiles consist in in Gal 2:14 ? I read it in the same context as αναγκαζω in 2:3. Further, if you read the text without presupposition and commitments, you will not miss Gal 6:12-13, ...ie those who compel you to be circumcized do so only to hedge the truth about Jesus' Cross. They do not keep keep the law themselves !

So who eats with the gentiles and breaks kashrut, Ben ? The false brethren in Jerusalem ? Is that your "close and careful reading" of the text ?

Jiri

Ted Hoffman

You must have misread because Doherty disagrees with you. Paul on the whole disagrees with the other group. And Doherty says that his non-specific admission that they "preach the same thing" doesnt outweigh his dissenting views elsewhere whose countervailing presence "allow nothing of the sort".

2 Corinthians 11:1-6 Paul expresses his fear that his Corinthian flock may be misled by some "super apostles". He indicates that he is not inferior to the "super apostles". Who are the super apostles? It is not some unknown wandering Jews: it is the Jerusalem group who claimed apostolic authority over Paul and that is the main contention. Paul writes in 2 Cor 11:22-28:
His main issue is his apostleship, which is what he is defending. But he starts by telling them that the "super apostles" are preaching another Jesus.
Who is this other Jesus? Most likely a HJ.
An issue of apostleship blows up to a Christological issue. That is what we are seeing in 2 Corinthians 11.

Ben C Smith

Yes.

Of exactly what Paul tells us it consisted of in 2.12. Refraining from eating with the gentiles was a way (at least in the judgment of Paul) of pressuring the gentiles to change their menu, of compelling them to become more like Jews by eating like Jews.

Now, this is what Paul is telling us. You may be right that behind the scenes there is something that Paul is not saying, namely that Cephas was also requiring circumcision in addition to a kosher menu. But you may also be overinterpreting to get that.

So do I. And the relationship is one of opposites, since in 2.14 the gentiles are being compelled while in 2.3 they are not being compelled.

In 2.3 the original agreement between Paul and the pillars was, according to Paul, that gentiles like Titus were not to be circumcised (or, presumably, to be forced to follow the regulations that would accompany circumcision; see Galatians 5.3). In 2.14 Paul claims that Cephas is compelling the gentiles to follow Jewish food laws; this is inconsistent with the original agreement, according to Paul.

Ben.

Solo

No, Paul says no such thing. That is your interpretation of what Paul says. Gal 2:12 tells us that Cephas separated himself from the gentile table when James' people arrived. You have no textual ground on which to claim that Paul believed Cephas forced gentiles to change their diet. The "compelling" was obviously about something else.

....and hence Cephas' hypocrisis

Jiri

Ben C Smith

If Doherty disagrees that Paul and the Jerusalem group preached the same thing, please explain why Doherty wrote this:

While he allows in 1 Corinthians 15:11 that they all "preach the same thing," this seems restricted to the Jerusalem group itself....

And please explain why, when he talks about those who preached a different Jesus, he calls them various rivals instead of identifying them with the Jerusalem group.

Look. You may be right about Doherty. Maybe he agrees with you (do you have a better quote?). But, if he does, then he wrote clumsily here. And what matters is that Paul claims that he and the other apostles are preaching the same thing, and that Paul has just summarized in creedal form exactly what that same thing is, and that it includes the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Is that what verse 11 means?

I agree. The fact that Paul and the Jerusalem group preach the same thing does not negate the fact that there are other groups (various rivals, as Doherty puts it) who preach different things.

So far so good.

Your contention is that the super apostles are, in fact, the Jerusalem group. Then you present as evidence...:

...a passage that tells us an awful lot about these super apostles, but not that they were from Jerusalem. What are you hanging your hat on?

How do you know these super apostles were the Jerusalem group? I freely admit it is possible; I have even considered it myself in the past. But how do you know?

No need to go there. Let us stick to the issue at hand.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Galatians 2.12-14 (emphasis mine):

Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James he would eat with the gentiles; but when they came he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. (And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.) But, when I saw that they were not being straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all: If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel gentiles to live as Jews?

Computer geeks in Asia copy certain software programs, and various agencies ask: Why are you stealing that software? The act of copying the software is stealing (in the mind of those agencies).

A mother informs her teenage daughter that she cannot go out on Saturday night, and the daughter asks: Why are you ruining my life? The act of grounding the daughter is ruining her life (in the mind of the daughter).

Peter withdraws from table fellowship, and Paul asks him: Why are you compelling the gentiles to live as Jews? The act of withdrawing from table fellowship is compelling the gentiles to live as Jews (in the mind of Paul).

Ben.

andrewcriddle

Our Evidence for this is from Plutarch's Life of Pompey
Plutarch is writing long after the event at a time (c 100 CE) when Mithras had definitely become fashionable.

I am doubtful how much historical weight we should put on this given the extreme scarcity of references to Mithras in the Roman world until the 2nd half of the 1st century CE.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Plutarch is giving the trajectory of how Mithras got to Rome. This is quite reasonable, for Mithras had to get to Rome somehow from the east. It's not going to come directly from Parthia and the Cilician pirates were in the right place at the right time to be Mithras worshippers, ie they were just west of the Parthian Empire and Pompey did bring them back to Rome as slaves. That Mithras was popular in Asia Minor well before Plutarch's time can be seen with the frequent naming of kings in various kingdoms Mithridates (analogous to Theodotus).


spin