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 Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:59 am
rmcdra freelance lover It might also be worth mentioning that Romans 9-11 is a notoriously difficult passage to understand. It involves a ton of different parallels that would only have been understood to the intended audience. I've studied it and had it explained to me by professors with doctorates, and I still don't really understand everything it's saying. I did write a paper on Romans 9:14-29 last semester though, and most of my research suggested that passage was about God being a just God. Israel has made mistakes despite being his chosen people, and now salvation has been extended to the Gentiles.
That was my understanding, anyway. Like I said, I still have a really difficult time understanding it despite spending time studying Romans. In any case, I'm not sure the way she's interpreting that passages makes sense when taken in context. In the gnostic context it would be read a little different. That all people came from God. Of these people, one group would choose to be enslaved by an image, a god of their own design, and the other group of people would be seek salvation and not be enslaved by this image and seek to know the True God.
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Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 4:49 pm
freelance lover rmcdra freelance lover It might also be worth mentioning that Romans 9-11 is a notoriously difficult passage to understand. It involves a ton of different parallels that would only have been understood to the intended audience. I've studied it and had it explained to me by professors with doctorates, and I still don't really understand everything it's saying. I did write a paper on Romans 9:14-29 last semester though, and most of my research suggested that passage was about God being a just God. Israel has made mistakes despite being his chosen people, and now salvation has been extended to the Gentiles.
That was my understanding, anyway. Like I said, I still have a really difficult time understanding it despite spending time studying Romans. In any case, I'm not sure the way she's interpreting that passages makes sense when taken in context. In the gnostic context it would be read a little different. That all people came from God. Of these people, one group would choose to be enslaved by an image, a god of their own design, and the other group of people would be seek salvation and not be enslaved by this image and seek to know the True God. That makes it a very important passage then biggrin He definitely seems to be painting a mythic history for the people in Romans imho and scanning the section. The advice I was given concerning Romans is to examine it in the light of his previous letters. Romans is a summation of his teachings in all of his previous letters so will reference comments he made to the other Churches in this letter.
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Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:21 pm
rmcdra That makes it a very important passage then biggrin He definitely seems to be painting a mythic history for the people in Romans imho and scanning the section. The advice I was given concerning Romans is to examine it in the light of his previous letters. Romans is a summation of his teachings in all of his previous letters so will reference comments he made to the other Churches in this letter.
I exegeted that passage hoping I would understand it better. Not the case. Funny how that seems to happed.... xD
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Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 11:18 pm
freelance lover Hmmm, that's not something I've ever heard. From what I remember about Romans, I do think it's one of his later ones that we know was written by him, meaning that's entirely possible though. I also believe he had never actually been to Rome, so he didn't know the congregation unlike his other letters, which is part of the reason it's so lengthy. It's entirely possible it is a summation of his other letters than too, because he's trying to make sure they understand everything.
I exegeted that passage hoping I would understand it better. Not the case. Funny how that seems to happed.... xD Yes it was one of his later letters actually written by him and yes it's pretty clear that he's addressing a different kind of crowd than in his previous letters. Maybe summation is not a good word then. It incorporates a lot from his other letters I know but I don't know anything about the crowd he's addressing in Romans. If I did have to make a guess, now this is speculation, it would be Torah observing Gentile Christians. It's quite possible he could be explaining his teachings and slightly modifying them to accommodate for this audience. My evidence for coming to this reasoning is that in Romans he seems to make a lot of references to Torah which a Torah observing community would be more than familiar with and he doesn't get as brutal about how worthless the Torah is as seen in his other letters.
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Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:52 am
rmcdra freelance lover Hmmm, that's not something I've ever heard. From what I remember about Romans, I do think it's one of his later ones that we know was written by him, meaning that's entirely possible though. I also believe he had never actually been to Rome, so he didn't know the congregation unlike his other letters, which is part of the reason it's so lengthy. It's entirely possible it is a summation of his other letters than too, because he's trying to make sure they understand everything.
I exegeted that passage hoping I would understand it better. Not the case. Funny how that seems to happed.... xD Yes it was one of his later letters actually written by him and yes it's pretty clear that he's addressing a different kind of crowd than in his previous letters. Maybe summation is not a good word then. It incorporates a lot from his other letters I know but I don't know anything about the crowd he's addressing in Romans. If I did have to make a guess, now this is speculation, it would be Torah observing Gentile Christians. It's quite possible he could be explaining his teachings and slightly modifying them to accommodate for this audience. My evidence for coming to this reasoning is that in Romans he seems to make a lot of references to Torah which a Torah observing community would be more than familiar with and he doesn't get as brutal about how worthless the Torah is as seen in his other letters.
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