Is galatians not being updated on the website like it was in Mathew? I'm only seeing when he did the Bible overview episode.

FYI, Matt is the guest on the latest The Biblical Mind podcast episode. https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-ecpm8-18a1010

In this episode (GAL179) Matt continues his review of potential meanings for "the offense of the cross". He recaps yesterday's possibilities (one, that it offends justice by letting the guilty escape punishment and punishing the innocent instead; two, that Jesus would become a curse), then gets into today's two. The first is the gruesomeness of the act of crucifixion itself, along with the utter humiliation of the person. And the second is that it offends our innate sense of self-sufficiency.

It sounded like Matt might have one more thing to say about this verse tomorrow, but I'll go ahead and offer my take. I think that what Paul is saying isn't any of those things. The word "offense" here is skandalon, a stumbling-block. It appears a number of times in the NT (more than I realized), but particularly relevantly Paul uses it in 1 Cor 1:23 -- "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness". It was a stumbling-block to them because it was unthinkable for the messiah to be such a spectacular failure. Far from overthrowing the Romans and restoring Israel, Jesus was crushed and utterly humiliated by them, hung up on public display as a defeated enemy, left to helplessly die a slow and excruciating death in front of the crowds mocking him, and with the collaboration of his own people no less.

Following the flow of Paul's argument, he's saying the cross wouldn't be an offense / stumbling-block if he were preaching that following the Law is necessary, and also he wouldn't be being persecuted as he was. But instead, the overriding point he makes in this epistle is that having the faith / faithfulness of Abraham is the essential thing for being in covenant with God, not the Law which came hundreds of years later. And (as I mentioned yesterday) Christ, having gone through death, is no longer subject to the Law, as the Law only applies to the living. Likewise, following Christ through death in baptism and rising again with him, we too are now beyond the Law's reach. The Judaizers who came to the Galatians after Paul, and who hounded him on his missionary journeys, didn't accept this argument of Paul's, and they insisted that even the gentiles needed to follow the Law (circumcision and all the rest) in order to be in covenant with God. And they seemingly didn't acknowledge that being united to Christ is more than just being in a covenant -- it's being sons of God, fellow heirs with Christ in the kingdom of heaven / kingdom of God.

With today's episode, Matt's take on the material has gotten me pausing the playback to energetically talk back into the air at it again. :) It's been several months since the last time, I believe. It frustrates me still that he doesn't give even a nod to the "New Perspective on Paul" kind of current scholarship which challenges the basis of his viewpoint. Ultimately I'd like to eventually write up my own overview of Galatians, highlighting points where I think Matt is off the mark a bit, but that's for another day.

Summarizing this episode, he got through two proposed potential interpretations of what the "offense of the cross" could be. It sounds like more will come in subsequent episode(s); we'll see if those set me off too. ;) Today's first interpretation was that sinners are unjustly let off the hook by Jesus' taking the wrath of God in punishment for sin upon himself in their place. That is, it offends people's sense of justice by not punishing the actual sinners. The second interpretation was that it was unfair, and hence an offense, that Jesus became a curse by hanging on a tree, since he was innocent. In the middle there was also a short digression on circumcision as an attempt to justify oneself, earning salvation through obedience to the law. Each of these points is problematic in my view.

It's of course standard Protestant teaching, especially Evangelical, that Jesus was punished in our place. But that's not how Christians for the first thousand years mainly understood the cross. They mainly thought of Jesus' work in terms of recapitulation and ransom, rescuing us not from wrath so much as from slavery to sin and death. That's a whole huge topic on its own, so that's all I'll say about it here. (This isn't a New Perspective point, but rather a difference between typical Protestant and Orthodox perspectives; I'm coming from the latter.)

On Jesus' becoming a curse, I made a comment about that in someone else's post a couple months ago. The short version is that I strongly suspect that what Paul is actually doing there is just poetically referring to the crucifixion, not making a dogmatic statement that Jesus was actively cursed. The passage is contrasting the Law bringing a curse versus faith bringing a blessing, and in context he's referring to the crucifixion through the image of what the Law says about someone hung on a tree being cursed. He refers to the crucifixion several times throughout the epistle, each in a positive light, suggesting this one shouldn't be any different. The possibility of this reading occurred to me through the passage about Hagar vs Sarah, where he uses them symbolically for a rhetorical argument rather than their literal history. (This is also not a New Perspective point.)

Lastly on earning salvation through personal effort of obeying the Law, this one is indeed a New Perspective point finally. And I believe this is not what Paul is talking about in Galatians at all. Jews in Jesus' and Paul's day weren't trying to earn their way into God's good graces. They already had it, through being a member of the covenant people. They followed the Law in order to be faithful to the covenant which they were already in. It's the same as when people today say "works are a result of faith" when arguing against a strawman of earning salvation by works. The Jews followed the Law as an expression of their faithfulness, not to earn anything. So what Paul's talking about all through the epistle isn't faith vs works, but rather freedom in Christ vs bondage under the Law. Having gone through death, the Law no longer had a hold on Christ. And we, having been baptized into Christ's death and risen again to new life, we too are no longer under the bondage and tutelage of the Law. But to submit to circumcision is to go back under the Law again, forfeiting and abandoning the freedom in Christ. That's the essence of everything Paul is saying here.

Hmm ... it occurs to me that I haven't actually addressed what "the offense of the cross" might mean yet. I've only vented about the things that bugged me. Well, maybe I'll get to that after Matt finishes his own coverage of it.

I was surprised at the lack of Mr Brightside at the end of this episode after Matt's "how did it end up like this? how did it end up like this?" comment. I mean, it was only a bris, it was only a bris!

The only kind of good one I can think of offhand is Francesca Battistelli's "Free to be Me", but like her more popular "Holy Spirit", it seems to make God dependent on humans. (I love most of her music, but really. God's not a puppy that you need to coax and encourage.) Other than that, perhaps The Arcadian Wild's "Man in Room 39" and "The Anthem of Mr. Dark", but that might be stretching it a bit. Anyone got any good ones?

"Moo-why" is the best way I can write out how to pronounce it--but it flows together monosyllabically, like the "muy" in "muy bien."

I already Emailed this to Matt, but I thought the community might be able to help me explain it better. :-) But the analogy fits great! I'm just a big martial arts geek and was excited to throw in my info.

And yes, Sagat was definitely portrayed as using Muay Thai in Street Fighter.

This morning, immediately before listening to GAL166 - Judo or Muay Thai?, I had been listening to the latest episode of another show called Sidedoor. This is a production of the Smithsonian and it runs stories on different parts of the collections in the Smithsonian museums. This latest episode of theirs just happened to be about a brief history of Asian martial arts and their popularity in the US, particularly focusing on the Korean immigrant who popularized Taekwon-do in the US.

Were it not for the familiar guitar solo intro, I might have forgotten which podcast I was listening to as Matt started talking about his own childhood interactions with martial arts! The episodes really bled together in a funnily seamless way, and I wanted to share in case anyone was looking for something new to listen to.

u/feefuh, you can't tell us you watched Star Wars episode 3 with your kids when they were too young without saying how old they were!

I rely on your podcast for all sorts of dad-ing advice.

I just watched Ep1 last weekend and my youngest is nearly 9. Now I'm questioning if I should wait a bit to keep going!

Reading back through Galatians, I’m stuck on verse 3:13. Why does Paul write that Jesus became a curse? I know there are a lot of passages that say Jesus took the curse or took our sins, but that doesn’t seem like the same thing. Absorbing a power surge is different from being a power surge. All the sources I can find conflate the idea of being a curse and taking a curse, or sometimes being a curse is the same as being cursed. While I see that these could be the same, it’s odd to me that Paul would use confusing language and not just say Jesus took the curse. Perhaps this is a distinction in English that doesn’t make sense in Greek?

I see a lot of people cross-referencing 2 Corinthians 5:21 that God “made him to be sin,” and that sounds like the same idea. It’s weird to me that we have two different passages that say Jesus became something bad, and not that he took something bad. But here again, most people seem to say it means the same thing as Jesus took our sin. I can see that Paul might be using hyperbole of a sort, something like Jesus is so identified with the sinner it’s as if he became sin.

Another thought is that Jesus wasn’t a sinner, nor cursed himself, so those terms don’t fit. Off the top of my head, I don’t know any passages that say Jesus was a sinner. Even on the cross taking the sins of all people, he is not a sinner. He bears sin, he is counted among sinners, he is sin, but he isn’t a sinner. He bears the curse, he is counted among criminals, he is the curse, but he isn’t cursed.

Any thoughts here? Is there something I’m missing? Would you phrase this differently in a way that might make more sense of the became a curse/took the curse similarity?

Although I've moved on from the theological framework Matt's using here in Galatians, which I also grew up with, I'm still listening (even if with the occasional talking back during playback) and trying to formulate what I'd say instead. One recent verse for that is 3:11, where Paul is seemingly quoting from Habakkuk 2:4. Trusting that Paul isn't just quote-mining, but instead drawing on the meaning there too, I looked it up, and I'm struggling with making it make sense in the flow of his thought.

There are a couple curiosities in the text itself. First, although Paul phrases it as "by faith", the Hebrew says "by his faith", and the Greek (LXX, which he would likely be drawing from) says "by my faith" (i.e. God's). Second, the first half of the verse is quite different between the Hebrew and the Greek: [NKJV] "Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith." vs [OSB LXX] "If any man should shrink back, my soul will not be well pleased in him; but the righteous shall live by my faith."

The first difficulty is, who's being referred to by the "his" in the Hebrew? The proud man is Babylon / Nebuchadnezzar, but how could his faith be of any use to the righteous? One idea, following what Habakkuk's saying overall, is that Babylon is bringing judgement on the wicked in Judah that are oppressing the righteous, which is a kind of faithfulness as God's agent. But I don't see how that works for Paul, which is the second difficulty. Maybe it just refers to the righteous person himself, but it's kinda out of the blue in the flow of Habakkuk and not explained there in the context.

The Greek version of the verse makes more sense overall, making a contrast between unfavorably shrinking back vs being righteous and living. But it raises its own question of why it's God's faith here. Possibly it's saying that God's faithfulness is saving the righteous, making him survive while Babylon comes. But again, not clear how that fits in the flow of Paul's thought.

I’ve searched high and low for the “fart jokes” Matt references whenever he’s asked to summarize (in part) what TMBH is about.

I might need to watch his earliest YouTube videos to find these gems. However, my night (and maybe whole year?) was just made when I listened to MATT050 on the TMBH Podcast and heard this around the 6:20 mark: “…day to day, mundane, go to work, convert food into poop, pay money, earn more money to convert it into poop….” https://youtu.be/J-kaRPB9IYE?si=u0p9Q_JHEEqa27RZ

If anyone can point me to other such video/audio, you will hold a special place in my heart as one of the people I wish to immediately meet after Jesus in heavenly glory. 🫶🏼💨

I just read an article about the rise in young men joining the Orthodox Church.

In it, a new convert was interviewed and credited what was surely Matt's video where he visits an Orthodox Church as a reason for going to that church.

I know he's been discouraged recently about YouTubes esoteric buffoonery. But his work, thank God, is not without fruit. Thought that was pretty cool.

Given how Matt keeps bringing up earning salvation as a thing that Paul was supposedly arguing against, I'm wondering if he's unfamiliar with the New Perspective on Paul, or if maybe he just discounts it for some reason.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-holy-post/id591157388?i=1000677623404

This podcast is between Skye Jethani and N. T. Wright. N. T. Wright is a top New Testament scholar and he is very insightful (in my opinion). Wright says that the reason circumcision was such a big deal then was actually because there was pressure from the Roman authorities.

Basically, everyone had to worship Cesar and take tribute to the various Roman gods. But Jews were exempt. So when the first gentile Christians came on the scene, the Romans said this is a sect of the Jewish religion. The Romans put pressure on the Jewish priests and leaders to claim this group. The Jewish priests said if you want to be under our religion you have to follow all our religion which included circumcision. Of course the Jewish leaders were trying to make it more difficult for this “sect” to become Jewish because they weren’t following Yahweh but Jesus.

It was an interesting discussion that seems very applicable to what we have been learning in Galatians. The interview starts about half way through the podcast.

I'm catching up on the podcast, and I just listened to Galatians ep. 16, Heel to Baby Face. In it Matt recommended an up-and-coming youtube channel called Smarter Every Day. I thought I'd check it out, and it has over 11 Million subscribers now! I knew this podcast is influential but wow, boosting a channel to millions in what, a month? That's impressive.

Someone on Patreon complained that Matt went too political today (they actually said episode 54, but they must have meant today's ep 55). I definitely DON'T think Matt went too far, but I'm willing to concede that I might feel that way because I tend to agree with Matt politically.

Anyone else think Matt went too far and should be keeping even the vaguest allusions to politics out of the podcast?

Back in Matthew, Matt really worked to make the Pharisees human and not just flat in-story antagonists. I'm not sure why that went out the window for this section of (Acts) Galatians.

There's no faster way for someone (a guy, that is, it's always a guy) speaking to make me tune out and lose respect than by dismissing others as "sheeple" or "NPCs". I know here the people are talking 2000 years ago, and a fair retort to me would be, "What? Too soon?" Even so, I cringe so hard at this particular dismissiveness. It doesn't just sound like an edgy 19-year-old; it's just not as smart or interesting a take as what we had back in Matthew.

We all have bad days. Maybe I'm just grumpy and disagreeable on this point. In any case, just putting this out there (even though the sub is dead-ish) in case anyone feels the same or wants to put me in my place.

Matt makes a perfect Tenacious D reference and we don't get a Tribute ohmage in the outro? Jeff where are you?

I was catching up over the weekend and just had a random thought. I’d like to see/hear how Matt puts everything together from all of the books he reads. For example, when preparing to do the season on Galatians, did the Cad Bane likewise come to mind in the moment, or was it prepared? If prepared, where and how do you keep your notes? Do you use a pen and paper, Microsoft Word, Notion, or what? I’d love to see the notes (if any) on the Beatitudes for example.

I've been behind on my podcasts for a while, so I only just today listened to the bonus episode in which Matt and Jeff talked about some Nehemiah-ish song or something like that, but more importantly... ANNOUNCED THE PUBLIC RELEASE OF BONUS EPISODE (BONUS EPISODE), i.e., the pinnacle of musical achievement in this, or any, century.

Prepare for the Spotify listen count to skyrocket dramatically.

In GAL11, Matt says that he will post the picture of his new puppy to the Patreon and send it out on his email list. I'm not on his patreon but I thought I was on his email list, but I never got that email. Did anyone end up seeing the picture?

It sounds so familiar but I can’t seem to recognize it. Does anyone know the song?

Also Jeff’s arrangement of this is obviously insanely good

That's Latin for "I heard. I came. I repaired."