Aug 19 2018 50 mins 72
In Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, Walter Bauer says: "the catastrophe in Palestine forever erased the demand that gentile Christians of the diaspora should be circumcised and should to some extent observe the ceremonial law. ... [F]ellowship between Jewish and gentile Christians in the outside world became really possible." Was it really so consequential and immediate an event as to erase that line? Is it racist for Walter Bauer to write that Rome was "by nature and custom least inclined or able to yield to seemingly fantastic oriental ways of thinking and oriental emotions that becloud clear thought"? In the Pauline epistles, many statements are tied together by words such as "If", "For", and "Thus". It looks as if he's trying to construct logical arguments, but the statements are often non sequiturs. Why do his writings have the trappings of rationality, but not the substance? Do you think Jordan Peterson is on to something when he says that the Judeo-Christian tradition is exceptional among religions in preserving the wisdom Nature (or God) has written into us through evolution? Is the Swoon Theory compatible with Christ Mythicism? Does the Infancy Gospel of James portray Jesus as theophany of Yahweh descended direct from heaven?
