need another entry

I need another entry to get rid of the I blank in god entry on top. i don't like the way it looks.
one thing is this; why does paul worry so much about perfection and absolute salvation? he claims that following torah, and doing good works, is an impossible way to be righteous with god. in other words, he believe that salvation through works in impossible -- because there are so many rules to follow in torah that no one will ever live a perfect life. his solution is jesus -- faith in jc brings salvation through faith, a salvation independent of works and permanent. once saved, always saved, no matter what the person does. am i reading paul right? you see, his hangup is with this obsession with perfection. he seems to think that a Jew who didn't perfectly follow the teachings of torah does not have righteousness with god -- he thinks there is some problem.

lighten up, paul! God, yahweh, is merciful. he sets up rules for behavior for his chosen people -- yes. but is everyone who falls short with one little mistake condemned? nope. where do you get that, paul?

i think paul's big idea was to universalize judaism for all humanity. hey, not a bad concept. he thought that following the rules of torah was too hard for people, so he uses faith in jc as a substitute -- that's the "new covenant."

is there some greek mind at work here? the obsession with unattainable perfection? the lack of respect for good deeds on earth?

Let's remember that most of his letters were written in the 50s CE -- and all before the destruction of the temple in 70 CE by the romans. So he's commenting on Temple based judaism -- with animal sacrifices, etc. One with pharisees, sadducees, essenes, and others. Maybe we wanted a more portable judaism -- one not dependent on temple offerings and sacrifices. How could the Roman empire accept Jerusalem as the center of religious worship?

His flip from fanatic pharisee to fanatic christian, i think, was caused by his realization that the resurrected christ concept solves this problem of creating a universal non-temple, non-torah based "judaism." Jesus is a functional component of the system. It doesn't matter what else Jesus said or did -- what matters is that he is the resurrected Messiah. That could explain paul's lack of interest in the life of jc. That's why it wasn't important for him to consult with the apostles -- it didn't matter to paul what they had to say -- they weren't jesus.

His main interest was to convert the roman empire to a sort of judaism -- a sort that he, paul, invented once he saw how believing in the resurrected jesus as messiah and bringer of a new covenant would put his system in operation.

so, what do you think?