{"id":1467,"date":"2010-03-21T15:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T15:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/thinking-about-acts-9\/"},"modified":"2010-03-21T15:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T15:28:00","slug":"thinking-about-acts-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/thinking-about-acts-9.html","title":{"rendered":"Thinking About Acts 9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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I\u2019ve been thinking about Acts 9 as I prepare to guest teach a class at General Theological Seminary<\/a> in New York City on that topic (I\u2019ll also be touching on the relationship and contrasts between Lukan and Johannine Christology). The story of Paul\u2019s Damascus Road experience provides a great opportunity to discuss whether Paul\u2019s \u201cchange of direction\u201d should be thought of in terms of \u201ccalling\u201d or \u201cconversion,\u201d to compare Acts with the epistles (as well as with itself<\/a>), and to discuss the whole notion of \u201cthe parting of the ways\u201d between Christianity and Judaism.<\/p>\n

Christianity as a term is introduced in Acts<\/a>. But given that there were other terms which distinguished groups within Judaism, this doesn\u2019t necessarily indicate a departure from Judaism. Indeed, in Acts Paul still self-identifies as a Pharisee, and the Christians who are near enough to do so participate in the worship of the Jerusalem Temple. And the term this author prefers for what we today might call \u201cChristianity\u201d is \u201cthe Way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Acts doesn\u2019t depict a \u201cparting of the ways\u201d between \u201cJews\u201d and \u201cChristians,\u201d but does hint at different viewpoints within the early Christian movement which the author often refers to as \u201cthe Way,\u201d I hope at some point to manage to write something about Acts entitled \u201cThe Partings Of The Way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve been thinking about Acts 9 as I prepare to guest teach a class at General Theological Seminary in New York City on that topic (I\u2019ll also be touching on the relationship and contrasts between Lukan and Johannine Christology). The story of Paul\u2019s Damascus Road experience provides a great opportunity to discuss whether Paul\u2019s \u201cchange […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThinking About Acts 9<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've been thinking about Acts 9 as I prepare to guest teach a class at General Theological Seminary in New York City on that topic (I'll also be touching\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/thinking-about-acts-9.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thinking About Acts 9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I've been thinking about Acts 9 as I prepare to guest teach a class at General Theological Seminary in New York City on that topic (I'll also be touching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/thinking-about-acts-9.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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