James 1.1 and 2.1.

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Bernard Muller
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
I added to my argument (and my previous post):
Furthermore, there are three instances (Ro 9:1, Gal 1:20, 2 Co 11:31) when Paul felt he had to declare to his audience he is not a liar. In my life experience, such declarations indicate that one had been accused of lying before.

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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 9:28 pm to Ben,
I added to my argument (and my previous post):
Furthermore, there are three instances (Ro 9:1, Gal 1:20, 2 Co 11:31) when Paul felt he had to declare to his audience he is not a liar. In my life experience, such declarations indicate that one had been accused of lying before.
Being accused of lying is not the same thing as confessing that one is a liar, however pious. In fact, these three cases tend to establish what Paul is likely to say on the topic: he is likely to claim not to be a liar; he is not likely to admit to being a liar. Fortunately, we can tell from the rhetoric of the argument that Paul is, in fact, not admitting to being a pious liar in Romans 3.7.
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

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Duplicate post.
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Bernard Muller
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
In 2 Cor 11:15, it is clear Paul has been accused (or thought) to be a fool. (see also 2 Cor 12:6 and 12:11 "I am become a fool in glorying; you have compelled me: ..."
Would you believe that whatever a fool says is all true?
Then, there is 2 Co 10:10: "For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible"
Contemptible (exoutheneō) can mean (according to Thayer's Greek Lexicon) set at nought i. e. rejected, cast aside.
Why would Paul's speech thought that way if it was accepted to be all true?

BTW, what are the main arguments of Stanley K. Stowers against my viewpoint?

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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:59 am to Ben,
In 2 Cor 11:15, it is clear Paul has been accused (or thought) to be a fool. (see also 2 Cor 12:6 and 12:11 "I am become a fool in glorying; you have compelled me: ..."
Would you believe that whatever a fool says is all true?
I would not believe that whatever anyone says is all true.
Then, there is 2 Co 10:10: "For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible"
Contemptible (exoutheneō) can mean (according to Thayer's Greek Lexicon) set at nought i. e. rejected, cast aside.
Why would Paul's speech thought that way if it was accepted to be all true?
I agree with you that Paul was accused by various opponents of various things, including dishonesty.

None of this has anything whatsoever to do with whether Paul openly admitted to piously lying in Romans 3.7.
BTW, what are the main arguments of Stanley K. Stowers against my viewpoint?
Stowers delves into ancient rhetorical practices and argues that Paul is employing a form of back-and-forth argumentation involving prosopopoeia. Paul is not, on this view, speaking with his own voice; he is adopting another voice in order to make a point.
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
Stowers delves into ancient rhetorical practices and argues that Paul is employing a form of back-and-forth argumentation involving prosopopoeia. Paul is not, on this view, speaking with his own voice; he is adopting another voice in order to make a point.
It does not look Paul is adopting another voice here:
"For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" (Ro 3:7 KJV)
And in the next verse, Paul said
"And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come?"
Paul confirmed some thought he (and his helpers) did devil (that would include lying) in order for good to come (such as an enhanced truth of God?).

Would that Stowers be a Christian apologist? If it is the case, no wonder he would try to make a case Paul was not a pious liar.

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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

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Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:51 am to Ben,
Stowers delves into ancient rhetorical practices and argues that Paul is employing a form of back-and-forth argumentation involving prosopopoeia. Paul is not, on this view, speaking with his own voice; he is adopting another voice in order to make a point.
It does not look Paul is adopting another voice here:
"For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" (Ro 3:7 KJV)
And in the next verse, Paul said
"And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come?"
Paul confirmed some thought he (and his helpers) did evil (that would include lying) in order for good to come (such as an enhanced truth of God?).
If you cannot see it, so be it. I would still recommend you read the book.
Would that Stowers be a Christian apologist? If it is the case, no wonder he would try to make a case Paul was not a pious liar.
What on earth are you talking about? That has nothing to do with the thesis of his book. Nobody thinks that Paul is personally confessing to being a pious liar in Romans 3.7 except apparently for you; therefore, nobody who is not in debate with you has any need of defending Paul against the charge that he has confessed anything of the kind in Romans 3.7. There is a healthy debate as to whether Paul is representing Jews or gentiles in this part of Romans, and Stowers makes the less popular argument that it is gentiles. But Paul actually confessing to being a pious liar in this verse? No way.

Also, there is a huge difference between Paul being a pious liar and Paul confessing to being a pious liar. You have confused the two a lot on this thread. I am not denying the former; I am denying the latter.

ETA: The gist of the commentaries on Romans 3.7:

Charles H. Talbert, Commentary on Romans 3.7, page 89: In Romans 3:1-20 Paul answered Jewish objections to his of argument in 2:1-29. The answers came in the context of a diatribe form with a series of five questions raised by Paul’s imaginary dialogue partner, which likely reflected real arguments the apostle had experienced in his missionary activity (vv. 1, 3, 5, 7-8a, 9a). The first two, together with their Pauline answers, deal with the issue of Jewish advantage (vv. 1-4). The next two, together with their Pauline responses, address the issue of implicit antinomianism in Paul’s positions (vv. 5-8). The fifth question returns to the first concern expressed, that of Jewish advantage (v. 9a).

Leon Morris, Commentary on Romans 3.7: ...most agree that Paul is not stating his own position but citing an objection that might be urged against it.

Frank J. Matera, Commentary on Romans 3.7, page 82: The interrogator’s fourth question is similar to the third but more subtle. Realizing that, in the face of human falsehood, God’s truthfulness is all the more apparent, the interlocutor asks, But if God’s truthfulness abounds to his glory because of my falsehood, why am I still being judged as a sinner? (3:7). This question is more challenging than the previous questions since it is not framed in a way that expects a negative answer: “You are not saying that..., are you?” Moreover, the question the interlocutor asks here suggests that he has Paul’s teaching on justification in view.

These commentators are well aware of the rhetorical device being employed in this passage: a diatribe between "Paul" and an imaginary interlocutor who is asking him the softball questions that he hits out of the park.
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by John2 »

All well said, Ben. The only thing that I would add to this tangent (to follow up on the idea that Paul could be the Liar in the DSS) is that I wouldn't see it as a big deal if Paul is the Liar. We already know that some post-70 CE Jewish Christians rejected Paul, and Acts at least presents some pre-70 CE Jewish Christians as rejecting Paul, so what would it really change if we have pre-70 CE writings that reject Paul?

And in the big picture, so what if some people didn't like Paul, whether pre- or post-70 CE? For all his strong language against Paul, James at least seems willing to bring him back (at least in my view), and 2 Peter is okay with Paul, and given this and because it purports to be Peter and uses Jude (which I view as genuine) and in my view is pro-Torah, I view it as being a product of or influenced by Nazarene Jewish Christianity (which in any event was pro-Torah and accepted Paul). So in other words, there were also Jewish Christians who were cool with Paul.

And maybe Paul was "right" when he said of Torah-observant Jewish Christians in 2 Cor. 11:15 (the ones he said "disguise themselves as servants of righteousness"), "Their end will correspond to their works." I mean, they essentially disappeared, right? And people have been yakking about Paul's writings for 2000 years, and his version of Christianity pretty much is Christianity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TELi8M4nkYs
Last edited by John2 on Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Bernard Muller »

duplicate
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Re: James 1.1 and 2.1.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
... Nobody thinks that Paul is personally confessing to being a pious liar in Romans 3.7 ...
From a Christian perspective, sure. That would be sacrilege, horrific, and opening a whole can of worms.

But some nowadays see Paul would be consider a liar by Jews: As example, from a certain Bill Cummings:
https://www.macon.com/opinion/opn-colum ... 58704.html
"What do I think James did? Well, James was a faithful Jew just like his brother, Jesus. Paul, on the other hand, was a transformed Jew, transformed into following an image of the “Christos;” an image created by a vision with a broken connection to the Judaism of Jesus (2:2). James obviously didn’t share the Pauline vision; instead, he remembered the actual words and actions of his Jewish brother, and when Paul said, “We are justified by faith in the Christos, not by the works of the Torah” (Gal.2:16), I think James, a lover of the Torah, might have screamed, “Liar! Liar!”
We know Paul was called a liar many times, and not just by James. Paul was forced to defend himself time after time in his epistles. He starts a paragraph in Romans by saying, “I speak the truth; I am not lying” (Rom. 9:1). In his second letter to the Christians in Corinth, he outlines all the problems he’s had and then adds, “I am not lying” (2 Cor. 11:31). This same theme is repeated in 1 Tim. 2:7 where he says he was “appointed” as an apostle, and then: “I am telling the truth; I am not lying.”"
However, Bill says Paul did not think he was lying, but believed in his (alleged) visions!!! Good excuse.
BTW, I don't think 1 Timothy was written by Paul. Just to clarify.

There are others thinking the same as I do about Ro 3:7:
See https://jdstone.org/cr/files/pauladmits ... fraud.html
"Paul, in his zealot exaltation, admits and justifies, on Jesuitical principles, the preaching of falsehood, and feels really aggrieved that honest men should take exceptions to such mendacious propaganda:
"For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" (Rom. 3.7)
In a spirit of good-humored naiveté he winks at the flock of Corinthians whom he has hooked into the fold, and admits that he had tricked them:
"Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. But be it so: ... nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile." (2 Cor. 12.15-16)
As a "man that striveth for the mastery" (1 Cor. 9.25), Paul expounds to the church leaders the modus operandi of the successful propagandist:
"I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, that I might gain them that are without law. ... I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake" (1 Cor. 9.19-23)."
Also, from https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpr ... or-a-liar/
Paul thought nothing of lying or practicing pagan customs if it meant gaining a new convert to his own brand of salvation, Romans 3:7, I Corinthians 10:14-21, 9:19-22.
"For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" (Ro 3:7 KJV)
I cannot help it to interpret that as: I am still consider a sinner because I increased God truth through my lie to his glory.
In other words: increasing God's truth, even through lie (falsehood) to his glory should not make me a sinner.
To make it in a more understandable form: If I exaggerated the status of that person through lie to his greatness, why am I still considered an evil-doer?

I have to disagree with you.

Cordially, Bernard
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