Yes he did, but he also said,
Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish (istumen, to hold up or uphold) the law. (Rom. 3:31)So then, for Sha'ul the Torah was spiritual, not carnal, was holy and just and good, and it defined what is sin and what is not. Yochanan says the same thing when he writes, "Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness" (1 Jn. 3:4), which we would be more consistent to translate "Torah-lessness."What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (6:1-2)
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! (v. 15)
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet." (7:7)
Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. . . For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. (vv. 12, 14)
Torah comes from the verb yarah, "to hit the mark," and has the connotation of "teachings" rather than "law." Sin, conversely, is chattah, "to miss the mark." Therefore, to sin is to miss the mark of Torah--which is why Yochanan defines sin as Torah-lessness and Sha'ul credits the Torah with teaching him what is sin and what is not.
So then, though we are not under the law--which is to say, we are not under the curse, the penalty, that the Torah pronounces against those who violate it (Deu. 27:15-26) because Yeshua took that curse on our behalf (Gal. 3:13)--but under grace, does that mean that we should sin, should violate the Torah so that grace may abound? As Sha'ul says, "God forbid!"
The issue is not one of keeping Torah vs. not keeping Torah, but of keeping Torah in order to be saved vs. keeping Torah because one already is saved. For my part, I do not keep Torah in order to be saved; I keep it (or do my best to) because I am already saved, and I want to be like my Savior in every way. Even down to not eating what He wouldn't eat.
Apparently they did not all have the same 'visions' (yet), so it took some gentle persuasion to resolve their inspired differences.
That wasn't the question; when were they in disagreement? I'm not seeing it anywhere. I see Kefa slipping up and Sha'ul calling him on it, and I see that some message from Ya'akov instigated it, but without knowing the content of the message, we cannot say that Ya'akov was expressing disapproval--in fact, that seems unlikely given the general approval in Acts 10:18. It's far more likely that Ya'akov was warning Kefa about the Zealots assassinating Jews who they considered "too close" to the Gentiles, which we know they were doing from other sources. This would explain why Kefa acted out of fear of the Jews (Gal. 2:12)--simple disapproval or concern from Ya'akov would not.
Sorry, but there's no evidence of a split among the Apostolic leadership of the Ekklesia. You have to read your own prejudices into the text to find one.
Because there is no verse in the OT that says so?
I just quoted you one, Gen. 15:6, the foundational text for Sha'ul thesis that salvation is by faith rather than works (see Rom. 4:3, Gal 3:6). We could also quote Psalm 32:1-2, as Sha'ul does in Rom. 4:7, or Psalm 143:2, which he quotes in Rom. 3:20 and Gal. 2:17.
Even the sacrificial system teaches that salvation is by grace rather than "the works of the law." How so? Glad you asked. Tell me, exactly where is the "law" in allowing a guilty party to transfer his guilt to an innocent party so that he might not be punished? And did not all of these sacrifices point forward to the coming of the Innocent One, who took on our guilt in a show of ultimate Grace?
You, sir, do not know your Tanakh, nor your Judaism. Sha'ul did not get his ideas of Grace from some special vision, but from the Tanakh itself!
If anything, Judaism was a sectarian religion, with widely divergent sects teaching and preaching very different stories.
You are partially correct; in fact, many scholars have taken to referring to the 1st Century "Judaisms" because of the divergent practices. However, these were simply competing traditions, on par with denominational differences in Christianity. The core--the Torah--remained the same for all, in confession if not always in practice.
You treat Pharisaical Judaism as the only true Judaism. I do not agree with that.
Actually, I like the Karaites a lot. However, the fact is that Yeshua spent most of His time with and debating the Pharisees. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, that was a sign of kinship--you argued loudest with your own family, and more softly with those outside the group. The fact that Yeshua spent so much time trying to correct the Pharisees meant that they were closest to the truth in His mind (the only one that counts); the fact that the Pharisees spent so much time with Him and invited Him to eat with them is evidence that they too saw Him as one of their own, or close enough for table-fellowship.
That's not saying that they had it right--clearly they had it wrong on any number of issues--just that the founders of rabbinic Judaism were a lot closer in viewpoint to the Messiah than you give them credit for. That's why its even more to be lamented that they (as a group; many individual Pharisees did put their faith in Yeshua) came so close and yet still missed the mark.
Tell me, would the Apostle Sha'ul have remained a Pharisee if they were really so far off the mark as to be completely incompatible with belief in the Messiah? He's never struck me as the wishy-washy type.
Did God make the Law so that man can dispose of it?
Nope (Deu. 12:32-13:5).
Whatever you say, fact remains that Christians by the end of the 1st century did not consider themselves Jews and, in fact, while the Apostles were still walking the earth did everything to distance themslevs from the 'hypocrites' (as the 1st century Didache refers to the Jews).
The Didache and your view is wrong on this point. Tell me, what was the first thing Rabbi Sha'ul did when he arrived at Rome?
The eyewitness Gospels were not even written by that time.
No, but the eyewitnesses to the Gospel were around telling the story of the Messiah personally. Anyway, Matthew's Gospel account was probably written in its original Hebrew form in the 50s AD, Luke's account and Acts by 62 AD (since he cuts off the narrative there, in the middle of the story so to speak).
By the time +Peter arrived in Rome the Christians were not identified as the Jews but as an altogether different religion.
No, actually they weren't. The Christians were recognized as a Jewish sect by the Jews in Rome (Acts 28:22), and weren't officially considered their own religion until the reign of Emperor Nerva.
Sha'ul, thanks to his dual background (Jew and Roman citizen) and his training at the hands of Rabbi Gameliel (who encouraged his students to study Greek culture to facilitate dealing with the Greeks and Romans as the future leaders of Judea) was uniquely qualified to explain the Jewish Scriptures and Messiah to a Greek and Roman audience in terms and analogies that they could understand, but he was not the crusader of a new, anti-Torah religion. If he was, he was by the Torah's definition a false prophet rather than an Apostle.
Oh, and since the subject of the LXX keeps coming up, let me share a bit of eyewitness from Jerome:
MATTHEW,(4) also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew(5) for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library. at Caesarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes(1) of Beroea,(2) a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Wherefore these two forms exist "Out of Egypt have I called my son," and "for he shall be called a Nazarene."Hmm, what a shock that the Apostles used the Hebrew Scriptures with a Hebrew-speaking audience.--Illustrious Men, ch. III
Actually, I like the Karaites a lot. However, the fact is that Yeshua spent most of His time with and debating the Pharisees. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, that was a sign of kinship--you argued loudest with your own family, and more softly with those outside the group. The fact that Yeshua spent so much time trying to correct the Pharisees meant that they were closest to the truth in His mind (the only one that counts); the fact that the Pharisees spent so much time with Him and invited Him to eat with them is evidence that they too saw Him as one of their own, or close enough for table-fellowship.
= = =
Perhaps. But I wouldn't want to over state it.
Christ might have also spent that time in order to highlight the errors of the pharisees. I think that more plausible given His assertions about their blindness and things being deliberately hidden from them.
We establish [sic] it through faith? I though God established the Law and gave it to Moses. Here my favorite Apostle is establishing (no pun intended) a different story: that believers, through faith, "establish" God's law! We are the founders, the "architects" of the Law (that's what "establish" means)! Amazing.
Then you quote Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. . . For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin
The Law is holy. Of course, it comes from God. But we shall have none of that holiness! In fact, the law makes us slaves to sin, the Apostle says. Holy God's Law makes us slaves to sin, just think about that!
So then, though we are not under the law--which is to say, we are not under the curse...
Oooh, that really makes sense, now! The holy and spiritual God's Law puts us under a curse?
The issue is not one of keeping Torah vs. not keeping Torah, but of keeping Torah in order to be saved vs. keeping Torah because one already is saved
Who is already saved? You will be judged for what you have done, says the Bible. There is no salvation on earth. Being saved here and now is a Protestant heresy. Salvation is in the world to come.
For my part, I do not keep Torah in order to be saved; I keep it (or do my best to) because I am already saved, and I want to be like my Savior in every way. Even down to not eating what He wouldn't eat
That's commendable, but what exactly won't you eat? Did not +Peter have a 'vision' that says 'kill, eat' and that everything God gave us is good?
Tell me, exactly where is the "law" in allowing a guilty party to transfer his guilt to an innocent party so that he might not be punished?
If anything, the OT makes sure everyone understands that NO ONE can atone for someone else's sins; yet that is the foundation of Protestant Christianity.
As to your question, apparently the goat can (Yom Kippur). Isn't that what the Jews do when they touch the goat's head and let him run away with their sins? I would say the poor goat is rather innocent.
And did not all of these sacrifices point forward to the coming of the Innocent One, who took on our guilt in a show of ultimate Grace?
Christ was not the Yom Kippur goat but the Passover Lamb that delivered potentially all men, not just believers, from certain death. The Paschal Lamb is equivalent to the Passover lamb, which is killed and eaten (not sacrificed and burned, or let go), out of thanksgiving (eucharistia). The Passover lamb has nothing to do with atoning for sins, but with deliverance from death.
The juridical approach to Christ's sacrifice is exactly where +Pauline Christainity begins to diverge form the rest.
The Didache and your view is wrong on this point
I won't say that I am not wrong, but Didache was a little closer to the times when the events we are speaking of were taking place.
Tell me, what was the first thing Rabbi Sha'ul did when he arrived at Rome?
Asked where he can stay?
--Illustrious Men, ch. III...Hmm, what a shock that the Apostles used the Hebrew Scriptures with a Hebrew-speaking audience
Can you provide a link to that? As for Jerome's assertion almost 400 years after Christ, and a solitary one too, one must really take it with a grain of salt. The Pope did not fully agree with him, as you know. Isn't it funny that the Church Fathers who brought Christain canon into being did not find LXX quotes, or Greek as the original language objectionable? Nor do they mention any Matthew written in Hebrew until Jerome?