Tekton Apologetics

Chapters 3-5 of Craig Winn's Questioning Paul (QP) take up 101 typed pages when placed in a Word document, but as before, the substance/argument could be reduced to a mere tenth or less of that space. We will continue with our examination in which we extract that substance, only briefly commenting on that which duplicates prior arguments from Douglas del Tondo, and reserving extended commentary only for that which reflects arguments new to us. We will also skip over places where Winn repeats arguments we have already addressed.

Chapter 3

Much to begin this chapter deals with the "James vs Paul" matter, and Winn's tendentious and misinformed reading of that situation, so we shall skip over a great deal. We will also skip gratuitous and unsubstantiated charges of mistranslation, as we have still seen no indication that Winn possesses any relevant credentials as a scholar or translator.

From nowhere, Winn gets the idea that Paul spent "nearly two decades within walking distance of the place and people who witnessed the most important three days in human history, and not stop by on occasion to soak it all in." As we have noted against Earl Doherty, who made the same arguments for different reasons, this is ascribing falsely to people of another culture a modern, American tourist mentality. Ascribing "disdain" to Paul for not visiting what Winn rather bigotedly describes as "God’s favorite place on Earth" is simply misguided. At the same time, if Paul was being prepared for a mission, as he indicates, there would be little purpose in interrupting that preparation for what would essentially be tourism.

In part 1 we noted that Winn has the imaginative notion that the Greek word christos (anointed) means "drugged." To his roster of imaginative Greek readings he now adds another, concerning the word dokei:

Gal. 2:6 But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man's person:) for they who seemed [to be somewhat] in conference added nothing to me:

Winn asserts that this word conveys a "subjective opinion," as opposed to an objective conclusion and thus discovers a red flag of unimaginable proportions. But this is false. While this is one meaning of the word, it also means accounted as or reputed to be or even thought to be. Thus it is word that implies perception, but this perception could have an objective or a subjective basis, which must be decided by context.

In the case of Gal. 2:6, Paul’s concern is the honor rating of the pillars, and that is something that envelopes the collective opinion of the Christian ingroup; to that extent, what Paul speaks of has both objective and subjective elements (the latter since it works on assumptions of honorable motives and behavior). Thus Winn, who goes on to make much of Paul’s use of dokei in various contexts, errs yet again.

Concerning Paul's comment that he went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain, Winn proposes the highly tendentious and imaginative reading that Paul means he was considering "running from" the Jerusalem authorities. This makes no sense even in English; the proper context is rather Paul's use of the figure of "running" as in a race, a metaphor that was a favorite of his. (eg, 1 Cor. 9:24, Gal. 5:7, Phil. 2:16)

Winn also accuses Biblical scholars (!) of "inadvisably trusting their King James Bibles," in accepting the allegedly unwarranted addition of the word "privately" to the text:

And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.

However, I see no reason to question the decision of textual critics who think it belongs; the word referenced (idios) is translated elsewhere the same way (eg, Matt 24:3). I should also note that Winn's disatisfaction is based in good measure on his incorrect equation of the meeting of Gal. 2 with that of the public council of Acts 15. However, a little later, Winn's arrogance becomes so bold that he actually accuses qualified translators of possibly having "inadequate faith" which caused them to corrupt their work, and also has the nerve to suggest that inadequate faith and insecurity lies behind others disagreeing with him.

Much space is devoted to describing tests in Deut. 18, with the promise indicated that later, Paul shall be tested on these grounds. Shortly thereafter we get the first indication I have seen of how Winn regards the rules of the OT covenant:

That is not to say that we should ignore Yahweh’s instructions. If you want to be included in the Covenant, if you want to be adopted into Yahweh’s family, and if you want to enter heaven, if you are not currently circumcised, get circumcised. As we shall see, with Yahweh, male circumcision is a life and death issue, one in which He is unwilling to compromise.

Needless to say, such outlandish legalism is unsupportable. There is no sign that the Jerusalem apostles demanded circumcision of Gentile converts to the new faith; Acts 15 would have been the place for such a demand, and it is not there.(We will see how Winn explains that problem, later.) Nor does it pass any other sort of exegetical or contextual test: Baptism is the new entry ritual, and while Winn says we need to do that as well, it never occurs to him that a covenant with two entry rituals makes no sense whatsoever. Thus as well, Winn merely fearmongers when he states that Paul implies that God "changed His position" on circumcision: If circumcision was an entry ritual for the former covenant, and not ALL covenants with God, then there was obviously no change to speak of. (Thankfully, Winn's legalism is not so extreme that he considers these saving acts per se, but rather as expressions of the saved heart. He also later, in Chapter 4, contradicts himself by assuring his reader that circumcision is optional!)

Winn also has yet to explain why he is not in trouble for failing to perform animal sacrifices. (Perversely, Winn promises to show that, contrary to Paul, Titus was "strongly encouraged to be circumcised at this meeting" in Galatians 2.) We'll see if this changes any time soon.

Further complaints by Winn are based on an unwarranted equation in Paul's words between Peter and the other apostles and those whom Paul speaks of as having anonymously slipped in to spy on their freedom. The actual equation, as noted in our article on Peter vs Paul, is with unnamed local (Galatian) Judaizers who would be of the same party as those in Acts 15 who insisted on circumcision, and who I suspect would later evolve into the Ebionites of the middle second century.

As noted above, Paul's opponents here were Galatian Judaizers. Winn only briefly interacts with this view:

...they would also insist that the "false brothers" who were advocating on behalf of the Torah, were "Judaizers," because Christians don’t know that Judaism is predicated upon Rabbinic Law, as opposed to Mosaic Law. And that means Christian theologians would be wrong on every account, that is, except their premise.

How this is anything but a non sequitur is hard to imagine. Scholars are well aware that Mosaic Law is the basis; what is meant here, apparently, is Winn's idiosyncratic reading of Mosaic Law.

Yet another creative misreading is found here:

Since this verse was devastating to King James’ claim to divine authority, which was the entire purpose behind the publication of the King James Bible, the passage was edited to say that "God accepteth no man’s person." I kid you not. KJV: "But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me:" Last time I checked, the purpose of salvation was so that God could "accepteth man’s person."

Here Winn has improperly used archaic KJV English to import a modern definition of "person" as simply meaning people, as in human beings. But the word used means essentially, “at face value”. Winn also misinterprets Paul's note that God does not show favoritism. As we have said of this:

"Respect of persons" has nothing to do with covenantal agreements, or even judgment based on merit, but with judgments based on our own suppositions and deductions. (The Hebrew in Deut. 10:17 for "persons" likewise means "countenance" or "face".) In other words, it means God does not take people at "face value" but searches them out. There is no relevance to the matter of the choice of Jews for service; they were chosen because their forefathers, and they, were obedient.

Winn wrongly reads "favoritism" the same way as atheist critics do, and thus errs.

A serious contextual error emerges when Winn claims that in dividing mission fields with Peter (Gentiles and Jews), it was Paul "taking a 99.99% share for himself". Winn is apparently unaware that Diaspora Jews comprised a fair portion of the Roman Empire; beyond that, nowhere does Paul exclude anyone from their own mission to the Gentiles, and he himself ministered to Jews. Winn is tendentiously reading a statement of priority as one of exclusivity; moreover, it does not occur to him that while this may be a general division for evangelism, it doesn’t set any bounds on discipleship and later interaction. It is also hard to see how this amounts to "power grab" as Winn claims, since no power was up for grabs. If anything, by Winn's calculation, Paul took for himself 99.99% of the chance to be persecuted, ostracized, and executed for spearheading a movement Rome and Romans would have considered deviant.

By similar imaginations, Winn supposes that Paul's declaration that Peter had been designated the apostle to Jews indicates some sort of exclusivity in contrast to Jesus' designation of Peter as "rock". Since Peter himself apparently didn't understand Paul's words to be so restrictive, it is hard to see why Winn ought to either.

Chapter 4

Once again we will distill out only that which is new; there is much repeated here (eg, what is claimed about dokei, and about charis [see part 1 of this series]). Arguments assuming that Gal 2 = Acts 15 are a major issue for this chapter, and so, much of this chapter is rendered void by a simple Gal 2 = Acts 11 equation.

Much is made of Paul's use of a particular word, energesas, in the masculine. Declaring that the Holy Spirit is referred to in neuter gender in Greek, Winn proposes that this is a subtle hint that Paul is being spiritually controlled by a demon. As further verification, Winn appeals to 2 Cor, 12:6-7, but as usual he is far behind the scholarship on that issue (link below).

After extended analysis requiring an Acts 15/Gal 2 equation, Winn, like del Tondo, proposes that warnings about Paul are subtly made by Jesus in places where he warns about future apostasy (Matthew 24). As with del Tondo, we have to wonder about the sort of God Winn worships who only delivers vague and subtle warnings about a person while also carelessly allowing this person's work to be widely considered canonical. Winn's deity is exceptionally coy and seems remarkably disinterested in details. The closest match Winn can offer is that Jesus warns about those who claim that the messiah is to be found in the wilderness, and he achieves his most specific match by way of his imagination only (as we noted in part 1), by which he supposes Paul to have also met Jesus in Arabia (the wilderness).

Winn's next most specific attempt at a match is a dismal second place indeed. He compares Luke 10:18, which speaks of Satan falling like lightning from heaven, with Paul's description of a light falling on him on the road to Damascus. However, the word used in Luke is an entirely different Greek word.

The third place parallel is even more dismal; noting Jesus' indication that his followers were given the power to trample "scorpions," Winn draws a distant parallel to 2 Cor. 12:6-7 (again, link below). Once again venturing into the arena of fantasy linguistics, Winn claims that the word used by Paul there also means "scorpion". It does not: Though the word for scorpion is similar (both start with the Greek "sko"), the word used by Paul means a wooden stake. Additionally, the two words come from different roots.

Beyond that, Winn sets up for himself a rather difficult dilemma: Jesus guaranteed that the disciples would be able to defeat snakes and scorpions, yet Paul emerged a clear winner in what Winn imagines to have been a contest of will and effort -- neither Peter nor James nor John were able to stop him, as he manages to admit further on. So Winn is left with an argument that makes Jesus' promise of no effect even for his own apostles.

An even greater joke is Winn's attempt to correspond Paul's warning about Satan being able to appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11) with the bright-light appearance to Paul on the road to Damascus. Of course, since John calls Jesus the Light of the World, it's just as easy to argue -- if one happens to have a John-hate complex, rather than a Paul-hate one -- that it is John rather than Paul who was deceived. At the heart of Winn's argument lies nothing more than a begged question.

An egregious nitpick concerns 2 Cor. 11:15: Therefore [it is] no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. Winn says, "judging someone’s motivation, their intent, is pure speculation. So Paul would have us move from facts and reason, to opinions. That doesn’t sound godly to me." Since Paul's rather clear implication is that God will be the one judging motivations and intent, there's no "speculation" to be had. At the same time, intent and motivations are hardly always as inscrutable as Winn would hope they would be: In this we perhaps see more revealed about Winn -- and his questionable (verging on criminal) past, rather than about Paul.

Winn also forgets Jesus' own words when he says, Further, Paul’s evaluation is also predicated upon a person’s "deeds" rather than what they have to say. As such, Paul’s means to determine whether a person is a false prophet, bears no resemblance whatsoever to Yahweh’s test. Of this, we should not be surprised. Under Semitic Totality, words and deeds go together; and speech is of course a deed, so that Winn is again merely nitpicking. However, even Jesus said, "By your fruits you will know them" -- not "words". (Though of course, elsewhere words too are said to be subjects for judgment.)

In a section that follows, Paul's ironic performance in 2 Cor. escapes Winn as much as it escapes atheist critics (link below). A little education in Greco-Roman rhetoric would have prevented his careless judgment of Paul as one who "has lost complete control of himself". In any event, once again a broad swath of Winn's verbiage is rendered inert once a simple mistake is exposed.

Winn's next secret "treasure trove" comes from 2 Thessalonians 2, in which it is supposed that Paul is subtly and coyly warning the Thessalonians about himself as the "man of lawlessness", and he connects this to the alleged "chilling confession" of 1 Cor. 9:21, To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. For some reason Winn does not make note here (he does later, in another context) of the accompanying phrase where Paul says he becomes as one "under the law" for those under the law. He also fails to note that Paul's references, in that social setting, cohere with observance of custom and hospitality among one's neighbors and potential converts (see again link below). Winn later perversely and bigotedly interprets Paul as saying here that the end justifies the means -- which demonstrates again how out of touch Winn is with appropriate defining contexts.

The sum of it can be taken from Winn's comments on 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11, which are, in whole: "I’m not sure what this means, but it’s not good." Winn could have spared readers the pain by simply saying this as his view of just about everything written by Paul.

Chapter 5

Much is made of how, in his speech before the crowd, Paul speaks of making a defense for himself rather than Jesus or God. Since Paul was the one being accused in the first place, and having to answer accusations made against him -- not God or Jesus -- one wonders why Winn thinks Paul ought to have changed the subject.

From Acts, Winn designates 22:3 as containing "three of the most horrid abominations I’ve encountered in something which is purported to be 'Scripture.'" One might suppose this excess meant he had found a Bible version of Acts praising Satan as Creator and Lord, but as it turns out, this is what sets Winn off:

1. That Paul says he was "nursed and nourished"..."by a Rabbi, the very men Yahshua had said 'were born of serpents.'" This is an odd sentiment from Winn after he has spent so much time ranting about Paul has inspired anti-Semitism, but taking it seriously for a moment, it is quite clear that Jesus hardly regarded his words regarding rabbis and Pharisees as universal. There are a few spots where Jesus teaches earnestly seeking members of that group (Nicodemus is the most prominent example), and based on what we know of Gamaliel -- from Acts and from later information -- he was of a judicious nature and would have been far from being one the group that condemned Jesus. Beyond this, Winn rants that Paul is speaking of Gamaliel "as if he was filling the role of the Set-Apart Spirit" (Winn's holier-than-thou circomlouction for the Holy Spirit). However, the word used by Paul is never used to describe any action of the Sprit; it is used only twice more, in Acts 7, to refer to Moses being “raised” both by his parents and by the Pharaoh’s daughter. In any event, there is no grounds for Winn's assessment that Jesus would have "despised" Gamaliel.
2. Winn's next complaint that Paul is "praising" the oral law, which "changes, corrupts, counterfeits, and conceals Yahweh’s Torah." Unfortunately, Winn performs a basic reading error when he says:

   So why did Paul call "the law which was received from our forefathers" "precisely accurate and in complete conformity" when Yahshua said the opposite?

   He didn’t. There’s no reason to suppose that Paul is referring to the rabbinic oral law. The word Paul uses is also used of the Torah law (eg, Matt. 5:17) and this too was passed down by the “fathers” of Judaism.

3. Finally, again ironically after all his ranting about anti-Semitism, Winn declares of the Jews that "their god isn’t God. He is a false deity modeled after the men who conceived him." Of course, what bearing this has on Paul, who has as of this time broken from that tradition anyway, is hard to say.

After this, Winn mindlessly speculates that the manuscript of Acts has been changed at some point to modify something so that it is no longer damaging to Paul, and later, to obscure some points he deems critical. As elsewhere, Winn's grasp of the process of textual criticism is non-existent: Tendentious conspiracy-mongering is not part of the program. It is a wonder to behold, however, how often Winn throws out the speculation of a scribal error, or else adopts the automatic assumption that the earliest manuscript always preserves the most authentic reading. Neither of these tactics is the province of any qualified textual critic.

Perversely, Winn reads the designation of teachers in Acts 15:22 (“Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas”) as reflecting some conclusion that Paul "required supervision" and that "Yahuwdah and Silas were given the authority to speak on behalf of the Apostles and to control Paul, providing him with some much needed guidance." Not that this is found in the text at all. One wonders why, if Paul was teaching things so in opposition to the apostolic message, he was even included in the first place, rather than excommunicated and condemned. Because he was not, Winn is compelled to rewrite and add to the text, and create excuses for why this was not done. That Paul was "smarter, better educated, more ambitious, and a much more prolific writer" was true (of perhaps all but Matthew), but that would be all the more reason for the Jerusalem apostles to cut him off now. They also hardly needed to kill or imprison him, as Winn idly suggests. He says:

They could openly oppose Paul, which would create an irrecoverable divide between the Disciples and the people Paul was soliciting. Or they could try to work with him—and that would require compromise.

Really? Compromise? Winn has all this time been on about condemning Paul's own alleged gross compromises; and yet, here, Winn is forced into the inevitable corner of all Paul-haters, of explaining why this allegedly horrible person was apparently allowed to continue preaching, and why he was also not roundly and openly condemned. Why worry of some "divide"? The law which Winn so covets specifies that false teachers are to be done away with (Deut. 13), and though the apostles lacked capital power, it is clear that this implies a "divide" between those that do follow the false teacher and those who don't. Surely Winn is not so insensate as to suppose that YHWH would have endorsed "compromise" with those who disdained what Winn so creatively designates the "healing and beneficial message" of the Torah.

Inevitably as well, Winn is forced to admit that this was simply a huge political mistake -- one that the Jerusalem apostles insensibly kept on living with and making for 20 or more years, as did their own disciples and congregations. This is why Winn is compelled as well to twist and strain some secret message out of even the slightest thing, as the fact that Barnabas is named before Paul at Acts 15:25 (“our beloved Barnabas and Paul”). Of which he says:

Lastly, it is interesting that Barnabas’ name was listed first in this letter, suggesting that he was "beloved." With Paul being second, he was somewhat separated from the endearing term.

Is Winn serious here? Does he really suppose that the author of Acts was thinking that arranging names in a certain order was some covert way to indicate that Paul might have been less beloved than Barnabas? Likewise, Winn is required to even declare that the Jerusalem apostles erred in their assessment in Acts 15:28-9. This is not scholarship or exegesis; this is using the text as a buffet to support a predetermined conclusion (that had itself been reached in ignorance).

In light of all this, it is astounding to see Winn conclude that with this arrangement, "In trying to compromise with Paul, the Apostles became like Paul: Oblivious." How convenient for Winn that is indeed: This is his entire explanation for how Paul passed the test of the other apostles’ scrutiny – convenient stupidity that only he has been brilliant enough, after 2000 years, to uncover, finding what even credentialed scholars have missed.

Much follows concerning the Peter vs Paul matter; we gave a link for this issue last time, so again we can skip past a good deal. It is remarkable (to say nothing of anachronistic) to observe Winn calling upon his background as a businessman to identify the discourse between Peter and Paul in terms of a "turf war" -- reading between the lines, since the text speaks of no such thing. Using the same modern template, he accuses Paul of being insecure, and offers a host of psychological rationalizations from this perspective. As we note in our own analysis, however, this is rather a typical exchange for an agonistic society -- and has absolutely nothing to do with turf wars or personal insecurities. In that light, Winn's profession that the situation "makes me nauseous" speaks (once again) more to his own lack of education than to anything else.

A treatment follows analyzing the positive reference to Paul in 2 Peter, but the result is no surprise: Begging his own question, Winn attributes the praise either to "second- and third-century scribes operating under Marcion’s influence [who] augmented the text to serve their religious interests" -- again, ignoring every canon of textual criticism in the process -- or to Peter speaking tongue in cheek, a creative application useful for explaining away just about anything that fails to favor one's predetermined conclusion. Further twisting the text to his purposes, Winn takes Peter's referral to Paul's letters as "difficult to understand" as confirming his assessment that Paul has poor writing quality, self-contradicts, misquote Scripture, etc. (as opposed to being because Paul was a scholar who wrote on a different level than most people did – which is what the Pauline scholarship would say).

We might remark on Winn's assessment that, "Had it not been for Marcion, in all likelihood, Paul’s epistles would have been rejected as apocrypha and ultimately disassociated with the Renewed Covenant witness over time. They would not have been canonized, and they would never have been considered Scripture." Needless to say, this reflects no known scholarly or academic view on the formation of the canon, which sees Marcion's effect on the canon as minimal and derivative. (Link below.)

Creative history is engaged to force-fit Paul into Jesus' prophecy about Peter having his hands stretched out and being led where he did not want to go. (John 21:17-20) To make this fit, Winn ignores the historic fact of Peter's death by crucifixion and instead applies the prophecy to his imagined "turf war" between Peter and Paul in which (he supposes) Paul chased Peter into obscurity; and further force-fits the portion speaking of Peter being led where he did not want to go, into being a prophecy of readers twisting 2 Peter 3:15 into an endorsement of Paul ("Peter had been taken to a place he did not intend to go.")

Like del Tondo, Winn also manages to detect Paul in Genesis 49:27, a prophecy of the tribe of Benjamin, of which we said:

DDT's next argument supposes that Paul's existence was prophesied in the Gen. 49 prediction by Jacob that the tribe of Benjamin was a "ravening wolf" (49:27). DDT's exegesis is quite creative at this point; the prediction that Benjamin would "divide the spoil" is said to allude to Paul dividing the Jewish and Gentile missions [350]. Little needs to be said here; this is simply far too creative to be given credence.

Winn goes much further, however, midrashically force-fitting his own invented history into being predicted in detail by the blessing of the Benjamites. Since most of this does rely on history he invents, little comment is necessary.

Further, Winn returns to something we noted in our earlier installment: Winn makes much over Jesus being made to quote a pagan play when he says in Acts, “it is hard to kick against the goads.” As we noted, however, this was a commonplace proverb, and it contains no secret pagan messages; it is hardly unlikely that it also became a common trope among Jews as well. Here at least Winn admits that the proverb was a common one, but he immediately ignores this observation and argues as though it were the exclusive property of the pagan play The Bacchae -- and from there, creates an outlandish scenario in which Paul is actually a worshipper of Dionysus. In the process, Winn promotes his most embarrassing notion yet:

Dionysius was not only killed and then resurrected each spring; his holy week mirrors the week-long Christian observance of Easter. The annual resurrection of Dionysius on the Sunday closest to the Vernal Equinox, celebrated the promise of resurrection from the dead.

And so on, as Winn unbelievably manages to endorse a number of "pagan copycat" arguments with respect to Dionysus -- ones we have refuted long ago. (Link below.)

Winn also claims:

Especially troubling, considering [Paul’s] affinity of the Greek Charis and Roman Gratia, Dionysus was their father. They were the "love children" of his affair with Aphrodite—the goddess of love.

There are two problems with this. The first is that charis is the Greek version of gratia; Winn has created two personalities out of one – the equivalent of making Zeus and Jupiter two different persons. The second is that Winn has merely selected one of several stories of the parentage of Charis; as Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology states:

The parentage of the Charites is differently described ; the most common account makes them the daughters of Zeus either by Hera, Eurynome, Eunomia, Eurydomene, Harmonia, or Lethe. (Hesiod. Theog. 907, &c.; Apollod. 1.3.1 ; Pind. O. 14.15; Phurnut. 15; Orph. Hymn. 59. 2; Stat. Thcb. 2.286; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 982.) According to others they were the daughters of Apollo by Aegle or Euanthe (Paus. 9.35.1), or of Dionysus by Aphrodite or Coronis. The Homeric poems mention only one Charis, or an indefinite number in the plural, and from the passage in which Pasithea is mentioned, it would almost seem as if the poet would intimate that he was thinking of a great number of Charites and of a division of them into classes.

Another point of note: Winn has repeatedly claimed that Francis Bacon was in some way behind the creation of the KJV, and drawn various conclusions from this. Unfortunately for Winn, this appears to be little more than a conspiracy theory without substance; it is promoted by lunatics like Jeff Rense, and occultists like Manly P. Hall, and tends also to be connected to theories that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare. Clearly this is another example of Winn uncritically accepting falsehoods.

Returning to Paul's letter, Winn makes much over Paul's use of the Greek word harpazo in Thessalonians to describe the "rapture" of the saints. He says this word:

... speaks of being "seized and violently snatched away." Harpazo means "to attack, to gain control over, to possess, to physically harass and injure, to carry away by force, to spoil, and to secretly steal, plunder, and loot."

From this, Winn -- whose expertise in Greek, we should note again, is hardly established -- concludes that what Paul describes is an operation of a "spirit of darkness," not one of light. Unfortunately for Winn, the same word is indeed used of an operation of the Spirit of Light in Acts 8:39 (“And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip…”) and of a “light” operation in Jude 1:23 (“And others save with fear, pulling [them] out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”). and Rev. 12:5 (“And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God…”) And this is no surprise, since most of the definition Winn offers is simply spin; the word means “catch, catch away, catch up, pluck, pull, take by force” but things like “harass and injure” are unwarranted (unless by additional specifying contexts, not the word itself). In light of this, it is ironic that Winn goes in to accuse translators of not being willing to "properly translate harpazo, for fear of exposing their prophet’s inspiration." It seems rather that is merely exposes yet more fraudulence by Winn.

Returning to the matter of the word skolops (Paul’s “thorn”), more linguistic fantasy is engaged as Winn presumes to argue that other words “related to” this word include words like: … Skotia: "a dark and evil realm." Skotos: "the abode of evil and demonic spirits." And skolios: "to be unscrupulous and morally corrupt, to be perverse and deceitful, and to warp a path making what was once straight crooked."

This, however, is merely linguistic fantasy, according to lexical data; it is like thinking that “molar” is related to “molestation” and using this as a way to insult dental professionals and insinuate that they sexually abuse their patients.

Winn later accuses Paul of being sexist, based in 1 Cor. 11;3, and compares him to Muhammed and the Muslim practice of veiling women. In this regard Winn is badly misinformed on a certain point that ruins his entire argument: Men, too, wore veils during prayer in this social setting. (Link below.) Thus Winn's claim that, "Just like Muhammad, [Paul] wanted women veiled and out of sight" is laughably anachronistic (especially since the "veil" was nowhere near as concealing as the Muslim veil). Even worse, Winn joins atheists in pulling out Ephesians 5 to accuse Paul of sexism (for this, see analysis by Miller in link below). It is surprising that Winn does not also pull other alleged "anti-woman" passages into the mix, but perhaps that lies ahead in later chapters! We will just have to see.

Paul’s thorn

Paul’s irony

On 1 Cor. 9: Is Paul being a chameleon and a charlatan? No more so than the teacher who learns the dialect of a student in order to be more effective teachers to them. Is it being a "chameleon" and being "opportunistic" to absorb local customs and behaviors for the sake of viable communication? Not at all. This was especially so in the ancient world. As Malina and Neyrey note in Portraits of Paul, it was natural and expected for persons to submit themselves to and for the good of the group by meeting their expectations for behavior [190]. The "chameleon" insult is a product of anachronism by a Western mindset and in no way reflects any idea that Paul would lie or make up stories.

The Canon (see section on Marcion)

On Dionysus

Veils

Paul and women

We had noted in a past entry that Winn, while recognizing correctly that "faith" is not merely belief, but more like trust (actually, loyalty), he nevertheless fails to grant this proper meaning when Paul uses the word, and insists that Paul uses it to mean "belief". Indeed, he has the nerve to go as far as saying Paul changed the lexicon and caused pistis to evolve from "trust" to "belief," from "reliance" to "faith." Since this definition did not appear in the first century anyway, and would not appear for centuries, this is nonsensical to start; but even worse is Winn's justification for this misreading:

I say this because Paul never once provides the kind of evidence which would be required for someone to know Yahweh or understand His plan of salvation well enough to trust God or rely upon the Way.

Of course, Paul would have provided such evidence long before he wrote his letters; the message of the Resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 15) would have been preached many years before as the basis for faith. So pointing out that Paul "never provides evidence" is a misdirected objection, and this even more so in Paul's high-context social setting, where background knowledge by his readers would be assumed anyway.

Thus Winn's only reason for tendentiously transforming Pauline pistis is a failure, and his efforts to critique Paul thereafter on this basis also fail. It speaks for itself that he admits, the things Paul wrote which would otherwise be accurate if "faith" is properly defined. In short, he admits he has to forcibly re-interpret "faith" in a way entirely foreign to its linguistic and social contexts in order to get Paul to say things which he can condemn.

There follows some directionless meandering about Paul's understanding of the Law and of Talmudic regulations, made directionless by the fact that the critique of Paul therein assumes that Paul meant by "faith" what Winn wants him to have meant. Once this equation fails, so likewise do all of Winn's criticisms, such as that "Paul is committed to negating the Torah’s purpose." Likewise tendentious is Winn's supposition that Paul's use of certain language about Jesus as Messiah was either "added by scribes one or more generations after Paul penned his epistles, or that he deployed them knowing that his animosity for the Torah would conceal their actual meaning." Once again the facts do not aid Winn's case, so he simply invents any possible explanation to aid it.

After some more pointless meandering about translations, Paul's alleged deceptions, and more arguments based on the forced dichotomy Winn puts between Paul's message of faith and the true one, there is also more based on an inadequate understanding of Paul's dealings with Peter and the Galatian Judaizers (as well as Winn's unjustified understanding of the former covenant being continued in the new one). We do not find anything new until Winn states:

The best possible spin we could put on this is to suppose that the point Paul was trying to make was that if it were possible for a single, hypothetical man, woman, or child to do everything the "Torah" says, they wouldn’t need a savior. So this might be inferring that if one person could use "the Torah" to save themselves, everyone could, and thus there would not have been a legitimate reason for Yahshua to have endured the agony of Passover and Unleavened Bread.

Such a message is quite clear, of course, in Romans, and is apparent in Galatians 2:16. But Winn arbitrarily raises the bar to eke out a condemnation:

... if Paul had wanted to say that we need a savior because we aren’t perfect, he could easily have phrased this in a way that everyone could understand. But he didn’t.

So it seems the real problem is not Paul, but that Winn doesn't understand. Yet one wonders why it is Winn's comprehension abilities that are the measure as opposed to what Paul actually did say.

Winn now starts in on Galatians 3, and it takes some time (and some extended ranting) to get to anything of substance. Like some atheists have done, he vastly overreads Galatians 3:1 (“before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?”) to suppose Paul is saying that such things literally did happen right in front of Paul and the Galatians. Winn also arbitrarily faults Paul for not citing any prophecies Jesus fulfilled, but such a presentation would have been made years before during missionary preaching, so that the Galatians would not in the least be ignorant of such things. In a high context setting, none of this warranted or required repeating in Paul's writings.

Galatians 3:2 is then twisted (“Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”) to mean that Paul has openly admitted that his preaching differed materially from Yahweh’s Word, and has inferred that his message was more effective. Of course, this only works based on Winn's tendentious understanding of the new covenant as a "continued" version of the old one. Winn also goes off on a tangent with respect to the role of the Spirit in creation, and somehow wrenches from this the conclusion that the Spirit can be acquired by "observing the Torah," although none of what he had said prior -- about the role of the Spirit in the creation of the universe -- in any way had anything to do with this. An extended quote of John 3, apparently offered to the same effect, does no more to prove the point.

Not satisfied with the level of non sequiturs he has achieved, Winn deems it "obvious that Paul is associating the Torah with the flesh, and disassociating both from the Spirit in unbridled Gnostic fashion." This has never been apparent to any serious exegete or scholar, but Winn, apparently, deems himself more "informed and rational" than all of these -- so much so that he need not even explain how one might reach the same conclusion. Perhaps he does not consider it necessary, for he explains later that the Spirit "is the one who interprets Scripture for us." Perhaps that indeed explains Winn's idiosyncratic interpretations, as well as his breezy dismissal of the work of qualified translators.

Of some peculiarity is Winn's claim, "...Paul is trying to establish a distinction between the promises made to Abraham and the Covenant memorialized in the Torah, as if they were separate things. And then he will use this illusion to demean the Torah by suggesting that Abraham didn’t need it to be right with God. But we do, and that is one of many crucial issues Paul has missed." Winn has, as we have noted, missed Paul's point to begin with, but one wonders how and whether Winn here proposes that Abraham didn't need the Torah; and whatever he would suggest, how Abraham managed to be right with God without a law code that would not exist for hundreds of years.

It is also of somewhat ironic interest that in continuing to falsely accuse Paul of having a modern understanding of "faith," Winn replies that e.g., Abraham had plenty of evidence on which to base his loyalty, such as having a child at 90. This is exactly our own point in the article we have on the meaning of pistis (faith); and Winn also provides examples from Hebrews much the same as our own. It is even more amazing that after consulting lexicons and dictionaries that make clear how pistis was used in first century Greek, it never occurs to Winn that his reading of it as "belief" in Paul is merely tendentious nonsense. No lexicon or Greek authority knows of such a meaning for the word at the time. Winn's plea that (again) he knows Paul meant "belief" because Paul doesn't provide evidence is monumentally absurd -- not only because it is years past the point where Paul would have provided evidence for Christianity to prospective converts, but also because such a demand as Winn has is semantically unreasonable. If I say in an offhand manner, while discussing something else, "There is evidence for the truth of Christianity," does that turn the word "evidence" into something that means non-evidence? Of course not.

Winn forces yet another artificial dichotomy in saying: On Mount Mowriyah, Abraham demonstrated that he was willing to trust Yahweh, not that he, himself, was trustworthy. So once again, Paul has twisted the Torah to serve his agenda. He has artificially elevated the status of a man instead of acknowledging the status of God. In reality, Winn here has forced an artificial distinction between demonstration of willingness to trust and being shown trustworthy. The two go together in a reciprocal relationship; Winn creates the dichotomy merely to extract another alleged deception from Paul. At the same time, Winn implies that this somehow equates with Paul failing to acknowledge that God is trustworthy, which is yet another artificiality.

Chapter 7

We get now to Gal. 3;10, which Winn describes as "suicidal logically and spiritually." As yet though we are still waiting for Winn to explain why and how he is able to follow the Torah so well without a Temple to sacrifice in, and whether he plans to stop wearing polyester, or see a priest if he gets leprosy. The snafu that is the "Dr. Laura letter" has no effect on intelligent Christianity, but it makes a train wreck of Winn's version of that faith. Since, indeed, no one observes the Torah faithfully -- Winn included -- Paul's point about it resulting in a curse for those who go back to it is quite right and proper. Winn's failure is encapsulated in his supposition that Paul is describing the Torah in and of itself as a curse rather than its implicit and eventual effect on all who try (and fail) to keep it. In this Winn even admits Paul is right, for he says, "It’s true: we cannot work for our salvation." He also qualifies carefully later by saying that we do not have to do "everything God recommends." And yet he denies that Paul is saying this very thing, and instead insists that Paul was indeed making that one to one equation, Torah = curse. In turn, this insistence is based on Winn's own irrational expectations for how he thinks Paul ought to have worded the matter; never mind that generations of scholars and experts on Greek have gotten this very message out of Paul's words, and not Winn's message.

Making it all the more clear that he must muddle the Torah to work his exegetical magic, Winn states: "No one has ever been saved because they never ate pork, but if you roll around in the mud with pigs, you are going to die." While this is a truism, it is an impossible rendition of the intentions expressed by the dietary laws. Winn has arbitrarily turned the Torah into a homily full of symbols as a way of explaining away his inability to actually follow it. How ironic (again) that Winn thereafter has the nerve to accuse Paul of misquoting and misusing the OT!

For amusement it is worth noting one place where Winn's absurd legalism does lead him into insanity:

God told His people not to follow the laws, customs, and traditions of the Egyptians and Cana’anites. That means we are to avoid doing things which were done in Babylon, Greece, and Rome whose civilizations either inspired or copied them. And that means we should not celebrate New Year’s Day, Saint Valentine’s Day, Lent, Easter, Halloween, or Christmas, nor gather in churches on Sundays.

Of course, by that reckoning, we need to jettison nearly all our laws, since many derive in some measure from precedents found in sources like the Code of Hammurabi and the Roman Ten Tables. In addition, Winn has turned God into a hypocrite inasmuch as the Torah also contains of some the same laws, which can be found in pagan law codes. That is indeed absurd, but it is the kind of absurdity Winn's abject legalism will lead one into.

Digging out, again, anything new or of interest, we find Winn picking up the banner of atheists when he says:

But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Sha’uwl’s specificity here with regard to zera’ being "seed" singular, not plural, suggests that I was right when I said that it was unlikely that he accidentally quoted the four Scriptural passages which served to convince his readers that his message was supported by God. How is it that this man could have missed the fact that the Messianic prophecy related to Passover was singular, not plural, and yet isolate one aspect of zera?

Yet in spite of this, Winn ends up admitting that his argument is "all much ado about nothing" in that he beleives that the word "seed" "implies the plural even in the singular form," and adds that God intended both to be understood. So why pillory Paul for this alleged error? (For more on this, see link below.)

Further on, Galatians 3:17 is noted:

And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

And of this it is said:

Rather than affirm that the Covenant established with Abraham was validated and memorialized in the Torah 430 years later, [Paul] is saying that the Torah "did not revoke or invalidate" it. In that way, rather than the Torah being essential to the Covenant, it is irrelevant to it. His strategy was ingenious and insidious.

Better to say, Winn's reading of Paul is unwarranted and paranoid: but above all, a non sequitur of Paul's actual logic, which does not declare the Torah "irrelevant" in any sense, but rather is making the point that faith (loyalty) lies at the heart of both. There is no sensible way one may derive from this any idea that the Torah is "irrelevant." One can derive another conclusion Winn reaches, that the Torah is "extraneous to the promise." But that is patently obvious given a factor Winn has negligently bypassed: Much in the Torah is culture-bound to the Ancient Near East. Torah cannot be closely tied in with the promise to Abraham precisely because so much of it had a limited shelf life; even in Jesus' time, some portions of it no longer had any bearing on Jewish life.

Not that it matters, for Winn's argument is based on his continued insistence on viewing these varied covenants as the same ones continued, rather than new ones each time -- a view which, we have noted earlier, is oblivious to the nature of covenant law. One cannot speak of the promise to Abraham "becoming the Torah," as Winn claims.

It is worth highlighting this statement which displays Winn's arrogance in declaring his work superior to that of serious scholars:

Gerald Borchert, of the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Douglas Moo of Wheaton College, and Thomas Schreiner of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, working under the auspices of Mark Taylor, the "Chief Stylist," Daniel Taylor, the "Senior Stylist," and Philip Comfort the "N.T. Coordinating Editor," collectively known as "Team Tyndale" with regard to Galatians, coordinated this stylish theological twist whereby the promised inheritance was nullified by trying to keep the law. Then for good measure, they tossed in an extra "grace," just to be sure they had paid proper homage to Paul’s goddess.

Later he also calls this team "deceivers" for not coming up with his readings. The arrogance is a wonder to behold, especially as we still have yet to be told what credentials and experience Winn has translating Greek.

Little new arises thereafter; to make the Torah absolutely eternally applicable to all people, Winn commits the classic error warned of by Barr with respect to the word 'olam in the Old Testament (see link below).

Evincing further tendentiousness, Winn interprets Galatians, which refers to humans as held in custodial care by the law, as saying it means we were imprisoned by the law. To this end he tendentiously describes the paidagogos as an "enslaved leader of boys, guardian, custodian, trainer, and supervisor of children who strikes and smites them, an enslaved disciplinarian". A parent could be described in equally tendentious terms by someone with an axe to grind; from these and other tendentious descriptions, Winn scratches out from Paul an "especially demeaning" description of the Torah. That this same Torah did happen to prescribe harsh penalties for certain offenses -- including death -- which were far harsher than anything any paidagogos acted out -- escapes Winn's attention.

Winn denies any positive associations with the paidagogos, saying they were "not associated with schools, or learning..." and also condemns translations which use such words as guardian and schoolmaster. A far more informed excursus in Witherington’s Galatians commentary (262-7) specifically refutes Winn’s misinformed assertion, noting the many positive roles of the paidagogos (and also noting, as we do, that there were good as well as bad ones!), particularly that of serving as a moral guide for the child. In short, there are plenty of positive associations with the paidogogos, and Winn simply ignores or is unaware of these.

It is worth noting a brief error, one of the sort Winn tends to blow out of proportion: He note more than once places where Paul does not insert a definite article in Greek before the word "Christ," and from this conclude that Paul "meant Christo to represent a name, not a title". This is false since proper names in Greek do frequently have a definite article placed before than (though not always). It is simply one of the artifices of that language and means nothing so significant as Winn implies.

Absurdly, Winn also takes Paul's "neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female" with pathological literalism, pedantically pointing out that e.g., "there continue to be male and female individuals..." I last saw this level of literalism from Acharya S, and it speaks for itself that Winn descends to this level.

To those who think he is going overboard with this criticism, Winn replies, rather incoherently:

...your point would be valid if Paul were a politician, and if Galatians was part of an election campaign rather than a treatise on salvation.

It is hard to see why this is an excuse for Winn's overstated literalism.

Of Gal. 3:29, "And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise, ", Winn is even more outlandish:

As we have already discovered, kleronomos, translated "heirs," is a compound of kleros and nomos, meaning both "law, and manmade tradition." A kleros was "a lot or stone with a person’s name inscribed on it, which along with other names on other stones, was tossed into a jar, shaken, and then selected purely by chance as a result of which stone fell to the ground first." So, once again, this isn’t the most appropriate word to describe our adoption into Yahweh’s family. We are not selected by random chance, and the casting of lots is akin to divination, something Yahweh says is an abomination.

Sadly, this too is merely fantasy. Although Winn is correct about one definition of kleros, it is also anything obtained by assigned apportioning, and does not mean “random choice” – especially since God, in Jewish thought, is the one who decides where the “lot” ends up (as was the case in the OT). I might add that the same word is used by James 2:5 and Hebrews 6:17 to describe Christians.

In an amusing testimony to his arrogance, Winn offers a chart in which he describes Gal. 1-3 as 61% "inaccurate," 8% "irrelevant," 8% "half-truth," and zero percent accurate. My own rough assessment in that of Winn's work, 92% is irrelevant (include that which is repeated over and over), 80% inaccurate, and 100% unscholarly.

Chapter 8

Now we get to Galatians 4, and Winn is again tendentiously describing roles Paul uses as illustrations for the Torah: epitropos and oikonomos. Unlike last time, though, Winn doesn't bother to explain why these references are inappropriate, other than that he is personally insulted by them. He also notes Paul's use of stoicheion (elements) in 4:3 (“ Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world”) as a reference to the Torah, and from this offers an extended rant in which, among other things, he claims Paul wants his readers to see the Torah as demonic, rudimentary, etc. based on the idea that Paul uses the same word in Colossians to refer to worldly things. It does not occur to Winn that “elements” is simply a word of meaning anything basic – such as the letters of the alphabet, or the rudiments of mathematics, which means we should now suppose Winn will condemn Sesame Street as relating demonic information.

We will ignore and extended rant in which Winn tendentiously reads into Jesus' farewell address in Luke all sorts of warnings about Paul. As is usual with the anti-Paul crowd, one must wonder why God would be so coy and allusive such that it took 2000 years for this code to be cracked and it occurred to no one in charge -- like Peter or James --- to stop Paul. Winn's explanations of convenient stupidity by these leaders (discussed last time) fail to serve on this account.

Winn makes much as well of Paul not naming Mary or Sarah in Gal. 4:4. He comes up with a cockeyed thesis that it was some conspiracy by Paul to demean the Torah, but the reality is much simpler: To name a woman in a text, apart from much more compelling reasons to do so, was to dishonor her. Hagar, as a servant, could be safely named under this rubric.

A momentary pause for gross anachronism: Not only does Winn adhere to the disproven equation of "abba" (Gal. 4:6) with "Daddy"; he also manages to give Paul a psychological analysis:

In Paul’s native Aramaic, this is the delightful expression spoken by sons and daughters as they gazed up into their father’s eyes. Paul, himself, however, would not know this pleasure, as he was sent off to Rabbinical school as a young boy. And [Paul] never married, and thus never experienced the joy of being a parent. All of this I think contributed to his less-than-ideal temperament.

Actually, there is no evidence of when exactly Paul was sent to school; and if not marrying and having children affected his temperament, then one must wonder whether Winn would say the same of St. Franics, John the Baptist, Jeremiah, or even Jesus.

Adding to the error of using abba so, Winn piles on this paranoid absurdity:

...Yahweh’s chosen language is Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Spirit would never actually say "abba," but instead "‘ab." And this error would not have been worth mentioning had Paul not switched languages to that of the Babylonians and Assyrians here make his point. By doing so, he has belittled the language of the Torah, and thus its voice. And that was his intent.

It seems rather odd, then, that Jesus himself spoke Aramaic, and that the New Testament is in Greek. Indeed, Aramaic was the common language of Jews of first century Palestine. So were they belittling God too?

Thereafter, there is little to nothing new; repetitive and unoriginal rhetoric follows for "...Dionysus, the god of grapes and wine, died each winter and was said to be resurrected each spring." I found this to be false in my research on this subject (link below). Paul's words from Galatians 4:11 on are spun out to create a psychology session in which Paul is described as a "tormented individual," inappropriate and self-centered," "sufficiently impressed with [himself]," and so on. Had Winn the least bit of familiarity with serious scholarship, he would have recognized this rather as a perfectly proper rhetorical technique, one in which Paul, as a proper member of a collectivist society, pointed to himself, a recognized leader, as an example to follow. It verges on bigotry for Winn to instead tendentiously reinterpret Paul's intentions in this completely anachronistic way.

In close for this round, there is one piece of nuttiness that is so outlandish that I wish Winn had explained it, but he does not:

...Paul’s sexual orientation is irrelevant, with one caveat. According to Daniel’s prophecy, Satan’s Messiah will be a homosexual.

That's one that scholars of the Old Testament and of eschatology have been missing for a very long time!

Links:

We shall now close with the final four chapters of Winn's tendentious reworking of Pauline theology, which, as before, consists of over a hundred pages that contain substance amounting to less than one page.

Chapter 9 promises to reveal, after much drama, "the most vulgar words ever spoken in the name of God." First though, Winn must enter into inarticulate nitpicking with such comments as this by him on Gal 4:21:

If Paul were writing for God, he would not have said "speak to me." Nor would he have begun by saying: "the Law cannot hear." He would have written "Listen to Yahweh." More importantly, he would have told his audience that they can hear God’s voice by reading the Torah. The purpose of Yahweh’s Word isn’t to "hear us," but instead, the Torah exists so that we can listen to God. Paul has this all wrong.

Why is this the case, other than that Winn says so? Winn fails to enlighten us. Rather, this is simply another example of how Winn creates his own artificial idea of what constitutes holiness, and then rails against Paul for not meeting his idea. There is, in fact, not a thing wrong with "speak to me," (or "tell me," as alternatively rendered), especially when the point is that Paul is challenging with a question. Saying, "listen to Yahweh", therefore really doesn't aid in such a purpose.

On "the Law cannot hear," this is merely Winn's tendentious reworking of what real scholars, like Witherington, render as "do you not hear the Law?" How ironic that Winn here accuses Paul of "deplorable writing quality," and calls Paul "childish" for this remark, when it is his own incompetence as a translator that is the problem. Even more outlandishly, a non-expert in these matters yet again accuses the professional translators of trying to cover up the true translation to make Paul look good.

Egregious nitpicking continues as Winn remarks on Gal. 4:22:

In actuality it is not "written that Abraham had two sons," because from Yahweh’s perspective Abraham only had one son. That is why God asked Abraham in Genesis 22:2 to "take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitschaq, and go to the land of Mowriyah..."

It is hard to believe Winn is serious here. Despite all of this, is he denying that Ishmael was Abraham's biological son? What about the fact that even the OT calls Ishmael his son (Gen. 16:11, 15; 17:23, 25, 26; 25:9 -- named with Isaac as his "sons"! -- 25:12)? Topping absurdity on absurdity, Winn further declares that Paul should only have mentioned Ishmael if he wanted to illustrate that "Ishmael was expressly excluded from the Covenant and demonstrably banished from the Promised Land." Actually, this is the message, as intelligent and informed readers would understand by Hagar's position in the analogy, but then again, since Winn holds to the absurd notion of the new covenant as a continuation of the old, this would not occur to him. Indeed, his assumption on this point becomes a basis for further misplaced criticism.

So, after some time…we finally get to where Winn presents the alleged “Most Vulgar Words,” which he says caused him paralysis over his computer keyboard. But spare the drum roll: it is only Gal 4:24, where Paul explicitly says that there are two covenants, the former of which, Paul says, involves persons now in bondage because they have rejected the new one. Actually then, there is really nothing new here for us to address even though Winn does turn on the waterworks for a few paragraphs, and even manages to threaten those who accept Paul's words with eternal annihilation. In the end, it is merely old news that we have covered in earlier installments. The one "new" point we might note is that Winn somehow thinks it relevant that the word "covenant" is never rendered in the plural -- a triviality that proves absolutely nothing, in as much as all it tells us is that there was no prior context within which a plural was useful.

Winn hereafter engages an extended excursus on Sinai geography, which is useless enough that it need not detain us here. He then merely repeats himself expressing the erroneous idea that the covenant is a singular, and repeating at times arguments that we have already dealt with in earlier installments (such as the use of 'olam, and Matt. 5:17-19).

There is a striking irony in Winn's attempt to use Ps. 19 to argue against Paul. Paul had argued that no one is justified by the Law, not because of any fault in the Law, but because no one, practically speaking, meets its perfect standards. Winn petulantly replies by noting Ps. 19, which he reads as saying that such justification is possible. This is wrongheaded in two ways; namely, that it is absurd to use a psalm -- an item of poetry, subject to such literary practices as exhortation like hyperbole -- to correct a literal realism; and second, which escapes Winn dramatically, is that David -- the author of this Psalm -- was living proof of just how impossible it was to be justified by the Law.

Winn also offers yet another skein of assumptions based on word structure as he lays into Paul for using the Greek word systoicheo. He lists several words with allegedly unpleasant connotations, but the time he wasted making this list should have been spent looking more closely at the actual word. The first part, the sy- prefix, is connected to a common word meaning “in union with” which is used as many times in the NT as you would expect such a word to be used (over 100 times). That means even Jesus is in on the bad influence because he used part of this naughty word. The second part, stoicheo, comes from a word that simply means to walk in an orderly line.

The words Winn digs up all start with the sy- prefix, and as you may expect, one may be “in union with” either good or bad things. Winn chooses only words with a “bad” connotation, ignoring or twisting with spin those with good connotations (e.g., systatikos, commendation, he twists to mean “introduce a new concept”; syssōmos, “belonging to the same body,” he ignores; systratiōtēs “fellow worker/laborer,” he also ignores; systrepho, which means to twist together in a bundle, he misreports as “to twist something so as to alter its intended meaning or purpose").

After this, little can be extracted that is new. Winn strains Paul's comments about Sarah overboard to the point that he thinks Paul treats Sarah after the manner of a Virgin Mary and is trying to see her as the fulfillment of OT passages about the Holy Spirit. In this Winn simply vastly over literalizes obvious (and clearly labeled) allegory. Further on, the following bit of insanity is worthy of note:

To affirm the Christian affinity for "the Lord," all you have to do is open your favorite "Bible." No matter the translation, you will find Yahuweh’s name replaced by Satan’s (a.k.a. Ba’al’s) title, "the Lord," 7,000 times.)

Really? So Satan deserves the titular crown of "Lord" but God does not? It escapes Winn that "lord" is a functional title, of one who exercises lordship. If I were Winn, I might suggest that the person writing this is a tool of Satan who is denying that God has mastery and lordship over creation, which is actually held by Satan. But I suspect the irony would bypass such a person.

Chapter 9 continues in this vein for some time, with nothing new emerging from it as Winn merely repeats the same errors multiple ways, and closes with Winn yet again having the audacity to condemn a series of sources -- some of them scholarly -- as though it were he who were the expert. He goes as far as to even refer to some of them as "anti-Semities" because they do not buy into his ridiculous ideas of a single covenant. Not surprisingly, Tekton material isn't one of the sources he managed to find.

Chapter 10

Winn now begins his root canal on his version of Galatians 5, and what is new to find is scarce. Here is what is left that is not merely variations on the same prior themes.

We have previously noted that Winn cannot even be consistent on whether a person must be circumcised to be saved. Ch. 10 weighs on the "must be" side of his tongue, as he offers to "ponder Yahweh’s express position on Gentile circumcision." What Winn finds is Ezekiel 44:5-9, which condemns Israel for allowing uncircumcised persons into the Temple, but which has absolutely nothing to say about it being required for the salvation of Gentiles on an all-time basis, save under Winn's use of tortuous exegetical disco which turns two covenants into one -- as well as by illicitly expanding the "Temple" to mean God's covenant community for all time.

Winn also goes ballistic over Paul's expression stating that he wishes those troubling the Galatians would emasculate themselves, in part because he takes it with utter literalism, but also because his understanding of ancient rhetoric is negligible. Moreover, he apparently missed passages in the Old Testament like Malachi 2:3 which speak of dung being wiped on people’s faces.

Somehow, Winn gets the notion that, "Paul simply wants Christians to abstain from sex." However, he reaches this conclusion mainly by having the sort of prudish mindset in interpreting Paul that he accuses Paul of having.

Getting fairly nitpicky, Winn has a few comments about Paul's list of vices to avoid:

Fourth, Paul’s Galatian epistle, second only to the Qur’an, is among the most "eris – quarrelsome and divisive" texts ever written. So if "arguing" is wrong, so is Paul. Similarly, dichostasia, translated "discord," but meaning "division and dissension," describes Paul’s letter—a document which disagrees with everyone including the Galatians, the Disciple Peter, and God.

Ironically, Winn's error is much the same as that of Richard Carrier, who reads it as "debate"! As we replied:

Fifth, zelos is most often used in a positive sense. It defines the "fervor of spirit and attitude" Yahshua desired, but found lacking in the Laodicean Assembly—the very people who lacked the Spirit. Zelos speaks of "pursuing a mission with great passion and fervor and to warmly embracing a loved one." So, since Yahshua considers zelos to be a good thing, methinks Paul was adlibbing here.

No, Winn is merely a poor scholar. He admits that there is a negative sense of zelos, and so there is, one that means quick temper of anger (Acts 5:17, 13:45; Heb. 10:27, Josephus Ant. 15.82, per Witherington, 400). Winn is merely arbitrarily choosing the positive connotation out of hatred for Paul -- never mind that the context is a list of vices!

This absurdity deserves a comment:

..the primary meaning of eritheia, translated "selfish ambitions," is "electioneering—the process of running for an elective political office." So by using it, Paul is demonstrating his hostility to representative government and democracy.

While this was indeed the meaning of the word in its classic origins (Witherington sources that meaning in Aristotle), by Paul's time the negative connotation existed also -- and it would be rather difficult for Paul to "demonstrate hostility" to a form of government that was not extant at the time of his writing. People of this era primarily sought offices through patronage and favor, not by running for office seeking the popular vote.

And seventh, hairesis literally means "choice." It defines the act of "choosing" and is thus foundational to "freewill." Based upon haireomai, it means "to select for oneself, to prefer, to choose, to vote, and to elect." From Yahweh’s perspective, freewill is unassailable.

Winn's error is the same as Dan Brown's in The DaVinci Code; namely, failing to recognize the negative connotation of this word that was regularly used as well.

Komos, translated "public partying," is a problem for another reason. It actually describes "a festive assembly featuring feasting and merrymaking," and is thus synonymous with the Hebrew word chag, describing the nature of Yahweh’s Called-Out Assemblies: "Festival Feasts." Paul may be a kill joy, but God likes to party.

In Paul’s defense, komos was associated with the festival honoring Bacchus, the counterfeit Messiah whose annual winter celebration was renamed "Christmas." But, as with most of what Paul has to say, his lack of specificity is his curse.

In reality, this is yet another case of Winn being tendentious.

Chapter 11

Winn now moves to Galatians 6, and there is again little new. Near the start, paranoia reigns supreme:

The problems begin with "prolambano – may have previously detected or caught." This is very similar to the Qur’an asking Muslim children to spy on their parents and turn them in to the authorities if they suspect them of rejecting any of Muhammad’s orders or teachings. It was how most everyone in Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany were controlled. It was the spirit behind the Salem Witch Trials in America. And it is how professors, politicians, priests, preachers, and media spokespeople are compelled to walk a conforming path today. It is the operating mechanism behind Political Correctness.

It is also the normal way in which behavior was controlled in a collectivist society like the NT world -- though without the military and government enforcement of a Muhammad, Hitler, or Stalin. All of it was person to person. Here again, Winn's ignorance of the contexts causes him to create a tendentious reading. So likewise here, on Gal. 6:4-5:

But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden.

The last two verses are at cross purposes with each other. One says that if someone presumes that they are important, then they are deceiving themselves. But then he says that we should examine everything we have done so that we can boast and glorify ourselves.

What fails Winn here is that in the agnostic world of the NT, there was a certain proper level of "boasting" that one was expected to do -- saying neither too much nor too little of one's self, but telling the truth. Thus, Winn is far out of line to accuse Paul of duplicity, and far out of context to follow this up with a sermonette against it.

Perhaps the biggest shock of all -- Winn actually falls for the horrifying "Galatians burdens" contradiction allegation (Gal. 6:2 vs 6:5). This is one of most misinformed charges of contradiction from the Bible, and that Winn falls for it -- the sort of thing only "fundy atheists" fall for -- speaks volumes for his lack of competence. He adds to the error by pitting Is. 53:6 against both verses:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Winn reads this to mean, "Yahweh has already removed the burdens of all those who have availed themselves of Yahweh’s gift," but it is outlandish to apply this as though it meant all literal "burdens" -- such as poverty, hunger, or personal troubles -- have been erased! Galatians has nothing to do with "forgiveness," as Winn thinks: It has to do with the communal sharing of trial and subsistence. At the same time, he is being tendentious to read “iniquity” in terms of the sort of burdens Paul refers to.

One cannot but see irony in this:

It says that "those who are taught the word of God" which is code for "Evangelical Christians," "should provide for their teachers, sharing all good things with them," which is code for "pay your pastor a generous salary and provide him with a nice house and a munificent living allowance." Not surprisingly, the authors of the NLT were money-grubbing preachers.

Given Winn's record as a businessman, the scent of hypocrisy is hard to ignore!

Nitpickery is offered regarding Paul's reference to sowing the Spirit:

And while it is a technical point, we don’t "sow the Spirit." We can sow the seeds of truth by conveying Yahweh’s Word, and we can invite the Ruwach Qodesh into our own lives and receive Her, but that is all we can do. The notion of "sowing to the Spirit" isn’t sound literally, operationally, metaphorically, allegorically, or Scripturally.

Why not, other than that Winn is looking for a complaint? Sowing as a metaphor means to invest in and cause to be furthered (grow). In this case, Paul uses Spirit as an antithesis to flesh, a broad reference to world interests. "Spirit" thus becomes, by parallel, broadly a reference to the interests of God.

Turning from Paul briefly, we learn something interesting about Winn's Christology -- he is a sort of docetist, and therefore a heretic:

... Yahweh’s Spirit left Yahshua’s body and His soul on the upright pole so that His physical body could die and so that His soul could descend into She’owl for the express purpose of enabling the promises of Pesach and Matsah.

It is hard to say exactly how bad this is, since Biblical anthropology has soul = spirit + body, and Winn seems to conflate soul and spirit as though they were of similar nature. He recommends that the reader consult his earlier book, and perhaps we will be so masochistic as to do so later.

Paul closes Galatians by remarking (6:11) with what large letters he writes. So obsessed is Winn that he cannot even leave this alone:

To begin, Paul wrote "elikois – as old as and as tall as," not "pelikois – how large and how great." Elikos is from elix, "a comrade of the same age, height, and status," and thus elikos is said to mean "as great as," in addition to "as old and tall."

Winn is badly out of touch here, as usual. As Witherington reports, elikos is merely a "classical form" of pelikos; "the meaning is the same." [440] Thus, Winn's conclusions from his erroneous assumption are disposable. The next absurdity: Winn reads Gal. 6:17 as Paul saying that he has a tattoo! Real scholars relate this more frequently to scars Paul received during persecution, but Winn merely uses his own hatred to dismiss Paul's reports of being persecuted as non-credible.

And, closing Galatians, Winn also closes with the absurdity that "Amen" refers to the Egyptian deity Amun; sadly, he not only spells Amun wrong (with an E!), he also shows his incorrigible ignorance of the very Hebrew culture he claims to care for, as we have written:

Some argue that the word "Amen" (first used in Numbers 5:22, and thereafter a lot in Deuteronomy, and on up into the NT) was somehow derived from the Egyptian god Amun-Re, with the implication that in using the word we are thanking a pagan god. Here's a corrective for that idea from Marvin Wilson's Our Father Abraham [182ff]. The word "amen" is part of a family of Hebrew words stemming from the verb aman, to believe or trust. (Gen. 15:6, "And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.") Other related words are emunah, "faithfulness" or "steadfastness" and emet or "truth."

Looks like the Torah, by Winn's reasoning, is paying tribute to a pagan deity also! “Amen” is also used throughout the NT by writers Winn approves of (Peter, John, even Jesus!) so apparently they’re all corrupt as well But he has an excuse for the OT usage too, albeit not very coherent:

And lastly, when transliterated and capitalized, rather than translated, "Amen" is the name of a pagan god—the sun god of Egypt. Had the Greek transliteration (amane) of the Hebrew word (‘amein – pronounced aw•mane) been translated "trustworthy and reliable," then the pagan association would have been eliminated. But alas, it was deified.

So now, apparently, Paul is to be held responsible for choices made by English translators 2000 years later!

Chapter 12

There is little new in this particular rant; having assumed to have proved Paul guilty, Winn proceeds to judge Paul by the standards of Deuteronomy 18 and Matthew 24. He then diverts into questions regarding the other letters of Paul (which he allows as having "some" "encouraging" material), and implicitly promises more volumes on those letters later (I can't wait...can you?). Another extended (and extended, and extended) diversion discusses the suggestion that maybe Paul did not write Galatians (which Winn, and we, reject). An enormous portion of the chapter is devoted to a "highlight reel" of Winn's arguments over previous chapters, or to extended quotations of Scriptural warnings against error that Winn assumes to have proven Paul to be qualified to fulfill.

Then Winn embarks on incoherent speculations concerning Paul's motives. His analysis proposes that Paul was an insecure, egotistical person seeking attention. Such analysis fails from the start as having no connection to personality models available in an honor-based society. He also manages to propose that Paul was a failed rabbinical student who never knew a mother's love and struggled with homosexuality, but this of course never gets beyond hateful fantasy or into the realm of real evidence. Winn, of course, also proposes that Satan deceived Paul -- no unscholarly conspiracy theory could be complete without Old Scratch blacking out the light!

Winn arrogantly concludes with warnings and pomposity of this order:

If you are still a Christian, and are clinging to the notion that Paul spoke for God as opposed to Satan, and that his epistles are Scripture, you are now without excuse. The foundation of your religion has been torn asunder...If you are unwilling to do these things, appreciate the consequence. The souls of those who continue to believe Paul and reject God will cease to exist at the end of their mortal lives. And for those who promote Pauline Doctrine, which is essentially the religion of Christianity, you have made yourself God’s enemy, and as a result your soul will endure eternal separation from Yahweh in the Abyss. Don’t say that you were not warned.

Indeed! We may rather speak here of the calculated arrogance and indifference of a corrupt, failed businessman who presumes to know Greek better than credentialed scholars; who makes outlandish claims of the sort fundy atheists would offer; who creates tendentious twists whenever evidence fails him, and who sees the need to spray warnings of hell and damnation liberally about his text. Winn represents well all that is wrong with the modern church, and it is sorrowful to realize that he has deceived anyone at all -- but he could not have done so but for the widespread ignorance the church has unwittingly fostered. Winn is another example of our bills come due.