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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: dhindley AT compuserve.com, Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Questions on Galatians
  • Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 15:55:23 -0700 (PDT)

Dave Hindley wrote:

>As for the evil editor theory itself, "incredible is
>what incredible does," as Forrest Gump might say.
>All *I* can say is you can feel free to
>*try* and reconcile justification by means of the
>atoning sacrifice of Christ with that by Abraham-like
>faith in God's promises. Of those two systems of
>justification, the one that is most consistently
>demonstrated
>throughout the Pauline corpus is the latter, not the
>former. Brought together, they are like oil and
water,
>and to have come from the same hand requires Paul
>to be either holding an incredibly complex theology,
>or be completely unaware of the contrary nature of
>the systems, or to be employing a rare rhetorical
>technique so badly that no one seemed to get it,
>either then or now...

Dave, it's not a matter of me trying to reconcile the
Christology and Abraham-faith of Paul's letters. Just
because they seem like oil and water to you doesn't
mean they did for Paul. History is full of religious
leaders, charismatics, fanatics, what-have-you, who
make outrageous claims, superimposing new theologies
on older ones, telling us the sun rises at midnight.
Christianity took on pagan elements (let alone
maintain Judaic elements), and I'm amazed that you've
been driven to a conspiratorial "evil editor theory"
over the tension you espy between Christological
atonement theology and Abraham-faith. Paul's theology
is complex, surely, but not "incredibly" so
(interesting how you and I live in different worlds on
the question of what constitutes "incredible"). If an
eternal skeptic like me can make sense of Paul's
theology as the outgrowth of someone who had new ideas
which needed to be tied back to his Judaic faith --
believe me, it isn't as wild as you're making it out
to be. Perhaps few have been able to appreciate Paul's
rhetorical technique because he didn't use it with the
level of discipline and precision you seem to demand.
He often wrote (or dictated) in the heat of the
moment. If only he could have known that his letters
would be preserved for posterity (or for moderns who
espy contradiction and tension everywhere they
look)...

By the way, thanks for my pointing out my "logical
fallacy", though I don't think I was "distracting"
anyone from the real point I was making to you... Do
you?

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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