Indeed, but hopefully you will remember that I use the term Christianity to apply to the “Jesus movement” once Jesus has been crucified.spin wrote:We disagree. I'll continue to refer to christianity as the religious movement that has an established corpus of texts and some notion of itself as a single entity. That is post-Pauline and probably past mid-2nd century.
I think you are correct that I have misunderstood what you are presenting. I think this might because of your rejection of using the term Christianity in the same manner as me.spin wrote:I don't see how this comment concerns what you are responding to. I was attempting to remove some of the common obfuscation of Gal 1:13, ie one cannot assume that the term "assembly of God" refers to anything other than the body of believers of the Hebrew god. His perspective changes.Michael BG wrote: I don’t think you have made out a plausible case that Paul excludes non-Christian Jews from the term used for Jews in the Old Testament - “the Assembly of God”.
I don't think you have grasped my view on the matter. I don't think that your retrojecting christians into "assembly of God" is meaningful and I see no reason to think the Jerusalemites were christians. They evince no sign of being Jesus cultists, knowing nothing of Jesus's views of eating, and Paul doesn't indicate any discussion about Jesus with them.Michael BG wrote:We are also arguing from different positions. I am arguing that because it is unlikely that Paul would call Christians “the assembly of God” and so exclude Jews it is unlikely he would have used the term to mean Christians. You are arguing that Paul could have used “the assembly of God” because we have no idea what he meant by the term. I am taking the meaning from the way the term has normally been interpreted.
The scenario I am working from is that Paul, when still a conservative Jew, harassed non-conservative Jews, who I presume to be messianists. In hindsight when now a messianist himself he looks back at his actions from a more inclusive perspective.
You seem to be saying that “the assembly of God” is being used to define a sub-group of Israel which Paul has now joined. If this is so I don’t think it is much different from the view that Paul is referring to early Christians and he is now one of them. The only difference seems to be that you don’t use the term Christians.
Would I be correct that you accept that Paul has joined the same group as James and Peter, but you don’t think that James and Peter shared something in common with Paul regarding his belief in the resurrection of Jesus?spin wrote: I see no reason to think the Jerusalemites were christians. They evince no sign of being Jesus cultists, knowing nothing of Jesus's views of eating, and Paul doesn't indicate any discussion about Jesus with them.
I think my conclusion is the more probable, because it provides a good reason for Paul to discuss his previous conflict with the “circumcision party”. However I expect a case could be made for the opposition being non-Christian Jews.robert j wrote:This may be your opinion, but we do not know from Galatians that any members of the “circumcision party” that Paul placed in Antioch were in any way associated with the ones troubling Paul’s congregation in Galatia --- beyond the issue of circumcision and the law. Your argument --- your “because” --- does not establish that at all. The letter to the Galatians does not provide adequate information to establish who the opposition was.Michael BG wrote:From Galatians we know that Paul lost the argument with the circumcision party in Antioch and split from Barnabas. We also know that members of this circumcision party were in Galatia because Paul is telling the Galatians that they should not live under the law.
Those encouraging circumcision for Paul’s Galatians could very well have been local Jewish friends and neighbors. Diaspora Jewish friends of his converts that may have been amused, but had no big objection to Paul’s salvific spirit --- a heavenly son of the Jewish God found in the Jewish scriptures by means of creative readings. But such Jews would very likely object to claims that Paul’s Gentiles could be sons of Abraham and could be full participants with the God of Israel without the benefit of circumcision.
Please accept my apologies for adding to your quotation from Romans and representing it as being part of what you posted rather than making it clear what I was adding.robert j wrote:We’ll have to disagree on this. I’m not interested in debating the point with you any further, except to say that I think Romans is clear that Paul hopes that he can save some of the Jews, but no individual Jew will be saved if they persist in their unbelief. In the future, from the perspective in Romans, the salvation may or may not include all of Israel. But Paul has high hopes, because "until the full number of Gentiles might come in (aorist, active, subjunctive in the Greek), and in this way all Isreal will be saved, as it is written" (Romans 11:25-26). It's conditional.Michael BG wrote: Paul might waffle with his gardening metaphor, but in the end Israel is saved. God promised Israel will be saved and nothing is going to change this.
Of course selecting pertinent portions is fine, but you added-to and expanded upon my response, and represented it as what I cited (i.e.,the citations from Romans).
With regard to Paul’s view on the salvation of Israel I am happy to agree to disagree. I think it might be something where there is no scholarly consensus.