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The Thorn in Paul's Flesh
- Thread starter Ben Masada
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Ben Masada
Well-Known Member
The problem is not where I am getting my information from but whom I am sharing it with.
Ben
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
:biglaugh:
Ben Masada
Well-Known Member
I know that.
The richman in hell also knew that the oly way to escape hell was by listening to Moses. Even if a dead man brought back from the dead would bring the message to their living relatives. the message to his still alive relatives. (Luke 16:29-31) And Jesus proved the fallacy of the richman's views.
Ben
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
This is really what you think the point of the story is?
27 He answered, Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
29 Abraham replied, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.
30 No, father Abraham, he said, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. 31 He said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
First of all, it was Abraham (in the parable) who speaks of Moses, not the richman in hell.
And who rose from the dead in Christianity? Not Moses or Abraham. It was Jesus, and the Jews (generally speaking) did not believe him, and the criticism of the Jews is that they didn't listen to Moses or the Prophets and therefore did not listen to Jesus.
The simplicity of this story is very difficult to miss.
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
I agree. Sharing it with people who study the NT probably was not your best choice: they actually understand the NT.
jtartar
Well-Known Member
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh - II Corinthians 12:7-10
That was a condition, which Paul would call it an infirmity. For three times, as he said, he prayed God, so that it be removed from him, but that it had been denied on the basis that what seemed weakness to him, his spiritual strength would be made perfect.
Paul was suffering from Epilepsy, whose aftereffects would cause him a devasting condition of depression.
Epilepsy is a condition which has the characteristic to awake in the epileptic the esoteric sense of spirituality, and to bring up to mind what was spiritually
disturbing the mind, as the condition derives from a neurologic disorder characterized by sudden recurring attacks of motor, sensory or psychic malfunction with or without loss of consciousness or convulsive seizures.
During an attack of epilepsy, sparkles of light are perceived in the mind as to make the person with the condition embelish what it was concerning him or her as to admit a literal fulfilment of what was only a matter of the imagination.
When Paul went for letters in Jerusalem to arrest and bring under chains those in the synagogues of Damascus who followed "the New Way," which was a reference to the Nazarenes followers of Jesus. Halfway, on the Road to Damascus, he was taken by an attack of epilepsy and fell from his horse. During such an attack, he would experience sparkles of light fleshed into his mind, as such effects are usual in epilepsy, and he would experience the rehearse of everything that was in his mind just prior to the attack, which caused in Paul a change of mind. Instead of persecuting the disciples of Jesus physically, just to see them rather grow in number, he would change his strategy and fight them from within by join the Sect of the Nazarenes at his return to Jerusalem. But he was rejected by the Apostles due to his history of violence towards the Nazarenes.
Since epileptic attacks cause the sense of materialization of one's imaginations, as Paul came to complete consciousness, he seemed to be a different man with the fantastic claim that he had spoken with Jesus during his epileptical seizures, and decided to join the Sect of the Nazarenes. However, instead of returning to Jerusalem from the Road to Damascus, he proceeded to Damascus where he stayed for three years, perhaps with the intent to acquire some history of peaceful coexistence with the disciples of the Nazarenes before returning to Jerusalem as "new" man. From then on, everything he experienced in his attacks of epilepsy, he would interpret it and follow it like in a prophetic vision.
Being rejected by the Apostles, after a havoc he caused in Jerusalem, he was sent back to Tarsus, where he belonged, and decided to found his own religion. Since he had always been a Hellenistic Jew, and well-educated in Hellenism, he founded Christianitity on the basis of his Hellenistic concepts, which, of course would not miss to crash with Judaism, and turn the fight into the famous Pauline policy of Replacement Theology.
Ben
Ben Masada,
The fact is; no one knows what Pauls Thorn in the Flesh was. We do have an idea what it was by what Paul wrote to the Galatians, at Gal 4:13-15. Here Paul said that the disciples would have gouged out their eyes and given them to him, if they could have. So it would seem that Paul had very bad eyesight. If Pauls problem were something that would limit his ability to preach or travel, it would have been corrected by God.
Your whole idea about Paul is absurd. Jesus, himself picked Paul to be his disciple, especially to the gentile nations, but also to Kings and to Jews, Acts 9:15,16.
Paul said that he received the knowledge he had from Jesus, by a revelation, Gal 1:11,12.
Paul was the formost of all the apostles!! God used Paul to write 14 books of the Bible, something God would never have done if he was not teaching exactly as He wanted.
Paul knew, and wrote more about Christianity that any other Bible writer. Almost all the Sacred Secrets or Mysteries were first revealed to Paul. One very important secret that was revealed to Paul was that God was opening to the Gentiles, salvation, just like to the Jews. After Jesus' death the Jews were no longer God's favored or chosen people, God had turned His blessing to the Christian Congregation. The powerful GIFTS of the Spirit were proof of the change, Gal 3:1-5, Acts 10:34,35. None of the ones who remained in the Jewish Faith received the gifts, only the remnant of the Jews who accepted Jesus as the Christ, and became Christians, Acts 8:14-19, Heb 2:2-4. Only the apostled could pass on the Holy Spirit to others. ALL Apostles were Christians!!! Christians were followers of Christ Jesus, the only name given on earth by which we MUST get saved, Acts 4:12, 1Tim 2:4-6.
As we are told in Acts, Paul was in God's favor right down to his death in 65CE, Acts 19:11,12, 28:25-31, 2Tim 4:6-8, 16-18.
TalAbrams
Member
Wow! I thought I had wandered into a session of the auto da fey.
A simple search of The Epilepsy Foubdation will show that vision can, indeed, be affected by siezures.
A partial or focal siezure can be a one or two time only occurence.
Symptoms can range from double vision to sparks, halos, lights, tunnel vision, black hole vision, halucinations, euphoria, etc.
I do not think Ben Masada is wrong to theorize about Paul in this regard. He is not the first and it is certainly plausible.
Many historical figures have been said to have had epilepsy, both religious and secular.
Theophanes taught that Muhammed himself was an epilectic and had his epiphany during a seizure. I think this is plausable also, although I do not support Theophanes and his teachings on anything else but point out only that it was a well known teaching at the time.
Of course, it is all conjecture because no scholar or lay-person can know for certain about the thorn in Paul's flesh. If he had been married some would have said it was his mother-in-law.
A simple search of The Epilepsy Foubdation will show that vision can, indeed, be affected by siezures.
A partial or focal siezure can be a one or two time only occurence.
Symptoms can range from double vision to sparks, halos, lights, tunnel vision, black hole vision, halucinations, euphoria, etc.
I do not think Ben Masada is wrong to theorize about Paul in this regard. He is not the first and it is certainly plausible.
Many historical figures have been said to have had epilepsy, both religious and secular.
Theophanes taught that Muhammed himself was an epilectic and had his epiphany during a seizure. I think this is plausable also, although I do not support Theophanes and his teachings on anything else but point out only that it was a well known teaching at the time.
Of course, it is all conjecture because no scholar or lay-person can know for certain about the thorn in Paul's flesh. If he had been married some would have said it was his mother-in-law.
Avi1001
reform Jew humanist liberal feminist entrepreneur
Freelance_Policeman
Member
Judging by Paul's letters, the OP makes perfect sense.
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh - II Corinthians 12:7-10
That was a condition, which Paul would call it an infirmity. For three times, as he said, he prayed God, so that it be removed from him, but that it had been denied on the basis that what seemed weakness to him, his spiritual strength would be made perfect.
Ben
You forget to mention Paul says he received the thorn in the flesh after he became a Christian
fallingblood
Agnostic Theist
Except that the majority of the case for such comes from Acts, which isn't the most accurate, and Paul himself really gives no clue to such an affliction.
Paul does describe the thorn in the flesh as a 'Messenger of Satan'. That is something to think about, and the more I think about it the more I think that it was a person, probably someone evil that Paul had to put up with. Refer to Micah 7:4, because Paul knew his Torah and its likely that the messenger of satan that he calls a 'Thorn' is a person rather than an illness. He may have been blind for all I know, but I don't think that was his thorn. Additionally Ben M. got a lot of his ideas about Paul from Macoby's Paul the Mythmaker, which was an important book but never came to solid conclusions about Paul. It was more of an idea experiment or what-if which constructed a model of Paul from the NT, a version of Paul who could be responsible for creating Christianity almost in its entirety. It was saying 'Here is how it could have happened.' It was interesting and would be worth looking at, but there are other more current books available that focus on what we know rather than what could have been.
Prophet
breaking the statutes of my local municipality
Gaining the enlightenment which Paul described as a psychic connection to the Christ instantaneously causes one to become reconnected to all beings. However, pride in anything, even enlightenment itself, will disconnect one just as quickly.
When you clearly see yourself in all beings and all beings in you, sin can have no hold on you because if you don't see yourself as separate, selfishness has nowhere to cling. However, after one experiences complete deliverance from sin, knowledge of Truth, and clear and present vision, the moment one starts to grow prideful and look down on those who lack these things, that desire to sin comes back, the blindness returns, and all you're left with is the blessed Truth you can speak of only from memory of your short time in the light.
In my opinion, the "thorn" Paul refers to is a sin of his past which reemerges every time he grows proud.
When you clearly see yourself in all beings and all beings in you, sin can have no hold on you because if you don't see yourself as separate, selfishness has nowhere to cling. However, after one experiences complete deliverance from sin, knowledge of Truth, and clear and present vision, the moment one starts to grow prideful and look down on those who lack these things, that desire to sin comes back, the blindness returns, and all you're left with is the blessed Truth you can speak of only from memory of your short time in the light.
In my opinion, the "thorn" Paul refers to is a sin of his past which reemerges every time he grows proud.
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Xian Catalyst
Member
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh - II Corinthians 12:7-10
That was a condition, which Paul would call it an infirmity. For three times, as he said, he prayed God, so that it be removed from him, but that it had been denied on the basis that what seemed weakness to him, his spiritual strength would be made perfect.
Paul was suffering from Epilepsy, whose aftereffects would cause him a devasting condition of depression.
Epilepsy is a condition which has the characteristic to awake in the epileptic the esoteric sense of spirituality, and to bring up to mind what was spiritually
disturbing the mind, as the condition derives from a neurologic disorder characterized by sudden recurring attacks of motor, sensory or psychic malfunction with or without loss of consciousness or convulsive seizures.
During an attack of epilepsy, sparkles of light are perceived in the mind as to make the person with the condition embelish what it was concerning him or her as to admit a literal fulfilment of what was only a matter of the imagination.
When Paul went for letters in Jerusalem to arrest and bring under chains those in the synagogues of Damascus who followed "the New Way," which was a reference to the Nazarenes followers of Jesus. Halfway, on the Road to Damascus, he was taken by an attack of epilepsy and fell from his horse. During such an attack, he would experience sparkles of light fleshed into his mind, as such effects are usual in epilepsy, and he would experience the rehearse of everything that was in his mind just prior to the attack, which caused in Paul a change of mind. Instead of persecuting the disciples of Jesus physically, just to see them rather grow in number, he would change his strategy and fight them from within by join the Sect of the Nazarenes at his return to Jerusalem. But he was rejected by the Apostles due to his history of violence towards the Nazarenes.
Since epileptic attacks cause the sense of materialization of one's imaginations, as Paul came to complete consciousness, he seemed to be a different man with the fantastic claim that he had spoken with Jesus during his epileptical seizures, and decided to join the Sect of the Nazarenes. However, instead of returning to Jerusalem from the Road to Damascus, he proceeded to Damascus where he stayed for three years, perhaps with the intent to acquire some history of peaceful coexistence with the disciples of the Nazarenes before returning to Jerusalem as "new" man. From then on, everything he experienced in his attacks of epilepsy, he would interpret it and follow it like in a prophetic vision.
Being rejected by the Apostles, after a havoc he caused in Jerusalem, he was sent back to Tarsus, where he belonged, and decided to found his own religion. Since he had always been a Hellenistic Jew, and well-educated in Hellenism, he founded Christianitity on the basis of his Hellenistic concepts, which, of course would not miss to crash with Judaism, and turn the fight into the famous Pauline policy of Replacement Theology.
Ben
When you start off with such a declarative claim, "HE HAD EPILEPSY", and go to so many presumptions that are a reach and inconclusive, I can't take it serious. But I wanted to! :faint::faint:
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh
The Thorn in Paul's Flesh - II Corinthians 12:7-10
That was a condition, which Paul would call it an infirmity. For three times, as he said, he prayed God, so that it be removed from him, but that it had been denied on the basis that what seemed weakness to him, his spiritual strength would be made perfect.
Paul was suffering from Epilepsy, whose aftereffects would cause him a devasting condition of depression.
Ben
No, Paul was blind.
The evidence can be seen in most of his letters, especially in Galatians where he declares that they would gladly have given him their eyes.
The proof is in the book of Acts when he is on trial before the Sanhedrin. Remember that Paul was no slouch. He was the product of ivy-league Jewish education under the legendary Rabban Gamaliel I.
But when he's on trial, he smarts off to an unnamed person in the room, he gets smacked across the chops, and he's asked how he would dare disrespect God's high priest? Paul replies, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that was the high priest."
How could Paul have NOT known?
A national festival was taking place, and the HP was dressed in the HP's robes, had on the ephod with 12 stones, and wore a headpiece that said "Kadosh" in Hebrew characters.
That's not all. Paul would certainly have known that the seats of the Sanhedrin themselves were numbered and that people were assigned a rank on the counsel by the numbered seat. The HP sat as chair of the counsel in his own assigned seat, which we have to assuming he was sitting in.
Blindness is the only explanation.
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FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
What is interesting though is what follows with Paul making the declaration of the resurrection of the dead and the Pharisees defending him...yet they must have also known that he was a follower of Christ as well...the same Christ who the pharisees are accused by in Matthew of having brought to the romans to be put to death.
Political murders happened throughout the history of the Pharisees. The earliest mention I've found comes from Josephus. During the time of the Maccabbean Queen Alexandra, the Pharisees were said to have used her royal authority to hunt down political enemies and do away with them. That ended when her son Alexander took the throne.
Don't hold it against the Pharisees, though. Those were truly barbaric and blood-thirsty times, and Herod the Great was the worst.
FranklinMichaelV.3
Well-Known Member
Oh I know this, I just find it interesting though given for instance the Gospels very negative view of the Pharisees for Paul to make such a declaration and have the Pharisees side with him. Paul would have been a political enemy just as Jesus was.