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Let's take Maccabees. If the temple were desecrated and destroyed, wouldn't it have to be a judgment from YHWH? And if he is judging the people, who was Judah Maccabee to stand in the way? Would he have been better off leading the people to repent rather than to fight?
Maccabee isn't in the picture. We're talking about two specific men doing specific things - the scenarios are different no matter how you line them up. Using other senarios is only trying to deflect off that fact - they were different - period.
It was never the ruling group who became the RCC that killed them off, as other Jewish believers in Messiah NEVER agreed nor supported them and took beef with them when it came to the many twistings of what Yeshua/the Torah said---and ironically, many of the Ebionites fighting back in the name of "keeping the Torah" when they didn't even do that much. More has already been discussed on the issue before on various aspects of Ebionite Christianity (as seen here and here in #91 ,#156 and #157 )And why is that? Perhaps because the ruling group who became the RCC killed off all that didn't believe as they did? Today the church doesn't have the same power it once did.
One, it should be noted that the scriptures never advocated for 66 books alone since there were always more books besides that. The 66 book logic is a Protestant ideology that the early believers never shared when it came to the scriptures they supported, be it Macabees or the Testament of Moses (quoted in the Book of Jude) or the Book of Enoch (also quoted in the Book of Jude concerning Enoch's prophecy), Epistle of Barnabas (as Ethiopian Christians of Eastern Orthodoxy/Eastern Christianity do in consistency with what the Church Fathers noted), Shepherd of Hermas and a host of others (more discussed here in #89 #336 and #410 , here, here, here, here , here , here and here ). Other writings besides that, with those in Eastern Christianity/Eastern Orthodoxy (which is seperate entirely from Catholicism, for those arguing that it's only Protestants and Catholics) accepting other works as well. Barnabas, like I. Clement and Hermas, became canonical in some circles: it is quoted by Clement of Alexandria as Scripture. Technically, for the Jewish people, they didn't even have a cannon necessarily in the days of Christ/the apostles outside of the Tanak (and even that was debated as it what counted in the Writings)...and later, all the early believers had in addition were the Epistles, be it the General Epistles or the Pauline ones to give guidance. Thus, talking of a unified cannon as if it's only 66 can be problematic.....especially when considering that the Lord never promised or said he'd ONLY speak through 66 books anyhow.And to say that the true believers believe Paul is slanderous to them who Love HaShem and his son. There is no where in all 66 books that says to be a true believer one must believe what Paul taught.
Indeed, although numbers were never argued as an example of credentials alone. The argument, however, cannot be applied consistently when it comes to talking on the need of the Jewish people to return to Messiah en masse and ignoring where the Bible focused on numbers in noting repeatedly where the Lord ADDED to their numbers because of them walking right with him.And numbers are not a true example of anyone's credentials as to be from G-d.
Minus the fact that no one knows the salvation of all in any of the churches you listed, just as believers in Messiah have been found ALL OVER THE Place and seeking Him and the Lord ultimately knows those who are his, one really has no credible way of assuming that all in certain churches must not be true believers anymore than others are believers simply because they speak of loving Torah/GOD..even when a host of things are done that are nowhere near what God asked for and judgements toward other believers are still given.Great numbers, but true believers? not what G-d says...
- How many people attend Benny Hinn's revivals?
- How many people attend those big, 'feel good' Mega-churches. like the one in Lakewood,Texas? they preach a lot of love too.
- How about Todd Bentley? How many 'true believers' flocked to his revival meeting to 'experience and receive the Holy Spirit', mainly by kicking them in the face, or stomach, knocking them on the ground to roll around, laughing hysterically, and modestly, like animals? They lined up from around the world to do so.
Indeed. The same thing applies as it concerns those who make it a habit of denouncing Paul (as many can be sincere believers and yet still make a multitude of errors in the process that damage the Faith). It is because of that reason that Jewish believers did not tolerate it in the early church---and still don't todayWe are to question, it doesn't matter who it is, we are responsible for using the gifts he gave us, not to our betterment, but for our protection.
And there are believers, and followers. There
DittoThis is not said enough!
Then we look at Saul's perspective. He was zealous, he knew the Tanakh by heart, and he studied under the most prestigious rabbi around. What was he likely to do in the future? Possibly the sanhedrin. He would have been involved in rabbinic politics. Now, there is a movement rising that the religious leaders not only consider blasphemous, but also threatens their power. Paul could have been motivated by either or both reasons to try to help break up this movement.
Please show me where we have two or more first-hand witnesses for Paul's life & unique doctrines? I must have missed them.
Many messianics here accept Paul and interpret him to support a Torah-observant lifestyle - to that I say, "great"! Some messianics, including myself, reject Paul, and interpret him to be a double-minded man who both supports and rejects Torah; we reject him in order to support a Torah-observant lifestyle. The common endpoints are the same. What's the problem here?
I quote the Greek mainly for my own benefit & practice, thanks.
In which volume can I find the "whole canon of scripture"?
In all the times I've asked that question here on CF, I have never gotten a satisfactory response.
I know what you are saying. But let's call it for what it is here- there's no such thing as Ebionite theology. All we know about this group is second hand knowledge at best. It seems to me that there is a romantic myth about them that is being promoted by people who find NT living a bit too hard. There are no systematic theologies or lasting written masterpieces by any Ebionite.Easy G (G²);61587061 said:Technically, the main camps that've not done so in the history of the body were those primiarily in the Ebionite Camp---and it does seem that there's a resurrection of Neo-Ebionite theology again in our days.
And why is that? Perhaps because the ruling group who became the RCC
killed off all that didn't believe as they did?
And to say that the true believers believe Paul is slanderous to them who Love HaShem and his son. There is no where in all 66 books that says to be a true believer one must believe what Paul taught.
And numbers are not a true example of anyone's credentials as to be from G-d.
You cite the Clementine Epistles as authoritative, and then dare call into question the existing canon, suggesting it has been manipulated by later Catholic writers??? And you aren't even citing anything that mentions Sha'ul. The supposed adversary in that text is a fellow named, "Simon". What's your point in quotng that section here?
Even the Catholics view as "spurious" the alleged Clementine Homilies by Clement of Rome.
Your bias is showing.
Saul was not a Rabbi, as the Christians will tell you he planted churches, he did not teach students. The book of Acts says he sat under Gamaliel but there are plenty of scholars, many Jewish that say this wasn't possible and the most incriminating evidence comes from Paul himself as one who is quick to tout his credentials in most of his letters to people who already know who he is, he not once, not once, mentions who he studied under.
Haven't you ever wondered (if you've studied Hillel and Gamliel) how a Rabbi with open views and tolerant could be claimed the teacher of the student who was after watching Stephen being stoned, was 'still breathing murderous threats'?
More presuppositions & preconceived notions about Paul?Do you come with any preconceived notions about Paul?
Only that if he was guided by YHWH in what he wrote, then it would necessarily line up with the Torah.
That's the "if" I'm working on
It should give us pause before basing our doctrines & eternal destiny on hearing only one side of the story.
If you mean we cannot apply something he wrote about a specific problem to all situations, I agree. Much of what he wrote was generally applicable to everyone though. 1 Corintians 13 comes to mind here, where he speaks of the attributes of love.
Even if he plagarizes Plato?
Would you say you have spent equal amounts of effort studying both sides of this issue?
I spent enough to determine that all of the objections that I have seen written about him were baseless using the standard that Paul knew the scripture and did not go against the Torah. If a translated reading can be read both for and against Torah, then the pro-Torah stance must be understood.
So these are your preconceived notions about Paul!
I disagree. On something so basic and important, why, in his writings, would Paul fail to clearly distinguish between the various "law"s as we see & categorize them today?
I think most of the problem here is in the translation, not the original. Hebrew would have shown the differences, but the Greek did not.
There was nothing stopping Paul from using additional modifier words to clarify his uses of the word nomos.
My contention is this: Paul, as a Pharisee, likely referred to the whole of Oral & Written Tradition whenever he spoke about the "Law". Torah, as interpreted through his Pharisaical traditions & training, equaled "Law" to Paul, and to the Pharisees. He mixed up Torah & traditions & referred to the whole body of material as "Law"! I believe this explains why so many experience difficulty when attempting to identify which "law" he was speaking about.
Paul may have been more open to the oral tradition as a Pharisee, but he would have known which parts were against scripture.
The rest of the NT, to my knowledge, does not contradict the Torah or the Prophets. There is no difficulty there. I don't keep or discard the Gospel of Luke because of the nature or relationships of its author. The test of authenticity is not the author, but whether the author speaks for or against the Torah and the Prophets.Easy G (G²);61589208 said:As said before, one cannot try arguing against Paul selectively and not lay the foundation for having the rest of the NT taken apart ... I seriously wonder how the slippery slope of ignoring Paul/treating him as if he can be ignored can be taken seriously without ever questioning what to do with other texts. One would have to ignore the Gospel of Luke (which was made by the very man accompanying Paul, advocating for His ministry/Christ's approval of it and DISCUSSING its history in the Book of Acts) ... One could also say that the other scriptures supporting Paul by the other apostles must be thrown out, as is the case with Peter---the one whom Christ said in Matthew 16 and John 21 he'd build the Church upon/gave leadership of it to. II Peter 3:15-16 shows where Peter told the believers to listen to/support Paul. By the time of Peter's writing, Paul's letters already had a widespread reputation....and Peter spoke of Paul's letters as if they were on the same level as with the other "Scriptures."
I disagree. I believe that there are a number of things Yehoshua & Messiah did & said that were quite different.Even with saying that one should only go with what Yeshua did, the reality is that what Yeshua did was directly IN LINE with the example of Paul---and thus, its not really accurate when trying to make it out as if Paul was counter to Christ since they both had the same mindset---
What should one believe if the various accounts of Paul's conversion experience disagree with one another?and if taking the text of Acts literally, then ONE MUST acknowledge where Acts 9-10 makes clear that Christ appeared to Paul and said that He would use Him for his glory in reaching out to the Gentiles. One cannot be selective in saying that wish to take the book of Acts/the history of the Church in action seriously...and yet be selective with what they BELIEVE about it.
John, in the verses you provided, does not say that YHWH's Torah is summed up in what Yehoshua identified as the second-most important commandment: loving your neighbor.It often seems that people try to place both Paul and the other apostles into opposition with each other continually...but Johanine theology doesn't seem to support that. In example, Paul made exceptionally clear that he only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love ( Galatians 5:5-7, Romans 13:7-9, Romans 13, Galatians 6:1-3, etc )---and even the other apostles echoed this same concept in their epistles, such as John when he summed up God's commands/Torah into simply LOVING your neighbor ( 1 John 4:20-21 , 1 John 3:22-24, )
I completely trust in everything Messiah identified as ScriptureAnd ultimately, much of the arguments against Paul have zero to do with Messianic Judaism or even Jewish culture....and they ultimately equate to people MAKING IT UP as they go along and not really having any ground for discussing trusting in scripture.
What happened before "consensus" happened in the 4th century - 300 years after the passing of the apostles?It is not, therefore, down to Protestants that there are only 66 books to read between the covers of The Book - it was set by the Church Fathers centuries before we came into being and we have continued with their decision, whilst others have sought to add in more ... "Consensus developed, and in A.D. 367 ...
You appear to be operating under the assumption that there was some sort of monolithic body of belief and practice--that there was no debate amongst the early believers on important points. That would be false. Spurious teachers and writings were quite common in the first few centuries.What happened before "consensus" happened in the 4th century - 300 years after the passing of the apostles?
To appeal to the 4th century "church fathers" is like saying those here in the 21st century now have a perfect understanding of what the 18th century founders of the united states meant when they wrote the constitution.
Not at all - my point I was trying to make was that, even for hundreds of years, the nature of the "canon" was in flux. I'd love to see some records of how the early believers debated the nature of Scripture, and to see what standards they used to guide them in identifying "Scripture".You appear to be operating under the assumption that there was some sort of monolithic body of belief and practice--that there was no debate amongst the early believers on important points. That would be false. Spurious teachers and writings were quite common in the first few centuries.
Not all included Paul's writings in their canons, as was pointed out, the Ebionites, or the Nazarenes.That is precisely the reason a need was felt to establish a canon in the centuries after Yeshua. There were several attempts at creating such authoritative lists. The lists were generally derived from the common consensus of believing communities. They tended to be nearly identical, and all included the letters of Sha'ul. The main controversy involved Revelation and, if I recall correctly, II Kefa.
What happened before "consensus" happened in the 4th century - 300 years after the passing of the apostles?
To appeal to the 4th century "church fathers" is like saying those here in the 21st century now have a perfect understanding of what the 18th century founders of the united states meant when they wrote the constitution.
So, if I may assume, your canon is the Protestant canon. What motivated you to choose that as your standard, instead of the Catholic canon, or the Ethiopian Orthodox canon, etc.?I was responding to a post that claimed that Protestant theology gave us the current Book. There is much that has been written about how it came about - my post is merely a bird's eye view - bird's fly high and fast and don't focus on everything at once!
There's a lot to be said as it concerns the differences between the Ethiopian Orthodox Canon and the Catholic Canon as well as the Protestant Canon. Most people are not aware of Eastern Orthodoxy/Eastern Christianity (in line with what the Church Fathers advocated) when it comes ot the Canons accepted in those groups and the other books that those advocating the 66 books do not accept.What motivated you to choose that as your standard, instead of the Catholic canon, or the Ethiopian Orthodox canon, etc.?
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