Jesus does not meet two of the accreditation standards

Uncle,

Being that Christianity is not my turf, I will accept .500 with good grace.

Paul, however, remains an interesting figure to me, even from an historical viewpoint.

Tradition is that he was not only a Jew but took active part in the Jewish establishment's persecution of the early Church. As I understand it, he then had a complete change of heart and became, in the process, one of the great figures of Western history.

What puzzles me, though, is that he doesn't seem to write like a Jew. Am I right that the Letter to the Hebrews wasn't one of Paul's?

He seems much more Greek to me with a clear idea of unattainable perfection and seeing the world darkly as in a poor mirror. That sounds like Socates to me, not Moshe.

He also preaches the need for blood sacrifice for atonement, a Jewish concept, to be sure, but even in his day one that belonged to the Sadducees and much less important to the Pharisees.

Of course, I don't read Greek and cannot therefore really appreciate his writings and I must depend on translations by Christians. Chrisitan translators have biases just like every other kind of interpreter and my puzzlement may stem in part from modern Christian philosophy.

Two weeks to Christmas. I wish all my Christian friends an Advent filled with the joy of anticipation and a Christmas that fulfils your dreams.

 

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I'm invisible.

 

Bill Glover:

Sorry. You aren't invisible. I'm merely deferring quietly to your expertise.

I am not able to make any sort of text based argument because, as I said before, I don't do Greek.

For what is is worth, though, the point I wanted to make at the beginning was that the Jewish establishment rejected Jesus as a teacher largely because he didn't follow the "accredited" line. What I mean is, Jewish scholars then and now do not EVER teach from their own authority; they work from mishniot and baraitot received from their teachers.

Judah ha Nasi had not yet written down the mishna in Jesus' time. The Oral Law was (obviously) not written down. After the destruction of the Second Temple and the beginning of the galut, ha Hasi (with help) wrote the mishna out so that it could travel with the Jews wherever we went and not be forgotten. It still isn't forgotten; I study every Saturday.

But even before the Oral Law was written, one never taught a legal principal without quoting one's teacher. The older the authority, the closer to Sinai and the greater the authority.

So you see that when Jesus taught on his OWN authority (as I believe one of the Gospels says he did), the Jewish scolars weren't impressed, as Christian tradition has it, but more likely to paid little attention to him. He wasn't "accredited", you see.

That's all I meant.

 

DOCTOR Glover, I should have said!

You probably know the story better than I do! Well, take my post in the spirit it is offered.

 

Hey, you're in good company--Claude Rains, Johnny Scripps, Tim Turner, and Chevy Chase, ha!

Seriously, I didn't see your post until now, sorry!

 

Tradition says Paul was the author. If I remember correctly Luther thought it was Apollos; Tertullian, Barnabas; Harnack, Priscilla; and Ramsey, Phillip.

Either Dr. Grover or Unk may have to correct some or all of this.

 

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I forgive you-- even if you are talking to someone else named "Glover."

 

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no prob Jimmy. When I was a teenager I wished that I could be invisible--you don't want to know why

 

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technically I'm not a doc until I resubmit the dissertation bound with the typos and such fixed. I'll mail it in around the middle of next month. Boy does "Dr. Grover" sound strange. But then..I am strange!

 

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A good point . A possible counter might be that both Jesus and His disciples frequently connected their teaching to--ie based their authority on-- Moses or the Writings or the Prophets and urged their auditors to read the Scriptures to determine for themselves the veracity of what was being taught to them. But I do see and understand your point ; thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it!

 

Well done Dr. Glover

Well done Dr. Glover, you are an excellent example, for all juvenile and no so juvenile citizens.

The youth is in the brainpower, not in the manifestation of the body.

Once more, Dr. Glover, congratulation and many happy returns.

 

Re: Well done Dr. Glover

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Who is this Dr. Glover?

 

Sorry, Dr. Bill Grover (In May)

 

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No problem. Thankyou.

 

This whole thread should be on off-topic, but here goes.

Hi Nosborne:

Remember, Bill is the Bible scholar. I'm just a garden-variety cleric.

While Hebrews sounds kind of Paulish (sic), I don't think much of anybody thinks he actually wrote it, and nobody has any clear textual evidence who did. My fave crackpot theory was Jo Ford's, that it was written by the Blessed Virgin.

Paul's sometime Greekness of thought just shows how deeply Hellenism had infected Jews--both Reichs- and Volksjuden (Paul, a Tarsian, was the latter, which may be why he throws such a fit about his Jerusalem study credentials). Harry Wolfson and John A.T. Robinson and Martin Hengel have also shown that the myth of a Hellenism-free Judaea is just that.

As to Jesus teaching on his own authority, since I believe A) that Jesus made claims of divinity and that these were not simply fathered on the poor wretch by loopy later followers and B) that those claims are true, his departure from the practice of careful citing of rabbinical precedent is understandable. After all, if you think that you are God incarnate--and really are--and also a kind of embodied Torah, citing precedent is sort of beside the point. What Jesus does do, constantly, is quote Scripture. He clearly liked to set up a polarity between the scholars and the Scripture--something not unknown as a variant in later Judaism (Karaites).

Of course, all this is based on a Christian belief analogous to the belief in Torah min shamayim: that the NT, as an appendix and giant punch line to the Tanach, reliably records what Jesus thought and did, and that its theological comment on him is accurate because divinely inspired. I will NOT get into an "inerrancy debate," but suffice it to say that this high view of the NT as Scripture is predicated on an equally high view of the Tanach as Scripture.

If you want to continue this further, that's OK, but let's do it via PM's. This thread really should be on off-topic, and I am mindful of how theological discussions at one point got to be more prominent on this board than they really should have been (since they got detached pretty fast from their moorings in questions about DL).

I guess what I would want to leave the public discussion with is the sometimes uncomfortable fact that my dislike of hurling anathemas in this setting does not gainsay my extreme theological conservatism. My group is sort of the haredi element among Lutherans, with all the baggage--and value--that entails. My utter commitment to Zionism is not typical, but my commitment to a very strict form of confessional Lutheranism is total. For whatever reasons, theological disagreement doesn't throw me, and I'd like to think I have some capacity for theological empathy, but in our circles dogmatism is a good thing, and I am happy with the ecclesiastical results of that.

What I reject totally is the idea that my posts here ought to be some sort of propaganda for my religious views. I don't mind explaining when asked (as here), and I don't think anyone need hide their religious or non-religious views, but this is not the correct venue for religious--or antireligious--propaganda. The secular has its own God-given integrity in conservative Lutheran theology, so I feel no need to "Christianize" degreeinfo (fat bloody chance, anyway). In this I am sure that I disagree with some other Christian posters, not to mention, mutatis mutandis, the League of Militant Atheists wannabes.

Enough clerical logorrhea. At least on the public part of this board.

Warmest regards,
Janko

 

Jesus doesn't meet two accreditation standards

So Jesus doesn't meet two accreditation standards --- so what! Most of us don't come close to measuring up to HIS standards either. Some of us may think we do --- but we are all sinners.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone (at me).

Bill Hurd