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corpus-paul - RE: Gal 2:16 (Liz)

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  • From: Mike Myers <mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Gal 2:16 (Liz)
  • Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 11:42:48 -0800


Liz wrote:

Then I meant *then,* now I mean now too, since you ask.
Yes, the whole kit 'n kaboodle, literally, all 613, including the
temple sacrifice. (Btw, the 613 is a myth. Everytime you get a list,
you get a different set.)
*****************************************************************

This is an important question: Is the whole literal law valid now to
modern Jews, in fact? If you took a poll, I seriously doubt that
more than a very small minority would say .. Yes, it is. If you
asked Conservative and Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis and
scholars as a group that question, I feel pretty sure only a slim
minority would answer yes, the whole thing is (potentially)
literally valid today. Certainly not in Israel.

You wrote:

"This is tangential to the issues which divide Christians from Jews
it seems to me: the eternal validity of the law, and the role of the
messiah."

I'm far less sure than you just how much ideological separation
between most Christians and most Jews stems from the doctrine of the
eternal validity of the Law, at least today. It separates the
Orthodox, certainly. But what percentage of world Jewry feels
constrained by their view of Tenach?

This is certainly not an untimely or unimportant issue. The Beis
haMikdash had been reinterpreted by Paul, for sure, while it was
still standing -- or he accepted a reinterpretation handed down to
him, or "revealed" to him. Without question, throughout his corpus,
the believers in Christ comprised the temple. Whoever wrote the
letter to the Hebrews (in the text of which it is certainly implied
that the Temple was still standing) steeply downsized the Levitical
cultus, the sacrifices and the Temple, of course. Scattered here and
there in the gospels, and in the catholic epistles of the NT canon,
there are indications of this doctrinal metamorphosis of the Temple
from a building made of stone to one made of men and women.

Within a few years all this was moot. Whatever mode of making
righteous was in fact in force, it didn't include the Temple cultus
perforce. So how much COULD the law separate the early Jewish
Christians from those Jews who were not aligned with that movement,
after 70CE? Which law, what parts of it? -- close to half of it was
no longer even relevant.

Mike Myers




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael D. A. Myers
University of California, Irvine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
05/27/1999
11:42:49





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