Posted: Jul 25, 2013 5:37 am
RealityRules wrote:spin wrote:
I do. Most arguments that make assertions about "James the brother of the lord" seem to me to fit as an example. We normally understand this phrase because later tradition has determined that "the lord" here must refer to Jesus.
I don't determine that. It could mean a number of things: I keep an open mind about vague text in unclear context.
Great. But not many people seem to follow what you say.
RealityRules wrote:spin wrote:Later tradition rejects Paul's statement that he received his gospel from a revelation as not being reflective of the fact that he got his knowledge of Jesus from his predecessors and his revelation gets overlooked. But he says that he got his knowledge of Jesus not from other people, so he literally disagrees with later tradition.
That is illogical - how could Paul "disagree with later tradition"?
That's an interesting case of a literal reading gone wrong. But to try to answer, you compare what is written in Paul and what is written in later tradition, as a reader who has access to both can do, then you can determine whether they agree or not. I determined that the content of the material I was concerned with did not agree with later tradition. He, in his writings, disagreed with later tradition. I did not imply he was aware of later tradition and interacted with it.
RealityRules wrote:I don't assume he got knowledge of Jesus. I don't assume he got that alleged knowledge from others.
I consider it likely it was edited when it was later collated.
ie. I don't take it literally.
Then you haven't read the text, because, until you see what it says... literally, you can't put yourself in the position of knowing anything about its content. You can choose not to read the text and still truthfully say, "I don't assume he got knowledge of Jesus. I don't assume he got that alleged knowledge from others."... at least if you are reacting to what you read from me. When you say "I consider it likely it was edited when it was later collated", that indicates that you have read the text literally and rejected aspects of the content, based on your reactions to that and subsequent readings, as the work of editing and collating.
(For clarity: although I recommend trying to get through to a more literal reading of Paul in Galatians, I don't advocate just reading a text for what it says literally, but going through all the efforts to analyse the text to get the most objective understanding of it.)