Okay, so I'm trudging my way through Galatians and I think I'm seeing where Paul is going. But something seems amiss.
Galatians 3:
16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring," that is, to one person, who is Christ.
So I think that Paul is referring to this:
Isiah 41:
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
But Jacob isn't Joshua. Is there some formula whereby Paul gets from Jacob to Joshua? Is there something else I'm missing here?
From what I understand there also an issue with "Jacob" and "James" like there is with "Joshua" and "Jesus". Jacob = James as Joshua = Jesus.
So I'm again perplexed that we somehow end up with a situation where we supposedly have a Joshua with a brother Jacob in all this...
rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 3:13 pm
Okay, so I'm trudging my way through Galatians and I think I'm seeing where Paul is going. But something seems amiss.
Galatians 3:
16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring," that is, to one person, who is Christ.
So I think that Paul is referring to this:
Isiah 41:
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
But Jacob isn't Joshua. Is there some formula whereby Paul gets from Jacob to Joshua? Is there something else I'm missing here?
From what I understand there also an issue with "Jacob" and "James" like there is with "Joshua" and "Jesus". Jacob = James as Joshua = Jesus.
So I'm again perplexed that we somehow end up with a situation where we supposedly have a Joshua with a brother Jacob in all this...
I am not completely sure what your discussion of Joshua and Jacob is about, but Galatians 3.16 is referring to Genesis 15.3, 5, 13, 18. Paul is saying that the promises were made to Abraham and to Abraham's seed; he makes a very strained point about "seed" being singular, and therefore referring to only one person (Christ), but the promises of Genesis 15 are what he is referencing.
Right, but of course the seed of Abraham is Jacob. It's as if he's saying that the promise made to Abraham only applied directly to Jacob, no one else. Jacob is the offspring. And of course Jacob is Israel, so that makes sense.
But I was looking specifically at Isaiah because so much of Paul's theology comes from Isaiah. It's where the suffering servant is. So here in Isaiah is something that matches almost exactly to what Paul is saying, but as would be obvious, it's about Jacob, not Joshua. Paul's discussion would make so much more sense if instead of Joshua Christ he was talking about Jacob Christ.
How does he claim that Joshua is the offspring of Abraham? Is there some magic formula I'm not aware of?
rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 5:02 pm
Right, but of course the seed of Abraham is Jacob. It's as if he's saying that the promise made to Abraham only applied directly to Jacob, no one else.
Paul is arguing specifically that the word "seed" is singular because it applies to only one person, yes, but for him that person is the Messiah. (If you are not buying Paul's argument here, take a number and stand in line; nobody does.)
rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 5:02 pmHow does he claim that Joshua is the offspring of Abraham? Is there some magic formula I'm not aware of?
Not a formula, exactly, but a whole raft of Jewish speculations about the Messiah and which scriptures he fulfills. The idea was that pretty much whatever was promised to the Israelite or Hebrew or Jewish people as a whole in scripture could be applied directly to the Messiah, and that whatever the Messiah did was fully representative of Israel as a whole.
ETA: Galatians 3 is not a good source for Pauline thought on the name of Jesus. Notice that Jesus is never used by itself in this argument, but always with Christ, whereas Christ stands alone at the most crucial junctures. This is about the Christ, the Messiah, not about what the name Jesus means.
Actually, I'm now thinking that "the seed" Paul is thinking about is Isaac, not Jacob.
"Gal 4: 28 Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac."
Also:
Romans 9:
6 It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, 7 and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
Isn't 'offspring' a lineage (singular YES, but a plurality in-the-chain)? 'Seed' is every generation in a line of descent. As any system of male primogeniture limits to a chosen son, so such a system might likewise favor one-&-only each generation (however: competing clans, conventicles, etc.) That would be the 'claim to authority'; Paul is correcting someone's understanding.
In (now Turkish) Galatia, was there an extant Christos myth within a Judaized Gentile community of proselytes c. AD 50: are these 'Chrestiani'*? The underlying question for the Diaspora-influenced audience would be 'Who do we follow?' in a diverse (highly eclectic) movement of competing preachers.
Paul would be asserting and defining his lineage. Presumably, other Therapeuts had earlier spread some variation of the Christos Myth among (by definition) a group of 'Chrestiani'*; yet other, more recent Jewish competitors had rejected/fought the particular Jesus Myth that Paul advanced.
It was a battle of the lineages; there must have been many such factions roaming about in AD 50. Beware of survivorship bias and the 'one-&-only' thinking.
* I suppose the 'Chrestiani' (an underclass, a nebulous movement and/or Christos belief system OFTEN or originally associated w/ Roman Serapis cult) were locally called 'Galatians' - the question of their (not-Jewish) identity is the crux of the argument.
