Corpus-Paul

[Steve Black <sblack AT axionet.com>]

> Bob MacDonald wrote:
> >  Bob: I don't see any connection between Galatians 2:11 and the Jerusalem
> >  council of Acts 15.
> >  If the council had sent the letter from the apostles (Acts 15:23-29), I
> >  think Paul would have appealed to it in Galatians. This is too long a topic
> >  for the current window.
>
> This has for a long time seemed to me to be a very important point, one
> that appears to get overlooked.  Acts 15:23-29 gives us the text of "the
> decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem
> for the Gentile believers" (Acts 16:4) that were then delivered by Paul
> and Silas to "every town where we proclaimed the word of the Lord" (Acts
> 15:36).  Therefore, IMHO the best explanation for Paul not mentioning
> these decrees in Galatians is simply that Galatians pre-dates the decrees!
>  Any more complicated explanation is, I believe, unnecessary.
>
> Dave Inglis

How about the possibility that Paul simply didn't like the decrees, 
and did not want to actively support them or spread them in his 
churches. This is certainly not a "complicated explanation", and is 
in fact quite straightforward.

As an aside, complicated explanations are not to be discarded too 
unduly. It is true that the more complicated a theory is the more 
uncertain it becomes, yet as we all know - history is in fact often 
VERY complicated.
--
Steve Black
Vancouver School of Theology
Vancouver, BC
---

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

-Robert Hunter From SCARLET BEGONIAS