Mark,
I think you know that I totally agree with you that taking Paul’s words and then interpreting Jesus’ words in light of what we think Paul is saying – that is just wrong. That’s why we are in this conversation in the first place, right?
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that Gamaliel (in Acts 5) is saying that if the apostles are set free, then the truthfulness of their teachings will be judged by the people: If the people follow them, what they are preaching is true, and if they are false teachers, the people will not follow them (and perhaps kill them).
But I ask: Is this what Gamaliel actually says? Look at Acts 5:38b-39:
“[I]f their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."
Gamaliel is stating that the success or failure of the apostles’ message is in the hands of God, not the hands of men. God is involved in the fight, and if the message of the apostles succeeds, we are right to say that it is “from God”.
This leads to the question: Did the apostles succeed, or fail? I think the fact that the Bible you hold in your hands contains Paul’s epistles is a strong indication of the only viable answer: Yes, the apostles (including Paul) succeeded in their mission, the message was delivered, and now we can say that indeed, that message is from God. God fought the battle and He won. And now He continues to fight it in your heart and mind.
What would we expect if Paul really is a false teacher? Gamaliel gives us two examples of false teachers:
“Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.” Acts 5:36-37
Sure, Paul may have died as a result of what he preached. But this was after a long, successful teaching career that resulted in thousands of followers, and ultimately formed today’s Church.
Yes, there are problems in the Church today. My statement about the “character of the Church” being evidence of the truthfulness of the message was overstated. But Gamaliels statement was about the “purpose or activity” of the apostles, and that purpose and activity was the spread of the Gospel, the proclamation that Jesus is Messiah and Lord of all. They spread that message in person and in letters, and those letters survive to this day in our Bible.
Sure, the message that Jesus is Messiah was not accepted by a huge number of Jews. But if that is your main objection, then I think you make a mistake in overlooking the huge number of human beings that do believe Jesus was the Messiah.
You also mention the “fruit” of Matthew 17:15-20 being the person’s character, not how well their message spreads. I totally agree, and my point was not in line with the true meaning of the text. But there is no reason to suggest that Paul’s character was anything but exemplary. And it still stands that based on Gamaliels statement (discussed above) and the fact that the message of the apostles did not die out, their message was truly from God.
Now I’ll move on to something else you mentioned in your reply. You say that Paul’s teachings go against Torah. This makes me wonder: What do you believe about Jesus? What did he accomplish? How does he factor in? What affect does he have on Torah?
It seems to me that your views on Jesus will determine whether Paul’s teachings are acceptable. But if Torah is completely unaffected by the life and status of Jesus (if you even accept that) then of course Paul if a false teacher. But I think I need to understand how you view Jesus to further understand your beliefs about Paul.
9 comments:
I just want to clarify what Gamaliel is saying, because we do seem to have a misunderstanding. Gamaliel assumes that the apostles' teaching is false. He sees two possibilities; either it is man made, or is a test from God. If it is man made time will tell, like the two "messiah" prospects that he mentions their followers scattered. If it is from God then it is as a test as in Deuteronomy, to see if people will continue to follow him. So Christianity, Islam, and any others that try to convert Jews are from God but he is only testing them, and passing that test is by not following after other gods. Gamaliel would see the apostles' teaching as pulling people away from God, and is why they gave "strict orders not to teach in this name."
As for what did Jesus accomplish, I am still working that through. Some say Jesus was the completion of the Law, therefore it no longer needs to be followed. This I see as against what Jesus taught in his ministry. Jesus' affect on Torah was to clarify it, and to show people how they had not followed it, how the teachers had abused it, and what is from man and what is from God.
Mark,
I'm not sure if either of us is qualified to authoritatively "clarify what Gamaliel is saying" as if this is not up for dispute just as much as Paul's message is. Even so, the claim that Gamaliel assumes the apostles' teaching is false simply cannot be true based on what Gamaliel says in the quote above. You are making the "it" in the phrase "if it is from God" to mean something completely foreign to the context of what Gamaliel is saying. The word "it" clearly means "their purpose or activity" from the preceding sentance. The context is very obvious.
Mark, it seems like you are reading things into this passage that just aren't there, all because you have a theological agenda that you're committed to.
-Joe
I still don't think you understand what I am saying. I can't authoritatively "clarify what Gamaliel is saying," but I can use what I know of Jewish thought at the time to help understand his reasoning, which is what I was trying to do in explaining why I think he says this statement.
I don't think I am reading things into the passage, but that we are having a misunderstanding that I am just not sure how best to explain. I really don't see myself as committed to a theological agenda, I am willing to accept Paul if it can be proved that he is right. But on the topic of theological agendas we should remember that Luke has an agenda for his writing and traveled with Paul and was considered his friend.
Though it is quite funny to argue about what Gamaliel meant, because Christians do not follow his advice, which is basically "leave it alone, time will tell if it is from God." By this reasoning Islam is "from God" as is the LDS church, Hinduism, and any other religion that has started and survived the death of their leader, and continued to grow. Really Gamaliel may only be saying this to keep Peter and John from being killed and letting the Sanhedrin cool off before they do kill them. Gamaliel's statement, and the continuation of Christianity does not prove the validity of Paul, or Christianity for that matter. Christians think it has validity because it is in the Bible, therefore Gamaliel must have been inspired by God, or Luke to record it. It could just be that Gamaliel was very lenient toward wayward Jews and Gentiles, and wanted to keep the Sanhedrin from acting rashly and divisively as history tells us was his nature. He also may not have seen devout Jews who viewed Jesus as the Messiah as a threat, as later in Acts we see Jewish-Christians going peacefully to the temple.
Mark,
I am pretty sure I understand what you are saying, I just think that based on what Gamaliel actually says, you're probably wrong. We're probably spinning our wheels at this point in the Gamaliel debate.
For me, it comes down to whether we're willing to accept the Bible based on tradition, and the assumption that God will be involved in the important aspects of that tradition, namely in the formation of the Bible. Without this basis, we have very little common ground for an intelligent discussion.
Part of me sees this continued discussion with you as very similar to what you think Gamaliel is saying: Your rejection of Paul is either man-made (by you or person you got it from) or a test from God. I know it's been a test for my faith, but it's been really good to think through and clarify a lot of aspects of what I believe.
It is certainly false to say that the government is never a terror to good works but a minister of God to praise those who do well and punish only the wicked. The doctrine set forth in Romans 13 is plain wrong. Everyone with any knowlege or mental capacity whatsoever should see this. Did not the government persecute Christians even when Pauil was writing this? Didn't Peter acknowledge in his letter that this is the case? Doesn't Acts prove it? History does!
But it also contradicts the wilderness tempation in the wilderness where Satan is depicted as setting up kings and such. Paul says God does that ALWAYS. So, is God Satan or something then?
Clearly the Catholics CHANGED Paul's letters and the gospels too. We don't have the originals. Its that simple.
A guy named Markion (usually spelled Marcion in English but Markion in Greek) was the first to collect Paul's letters together and in his edition each letter was much shorter, lacked positive references to the OT, and Paul taught there were two gods, the OT god who Jesus saves us from and the Heavenly Father who is Jesus' Father.
Catholic theologians said Marcion took the scriptures and cut stuff out. Marcionites said the Catholics took the scriptures and added stuff.
Romans 9 and Romans 13 prove to me the Catholics added stuff because Romans 13 is just plain wrong, and Romans 9 is just plain evil.
It is also rather likely that there was no Paul but that Markion himself wrote the letters of Paul in his own name "Markion an apostle of Jesus Chrestos (not by man or through man) and the brethren with me to the churches in Galatia..." The Catholics when they decided to edit Marcion's letters and encorporate them into their canon changed the name to Paul and made up a fictional biography of him being taught by Gamaliel and being a persecutor and seeing a light and all that. But why would the Catholics absord the canon of the Marcionites who they saw as heretics? Justin Marty (Catholic apologist) who wrote in 138 says that there were Marcionites in every nation under heaven. The Marcionite church was more universal than the so-called Catholic church until the 3rd century. And the Catholics initially must have meant the term katholkos not as universal (they weren't universal yet) but as one of its secondary meanings: general treasurey for the Roman empire or agent of Rome. They were the Rome approved church.
Markion is Markus + ion (diminutive suffix like -ito in Spanish). Markion means 'little Mark'
Subtract the Mark from little Mark and you just get little, and Paul means little!
The book of Acts has Saul of Tarsus change his name from Saul to Paul after converting Sergius Paulus. As if commemorating the score. But really the Catholics propably dropped the Mark from Little Mark to make Paul the small.
To read a lot of stuff about Marcion see the blog called Vridar http://vridar.wordpress.com/ and Stephan Huller's blog http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com Vridar is more conventional. Huller is more on the edge.
An excellent resource that is not a blog is Daniel Mahar's Insititue of Marcionite Studies, at http://marcionofsinope.netfirms.com (it had a more poular and easier to find in search engines geocities address but geocities died today unfortunately)
Also Mark, you are wrong in thinking Jesus' ministry was about clarifying the Torah. He says "you have heard it said an eye for ane eye" where was that said? In the Torah. "But I say to you turn to the other cheek.". That's a destruction of the Torah not a clarification. He is destroying the Torah to replace it with something more positive. "You have heard it said hate your enemy" for the Torah and OT in general teaches constant genocide and hatred and almost all the Psalms are vicious prayers for vengeance "but I say to you love your enemies." This is not clarification of Torah but replacement of Torah with something better. You will say "but Jesus said he had not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil" and "not one jot or tittle will pass from the law" Yet there are Diatessaronic witnesses (ancient gospel harmonies) that have this phrase as not one jot or tittle passing from "my word.". The statement that he did not come to destroy the Torah was questioned in ancient times...and who could read "be kind to the unthanful like your heavenly Father" and not see Jesus as teaching a different Father than the OT God who rewarded the unthankful with constant smiting. When his own people complained about the mannah, he sent fiery serpents among them! But Jesus says "which of you evil men if your son asked for bread would give him a stone? Or if he asked a fish would give him a serpent?" Yet the OT God gave them serpents when they asked for bread and a great multitude died. Jesus aslo says to James and John when they seek to imitate Elijah in calling fire down from heaven to kill people that "you know not what spirit you are of" showing that Elijah performed this by a spirit other than the Heavenly Father.
Yet Jesus clearly teaches that salvation requires the good moral commandments which he carries over from the Law, for when the rich young ruler asks how to have eternal life this is what Jesus enjoins. And he says that those who do not do his sayings are like a fool who builds his house on the sand. The house of the faith onlyists will be destroyed. So the Pauline doctrine of fiath only is refuted by Jesus. Yet the Pauline doctrine of fath alone is refuted by Paul also! For no fornicator or murderer or drunkard etcm will inherit the kingdom of heaven, he says. And we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ and receive what we have done in our bodies.
Neither Jesus nor Paul were antinomian as in opposing morality, but only as opposing its ceremonies and especially its low morallity. They both raised the morality to a higher level than the law, even as Jesus says "unless your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and pharisees". But wicked men have filled Paul's writings with fiath onlyism just as they have filled Jesus' statements with things like "leave your offering at the altar" as if Jesus approved of animal sacrifice and "pray your flight be not on the sabbath" as if Jesus was concerned with such meaningless ceremony.
A logical analysis (found here: www.netzarim.co.il (the website of the only legitimate Netzarim)) of all extant source documents and archeology proves that the historical Ribi Yehosuha ha-Mashiakh (the Messiah) from Nazareth and his talmidim (apprentice-students), called the Netzarim, taught and lived Torah all of their lives; and that Netzarim and Christianity were always antithetical.
Ribi Yehoshua taught this about the 613 mitzwot (directives or military style orders) found in Torah:
"I didn't come to subtract from the Torâh of Moshëh or the Neviim, nor to add onto the Torah of Moshëh did I come. Because, rather, I came to [bring about the] complete [i.e., non-selective] observance of them in truth.”
(Netzarim Hebrew Reconstruction of Matityahu 5:17-20)
Regarding Paul: ” The earliest extant Church historian, Eusebius also documented that the Nәtzarim excised Saul, thereafter referred to exclusively as Paul, judging him an apostate (EH III.xxvii.4; see also NT corroboration in Maavar 15.41 with note 15.41.0 of Appendix V in Atonement In the Biblical 'New Covenant' (ABNC).” (Quote the above website; the Christians page).
Anders Branderud
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