Toto

Yes, that is the argument, and it is based on misreading the Hebrew scripture that Paul quotes.

judge

But who are you to say what is a misreading and what is not? You have not provided any evidence. Are we just supposed to believe it because someone (you in this case) tells us that it should be believed?

1.Jews themselves over the centuries have applied a variety of ways or reading their own scriptures, ways of opening them up. How can you or we decide which one is the correct one (if any)

2.Jews themselves have been unable to make any coherent sense out of their own prophets or what their own messiah was to be.

3.The Hebrew prophets warned that jews themsleves would and did misunderstand.

I am not even a christian but I dont think we should just accept that something is a misreading without evidence.
It should be obvious from reading the NT that the NT authors deliberately misread things.

Think of Matthew quoting Isaiah..."out of Egypt I called my son".
It is a deliberate misreading (according to the concept of misreading espoused here). To apply 21st century notions of "misreading" to ancient texts should be questioned.

It doesn't mean that one has to accept christian dogma (god forbid), but it seems to me, pointless to suggest that the reading is "incorrect" in the light of Jewish approaches to their own scriptures and, when it is nigh on impossible to articulate what a "correct" reading is. But feel free.

judge

The problem, I see, as I alluded to in my reply to Toto is that jews themselves, over a long period did not always woodenly interpret their own scriptures.

Wiki article on midrash

As all our early sources tell us Paul was jewish it seems strange to conclude that Paul must have misinterpreted on the basis that it doesn't jibe with our 21st century western notions of the "correct" way to interpret a text.

Solo

It's what Jeffrey Gibson (where is he ?) would call eisegesis.

Paul's reading into the Septuagint 'faith' as 'ethical 'lawlessness' had of course to do with what was happening inside Paul's head. He said (in 2 Cor 12) he went up to the third heaven 'in Christ'. He also said that he considered everything in his life outside his relationship with JC - shit.

Paul's manic grandeur and how it relates to melankholia was first medically described by Areteaus of Cappadocia a few generations after Paul. Among other things, Areteaus noted the tendency of manics to be autodidacts !

Jiri

arnoldo

Paul also said he wished the agitators, (who were promoting circumcision among the early christians) whom he was writing against in Galatians, would emasculate themselves, your point?
Actually Areteaus may have been a contemporary of Paul. . .

Zenaphobe

Didn't Justin Martyr and the Didache do something like midrash with the OT?

I wouldn't say Paul is "misinterpreting" so much as mining things from the OT to "prove" his gospel is the culmination of what Yahweh had been saying all along. Yahweh's cryptic methods and disregard for common usage of language is a real puzzler if you think his desire is for humans to understand and believe his communication.

All this makes me think back to the days when I would spend hours trying to show Jehovah's Witnesses that their usage of the NT to support their doctrines about Jesus were selective and ignoring context and common usage of certain words.

The JW's method of arriving at their conclusions seem a lot like Paul's usage of the OT to support his teachings.

Solo

What's yours ? I don't see any link between what I was saying and your reply. I commented on Toto's view that Paul misread the Scripture by hinting that he did not misread it but creatively adapted it to his purposes. I quoted from Philippians to show that Paul did not care about anything in his life but winning Christ. I am not judging him for that. As a matter of fact there is much I admire about Paul - most of all his steadfastness of character. His writings helped me a lot in my own period of personal crisis - not by selling me on Christ but on the idea that one better to stick to one's tentmaking if the world seems on the brink. That convinced me that whatever it was that hit he and I, he was on the level, and that his faith was genuine.

He may have been but it is unlikely that Paul would have listened to him. Manics, especially the creative ones, do not listen to shrinks. Many of us see ourselves as the special ones, the elect of god(s), the ones with talent, wit, χάρις, to say nothing of staggering conceit.

Jiri

arnoldo

The letter of Galatians must be read in context, i.e., judaizers have crept into the Galatian community and instructed them that they must be circumcised. The issue is not so much Paul misreading/creatively adapting scriptures rather his response to the "judaizers."
That's an oversimplifcation. . . Paul counted as dung his previous knowledge and yes he did care about "winning Christ" yet his letters clearly demonstrated he cared a great deal about other things including the early christians living in Galatia, Ephesia, Rome, Jersualem, etc. Paul also demonstrates he continued to care a great deal for the Jews in Romans 9:1-5-- even to the point of him losing Christ!
Ok.
If what Paul wrote was true (in the same way a flatlander would write about an encounter with a spherical orb) then he wasn't suffering from Bipolar I Disorder, Single Manic Episode
That's how Paul characterized the "agitators."

storytime

Ok, if there was a wedge driven to separate, then Paul drove a wedge between Melchizedek and Abraham. Mel and Abram existing in the faith only doctrine Abraham had before god demanded circumcision.

The story says the priesthood of Christ was in Melchizedek by which Paul established his faith only doctrine for Gentiles, for it was by that same faith Abram and the priest Melchizedek believed before the covenant of circumcision was given. This Melchizedek connection would have to be the only path open to uncircumcised Gentiles, as I'm understanding it.

Then we come to the scene where god directs Abraham to mark those born in his household and also those bought with money from any foreigner. Does this identify the heirs from the slaves? Both blessed in the house of Abraham as promised?

Then we come to the rights of the firstborn. And here it really gets tricky.

arnoldo

It's not tricky at all. . . in Galatians, Paul introduces the concept of the believers as having being "adopted" into the family of God via their faith in Christ(the seed of Abraham). Walters writes.