Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Job Versus Paul in Two Allegories


Ben Masada

Recommended Posts

JOB VERSUS PAUL IN TWO ALLEGORIES

Job 1:8 - And the Lord said to Satan: "Have you noticed my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; blameless and upright." But Satan answered the Lord and said: "Is it for nothing if you bless him in every thing he does? Remove your blessings and see if he won't blaspheme." "Well, said the Lord, "He is in your power; only no attempts at his own life." And Satan lost the bid as Job proved to be what he was: A faithful servant.

I Corinthians 15:31 - And the Lord said to Satan: "Have you noticed my servant Paul? There is no one on earth like him to face death every day and still cherish his faith in Jesus." But Satan answered the Lord and said: "Is it for nothing if you bless him in every thing he does? Tell him that the resurrection of the dead is an illusion and see if he won't blaspheme." "He is under your power," said the Lord; only no attempts at his life. Satan appeared to Paul in a dream as an angel from Heaven and told him that there will be no such a thing as resurrection of the dead. A disappointed Paul cried for an hour or two and said, "If that's so, 'let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.'" (I Cor. 15:32) And the Lord lost the bid, as the faith of Paul proved to be a farse.

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even the lord had slaves! oh sorry, they called them servants.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And the Lord lost the bid, as the faith of Paul proved to be a farse.

Ben

Luckily for Paul, if Satan told him that there was no resurrection of the dead, then Satan was lying :devil:
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone please explain all this to me.

Ben Masada doesn't believe in a resurrection. As such, he's put a situation where Job (a Hebrew, forbearer of the Jews) was tested by God and came through with flying colours. Ben invented a testing by God meant to let Paul (if he still existed) know that there was no resurrection. As the resurrection is the most essential point of Christianity (according to the quote) Satan saying that there was no resurrection led Paul to fail the test that Job passed.

Hope it helps :tu:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ben Masada doesn't believe in a resurrection. As such, he's put a situation where Job (a Hebrew, forbearer of the Jews) was tested by God and came through with flying colours. Ben invented a testing by God meant to let Paul (if he still existed) know that there was no resurrection. As the resurrection is the most essential point of Christianity (according to the quote) Satan saying that there was no resurrection led Paul to fail the test that Job passed.

Hope it helps :tu:

So this is extra-Biblical? What basis does the story have for saying that Paul failed the test? I don't get the point.

I do have a slight problem with the idea of resurrection that maybe someone would also like to address. Buddhists say we are reborn -- that aspects of what was us go into a womb and become another person -- there is some continuity of existence there.

Star Trek has a device where people are transported from one point to another, presumably by being recreated atom by atom at the destination while being destroyed atom by atom at the origin. In this case, how do I know the new person is still "me?" There is no continuity of existence. The new me certainly thinks it is me, but the reality is that it isn't.

Now with resurrection -- if you are dead for awhile (non-existent) and then you are recreated in a different body but I presume with the same personality and memories, how can you know that the new entity is really you? The continuity of existence seems broken just as in Star Trek.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Siddhartha Gautama, however, also taught that the "self" (what you refer to as "me") was just an illusion. I know you were getting at a point, but when you are reborn, in buddhist philosophy, you aren't "you". You are a collection of thoughts and ideas that have bought into the illusion that it is a separate individual. In a hypothetical transporter incident, neither entity would be you, it would just be a collection of thoughts that think it is you.

And no, I don't think Ben's comment was intended as "extra-biblical", he was inventing a story to try and prove Paul wrong (that was my reading, at least).

Edited by Paranoid Android
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Buddhist idea is that there is no "self," no thing like a "soul." This is an illusion. Remember however that illusions are not out of thin air. Those are delusions. Illusions have a source in something that is real -- the illusion is only that we have misinterpreted it.

The post was not in a Buddhist but in a Christian context. Basically my question was what happens to this soul when we are dead awaiting resurrection. It it is alive somewhere, then the idea of resurrection as the central Christian hope kinda loses its centrality.

To a Buddhist we have no continuity whatsoever, even from moment to moment, let alone rebirth to rebirth. The illusion of self or continuity comes from memories that the mind process accesses and gives us this sense of being something. Our mind is not a thing but an ongoing process, comparable roughly with a wave or the flame of a candle. It seems to be a thing but in fact is a natural ongoing process.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, I missed your intent to apply this to Christianity. I was answering within a Buddhist frame (which, while not being a scholar or believer in it, I have studied a little here and there). In Christianity the soul survives past death (and depending on your exact views, it may be an eternal soul (though some Christians, myself being one of them, believe that the soul can forfeit its eternity if it does not wish to follow that which created it). If teleportation were ever discovered, I'm sure it would be an interesting philosophical discussion to what happens to the person - before the transport, after the transport, are they the same person?

Have you ever seen "The Prestige"? It's a movie about two illusionists, stage magicians, who have a heated rivalry. This theme breaks into that movie a little bit, and I think you'd like that film if you haven't seen it already.

Back to your question on the "extra-biblical text", I don't think Ben is saying that Paul failed any test. He's using an invention from his mind and saying that IF God ever chose to test Paul that way, then Paul would fail.

~ Regards, PA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So this is extra-Biblical? What basis does the story have for saying that Paul failed the test? I don't get the point.

It is a genre sometimes called midrash. The idea is to reimagine Bible stories.

It is the religious equivalent of fanfic, like deciding that Harry should have married Hermione, and so you write something like the blow-off scene in The Graduate, and have Hermione discover, right at the brink, that she really wants to spend her life with Harry. The End.

There must be some point to doing it, although I am not the person to ask what that point is. The alternative theory is that Ben thinks the "eat drink and be merry" line in 1 Corinthians was Paul's advice to his congregation, rather than an ironic comment on a popular aphorism. That's happened before, that Ben misreads things, especially when the author shows any writing skill.

Now with resurrection -- if you are dead for awhile (non-existent) and then you are recreated in a different body but I presume with the same personality and memories, how can you know that the new entity is really you? The continuity of existence seems broken just as in Star Trek.

That's part of what Paul was writing about in the part of 1 Corinthians 15 that Ben misreads for us. There are a number of objections to general resurrection, which is a Pharisaic (that is, Jewish, but sectarian, not shared among Jews generally) doctrine imported into Chrisitanity by Paul. Like any other learned Pharisee of his day, Paul would have had ample opportunity to think about these objections. Also like any other learned Pharisee, he wouldn't have had ready answers to all of them. So, he plays the mystery card, at verse 51,

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed,

The Christian sketch-solution is borrowed from some Greeks, that there is a persistent "soul" that is "the essential you" in some sense, even if your body changes (which, of course, it has and will, of which changes, death is but one among many). An alternative, sometimes called Buddhist in the West, although it is equally the teaching of Heraclitus, is that there is no real continuity or persistence of self anyway, even from one day to the next. Your identity is an inference you have made, and it is a mistake or illusion which doesn't reflect the actual situation.

You can't step into the same river twice

For two reasons. Not only has the river changed, but two different people are stepping in.

Heraclitus would approve of the Star Trek transporter as a good solution and would teach that its method of operation makes no real difference to your actual circumstances. Much the same thing happens when you go by car, except the continual dissolution and rebuilding of a self that occurs along the way makes no useful contribution to getting you where you're going

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Luckily for Paul, if Satan told him that there was no resurrection of the dead, then Satan was lying :devil:

Only that Satan was not the one being tested by Job first and then Paul.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ben Masada doesn't believe in a resurrection. As such, he's put a situation where Job (a Hebrew, forbearer of the Jews) was tested by God and came through with flying colours. Ben invented a testing by God meant to let Paul (if he still existed) know that there was no resurrection. As the resurrection is the most essential point of Christianity (according to the quote) Satan saying that there was no resurrection led Paul to fail the test that Job passed.

Hope it helps :tu:

You forgot the quote PA. Frank might thing it is all in the mind of Ben Masada. That's in I Corinthians 15:31,32.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Siddhartha Gautama, however, also taught that the "self" (what you refer to as "me") was just an illusion. I know you were getting at a point, but when you are reborn, in buddhist philosophy, you aren't "you". You are a collection of thoughts and ideas that have bought into the illusion that it is a separate individual. In a hypothetical transporter incident, neither entity would be you, it would just be a collection of thoughts that think it is you.

And no, I don't think Ben's comment was intended as "extra-biblical", he was inventing a story to try and prove Paul wrong (that was my reading, at least).

And Paul proved himself wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, I missed your intent to apply this to Christianity. I was answering within a Buddhist frame (which, while not being a scholar or believer in it, I have studied a little here and there). In Christianity the soul survives past death (and depending on your exact views, it may be an eternal soul (though some Christians, myself being one of them, believe that the soul can forfeit its eternity if it does not wish to follow that which created it). If teleportation were ever discovered, I'm sure it would be an interesting philosophical discussion to what happens to the person - before the transport, after the transport, are they the same person?

Have you ever seen "The Prestige"? It's a movie about two illusionists, stage magicians, who have a heated rivalry. This theme breaks into that movie a little bit, and I think you'd like that film if you haven't seen it already.

Back to your question on the "extra-biblical text", I don't think Ben is saying that Paul failed any test. He's using an invention from his mind and saying that IF God ever chose to test Paul that way, then Paul would fail.

~ Regards, PA

Paul must have been tested somehow. Someone must have asked him something about resurrection; or something like, "What about if there

is no resurrection?" Then Paul had to flip the real side of his coin: That the real reason for his loyalty to God was his hope in the resurrection. Conditional loyalty based on the reward of an afterlife. You know, like the a tasty pellet that is given to a dog in eschange of something funny.

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ben has a vendetta against Paul.

The Scripture reference that he used for his allegory does not have Satan and God in conversation.

I Corinthians 15 does talk about resurrection from the dead: the resurrection of Jesus which is the linchpin of Christianity. Paul is not the only one who discusses this resurrection:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (I Peter 1:3)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ben has a vendetta against Paul.

The Scripture reference that he used for his allegory does not have Satan and God in conversation.

I Corinthians 15 does talk about resurrection from the dead: the resurrection of Jesus which is the linchpin of Christianity. Paul is not the only one who discusses this resurrection:

My vendetta is based on the Pauline policy of Replacement Theology. And for 1 Cor. 15, I am not sure you have ever read that chapter.

Try verse 32. Just in case you don't have a Bible available, here is the text: "If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." He was probably giving reply to some Jewish questions about bodily resurrection which is not in the jewish agenda

but only in the gospel of Paul. (2 Tim. 2:8)

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Scripture reference that he used for his allegory does not have Satan and God in conversation.

The OT is also Scripture and it does have Satan in a conversation with God. And it does not have to. That's why it is an allegory. The point to understand is what the allegory aims for: The reason why Paul would serve God in exchange for the "treat" of the resurrection.

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My vendetta is based on the Pauline policy of Replacement Theology. And for 1 Cor. 15, I am not sure you have ever read that chapter.

I have, in fact, read that chapter, as well as the rest of the New Testament, multiple times. To summarize: That Jesus was resurrected by God is foundational to Christianity. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the Gospel is useless. But He did rise, and because of that, those who have faith in him will eventually be regenerated in body and spirit.

Try verse 32. Just in case you don't have a Bible available, here is the text: "If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." He was probably giving reply to some Jewish questions about bodily resurrection which is not in the jewish agenda but only in the gospel of Paul. (2 Tim. 2:8)

He was quoting from Isaiah 22, in which God called for "weeping and mourning, for baldness and girding with sackcloth." Instead the response He got was "joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die." He was simply comparing the OT response to God with the attitude of: "Since there's no afterlife, this life is all we have, so let's party!" He was not condoning the partying attitude.

The OT is also Scripture and it does have Satan in a conversation with God. And it does not have to. That's why it is an allegory. The point to understand is what the allegory aims for: The reason why Paul would serve God in exchange for the "treat" of the resurrection.

The "treat" of the resurrection is not the reason Christians serve God. Read Psalm 51.

1 To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. 4 Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight-- That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. 6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. 9 Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You. 14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, The God of my salvation, And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, And my mouth shall show forth Your praise. 16 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart-- These, O God, You will not despise. 18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, With burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

Notice particularly verse 12: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation..." - there is joy in the Lord! - "...and uphold me by Your generous Spirit." We are blessed with God's presence in our lives. Because of what we have received, we minister to others. And we praise Him!

Jesus mentioned resurrection in Matthew 22:

29Jesus answered and said to them, "You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 32 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

The writer of Matthew speaks of resurrection in chapter 27:

51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Peter mentioned resurrection in Acts 2:

30Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

All of these occur before Paul came on the scene, so, no: Paul did not invent the resurrection.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul must have been tested somehow. Someone must have asked him something about resurrection; or something like, "What about if there

is no resurrection?" Then Paul had to flip the real side of his coin: That the real reason for his loyalty to God was his hope in the resurrection. Conditional loyalty based on the reward of an afterlife. You know, like the a tasty pellet that is given to a dog in eschange of something funny.

Ben

That is not at all the reason for Paul's loyalty. I'll quote the post above mine because that member has elucidated the point as well as I ever could. Maybe two people who disagree with you and say the exact same thing will help convince you that your understanding of Christianity is not as great as you think it is:

To summarize: That Jesus was resurrected by God is foundational to Christianity. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the Gospel is useless. But He did rise, and because of that, those who have faith in him will eventually be regenerated in body and spirit.

He was quoting from Isaiah 22, in which God called for "weeping and mourning, for baldness and girding with sackcloth." Instead the response He got was "joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die." He was simply comparing the OT response to God with the attitude of: "Since there's no afterlife, this life is all we have, so let's party!" He was not condoning the partying attitude.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have, in fact, read that chapter, as well as the rest of the New Testament, multiple times. To summarize: That Jesus was resurrected by God is foundational to Christianity. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the Gospel is useless. But He did rise, and because of that, those who have faith in him will eventually be regenerated in body and spirit.

I am aware that Jesus' resurrection is fundamental to Christianity. That's evidence for the gospel of Paul, the founder of Christianity. (Acts 11:26; 2 Tim. 2:8) Therefore, one needs a lot of faith to believe something not Jewish in the mind of a Jew.

He was simply comparing the OT response to God with the attitude of: "Since there's no afterlife, this life is all we have, so let's party!" He was not condoning the partying attitude.

The testimony was Pauline and not forwarded by a third party.

The "treat" of the resurrection is not the reason Christians serve God. Read Psalm 51.

Pity that Paul is dead and you missedd the chance to tell him so yourself.

Notice particularly verse 12: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation..." - there is joy in the Lord! - "...and uphold me by Your generous Spirit." We are blessed with God's presence in our lives. Because of what we have received, we minister to others. And we praise Him!

The chapter 51 of Psalms has nothing to do with resurrection, the issue of our discussion.

Jesus mentioned resurrection in Matthew 22:

Jesus mentions resurrection nowhere. He was a Jew and Jews don't believe in bodily resurrection. Don't forget that the gospels were written about 50+ years after Jesus had been gone. And they were written by Hellenists former disciples of Paul who was the one who fabricated the idea. (2 Tim. 2:8)

The writer of Matthew speaks of resurrection in chapter 27:

The writer of Matthew, not Matthew himself. This gospel attributed to him was not written by him. Read Matthew 9:9-13.

Peter mentioned resurrection in Acts 2:

That was Luke, a Hellenist disciple and constant companion of Paul's. If Peter believed in resurrection, he would have given credit to the women who reported about Jesus' resurrection. He, along with all the other Apostles rather took the idea as an idle tale of nonsense. Read Luke 24:11. Why? Because he had never heard of it from the lips of Jesus that he would ever resurrect.

All of these occur before Paul came on the scene, so, no: Paul did not invent the resurrection.

No, these all occurred when the gospels were written by the Hellenists former disciples of Paul's about 50+ years after Jesus had been gone. Pick up a NAV of the Bible and read the prefaces to each gospel. They give the dates for the time the gospels were written. And all of them attributed to the Apostles in order to enhance authority to the NT.

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is not at all the reason for Paul's loyalty. I'll quote the post above mine because that member has elucidated the point as well as I ever could. Maybe two people who disagree with you and say the exact same thing will help convince you that your understanding of Christianity is not as great as you think it is:

I am sorry PA, but no Judge can be convinced by two witnesses who know the testimonies of each other. This is way off the parameters

in a Court of Law. And with regards to Isaiah 22, again, I am sorry to remind you that the chapter has absolutely nothing to do with

resurrection. Isaiah 22:13 was indeed plagiarized by Paul but from a different context and applied to justify the reason why he served the Lord: For the reward of the resurrection.

Ben

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus mentions resurrection nowhere. He was a Jew and Jews don't believe in bodily resurrection.

It's this kind of thing that will stop us from ever having a coherent debate. You'll quote scripture that supports your view, and have no problem believing Jesus said some things if they agree with you, and then when you demand evidence to the contrary, and someone gives it to you (this time in the form of Matthew 22) you dismiss it because it doesn't fit with your ideology - Jesus didn't say that, it was written by Hellenists who inserted that in. For this reason, I have chosen to not reply further to anything you write. It is futile, in my opinion you are here to preach what you believe to be true, not to share and discuss. Edited by Paranoid Android
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Job was a bet between god and the devil. God won gee what a surprise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So the entire New Testament was written or influenced by Paul, therefore it cannot be taken as a reliable source of information. Interesting. I guess we Gentiles are left out in the dark with no hope of ever having God in our lives?

I brought up Psalm 51 as an example of why Christians serve God. We experience the joy of God's presence in the here and now. Resurrection is not the sole purpose for being a Christian. My goal as a Christian is to evangelize the lost and edify the church, thereby growing the kingdom of God. I suppose that since those are merely Pauline concepts, I have wasted the last forty years of my life, and have drawn dozens of people into a Hellenistic cult.

I must also have paranormal psychic power. I don't know how many times God has given me special knowledge to speak to a person's situation in order to help them through a troubled time in their life. I have been given, in my spirit, specific facts that I could not have otherwise known. However, since spiritual gifts are a fictional creation, it must be that I was actually reading their minds.

May I ask you some advice? Paul speaks much about loving one another, serving one another, comforting one another, etc. Should I now avoid those types of activities? Or since I'm a Gentile, does it really matter what I do in God's name?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's this kind of thing that will stop us from ever having a coherent debate. You'll quote scripture that supports your view, and have no problem believing Jesus said some things if they agree with you, and then when you demand evidence to the contrary, and someone gives it to you (this time in the form of Matthew 22) you dismiss it because it doesn't fit with your ideology - Jesus didn't say that, it was written by Hellenists who inserted that in. For this reason, I have chosen to not reply further to anything you write. It is futile, in my opinion you are here to preach what you believe to be true, not to share and discuss.

PA, please try to understand this: What you say is not what I am doing. I have told you what I am doing but you seem to find too hard to realize. Let me try this way: Who in your opinion was Jesus, a religious Jewish man or a Greek? Assuming that your answer is that he was a religious Jewish man, can't you see that I am trying to defend the Jewish Faith that Jesus practiced? Bodily resurrection is not in the agenda of Judaism which was the Faith of Jesus. Tell me that Jesus was not a Jewish person and I will promptly agree with every thing you say; not question about it. See how simple it will be? You are getting frustrated for nothing.

Ben

Edited by Ben Masada
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.