{"id":39821,"date":"2021-07-24T01:30:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-24T05:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=39821"},"modified":"2021-06-20T17:33:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T21:33:08","slug":"n-t-wrights-galatians-part-nineteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2021\/07\/24\/n-t-wrights-galatians-part-nineteen\/","title":{"rendered":"N.T. Wright&#8217;s Galatians&#8211; Part Nineteen"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2021\/06\/7b72bc73-b018-425b-ab30-f35d7e0385d8.__CR00500500_PT0_SX300_V1___.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-39698\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2021\/06\/7b72bc73-b018-425b-ab30-f35d7e0385d8.__CR00500500_PT0_SX300_V1___.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2021\/06\/412A1rDdcLL._SX329_BO1204203200_.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-39700\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2021\/06\/412A1rDdcLL._SX329_BO1204203200_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"331\" height=\"499\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Q. When we get to the whole issue of \u2018sperma\u2019 in Gal. 3.16, I was not clear whether or not you were saying that Paul says Christ is the seed, or Christ and all believers are the seed of Abraham. In any case, since \u2018in Christ\u2019 is incorporative, and as you point out sometimes Paul even uses the term \u2018Christ\u2019 to refer to his body, i.e. his people, why is it important to say that \u2018sperma\u2019 itself is collective in sense? Are you taking \u2018sperma\u2019 to mean \u2018offspring\u2019, but there is another word for that. Could you clarify?<\/p>\n<p>A. Christos is clearly \u2018collective\u2019 in some passages for Paul; so your phrase \u2018Christ and all believers\u2019 would then be tautologous. Sperma does indeed mean \u2018offspring\u2019 but the singular masks the fact that this could be a single human being or a whole family.<\/p>\n<p>Q. I really like the analogy of Torah (p. 231) being like a booster rocket that as specific, limited purpose, which when fulfilled is then left behind. The booster rocket is a good thing, but it is\u00a0not needed any more when one has reached the right altitude. We could use more analogies like this. If you do not mind, I will borrow it.<\/p>\n<p>A. Feel free. I have used it for many years and it seems to make the point.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q. When we get to the whole issue of \u2018sperma\u2019 in Gal. 3.16, I was not clear whether or not you were saying that Paul says Christ is the seed, or Christ and all believers are the seed of Abraham. In any case, since \u2018in Christ\u2019 is incorporative, and as you point out sometimes Paul [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>N.T. Wright&#039;s Galatians-- Part Nineteen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Q. 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