Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
I doubt the author of the epistle To the Hebrews was Paul. He said that the gospel was made known to him by those who saw the Lord (Heb 2:3). Paul got his revelation from God, he made that plain and would not have contradicted himself this way.
The epistle To the Hebrews does speak of the inferiority of the law, but it doesn't say that Hebrews couldn't be Hebrews, just that they shouldn't be shrinking back (or "falling away" in your term) from faith in Jesus Christ back to Jewish customs. Do you see the difference?
No, the issue was either forcing the gentiles to observe Jewish customs & laws (Epistle to the Galatians) or the native Hebrews abandoning their Christian faith and returning to Jewish customs alone (To the Hebrews). The Hebrews of that epistle had started out as Jewish Christians, and after persecution decided it was preferable to simply be Jews. But the author remonstrated with them, that "falling away" from Christ rendered their journey void.
Paul never stopped being a Pharisee, but he never left in the revelation that appeared to him on the road to Damascus: Jesus is the resurrected Lord, and salvation comes to all who confess his name, both to the Jew and to the Greek. Paul held forth that revelation until the day he died.
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The poster 'aron',
First off, I'm glad to see that you took my advice and went off and took a quick scan through the book to the Hebrews. I, of course had strongly suggested that you take your time in order to thoroughly digest it; but it seems your sole and only intent was to quickly rummage through its contents that you might find some convenient verse you might use to come back here to refute me with.
... this shows little heart for the truth...
You've given a nice little summary of what you discovered (paragraph 4). It seems to me that once you found yourself fully exposed in the bright glare of Scripture (as was intended) you suddenly realized you were gravely and sorely mistaken; and now, with your little summary, you are attempting to pass yourself off as someone who knew what Hebrews said "awwwll" along, and are vainly hoping that we shall forget -that barely a day ago- you ignorantly defended the very opposite view.
This can be borne out by all your preceding posts: your own words testify against you.
But I'm happy that you learned something.
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Secondly, you began your riposte by asserting that you didn't think that Paul wrote the book to the Hebrews.
I mean, really?
I sent you to the book to the Hebrews to discover for yourself how spurious your claims were about the false dichotomy you like to draw between Jews and Gentiles. A most substantive matter.
And your big take-away was that you don't think Paul wrote the epistle? ? ?
..For crying out loud...
What does it matter whether it was Paul, or Peter, or Bugs Bunny, or Donald Duck, who wrote it?
You certainly love to quibble, don't you?
But allow me to indulge you.
First of all, as is your usual custom, you have once again misread, misquoted, and misrepresented the Word of God in the presentation you make to support your doubts as to the authorship of the epistle.
You say -yes, you- that it says, that the author says, the "gospel was made known to him by those who saw the Lord"
Is that what it really says, poster 'aron'?
Here is what it actually says:
"How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was CONFIRMED unto us by those that heard him" (Heb 2:3)
You seem to possess a passable vocabulary, poster 'aron', and I would beg you to draw your attention to the word, 'CONFIRM'. You must know what this word means.
To help you I've supplied some synonyms:
1. Reassert
2. Corroborate
3. Validate
4. Verify
5. Strengthen
6. Establish
7. Prove
8. Uphold, et cetera
Do you get the apostle's drift?
He had already had the gospel made known to him. It was simply 'confirmed' to him by those who had been with Jesus.
And is this true? Is what the apostle Paul claims here true? Can any other part of the Bible uphold (confirm) his claim?
In the epistle to the Galatians, Paul speaks of having gone up to the church in erusalem where those 'which were apostles before him' resided. He went up with Barnabas and Titus. And he met with just Peter and James on one occasion, and on another he met ...
"... privately [with] them which were of reputation -communicating unto them the gospel that [he] preached- lest by any means [he] should run, or had run, in vain.." (Gal 2:2)
Paul, here, is describing how the gospel was "confirmed" to him by the apostles, and others, in Jerusalem.
I'll stop there on that topic. I could go on and discuss Paul's 'signature salutation' that was unique only to him and not to any of the other apostles, and with which the Hebrew epistle is signed (John later adopted it many decades later), but enough already.
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Poster 'aron', you said that the epistle to the Hebrews doesn't say that Hebrews can't be Hebrews, but it does say that they shouldn't shrink back to Jewish customs.
I really wonder how you feel when you swallow your tongue like this? How do you feel having to repeat scripture you were unaware of, and that only a day ago you were refuting with all your might?
... okay, so you appear to have spotted some difference.
...the difference between what, I wonder? I dunno. The epistle, apart from the fact that it is addressed to the Hebrews, makes no mention of the word "Hebrew". What do you call a Hebrew without his Jewish customs, anyway? What is he? Aren't you just equivocating?
This is a point of controversy that you have spun like a cobweb right out of your own head.
You seem to have fabricated your own 'difference' to try and make the epistle say -in words of your own manufacture- what it unequivocally does not say. In effect, you are dragging Paul into a debate that he did not have.
You are simply quibbling yet again.
Let's even say that what you're trying to assert is even remotely true. The difference you're trying to make me see -like an illusionist- is the same difference between 'six of these' and 'half a dozen of the other'.
"Do you see the difference?" you asked..
No, I don't. But I bet you do.
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Poster 'aron',
You claim Paul was a pharisee all his life and that he never left it.
Have you some scrolls, some parchments, the rest of us are not privy to?
If he remained in the sect of the pharisees, even after his conversion, then why were they seeking to kill him?
There was also a sect of the pharisees in Jerusalem who believed and professed faith (Acts 15:5). Is there any indication that Paul was any part of them?
No. None.
They commanded that Gentiles should be circumcised and that they should keep the Law of Moses. Paul stood vociferously against this position because he viewed it as a turning away from liberty and a return to bondage.
What did he say about those pharisees?
Let the Bible provide you with the answer:
"But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised: and that because of FALSE BRETHREN unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage..." (Galatians 2:3-4).
He called his erstwhile fellow-pharisees (who believed) false brethren!
Paul "never stopped being a pharisee", you say?
Are you quite sure?
"I was circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a pharisee... but what things (above) were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ... for whom I have suffered the loss of all [those] things (above), AND DO COUNT THEM BUT DUNG that I may win Christ" (Phil 3:5-8)
Do I need to spell it out for you, poster 'aron'?
He considered being a 'pharisee', and all things to do with the Jewish nation, and its law, and its customs, nothing but LOSS, nothing but DUNG.
In 'American': he called those 'things' good, ole Texan BS!
(his words, not mine)
I'm out.