(August 31, 2023 at 7:49 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: Basically, then, the Pauline texts would be considered by most traditional Christians to be a mix of Paul's opinions and recollections and things passed to him directly by revelation, but all are divinely inspired and suitable in a special way for use by the church.
That sounds like a mess. I guess Paul then represents the clergy or the head of the church - people of authority in religious business - who still speak in the name of Jesus (god) with a mix of their opinions which frequently don't have much to do with gospels.
I mean many people today still claim to be apostles, talking to Jesus, etc. but they are not in the Bible.
Like, there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of Catholics who believe that women in Bosnia talk directly to the Virgin Mary every day, so you would think that what Mary has to say would be worth adding as a new book in the Bible.
But I guess I am going off-topic now.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
