Solo

Those that "appeared to be pillars",.... what they really were was of no real concern to Paul.....Paul was snubbed in Jerusalem and given a nod to preach to the "unclean" (for what appears to be a license fee); he is just trying to put the best light on it.

As for Cephas preaching "perverted gospel", well, only the dyed-in-the-wool would argue that the "unorthopedic walking with gospel truth" that Paul charges in Gal 2:14 did not include Cephas.
"Abused" only if one can't think outside the orthodox box ......so how does one read something like Gal 5:10? Would you suggest: 'take no other view than Paul's and the so-called pillars ?'

Because if you don't read it that way then in 5:12 you have to conclude that Paul wished Cephas would cut off his dick.



Jiri

Ben C Smith

And after pointing out the hypocrisy of Cephas he was apparently out on a limb again. He argues as if he is one man against the world in Galatians.

Yes, that and at least the gists of the contents of 15.3-8. Here are verses 1-11:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received....

...that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Verses 3-8, Paul tells us repeatedly, are what Paul preached to the Corinthians. Verse 11 tells us that it does not matter whether it was Paul or the apostles before him who preached it; the Corinthians accepted it. What a strange thing to say if Paul knows that the apostles before him do not preach it! Rather, this little creedal statement is what he and the other apostles agree on, and it has nothing to do with the gentiles.

Where he and the other apostles have fallen into disagreement is over the conditions for gentile admission into the movement. That is where Galatians comes in.

Some of the Corinthians. See verse 12.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I actually have very little problem with such a view; but I am wondering how you are so sure of it.

It most certainly included Cephas.

Who are you speaking to here?

The one disturbing you is surely one of or attached to the false brethren in 2.4, false brethren who are, please note, distinguished from the pillars, since those in reputation did not compel Titus to be circumcised, while the false brethren did (or would have).

I would suggest take no view other than that of Paul, which was shared by the pillars... at least until Cephas began to eat apart from the gentiles.

There is nothing clearer in this epistle than that the Jerusalem authorities did not require Paul to have the gentiles circumcised: Paul submitted his gospel to them, and they did not demand that Titus be circumcised; the only thing they asked was that Paul remember the poor; Cephas used to eat with the gentiles.

That much is crystal.

Now look at 5.11: Paul writes that preaching circumcision (for gentiles, understood) amounts to removing the stumbling block of the cross. Since the pillars did not require gentile circumcision, they must not have been removing the stumbling block of the cross. How odd, then, if it should turn out that their christology did not even have a cross in the first place.

Ben.

Solo

It's a scandal and it's a folly; it is also a way of dealing with an unpleasant past, and with life in general. I think Paul thought through his schema of the Isaiah's servant as crucified Messiah and went to Jerusalem to sell it to James church'es Jesus branch. Peter and the other former companions of Jesus would not buy it. They could live with the embarrassment of their leader's execution. "Jerusalem killing its prophets" was a sign of the last days. The Messianic age was upon Israel. Besides, Jesus taught them magic and it worked!

But I think Peter and Co. grossly underestimated Paul, his ability and range, and his reach into the upper-middle echelons of a literate, genteel society which they lacked. They underestimated his originality, his poetry, the power of written word, and its "magic" namely in spreading and standardizing a new faith. Finally they underestimated the exchange of future for a sense of accounability before a higher court.

Paul also pulled off his "Christ crucified" because his theology was using the right psychology, on both individual and group level. Paul knew how to pull emotional strings, and mix his dominating intellect and energy with appeals for support in his all too palpable sexless melancholia and helplessness. This was his Christ, as it imprinted itself on his church.

Jiri

Sarpedon

This isn't true. Have you ever read 'the Prince' by Machiavelli? Its a rather brilliant satire on the man it was ostensibly dedicated to, Lorenzo de Medici.

orac

He was making it up? No, you're wrong - most of us have already worked out that "it's all made up" explains all the contradictions in the Bible quite satisfactorily. What is lacking, so far, is actual evidence that the Bible is not just made up fiction written by mere humans with no connection to any deity that may actually exist.

Strangely, even the pope apparantly thinks that attempting to find such evidence is inappropriate.

Next I suppose you'll tell us that contraditions in Dianetics prove that L. Ron Hubbard was right, or that the Koran is the true word of god because it would be wrong to doubt a faith that a billion people take seriously.

Ben C Smith

You must think you are addressing a fundamentalist, an inerrantist, or something of that kind. If so, you are mistaken.

Ben.

Cege

The Sadducees rejected the idea of an afterlife and/or a final judgement with a resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees said the dead are not raised.

Solo

It's my mother's temperament, or else I must be psychic

Who do you think I am speaking to here, Ben ?

And what makes you sure of that? Paul accuses Cephas of hypocrisy "in front of them all"....."pillar" and all! What if - let me suggest something totally off the wall - Paul's rage was not as much to Cephas' eating with the gentiles as to his poaching among Paul's flock (contrary to the "agreement") for converts ? What if, to top it off, he was circumcising them ? We are talking gentiles, whom God gave to Paul's care !

Oh my dear early harmonist, I have bad news: It's "so-called" pillars, "would-be" pillars ! The perverters of Paul's gospel !

But it's legal, go on assuming that Cephas was not straightforward about the gospel truth because he changed his eating behaviour when James' emissaries arrived.

I read it as "no other view than mine", meaning "no exception". I know that he and Cephas had a different view of Jesus from elsewhere (1 Cr 1:12). But even without that, in the humour of Galatians no other reading makes sense to me.

Clear as mud. First, he issue is not whether the "Jerusalem authorities" required Paul to circumcise his converts but whether some (like Cephas) were circumcising gentile converts themselves. Second, and even more pointed issue was, was this against the agreement Paul had with the so-called pillars. Finally, Paul's ire is to the hypocrisy of those who (like Cephas) would preach the law and not keep it themselves (Gal 6:13). Paul evidently had respect for the holy men (James and the poor saints) and I believe that Gal 6:15-16 was written specifically not to injure James with Cephas and the other "other Jesus" advocates. The two verses are one of the reasons that I do not believe the James of 2:9 is James the Just.

Rather than just looking at the verse, let's think about it a little. Paul never suggests what you seem to be reading. He asks a question: why am I, being a good observant Jew, who preaches circumcision still being persecuted ? It's a rhetorical question asking not why "Paul" is being persecuted but the hypocrites. If they are good, obedient, God-fearing Jews who do what they are supposed to be doing, why do they have bad conscience on account of Jesus ?

The answer appears to be: because they are still rebels, they still defy the law ! They preach the law so they can glory (no less) in the converts' flesh. They are in denial; like Cephas they just want to have good time, live it up. They deny the only gospel there is, Paul's gospel of the Cross.

Jiri

spin

It seems to me, looking into Paul's indications of his relations with the Jerusalem messianists led by the three pillars, that we are at the edge of religion at the moment, as far as we can get, where christianity's beginnings drop into the void. The HJer can go nowhere and the MJer who relies on Paul initiating the new religion find that there seem to be others of relatively like mind who believed in a theology that was akin to Paul's.

It's now where it would be good for the MJer and HJer to come into the fray with an infusion of their understandings, so we can all see where they stand.


spin