[kosta50]

FK, I will answer the rest of your posts when I get a chance, but I want to address this particular one immediately:

Paul says it LOTS of times without reference to "image": Rom 9:5 : Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. NIV

The Greek text says the following (in Byzantine as well as Alexandrian text-type):

ων οι πατερες και εξ ων ο χριστος το κατα σαρκα ο ων επι παντων θεος ευλογητος εις τους αιωνας αμην

Literally:

of whom the fathers and out of whom the Christ according to flesh the one Who Is over all God blessed unto the ages amen

The difficulty with +Paul's languge is that in those days no one used commas, which makes his writings subject to all sorts of fanciful combinations. Maybe you can now appraciate Kolo's comment that he doesn't particuarly care for +Paul. His runon sentences are part of that reason, I am sure!

But your NIV (KJV) verse is misleading because it is doctored to make it sound as if Paul is actually saying Christ [in flesh!] is God over all.

The NAB translation is actually as close to the Greek literal statement as possible:

[to the Israelites, adopted sons of God] whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen

Notice that no matter where you place the commas, +Paul never says that Christ is God over all as your version artificially created.

It is clear that +Paul did not have a Triniatrian Christ in mind, but a Jewish meshiyah, in flesh, in His human nature only. Which is why he said that Jesus was raised by God and why the Church later changed that in the Creed to read that Christ rose instead.

Of course, the KJV's misleading translation comes from Textus Receptus, which was based on unreliable 14th century doctored Greek sources, which represent the a whole corpus of doctroed documents made to fit Christian theology better known as the "majority text."

[kosta50]

Correction: actually the KJV version in this instance (Rom 5:9) reads as does the NAB. I was reading the NIV source thinking it was KJV. My apologies.

[Forest Keeper]

The difficulty with +Paul's language is that in those days no one used commas, which makes his writings subject to all sorts of fanciful combinations. Maybe you can now appreciate Kolo's comment that he doesn't particularly care for +Paul. His runon sentences are part of that reason, I am sure!

Kolo doesn't use run-on sentences. He's a lawyer. :)

But seriously, I don't think that whether there were commas or not really helps your case. I would respectfully submit that you are alone, even among Apostolics, in suggesting that Paul did not recognize Christ as God.