Galatians 5:12
I wish that everyone who is upsetting you would not only get circumcised, but would cut off much more!
Discuss.
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Imagine if Paul were correct, imagine that the cross superseded the prepuce?
As Pope Francis Said, just be good.
It should be noted that the Galatians to which Paul was writing were originally Gauls from Thrace (after the Gauls invaded the Balkans in 279 BC) They invaded in the 3rd century BC, but were defeated were later defeated by Antiochus I. They settled a region in the central highlands of Anatolia. It became a Roman Province on the death of Augustus (CE 25). People there were still speaking a Gaulish language in CE 369.
1) I wonder if there is something idiomatic that the translators don’t get.
2) Who was the church in Galatia. Many times, early Christian churches attracted the disaffected and powerless, e.g., slaves. Was Paul writing to Gauls? Or to other wanderers of the Anatolian highlands?
3) Circumcision was an issue in the early Church. The Romans would let old religions alone, but were death on starting any new ones. Early Christians met in synagogs, but this led to conflict between Jews and the newcomers, who were not circumcised and didn’t know how to follow all of the Jewish laws. Is this the first recorded instance of snark from Paul?
4) What does Galations 4:9 mean? This is clearly an idiom that does not translate well. Here is the text
7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”
What is the yeast in this case? Persuasion? What is the whole batch of dough?
5) Growing up with the KJV, this is what I read as a child:
12 I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
Yoda translated the Bible?
Dan …
You are buying into a lot of bad Christan propaganda about persecution of the early Chrich and about the early church as a cadre of do gooders.
1. Paul was anything but an apostle of the poor and slaves. He was a well to do, middle class Roman citizen.
2. The empire in his time had many religions, new as well as old. Unlike Rome after the takeover by Christians, Rom of the first century was tolerant as long as your religion did not promote the denial of the divine right of Rome to rule.
3. The issue of circumcision was part of Paul’s antisemitism. While he claimed to be Jewish, his new religion was built on the ugly idea that his god, Jesus, replaced the Jew’s monotheism with a Greek style anthropomorphic deity. Given that monotheism was central to Judaism, it rather pissed Paul off that we rejected this man god just as we rejected the rest of the Greco-Roman deities.
@3 “Render under Caesar” looks more like a political expendient than divine law. Kind of like Democrats caving in to another Republican entitlement cut.
Actually no. This was a central message of the Pharisees NOT the Christians.
Hillel taught the=at we should obey Roman law because the Romans were too biog to fight BUT we should insist on following our religion and traditions.
Whoever Jesus was, he was convicted of breaking Roman Law … if all he had done was blaspheme Me, the Jews would have stoned the guy.
@3
on Paul: “He was a well to do, middle class Roman citizen.” What was the source of his income? Surely he must have had one, being, as you say “well-to-do”?
Facts please.
And SJ, do you have a way of talking that isn’t antagonistic?
I have never read where the family money came from. Paul was born into a Roman family and I would imagine inherited his father’s business.
@7
Saul of Tarsus was from a devout Jewish family and was a tentmaker by trade. (Acts 18.3)
I have never heard of Paul being well-to-do and can find no reference to it.
If the lot of them would have cut off each other’s heads we’d be better off today…
Dan
Paul was a Roman citizen, a son of a Roman citizen. Saying he was a “devout Jew” is a bit like describing Karl Marx as a devout Jew. Like Karl, Paul came from Jewish stock. However, he lived as Roman just Karl lived as a part of his culture.
As for Paul being a “Pharoisee,” that makes no sense either since the Pharisees were the leaders of the (passive) resistance to Rome.
Riddle me this, which side of the Jewish War do you supose Jews like Paul sided with? Is there anywhere in his screed where Paul castigates the Romans for their crimes?
As for his financial status, being tent maker put Paul into a middle class member of the Roman Bourgeoisie. How else do you suppose he afforded his life style? Of course, as his preaching business picked up, like a modern TV evangelist Paul lived of his preachings.
The saddest thing about the Roman bible (the “christian” bible) is that it calumniates the heroism of the resistance to Rome. Thousands died in that resistance while Paul, like those who stood by in the Holocaust or in the era of American slavery, preached about Christianity.
@10
The Pharisees were religious conservatives who were more interested in deposing the High Priest and his cohort than in passively resisting the Romans.
Tarsus was a free Roman city and Saul was born there, acquiring his Roman citizenship. He travelled to Jerusalem in his teens to study. His sister lived there later (Acts 23) While Karl Marx came from a family of rabbis, I don’t know if he received religious training, so the comparison doesn’t hold.
With regard to wars, etc, I refer you to Tertullian’s comment on St. Peter.
With regard to Paul’s comments regarding Rome, the part of the Romans 1 regarding homosexuality, in context, is more about sexual crimes perpetrated against lower Roman orders, e.g., slaves, than it is about the sexual acts themselves. I believe Paul was writing in sympathy to those men who were powerless in the face of sexual assault, not in condemnation of gay men in general. Rome was a hypermasculine culture; Paul’s screed makes no other sense.
The Revelation (The Apocalypse, or unveiling) of John was directed at Rome. It shows the evidence of having been edited to take into account the failures of the revolts against Rome.
I don’t think you have a well informed view of the early Christian Church. That church was not in opposition to Rome so much as it was for the return of Jesus. When that didn’t happen and those who knew Jesus started to die off, there was a major crisis in the Church. Over the next few decades, the church changed. In North Africa the second century CE, the church had become a welfare organization for those who could not qualify for the grain dole.
While Jesus used the appellation, “Son of Man”, a decidedly political title (thus sealing his fate), the early Christian church was mostly apolitical.
With regard to Christianity in the era of slavery in the Americas, there is a lot of source material in the Bible from which to preach about slavery, none of it from a human rights perspective. I don’t get your point.
This all sounds like a soap opera to me. What a waste of time.
@12
If only it were so, except that millions have been killed in response to these questions. See the Cathars in Frnace, for example.
As I see your perspective, it is like people went to war because of something Perez Hilton said about one of the lesser Kardashians. (yeah, trick question, “What does one have to do to be one of the lesser Kardashians?”)
BTW, Paul the Apostle was probably gay. How do the far right religious zealots reconcile this little bit of info to their religion?
Dan
I suspect I know as much as you abut the perios, except my POV is Jewish while your is, sorry to say, Roman, Remember, that the story you tell ended for us with the Jewish wars, while your story culminates in Constantine.
Especially telling is you description of the Pharisees … the first rabbis, the school of Hillel, the opposition to the Temple cult under Rome’s appointed priests, and ultimately the intellectual springs behind bar Kochba.
GThe idea that Paul, with his very Greek theology and lack of description of his own observance of the laws, was a Pharisee simply lacks the ring of truth,
It is also startling, that contemporary Roman authors do not describe the sort of Christian movement found im the Roman bible.
My guess is tghat there was a Jesus,. he was minor character who got magnified by Greek culture Romans looking for a cause.
No. The Romans adopted Christianity as a way to promote the Empire. Of course, there were a LOT of unintended consequences!!
@15
Given the glacial speed of communication in the Roman Empire compared to ours today, and given the miniscule amount of written material that has survived two millennia, and given the types of things that people wrote then, it is not at all startling that there were no contemporaneous accounts of Jesus or the Christian church of Paul’s day. The Gnostic gospels were not did not reach what are considered to be canonical form until all of the witnesses (and probably their children) were dead.
There were no objective contemporaneous reporters. Flavius Josephus, one of history’s great scoundrels, was trying to burnish his credentials and not get swept up in the horrific political life of Rome, where a misstep could get one marked as an enemy of the state. All of the writers we consider to be Roman historians wrote from a moral perspective and attempted to shape facts and events to fit that perspective.
In the absence of the printing press, the only things that were preserved were the things that resonated with their readers and thus qualified for a copyist’s labors. And those things were not immune to editing by those copyists, e.g., the probable insertion into Josephus of a reference to Jesus.
The speed of communication in the Roman empire was essentially foot speed, The lack of a temporal frame of reference caused much to be not recorded or signified.
Consider for example all of the verbiage that is being created on the Internet about things that today seem nonsensical, e.g., fan fiction. Perhaps a couple of centuries hence, a new religion will become prominent, e.g., Scientology, that is based on some of these writings. There will be no contemporaneous reporting of the birth of the religion. Think of how many current events penetrate the noise curtain to become prominent for a few days and then disappear. For example, look for references to Andrew Breitbart on the Internet. His followers struggle mightily to keep his story alive. But apart from the inbred circle of conservative politics, no one else is talking about him.
You need not guess as to the character of Jesus. There are many scholarly groups working to uncover who he was. Some of them approach the subject as skeptics, others as believers. The Jesus Seminar did some interesting work in this area.
Dan, it might be better ot get together sometime to have a discussion or do this on my website, THE-AVE.US where threads like this can “live” for a longer time. One way you can reach me is to go to THE-Ave.US and leave a comment after anything, the “SUNDAY REVELATIONS” may be appropriate.
now to be specific:
“The Gnostic gospels were not did not reach what are considered to be canonical form until all of the witnesses (and probably their children) were dead.” “In the absence of the printing press, the only things that were preserved were the things that resonated with their readers and thus qualified for a copyist’s labors.”
The Gnostic Gospels came later than Paul so their relevance here is irrelevant. As to your other comment, the canonization process simply proves the point that the events of the first century have little relevance to what came later. Arguing that what was “resonant” survived smacks of modern Fauxies saying theit alternative universe is the real one because Faux makes money
“There were no objective contemporaneous reporters. Flavius Josephus, one of history’s great scoundrels, was trying to burnish his credentials and not get swept up in the horrific political life of Rome, where a misstep could get one marked as an enemy of the state. ”
Are you so Christian that you need to call a Jew a name? Was Jesus a scoundrel because of the sin of vainglory, lack of charitable acts, tolerance of Roman rule, and blasphemy? Your bigotry against Josephus aside, what reason would he have NOT to mention Paul if the self proclaimed 13th apostle had any impact in Rome or Israel ?
“All of the writers we consider to be Roman historians wrote from a moral perspective and attempted to shape facts and events to fit that perspective.”
And the Christian writers of later times were?
“And those things were not immune to editing by those copyists, e.g., the probable insertion into Josephus of a reference to Jesus.”
So? Doesn’t that weaken your point?
“For example, look for references to Andrew Breitbart on the Internet. His followers struggle mightily to keep his story alive. But apart from the inbred circle of conservative politics, no one else is talking about him.”
Good example of my point. The Fauxist creation of truth is a good (and funny!) model for the ay the Christian story must have grown. Is Reagan Jesus?
Have you met any Chinese immigrants? They have similar problems because their government re wrote history. Riddle me this .. on the long march, was Mao carried across the river or did he walk with the poorer folks?
“The Jesus Seminar did some interesting work in this area.”
Yes, and I have some of their materials. What they reveal is what I wrote .. Jesus was a lay follower of the pharisees.
@18
Are Jews above being called out because of an abundance or lack of character? Would you react in the same manner if I referred to a Jewish man as a “good man”? Jew or not, Josephus was a scoundrel, one good enough for canonization via Hollywood. Quality of character, good or bad, does not depend on ethnicity. If someone is an argumentative asshole, they are of the argumentative asshole clan, without regard to who their parents were.
Your comment about Josephus was that he “one of history’s great scoundrels.” Why would anyone BUT a Christian call him a scoundrel? Perhaps a Jew might call him a quisling, but then the same would certainly apply to Paul. For that matter, if you compare the two, seems to me that Paul with his effort to pervert Judaism is far the greater scoundrel .. but then I am Jewish.
What I find horrid about Christians is their amazing ability to forgive themselves for sins against others. Rape of Africa, the holocaust, the expulsion from Spain, extinction of indigenous Americans, demonization of other religions, .. all this is somehow not part of the Christian heritage.
Interestingly, the Jewish view is utterly different. Jews are taught that we do the wrong things. David, Solomon, Moses, Samson .. all are used as lessons in the wrong things Jews do. Jews are expected to learn how to be better people not for God or salvation but just to be better people. Sounds to me as if Pope Francis may have been reading some Talmud .
@20
Josephus was a revolutionary, until things got bad. Do you remember how he got out of the cave alive?
I didn’t call Josephus a criminal for I have no proof of that. But he was at least a scoundrel. Note that I didn’t call him a scoundrel Jew. It is a test of your objectivity to see him for what he was.
Yes, Jewish teachings and behavior are all utterly different. Have you read “The Color of Water”?
So if Josephus was a scoundrel would you call Paul a poseur?
Remember that the issue, in any case, was not your use of the term scoundrel but the hard to explain fact that Josephus somehow manged not o know that Paul was doing these amazing things.
Put another way, Paul was not relevant to anything happening to the Jews or the Romans.
@22
“Remember that the issue, in any case, was not your use of the term scoundrel but the hard to explain fact that Josephus somehow manged not o know that Paul was doing these amazing things.”
This does not make sense on its face. Why would Josephus, born to a wealthy family, descended from Hasmoneans, have known anything about Paul? To put it in modern terms, you seem to expect someone like a Kennedy to know about the goings on of a faith healer in South Central Los Angeles. This is a ludicrous idea.
Josephus was a teenager in Jerusalem when Paul was there and after the break between Paul and Peter, Gentile Christians were not welcome in synagogues (if they ever were before). Also, there was no shortage of miracle workers in Judea at that time; Paul and the Christians were just one of many groups.
When Josephus wrote about the Jewish Wars (with patronage), he was not attempting to write a comprehensive history. It is an unreasonable expectation that Josephus write an extensive history about events that happened about 20 years earlier and had no impact on the more immediate events of the just concluded war.
To put it in modern terms, would you expect a history about the Bush wars in the Middle East to included a disquisition on “American Idol” or Pat Robertson?
“Put another way, Paul was not relevant to anything happening to the Jews or the Romans.”
The form of this statement is reminiscent of sports talk radio: it is a statement that can neither be proven nor disproven, but seems intended to force retort on the part of the listener.
Dan
You are making my point.
“Why would Josephus… have known anything about Paul?”
No reason at all because Christians of that era were a small cult, irrelevant to the Jews or the Romans. The story in your bible are the only source we have and it is expectedly a self aggrandized view. As you say “Paul and the Christians were just one of many groups (clain8ing t do miracles),”.
As for Christians being “allowed into synagogues “.. I have no idea what you mean. Why would non Jews living in Israel would have wanted to attend a Jewish meeting where our history and law were red in Hebrew. For that matter, as afar as I know there is no evidence that Christianity itself, as opposed to the cult around Jesus, took root in Israel.
Anyhow, as HA cycles, we need to end this here. Let me know if you want to continue at The-Ave.Us.
@24
“As for Christians being “allowed into synagogues “.. I have no idea what you mean. Why would non Jews living in Israel would have wanted to attend a Jewish meeting where our history and law were red in Hebrew.”
This speaks of a lack of knowledge of history. After Paul started ministering to Gentiles, the new converts started coming to synagogues and there was a major conflict. The Jews wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised and to obey other Jewish laws. “Why would non Jews living in Israel….?” is a profoundly unfounded question.