How should we read Paul?

[redleghunter]

Are you asking about my religious practices?
Let's stick to issues. In the big picture my religious life is of little consequence to anyone but me and my family.
Engage me at the big picture level.

I have to disagree. You made the 613 laws central to the discussion and how Paul "dumped the Law."

I will reframe the question without asking you personal practices. How much of the Law can be kept in 2016 with no Temple, no theocratic court, no priesthood and no one authoritative Hebrew calendar?

 

[redleghunter]

My copy of the JPS reads..” The righteous man is rewarded with life for his Fidelity." I have a copy of the volume. Do you? Or do you get your information from an Apologist web page?
The LXX is a Greek version of the Torah which was translated by the 70. The 70 did not translate the prophets and these Greek writings are not inspired text.

Since Late Antiquity, once attributed to a Council of Jamnia, mainstream rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

What does your canon look like. It would help if you stated which books in TaNaKh and the NT you claim are inspired or authoritative and why.

I also asked up thread if you deny Yeshua as Messiah? If so how do you justify your self declaration of Messianic?

 

[Strong in Him]

To thy own self be true. How far are you willing to go to prostitute your good sense to explain away a problem verse?
Believe whatever you like but I expect that someday the dissonance will over come you as you compromise your integrity.

?? Sorry, what are you talking about?

Are you saying that Jesus didn't appear to Paul? How, then, do you explain his conversion?

 

[Der Alte]

My copy of the JPS reads..” The righteous man is rewarded with life for his Fidelity." I have a copy of the volume. Do you? Or do you get your information from an Apologist web page?
The LXX is a Greek version of the Torah which was translated by the 70. The 70 did not translate the prophets and these Greek writings are not inspired text.
Since Late Antiquity, once attributed to a Council of Jamnia, mainstream rabbinic Judaism rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts. Several reasons have been given for this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

Scoff as you will the JPS I quoted was from a Jewish website. Wiki? You cannot be serious! Wiki is about as reliable as the scribblings on any public facility wall. Every article has [edit] links. Anybody can post, change, delete anything, at any time without review or control. This is an example of you frantically, desperately scrambling trying to find, something, anything by anybody which supports your heterodox assumptions/presuppositions. Here's a question for you if you had to go into court on some legal matter would you use information from wiki to present your case?
.....Whatever your opinion of the LXX and the JPS both were translated by Jewish scholars for Jews and both were accepted by Jews. Twenty first century polemics to the contrary are irrelevant, without supporting historical evidence. Copy pastes from city-data forums and individual blogs do not constitute such evidence.
Let us see what the Jews actually think of the LXX

Jewish Encyclopedia-The Septuagint.
The oldest and most important of all the versions made by Jews is that called "The Septuagint" ("Interpretatio septuaginta virorum" or "seniorum"). It is a monument of the Greek spoken by the large and important Jewish community of Alexandria; not of classic Greek, nor even of the Hellenistic style affected by Alexandrian writers. … These papyri have in a measure reinstated Aristeas (about 200 B.C.) in the opinion of scholars. Upon his "Letter to Philocrates" the tradition as to the origin of the Septuagint rests. …According to Aristeas, the Pentateuch was translated at the time of Philadelphus, the second Ptolemy (285-247 B.C.), which translation was encouraged by the king and welcomed by the Jews of Alexandria.
It is not known when the other books of the Bible were rendered into Greek. The grandson of Ben Sira (132 B.C.), in the prologue to his translation of his grandfather's work, speaks of the "Law, Prophets, and the rest of the books" as being already current in his day.
A Greek Chronicles is mentioned by Eupolemus (middle of second century B.C.); Aristeas, the historian, quotes Job; a foot-note to the Greek Esther seems to show that that book was in circulation before the end of the second century B.C.; and the Septuagint Psalter is quoted in I Macc. vii. 17. It is therefore more than probable that the whole of the Bible was translated into Greek before the beginning of the Christian era (Swete, "An Introduction to the O. T. in Greek," ch. i.).
The translation, which shows at times a peculiar ignorance of Hebrew usage, was evidently made from a codex which differed widely in places from the text crystallized by the Masorah. Its influence upon the Greek-speaking Jews must have been great. …It is the version used by the Jewish Hellenistic writers, Demetrius, Eupolemus, Artabanus, Aristeas, Ezekiel, and Aristobulus, as well as in the Book of Wisdom, the translation of Ben Sira, and the Jewish Sibyllines. Hornemann, Siegfried, and Ryle have shown that Philo bases his citations from the Bible on the Septuagint Version, though he has no scruple about modifying them or citing them with much freedom. Josephus follows this translation closely (Freudenthal, "Hellenistische Studien," ii. 171; Siegfried, in Stade's "Zeitschrift," iii. 32). It became part of the Bible of the Christian Church.
Aquila.
Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation. This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13432-septuagint
Encyclopedia Brittanica - Septuagint
Abbreviation Lxx, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was translated near the middle of the 3rd century BCE and that the rest of the Old Testament was translated in the 2nd century BCE.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint​

 

[Der Alte]

Just keep on trying to muddy the waters because you know that Paul lied about who gave the Torah to Israel.
Paul said at Galatians 3:19......
Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
At Exodus 20....
And God spake all these words, saying,
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me
God himself gave Israel the Law...the Law was not ordained by Angels.
Paul lied to denigrate the Law trying to fool gentiles into thinking the law was of lesser value because it was only ordained by angels.

You can keep spamming this false interpretation until you keyboard falls apart but you can't turn it into the truth. I have pointed out your error twice but in desperation to say Paul lied you ignore it and continue to spam. Paul did not say "ordained by"! He was very likely referring to Deut 33:2 in the LXX

LXX Deuteronomy 33:2 And he said, The Lord is come from Sina, and has appeared from Seir to us, and has hasted out of the mount of Pharan, with the ten thousands of Cades; [Heb. קדשׁ /qadesh, saints] on his right hand were his angels with him. ​

 

[nick notes]

I have to disagree. You made the 613 laws central to the discussion and how Paul "dumped the Law."

I will reframe the question without asking you personal practices. How much of the Law can be kept in 2016 with no Temple, no theocratic court, no priesthood and no one authoritative Hebrew calendar?

""How much of the Law can be kept in 2016"" There are 613 laws . Are you expecting me to give you an analysis of each of 613 laws? Sorry...not possible ...no time.

 

[nick notes]

What does your canon look like. It would help if you stated which books in TaNaKh and the NT you claim are inspired or authoritative and why.

I also asked up thread if you deny Yeshua as Messiah? If so how do you justify your self declaration of Messianic?

I use Bible Gateway. I already answered your questions about the Messiah.

 

[nick notes]

?? Sorry, what are you talking about?

Are you saying that Jesus didn't appear to Paul? How, then, do you explain his conversion?

Read what I wrote in other posts.

 

[nick notes]

Scoff as you will the JPS I quoted was from a Jewish website. Wiki? You cannot be serious! Wiki is about as reliable as the scribblings on any public facility wall. Every article has [edit] links. Anybody can post, change, delete anything, at any time without review or control. This is an example of you frantically, desperately scrambling trying to find, something, anything by anybody which supports your heterodox assumptions/presuppositions. Here's a question for you if you had to go into court on some legal matter would you use information from wiki to present your case?
.....Whatever your opinion of the LXX and the JPS both were translated by Jewish scholars for Jews and both were accepted by Jews. Twenty first century polemics to the contrary are irrelevant, without supporting historical evidence. Copy pastes from city-data forums and individual blogs do not constitute such evidence.
Let us see what the Jews actually think of the LXX

Jewish Encyclopedia-The Septuagint.
The oldest and most important of all the versions made by Jews is that called "The Septuagint" ("Interpretatio septuaginta virorum" or "seniorum"). It is a monument of the Greek spoken by the large and important Jewish community of Alexandria; not of classic Greek, nor even of the Hellenistic style affected by Alexandrian writers. … These papyri have in a measure reinstated Aristeas (about 200 B.C.) in the opinion of scholars. Upon his "Letter to Philocrates" the tradition as to the origin of the Septuagint rests. …According to Aristeas, the Pentateuch was translated at the time of Philadelphus, the second Ptolemy (285-247 B.C.), which translation was encouraged by the king and welcomed by the Jews of Alexandria.
It is not known when the other books of the Bible were rendered into Greek. The grandson of Ben Sira (132 B.C.), in the prologue to his translation of his grandfather's work, speaks of the "Law, Prophets, and the rest of the books" as being already current in his day.
A Greek Chronicles is mentioned by Eupolemus (middle of second century B.C.); Aristeas, the historian, quotes Job; a foot-note to the Greek Esther seems to show that that book was in circulation before the end of the second century B.C.; and the Septuagint Psalter is quoted in I Macc. vii. 17. It is therefore more than probable that the whole of the Bible was translated into Greek before the beginning of the Christian era (Swete, "An Introduction to the O. T. in Greek," ch. i.).
The translation, which shows at times a peculiar ignorance of Hebrew usage, was evidently made from a codex which differed widely in places from the text crystallized by the Masorah. Its influence upon the Greek-speaking Jews must have been great. …It is the version used by the Jewish Hellenistic writers, Demetrius, Eupolemus, Artabanus, Aristeas, Ezekiel, and Aristobulus, as well as in the Book of Wisdom, the translation of Ben Sira, and the Jewish Sibyllines. Hornemann, Siegfried, and Ryle have shown that Philo bases his citations from the Bible on the Septuagint Version, though he has no scruple about modifying them or citing them with much freedom. Josephus follows this translation closely (Freudenthal, "Hellenistische Studien," ii. 171; Siegfried, in Stade's "Zeitschrift," iii. 32). It became part of the Bible of the Christian Church.
Aquila.
Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation. This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13432-septuagint
Encyclopedia Brittanica - Septuagint
Abbreviation Lxx, the earliest extant Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was translated near the middle of the 3rd century BCE and that the rest of the Old Testament was translated in the 2nd century BCE.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint​

"""Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation."" This is from what you just posted.

 

[nick notes]

You can keep spamming this false interpretation until you keyboard falls apart but you can't turn it into the truth. I have pointed out your error twice but in despearation to say Paul lied you ignore it and continue to spam. Paul did not say "ordained by"! He was very likely referring to Deut 33:2 in the LXX

LXX Deuteronomy 33:2 And he said, The Lord is come from Sina, and has appeared from Seir to us, and has hasted out of the mount of Pharan, with the ten thousands of Cades; [Heb. קדשׁ /qadesh, saints] on his right hand were his angels with him. ​

Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation.

 

[Strong in Him]

Read what I wrote in other posts.

Sorry, but this thread goes back 68 pages. Could you give me a summary - or at least direct me to the posts of yours which answer the question?

 

[Der Alte]

Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation.

Totally irrelevant! And you deceptively omitted part of the quote trying to make it prop up your argument. Here is the part you deceptively left out, "This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith." [i.e. Christianity.] Your objection is irrelevant because the LXX was accepted at the time of Paul, the LXX was the only OT they had in Greek. Paul, Jesus and the other NT writes quoted from the LXX because gentiles did not understand Hebrew. If you are trying to catch me in an error perhaps you should use a little more veracity.

 

[nick notes]

Sorry, but this thread goes back 68 pages. Could you give me a summary - or at least direct me to the posts of yours which answer the question?

That would be just as time consuming for me.

 

[nick notes]

Totally irrelevant! And you deceptively omitted part of the quote trying to make it prop up your argument. Here is the part you deceptively left out, "This distrust was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith." [i.e. Christianity.] Your objection is irrelevant because the LXX was accepted at the time of Paul, the LXX was the only OT they had in Greek. Paul, Jesus and the other NT quoted from the LXX because gentiles did not understand Hebrew. If you are trying to catch me in an error perhaps you should use a little more veracity.

You are entitled to your opinion.
But I know Paul was dishonest in his use of Habakkuk 2:4 I made my case. If you don't choose to understand that is fine with me. But don't waste any more of my time questioning my "veracity."

Paul was also lying when he said the Law was ordained by angels when we both know that YHWH gave the Law to Israel.

 

[Strong in Him]

That would be just as time consuming for me.

So just answer yes or no then; was Paul lying about his conversion? Was he converted at all?

 

[redleghunter]

""How much of the Law can be kept in 2016"" There are 613 laws . Are you expecting me to give you an analysis of each of 613 laws? Sorry...not possible ...no time.

Would you at least consider some? Or at least give your analysis that of the 613 only a certain percentage are applicable today and give a few examples of laws one does not have to observe due to no theocratic court, king or priesthood.

 

[redleghunter]

I use Bible Gateway. I already answered your questions about the Messiah.

Ok I will assume you deny Yeshua of Nazareth as the Messiah. How then are you a "Messianic?" Are you waiting for another?

Ok, I know you use Biblegateway a lot of us do. Which parts of the TaNaKh and NT do you consider Inspired by God?

 

[Der Alte]

You are entitled to your opinion.
But I know Paul was dishonest in his use of Habakkuk 2:4 I made my case. If you don't choose to understand that is fine with me. But don't waste any more of my time questioning my "veracity."
Paul was also lying when he said the Law was ordained by angels when we both know that YHWH gave the Law to Israel.

You "know" no such thing, about Paul and Habakkuk 2:4, that is only your biased opinion based on false assumptions/presuppositions as I have proved from the LXX and JPS OT and explained more than once but you reject because it does not fit your agenda. Paul did not lie about anything. He did not say what you claim he did, there goes that agenda again.

 

[nick notes]

So just answer yes or no then; was Paul lying about his conversion? Was he converted at all?

I don't think that there is enough credible evidence to believe in Paul's Damascus Road experience.
I have pointed out that Paul was a murderer, that he was an unrepentant murderer.
I have pointed out that Paul was a liar.
Would you believe a lying murderer? I don't.

 

[nick notes]

You "know" no such thing, about Paul and Habakkuk 2:4, that is only your biased opinion based on false assumptions/presuppositions as I have proved from the LXX and JPS OT and explained more than once but you reject because it does not fit your agenda. Paul did not lie about anything. He did not say what you claim he did, there goes that agenda again.

I think you know I am correct but you have too much invested in the status quo to correct your theology.