spin

A "specific group of messianists"? "Church of God" (or less tendentiously, "assembly of god")? That tells you a lot. The "assemblies in Judea in christ" is a little more helpful, in that it tells you they were messianists.

He "specifically accepted their views"? This has been specifically addressed in the past: people who didn't know Paul heard that he had become a messianist proselytizer and so "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy." What do you know of their views? Basically nothing.

For so many months you have doggedly refused to respond to anything that asks you to supply evidence. "Why play dumb?" Stop playing coy and do what you are supposed to: supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references
supply references when asked so that people don't have to play mindreader whenever you purvey some load of vague crap. It doesn't cost you anything and you need to be able to at any time. It is only scholarly courtesy.

Look at each of these:

1. justified not through the works of the law but through faith in Jesus christ, 2:16 (faith in what exactly?)
2. if justification comes through the law, then christ died for nothing 2:21
3. christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us 3:13
4. For freedom christ has set us free... do not submit again 5:1 (set us free how exactly?)
5. In christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accounts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love. 5:6 (faith in what exactly?)

Doh! The one thing that the Jerusalem group had insisted on was what is necessary to be Jewish. At least I can say that much about the Jerusalem group: they were Jewish by practice and that was a requirement of their religion. What do you know about the group's religion? As I have told you before, nothing.

Paul still pits his christ gospel against their gospel of the law.


spin

Amaleq13

Quite clearly, yes.

Christ died and was raised and was seen by many.

Stop pretending you don't already know where Paul explicitly claims to share belief in a dying/resurrecting messiah with them and stop pretending you don't already know you reject it as interpolated. You've got nothing but a myopically wooden reading and an incoherent story.

It doesn't matter how often you mischaracterize the texts, what they state does not change. Paul still pits his gentile-specific "good news" against their belief that faith in Christ also requires adherence to the law.

gurugeorge

Yeah but not just any old bunch of messianists, a peculiar sub-sect of messianists who already believed in an odd sort of dying/rising Messiah, a variation on the theme, a Messiah who had already been and done his work.

spin

Find it in Galatians. I've been trying to get Amaleq13 to get blood out of this stone for months.


spin

spin

Where is that in Galatians?

Where is that in Galatians?

Reading what the text actually says is wooden, while your eisegesis is fine.

Or how often you dodge and weave and avoid evidence.

You're so full of denial, you'll keep repeating what you cannot show because that's the corner you've backed yourself into.

And if you cannot supply references, you're not doing your job.


spin

spamandham

You have shown texts that demonstrate that those who believe in the resurrection are considered "in Christ", but you have not shown texts that demonstrate *only* those who believe in the resurrection are considered "in Christ", which is the point. This isn't picking nits, because in numerous places Paul distinguishes his set of believers from the Jews "in Christ", using the body analogy for example, and claiming that followers of Moses - who could not possibly have believed in the resurrection - were part of the same body.

Paul has gone out of his way to allow Jews who could not possibly have believed in the resurrection to be "in Christ". The implication is that his Jewish peers do not promote the idea.

I don't see any progress being made on this point on either side.

The audience for Rom. is gentiles. Of course Paul is going to emphasize his formula for gentile salvation to gentiles. But he has not excluded the Jewish path. Rather he outlines it further down beginning in verse 14 how faithful Jews are also saved.

Under your model, Paul has no need to be telling his gentile audience about an alternative path to Jewish salvation because everyone "in Christ" would profess the same beliefs he outlined for the gentiles. Why then does he bother outlining Jewish salvation to his gentile audience (and this isn't the only place he does that either)?

Are you suggesting that the Jews who came before or after Moses are screwed in Paul's eyes? Or is it more likely Paul is using that metaphor in a more general sense to apply to all Jews, and not just the specific generation that was in the wilderness with Moses?

...not if Paul equates Jewish faithfulness as being spiritually aligned with the same body, which he does.

Read Romans 10:14+ again. Paul has outlined a formula for Jewish salvation in the present, which involves faith, but faith in God rather than faith in Paul's gospel.

Paul sees no spiritual distinction between faithful Jews (Jews who trust in God) and faithful gentiles who accept the gentile gospel, but that doesn't mean they believe the same things.

There are two categories of Jew to Paul; hypocritical Jews who see the law as a social formula of works to be performed, and Jews who trust in God (which includes of course folks like the Jerusalem sect). Paul is referring to the former here, as he makes clear with "Jews demand miraculous signs".

In Paul's particular case, the gospel was directly revealed to him. I'm only guessing, but I think Paul would take that to mean he himself needs to believe what he is teaching.

The death and resurrection *are* critical to the salvation of Jews in Paul's theology.

But that doesn't mean Jews must believe Paul's gospel. It is their faith in God as they understand him that justifies them (for those who are faithful), rather than their faith in Paul's gospel.

Ben C Smith

I am going to use this post to pose a few questions for clarification, Robert, if that is okay with you.

In this last post you wrote:

It sounds like you are saying that, for Paul, Jesus had to die and rise again to save Jews (as well as gentiles), but the Jews do not have to acknowledge or even know about his death or resurrection in order to reap their benefits. It also sounds like you are saying, in light of the texts I gave you on the meaning of baptism, receiving the spirit, and entering the body, that faithful Jews would be participating in the death of Christ even if they have no idea they are doing so. Is that a fair summary of your position?

In a previous post you wrote:

Also:

Given that Paul (A) says, in a context of discussing both those under the law and those not under the law, that no flesh will be justified by works of the law (Romans 3.20), and (B) says in another context that both he and Cephas are justified by faith (Galatians 3.16), are you still standing by these statements? More recently you seemed to have shifted to talking about faithfulness to God as the way of salvation for the Jew:

By faithfulness to or faith in God in your more recent post(s) do you mean the same thing as adherence the law in your previous posts?

Paul talks about gentiles, and Paul talks about Jews, and Paul says that both are (or can be) members of the same body. On that we agree, I think. Similarly, Paul affirms in Romans 12 and in 1 Corinthians 12 that those with the gift of prophecy belong to the same body as those with the gift of teaching. But where does Paul distinguish between Jews who believe one gospel and gentiles who believe a different gospel in the body or the church? You seem to be saying that the body metaphor implies this on its own merits, but I honestly do not see how. Do the prophets in Romans 12.6 believe a different gospel (a prophetic gospel) than the teachers in Romans 12.7 (a teaching gospel). If you think so, why? If not, then how does the body metaphor imply that Jews in the body follow a Jewish gospel while gentiles follow a different one?

Where does Paul claim that followers of Moses before Christ belonged to the body of Christ?

Do you think verse 14 applies (A) to Jews only, or (B) to gentiles only, or (C) to both equally? If your answer is not C, how do you explain verse 12?

For clarification (on my part), I do not know of any place where Paul outlines Jewish salvation as an alternative path apart from Christ. In Romans 9-11 I think he is trying to explain why the Jews, for the most part, have not accepted Christ. He is trying to explain why the Jews did not recognize their own messiah.

For further clarification (on your part), whom (it has to be a whom, not a what, in the Greek) do you think Paul is calling the stumbling block over which (most of) the Jews have stumbled in Romans 9.32-33? If not Christ, then whom? And, if it is Christ, what do you make of the statement, right here in the context of Jewish salvation, that whoever believes on him (Christ) will be saved? What does it mean, in your judgment of how Paul thinks, for someone to believe in Christ without believing in his death and resurrection? What exactly, for Paul, would one be believing about Christ if not that much? (See also Romans 11.20, where Paul asserts that the Jews have been cut off for their unbelief, or lack of faith, contrasting with a newfound and unexpected gentile belief, or faith.)

Pass on to 10.1, part of the same discussion, where Paul prays for the salvation of his fellow Jews. That is the context here: Jewish salvation. Read on through about verse 11, where Paul repeats the bit about whoever believes in him (Christ) not being disappointed. In this particular context, do you think that 10.9 applies only (or even principally) to gentiles? If so, why?

For clarification, no, not at all. They were expected and able to follow the covenant that God had given them. But, for Paul, they were also supposed to recognize the new covenant (promised by Jeremiah 31.31-33) when it came round. (Notice that the new covenant in Jeremiah is at least for the Jews; it is not just for gentiles. Paul says that Jesus inaugurated this new covenant at the eucharist; he also refers to the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3.)

To clarify my position, it was the specific generation in the wilderness, not all Jews, especially not Jews of the present time, since the Jews of the wilderness are contrasted with the present generation in verses 6 and 11.

How does the demand for signs make clear that Paul is referring to Jews who see the law as a social formula? What narrows it down? Furthermore, assuming you are correct about that, how exactly are Jews who see the law as a social formula stumbling over the cross? If all they have to do is to abandon a law of works (in whatever sense you imagine that) and have faith in God, what does the cross have to do with anything?

Last question for now: Is the gospel that Paul preaches, in your view of Pauline thought, meant for gentiles only, or is it also for Jews?

Ben.

Amaleq13

It isn't, as you well know. The dumb act was old several posts ago.

I guess seriously thinking about the text looks like eisegesis to one who refuses.

It is not my job to repeatedly provide you with the same information nor is it my job to answer questions to which you already know the answers.

If the story you tell from the data is incoherent, you need to rethink your analysis of the data. Your story is incoherent, spin, and no amount of bitching about my position will ever change that fact. :wave:

spin

Finally, you admit that you don't understand what Paul was saying in Galatians.

You're starting to sound like Chris Weimer.

I have asked you to back up your crap for months. It turns out you can't.

In the end, you don't deal with what Paul says in Galatians at all. This is what the discussion has always been about, ie the claims in Galatians. The letter had to be coherent in itself. But you can't get it to be coherent the way you want it.


spin

spin

In christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accounts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love. Gal. 5:6

spin