The Arguments at the Council in Acts

[JRKH]

A discussion elsewhere regarding what Jesus wrote in the dirt reminded me of another place where we are not given details - and to me the details could be most interesting and enlightening…

Acts 15:7 (RSV) begins, “And after there had been much debate…”

We know that they were debating the relative merits - need - requirements - etc relating to the OT mosaic law but we do not have the “full text” of the arguments put forth etc…

I sometimes wish that we could know what was said in some way more specific than suggested by the term “Judaizer”…

Obviously many of these men knew Scripture and I would bet that some of their arguments were quite convincing…

I often thought it would be interesting to sort of - “reconstruct” this part of the council in a manner that could be staged as a play.

Any thoughts on how the arguments FOR the Law might have be constructed??

Peace
James

 

[patrick457]

A discussion elsewhere regarding what Jesus wrote in the dirt reminded me of another place where we are not given details - and to me the details could be most interesting and enlightening…

Acts 15:7 (RSV) begins, “And after there had been much debate…”

We know that they were debating the relative merits - need - requirements - etc relating to the OT mosaic law but we do not have the “full text” of the arguments put forth etc…

I sometimes wish that we could know what was said in some way more specific than suggested by the term “Judaizer”…

Obviously many of these men knew Scripture and I would bet that some of their arguments were quite convincing…

I often thought it would be interesting to sort of - “reconstruct” this part of the council in a manner that could be staged as a play.

Any thoughts on how the arguments FOR the Law might have be constructed??

Peace
James

We don’t know how it exactly went so all we have is speculation, yeah, but I’ll bite.

Christianity of course started out as one of the ‘Judaisms’ that existed back then. To put it briefly, having Jews do one thing with the gentiles doing another thing would have been seen as somewhat unhealthily divisive: in this viewpoint one will have to concede to the other. Either all would observe Jewish customs (pagan Christians conceding to Jewish Christians) or not. And since there is still that mentality of being the new, perfected Israel (Christianity was not a separate religion from Judaism back then after all), the former option would have been more natural and viable than the latter. After all, proselytes who wish to become part of the Jewish people - in our modern parlance, ‘convert’ to Judaism - would have to observe Jewish customs.

 

[JRKH]

Patrick,
Thanks for “biting”…Good points all (with one “nit-pick”)…the term “pagan Christian” sounds so weird. Iwould say “Gentile Christian”…Like I said…“nit-pick”…

I think that your proposal is a sound argument, that Christianity would be seen as an extension of Judaism and not a replacement or something separate from it.
Likewise, if I recall correctly, things like circumcision were seen as a covenant, “For All Time”, so they could/would argue, “How could this divinely instituted requirement be suddenly set aside”?

Peace
James