Duvduv

I looked again at Galatians 1, specifically verses 11 - 24, and in light of my exchange with AA, I wanted discuss the confusion in Galatians.

Leaving Acts aside, where Paul is said to have persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem, in Galatians all we find is that "he" claims he persecuted "the Church of God." This by itself sounds like an insertion from a time when "the Church" actually existed.

Then a few verses later Paul says that he was "unknown to the churches (plural) in JUDEA" but had now started preaching the faith". The CHURCHES only heard the report that he was persecuting "US". Does "us" mean the "church" in Judea or outside of Judea? WHAT churches existed in Judea, and WHERE when he was persecuting them? He doesn't say.

This of course also sounds like something interpolated from a much later time in its reference to "the faith" as something other than Judaism. He also doesn't even say WHEN that was - although it is understood via Acts to be a couple of years after the crucifixion.

One would imagine that once Acts came out, and the persecution was determined to have been in Jerusalem, that some church person would have corrected the contradiction.

After already saying how learned he was in Judaism he ADDS as an AFTERTHOUGHT rather than as a starting point that he was "set apart from my mother's womb," In the flow of the sentence this also sounds like an interpolation before the words coming "called me by his grace...."

The words "to reveal his Son in me" seems to mean something very different than knowledge of the three or four gospel religion. For that matter, it sounds like something very different than that possessed by any other adherent to the Christ.

Of course when did he find out he was chosen from his mother's womb? Was it as he was growing up or when he was persecuting the Christians? He never says.

HAD the author of Galatians known about the Great Commission of the Matthew and Luke, then he would have known that the directive to preach to the gentiles was the responsibility of many other people than himself, in which case there was no need to debate it with people in Jerusalem since they also knew about the need to preach to gentiles and must have been doing it in the place where Paul was persecuting "the CHURCH or CHURCHES".

aa5874

You might as well just come straight out and say the character Paul really wrote NOTHING before c 70 CE.

It is most amazing that all the evidence that shows the PAULINE writings were LATE magically "SOUNDS" like interpolations.

There is ZERO evidence anywhere that Galatians was interpolated--the evidence suggests that the Pauline writings were fabricated PRECISELY to present a Fraudulent account of the history of the Jesus cult.

Justin Martyr was FORCED to defend his Belief about with the Memoirs of the Apostles, the Revelation by John and a Mysterious OLD Man.

When Justin Martyr in "First Apology" wrote to the Roman Emperor, the Senate and the people of Rome he did NOT mention the ROMAN CITIZEN called SAul/Paul who supposedly OUT-PERFORMED Jesus and the Apostle Peter and was a Martyr.

Paul supposedly preached Christ Crucified and resurrected for over 17 years and performed miracles far longer than the Lord Jesus and also supposedly wrote many more letters that Peter.

When Justin Argued Against Trypho the Jew, again he was FORCED to used Hebrew Scripture and the MEMOIRS of the Apostles---he did NOT mention the Hebrew of Hebrews, the Pharisee, called Saul/Paul.

Justin Martyr EXPOSED a 120 year BIG BLACK hole up of activities of the Apostles from the Ascension c 33 CE to the mid 2nd century.

And to UTTERLY destroy Paul, Justin claimed it was 12 ILLITERATE disciples from Jerusalem, NOT the highly educated Paul, that PREACHED the gospel to EVERY RACE of Men in the World.

The Pauline writings were FABRICATED AFTER Justin Martyr.

Duvduv

AA, I appreciate what you are saying, but first I want to examine the CONTENT of what it says in Galatians itself with the confusion and contradiction. So please feel free to discuss the actual content of what I was writing about.

The confusion is compounded because presumably had the author of Galatians known about Acts he would have made sure to explain how his Paul could have been persecuting in Jerusalem and yet be unknown to the people there.

On the other hand, had the author of Acts known about Galatians, he would have seen the problem of the confusion in Galatians and tried to fix it. Surely there could have been a "Version 1.0" of Galatians followed by a "Version 2.0" . The fact that there are suspected interpolations suggests that people could have made these corrections too, but they didn't.

GakuseiDon

Gal 1:22 says "unknown by face", not "unknown at all". The implication seems to be that Paul was known by reputation.

Duvduv

I don't see the difference. Is this alternative meant to say they were all in the same town and yet these Christians never saw the guy who was persecuting "us"?? Doesn't make much sense.

aa5874

I do NOT see any interpolations in Galatians.

The authors of Acts claimed Saul made havoc of the Church even went into houses and haling men and women to prison.

Acts 8:3 KJV Based on Acts, the church did KNOW Saul/Paul by face.

If Paul did enter houses as stated by Acts then Paul in Galatians appears to be A LIAR .

In any event, Acts of the Apostles appear to have been written BEFORE the Pauline letters because the author of Acts did NOT state anywhere that Paul wrote letters even though he stated PAUL traveled to the very same places to which the letters supposedly written.

The Pauline letters should have taken some considerable time to compose yet the author of Acts only mentioned extremely short letters from the Jerusalem Church that was given to Paul and his company to DELIVER by hand.

Duvduv

AA, I agree with much of what you write, however, I don't understand why the author of Galatians who was different than the author of Acts had to have been a LIAR. Maybe he never saw Acts. Just that simple. Why can't they have come from different sources or writers who were unfamiliar with one another?

My scenario doesn't take Acts into account, because obviously the author of Acts knew about a Jesus story. But despite claims to the contrary, it's not "cut and dry" that the author of Acts knew the Jesus story from the canonical gospels.

Bernard Muller

Gal 1:22 is about the churches in Judea, not necessarily including Jerusalem, certainly not only Jerusalem.
These churches probably came into existence after the persecution and the Greek dispersion (which I place around 35). But Paul was away during that time in Damascus, Arabia, in Cilicia and Syria, first in Tarsus, then preaching after 42 (likely with Barnabas as for the "first journey"). So it makes sense that all, or at least most members of these churches did not know Paul in person (and Christians then would have avoided to know Paul in person when he was persecuting them!).
And the "church of God" means just "Christians". This expression is also used in 1Cor1:2, 10:32 & 11:22.
1Cr 10:32 "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,"

Duvduv

Come on, Bernard. The issue isn't as complicated as you make it. Please go back and reread my last posting about this. Either he was only persecuting somewhere outside of Judea (yes, including Jerusalem) OR he is believed to have been persecuting IN Jerusalem but no one ever saw him, which makes no sense.

LegionOnomaMoi

Perhaps that's because you are dealing with translations. "Community" or "assembly" is a better translation than "church." Ekklesia was around long before christianity.

It's always great to hear a textual critical analysis based on a translation. After all, it's not like a detailed analysis of the original text, including an examination of the lexical choices (both in comparison with those of the time and other works thought to be written by the other), the syntactic and contextual "fit" of the clause/passage/phrase in question within context, and so forth, would require actually being able to READ the text one is making claims about.

Can you actually read the sentence?


And as Paul was writing prior to the composition of Matthew and Luke, he knew nothing about them. But don't let facts or reasoning get in the way of talking about the "flow of a sentence" based on an english translation. After all, why would would consult Denniston for the use of particles in their capacity to logically connect clauses, or a reference grammar (Schweitzer, Smyth, BDF, Wallace, you take your pick) or a lexicon (the LSJ or BDAG) when all that does is get in the way?