IS it possible that Paul was just a failed Pharisee that

by confusedandalone 56 Replies latest jw friends

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  Band on the Run

  The Jewish culture has different defintions of who is Jewish. For most, it is a matter of birth. If your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish. The DNA confirms it. I have no idea where this idea of Judah alone stems from. Perhaps it is mentioned in some Bible book. Of course, one can become Jewish by conversion. Many people in mixed marriages do so. You need to study extensively. Learning Hebrew is an important part. People say it is exhausting work.

  They focus mostly on descent from mother's side. More secular Jews reject the emphasis on mother's line and state that the concentration camps included anyone perceived as Jewish. I believe Nazi race laws included descent from fathers. The Jewish culture is not as conversion as eager as Christians. When I first encountered Jewish college students, I thought they did not want to be friends. It took many discussions to understand that you can't apply Christian norms to people who are not Christian. They believe they have a special status with God but do not condemn nonJews.

  What would be a failed Pharisee? I don't know that Paul failed. We can't know Paul. I suspect that he viewed himself as Jewish and that Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish scripture. Paul started this trend. There were many Jewish Christians. The apostles worsihpped in the Temple after Jesus' death and resurrection. Dominic Crossan argued that Paul probaly did not start preaching to Gentiles per se. According to him, there were already Gentiles drawn to Judaism who would attend services. Perhaps they would convert if it were not for the requirement of circumcision. They were termed God-fearers. This group would likely me more receptive to Paul's theology than Gentiles in general.

  Jews focus on mother's line because of the history of rape. If rape were widespread, the father would be unknown. Lineage through a mother was more concrete.

  There are many views of Paul. I cannot keep them straight. It does seem strange that someone not an apostle who never met Jesus would claim apostleship. Paul claimed that his conversion presented a Jesus who was as alive and real as the Jesus the other apostles knew in the flesh. Paul proclaimed Jesus was present now in a believer's life. I don't believe Pauline scholars agree about what Paul believed. Of all the men we call apostles, Paul would agree most with Tammy. Christians believe in a link to the Old Testament and that Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Jewish people don't. Since I am not God and God does not talk with me, I have no idea what happened or what is correct. We don't know. I don't believe Paul was a failed Pharisee.
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  TD

  am hoping that is what he meant and not that we are all anti-Semites rofl

  xJW's in my experience are very good people and very open minded. Some lingering JWisms are offensive though, especially to practicing Jews

  One example is using the terms "Judaism" or "Pharisee" (Or some variant thereof) as pejoratives. --As synonyms for, "Self righteous, overbearing, hard hearted unfeeling hypocrite and lover of unnecessary rules." That usage is common in fundamentalist Christianity and JW's are no exception.

  Why does this matter? Because the Pharisees are the fathers of Judaism today. All the other sects died out. Only the Pharisees survived and the form of worship they practiced became normative.

  Look at your own presupposition on this thread and how completely backward it is:

  PJesus made things simple but Paul brings in a low level form of Judaism.... a bunch of unnecessary rules similar to what he no doubt learned at the feet of Gamaliel(sp)

  Where, except possibly from a JW influence in your life would you have gotten such an idea?
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  confusedandalone

  " Where, except possibly from the JW's would you have gotten such an idea?"

  From my understanding of the bible. From what I have read of the new testament things seemed far more simple and easy to abide by from the words supposedly spoken by Jesus. Not so much from Paul. IN MY OPINION.

  Granted I have not devoted an enormous amount of time to the intricacies of the new testament and the history of the writers of every book or to the history of the Jews. Especially at this point in time I don't think I have the energy to put in that type of time to it.

  I like to hear others thoughts on the matter however because maybe someone will have something interesting to state to motivate me to poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooossibly spend some time on it.

  Continue however with the education on the matter LOL, it is appreciated

  funny enough I would never have thought that Jews would be offended by the use of the word pharisee in that context. This is proving to bevfar more interesting than expected
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  Pistoff

  My take is that Jesus was an iconoclast, a Cynic prophet, possibly apocalyptic; that he must have been charismatic to attract a following.

  We don't really know what they believed, but when Paul came on the scene 'christianity' began to be based on his ideas more than those of Jesus.

  As you all may be sick of hearing me say, Paul never discusses any of Jesus teachings; we only get a sense that Paul saw a tight knit community and saw in that what Jesus saw, a better approximation of the 'rule of God' or 'kingdom of God'. At least, in Paul's early authentic writings.

  Later, those writing in Paul's name (later books) recreated the religious structure that Jesus hated, and rebelled against.
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  Band on the Run

  Our problem is that for centuries we only had Paul's writings. Now we know for a fact that there was no monolith Christiany but many competing Christianities existed. The Gnostic scriptures find proved that Paul was but one voice. Constantine decided to rule with a single view. The scriptures were debated. Bishops argued. We live with political accomodation not a discussion of the merits. Yet my gut feeling is to regress to the Witness teaching.

  Pharisees were not failures. Jesus interacted with them as social friends. Jesus was much more a Pharisee than a Sadducee. We were taught ignorant falsehoods.

  I apologize for leaping in. Most of us know little about Judaism. It just seems that often we hear of the elevation to a better religion or how stubborn Jews were. Whether we realize it or not, these beliefs that most Christians hold are false and lies. I once believed Jews were superflous. It took me a long time to learn objective facts. This is why I ascribe antisemitism

  We are products of our upbringing. Heck, I onced called a rabbi and Witness preached about the certain geneology of Jesus I was on a Kh roll. What an ignorant fool I was, parroting the WT. I believed JWs were the truth. There were few sources of information available to me.This site exposes readers to a. Variety of views. So sorry..
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  confusedandalone

  .This site exposes readers to a. Variety of views. So sorry..

  Why are you sorry?
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  TD

  From what I have read of the new testament things seemed far more simple and easy to abide by from the words supposedly spoken by Jesus. Not so much from Paul. IN MY OPINION.

  One thing I've noticed about Christian book stores is that there is usually an entire shelf dedicated to the book of Romans.

  Paul's message that, "a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law" and "..having been justified by faith, we have peace with God" and "Christ is the end of the law" and "..for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly" is presented in support of the doctrine of sola fide (by faith alone) which is one of the single biggest differences between Protestant and Orthodox forms of Christianity.

  A funny thing about Jehovah's Witnesses, though is that they're not nearly as enthusiastic about this as other Protestant denominations are. Their sympathies seem to lie more with James, who said, "..faith without works is dead" and "..you see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone".