So, I agree with you guys on So many levels. I just think that if a person uses that line, they should be reminded what Paul was referring to in the first place.
It is my view that Paul is the inventor of what became Christianity.
It was Judaism that accepted and rejected Jesus in various ways.
It was fragmented at his destruction.
What Paul did was raise the subject again and make something of it.
He, it is my view, applied a peculiar blend of pagan Platonic thinking blended with failed Rabbinical thinking into a stew that happened to hit the market at just the right time and place.
The Barbarian invasions were happening at this time. The empire was very insecure. The gods, the traditional ones, weren't pulling their weight protecting Romans from the invasion. Citizens were sick of war. Politicians were shifting loyalties and everything was in a state of flux. A new product was needed to provide an anchor for people's hope that would conform to a pre-existing mythos.
Paul grafted Judaism and Neo Platonic philosophy into something that gained credibility eventually when the bugs were worked out.
Constantine was probably pretty bewildered by the lack of cohesion among so-called Christians as his grass roots base. He sought to weld them into something useful. The various conventions and councils served to create an Orthodoxy. From this emerged an institution known as the universal church of christianity or CATHOLIC CHURCH.
The rest, as we say, is history.
NO SCRIPTURE is good for much more than an excuse to parlay an opinion into the arena of debate where authoritarian power brokers enforce a mindset (creed) by force of arms.
T.
