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