Re-imaging Christianity.
An observation: when Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians in approx. 50AD it was to an already existing church. That is, he was writing to a church which had been formed by Jesus (oral) gospel, and Jesus Spirit. The letter to the Galatians did not form the church in Galatia.
Same with the church on Cyprus….same with the church at Antioch…oh…and same with the church in Jerusalem. When Paul writes to the Galatians later, he is writing to and into a non-textual Christianity, as with his other Letters. He thought such churches to be normative – so do I.
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Go for it. You are on a real discovery journey. This was the norm in Jesus time and after. . Well done.
Paul in verse 7 points out that there are some who are perverting the Gospel. This was my point about misspeaking, warping and totally changing when it comes to purely oral tradition. They have the OT to say look this is what the law says. A purely oral tradition has nothing to verify it against. Paul’s letter is giving backbone to this oral tradition. They & other believes who later receive copies would now have some arguments and texts to verify against.
He’s writing to a Church without a NT as we now know it. He thought them to be the norm as that was the context he was in. Therefore that WAS the norm. It is not the case now. The context you inhabit, Churches have had a bible for Centuries. So how can you consider textless Christianity to be the norm now, when you are in a church building filled with Bibles on a sunday? As a minister You preach from the bible do you not?
I fail to see what you are trying to get at exactly. Can you elaborate?
Hello Bob, thanks for engaging in the conversation.
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My overall point is that what we in the West call Christianity is a shadow – a Modern creation. This shadowing is partially caused by our approach to texts and historical writings. God initially withheld texts and used people; this was his priority when he could have easily produced great texts ( The 10 Commandments were an immediate text from his hand).
If it was as important as we say could he not have easily done it…if he wanted to? But he did not, and the Spirit did not impel people to initially write our texts. Also, he did not sovereignly preserve the originals. To me this undercuts the argument that texts are more inherently reliable.
This means the text came out of the church and not the other way around. So, the Church was initially established by people and when Letters/Gospels were written they were for an already existing textless church. The reliability issue is this: our letter to Galatia is a reliable copy of Paul’s original letter, not of his visit or much of his teachings during his initial visit. As it is the first Galatian letter we know of, it reflects a Christianity which does not have and did not began with a text – as with the other NT writings.
I trawl the NT for evidence of the first Christianity, reliably reflected and interacted with in the NT…but the NT did not form that Christianity.
Jesus did, plus the 12, plus Paul – and for each one texts were a subsequent addition to personal visits and teaching.
They write to, into, and about an initial textless faith …and it is this that is the real Christianity – the one we miss even though we have Bibles.
Remember, those writing were those who lived in & through the textless period. They are reliable writers of and into the initial Christianity – it’s textless phase.
The brilliance of what God has preserved is that it contains enough description of the early faith to be recoverable. Our job is to identify it’s characteristics and reproduce it.
The Western faith says, ” If I can understand it, I can posses it”. NT faith says, ” I experience Father, Son and Holy Spirit and I know he is real”. For us this means text leads to experience; for the early church it was experience leading to text.
Yes, and they had so many problems with them that Paul had to write them angry letters telling them what Christianity was supposed to be about: hence it DIDN’T function well without a Bible, what do you expect?
Oh, and they used the WRITTEN Torah (probably the LXX); they were not “without a Bible” at any-time. IF you want to talk about Abraham on the other hand… that would be a different story.
Not sure I follow your thought here Aractus. My point is the text came out of the church and not the other way. In it he reminds them of things he said when he previously visited. So, Jesus and his Spirit created the Galatian churches; it was already in existence when he wrote his letter. The Galatian letter we have is a reliable record of Paul’s Galatian letter; it is to a church without a text, planted by Paul – not by a text.
If he had visited he would have said the same things. Yet…it is still a Christianity where Gospel and teaching are oral, and the Spirit is dynamic. (3: 2,5). It is more about having the right gospel and the Spirit then about not having a text dont you think?
Ah now I understand. You earnestly believe that the text came “out of the church” whereas I believe it is the inspired word of God (as does every other Christian).
In 2Peter 3:15-16 Peter recognizes Paul’s writings as scripture. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes Deuteronomy and Luke’s gospel alongside each other and cites them as scripture.
You did not, however, comment on the LXX. The early Xian church used it not the Hebrew version; thus does this mean that it is more reliable than the Masoretes’ text? After all, from a certain perspective it is the oldest known complete version of the OT text – if you can call it complete that is.
Good day.