Corpus-Paul

["Jeff Krantz @ optonline.net" <jkrantz AT optonline.net>]

Again, thank you, Mark!

Both your responses were helpful, but I'd like, at the moment (I'm 
finalizing my notes for the presentation, and don't have time to respond to 
all of it) to respond first to your comments about my note to Tim.

I read both Hebrew Scriptures and NT texts through the lens of mimetic 
theory, and so the "curse" doesn't carry for me, either, the fright that the 
word might otherwise engender.  (as Walter Wink puts it, the powers are 
good, the powers are fallen, the powers will be redeemed)  That is to say, 
the "curse" is not removed (there is still differentiation between keeping 
or honoring Torah and not doing so) , but its sting is, or will be 
(something revealed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as the steadfast love, 
the mercy of God) ...  And, I suppose, this would then extend this mercy to 
the "us" of the nations that you pointed out.  (Who, up until the revelation 
of Christ lived without access to this mercy.)

I'm sorry to be so fluffy headed here, but these are new thoughts, not yet 
well defined.  It does seem to me that access to grace/mercy (previouly 
known only to the Jews) is a large part of Paul's message, no?  This may 
seem exceedinly obvious, but what separates it from the teaching I received 
is that this mercy is not *new* with Jesus, just made manifest to all 
humanity in the new age (so Paul, not trying to preach here!).

Does that fit with how you read him?

Jeff