The point of the chapter is that it doesn’t matter if you eat food sacrificed to idols because there is only one god, despite there being many so called gods and lords.
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thats not how pharisees would have seen things. what happen to metaphysical defilement? the meat might look okay, but from a “metaphysical” perspective it is defiled and should not be eaten. yhwh again and again puts his blessing on things and takes them away , yhwh doesn’t like acts performed for things other than he, especially idols.
paul contradicts the early church on this one :
Thank you for giving your reading of Matthew (which I disagree with, as the gospel imo portrays Jesus as teaching halacha that brings out the true intention of the Torah as in Francois Viljoen’s The Torah in Matthew; LIT Verlag Münster, 2018), though for now I just want to address what you said about the Didache. Didache 6:2 encourages the proselyte to bear the whole yoke of the Lord (δύνασαι βαστάσαι ὅλον τὸν ζυγὸν του κυρίου) in order to be perfect (τέλειος), and this is often understood as utilizing language both with respect to the Torah (utilizing the familiar “yoke” metaphor in Acts 15:10, Galatians 5:1, Barnabas 2:6, 2 Baruch 41:3, m. ‘Abot. 3:5, m. Ber. 2:2) as well as τέλειος conveying an ideal righteousness (as in Matthew 5:48, 19:21), which one should attain before the coming of the Lord (16:2). This ideal however is not demanded and the proselyte is encouraged to do what he is able. For some references see Jonathan A. Draper’s “Torah and Troublesome Apostles in the Didache Community* (Novum Testamentum, 1991), Huub van de Sandt and David Flusser’s The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity (Fortress, 2002), pp. 239-240, 269-270, John S. Kloppenborg’s “Did. 1.1-6.1, James, Matthew, and Torah” in Trajectories Through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford, 2005), and Huub van de Sandt’s ” ‘Bearing the Entire Yoke of the Lord’: An Explanation of Didache 6:2 in the Light of Matthew 11:28–30″ in The Scriptures of Israel in Jewish and Christian Tradition (Brill, 2013). Also 6:2 is a redactional join to the preceding Two Ways document; the subsequent instruction on food belongs to the church order document that follows as it utilizes the recurring Περι δε formula. The statement in 6:2 thus prefaces the entire section and not just the portion about food. “Now concerning food, bear what you are able (ὁ δύνασαι βάστασον), but in any case keep strictly away from meat sacrificed to idols” (v. 3). This gives a concession like all the other instructions in the church order document have concessions (such as the instruction on baptism making allowances for no running water), but here clearly the proselyte is encouraged to do more with respect to food than merely refrain from food sacrificed to idols, with βάστασον linking back to the reference to bearing (βαστάσαι) the whole yoke of the Lord, i.e. Torah observance with respect to kashrut. And the reference to the Lord’s day in ch. 14 belongs to a later supplement of the church order section (ch. 12-16), which has a number of other later features, but also I’m not sure if observance of the Lord’s day necessarily excludes the sabbath (as it did for Ignatius).
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but in any case keep strictly away from meat sacrificed to idols”
this is not pauline language.
Iskander Robertson said
The point of the chapter is that it doesn’t matter if you eat food sacrificed to idols because there is only one god, despite there being many so called gods and lords.
where is that highlighted in the greek?
και γαρ ειπερ εισιν λεγομενοι θεοι ειτε εν ουρανω ειτε επι γης ωσπερ εισιν θεοι πολλοι και κυριοι πολλοι
even if there are those-who-called gods whether in heaven or on earth just as there are many gods and many lords…
“An idol is nothing in the world”, because it’s not representing anything, because “there is only one God”.
For “For even if indeed there are so-called gods in heaven and earth, indeed there are many ‘gods’ and ‘lords’, yet for us there is only one God, the father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ”.
But “not everyone possess this knowledge” – ie the knowledge that there is only one god.
There are many heavenly beings in Paul’s cosmology but they are all created beings. And all creation was of the father and through Jesus Christ. There is one God who is the one Lord.
1 Cor 10:19 “What do I mean? that what is sacrificed-to-idols is anything or idols anything? Rather what is sacrificed is sacrificed to demons and not to God”. ie there is only one god and the sacrifice is to created demons.
1 Cor 10:28-29 “But if some one says to you, This has been offered in sacrifice, then on account of the man who informed you, and for conscience sake, I mean his conscience, not yours—do not eat it. But why should my liberty be determined by another’s conscience?” – ie a christian is free to eat the food of a sacrifice but shouldn’t for the sake of other’s conscience.
Paul believes that the multiple can be one
1 Cor 6:16-17 “Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, the two shall become one flesh. But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.“
He believes that the God is the Lord and the Lord is God
Romans 14:6-11 “Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess God.“
When Paul says there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, he is not denying that God is Lord. He’s expressing their divine union, one god the father and one lord jesus christ.
Paul does not address “How could there be only one God if the Father and Jesus are both equally God with a capital ‘G’” but he does believe in the concept of two being one and that we can all be one in spirit with the Lord. So we shouldn’t dismiss the idea.
Paul believes the Lord is God, he believes Jesus is Lord, he understands Isaiah as saying “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess God” . These are the concepts we should use when understanding Paul’s interpretation of Phil 2.
Jesus and God both have the name for which every knee will bow and every tongue confess because they are both the Lord God, one in divinity.
I don’t think Phil 2 can be used to show Jesus was equal to god from all eternity – just that both he and the father were Lord and yahweh, according to Paul’s understanding. Jesus could have grasped equality but chose not to instead emptying himself after which God exalted him to that equality he wasn’t willing to simply grasp.
Paul understands this poem through Jesus being son and heir. As son and heir he is entitled to equality, and entitled to the name and Lordship. We can’t be sure that those who used the poem before Paul saw it that way but I don’t think there’s any reasonable alternative – no angel should be exalted to the name above every name and made Lord of all.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert
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