The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

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Irish1975
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by Irish1975 »

This is a rough response because I’m short on time.
mlinssen wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:44 pm I can't help but find verbatim agreement all along the way: whatever is in your Marcion, is in our Galatians
A lot of it is the same text, which proves a genetic relationship. One is an edit of the other. (But here someone will interject with a third possibility: that they are divergent copies of a common original. In other words, the same argument that is invoked about gMarcion and gLuke. But it’s just an empty, theoretical possibility with no substance. I think this BeDuhn-style effort to swallow Marcion’s texts with a spoonful of delusional sugar is really just wishful attachment to orthodox chronology, and a refusal of historical realism. But I digress.)

The agreements make the differences all the more important.

1) Studying and comparing the sequence of ideas, it is clear to me that the Marcionite version provides a relatively intelligible (albeit bizarre) “argument.” By contrast, canonical 4:21-31 is tortured, perverse, and bewildering at every step. Without even getting to the content, the arrangement of ideas, images, scriptures, and connections is quite different in the two versions.

2) The Marcionite version includes some critical, substantial content that is absent in the canonical. First, the identification of the first “revelation” with Jewish worship in synagogues, according to law. Second, the Ephesian exaltation language. The canonical NT applies that verse to the resurrected Christ, whereas here it is the very revelation of “the truth” that is identified with the adoption language. It is not the “Jerusalem above,” a somewhat colorless image from Jewish apocalypticism, that is our mother, but the spiritual “testament” or revelation bestowed on the “children of the free woman.” Here we see the Johannine concept of being “born from above.”

3) The use of both law and prophets in the canonical version to mount an attack, not on the Sinai revelation itself, but on the people “who want to be under the law.” In the Marcionite version, there is no attempt to co-opt, or radically redefine, the torah. The Jews are not mistaken about their own religion, but simply inferior to the children of the true one. Canonical Paul has God condemning the children of “the present Jerusalem” out their own books, as unworthy of inheriting the promise to Abraham. They are not sons at all, merely slaves, because they fail to comprehend their own Torah.
Just one question Irish: from which specific volume was Da Turtle quoting here? Just some remarkably verbatim Vetus Latina?
It seems to be a mystery what source Tertullian was using, and how. Scholars can’t even agree if it was a Greek original or a Vetus Latina, or maybe both.
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by mlinssen »

Irish1975 wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:21 pm This is a rough response because I’m short on time.
It's beautiful and terribly spot on, so I wouldn't worry if I were you
mlinssen wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:44 pm I can't help but find verbatim agreement all along the way: whatever is in your Marcion, is in our Galatians
A lot of it is the same text, which proves a genetic relationship. One is an edit of the other. (But here someone will interject with a third possibility: that they are divergent copies of a common original. In other words, the same argument that is invoked about gMarcion and gLuke. But it’s just an empty, theoretical possibility with no substance. I think this BeDuhn-style effort to swallow Marcion’s texts with a spoonful of delusional sugar is really just wishful attachment to orthodox chronology, and a refusal of historical realism. But I digress.)
I think some of these people, if not most, are completely unprepared for what hit them, and not capable of going all the way. I've been assured by some that they will go where the evidence takes them, but that all depends on how any of it all is perceived in the first place
The agreements make the differences all the more important.

1) Studying and comparing the sequence of ideas, it is clear to me that the Marcionite version provides a relatively intelligible (albeit bizarre) “argument.” By contrast, canonical 4:21-31 is tortured, perverse, and bewildering at every step. Without even getting to the content, the arrangement of ideas, images, scriptures, and connections is quite different in the two versions.

2) The Marcionite version includes some critical, substantial content that is absent in the canonical. First, the identification of the first “revelation” with Jewish worship in synagogues, according to law. Second, the Ephesian exaltation language. The canonical NT applies that verse to the resurrected Christ, whereas here it is the very revelation of “the truth” that is identified with the adoption language. It is not the “Jerusalem above,” a somewhat colorless image from Jewish apocalypticism, that is our mother, but the spiritual “testament” or revelation bestowed on the “children of the free woman.” Here we see the Johannine concept of being “born from above.”

3) The use of both law and prophets in the canonical version to mount an attack, not on the Sinai revelation itself, but on the people “who want to be under the law.” In the Marcionite version, there is no attempt to co-opt, or radically redefine, the torah. The Jews are not mistaken about their own religion, but simply inferior to the children of the true one. Canonical Paul has God condemning the children of “the present Jerusalem” out their own books, as unworthy of inheriting the promise to Abraham. They are not sons at all, merely slaves, because they fail to comprehend their own Torah.
Aye to all that. The Christians need to supersede the Torah while they embrace their prophets, they need to invalidate their law yet somehow invent another law because they have manoeuvred themselves into the position of a parasite they lives off its host and consumes it for the best and largest part.
Chrestianity was rather straightforward on the other hand: they just ruthlessly rejected and and all Judaism, period. No Pauline ass wiggling and cock sucking / ass spanking there at all. Sorry, I'm a bit tired, and I get graphic at moments like that

Paul is the double agent of Christianity: he has to portray Christianity as if it were part of, and even rooted in, Judaism - and in doing so he is hindered by the plain anti-Judaism of Chrestianity, which becomes visible in his struggles with circumcision, food laws and upholding the law in general. Yet at the same time he also has to invalidate all that because it is his legacy, his inheritance, and it's forced down his throat just as the gospels' one.
From where I come it is perfectly understandable that they fused Chrestianity with Judaism in order to achieve Christianity (yet in the first place piece and quiet in the Roman empire), but it is such a cluster fuck really, and it has haunted them for 1,500 years and then some - and it will never stop
Just one question Irish: from which specific volume was Da Turtle quoting here? Just some remarkably verbatim Vetus Latina?
It seems to be a mystery what source Tertullian was using, and how. Scholars can’t even agree if it was a Greek original or a Vetus Latina, or maybe both.
Yeah, likewise for the *Ev stuff, yet also with regards to Justin.
I mean how the hell can they all manage to quote the LXX verbatim yet not the NT? It is almost as if the former was already written at the time but the latter wasn't - and quoting the LXX naturally means quoting a text that didn't exist before 200-250 CE in the form that it is quoted in

What I like most there is Matthew and the Bethlehem massacre:

Direction of dependence: Masoretic Text, Matthew, LXX is my crazy conclusion there

viewtopic.php?p=147697#p147697

Isolated incident perhaps but still.
Anyway, thanks Irish. Solid insights into Galatians there
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Irish1975
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by Irish1975 »

Appreciate the kind words! I’m glad you got something from it.

Writing the passage out here, in bilingual form, and with the formatting tools, made some things clearer to me.
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by mlinssen »

Irish1975 wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:41 pm Appreciate the kind words! I’m glad you got something from it.

Writing the passage out here, in bilingual form, and with the formatting tools, made some things clearer to me.
Yes, that works wonders. I'm currently doing a paper on the wineskins and the patch, and it's turning into a monograph of sorts :wtf:
But I took all Synoptics and harmonised (in a justified way) the English and the Greek first: even across one single bible translation, and even with that being Berean, it's as inconsistent AF. Then I put the English next to the Coptic, which offers great consistency and insights

Οὐδεὶς σχίσας ῥάκον καινὸν ἐπιβάλλει ἐπὶ ἱμάτιον παλαιόν; εἰ δὲ μή, αἴρει τὸ καινὸν τοῦ παλαιοῦ, καὶ μείζων σχίσμα γείνεται (sic, "is begotten")

All hell will break loose when we find *Ev by the way, and perhaps we already have parts of it: plenty of "unknown gospel" mentions among manuscripts found
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by davidmartin »

They are not sons at all, merely slaves, because they fail to comprehend their own Torah
Which is like saying, they fail to comprehend his own gospel. There isn't really any surprise that a Jewish audience would reject this gospel though with it's flying in the face of all that tradition and rabbinic schools of thought. The chance is less than zero. That's what makes me wonder if the apostle was really aiming at gentile 'god fearers' floating around. Guys that liked Judaism, maybe proselytes. The rejection of his gospel forces him to say there is a veil over the minds of those who reject it. I view the apostle as a theologian creating new theology. It's also possible his gospel was aimed at the 'James' type Christians who seem to be one of his chief opponents who were also courting these same god fearers - this rejection of him by them even filters down into the anti-Pauline epistle of James and Revelation. There was epic battles going on back then that the 2nd century tries to conceal.
All this doesn't really help figure out the origins though unless a third group is introduced - the original guys. That's ML's 'Chrestians' but they were Jewish as the Odes reveal. It went from a Torah-light to anti-Torah of Paul and Marcion then as ML says back more pro-Judaic again. If someone wants a better more authentic spirituality, it's not their fault if later guys create a religion out of it

ML what you think of the preaching of peter, early 2nd c probably very early
Peter in the Preaching, speaking of the apostles, says: But we having opened the books of the prophets which we had, found, sometimes expressed by parables, sometimes by riddles, and sometimes directly (authentically) and in so many words naming Jesus Christ, both his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted on him, and his resurrection and assumption into the heavens before Jerusalem was founded (MS. judged), even all this things as they had been written, what he must suffer and what shall be after him. When, therefore, we took knowledge of these things, we believed in God through that which had been written of him
Clumsy, Peter talking as if he is not a Jew lol
in the Preaching of Peter the Lord says: I chose out you twelve, judging you to be disciples worthy of me, whom the Lord willed, and thinking you faithful apostles; sending you unto the world to preach the Gospel to men throughout the world
No apostle to the gentiles in here!
For we have found in the Scriptures, how the Lord saith: Behold, I make with you a new covenant, not as the covenant with your fathers in mount Horeb. He hath made a new one with us: for the ways of the Greeks and Jews are old, but we are they that worship him in a new way in a third generation (or race), even Christians
So all their info comes from scripture, nothing is handed down. It's all a long way from Galilee
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by mlinssen »

davidmartin wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 1:05 am
They are not sons at all, merely slaves, because they fail to comprehend their own Torah
Which is like saying, they fail to comprehend his own gospel. There isn't really any surprise that a Jewish audience would reject this gospel though with it's flying in the face of all that tradition and rabbinic schools of thought. The chance is less than zero. That's what makes me wonder if the apostle was really aiming at gentile 'god fearers' floating around. Guys that liked Judaism, maybe proselytes. The rejection of his gospel forces him to say there is a veil over the minds of those who reject it. I view the apostle as a theologian creating new theology. It's also possible his gospel was aimed at the 'James' type Christians who seem to be one of his chief opponents who were also courting these same god fearers - this rejection of him by them even filters down into the anti-Pauline epistle of James and Revelation. There was epic battles going on back then that the 2nd century tries to conceal.
All this doesn't really help figure out the origins though unless a third group is introduced - the original guys. That's ML's 'Chrestians' but they were Jewish as the Odes reveal. It went from a Torah-light to anti-Torah of Paul and Marcion then as ML says back more pro-Judaic again. If someone wants a better more authentic spirituality, it's not their fault if later guys create a religion out of it

ML what you think of the preaching of peter, early 2nd c probably very early
Peter in the Preaching, speaking of the apostles, says: But we having opened the books of the prophets which we had, found, sometimes expressed by parables, sometimes by riddles, and sometimes directly (authentically) and in so many words naming Jesus Christ, both his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted on him, and his resurrection and assumption into the heavens before Jerusalem was founded (MS. judged), even all this things as they had been written, what he must suffer and what shall be after him. When, therefore, we took knowledge of these things, we believed in God through that which had been written of him
Clumsy, Peter talking as if he is not a Jew lol
in the Preaching of Peter the Lord says: I chose out you twelve, judging you to be disciples worthy of me, whom the Lord willed, and thinking you faithful apostles; sending you unto the world to preach the Gospel to men throughout the world
No apostle to the gentiles in here!
For we have found in the Scriptures, how the Lord saith: Behold, I make with you a new covenant, not as the covenant with your fathers in mount Horeb. He hath made a new one with us: for the ways of the Greeks and Jews are old, but we are they that worship him in a new way in a third generation (or race), even Christians
So all their info comes from scripture, nothing is handed down. It's all a long way from Galilee
No they were not, they were Hebrews: read Philip

https://www.academia.edu/89583617/From_ ... _the_grave

(6) When we were Hebrew we were made orphan; we had only our mother. Yet after we became Chrestian, father came to be with mother to us.

(...)

Philip instructs us that ⲓ̆ⲏ ̆ ⲥ is merely a name for ⲓⲥ ̆ , and that ⲭⲥ ̆ merely is a Greek name for ⲭⲣⲥ ̆ (with Messias being the name used in Syrian). Are there any Jews (Judeans or Judaics) involved?
No, explicitly not: Philip speaks of Hebrews alone in logion 6; merely people who speak Hebrew – and yet again Philip carefully distinguishes, and he makes the tremendously great distinction between the Hebrews and Judeans (ⲓⲟⲩⲇⲁⲓⲟ[ⲥ] in logion 108) and Judaics (ⲓ̉ⲟⲩⲇⲁⲓ̉ in logion 53).

From the paper. These were Gentiles if you like, just people, who most certainly were not Judaic - worse, they were as fiercely anti-Judaic as ex-smokers, drug addicts and drinkers are anti-whatever they came from.
Understand that! There are no Judaic origins to Christianity nor Chrestianity, that's precisely why all this is such garbled Judaism and why every single Jew in the face of the earth spits on Christianity, because it is an abomination of Judaism promise, it's an insult, a shameful hoax

Strip the Judaisation from the NT and what remains is Chrestianity, spirituality, its original form

The only goal that Paul has is to have a conversation with his Judaic audience and to arise victorious, precisely like Justin Martyr in Trypho. There never occurred any of this, it's all a stage performance, rhetoric. Like the disciples are meant to function as pretexts to ridicule Judaic customs, habits and rules, this audience right here is meant to show acceptance of what Paul says: they just sit there and listen AND DON'T PROTEST, and that is their only function.
Besides providing an excuse for Paul to have his monologue of course

I view the apostle as a theologian creating new theology.

Not that. Paul is creating Christianity right in front of your very eyes, from scratch. That is to say, based on the new Christian spin which in essence is that all of it is a fulfillment of the Tanakh, up to including the complete bypassing of any and all Judaics.
If anyone attests to a gentle Chrestianity, it is Paul

I'll comment on Peter later
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by lsayre »

One might presume that if a real Paul ever spoke before a real audience of Jews (or even gentiles for that matter) one of them at some juncture might have asked him to kindly explain some facts about Jesus origins and life and how he came to be a god, the details of his ministry, his death, and his resurrection, etc.... He may not have initially had such facts, but after meeting with the 'pillars' and others from among the apostles and disciples such facts would surely have been fully presented to him. I agree that it is all fake. A Paul speaking before actual Jewish or even gentile audiences never happened.

Where do we read any independent commentary from known contemporaries such as: "I learned (such and such) directly from Paul when I attended a gathering in which he was the feature speaker"?
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by davidmartin »

Isayre, look at the kind of stuff pagans were quite happy accepting when they worshipped Apollo or Zeus. No-one expected these gods to have a real life story, he probably thought his drama around the cross would be plenty to satisfy their curiosity. His rivals had the details he omits I think, and they ended up the sources to the gospels. Mark might be the first attempt to fuse the apostle with these other accounts, but I doubt the hardcore Paulinists would have accepted it or thought it necessary, your point is validated, Paul got that wrong, he just thought none of that was needed, because pagans already had that mythological mindset? Open the door to other traditions and his gospel is undermined by them
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by davidmartin »

Paul is creating Christianity right in front of your very eyes, from scratch. That is to say, based on the new Christian spin which in essence is that all of it is a fulfillment of the Tanakh, up to including the complete bypassing of any and all Judaics
Or he is re-booting it in a new direction so not completely from scratch, but he is innovating independently of the founders. how do you know what these shadowy original Chrestians thought? If all we have is Thomas it looks like a mystical group and they tend to exist as part of the esoteric traditions of the religion they're in, for them a Jewish one. If by 'Judaic' you mean formulaic, typical Judaism then no, they're not that and opposed to that stuff, but still in the Jewish orbit and inheriting from it's traditions (Thomas mentions Adam, the Sabbath, the tree of knowledge and other Jewish stuffs). The apostle wrenches that away from them either unwittingly or on purpose, who cares but, i think the injustice your seeing applies to the original Chrestians as must as to Jews. Jesus belonged to them and they stole his body, his teachings, his life and then got called heretics to be shunned, if that's the origins i can't but help take their side, your reading makes them seem most unappealing i'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt, but the apostle not so much
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Re: The Sarah-vs-Hagar allegory in Galatians 4:21–31

Post by mlinssen »

davidmartin wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:25 am Isayre, look at the kind of stuff pagans were quite happy accepting when they worshipped Apollo or Zeus. No-one expected these gods to have a real life story, he probably thought his drama around the cross would be plenty to satisfy their curiosity. His rivals had the details he omits I think, and they ended up the sources to the gospels. Mark might be the first attempt to fuse the apostle with these other accounts, but I doubt the hardcore Paulinists would have accepted it or thought it necessary, your point is validated, Paul got that wrong, he just thought none of that was needed, because pagans already had that mythological mindset? Open the door to other traditions and his gospel is undermined by them
Some grains of truth there, but don't you forget that allegedly the alleged Paul was addressing a Judaic audience, real believers, allegedly, in an allegedly centuries old religion - none of whom would be swayed by wafer-thin lies like these

Just picture him addressing Muslims or Christians, or Buddhists

There were no rivals either, that's one of the Churchian tricks: introduce disagreement and discord in matters of detail so you can stealthily demonstrate sorry of the story at large.
Just as Matthew redacted *Ev into Luke in order to send a message to its Chrestian target audience
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