Hyam Mccoby (The Mythmaker:Paul and the Invention of Christianity) has offered good reasons to believe Paul was not in fact a Pharisee at all. His misrepresentation of Pharisidic doctrine and practice , his supposed commision to catch christians from the Saducean High Priest, and his having been from Tarsus a seat of Mithraism not Phariseism. Why then the pretence? Because it added credibility to himself to say he was personally taught by Gamaliel ( the real one not the impostor who posts here HeHe). It is also a possibilty that these words were later interpolations to bridge the sects of Jesus cults in the 3rd century.
Best definition of the Bible I've ever seen...
by logansrun 28 Replies latest watchtower bible
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IslandWoman
The Old Testament is a compilation of convenient myth and a history of racial justification and aggrandisement, threaded through with rules of hygiene and behaviour, all devised to convince the Children of Israel that as God's chosen race, no matter what calamities befell them as victims of Babylon and Egypt and no matter what calamities they wantonly inflicted on other races and religions, they should strive to increase in number, power and extent.
The New Testament, as expressed in the four Gospels, is a dispensation from the narrow and proscriptive uncharity of the Jews, appealing to the Greek and Latin temperament. And the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St Paul, that sanctimonious master of self-adulation, record his efforts, physical and intellectual, to reverse the generosity of Christ's Christianity and wrestle the hopeful new religion back into the stifling folds of Jewish law and custom.A gross diatribe, itself a "self-adulation".
IW
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Gamaliel
peacefulpete,
Maccoby's books were excellent. I have a feeling Maccoby narrows the scope of Pharisaism to make his excellent points about how the Pharisees were often known as loving, well-loved, grassroots teachers of the Law whose take on Judaism actually appealed to many Jews. He was probably correct for a good segment of them. The problem I see with the "Paul-was-not-a-Pharisee" claim is that it doesn't fit a cardinal rule of textual criticism: a text is usually authentic if it admits something that those who controlled the text might have been expected to suppress. For example, why does the NT show Jesus getting baptized by a lesser person who baptized for repentance? The fact might embarrass later teachers in the Church. Why admit that Jesus could not perform certain powerful works in his hometown? Granted they had explanations, but why admit it in the first place unless it was well-known to be true. I think Paul's Pharisaism falls in the same category based on other evidence that the polemic became stronger through the years.
If it was an interpolation, it's hard to see why it plays such a big role in Paul's own writing. It's not snuck in, but highlighted in exclamation points. Luke (in Acts), I suppose, could have had his (or her) own reasons for adding it, since Luke's Paul appears to want to outdo Josephus who had made a point of bragging about his involvement in each of the three major segments of Judaism, along with bragging about shipwreck, robbery, and other Pauline-like trials +wisdom beyond his age +visions, etc.
The older the NT books, the less anti-Pharisee they seem, assuming no glosses.
Gamaliel
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logansrun
Gamaliel,
I appreciate your response and, yes, I agree that there is a twinge of oversimplification and anti-Semitism in that definition. You seem to have done a lot of deep research into Biblical history/chronology. I'd love to discuss some of your views further one day.
Island Woman,
Would you care to elaborate on your response? I take it you are still put stock in Biblical literalism?
Bradley
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drwtsn32
logansrun, love it... definitely a keeper!
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peacefulpete
Gamaliel...you of course may be right, yet I feel the persuasive value of claiming personal tutorage at the feet of the esteemed Gamaliel was more than enuf to justify the lie. Too often what appears as a potentially embarassing inclusion was in the historical context of the first and second century an asset. The modern conceptions of what would have been favorable to the christian cause is colored by the Roman church's image of what christianity was. This includes the distorted negative charactorizations of the Pharisees. The facts are that the Romans and the Saducees would have been the opponents of anyone preaching what Jesus was reputed to teach.
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IslandWoman
Hi Bradley,
I don't believe in Biblical literalism, I do believe though that the Bible has worth.
IW
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JCanon
ROFL...
Speculation doesn't help those who are living in a spiritual world, I'm afraid.
Canon
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peacefulpete
I live in the real world. And I am not afraid.
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plmkrzy
ss
Imagine if all christians suddenly dropped all of pauls church directives, and took their leadings totally from jesus? Why, churches would practically disintegrate.
Hmmm, wasn’t that what Jesus wanted in the first place? lol!
Continuing somewhere in close proximity of the topic:
And about James, didn’t Jesus make it “kinda” clear to his mother that being his brother on earth really had no bearing on his authority or lack of? Imho I don’t think that only applied to “after death ”Wouldn’t that be relevant with regard to “who’s on first” at present time?
Paul, on his own, very clearly told the Corinthians to ignore the GB burden about "things sacrificed to idols", that it was only weak Christians who wanted to follow such things.
bold added in quote is mine
Wait a minute, you lost me on this one. How many Corinthians were there? The ones I am thinking about were not exactly the strongest pillars of spirituality. I mean…they were pigs.
In the end I think it will all boil down to realizing that much of what is written isn’t supposed to be there, for those who care, who really want to know what is actually inspired, will figure it out and do it without the need to completely dissect each and every verse. The Bible is a forest and the world is full of forest rangers but Jesus only planted one tree. My Dr. Phil impersonation.
SIMPLIFY! It was good enough for Einstein.