by opusdei1972 63 Replies latest watchtower bible
The Apostle Paul was a hack as a theologian, a jackass as a philosopher , blind to the realities of life and ignorant of the 'human condition'.
Case in point:
"Does not nature itself teach you that long hair is a dishonor to a man,.....?" 1 Corinthians 11:14 NWT revised 2013
Nature does not teach any such thing. In fact if a man does not get a haircut in NATURALLY continues to grow long just like a woman's hair would.
One of many 'nuggets of wisdom' from the mouth of the Apostle Paul.
sparky1 - "Nature does not teach any such thing. In fact if a man does not get a haircut in NATURALLY continues to grow long just like a woman's hair would."
That one always had me scratching my head, too, particularly when a lot of WT art showed Paul with - for all intents and purposes - a frigging mullet.
Here we have a Paul's trick in his use of the Old Testament:
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. (Galatians 3:16)
Note that Paul is arguing that "sperma" (seed) can't be understood as a collective because it is a singular noun. However, this argument can easily be refuted by reading how "sperma" was used in Genesis 13:15-16.
Obviously it wasn't inspired. It was written by somebody. Might be Paul, might not, but a man nonetheless.
So we've got several things at play
Sparky,
One should not confuse the Watchtower definition of what Paul is saying with what one finds in the actual text. If you read it like the Witnesses do, of course it sounds idiotic. But it is not because Paul wrote it with the JW understanding. To illustrate...
"Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him…"--1 Corinthians 11.14, NRSV.
The word for “nature” here in the Koine Greek text is PHUSIS. It means in this instance “social order,” as in the Roman social order or way of doing things. It does not mean “nature” as in the sense of a National Geographic television documentary about flora and fauna.
In first century Hellenism and Roman culture, the “natural order” of things had no division between what one witnesses in nature (i.e., plant life, animal life, etc.) and the societal norms, social conventions, and culture of human society. The customs adopted and promoted by humans were believed to be as “natural” as what happened in nature itself. They are one in the same thing in the first century mind.
Therefore to act outside of societal norms was to act “unnaturally.” It is not a scientific term, but one that expresses the ancient Roman understanding of how the world worked.
Paul was not telling the Corinthians that it went against biological norms for men to wear long hair, but that it went against Roman convention. A clue that helps one come to this conclusion even without this knowledge of ancient understanding is that Paul comes from a society where men did let their hair grow long, namely in Jewry. Paul himself even pays for the haircuts of Nazarites at the Second Temple at Acts 21.23, 24, 26.
Obviously he wouldn’t be saying that it was biologically unnatural for men to grow their hair long as he has witnessed it himself as part of an offering of oneself to G-d as a Nazarite. Since Jews would never offer something biologically unnatural to G-d (and Nazarites grow out their hair during their vowed period), Paul would not have been condemning the biological growing of hair in men. No, here he is speaking about convention.
@jws
I would have to agree with you, but only sometimes because (as you allude to) not all the Pauline epistles seem to be written by the same person. While that might be a reason for the very conflicting things in them, the explanation is by no means a panacea. Sometimes I am more prone to be confused by the real Paul than with the possible pseudonymous works attributed to the apostle.
Case in point: The quote that opusdei1972 makes is a striking example. Galatians was written prior to Romans, and in Galatians Paul seems very negative about the Torah, practically insisting that it was not of divine origin (Galatians 3.19-20) and that the Jewish people are not the true see of Abraham ( Galatians 3.16). Just a couple of years later in Romans, Paul's words soften considerably, even to the point of saying that "the gifts and the call of God [to the Jews] are irrevocable.'--Romans 11.29.
While I am not sure if you are describing the Jewish Scriptures or the New Testament, if you are talking about what Paul was quoting from in the NT, the quotes are from the Alexandrian Septuagint. He even makes reference to the Book of Wisdom as found in this version of the LXX, most vividly in Romans 1.
The point is Paul (or the writer using the psuedonym Paul) was just a human. Not writing God's words, so we are subject to his interpretation and his human mistakes.
As I recall, the old scriptures didn't have verses. When they said, "it is written", sometimes books weren't even named. Nobody said "as it is said in Exodus 3:4" (just made that up, don't know what it says).
Also we have the other books that have been around throughout history that followers used. Some have been lost to history (some books even quoted in the Bible are gone). Others the Apocrypha. Like the Gospels, some books tell parallel tales. In slightly different ways with slightly different language.
Since we do not know which book Paul is quoting (perhaps a lost one), it cannot be said for certain that he misquoted something.
it cannot be said for certain that he misquoted something.
May be I should have used the word "misuse".
