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  • From: RSBrenchley AT aol.com
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Paul's persecution of the Church
  • Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 08:15:39 EDT


Eric writes:

> It sounded like an attractive deal to, presumably, thousands of men, which
> is why Paul was so remarkably successful at selling his new faith.
>
> Circumcision would have upped this price stratospherically, and, moreover,
> it hadn't been part of Paul's deal that he had initially offered these men
> when they had agreed to join.
>
> These are the reasons why Paul, at the end of Galatians 2:2, and also James
> in Acts 15:19, decided that it would be placing too heavy a burden upon
> these "converts" to require them to submit themselves to the
> covenant-forming commandment, Genesis 17:14, and why Paul even referred to
> this issue as one that could destroy what he had spent more than a decade
> building.
>
In Gal 2:2, Paul only says that Titus 'was not obliged to be
circumcised', and does not explain why. All this establishes is that the
Jerusalem church did not insist on circumcision for Gentile converts. In 2:16
he explains that Jews had to become believers in JC the same as Gentiles; ie
the requirement was the same for both. In 5:2, he says that if anyone allows
themselves to be circumcised, Christ won't help them, they will have to keep
the whole Law. Surely the point is that God has given the Law to Jews, not to
Gentiles. Salvation comes through faith in JC, the Law is irrelevant to this.
However, since God has given his Covenant to the Jews, anyone being
circumcised and becoming a proselyte thus joins the Covenant, and has to keep
the Law like any Jew. The 'burden' is surely the requirements of the Law,
which the new sect saw as superfluous for Gentiles, not any pain or danger
associated with circumcision.

> At the incident retold by Paul (heavily slanted) in Galatians 2:11-16, in
> which he describes what had originally led him to pronounce for the first
> time in or around 50 CE (in the incident recounted at 2:11-16) his new
> gospel of Christ superseding the Jewish covenant as the pathway to
> salvation, Paul, of course, could not openly admit that he was rejecting
the
> covenant because he rejected circumcision rather than the other way around
> as he claimed, but it seems to me that that was pretty clearly the case,
> especially when you consider how much he (admitted in 2:2 he) had at stake
> in this circumcision-matter.
>
> Having to choose between Jesus and success, Paul chose success, and thus,
> Christianity was created, at that incident Paul recounts in Galatians
> 2:11-21. In 2:16-21, he gives his argument, in accord with his own rule
> stated in Romans 3:4-7 that one may lie in the service of God, and of 1
> Corinthians 9:22-27, that all that matters is winning. He won, and
> Christianity is the result..

I'm not sure what you mean by 'having to choose between Jesus and
success'. If Paul was so success-oriented, I would expect him to have
maintained his status as a Pharisee, instead of becoming a leader of an
obscure and controversial movement, and exposing himself to persecution in
the process. Doubtless there's a theological shift, but Paul's itinerant
charismatic leadership may have been closer in other ways to that of JC than
was the leadership of James, who was clearly no itinerant, and who sounds as
though he was far more interested in legal issues and organisational matters
than his brother.

>
> Best,
>
> Eric Zuesse
> cettel AT shoreham.net
> .


Regards,

Robert Brenchley
RSBrenchley AT aol.com
Birmingham UK




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