Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 10-21-2008, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cabio

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickpecoraro

Acts 1:20-26 (King James Version)
20For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.

21Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,

22Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.

23And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.

24And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,

25That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.

26And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

It would appear that they were choosing an Apostle to replace the Apostle, Judas.

nickpecoraro

I agree, they were choosing an apostle to replace an apostle who was one of the twelve special apostles we know of as the disciples. There could have been more strict requirements for these positions.

Also it does not actually say that the man had to be there with them from the beginning. It just records that this is how they decided on who to choose as a replacement for one of the special apostles, a disciple.

Look at verse Acts 1.22, again.

Quote:

Beginning from the baptism of John, unto the same day that He was taken up from us, MUST one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.

The inclusion of the word "MUST" indicates a compulsory criteria. The writers called Paul did not qualify at all to be called an apostle based on Acts.

nickpecoraro · 10-21-2008, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by cabio

I agree, they were choosing an apostle to replace an apostle who was one of the twelve special apostles we know of as the disciples. There could have been more strict requirements for these positions.

Also it does not actually say that the man had to be there with them from the beginning. It just records that this is how they decided on who to choose as a replacement for one of the special apostles, a disciple.

Look at verse Acts 1.22, again.

Quote:

Beginning from the baptism of John, unto the same day that He was taken up from us, MUST one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.

The inclusion of the word "MUST" indicates a compulsory criteria. The writers called Paul did not qualify at all to be called an apostle based on Acts.

Good point AA.

Cabio....Perhaps we can agree that there are Apostles [Capital A] and apostles [lower case a]. Paul was a lower case apostle.

nickpecoraro

cabio · 10-21-2008, 09:52 AM

[QUOTE=aa5874;5615875]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cabio

I agree, they were choosing an apostle to replace an apostle who was one of the twelve special apostles we know of as the disciples. There could have been more strict requirements for these positions.

Also it does not actually say that the man had to be there with them from the beginning. It just records that this is how they decided on who to choose as a replacement for one of the special apostles, a disciple.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Look at verse Acts 1.22, again.

Quote:

Beginning from the baptism of John, unto the same day that He was taken up from us, MUST one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.

The inclusion of the word "MUST" indicates a compulsory criteria. The writers called Paul did not qualify at all to be called an apostle based on Acts.

Again, they were choosing an apostle to replace an apostle who was one of the twelve special apostles we know of as the disciples. There could have been more strict requirements for these positions.

Secondly, the word "MUST" does indicate something. What does it indicate? It indicates that they should become ordained as a witness. It has nothing to do with mandatory requirements. But in fact, the Greek word for “ordination” is not even used in this passage. The expression is literally, “must one be, or become, γενέσθαι genesthai, a witness with us of his resurrection.” The "must" has to do with becoming a witness, and not with requirements.

cabio · 10-21-2008, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickpecoraro

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Look at verse Acts 1.22, again.

The inclusion of the word "MUST" indicates a compulsory criteria. The writers called Paul did not qualify at all to be called an apostle based on Acts.

Good point AA.

Cabio....Perhaps we can agree that there are Apostles [Capital A] and apostles [lower case a]. Paul was a lower case apostle.

nickpecoraro

Yes, I would agree then with you that there are Apostles [Capital A] if by these we are referring to the disciples, and apostles [lower case a], Paul fulfilling these requirements.

nickpecoraro · 10-21-2008, 09:58 AM

[QUOTE=cabio;5615904]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Again, they were choosing an apostle to replace an apostle who was one of the twelve special apostles we know of as the disciples. There could have been more strict requirements for these positions.

Secondly, the word "MUST" does indicate something. What does it indicate? It indicates that they should become ordained as a witness. It has nothing to do with mandatory requirements. But in fact, the Greek word for “ordination” is not even used in this passage. The expression is literally, “must one be, or become, γενέσθαι genesthai, a witness with us of his resurrection.” The must has to do with becoming a witness, and not with requirements.

Dear Cabio,
What's your point?
Are you trying to promote the lower case apostle, Paul, to a Upper Case Apostle for some theological argument?

Paul was a minor leaguer, and the twelve were major leaguers.

nickpecoraro

cabio · 10-21-2008, 10:12 AM

[QUOTE=nickpecoraro;5615919]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cabio

Dear Cabio,
What's your point?
Are you trying to promote the lower case apostle, Paul, to a Upper Case Apostle for some theological argument?

Paul was a minor leaguer, and the twelve were major leaguers.

nickpecoraro

My point is simply that which was spelled out in my initial post. No theological argument, just a defense of Galatians 1:1, which has been attacked by saying it is incorrect for Paul to claim to be an apostle. That is all. And I think we have come to an agreement here that there is no problem.

nickpecoraro · 10-21-2008, 10:18 AM

[QUOTE=cabio;5615945]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickpecoraro

My point is simply that which was spelled out in my initial post. No theological argument, just a defense of Galatians 1:1, which has been attacked by saying it is incorrect for Paul to claim to be an apostle. That is all. And I think we have come to an agreement here that there is no problem.

Fantastic!
I'm happy that we were able to settle this issue.

But Paul's character is an issue. The man was a murderer [Stephen] and he did not have witnesses to the Damascus road incident which is his claim to fame.

nickpecoraro

Tortie Cat · 10-21-2008, 10:59 AM

In order to attempt any real understanding of this matter it is necessary to examine specific examples from Paul’s authentic writings in order to elucidate the actual terminology he employs in the ongoing development of his beliefs. Paul, was a complex, somewhat disturbed and ambivalent character. Although born, brought up and schooled in Judaism, he eventually became dissatisfied with his ancestral faith, considering it to be inadequate, particularly with reference to the problems of sin and individual salvation. He was not primarily an original thinker, but did possess a profound religious imagination. It is therefore more appropriate to regard him as a mythopoeic visionary than as a theologian. Moreover, his personality was often torn apart by violent inner conflicts. A charismatic preacher and indefatigable, peripatetic teacher, always restless and seldom tranquil, he was also periodically the victim of manic-depressive mood swings, often experiencing a terrible sense of discord and frustration between his actions as they actually were and how he would ideally have liked them to be.

The traditional view assumes that Jesus of Nazareth founded Christianity and that Paul was the most prominent proselytising envoy of the new faith. This however was not the case. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who did not in fact start any new religion, but merely sought to play an accepted role within contemporary Judaism. Paul created Christianity as a separate cult and achieved this by conflating existing Judaic and Hellenistic concepts into a powerful and all embracing story, sufficient to enable the development of a completely new world religion, being by its nature, both acceptable and intelligible to Graeco-Roman society.

Paul employed powerful methods to convey the significance of what he believed. His conversion experience had transformed him, and to his mind, the world was now a different place. It was evident to him that the crucifixion had of itself, completely altered the existing world.

“We yet proclaim Christ having been crucified, to Jews on one hand an offence [skandalOn] , to nations [ethnesin] on the other, folly.” [Ist Corinthians, 1: 23.]

“Christ redeemed us out of the curse of the Law by becoming on behalf of us a curse, because it has been written, accursed [is] everyone hanging on a tree.” [Galatians, 3: 13.]

To Jews, it was certainly outrageous to suggest that the Messiah had been a condemned criminal, conquered nobody and was then executed on a Roman cross. To Greeks, it was absurd to credit someone with the salvation of his followers when he had been unable even to save himself. Neither would any practising Jew have then [or now] regarded the Mosaic Law as a curse, but rather as a cherished and sacred blessing.

Paul envisaged the existing world as being subjugated by, the forces of sin and evil. The problem was so immense that the solution could only be conceived as something totally unthinkable. Jesus Christ, he proclaimed, had rescued the world from its enslavement and had died to save all mankind. Paul however, never fully explains exactly how such propitiation had been brought about.

The contemporary Hellenistic world was permeated with the cults of Saviour gods and godesses, although none were ever identified with real individuals who had lived and died in the recent past. This was probably of no importance for Paul, who perceived Jesus in mystical terms rather than as a strictly historical personage. He nevertheless, seems to have been familiar with the interpretation of Jesus as a servant [Philippians, 2: 7, Romans 15: 8] but was, however, far more interested in the idea of Jesus’ death as bestowing eternal salvation. The terminology employed by Paul when describing his perception of Jesus is complex, eclectic and somewhat ambiguous. He regarded him as being more than a mere human being, but not precisely equal with or identical to God. It was for later generations of Christian theologians to elucidate and develop the prototypes Paul had outlined.

The basic theme is that of the descent to earth of the divine saviour. This, of necessity, implies other narrative elements as follows. There are two distinct cosmic areas. Heaven, the spiritual realm and Earth, the material domain. Heaven is the upper abode of light and Earth the lower region of darkness. Rescue is needed from the dark prison of the earthly region and no entity subsisting here can secure release. Accordingly no earthly act of liberation is of any effect. No transfer from one area of the lower region to another via physical, moral or ethical exhertions is possible. What imprisons is the human condition, which is one of bondage to the powers of evil. From this stems the idea of original sin, a reinterpretation devised by Paul, from the Hebrew story regarding the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the primordial Garden of Eden. The original story and its Judaic exegesis, did not of course have these radical connotations.

This type of dualistic concept is identical with the religious system known as Gnosticism, now known to have existed before the inception of Christianity, though of course its development assumed many later quasi- Christian forms.

As has been noted,the contemporary Hellenistic world teemed with religious cults and esoteric philosophies that promised salvation of various kinds. Paul would no doubt have rejected them as the service of false gods, but could not have escaped their influence since they reflected the fears and aspirations of society and provided the current religious vocabulary. Two intrinsic ideas propagated by and enshrined within such cults were those of the saviour-god and the fallen state of mankind. The classic pattern of the saviour-god was provided by the Ancient Egyptian deity Osiris. The initiates of his mysteries believed that he had once died and risen again to life and that by ritual assimilation to him, they too could attain immortal life. The various esoteric philosophies that can be designated Gnostic, taught that each individual human being was compounded of an immortal soul imprisoned within a physical body. This unfortunate condition was due to an original fall of the soul from its abode of light and bliss and its involvement with matter. Thus, by becoming incarnated in this world, the soul had also become subject to the demonic powers that inhabited the planets and controlled the world. From this state of perdition it could be rescued by acquiring a proper knowledge [Gnosis] of its nature and freed from the involvement with matter, it would ascend through the celestial spheres to its original home.

Such ideas were foreign to Judaism, but it is significant that Paul when seeking to interpret the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion, does so in terms that presuppose that mankind is enslaved by demonic powers, from whom they are redeemed by the death and resurrection of a semi-divine saviour figure. Paul writes in Galatians 4: 3-5.

HoutOs kai hEmeis hote Emen nEpioi huto ta stoicheia tou kosmou Emetha dedoulOmenoi hote de Elthen to plErOma tou chronou exapesteilen ho theos ton huion autou genomenon ek gunaikos genomenon hupo nomon hina tous hupo nomon exagorasEi hina tEn huioithesian apolabOmen.

"So with us, while we were infants, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the universe [stoicheia tou kosmou] but when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."

Stoicheia were, in this context, demonic powers identified with astral phenomena. So it is evident that Paul was envisaging the human situation as one of subjugation to these entities until redemption was won by the incarnated son of God. Paul obviously regarded the crucifixion of Jesus as attaining such redemption, but the way this was achieved is not made apparent. Sometimes the concepts of the Jewish sacrificial cultus are invoked, implying that the death of Jesus was some kind of oblation, but who demanded it and to whom it was offered is not clear.

A somewhat more coherent conception is to be found in 1st Corinthians 2: 6-8.

Sophia de laloumen en tous teleiois sophia de ou tou aiOnos toutou oude tOn archontOn tou aiOnos toutou tOn katargoumenOn. Alla laloumen theou sophia en mustEriOi tEn
ApokekrummenEn hEn proOrisen ho theos pro tON aiOnOn eis doxan hEmOn. HEn oudeis tOn archontOn tou aiOnos toutou egnOken ei gar egnOsan ouk an ton kurion tEs doxEs estaurOsan.

"But we speak wisdom among the perfect ones [teleiois] yet not wisdom of this age, neither of the rulers of this age [archontOn tou aiOnos] who are doomed to nothingness. But we speak wisdom in mystery [mustEriOi] having been hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory. Not one of the rulers of this age has known, for if they knew, they would not have crucified the lord of glory.
[kurion tEs doxEs estaurOsan]

In this passage, Paul explains the crucifixion as an event arranged by a divine plan to deceive the archontes of this aeon into crucifying a supernatural being designated as “the lord of glory.”
Since these archontes are merely another term for the demonic powers described as “stoicheia” in the passage from Galatians, this marks a further phase of Paul’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the death of Jesus.

By employing ideas and terminology current in the Graeco-Roman world, Paul was able to construct a soteriology intelligible to his Gentile converts, but based on recent historical events in Palestine and a system of beliefs essentially Jewish in origin. Whereas in Judaism the rite of circumcision was the mode of initiation into the spiritual community, it was baptism that constituted the means of entry into Paul’s new groups of believers. This ritual was itself imbued with mystical significance as outlined in Romans 6: 3-5 (q.v.) Thus, according to Paul, through baptism, the Christian neophyte was ritually assimilated to Christ in his death in order to be one with him in his resurrection. As Paul was writing and formulating his new religious cult, for over three thousand years previously in Egypt, resurrection from death had been sought by a similar process of assimilation, with the dying-rising chthonic deity Osiris.

Such was the “gospel” that Paul believed he had been divinely entrusted for preaching to the Gentiles. It effectively replaced the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel with that of Jesus the semi-divine saviour of mankind. It presupposed that all people were in need of the same kind of salvation. This belief system was fundamentally different from the teachings of the Jewish Jerusalem christians and was obnoxious to them. Not only did it equate Jew with Gentile, thereby depriving the former of their unique and cherished sense of spiritual superiority [Judaism was the only contemporary monotheistic religion] but it transformed the Messiah of Israel into the “Saviour” of the hated heathen Roman oppressors who had executed him for sedition against their domineering Imperial rule in Judaea.

When the leaders of the Jerusalem christian community understood the nature and implications of Paul’s teachings, they set about opposing them. They were in an extremely strong position to do this, for they could repudiate Paul as a late-comer to the Messianic faith, whereas he could not challenge their authority as the original disciples and eyewitnesses of Jesus of Nazareth. Accordingly they sent out emissaries among Paul’s converts, asserting that theirs was the only authentic version of that solely Jewish based faith.

The catastrophic war against Rome [66-71] and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, ended the theocratic Jewish state and its ritual cultus. The significance of these events must not be under estimated.
The ongoing progress of Paul's new religious system could now continue unchallenged, for the remnants of the Jewish followers of Jesus had been destroyed or forced into ignominious exile by the triumphant Roman forces. Apart from a small body of Messianic Jewish christian sectaries, later known as Ebionites, [persecuted as heretics by the Church] the future direction of Christianity was, for good or ill, irrevocably fixed, throughout the ongoing centuries.

Toto · 10-21-2008, 11:07 AM

You all realize that Paul claimed to be an Apostle, and Marcion in particular thought that Paul was the only True Apostle. The Book of Acts was written, some claim, to reconcile Paul with the proto-orthodox church and cut him down to size.

You seem to have spent this thread showing that the editors of the NT were not totally incompetant at piecing together a coherent narrative. But I don't think that you have added to our understanding of the issue.

nickpecoraro · 10-21-2008, 11:13 AM

Christianity claims to make men free,
but turns them into slaves.

nickpecoraro

10-21-2008, 10:59 AM	#28
Tortie Cat Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: On the mat, by the fireside! Posts: 79	Here's one I wrote earlier! In order to attempt any real understanding of this matter it is necessary to examine specific examples from Paul’s authentic writings in order to elucidate the actual terminology he employs in the ongoing development of his beliefs. Paul, was a complex, somewhat disturbed and ambivalent character. Although born, brought up and schooled in Judaism, he eventually became dissatisfied with his ancestral faith, considering it to be inadequate, particularly with reference to the problems of sin and individual salvation. He was not primarily an original thinker, but did possess a profound religious imagination. It is therefore more appropriate to regard him as a mythopoeic visionary than as a theologian. Moreover, his personality was often torn apart by violent inner conflicts. A charismatic preacher and indefatigable, peripatetic teacher, always restless and seldom tranquil, he was also periodically the victim of manic-depressive mood swings, often experiencing a terrible sense of discord and frustration between his actions as they actually were and how he would ideally have liked them to be. The traditional view assumes that Jesus of Nazareth founded Christianity and that Paul was the most prominent proselytising envoy of the new faith. This however was not the case. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who did not in fact start any new religion, but merely sought to play an accepted role within contemporary Judaism. Paul created Christianity as a separate cult and achieved this by conflating existing Judaic and Hellenistic concepts into a powerful and all embracing story, sufficient to enable the development of a completely new world religion, being by its nature, both acceptable and intelligible to Graeco-Roman society. Paul employed powerful methods to convey the significance of what he believed. His conversion experience had transformed him, and to his mind, the world was now a different place. It was evident to him that the crucifixion had of itself, completely altered the existing world. “We yet proclaim Christ having been crucified, to Jews on one hand an offence [skandalOn] , to nations [ethnesin] on the other, folly.” [Ist Corinthians, 1: 23.] “Christ redeemed us out of the curse of the Law by becoming on behalf of us a curse, because it has been written, accursed [is] everyone hanging on a tree.” [Galatians, 3: 13.] To Jews, it was certainly outrageous to suggest that the Messiah had been a condemned criminal, conquered nobody and was then executed on a Roman cross. To Greeks, it was absurd to credit someone with the salvation of his followers when he had been unable even to save himself. Neither would any practising Jew have then [or now] regarded the Mosaic Law as a curse, but rather as a cherished and sacred blessing. Paul envisaged the existing world as being subjugated by, the forces of sin and evil. The problem was so immense that the solution could only be conceived as something totally unthinkable. Jesus Christ, he proclaimed, had rescued the world from its enslavement and had died to save all mankind. Paul however, never fully explains exactly how such propitiation had been brought about. The contemporary Hellenistic world was permeated with the cults of Saviour gods and godesses, although none were ever identified with real individuals who had lived and died in the recent past. This was probably of no importance for Paul, who perceived Jesus in mystical terms rather than as a strictly historical personage. He nevertheless, seems to have been familiar with the interpretation of Jesus as a servant [Philippians, 2: 7, Romans 15: 8] but was, however, far more interested in the idea of Jesus’ death as bestowing eternal salvation. The terminology employed by Paul when describing his perception of Jesus is complex, eclectic and somewhat ambiguous. He regarded him as being more than a mere human being, but not precisely equal with or identical to God. It was for later generations of Christian theologians to elucidate and develop the prototypes Paul had outlined. The basic theme is that of the descent to earth of the divine saviour. This, of necessity, implies other narrative elements as follows. There are two distinct cosmic areas. Heaven, the spiritual realm and Earth, the material domain. Heaven is the upper abode of light and Earth the lower region of darkness. Rescue is needed from the dark prison of the earthly region and no entity subsisting here can secure release. Accordingly no earthly act of liberation is of any effect. No transfer from one area of the lower region to another via physical, moral or ethical exhertions is possible. What imprisons is the human condition, which is one of bondage to the powers of evil. From this stems the idea of original sin, a reinterpretation devised by Paul, from the Hebrew story regarding the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the primordial Garden of Eden. The original story and its Judaic exegesis, did not of course have these radical connotations. This type of dualistic concept is identical with the religious system known as Gnosticism, now known to have existed before the inception of Christianity, though of course its development assumed many later quasi- Christian forms. As has been noted,the contemporary Hellenistic world teemed with religious cults and esoteric philosophies that promised salvation of various kinds. Paul would no doubt have rejected them as the service of false gods, but could not have escaped their influence since they reflected the fears and aspirations of society and provided the current religious vocabulary. Two intrinsic ideas propagated by and enshrined within such cults were those of the saviour-god and the fallen state of mankind. The classic pattern of the saviour-god was provided by the Ancient Egyptian deity Osiris. The initiates of his mysteries believed that he had once died and risen again to life and that by ritual assimilation to him, they too could attain immortal life. The various esoteric philosophies that can be designated Gnostic, taught that each individual human being was compounded of an immortal soul imprisoned within a physical body. This unfortunate condition was due to an original fall of the soul from its abode of light and bliss and its involvement with matter. Thus, by becoming incarnated in this world, the soul had also become subject to the demonic powers that inhabited the planets and controlled the world. From this state of perdition it could be rescued by acquiring a proper knowledge [Gnosis] of its nature and freed from the involvement with matter, it would ascend through the celestial spheres to its original home. Such ideas were foreign to Judaism, but it is significant that Paul when seeking to interpret the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion, does so in terms that presuppose that mankind is enslaved by demonic powers, from whom they are redeemed by the death and resurrection of a semi-divine saviour figure. Paul writes in Galatians 4: 3-5. HoutOs kai hEmeis hote Emen nEpioi huto ta stoicheia tou kosmou Emetha dedoulOmenoi hote de Elthen to plErOma tou chronou exapesteilen ho theos ton huion autou genomenon ek gunaikos genomenon hupo nomon hina tous hupo nomon exagorasEi hina tEn huioithesian apolabOmen. "So with us, while we were infants, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the universe [stoicheia tou kosmou] but when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." Stoicheia were, in this context, demonic powers identified with astral phenomena. So it is evident that Paul was envisaging the human situation as one of subjugation to these entities until redemption was won by the incarnated son of God. Paul obviously regarded the crucifixion of Jesus as attaining such redemption, but the way this was achieved is not made apparent. Sometimes the concepts of the Jewish sacrificial cultus are invoked, implying that the death of Jesus was some kind of oblation, but who demanded it and to whom it was offered is not clear. A somewhat more coherent conception is to be found in 1st Corinthians 2: 6-8. Sophia de laloumen en tous teleiois sophia de ou tou aiOnos toutou oude tOn archontOn tou aiOnos toutou tOn katargoumenOn. Alla laloumen theou sophia en mustEriOi tEn ApokekrummenEn hEn proOrisen ho theos pro tON aiOnOn eis doxan hEmOn. HEn oudeis tOn archontOn tou aiOnos toutou egnOken ei gar egnOsan ouk an ton kurion tEs doxEs estaurOsan. "But we speak wisdom among the perfect ones [teleiois] yet not wisdom of this age, neither of the rulers of this age [archontOn tou aiOnos] who are doomed to nothingness. But we speak wisdom in mystery [mustEriOi] having been hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory. Not one of the rulers of this age has known, for if they knew, they would not have crucified the lord of glory. [kurion tEs doxEs estaurOsan] In this passage, Paul explains the crucifixion as an event arranged by a divine plan to deceive the archontes of this aeon into crucifying a supernatural being designated as “the lord of glory.” Since these archontes are merely another term for the demonic powers described as “stoicheia” in the passage from Galatians, this marks a further phase of Paul’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the death of Jesus. By employing ideas and terminology current in the Graeco-Roman world, Paul was able to construct a soteriology intelligible to his Gentile converts, but based on recent historical events in Palestine and a system of beliefs essentially Jewish in origin. Whereas in Judaism the rite of circumcision was the mode of initiation into the spiritual community, it was baptism that constituted the means of entry into Paul’s new groups of believers. This ritual was itself imbued with mystical significance as outlined in Romans 6: 3-5 (q.v.) Thus, according to Paul, through baptism, the Christian neophyte was ritually assimilated to Christ in his death in order to be one with him in his resurrection. As Paul was writing and formulating his new religious cult, for over three thousand years previously in Egypt, resurrection from death had been sought by a similar process of assimilation, with the dying-rising chthonic deity Osiris. Such was the “gospel” that Paul believed he had been divinely entrusted for preaching to the Gentiles. It effectively replaced the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel with that of Jesus the semi-divine saviour of mankind. It presupposed that all people were in need of the same kind of salvation. This belief system was fundamentally different from the teachings of the Jewish Jerusalem christians and was obnoxious to them. Not only did it equate Jew with Gentile, thereby depriving the former of their unique and cherished sense of spiritual superiority [Judaism was the only contemporary monotheistic religion] but it transformed the Messiah of Israel into the “Saviour” of the hated heathen Roman oppressors who had executed him for sedition against their domineering Imperial rule in Judaea. When the leaders of the Jerusalem christian community understood the nature and implications of Paul’s teachings, they set about opposing them. They were in an extremely strong position to do this, for they could repudiate Paul as a late-comer to the Messianic faith, whereas he could not challenge their authority as the original disciples and eyewitnesses of Jesus of Nazareth. Accordingly they sent out emissaries among Paul’s converts, asserting that theirs was the only authentic version of that solely Jewish based faith. The catastrophic war against Rome [66-71] and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, ended the theocratic Jewish state and its ritual cultus. The significance of these events must not be under estimated. The ongoing progress of Paul's new religious system could now continue unchallenged, for the remnants of the Jewish followers of Jesus had been destroyed or forced into ignominious exile by the triumphant Roman forces. Apart from a small body of Messianic Jewish christian sectaries, later known as Ebionites, [persecuted as heretics by the Church] the future direction of Christianity was, for good or ill, irrevocably fixed, throughout the ongoing centuries.

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10-21-2008, 11:07 AM	#29
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	You all realize that Paul claimed to be an Apostle, and Marcion in particular thought that Paul was the only True Apostle. The Book of Acts was written, some claim, to reconcile Paul with the proto-orthodox church and cut him down to size. You seem to have spent this thread showing that the editors of the NT were not totally incompetant at piecing together a coherent narrative. But I don't think that you have added to our understanding of the issue.

10-21-2008, 11:13 AM	#30
nickpecoraro Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Fort Pierce FL Posts: 46	Christianity claims to make men free, but turns them into slaves. nickpecoraro

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