Corpus-Paul

["Jake Scott" <jakescot AT elp.rr.com>]

I especially appreciated Robert Kraft's following comments in his recent
posting, which said in part:

3. Was Paul "converted"? From what to what? I'm under the spell of my
doktor-Vater, Krister Stendahl, in continually reminding my students that
the Paul of Galatians thinks of the key event as a "call" within the
context of his Judaism, not as some change in religions (or the like). And
that Pauline studies is properly an aspect of the subject matter of the
IOUDAIOS list deserves underlining.

I like to raise questions ("to study is to question" -- put it in Greek and
attribute it to Paul?); don't expect me to supply answers! At least the list
is off to an enthusiastic start. Happy birth!   Bob
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
kraft AT ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I do indeed look forward to reading future postings.  And I find myself very
much in agreement with  Bob's comment:  "I like to raise questions; don't
expect me to supply answers", so I hope the list will tolerate some of the
questions I may raise from time-to-time.  Though NOT a Swedenborgian
follower, I have read some of his works, and know some of his followers as
family friends, and was very much surprised to learn that they do not accept
ANY of the writings of Paul, deleting all of his letters from their
otherwise complete Holy Bible.  Is this list open to discuss comments
critical of Saul's conversion, and opting for the view that he may instead
have been a "plant" by his teacher Rabban Gamaliel The Great Omer to turn
the new movement in a different direction?  Isn't it a bit peculiar that the
most rabid anti-christian of his time [Saul of Tarsus] is credited by Karen
Armstrong in her book "In Search of God" as being the REAL founder of what
we today call Christianity?  And if nothing else, will this list support the
theory that Paul did indeed teach a DIFFERENT GOSPEL from that taught by
Jesus and His personally trained apostles?

I look forward to an educational experience, and not a confrontational one.
Help me understand why Jesus in Matthew 10 specifically charged his apostles
to "go ONLY to the Jews, and NOT go to any Gentiles" in their spreading the
Good News of The Kingdom, and yet Paul ignored those instructions.

I'm a student, searching only for the truth, with no pre-set position or
doctrine to defend.    Jacob "Jake" Scot, in rembrance of the Jacobite
Rising in Scotland, my ancestral home