Genesis 19: Sodom and Gomorrah

[BluePhantom]

Matthew 5:17
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

Paul taught:

Romans 2:12-13
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Romans 13:10
10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

I believe that Paul taught that salvation was not found by keeping the law but by the grace of Jesus Christ. I believe he had respect for the law and that we should follow the law as fulfilled by Jesus Christ but that Salvation was found in the law but through Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice. I think what he was stressing was that works of the law without faith in Jesus Christ was dead.

Well, yes and no. Jesus and Paul taught two very different things about salvation. Jesus said salvation comes through following The Law...specifically His interpretation of The Law. That's one of the major themes in Matthew is that Jesus is depicted as being the authoritative interpreter of Torah. Paul disagreed with Jesus (or at least His depiction in Matthew) regarding salvation. He said salvation comes through accepting Grace. Now Paul did not advocate lawlessness...running around like a jack-ass and acting the fool (that was one of his main points in 1 Corinthians), but he was very clear that the Law is no longer applicable and that works has nothing to do with salvation. That was his main point in Galatians. This is one of the really curious things about Christianity is that it is based far more on Paul's teachings than those of Jesus in many ways. There are reasons why Christians do this....there is a specific argument as to why the Church endorses the Pauline view but that's a thread unto itself.

thanks-----that which you posted is my impression---PAUL kinda invented a new religion which, I believe was something like "Jewish ethics for goyim"

Well that wasn't the way Paul viewed it. None of the Apostles thought they were starting a new religion. They believed that Judaism was entering a new and final phase. Paul believed that by the death and resurrection of Jesus The Law was fulfilled and the time had come where God's good kingdom was about to come to Earth. Whether this is what the other Apostles believed is unknown, but it's what Paul taught. Paul was teaching people that the end had come. He was preparing them for the ascension into heaven. He thought that since Jesus has ascended physically, all His followers were about to go with Him. He was an apocalypticist.

We don't know if that's what the other Apostles believed of if that is what Jesus believed. Most scholarship is of the opinion that they were apocalypticists as well. I am still on the fence about that one.There are some very embarrassing quotes attributed to Jesus that indicate an apocalyptic viewpoint, but whether He really said them or they were just things attributed to Him by later authors is a subject of debate. I will concede that the Jesus depicted in the Bible was an apocalypticist but I am not sure that the Jesus of history was.

So anyhow, to answer your last two posts, The argument is that He fulfilled The Law by interpreting it properly and by fulfilling the prophecies through His death and resurrection. Therefore, again so the argument goes, The Law has been fulfilled so after His death none of it applies anymore because it ushers in the New Covenant nullifying the Old Covenant.

Still does not make sense and there are no words reliably attributed to Jesus suggesting that ------THE WHOLE THING
HAS COME TO AN END. I absolutely agree that PAUL was desperately hoping for such an event---but to be honest to me he seems as nuts as JIM JONES. That "fulfilling"
word----makes no sense. The word "fulfill" if used in translation from Hebrew generally means "settle it up"----as in PAY THE CHECK or ----MAKE ALL THE PAYMENTS ON THE MORTGAGE

Well actually it does make sense because Jesus is said to have paid the debt of sin for all mankind. As far as what Jesus said...the key work is "reliably". There are many sayings attached to Jesus that are very apocalyptic. The most famous, of course are Matthew 24:34 and Luke 9:27 where he says some of those standing there would not taste death until the end comes, etc. Christian apologists have tried, unsuccessfully I think, to argue that Jesus meant something else ever since, but very few seem to be buying it. The question is "did Jesus really say that or was it attributed to Him?"

One notices that when we get to the Gospel of John, which was written far later than the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is not nearly as apocalyptic as He is in the other Gospels, particularly Mark which was written first and was used as the basis for Luke-Acts and Matthew.

Who knows if Jesus really said it. If you apply the criterion of embarrassment, used by scholarship, it's a hard one to weasel out of, but there are contrary arguments to be made as well....none of which I have time to go into as I have to go to work.

 

[irosie91]

I think that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all MARKEDLY influenced by PAUL and his innovative
concept that the world was about to come to an END.---------well----the proof is in the pudding-----
it didn't......

 

[BluePhantom]

I think that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all MARKEDLY influenced by PAUL and his innovative
concept that the world was about to come to an END.---------well----the proof is in the pudding-----
it didn't......

Well that's something I have long considered. It's certainly possible and if so it would invalidate the criterion of embarrassment because at the time they were written it would not yet be embarrassing. Thus, one could see why one would make it up. That I know of there is no evidence to support the idea that the Synoptic Gospels were influenced by Paul, but it seems logical to me that they may have been. To be quite honest it is something I have been preparing to really turn my attention to once I get done with one or two other things I am still studying.