Here are some questions I have been pondering recently, which I hope to address over the coming months. If you have any ideas or pointers for research, let me know!
- Acts 18:12 - When Paul was brought before the Roman tribunal in Corinth, who stood on the "bema" (the Greek word for the stone platform used during tribunal interrogations)? Was it the Roman officials looking down on Paul being questioned, or was Paul exposed on the platform for all to see? What officials would have been involved, if not just the proconsul Gallio? I addressed this in my personal blog, but I hope to come to a more definitive conclusion.
- Assuming (as scholars believe) Paul wrote 1 Cor 14:24 a decade before the Gospels were written, who coined the phrase "new covenant"? Did Paul plagiarize Mark, or did Mark plagiarize Paul, or was there some sort of collaboration in, say, Jerusalem? Scholars surmise the Gospels used information from eyewitnesses, of course, but also from unknown sources, now lost. Those lost sources are lumped together as the mysterious "Q" source. Is Paul part of the Q source, having been directly informed by the risen Jesus?
- "Called" versus "Commissioned": Let's say Paul did not internally feel called to go on his missionary journeys, but instead was (as the canon explains) commissioned by an external force (Acts 9:5). The commissioning was so sudden and shocking that Paul was temporarily struck blind. But if this was totally external, what does that say about God's immanence (and transcendence)? When Donald Trump says he was saved from an assassin's bullet directly by God so that he (Trump) could enact policies (assuming Mr. Trump is sincere and not just making it up), shouldn't God's intervention be described as a de facto commission (God saved Trump for something, therefore Trump must do it)? Similarly, do I (Gary) feel called to write this, or is this a divine commission?
- How do we respond to harsh comments about current world events? For example, since it's true that Hamas perpetrated a horrific surprise attack on civilians on Oct 7 2023 and hid in hospitals with "human shields", is collateral damage acceptable when Israel fights back? In other words, is the need to kill Hamas in self defense so fundamental that it's OK to kill nearby babies? Is it OK to starve a million people in order to get at a few thousand combatants? Even if such actions are justified, can Israel drop a bomb and reject accountability and claim that it's actually Hamas' fault that babies and other innocents were bombed? Is the killing of neutral aid workers simply "collateral", or a war crime? Does Hamas commit a war crime by waging war when aid workers are nearby, thereby endangering the aid workers, or are the shooters (Israel) also (or solely) guilty? Is Scripture (Hebrew / Christian / Islamic) relevant?
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