Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
ZNPaaneah,
I have given scripture and bible commentaries in my previous posts to back up what I say. The one in Galatians about Judaizing Christians coming from James is notable. It is notable that Peter was afraid of them. Whether James sent them himself or they came of their own accord, it shows that James was complicit with Law-keeping Christians. In other words, James was not quick to deal with the problem of Judaizers, and may have been one himself.
The early church was going through a period of confusion where it was not known what to do with gentile believers. There were Jewish believers who kept the law, and gentiles who didn't. Some Jews demanded that gentiles must keep the law as well. Paul was strongly against this, James was perhaps complicit.
Acts 15 clearly shows a disagreement between Jewish believers and gentile believers that had to be resolved.
The Judaizers could have been disciples of James. If not, it seems they used James as an example of a law-keeping Jewish Christian (Acts 15:13). Paul on the other hand forsook his Jewish religion and took the way of the gentiles. Peter was somewhat on the fence, until Paul had to take him aside and point out his hypocrisy.
You can read more about it here:
https://readingacts.com/2009/09/18/a...the-judaizers/
In 1865 J. B. Lightfoot argued against Bauer and the Tübingen school. The Judaizers were not authorized at all by Peter or the Jerusalem church, although the Jerusalem church were slow in stopping them. The Jerusalem Church wanted to find a way to compromise between the radical teaching of Paul and the traditional teaching of the Judaizers. J. F. A. Hort suggested that these Jewish opponents of Paul were lead by James, although mistakenly so. James himself did not authorize the teaching in direct opposition to Paul, but his followers took James’ example of a Law-keeping Jewish Christian to the logical extreme and forced Gentiles to keep the law. |
How many times must we go around in circles?
Yes, everyone on this forum has stipulated that the account in Galatians depicts James, and those coming from him, as being "judaizers" which we accept was a negative, dare I say, cultic influence on the early church.
Everyone also agrees that the worst offender of all Judaizers was Saul of Tarsus. There is no debate on this, and even Paul confesses that "he is less than the least". Yet I don't see you using that as evidence that Paul's epistles don't have an up to date view of salvation? Why not? How is this any less relevant that James apparent failure?
Is it because in the book of Galatians, Paul's first epistle, written very close in time to the epistle of James, Paul rebukes Peter for showing partiality and having the faith of our Lord Jesus with respect of persons? If so, then why not give the same credit to James for saying the same thing?
You quote Galatians as proof that James did have this failure, but why don't you also quote Corinthians that James, last of all, did receive a vision of Jesus Christ. If the vision he received was "last of all" and not "first" as you insinuate with your order in which books of the Bible are written then why would Jesus give him a vision that is not up to date, even though it was "last of all" and not "first of all".
I am not asking for evidence that James was a Judaizer at one point in his life, I am asking for evidence that the book of James has this influence. Quoting commentaries on Galatians is completely irrelevant in responding to this question and this is now the 2nd or even the third time you have done this.