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  • From: "David Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>
  • To: <tim AT timgallant.org>, "'Corpus-Paul'" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul
  • Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 12:36:24 -0400

Tim,

Why would you assume that all gentile God-fearers were monotheists? Even if
these gentiles were monotheists at the time Paul is
addressing them, they came from a polytheistic background and may still
retain some of the ideas common to it.

Paul would be careful to make these God-fearers aware that certain of these
ideas were incompatible with monotheistic worship of the
God of the Jews. It is one thing to include the Jewish God among the gods one
privately worships, and another the take those other
gods off the list completely. To do that, they really needed to dedicate
themselves to the Jewish religion, as otherwise they might
still be obligated to pay homage to pagan deities for civic purposes. Paul
was showing them how to do that without having to be
circumcised.

I think that Paul was 100% sure he had a viable solution to a real problem
faced by a significant number of gentiles attracted to
Judaism. His solution (whatever we conceive it to have been), however, was a
minority viewpoint, one that rubbed some Jews and some
gentiles the wrong way, and those kinds of solutions sometimes need to be
sold to an audience. He seemed to be able to do that, and
those he successfully convinced were, for the most part, happy with the
solution and glad he brought it to their attention.

Respectfully,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio USA

1 Thessalonians 1:9 For they themselves openly declare about us what sort
of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God
from idols to serve the living and true God (NAB)

-----Original Message-----
From: corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of tim AT timgallant.org
Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 12:08 PM
To: dhindley AT compuserve.com; Corpus-Paul
Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] The defection of Corinthian God-fearers to Paul

...

I disagree. There are numerous places in the letters which suggest that
Paul's hearers turned directly from idolatry to the Christian faith (e.g. 1
Thess 1.9 etc).

tim

---------------------------------
Tim Gallant, M.Div.





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