Rick Sumner

Okay, and?

Which is utterly irrelevant to what Paul meant by a given passage, and has absolutely no bearing on any post I made. I reiterate, what is the point of all this?

Incorrect. Xristos is a Greek word that means "the annointed," and isn't specific to any God, man, king or otherwise. We find it several times in the LXX, for example.

Apologies for not providing more and fuller entries. Bibleworks is clumsy in Linux, and I don't have a Windows partition at the moment.

Probably because Xristos is the Greek equivalent. Paul was writing in Greek, after all. It's the same translation we find throughout the LXX. If you're aware of a translation from the Hebrew to Greek that uses another word, I'd be delighted to see it, but it really doesn't matter, because such a translation would be the exception, not the rule.

The cross was chosen because Jesus was crucified. That seems pretty straightforward to me.

Healing powers are pretty standard in divine figures. You'll have to do better than that if you want to show syncretism. Parallels need to be assessed by vigorous comparison.

And, to clarify, this is all still irrelevant to the post you were responding to, which addressed the question of whether or not Paul's justification by faith was best understood in a Jewish light.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Dharma

Again, I am simply bringing back the discussion to what this thread was supposed to discuss, which was whether or not the New Testament was ENTIRELY Jewish. It is not. And healing powers are NOT standard to Jewish "divine figures", in other cultures it was associated with sun worship which is how Christianity is worshipped and the cross and Jesus as the human sacrifice on the sun symbol is no mistake (Aztecs used to sacrifice humans for the sun God)...again you cannot put together Christianity and it's practice with your Judaic origins interpretation. Antioch was a major center of the formation of early Christianity and it is also here where there was an attempt to syncretize several religions of the middle east :
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There were a huge number of hellenized Jews :
http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/NTIntr...AntiocRecon.htm
these foreigners dedicated the Temple to Zeus, who was also identified with the Syrian god Baal Shamem. Menelaus attempted to accommodate these newcomers and so instituted a new cult in Jerusalem, one that amalgamated the gods Yahweh, Baal Shamem and Zeus, mutually identifying them. It was Antiochus IV who officially issue the decree to begin this new cult. This was considered an outrage by some Jews.

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so it comes as no surprise that this new God figure Jesus the healer, the son of THE FATHER, Zeus, Yahweh or Baal? (his father was not Abraham) had powers like Apollo (the son of Zeus).

Rick Sumner

Really? Elijah did it. So did Elisha. I could add to the list, there are many.

Christianity borrowed from Aztecs? Wow.

My "Judaic origins interpretation?" How about from now on we let me articulate my arguments, and you can articulate yours. I haven't offered any interpretation of Christian origins.

I'll grant you the last word, as I don't feel that this is at all productive.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Dharma

Elijah, the one who was wisked away from earth into heaven in a "fiery chariot"? HOW JEWISH! The story of Elijah and Elisha is not a part of the Torah. Elisha again is mentioned as having affiliations with Syria...Jesus and John the Baptist are asked if they are the incarnations of Elijah...


No, human sacrifice to the sun God was practiced in many cultures that practiced sun worship, which was my point...


no, in the past few posts with me, you simply have been saying a lot about how Christianity is completely Jewish without any historical background...it seems from historical records that Christianity is completely Syrian (which includes all the cultures therein, including Jewish).

sorry about the bad link http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/NTIntro...ntiocRecon.htm

freigeister

Paul, in a letter undisputedly his, states clearly that Christ was "of the seed of David, according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3).

I have overstated my case by saying flatly that Paul does not divinize Christ. There is no doubt that Paul is the source of the theomorphizing of Christ which forms the basis of the Christian religion. And certainly Paul was intimately familiar with Greek thought. But in no wise does it seem necessary to elucidate Paul's thought by seeking pagan roots within it. There is nothing in the texts to prevent us from taking the standard position that Paul was a Pharisaic Jew of cosmopolitan background who, after initially opposing the Christian movement, came to the conviction that love for Christ provides the condition for spiritual rebirth. In his letters, he attempts to explain this insight in terms comprehensible to his audience. The point is that we can arrive at the correct understanding of Paul's Christology with reference only to Judaism. But I do not want to lead us here and now into a discussion of the relationship between Paul's Christology and Judaism. The point is that in any such discussion, mention of Hellenistic or other non-Jewish cultural influences would be irrelevant.

Amaleq13

No, they would be entirely relevant to opposing your claim so I would like the exclusively Jewish source for Paul's belief in an evil power controlling the world and for the notion that a vicarious sacrifice could atone for intentional sins and for the notion that the sacrifice of a human (even if only in "appearance") would be acceptable?

Rick Sumner

I probably should have added this link above in my mention of references for Paul as distinctly writing in a Jewish context, as it's about the best link online for the "New Perspective."

http://www.thepaulpage.com/

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

Belief that those opposing your position are influenced by demons is pretty standard across the board--Jewish and otherwise. Paul believed he was right, most people didn't. How couldn't they see God's unmistakable acts? Ah, of course, a baddie is clouding their judgment, setting traps, etc.. For an excellent discussion, see Pagels' The Origin of Satan. We see it happen at Qumran, we see it happen even moreso with Paul, and we see it furthered by later Christian apologists.

First of all, sacrifice for atonement was almost (though of course not quite entirely) distinctly Jewish. Most sacrified in the hope of getting things, or as a way of expressing grattitude, or of appeasing their God, or of avoiding some punishment, which is decidedly different than the genuine remorse that is demanded of Jewish sacrifice.

Judaism is largely identifiable by this rather unique relationship--the Jew in antiquity was consumed by the desire to serve God in the best possible way: Far, far more than they were concerned about how God could benefit or punish them. We have mountains of Rabbinic texts that attest to that. Like many things in Judaism, the principles underlying their sacrifices don't seem to have an accurate analogue in the pagan world.

Secondly, is this identifiably Pagan? It seems to me that Paul's new position--that Jesus had sacrified enough for all--is rather radical by any standard. Sacrifice was a key tenet of all antiquitous religions. Paul did away with it. We are loathe to consider that Pagan or Jewish, since neither side advocated it. It seems to be distinctly Pauline.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

freigeister

Mysticism is the key to understanding Paul, Christ and Judaism. The mystic welcomes martyrdom because he sees the world as divided into the truth of the spirit, which is eternal, and the falsity of the flesh, wherein death is all-consuming. All the Jewish prophets are mystics, most meeting martyrs' deaths: "Your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion" (Jer. 2:30). Paul puts forward Christ as the way out of worldliness and its sins and into spiritual peace. This is the only meaningful sense of atonement.

Amaleq13

The notion that the world is controlled by an evil power seems to me to go beyond this and it is my understanding that Judaism tended to view the world as a basically good place (ie Genesis - "and it was good"). OTOH, don't we find the notion of the world as evil or controlled by evil as a common Hellenistic theme?

Yes and it is demonstrated by offering something personally valuable. It seems to me that an interpretation of Jesus' actions that was consistent with Jewish thought would mean that it was only capable of atoning for his sins, if it could be said that it atoned for anything.

But isn't Paul's theology offering salvation from punishment?

Good point but I would think that argues against freigeister's original claim just as well as establishing a Hellenistic origin.