OK my take.

Paul said a whole lot of stuff Jesus never said.

Paul was a woman hater.

Enough for me to know that he is not one of the apostles and he likely is damned to be reincarnated as a weevil for 1000 life times.

Quote from: cynthialee on November 12, 2011, 09:42:49 AM
OK my take.

Paul said a whole lot of stuff Jesus never said.

Paul was a woman hater.

Enough for me to know that he is not one of the apostles and he likely is damned to be reincarnated as a weevil for 1000 life times.

1. Paul did state what Jesus had to say and he even went into detail with the explanations when people and churches needed help and advice on issues that Jesus never covered in his ministry. Jesus ministered for 3 years. Jesus covered the important issus in life and commissioned his disciples and followers with the tasks to get into specifics when he is gone. The sheer fact that the earliest churches struggled showed me they needed more instructions on how to live than just the Sermon on the Mount. Also, keep in mind, there was NO scripture being traded back and forth as canon so the churches really needed guidance.

2. Paul was not a womanizer. The simple fact that he wrote to Chloe who led the Church of Corinth tells me he did not have a poor view of women. Plus, if you read the scriptures closely, you will see the verses he spoke about women was a type of oratory art that actually made fun of those who did put down women.  Also, many women led the Ancient Churches from the rise of the Church until which time Christiaity became a state religion and the churches went from the home to public buildings. So Paul would not have created scriptures contrary to people were doing or had been doing before and after his teachings.

You said you haven't cracked opened a Bible in 15 years. You really should read these passages where you think he puts down women and then dwell into commentaries and other books about the subject. Another book I suggest is "Paul among the people."

Isn't SO MUCH of it all to do with hermeneutics/interpretation AND translation too boot?!

As Cindy asked earlier on.".. how can all this be even remotely  considered 'scientific' [my words] - with our present understand of what's scientific in the first place!

The simple thing is, that Paul came across as a lot more severe - at least as he had been read and interpreted over the years. Right?

Jesus was a 'softy' when compared to Paul - the Paul we have been taught during OUR time and instruction.
'Fire and Brimstone preaching' was mostly, if not all, based on Paul - and still would be.



Axelle

This can be a very interesting discussion as Annah is a specialist and expert, or at least learning to be one, in the area.

My teaching in the RC religion were very much based on Paul being the 'attack dog' of the Christian scripture. He was the one who held the concepts in the epistles, no matter who wrote them, and pushed those concepts through his belief. He from his teachings and words appears to be a man of enormous intellect. His thoughts that he was converted to a knew belief, that would radically change his life and his safety, is typical of the great philosophers of the past. In deed you obtain a Doctor of Philosophy by demonstrating your ability to think in a truthful way.

But did he change the bible to suit his thoughts and musings? I would think almost certainly, for the sake of discussion, with no disrespect meant or intended, I suggest that clever people interpret information cleverly. In this incident my personal take is that Paul was not touched by God to be converted, but he used his brains to allow him to understand material he was interested in.

His new understanding came from an accumulation of information that he interpreted. He would have attributed his understanding or interpretations to Godly intervention, but that was totally normal for the time.

His power in the community could well be his oration skills. They are rare now, even with mass media, how much more dynamic would it have been 2000yrs ago to be uplifted by someone talking and explaining and accepting your role in life. When you had little concept of what life was?

Just thoughts and none are intended to be rude.

Cindy

It's just a thought but is it possible that we have gotten to the point that so much of even our current information comes to us in "sound bites" ?  It's done with the news,politics etc. It is far to easy to hear one or two sentences that we may or may not like and then take them and build an argument to "prove" that sentence or two is how they meant something yet when taken within the context of the whole the point that the one doing the writing or the speaking is far different.

Hm,
Sarah, I was part of a ministry (exorcism, no less) and I have listened to "Fire and Brimstone" teaching (preaching was considered to be inferior at this time).

Paul was practically ALWAYS providing the basis for it.
Sound bytes or not, if told the devil will make you burn in hell for ever... IF... this, that, and the other, and ALSO do not forget your tithing - these messages do stick. No doubt.

Yet as always, YMMV
Axelle

Hi Axelle,

If you don't mind could you please tell me what YMMV stands for? I am not up on all the acronims.

I came from the other side of the spectrum. I was raised Lutheran which does still have most of the Catholic ground work. We were told the stories about Noah,David,Jonah etc. but it was only on a surface level never how this applies to our lives now. We ended up knowing more about Luther's statements of doctrine then we ever learned about Jesus and what He said. For the most part we were taught that we were born rotten and would remain that way for all of our natural days. The only ones that God speaks through is the higher ups in synod and then down through the ministers but NEVER to the lay people. Only the ministers could provide absolution or preform the sacraments. In a lots of ways it is still very guilt driven and not out of love.

Quote from: Axélle on November 13, 2011, 01:15:32 AM
Isn't SO MUCH of it all to do with hermeneutics/interpretation AND translation too boot?!

As Cindy asked earlier on.".. how can all this be even remotely  considered 'scientific' [my words] - with our present understand of what's scientific in the first place!

The simple thing is, that Paul came across as a lot more severe - at least as he had been read and interpreted over the years. Right?

Jesus was a 'softy' when compared to Paul - the Paul we have been taught during OUR time and instruction.
'Fire and Brimstone preaching' was mostly, if not all, based on Paul - and still would be.



Axelle

I agree with this so much.  When I went to seminary I was surprised at the large number of LGBQT students that were going there.   Most of them (no lets be honest) all of them seemed to be there to try to rewrite the Bible in kinder more gentler terms by re"interpreting" or finding obscure passages and pinning them together in a different way to create a different view of homosexuality and gender issues.

I guess if you think about the Bible as a "living document" then this sort of makes sense.  The Bible is just waiting for new eyes to reinterpret the words.   I could sort of go along with that concept and respect it.

Where I take issue with this is trying to project philosophies that are modern and did not exist at the time the Bible was written in order to validate some perspective in the Bible that clearly isn't there.  Or ignoring the archaeology and history shows that things written didn't really happen.    We've already done that with the Temple of David and the Exodus.   

Now it seems people are trying to do it with homosexuality and transgender issues.  IOW Adam was really a hermaphrodite who had parts removed to make Eve  etc.   

Of course you can do this and it's interesting but it does come across as a bit of  "Confirmation bias"  that is, you only look at and study what you want to see and ignore all other information contrary to your perspective.   This is generally frowned upon in academic schools but for seminary it can be somewhat essential if you DO  believe the Bible is a living document.

I went to seminary as an Atheist attempting an MDiv and it was a huge mistake.  I quit because I felt on one hand I was ruining other people's spirtiual journey by bringing logic and history into every single discussion.   And on the other hand, having already done a regular Masters in theology it pissed me off. 

You can't do normal academic research that way but apparently the Bible is different. 

Quote from: SarahM777 on November 13, 2011, 07:13:32 AM
The only ones that God speaks through is the higher ups in synod and then down through the ministers but NEVER to the lay people. Only the ministers could provide absolution or preform the sacraments. In a lots of ways it is still very guilt driven and not out of love.

Thank you Sarah (such a nice name too), Please excuse me for going off topic, and displaying some open wounds. But this is just soooooo typical of main stream religion displaying their PROFOUND insecurities and inadequacies, plus their meager attempt at crowd control. It's no wonder the 'flock' are leaving, or have in fact, left in droves. This form of crowd control is so archaic, it beggars belief.

Paul, in Romans, tells us we are all, saints. Try rocking up to your local RC church with that one in tow and see how far you get.

I'll go back to my corner now. The thread can resume its normal broadcast programme.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa luv
Catherine

Quote from: Cindy James on November 13, 2011, 01:50:25 AM
But did he change the bible to suit his thoughts and musings? I would think almost certainly, for the sake of discussion, with no disrespect meant or intended, I suggest that clever people interpret information cleverly. In this incident my personal take is that Paul was not touched by God to be converted, but he used his brains to allow him to understand material he was interested in.

The only issue I struggle with concerning this statement is that I don't think Paul wrote according to his musings because we was a devout Jew prior to his conversion. He was even a Pharisee and had worked closely with the temples. His teachings in the Epistles are very much geared to the Gentiles and everything he had been taught his entire life with observing the laws to keep oneself sanctified was now something that had been dramatically altered through the sanctification through grace. Some did disagree with him though. Peter believed that a Christian still had to follow Torah in order for Salvation through the Grace and Atonement through Christ. James stated that it isn't just grace or faith because without works (law) these are dead.

Sometimes I wonder if Paul's "thorn in his side" was his feeling of some type of sadness that everything he learned as a child was no longer entirely applicable with the teachings of his Messiah?

Also, remember, there was no Bible per say when he wrote his letters. Only oral stories of the Gospel account were passed around from the churches.

QuoteHis power in the community could well be his oration skills. They are rare now, even with mass media, how much more dynamic would it have been 2000yrs ago to be uplifted by someone talking and explaining and accepting your role in life. When you had little concept of what life was?

Oh Definitely!

Quote from: mixie on November 13, 2011, 07:20:53 AM
Where I take issue with this is trying to project philosophies that are modern and did not exist at the time the Bible was written in order to validate some perspective in the Bible that clearly isn't there.  Or ignoring the archaeology and history shows that things written didn't really happen.    We've already done that with the Temple of David and the Exodus.   

Now it seems people are trying to do it with homosexuality and transgender issues.  IOW Adam was really a hermaphrodite who had parts removed to make Eve  etc.

Well kinda lol.  I do believe there was homosexuality in the Bible. David, in my opinion, was bisexual. Nowhere else in Hebrew does it describe a man's love for another man to be greater than a woman's. In Hebrew this is not the normal phrase to describe the best of friends.

But I do agree with the other points you raised. I seen way too many people try to point out that this person was trans or that person was trans. There's just not enough to go on to show transgender characters in the Bible. I never found it. I am sure they existed, but to say some characters in the Bible was trans because of they had a "long flowing robe" is a bit overboard.

Also, I agree with you concerning the Exodus story.  They are finding archaeological evidence suggesting that David's kingdom was not as large as people or the Bible said it was. According to new discoveries in Archeology, David ruled the city state of Jerusalem...and not an entire vast Kingdom.

Interesting stuff.

Oh yeah, of course homosexuality existed.   But homosexuality back then was interpreted very differently than modern concepts of homosexuality.

But interpretation of the Bible can be done in a reasonable way and then in an unreasonable way IMHO.  Again I consider it a book not a living spiritual document so that's my bias.  But lets use a different example.

Say you do research back on the experience of slaves in the United States and you find that many of the slave owners basically picked strong slaves and broke up families and so when the slaves that lived together and recoupled and had children,  their strong genetic make up created a situation where African Americans were stronger and more physically capable than their white counterparts.   It's one thing to say that this is what resulted but quite another to try to go back and put intention into it that didn't exist at the time.

So for example it would be like going back and saying slave owners deliberately did this so African Americans would become great athletes in the future.  And that if you think about it they were actually being supportive of future generations of African Americans in the US.

(BTW I know this is filled with politically incorrect crap I don't believe this but I'm using an outrageous example to show how it comes across)

You can't go backwards in history and rewrite the script.   Religious tomes are the only ones  that people feel justified in creating a "foresight" or "intention" in the writing because it is guided by the "hand of God" the "all knowing" etc etc etc.

For those of us who see the Bible as a historical document,  there is no way to reinterpret the information and statements without giving the writers waaaaaaaaaay too much credit.   And technically God did not say any of the apostles or writers had any sort of divine insight.   So IMO we should only interpret what they wrote in the way they wrote it and not try to give it more weight than it deserves.


Paul might have made some statements that to a modern eye could be viewed in a different way today but back then there is no doubting what he meant. 


ETA  I'm not that big on Paul so I'm not trashing your thesis.   Just pointing out a pet peeve of mine.   

First Paul kills off a bunch of the religous leaders then he inserts himself into the organisation and takes it over and completely distorts the mesage of Jesus to the message of Paul.

I didn't say Paul was a womanizer, I said he was a woman hater. Big diferance.

In Chapter 14 of First Corinthians, Paul writes:

"In all Christian churches, the women should keep silent whenever in church. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate.... If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.... If any one thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, he must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is true and from the Lord God."


First Corinthians, Chapter 11, Paul declares:



"Be imitators of me.... I commend you because you remember me in everything.... But I want you to understand that while the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is her husband.... And any woman who prays with her head uncovered dishonors her husband; if a woman will not cover her head with a veil, then her hair should be shaved off.... For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.... Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, as a sign of submission to her husband that all men and angels will see.... And if anyone disagrees with me about his, they must be told to obey; for nothing else is acceptable in churches of God."

(haven't had this discusion in years)

I am not the only one who thinks paul is a heretic. All you have to do is type in Paul the H and google comes up with heretic imediatly.

Just because I haven't had a bible in hand in decades does not mean that your opinion on the matter trumps mine. I spent 2 decades researching the bible very closely. I make my statements that Paul is NOT a christian with conviction and allot of thought and research into the matter.
I am not just spouting off at the mouth. Many others also see Paul as the greatest threat to true christianity that the devil ever cooked up.

Paul, when Saul was a Jewish Pharisee,

his attitudes are clearly influenced by Jewish teaching/learning --- does that make him a heretic?

Heretic: "A person who holds controversial opinions, especially one who publicly dissents from the officially accepted dogma of the Roman Catholic Church."

Now he STARTED the church, how could he be called a heretic?

I do myself not much like any of those statements either, but is a person that expanded on Jesus' message a heretic - or one that contradicts established dogma of the church?

My understanding is the latter, you may like the man or not,
Axelle

Doing some searching on the matter I find that the following historical and literary figures seem to share many of my opinions of Paul.
Thomas Jefferson, Carl Jung, Mahatma Gandhi, Robert Frost, Albert Schweitzer, Ernest Hemingway, Kahil Gilbran, Soren Kierkegaard, Will Durant, Martin Buber, George Bernard Shaw.

Quote from: Annah on November 13, 2011, 07:40:01 AM
Peter believed that a Christian still had to follow Torah in order for Salvation through the Grace and Atonement through Christ. James stated that it isn't just grace or faith because without works (law) these are dead.

Thank you Annah for that insight into Peter. I've always known these was a difference between Peter & Paul and it was this obvious difference, where Peter basically looked after the Jewish conversion in Rome and setup the chain of authority and command for the church and Paul, basically hit the road and looked after the Gentile conversion.

In taking this revelation further, if the roles were reversed and the churches authority and command lines were based on Pauls' attitude', we'd be seeing a totally different church today.

After all wasn't Mosaic Law terminated at the crucifixion when the veil was torn?

From my understanding it was from that moment onward, Christ's new commandment, to love one another was to be invoked. That's what Jesus came for. Mosaic law hadn't and couldn't work, so God had to do something new, that would work. So in fact Peter denied his instructions, took up the Torah and and reinstitutionalised Judaism using a quasi Torah, while Paul "sprucked" the teaching of Jesus outside of Rome in "branch" land. I gleaned a sense of discontent between Paul & Peter from Paul's writings on occasions when he was letting the various regions know he had been "recalled" to Head Office (Rome) as the boss (Peter) wanted to have a, "chat" about what was happening. out there in "branch" land. Just the attitudes between the two would have been enough to sight major organizational differences. Paul was anything but conservative and Peter was the quintessential ultra conservative, and Jesus spoke to Peter on numerous occasions about this. Sort of "Yes Lord, No Lord, three bags full Lord" attitude.

I'm probably 100% wrong here, but that revelation came to me from your recent post. Thank you for your insights into Paul. Compelling reading.

Be safe, well and happy
Lotsa luv
Catherine

Quote from: mixie on November 13, 2011, 08:06:54 AM
Oh yeah, of course homosexuality existed.   But homosexuality back then was interpreted very differently than modern concepts of homosexuality.

But interpretation of the Bible can be done in a reasonable way and then in an unreasonable way IMHO.  Again I consider it a book not a living spiritual document so that's my bias.  But lets use a different example.

Say you do research back on the experience of slaves in the United States and you find that many of the slave owners basically picked strong slaves and broke up families and so when the slaves that lived together and recoupled and had children,  their strong genetic make up created a situation where African Americans were stronger and more physically capable than their white counterparts.   It's one thing to say that this is what resulted but quite another to try to go back and put intention into it that didn't exist at the time.

So for example it would be like going back and saying slave owners deliberately did this so African Americans would become great athletes in the future.  And that if you think about it they were actually being supportive of future generations of African Americans in the US.

(BTW I know this is filled with politically incorrect crap I don't believe this but I'm using an outrageous example to show how it comes across)

You can't go backwards in history and rewrite the script.   Religious tomes are the only ones  that people feel justified in creating a "foresight" or "intention" in the writing because it is guided by the "hand of God" the "all knowing" etc etc etc.

For those of us who see the Bible as a historical document,  there is no way to reinterpret the information and statements without giving the writers waaaaaaaaaay too much credit.   And technically God did not say any of the apostles or writers had any sort of divine insight.   So IMO we should only interpret what they wrote in the way they wrote it and not try to give it more weight than it deserves.


Paul might have made some statements that to a modern eye could be viewed in a different way today but back then there is no doubting what he meant. 


ETA  I'm not that big on Paul so I'm not trashing your thesis.   Just pointing out a pet peeve of mine.   

oh trust me, I know you aren't a lot of our perspectives on biblical interpretation are virtually identical

Quote from: cynthialee on November 13, 2011, 09:18:00 AM
In Chapter 14 of First Corinthians, Paul writes:

"In all Christian churches, the women should keep silent whenever in church. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate.... If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.... If any one thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, he must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is true and from the Lord God."


First Corinthians, Chapter 11, Paul declares:



"Be imitators of me.... I commend you because you remember me in everything.... But I want you to understand that while the head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is her husband.... And any woman who prays with her head uncovered dishonors her husband; if a woman will not cover her head with a veil, then her hair should be shaved off.... For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.... Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, as a sign of submission to her husband that all men and angels will see.... And if anyone disagrees with me about his, they must be told to obey; for nothing else is acceptable in churches of God."

(haven't had this discusion in years)

I am not the only one who thinks paul is a heretic. All you have to do is type in Paul the H and google comes up with heretic imediatly.

Just because I haven't had a bible in hand in decades does not mean that your opinion on the matter trumps mine. I spent 2 decades researching the bible very closely. I make my statements that Paul is NOT a christian with conviction and allot of thought and research into the matter.
I am not just spouting off at the mouth. Many others also see Paul as the greatest threat to true christianity that the devil ever cooked up.

Cynthialee,

You are reading it at the surface level and not getting to the nature of what Paul was trying to say. First of all, Paul wrote to the Church of Corinth on the behest of Chloe who was a church leader there. Paul even had great admiration for the women who led that church. You are not taking into account the style he was doing when writing these statements. In addition you take scriptures which appears to make Paul a chauvinist without looking at the whole picture:

Romans 16:1-2: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. Phoebe was a deacon on the church of Rome and a deacon was a person of high church authority; second to only the Church Pastor.

Romans 16:3-4: Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Noticed how Paul mentioned Prisca (Or Priscilla) first before her husband. This hardly ever happened in a formal letter of that time. Matter of fact, it will be another 1800 years before others placed the wife before the husband....and even today you see people placing the husband before the man. Prisca and Aquila co pastored the Church of Roman where Phoebe was the deacon. Odd that Paul would give so much praise to the Church of Rome during his greetings with the church mostly led by women if he felt a woman's place is to be quiet...don't you think?

Romans 16:7: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.  Again, Junia, a woman, being placed up on prominence with an Apostle.

Philippians 4:2-3: I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Another set of women who led a church; this time in Philippe.

Also, just because other people believe Paul is a heretic be googling it will not convince me that Paul was a heretic. First of all, he doesn't even meet the first qualification of a heretic which means goings against orthodoxy since many of the orthodoxy creeds and teachings were based from Paul's writings.

The ones I read so far through google about Paul being a heretic are Arm Chair theologians who think they got it right. It is no more impressive to me than someone going to WebMD and thinking they can work their way through triple bypass hearth surgery if a doctor let them hold the scalpel.

Well obviously you are convinced of your scholarly supieriority in this matter.