The Pharisees would not have agreed with Krister Stendahl . . . at all

 

For Judaism has never thought that God's hottest dream was that everyone become a Jew.

-- Krister Stendahl, here

 

 

 

 

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. 

-- Matthew 23:15

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. 

-- Romans 2:28f.

Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

-- Galatians 3:7

The law is light and life, but Paul the Apostle thought it only a light . . . on sin

Mosaic of Christ before Pilate, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, early sixth century. Pilate washes his hands in a bowl held by a figure on the right. "I find no fault in this man".

 

 

All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.

 

-- Deuteronomy 8:1

 

In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.  

-- Deuteronomy 30:16

 

He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.

 

-- Proverbs 4:4

 

For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

 

-- Proverbs 6:23

 

Keep my commandments and live;

 

-- Proverbs 7:2

 

The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death. 

 

-- Proverbs 13:14

He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul;

-- Proverbs 19:16

 

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.  

-- Matthew 19:17

If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

 

-- Galatians 3:21

 

I had not known sin, but by the law ... For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 

 

-- Romans 7:7, 9ff.

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

 

-- Revelation 22:14

LOL, Jews are really upset with Pope Francis for having the temerity to insist with St. Paul that the written code kills

 

At the audience, the pope, who was reflecting on what St. Paul said about the Torah in the New Testament, said: "The law (Torah) however does not give life.

"It does not offer the fulfilment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfil it ... Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfilment in Christ."

Rabbi Arousi sent the letter on behalf of the Chief Rabbinate - the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel - to Cardinal Kurt Koch, whose Vatican department includes a commission for religious relations with Jews.

"In his homily, the pope presents the Christian faith as not just superseding the Torah; but asserts that the latter no longer gives life, implying that Jewish religious practice in the present era is rendered obsolete," Arousi said in the letter.

More.

"Gee Mr. Pope, sir, you should disavow the core tenets of your religion because we think they are insulting and denigrating, even if they were written by one of us".

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

-- Galatians 3:21

For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

-- Romans 7:9

who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.

-- 2 Corinthians 3:6

You'd think an historian searching for very early Christian evidence of gender equality would know about Galatians 3 and I Corinthians 7, but you'd be wrong

Am I missing anything by way of obvious sources? Put another way, without Romans 16 above all, and a couple of other comparable lists of “Say hello to” greetings in other letters, would any later scholar dared have portrayed very early Christianity in the gender-equal way that modern scholars suggest? Think how easily something like Romans 16 might have dropped out of the transmission history of that document, if an early scribe had decided it was just personal stuff, and not worth preserving. If that had occurred, just what would we know or think about gender roles in early Christianity then? 


 

 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

-- Galatians 3:28

For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.

 

-- I Corinthians 7:4

The development of liberal social equality in the West would have been unthinkable without Pauline Christianity and Protestantism

Knox thought rule by Queens was unnatural

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

-- Galatians 3:28

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

-- Colossians 3:11

[7]Neither would I that you should esteem the reformation and care of religion less to appertain to you, because you are not kings, rulers, judges, nobles, nor in authority. Beloved brethren, you are God's creatures, created and formed to his own image and similitude, for whose redemption was shed the most precious blood of the only beloved Son of God, to whom he has commanded his gospel and glad tidings to be preached, and for whom he has prepared the heavenly inheritance, so that you will not obstinately refuse, and disdainfully contemn the means which he has appointed to obtain the same: to wit, his blessed evangel, which now he offers unto you, to the end that you may be saved. For the gospel and glad tidings of the kingdom truly preached, is the power of God to the salvation of every believer (Rom. 1:16), which to credit and receive, you, the commonalty, are no less indebted than are your rulers and princes. [8]For albeit God has put and ordained distinction and difference betwixt the king and subjects, betwixt the rulers and the common people, in the regiment and administration of civil policies; yet in the hope of the life to come he has made all equal. For as in Christ Jesus the Jew has no greater prerogative than has the Gentile, the man than has the woman, the learned than the unlearned, the lord than the servant, but all are one in him (Ga. 3:26-29), so there is but one way and means to attain to the participation of his benefits and spiritual graces, which is a lively faith working by charity.

-- John Knox, Letter to Scotland, 1558

The Protestant idea of the spiritual equality of all "in the hope of the life to come" took on a life of its own in the West as secularization took hold during the Enlightenment.

What is a Religious Person?

"[A] religious person doesn't 'believe' in God, he has faith in God."

-- Irving Kristol, remembered here (1920-2009)

"They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham."

-- Saul of Tarsus (dead, circa 64), Galatians 3:7