Paul reshaping the church

[Aractus]

I am quite certain that many biblical characters quite fail in any regard due to the fact that reason wins over bias.

Define "fail". And then define which characters you mean specifically that you are "quite certain" never existed. David? Solomon?

As I've pointed out elsewhere, characters such as the Patriarchs - including Abraham, Moses, and Joshua are not historical but do have a metaphysical reality. I.e. no one consciously decided to make them up. That's not to say that things were not put into the Bible consciously for ulterior motives - in fact the evidence shows that they were. By 180 AD we have Irenaeus making that claim of all the Gnostic texts. But how does he know what was or wasn't an "authentic" text? I mean he makes all kinds of wild claims about Gnostic Christians in "Against Heresies", but we also know that by the late second century that there were rumours held by Romans that Christians were cannibals (see Octavius) which just goes to prove you can't trust wild allegations made by outside groups or interests. During this time the church mainly met in secret, in people's homes. Their activities and agenda were hidden from outsiders, much like the Freemasons or the Illuminati. Because they were doing things in secret, and then did anti-social public behaviour, of course rumours are going to start spreading about them.


So just because in 180AD Irenaeus believed the Pauline tradition of Christianity rather than one of the Gnostic traditions, it doesn't make it any more valid than the alternative flavours of Christianity of the day.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

So first off, I do apologise for me fellow atheists being so spiteful during the Easter season. I celibate Easter - I only eat fish on Good Friday and enjoy spending the time with family and friends.

Thus I didn't want to pose this question during a time that our Christian friends might find confrontational. But my question is simple. In Acts 15 the Jerusalem Council is held. The first known recorded Christian council of its kind. And they debate whether converts to first century Christianity need to follow traditional Jewish customs and the Mosaic Law.

Circumcision pertained to an unconditional covenant that Jehovah made with Abraham: it was a seal of the said covenant. But to the gentile Christian converts, ancient land promises in the Levant had little meaning. Most of them by now (50 AD that is) live outside of it, and wouldn't have viewed living within it any more desirable. The council came to a decision. Non-Jew Christians wouldn't be bound by the Mosaic Law, nor Circumcision, but they would still be required to abstain from meat sacrificed to the Roman gods and meat that was strangled and "sexual immorality".

Paul and Barnabas travelled from Antioch to attend the council and then returned to it after it was concluded (modern Turkey). Luke tells us in Acts 15:27 that the council sent two men with Paul and Barnabas named Judas and Silas to go with them and see that the letters were sent according to the council decision. Yet in Galatians and 1 Corinthians (both believed to have been the earliest surviving writings of Paul and believed to have been send from Antioch not long after the Council) Paul disobeys this decision.

1 Corinthians 10:25: Eat anything that is sold in the marketplace without questions of conscience,

Now I hear that "well by then they decided differently". Rubbish. This issue was important enough that it had to be decided between a Council of the Church Leaders in 50AD, and we have no evidence whatsoever of another council being held between then and Corinthians. Therefore it seems very clear that Paul was knowingly disobeying the decision made by the Council in Acts 15, at which he attended.

So how do Christians justify following Paul when he clearly went his own way?

The Christian guys didn't like the idea of doing circumcisions because the guy who did them would have to give the recipent a blowjob on his bloody penis.  Imagine Robertson going down on a bloody penis.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

So first off, I do apologise for me fellow atheists being so spiteful during the Easter season. I celibate Easter - I only eat fish on Good Friday and enjoy spending the time with family and friends.

Thus I didn't want to pose this question during a time that our Christian friends might find confrontational. But my question is simple. In Acts 15 the Jerusalem Council is held. The first known recorded Christian council of its kind. And they debate whether converts to first century Christianity need to follow traditional Jewish customs and the Mosaic Law.

Circumcision pertained to an unconditional covenant that Jehovah made with Abraham: it was a seal of the said covenant. But to the gentile Christian converts, ancient land promises in the Levant had little meaning. Most of them by now (50 AD that is) live outside of it, and wouldn't have viewed living within it any more desirable. The council came to a decision. Non-Jew Christians wouldn't be bound by the Mosaic Law, nor Circumcision, but they would still be required to abstain from meat sacrificed to the Roman gods and meat that was strangled and "sexual immorality".

Paul and Barnabas travelled from Antioch to attend the council and then returned to it after it was concluded (modern Turkey). Luke tells us in Acts 15:27 that the council sent two men with Paul and Barnabas named Judas and Silas to go with them and see that the letters were sent according to the council decision. Yet in Galatians and 1 Corinthians (both believed to have been the earliest surviving writings of Paul and believed to have been send from Antioch not long after the Council) Paul disobeys this decision.

1 Corinthians 10:25: Eat anything that is sold in the marketplace without questions of conscience,

Now I hear that "well by then they decided differently". Rubbish. This issue was important enough that it had to be decided between a Council of the Church Leaders in 50AD, and we have no evidence whatsoever of another council being held between then and Corinthians. Therefore it seems very clear that Paul was knowingly disobeying the decision made by the Council in Acts 15, at which he attended.

So how do Christians justify following Paul when he clearly went his own way?

Aractus-

I hope you had a blessed Easter with your family.

You raise an interesting question, and I believe the answer is found in the subsequent verses of ch. 10 which I will highlight in red:

1 Corinthians 10:25-33
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Paul is basicially saying, "Don't be legalistic about the meat that comes from the marketplace...give thanks to God for all that is good. HOWEVER, if you KNOW that the meat has been sacrificed, then do not eat it."

This instruction is in line with the letter from the Council of Jerusalem which read in part:

Acts 15:29
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

And by the way, Paul was known to go the other way, also...by fulfilling the requirements of the Law even though the Council had decided it was not necessary to do so. When? One such measure is found in the following passage:
 
Acts 16:1-3
1He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. 2The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
 
Paul wrote that “circumcision means nothing” (1 Corinthians 7:19, Galatians 6:15), but almost immediately after the Council (Acts 15), he circumcised Timothy (Acts 16)! And this despite these strong words:
 
Galatians 5:2-3
2Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

Kinda makes you wonder what Timothy thought of all this!

Paul understood that while circumcision and eating meat sacrificed to idols meant nothing (since idols are nothing), he recognized that it was prudent to go against the grain of his own theology when circumstances required him to do so.

Paul and Timothy were going among the Jews and part of the meet and great ritual was for the guys to whip out their dicks and show that they were circumcised to that they could hobnob with the local Jews.  So Paul had to do some slicing on Timothy in order for them to get into the clique. After sucking on Timothy's bloody penis Paul said to hell with that and he dropped circumcision requirement.  It was a big break with the Jewish faction but he didn't give a damn.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Once again though. you cannot refute their ideas so you simply call them quacks or now "outliers."  Detering is a Doctor of Theology.  I doubt that you are.  For you to call him a "quack" is the height of arrogance but I have come to expect that from you.

Dutch radical criticism was around in the 1800's when there were only a few hundred ancient Biblical manuscripts. Since then not only has the number and quality of the available manuscripts increased, but so too academic standards and methods have also advanced. This is to the detriment of traditional theists, as they can no longer hide behind their defences of literary problems in the Bible (whether contradictory or pseudepigraphic books or hard historical errors). We also know there were dozens of other gospels written in the first two centuries that have since been discarded. Overtime different churches have contradicted some of their long-held persistent beliefs. Such as the RCC's belief in the Vulgate as the authoritative form of the scripture texts. Or faith healings. Or denial of the patriarchal views of Jesus, the disciples, and Paul. Denial of other important historical events that occurred in the Levant in the first millennium BC.

I'm not talking purely about defending the majority view either as you well know. But discussing what is considered relevant within the scope of current academic thinking on the matter. There are more academically qualified Holocaust Deniers than there are Christ Mythers. For you to make us believe that it's worth considering that Jesus and Paul never had a historical existence is just as stupid as suggesting that we should think that Holocaust Denial is also worth serious consideration.

Oh, and one more thing. Once you start a thread it ceases to be "yours" it belongs to the board.  Go fuck yourself.

That's right, it becomes the forum's, it doesn't become yours. Go fuck yourself.

That's a whole lot of f'ing.

[Drich]

So what's the deal Arabica? did you miss my first post?

[Aractus]

Nope I ignored it. Disprove what I said, don't try to provide an elaborate explanation.

[The Atheist]

I am quite certain that many biblical characters quite fail in any regard due to the fact that reason wins over bias.

Define "fail". And then define which characters you mean specifically that you are "quite certain" never existed. David? Solomon?

As I've pointed out elsewhere, characters such as the Patriarchs - including Abraham, Moses, and Joshua are not historical but do have a metaphysical reality. I.e. no one consciously decided to make them up. That's not to say that things were not put into the Bible consciously for ulterior motives - in fact the evidence shows that they were. By 180 AD we have Irenaeus making that claim of all the Gnostic texts. But how does he know what was or wasn't an "authentic" text? I mean he makes all kinds of wild claims about Gnostic Christians in "Against Heresies", but we also know that by the late second century that there were rumours held by Romans that Christians were cannibals (see Octavius) which just goes to prove you can't trust wild allegations made by outside groups or interests. During this time the church mainly met in secret, in people's homes. Their activities and agenda were hidden from outsiders, much like the Freemasons or the Illuminati. Because they were doing things in secret, and then did anti-social public behaviour, of course rumours are going to start spreading about them.


So just because in 180AD Irenaeus believed the Pauline tradition of Christianity rather than one of the Gnostic traditions, it doesn't make it any more valid than the alternative flavours of Christianity of the day.

I haven't read Against Heresies in a few years, but my understanding is that Irenaeus rejects the Gnostic texts because, unlike the traditional texts, they were neither ancient nor universally revered. He makes the claim that there was a universal faith and that it was held by churches all over the known world--churches that had little contact with one another due to the great distance between them (a point he emphasized, if I remember correctly). The Gnostics, on the other hand, were isolated groups that sprang up at random with their own peculiar texts.

[athrock]

1 Corinthians 10:25-33
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Paul is basicially saying, "Don't be legalistic about the meat that comes from the marketplace...give thanks to God for all that is good. HOWEVER, if you KNOW that the meat has been sacrificed, then do not eat it."

This instruction is in line with the letter from the Council of Jerusalem which read in part:

Acts 15:29
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

Sorry, you're right I misquoted it. But the substance of my argument remains the same. Paul says explicitly in no uncertain terms not to bother abstaining from "meat containing blood", and "strangled meats". Yet he did not have the authority to make this direction to people. In fact no one single early church leader in c.51 AD has that authority, as evidenced from the fact that they held a Council to decide upon it.

All meat has blood in it, so that's a bit vague. Most commentaries focus on dishes which are primarily or obviously blood-laden...like blood pudding, for example. Beyond this, I will concede that Paul chafed against the legalistic rituals of the Old Covenant, but I also think we can agree that he had a temper and tended to speak his mind a little too freely on occasion. Maybe this was one of those moments.

I have to say (as a Catholic) that Peter did have the authority to establish doctrine by virtue of his position as the "vicar of Christ" (cf. Mt. 16:18-19). His decision with regard to the election of Matthew and the baptism of the household of Cornelius are two such examples. I also think that the Council ratified Peter's decision; it did not make the decision. We can discuss my reasoning if you're interested.

We know now that by the second century there were several different flavours of Christianity - not just Orthodox and Gnostic. Paul is one such splintering group, as is clearly evident from the fact that he does not follow the direction of what the Council decision was. I put it to you that unlike some of the other leaders of the time (James, Peter, etc) Paul went into the Council meeting with a clear state of mind about Circumcision and the Law of Moses, and that he left it without it having any effect over him whatsoever. Basically all he wanted from it was to convince the other leaders to do as he was doing.

Except that the Council went along with Peter who had come to the decision regarding the circumcision of Gentiles prior to the Council. Peter and Paul were saying the same things in this matter, and if Paul was going to ignore the Council, why bother going to Jerusalem in the first place? The big "loser" at the Council was clearly the judaizers who wanted the Gentiles to accept the Mosaic Law.

What Jesus taught and what Paul taught were very different to each other. Jesus defended the Law of Moses to the letter - yet Paul says it's not important.

I think this is overstated in the sense that Jesus did encourage people to obey the Mosaic Law in some matters (divorce, for example), but He had no problem with breaking the Sabbath by healing and allowing his disciples to pick grains of wheat - two examples of "working" on the Sabbath. More importantly, I think, is the fact that with Jesus' death, a New Covenant was established which surpassed the Old. So, Jesus was emphasizing those parts of the Old that would not pass away while Paul stressed the New in his writings.  

Paul's Christianity is a complete contradiction to the New Covenant that is prophesied by Jeremiah 31:31-34 (/Hebrews 8:8-12), in which it is made explicit that the New Covenant will be between Jehovah and the Judeans and the Isralites, and no one else, and that it will entirely replace the need for religious institution .

The OT prophets had a limited vision of how their prophecies would be fulfilled; the later prophets had more clarity about the Messiah than the earlier ones, for example. The Israelites did not conceive of a New Covenant that would include the Gentiles.

If Paul's branch of Christianity had died out we'd know very little about Paul just as we know precious little about James the Just. If Jame's Christianity had survived instead of Paul's it would today look very different. It'd be much more Jewish. The Gospel of John with its anti-Semitic tones would almost certainly not have survived, perhaps the Gospel of the Hebrews would have survived. Paul's letters would not have survived, in their place we would have Jame's letters.

I disagree that James and Paul represent two opposing groups in an either/or situation; they were members of one body (the Catholic Church, btw) with different emphases on various doctrines.

My point is that in the first century the Church was highly malleable. Paul taught complete contradictions to what Jesus taught, and yet today Christians follow a branch of Christianity that later developed from Pauline Christianity.

Perhaps you could share some of these "contradictions"?

I think that while the Church was "malleable" in the sense that the Apostles and their earliest followers were coming to grips with the implications of all that Jesus said and did, all of the Apostles and authors of the NT were generally of "one accord" and that attempts to find divisions among them amounts to picking at nits.
[/quote]

[athrock]

So just because in 180AD Irenaeus believed the Pauline tradition of Christianity rather than one of the Gnostic traditions, it doesn't make it any more valid than the alternative flavours of Christianity of the day.

How do you come to this conclusion (on your own, btw...this is not orthodox Christianity, for sure)?

Peter taught Clement of Rome as well as Ignatius.
Paul knew Clement and probably Ignatius.
John taught Papias, Polycarp and Ignatius (who was the third Bishop of Antioch after Peter and Evodius).
In turn, Polycarp taught Irenaus who taught Hippolytus.

All of these men knew one another, wrote to one another, visited one another, commended one another, etc.

So, when someone comes along from outside these lines of Apostolic Succession and teaching strange doctrines, they were rejected because they were not teaching those things which were handed on (Gr. tradere - "tradition") of the Apostles.

Apostolic Tradition was CLEARLY valid whereas these "alternative flavours" (aka heresies) were not. Irenaeus noted the problem (and the cure) when he wrote:

"1It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about....Surely they wished all those and their successors, to whom they handed on their authority, to be perfect and without reproach.” (Against Heresies 3.3.1, [A.D. 180])

And Tertullian wrote:

"Moreover, if there be any [heretics] bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, so that they might seem to have been handed down by the Apostles because they were from the time of the Apostles, we can say to them: let them show the origins of their Churches, let them unroll the order of their bishops, running down in succession from the beginning, so that their first bishop shall have for author and predecessor some of one of the Apostles or of the apostolic men who continued steadfast with the Apostles. For this is the way in which the apostolic Churches transmit their lists: like the Church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the Church of the Romans where Clement was ordained by Peter. In just the same way the other Churches display those whom they have as sprouts from the apostolic seed, having been established in the episcopate by the Apostles" (The Demurrer Against the Heretics 32.1, [A.D. 200]).


Sorry, Aractus, but the Baskin-Robbins flavors of Christianity which you judge equal to orthodox Christianity found today in the Catholic Church didn't make the cut for the very simple and profound reason that they had no Apostolic origins.

[athrock]

Aractus-

I hope you had a blessed Easter with your family.

You raise an interesting question, and I believe the answer is found in the subsequent verses of ch. 10 which I will highlight in red:

1 Corinthians 10:25-33
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Paul is basicially saying, "Don't be legalistic about the meat that comes from the marketplace...give thanks to God for all that is good. HOWEVER, if you KNOW that the meat has been sacrificed, then do not eat it."

This instruction is in line with the letter from the Council of Jerusalem which read in part:

Acts 15:29
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

And by the way, Paul was known to go the other way, also...by fulfilling the requirements of the Law even though the Council had decided it was not necessary to do so. When? One such measure is found in the following passage:
 
Acts 16:1-3
1He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. 2The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
 
Paul wrote that “circumcision means nothing” (1 Corinthians 7:19, Galatians 6:15), but almost immediately after the Council (Acts 15), he circumcised Timothy (Acts 16)! And this despite these strong words:
 
Galatians 5:2-3
2Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.

Kinda makes you wonder what Timothy thought of all this!

Paul understood that while circumcision and eating meat sacrificed to idols meant nothing (since idols are nothing), he recognized that it was prudent to go against the grain of his own theology when circumstances required him to do so.

Paul and Timothy were going among the Jews and part of the meet and great ritual was for the guys to whip out their dicks and show that they were circumcised to that they could hobnob with the local Jews.  So Paul had to do some slicing on Timothy in order for them to get into the clique. After sucking on Timothy's bloody penis Paul said to hell with that and he dropped circumcision requirement.  It was a big break with the Jewish faction but he didn't give a damn.

FWIW, I'm adding you to my ignore list.