freigeister

Prophetic opposition to external religious forms, including sacrifices, is of long standing:

Rick Sumner

It's a natural extension of it--baddies are granted increasing power through successive steps.

And yes, it doubtlessly begins in Hellenism, but by the time Paul wrote, it had been incorporated to some degree into Judaism--enough so that it's tracable through it. The enemies of the authors of the DSS were often touched by baddies, for example. Judaism was Hellenized, to be sure, but what Paul is drawing from is a Hellenized Judaism, not Hellenism itself.

There is no clear Jewish thought on a Messiah who died to redeem sins, his or otherwise. There's no Pagan thought on the matter either, so we can't really put it in either category, but Paul's understanding of what the sacrifice stood for, and how it functioned for what would become a new religion is clearly Jewish.

The salvation in question seems to be primarily admission to the covenant, not salvation in the sense of staving off punishment. To be sure, punishment was staved off as part and parcel of joining the covenant, and he may well have used such threats to win converts, but the primary point of Jesus' sacrifice seems to be that he opened the door to all nations. The veil was torn.

Rom.3.21-25 captures it perhaps most eloquently. There is no longer a distinction, since all have sinned, and all are now justified through grace. If we had to define Paul's entire career by one point, I'd suggest that would be it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

Jeremiah isn't suggesting that they get rid of sacrifice altogether, rather that sacrifice without repentance is useless--it was the heart that mattered, not the lamb. Such themes are frequent, and sacrifice certainly wasn't the only method of redemption mentioned in Jewish literature, with alternatives almost universally attesting to the import of the sentiment over the deed (though there are exceptions even to that, sometimes God is shown as just forgiving of his own volition, in one unique passage in the DSS an excorcist pardons a man's sins. Rabbinic literature suggests that God is so merciful that even if a thousand angels testify against a man, and but one in his favor, he will be redeemed).

Regards,
Rick Sumner

freigeister

Perhaps you will find this passage unambiguous:

Chris Weimer

Huh, do I here conceding? If I go to a Chinese restaurant, and order an egg-roll, am I ordering Chinese or American food? Of course Chinese! So too is that "Hellenized Judaism" still traces it's root to Hellas, and I doubt the Temple leaders in Paul's time (Temple still standing) would have wholly approved of such.

Chris Weimer

And the Amos quote is about the Judahites doing evil and then not being whole-hearted when presenting their sacrifice.

Rick Sumner

Comparing ethnic food today, with the role of religion in the day of Paul, is laughable. Nations and cultures were largely defined by their religion, and borrowed from each other frequently, in pretty well every direction.

Unless we're going to start calling the "God Fearers" Jewish, I'm going to have a hard time calling Hellenized Judaism "Hellenism."

And yet they did. Judaism was hugely Hellenized, long before Paul. Again, look at the DSS, at the Ps.Sol., at 1Enoch--one doesn't even need to leave the current canon. Take a look at Daniel.

By the time of Paul, Hellenized Judaism was essentially the only Judaism. To define identifiably Pagan beliefs in the Pauline corpus as including Hellenized Judaism leaves no alternative--there was no un-Hellenized Judaism for him to rely on.

What you're creating is a tautology, not an argument. The question is whether or not Paul's theology is sourced by the Judaism of his day, not whether or not the Judaism of his day was Hellenized. Nobody has suggested that it wasn't.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

freigeister

There is not a word in the chapter about "not being whole-hearted when presenting their sacrifice". The prophet is against the principle of sacrifice because it is nothing more than a way of sublimating a guilty conscience. The prophet wants people to stop doing the things that give them a guilty conscience in the first place.

Rick Sumner

Neither passage is ambiguous. The entire book of Amos explains why God hates their sacrifices. Because they do evil unrepentantly. Not because he's down on sacrifice.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

andrewcriddle

There is a strong Hellenistic tendency to compare the material world to the spiritual/intellectual world to the disadvantage of the former.

The idea of an evil intelligence controlling the lower material world, is much less common Plutarch Atticus and Numenius in various ways may have held something like this but they are all later than Paul.

In general 2nd century CE Hellenism took a bleaker view of the world than had been usual before.

Andrew Criddle