Toto

The discussion of the Petronian Question has been given its own thread here

Chris Weimer

Hardly. The answer could be "there was no historical Jesus".

There has to be a reason to remove the old shoe in the first place.

spin

You might say "hardly", but your quest is biased to finding. You shape your data.

Scholarship has stopped assuming status quo per se.


spin

(Ooops, 8002 posts. ): )

Solo

This is amusing: you insisted on textual evidence for my view, and I showed you. The evidence I gave you is "compelling". The verb αναγκαζω in (to compel, force, constrain) occurs three times in Galatians, twice explicitly refering to circumcision (2:3, 6:12), once as coercion to "live like a Jew", i.e. to accept the law, which includes getting circumcised. Further, only Cephas was confronted in Antioch(/named in Galatians) as a lawbreaker, and therefore my relating 6:12-13 to him (not exclusively to him, but including him), should be a sober, internally consistent, reading of the epistle.

Now, you engage unnamed contemporary software pirate hunters and operatic teenage girls to testify to Paul's state of mind, in which Cephas' coverup of his lawless apetite is seen as coercion of his gentile proteges to change their cuisine. Give me another one !

My favourite high-school teacher used to say whenever one of us tried some silly-bugger theory on him: " the only thing I would like to know about what you are proposing is this: are you trying to kid me or are you trying to kid yourself ?

Jiri

Ben C Smith

Is Plutarch our only source for the connection of Mithras with the Cilician pirates?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

You showed a connection, yes, but I was ready to assume such a connection to begin with.

You hypothesized that the connection was that Cephas was now requiring circumcision of the gentiles (the Galatians in particular?).

But that is by no means the only available option.

Mark Goodacre writes, for example:

When Paul is relating the incident at Antioch, presumably included in the epistle because it evokes for Paul a very similar situation to the one that he is now faced with in Galatia, he uses the same language of compulsion. In 2.14, Paul challenges Cephas before them all with, “If you, a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to Judaize?” (Εἰ σὺ Ἰουδαῖος ὑπάρχων ἐθνικῶς καὶ οὐχὶ Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇς, πῶς τὰ ἔθνη ἀναγκάζεις Ἰουδαΐζειν;). Now if there is a parallel here between the two occasions, in both the Gentile Church (Antioch / Galatia) is being compelled to Judaize (withdrawing from eating with Gentiles / circumcision) by a third party (Peter and those from James / the influencers in Galatia). In the Antioch incident, the “Judaizing”, specifically involving the compulsion to avoid mixed table fellowship, has already taken place. Likewise in Galatia, the compulsion to Judaize, this time represented specifically in the demand for circumcision, was already taking place.

About Cephas.... Tell me, if his error in Antioch (according to Paul) was that he was demanding circumcision, and if he is still at it with regard to Galatia, why does Paul say only that Cephas withdrew from table fellowship? If the real problem was circumcision both times, why bring up table fellowship at all?

It is a sober speculation.

State of mind? No. The natural meaning of his words. That Cephas forcing the gentiles to act like Jews in 2.12-14 has something to do with table fellowship is hardly debatable. That was all I was showing.

What is debatable is whether or not Cephas was also enforcing circumcision, and therefore whether he should be lumped in with those who are currently enforcing circumcision on the Galatians.

Ben.

Solo

Thanks for the link, Ben. I read the article and I cannot see where Goodacre's interests cross our debate. He sees Cephas as one of the Judaizers, which I have no problem with, and the Judaizing enforcement includes circumcision, which is my position. Insofar as I can see Goodacre does not say Cephas withdrew from the table fellowship with gentiles to enforce their compliance with Jewish dietary law. I am sure the prof is aware the passage clearly indicates that Cephas retired from gentile dining to avoid censure from James. Cephas himself was forced to toe the line where food was concerned (at least until Joppa ?).

I think Cephas' lack of principle, maturity and uprightness exercised Paul and bothered him no end. (How can he be considered of "repute"?). The story of his craven retreat from the gentile halls of Antioch meant to injure Cephas' reputation as a leader in Galatia. He is portrayed a hypocrite, coward, and an idiot (who does not have an answer to Paul's talking down to him before his own people).

But Cephas' error at Antioch, which he was (by proxy ?) now perpetrating in Galatia, I feel assured, was not circumcision as such; deep down Paul doesn't care (6:15). Paul simply considers Peter and his ilk spiritually incompetent, and unable to understand, let alone to teach the gospel. They have no clue what Jesus was really about. They are to Paul what I call "the creatures of the wanderer", the one who complained that the son of man had nowhere to lay his head, who said to follow him you had to hate your mom and dad, and who was teaching his entourage profoundly unsound economics based on ravens in the air who neither sow or gather in the barns. They do not understand that this was the way of the Cross, a vision of life that cannot be sustained here on earth. Paul understands, and therefore, by God, the gentile souls belong to his care.

Jiri

Ben C Smith

Where does Goodacre say that the Judaizing in Antioch included circumcision? He says it has to do with table fellowship in Antioch...:

In the Antioch incident, the “Judaizing”, specifically involving the compulsion to avoid mixed table fellowship, has already taken place.

...and with circumcision in Galatia:

Likewise in Galatia, the compulsion to Judaize, this time represented specifically in the demand for circumcision, was already taking place.

Did you perhaps miss the point of the slash / marks?

Now if there is a parallel here between the two occasions, in both the Gentile Church (Antioch / Galatia) is being compelled to Judaize (withdrawing from eating with Gentiles / circumcision) by a third party (Peter and those from James / the influencers in Galatia).

I believe Goodacre is comparing incidents by analogy. What comes before the slash in one item lines up with what comes before the slash in the other items, as well. It is (A1) Antioch, (B1) withdrawing from eating, and (C1) Peter and those from James on the one side; (A2) Galatia, (B2) circumcision, and (C2) the influencers in Galatia on the other.

I think you have misunderstood.

I am sure he is. As am I. And anybody else with the ability to read. That is not the point of contention.

The rest of your post I found indecipherable (creatures of the wanderer??).

Ben.

spin

To my knowledge, yes. Cilician pirates being established in Italy is attested to elsewhere, so Plutarch's comment is not untoward, ie neither he nor a would-be interpolator has anything personal to gain by mentioning it.

However, Mithras was firmly established in neighboring Commagene in the 1st c. BCE, a realm incidentally which was given control of Cilicia.

Mithraism was also well enough known in Rome for the mid 1st c. poet Statius to allude to it. There was even a Mithraeum in Caesarea Maritima in the late 1st c., obviously brought there by Roman soldiers and into Germany at that time as well.

There are two currents in Roman Mithraism, an established "good family" adherence and a military one. This manifestation is best understood by a two pronged infiltration of Mithras, low contacts through the Cilicians and high contacts through exiled Commagenians.


spin

Ted Hoffman

Because they were the only ones who are known historically to have been in a position to claim apostolic authority. We are seeing here diverging traditions similar to the "twin traditions" Crossan talks of in Birth of Christianity.
If you have other likely candidates who can be identified as the "super apostles", let us know please.