The Ambiguity of Early Christianity: How we misread Paul

[Thomas]

As for translation – the Beatitudes – Matthew 5:3-12
“How blissful (not 'blessed', as in most versions – so this suggests a present state rather than an eschatalogical promise) the destitute, abject in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of the heavens; how blissful those who mourn ... " and so on.

 

[TheLightWithin]

"Paul’s actual teachings, however, emphasise the overthrow of bad angels.

Paul’s actual teachings, however, as taken directly from the Greek of his letters, emphasise neither original guilt nor imputed righteousness (he believed in neither), but rather the overthrow of bad angels....

... The essence of Paul’s theology is something far stranger, and unfolds on a far vaster scale. For Paul, the present world-age is rapidly passing, while another world-age differing from the former in every dimension – heavenly or terrestrial, spiritual or physical – is already dawning. The story of salvation concerns the entire cosmos; and it is a story of invasion, conquest, spoliation and triumph. For Paul, the cosmos has been enslaved to death, both by our sin and by the malign governance of those ‘angelic’ or ‘daemonian’ agencies who reign over the earth from the heavens, and who hold spirits in thrall below the earth. These angelic beings, these Archons, whom Paul calls Thrones and Powers and Dominations and Spiritual Forces of Evil in the High Places, are the gods of the nations. In the Letter to the Galatians, he even hints that the angel of the Lord who rules over Israel might be one of their number. Whether fallen, or mutinous, or merely incompetent, these beings stand intractably between us and God. But Christ has conquered them all.

In descending to Hades and ascending again through the heavens, Christ has vanquished all the Powers below and above that separate us from the love of God, taking them captive in a kind of triumphal procession. All that now remains is the final consummation of the present age, when Christ will appear in his full glory as cosmic conqueror, having ‘subordinated’ (hypetaxen) all the cosmic powers to himself – literally, having properly ‘ordered’ them ‘under’ himself – and will then return this whole reclaimed empire to his Father. God himself, rather than wicked or inept spiritual intermediaries, will rule the cosmos directly. Sometimes, Paul speaks as if some human beings will perish along with the present age, and sometimes as if all human beings will finally be saved. He never speaks of some hell for the torment of unregenerate souls.

This is very, very interesting.
It speaks to what I mentioned to you (I just haven't gotten to it yet) about my "head canon" and what I sort-of "thought" Jesus and the World to Come was about when I was 9 or 10.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Hello Thomas
At first glance I thought it was you who transalted the New Testament, until I read the link. But as it is you who posted this link, what point of interest do you want to focus on? In what does Hart's understanding of the texts differ from the established main stream translatins (NKJV, NASB, ...) or attempts to be as close as possible to the Greek (Young's Literal, Berean Literal, Literal Standard Version)?

I too thought that - that's come up in a few posts, by various members, where it's not apparent at first that they are quoting someone else.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Rather, I mean that most of us would find Christians truly cast in the New Testament mold fairly obnoxious: civically reprobate, ideologically unsound, economically destructive, politically irresponsible, socially discreditable, and really just a bit indecent.

Say more?

 

[TheLightWithin]

Because one thing in remarkably short supply in the New Testament is common sense. The Gospels, the epistles, Acts, Revelation—all of them are relentless torrents of exorbitance and extremism: commands to become as perfect as God in his heaven and to live as insouciantly as lilies in their field; condemnations of a roving eye as equivalent to adultery and of evil thoughts toward another as equivalent to murder; injunctions to sell all one’s possessions and to give the proceeds to the poor, and demands that one hate one’s parents for the Kingdom’s sake and leave the dead to bury the dead. This extremism is not merely an occasional hyperbolic presence in the texts; it is their entire cultural and spiritual atmosphere. The New Testament emerges from a cosmos ruled by malign celestial principalities (conquered by Christ but powerful to the end) and torn between spirit and flesh (the one, according to Paul, longing for God, the other opposing him utterly). There are no comfortable medians in these latitudes, no areas of shade. Everything is cast in the harsh light of final judgment, and that judgment is absolute. In regard to all these texts, the qualified, moderate, common-sense interpretation is always false.

But some of this is hyperbole right? And also things that made a different kind of sense in context - for example I read somewhere a couple of different interpretations of "letting the dead bury the dead" meaning to leave behind certain people who had no ears to hear, as they were all spiritually dead. I read another interpretations that indicated that the phrase before it, the person being responded to said something about wanting to delay to bury his father first. The interpretation I read was that the phrase "let me first bury my father" was a saying in those days which meant procrastinating for an extended time. A person saying it may have a father alive and well, and if asked to do something and they said that, they were meaning to put it off for a very long time.

For many reasons, I have often found the bible to be cryptic and incoherent. I would have the sense that something more was being said than what I saw on the page, but I didn't know what. I didn't even begin to find out until my 30s, internet access and being around people with the same questions (I didn't know about progressive churches before that time)

 

[TheLightWithin]

Christ was remarkably dismissive of the family.

He sort of was, in some spots, but also condemned divorce.
However, I have also read that the condemnations about divorce was not so much about maintaining marriages as it was about wanting to protect women from being abandoned by careless husbands without being given a proper divorce.
Back to the dismissal of family: Saying people needed to hate their family to follow him sounds harsh.
Although when anybody takes on a risky or demanding pursuit, sometimes people say "You must really hate your (parents, family, wife, etc)

 

[Ahanu]

Not only did he not promise his followers worldly success (even success in making things better for others)

Making things better for others - in other words, social progress - wasn't really a concept back then, so I'm not surprised no such promise for his followers existed. Back then worldly success was often synonymous with exploitation and evil. It made sense back then. The rich were doing just that. Need more money? Go to war with the inhabitants of foreign lands, destroy their villages, and enslave their people to gather more material resources.