aa5874

Paul needed a dead Jesus, just like a psychic needs the dead at the other end.

Doug Shaver

I have read it, if that's what you mean.

No.

I'd be more interested in evidence that most people who have ever been accused of being insane actually were insane, when the only reason for the accusation was that they said things that their accusers couldn't believe.

yalla

2 Cor 6.4
" ..... great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labours,watching, hunger......
2 Cor 11.24
" 5 times ....40 lashes less one, 3 times beaten with rods, once stoned, 3 times shipwrecked, a night and a day I have been adrift at sea, ...danger from rivers, danger from Gentiles, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger from false brethren, in toil and hardship, ....sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure, daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches...''

The first time I read these bits I doubted the sanity of the writer.

Ben C Smith

I am happy to see that my alleged lack of thinking this through is a change from my usual practice.

But, in fact, I am (and have been for quite a while) pretty sympathetic to this role of Satan that you describe (always assuming I am understanding you aright; I am thinking of G. Nickelsburg here). But my point about Paul and the thorn does not depend on it.

And I disagree that flesh for Paul is always something psychological. It is certainly not psychological in Romans 2.28, for example.

Ben.

Toto

I don't understand that -

Romans 2:28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

?

Ben C Smith

Where your translation reads physical, the Greek has in the flesh.

Ben.

Toto

If Paul says that circumcision is not "in the flesh" does that not mean that it is psychological or spiritual? Or is the translation confusing?

Paul in other places speaks of circumcision in the heart, and seems to use circumcision as a metaphor for Jews.

Ben C Smith

I am confused as to what you are asking.

Paul is contrasting two kinds of circumcision. One is physical (in the flesh, where the word flesh is very literal — painfully literal, even). The other is of the heart and presumably nonliteral.

Ben.

Toto

Maybe I am confused. Paul says "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical."

The first clause makes in indirect reference to physical circumcision, the second says that circumcision is not "in the flesh." Are these two types of circumcision or is this a statement that the real circumcision is not in the flesh?

Ben C Smith

Yes, and I take this as rhetorical. You think you are a Jew just because you get circumcised? Think again. A real Jew also keeps the law.

Both. Paul is saying that there are two kinds of circumcision; one is in the flesh, while the other follows the prophet Jeremiah and is of the heart; Paul obviously thinks the latter is of more value than the former, though he does not think the former is utterly lacking in value; refer to Romans 2.25.

(The Hebrew prophets are full of this kind of thing; the outward sign, be it circumcision or temple worship or sacrifice or what have you, is useful with a right attitude but useless without it.)

Ben.