Does Paul quote scripture out of context?

[hedrick]

But we Christians don't like to say that St Paul was wrong because surely the Holy Spirit could have prevented something so wrong from entering a Pauline epistle?

As you know, I don't believe in inerrancy. So I'm willing to say the Paul made a mistake. But on this issue I don't think that's quite fair.

Modern exegesis is committed to understanding the meaning of the original author as he intended it, and as the original people to whom it was addressed would understand it. That's the way I understand OT authors. By that criterion, many things that are often seen as predictions of Jesus really aren't.

But 1st Cent Judaism saw the Scripture as a template, which could be used to understand current events. Hence Mat 11:14 describes John the Baptist as Elijah, who was seen as announcing the coming of the Messiah. Dunn describes a related approach to using the OT.

I think we should understand where this is being done, and not try to claim that this repurposing of an OT passage is what the original OT author actually meant. Thus I oppose translating Is 7:14 as "virgin," because that's reading back into the original OT context a Christian application of the passage to 1st Cent events.

But I also wouldn't refer to this kind of thing as an error in exegesis, because it was a legitimate exegetical approach at the time, and Paul's readers (at least the Jewish ones) would have understood it as such. So the commitment to understanding authors in terms of their original context, the same commitment that leads me to understand the prophets in their original OT context, also leads me to understand what Paul was doing in his original context.

But when Paul repurposes an OT passage, it means that we have to assess whether Paul has a good reason for saying what he's saying. We can't apply whatever authority we think the OT author had to Paul's use, if Paul is using it for a purpose different from the original author's.

 

[miknik5]

Why don't you understand Isaiah 1: from the top of their head to the soles of their feet...open wounds
Ecclesiastes 7: there are none who do right and do not sin

I don't understand your question. Isaiah 1 is a vision that Isaiah saw. Ec 7 is a collection of wise sayings. What exactly is your question?

 

[hedrick]

Why don't you understand Isaiah 1: from the top of their head to the soles of their feet...open wounds
Ecclesiastes 7: there are none who do right and do not sin

The difficulty is that none the passages other than Ecclesiastes actually support Paul's argument.

Paul is trying to say that no one can depend upon the Law for justification because no one fully obeys the Law. Eccl 7 is a reasonable citation. It says that there is no one who is good without also sinning. But Ps 14 and 53 are referring only to some people, fools who say in their heart that there is no God, and particularly those that oppose Israel. That is, these Psalms are referring most directly to Israel's persecutors. Hence at first glance those Psalms (which form most of Paul's quotation) don't seem to support Paul's thesis.

Paul, however, is pretty clearly saying that everyone is to some extent a fool that denies God in practice. In particular, as Dunn notes, he may be turning the tables on his opponents, accusing the legalists of being those who deny God in practice. Thus although the Psalms don't, taken in themselves, prove Paul's thesis, he may well be using them, knowing their original context of referring to those who deny God, as an accusation that his opponents are denying the reality of God.

Or he may simply be taking them out of context. But I don't think that's clear.

 

[miknik5]

The difficulty is that none the passages other than Ecclesiastes actually support Paul's argument.

Paul is trying to say that no one can depend upon the Law for justification because no one fully obeys the Law. Eccl 7 is a reasonable citation. It says that there is no one who is good without also sinning. But Ps 14 and 53 are referring only to some people, fools who say in their heart that there is no God, and particularly those that oppose Israel. That is, these Psalms are referring most directly to Israel's persecutors. Hence at first glance those Psalms (which form most of Paul's quotation) don't seem to support Paul's thesis.

Paul, however, is pretty clearly saying that everyone is to some extent a fool that denies God in practice. In particular, as Dunn notes, he may be turning the tables on his opponents, accusing the legalists of being those who deny God in practice. Thus although the Psalms don't, taken in themselves, prove Paul's thesis, he may well be using them, knowing their original context of referring to those who deny God, as an accusation that his opponents are denying the reality of God.

Or he may simply be taking them out of context. But I don't think that's clear.

Please tell me
If you want to follow the law
Of which is also said none are righteous, all have sinned, all peoples and nations are unclean before HIM

What is left for the man who follows the law to do?

What were the requirements of that law for the man to do to be clean before GOD?

And was it a one time and permanent act that the man, under the law, could do to maintain forever his cleanliness before GOD?

 

[miknik5]

Wasn't it to present a sacrifice before GOD for sin(s) committed?

Isn't that what the law required of the man under the law?

Wasn't it written that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness?

Wasn't it written that without GOD washing us we are unclean. Just as David declared through GOD's WORD

 

[hedrick]

Wasn't it to present a sacrifice before GOD for sin(s) committed?

Isn't that what the law required of the man under the law?

Wasn't it written that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness?

Wasn't it written that without GOD washing us we are unclean. Just as David declared through GOD's WORD

Sure. But that wasn't quite the question Paul was dealing with. In Rom 3 he wasn't dealing with the atonement. Rather, he was dealing with the question of what defines us as God's people. His opponents said that God's people were defined by circumcision. Hence in order to become Christian, Gentiles had to be circumcised. Paul said that God's people are defined by faith.

He uses Abraham as an example, since Abraham was one of God's people before the covenant that established circumcision. Hence Paul argues that it isn't the Law that creates God's people, nor is obedience to the Law what makes on part of that people.

He could have left it at that, and said that because God's people are wider than just the Jewish covenant, provisions that are specific to that covenant can't define membership in his people. Indeed that's primarily what he does, since when he opposes faith to works, he is pretty clearly talking primarily about "works of the Law," i.e. things that are peculiar to the Law such as circumcision. I don't think he ever meant to oppose faith to morality in general, or to the kind of life Jesus taught.

However he goes beyond that, saying that membership in God's people isn't based on anything we do at all, but purely on God's grace. Thus justification isn't based on any works at all, whether specific marks of the covenant like circumcision or simply moral action. He justifies that by saying that if you're going to base justification on works, you'd have to be perfect, and no one, Jew or Gentile, is perfect.

If you're going to object to Paul, it has to be that final move you object to. I think the use of Abraham is hard to argue with, and the extension of God's people to anyone with faith. But in the final phase of the argument, he's arguing against something that as far as we can tell, no one maintained. Jews were well aware that the Jewish people didn't merit being chosen, and thus it was purely God's grace. They're also quite aware that everyone sins. Perhaps his opponents were an aberrant group. Or perhaps he got carried away in his argument.

There's nothing wrong with the argument; certainly we don't earn God's favor by perfect behavior, and we'd all be in trouble if that were the requirement. But over time it's produced misunderstanding between Christians and Jews by giving Christians the impression that Jews think they earn God's favor, when in fact they're quite aware that the call of Israel is purely due to God's grace. It's also produced problems in Protestant theology by an implication that righteousness means moral perfection, even though he never actually says that.

 

[miknik5]

Romans 3 ends with this:

The truth that no one will be able to justify themselves by what they have done. That all mouths will be silenced and the whole world held accountable to GOD

Unless you want to say that John's (the baptist) preaching to those under the law was "another gospel"?

 

[hedrick]

Romans 3 ends with this:

The truth that no one will be able to justify themselves by what they have done. That all mouths will be silenced and the whole world held accountable to GOD

Unless you want to say that John's (the baptist) preaching to those under the law was "another gospel"?

Of course not. Clearly acceptance by God is by grace, and nothing we can earn. I said that. The problem isn't anything Paul says. However the way he uses the quotations in 3:10 and following gives the impression that righteousness means an impossible moral perfection. In fact it didn't in the OT passages he quotes and it doesn't in the rest of Romans.

 

[miknik5]

Of course not. Clearly acceptance by God is by grace, and nothing we can earn. I said that. The problem isn't anything Paul says. However the way he uses the quotations in 3:10 and following gives the impression that righteousness means an impossible moral perfection. In fact it didn't in the OT passages he quotes and it doesn't in the rest of Romans.

Are you a person who will read a portion of a story and say you have read and understand the whole of the story?

You point to romans 3:10?

And yet don't keep in mind that Paul clearly says in Romans 3:

"Now a righteousness of GOD is made known which is of faith


And that both the circumcised and the uncircumcised will be justified by that faith

Which is in CHRIST JESUS

 

[hedrick]

Are you a person who will read a portion of a story and say you have read and understand the whole of the story?

You point to romans 3:10?

And yet don't keep in mind that Paul clearly says in Romans 3:

"Now a righteousness of GOD is made known which is of faith


And that both the circumcised and the uncircumcised will be justified by that faith

Which is in CHRIST JESUS

No, I'm someone who knows how theologians have used the passage. I'm not sure we even disagree. There is a widespread approach among Protestant exegetes that understands 3:10 as implying that no one can possibly be righteous, because righteousness means perfection, and we can't be perfect. As far as I know, you're not making that claim.

 

[miknik5]

e oracles of God. 3For what if
Romans 3

(The rest of the story):

9What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

15Their feet are swift to shed blood:

16Destruction and misery are in their ways:

17And the way of peace have they not known:

18There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.


21But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

27Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. 29Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: 30Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

 

[Dirk1540]

Opening a thread with a loaded question based on an anachronistic fallacy.

Assumes Paul is looking at the masoretic text not the Septuagint.
Assumes Paul and others writing NT don't have the freedom to refer to traditions loosely. From rabbinical writing of Paul's day we see this assumption is false.
Assumes Paul can't group many authors under one heading which again is false as we have thousands of such references in dead sea scrolls of similar approaches.

These are anachronistic because we are attempting to compare ancient writing standards in a 2000-year-old culture to our own modern western culture.

...In fact we see example of calling certain passages in the OT "prophetic," which were not prophecies at all in the original OT texts. So what? This practice was common to the scholarly culture in Paul's day.

This quote is pure gold! So many people commit these fallacies.