Faith and Works

Originally posted by telerion
Yes. I was beginning to wonder if the Rapture was even more selective than implied by some in these parts.

😵

Narrow is the way, and few are they who find it...

Originally posted by telerion
Yes. I was beginning to wonder if the Rapture was even more selective than implied by some in these parts.

Are there people here who really believe that rapture stuff???

Brilliant! I thought the creationists were as nutty as they come but the rapture ready folk take idiocy and turn it into a way of life.

Will there really be obese americans floating out of their clothes? GROSS!!!

Originally posted by no1marauder
I read both and they are both BS. The first is basically a well-written version of the "Secret Decoder Ring Defense" i.e. to interpret Scripture you work backward, first assuming what God wants to show in the Scripture and then making the particular passage fit into your preconceived ideas. Needless to say, this is the exact opposite of what a ...[text shortened]... by everyone's everday experiences, so I find his views on humanity unconvincing in the extreme.

No1: "I read both and they are both BS."

Oh brother .......

No1: "this is the exact opposite of what a rational person does when they are trying to figure out what a document or writing is trying to say."

Oh brother .......

No1: "I can read the Gospels just as well as Paul did (actually better as it is unclear whether Paul read any of them!).

Oh brother .......

No1: "Paul's belief that Man is innately sinful and evil is a mere assertion that is refuted by everyone's everday experiences, ... "

Oh brother .......

Originally posted by no1marauder
As for Paul, I don't find his peculiar interpretations of Jesus' words of any particular relevance. I can read the Gospels just as well as Paul did (actually better as it is unclear whether Paul read any of them!). Why should I or anyone choose to accept Paul's views on something when we can look at it ourselves and come to our own conclusions?

It depends on what you're trying to conclude.

If the basic question you're asking is, "What did the author of this particular passage intend?" then, short of asking him/her yourself, you need to look at what commentators and other members of the audience to whom the passage was directed thought about it. In Paul's case, he certainly lived at around the same time as Jesus and his epistles were read by, among others, the Apostles and other people who had been present in person when Jesus taught. Had he written/taught something contrary to those teachings, one can be certain there would've been some evidence of protest (instead, we see Paul as having an influence second only to Peter in the Early Church). Further, some of the Gospels were written after Paul wrote his epistles, and it is quite likely that the authors of the Gospels had the epistles to their reference and might even have assumed that the audience (of the Gospels) were aware of these epistles - hence seeing no need to reinvent the wheel.

In other words, you cannot simply ignore the historical, theological and literary context in which the Gospels were written. To do so is to make exactly the same error (though to opposite effect) as the Bible literalists.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
It depends on what you're trying to conclude.

If the basic question you're asking is, "What did the author of this particular passage intend?" then, short of asking him/her yourself, you need to look at what commentators and other members of the audience to whom the passage was directed thought about it. In Paul's case, he certainly lived at a ...[text shortened]... To do so is to make exactly the same error (though to opposite effect) as the Bible literalists.

Surely you are not asserting that no early Christian writings disputed Paul's views. See http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/heresy/ (I esp. like Marcion's belief that there was an evil God and a good God; that the evil God was the one represented in the OT and Jesus was sent by the good God to rescue man from evil God). That Paul's version of Christianity became the predominant one does not mean that his views comport with Jesus'; there were many different schools of early Christian thought. You seem to be ignoring the historical context, not me.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Surely you are not asserting that no early Christian writings disputed Paul's views. See http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/heresy/ (I esp. like Marcion's belief that there was an evil God and a good God; that the evil God was the one represented in the OT and Jesus was sent by the good God to rescue man from evil God). That Paul's versio ...[text shortened]... rent schools of early Christian thought. You seem to be ignoring the historical context, not me.

In the early years of the church, few would have thought the writings of Paul of Tarsus would become so influential. He was a scrappy fellow, always ready to defend what was then a minority viewpoint even among those doing mission work among the Gentiles.

Paul's penchant for not mincing words and holding on to his understanding of God's call was not limited to skirmishes among the leaders of the early church. He could and did write scathing letters to the churches themselves; we can only imagine his demeanor when he met with them face-to-face. Paul's letter to the Galatians contains some of his sharpest written words (5:2-12); his letters to the Corinthians are not far behind.

At the beginning of the second century, Paul's work remained unknown or unimportant in some parts of the church while other parts embraced it enthusiastically. For example, a few decades after Paul's death, a key bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 110) wrote several letters but he neither mentioned Paul nor quoted Paul's letters. In contrast, others in Rome, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt embraced Paul's writings enthusiastically and began to re-interpret his teachings in the light of their context, experience, and needs. Among these groups were women, especially those from the eastern churches, where asceticism was an important aspect of Christian life.
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/corinthians/paul.stm

Note esp. that Paul's view were in the minority and that Ignatius of Antioch had either never heard of him or did not find his writings important.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Surely you are not asserting that no early Christian writings disputed Paul's views. See http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/heresy/ (I esp. like Marcion's belief that there was an evil God and a good God; that the evil Go ...[text shortened]... n thought. You seem to be ignoring the historical context, not me.

I'm not saying there are no early Christian writings contradicting Paul's teachings (and the site you've cited specifically mentions these as using Paul's teachings - not explicitly opposing them; i.e. "Paul was wrong" etc.). What I'm saying is that none of these came from the Apostles themselves (or anyone else known to have been present in person when Jesus taught). And that is a very critical piece of evidence ("Why didn't the dog bark that night?" ).

AFAIK, the only time any one of the Twelve (or Eleven, if you prefer) took issue with Paul was when Peter opposed him on the subject of circumcising non-Jewish converts (I'll have to look up the exact reference) - a disciplinary matter, not a theological one.

Originally posted by no1marauder
In the early years of the church, few would have thought the writings of Paul of Tarsus would become so influential. He was a scrappy fellow, always ready to defend what was then a minority viewpoint even among those doing mission work ...[text shortened]... either never heard of him or did not find his writings important.

The point about Ignatius of Antioch is interesting (not least because his epistles actually affirm Paul's teachings on Christology! And I cannot find any references to Ignatius dealing with eschatological matters) - but ultimately a sidebar in this topic. The question is - did the authors of the Gospels have access to the epistles? At least with the Gospel of Luke, it is reasonable to answer in the affirmative.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I'm not saying there are no early Christian writings contradicting Paul's teachings (and the site you've cited specifically mentions these as using Paul's teachings - not explicitly opposing them; i.e. "Paul was wrong" etc.). What I'm saying is that none of these came from the Apostles themselves (or anyone else known to have been ...[text shortened]... erts (I'll have to look up the exact reference) - a disciplinary matter, not a theological one.

Please. Most of those beliefs - like Gnosticism - clearly contradict Paul's writings, so whether they "explicitly" say "Paul is wrong" is unimportant (more semantical gamemanship, eh?). How many writings of the earliest Apostles survive? How many (if any) were written after Paul's writings? Silence regarding someone else's views surely does not equate to agreement, so your "critical piece of evidence" wouldn't be A) Critical or B) Evidence.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
The point about Ignatius of Antioch is interesting (not least because his epistles actually affirm Paul's teachings on Christology! And I cannot find any references to Ignatius dealing with eschatological matters) - but ultimately a sidebar in this topic. The question is - did the authors of the Gospels have access to the epistles? At least with the Gospel of Luke, it is reasonable to answer in the affirmative.

So what? The author of Luke was not an Apostle and never heard or saw Jesus in person. That Gospel might not even have been written in the first century! Besides, the purpose of the Gospels was to record Jesus' life and words not Paul's epistles; obviously there is no mention of Paul in Luke. So what support is that that Paul's writings are correct interpretations of Jesus' message?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Please. Most of those beliefs - like Gnosticism - clearly contradict Paul's writings, so whether they "explicitly" say "Paul is wrong" is unimportant (more semantical gamemanship, eh?). How many writings of the earliest Apostles survive? How many (if any) were written after Paul's writings? Silence regarding someone else's views surely do ...[text shortened]... te to agreement, so your "critical piece of evidence" wouldn't be A) Critical or B) Evidence.

You, of all people, should not start playing the deductive/inductive game now (i.e. absence of opposition does not imply presence of assent). In any case, 1 Peter does use the Pauline epistles.

So I ask again - why didn't the dog bark that night? If Paul's teachings on eschatology (extremely basic Christian stuff, you might say) were in opposition to what Christ himself taught, why wasn't he opposed by the Apostles? And, given how volatile the sensitivities of the Early Church were, had any of the Apostles so much as murmured that Paul was wrong on this topic, there would almost certainly have been a Schism we could see to this day (one only has to look forward a few centuries to see the violence the Nestorian heresy ruffled up).

Originally posted by no1marauder
So what? The author of Luke was not an Apostle and never heard or saw Jesus in person. That Gospel might not even have been written in the first century! Besides, the purpose of the Gospels was to record Jesus' life and words ...[text shortened]... t Paul's writings are correct interpretations of Jesus' message?

You're missing the whole point - if the author of Luke had access to Paul's epistles (and he almost certainly did - being the author of Acts as well) and the audience he wrote to had access to Paul's epistles - he wouldn't need to mention Paul or the epistles (or the conclusions thereof) to his audience. He would've assumed the audience knew the context when reading his Gospel.

A speaker at a physics symposium does not need to mention Galileo or Newton or Planck or Einstein in his paper - he assumes the audience already knows the basic theories of physics these men proposed.

EDIT: This is the whole point of putting a document in its historical context. What did the author already know or assume his audience would know?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
You, of all people, should not start playing the deductive/inductive game now (i.e. absence of opposition does not imply presence of assent). In any case, 1 Peter does use the Pauline epistles.

So I ask again - why didn't the dog bark that night? If Paul's teachings on eschatology (extremely basic Christian stuff, you might say) were in op ...[text shortened]... e only has to look forward a few centuries to see the violence the Nestorian heresy ruffled up).

1 Peter was almost certainly NOT written by Simon Peter, the Apostle:

The author identifies himself in the opening verse as "Peter, an apostle of Jesus", but modern scholars are skeptical that the apostle Simon Peter, the fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, actually wrote it, due to the urbane cultured style of the Greek and the lack of any personal detail suggesting contact with the historical Jesus of Nazareth. It contains about thirty-five references to the Old Testament, all of which, however, come from the Septuagint translation, an inconceivable source for historical Peter the apostle. The Septuagint was a Greek translation created at Alexandria for the use of those Jews who could not easily read the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Tanakh. The historical Simon Peter in Galilee would not have heard Scripture in this form. Peter's own amanuensis was the evangelist Mark, according to Clement of Alexandria and other early Christian writers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Peter


Please try to use an authentic source document from the Apostles. How do you know if Paul was opposed by the early Apostles or not if you have none of their writings? The gospel of James, which was presumably written by an Apostle, stresses the necessity of works in contradiction to some Pauline passages routinely cited by the fundies here. Is James (perhaps Jesus' brother and certainly an important early Church figure mentioned by Josephus) enough of an Apostle for ya?

There is little question there were theological disputes in the early Christian church between Paul and James:

Modern historians of the early Christian churches tend to place James in the tradition of Jewish Christianity, which was more conservative than the tradition Paul was part of refered to as Pauline Christianity; where Paul famously emphasized faith over actions or observance of Mosaic Law, which he considered a burden, James is thought to have espoused the opposite position which is derogatively called Judaizing. One corpus commonly cited as proof of this are the Recognitions and Homilies of Clement (also known as the Clementine literature), versions of a novel that has been dated to as early as the 2nd century, where James appears as a saintly figure who is assaulted by an unnamed enemy some modern critics think may be Paul.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_the_just

Originally posted by no1marauder
1 Peter was almost certainly NOT written by Simon Peter, the Apostle:

The author identifies himself in the opening verse as "Peter, an apostle of Jesus", but modern scholars are skeptical that the apostle Simon Peter ...[text shortened]... hurch figure mentioned by Josephus) enough of an Apostle for ya?

Simply put, there are two main objections to Peter being the author of 1P:

(1) The style of the Greek epistle is too sophisticated for a simple Galilean fisherman.

(Obj 1a) 1P 5:12 does mention that this particular epistle was written through Silvanus/Silas, who would be Peter's amanuensis. It was common practice in NT times for the epistle-writer to dictate the sense of the epistle to a secretary, leaving it to the secretary to formulate the words (Fitzmeyer). So it doesn't matter if Peter himself was not refined in Greek.

(Obj 1b) The Wikipedia article itself mentions that Mark (the author of the second Gospel) was Peter's amanuensis - Mark was no stranger to cultured Greek either.

(2) Peter would not have access to the LXX (Septuaguint), which is quoted in the epistle.

(Obj 2) The bulk of the LXX text was already in wide circulation, including Palestine, by the time of Jesus' birth (forget when 1P was written). (Brown, Johnson & O'Connell).

Also, most people in Palestine around the time of Jesus actually spoke Greek (can't remember the exact reference - but it came up as a criticism of the use of Aramaic and Latin in The Passion of the Christ).

Now, for more positive evidence:

1. The Petrine origin of the epistle was pretty much unchallenged from the time of Eusebius (Dalton).
2. There is good reason for dating the epistle before Nero's persecution around A.D. 64.
3. The primitive theology of 1P (eschatology, servant christology) and church order also provide strong evidence to its authenticity.

EDIT: I might also add that the Wikipedia editor nick-named Wetman has quite happily gone around "secularising" parts of the article that mention that 1P was written pre-Nero.