[suijurisfreeman]

Winter wind,

You posted, "Zhavric, all I'm asking is that you pick a Bible passage and show us why it proves Paul had no idea what he was taking about."

I'm obviously not Zhavric but . . .

Quoting from Hyam Maccoby's book, The Myth-Maker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, p.67-8: "Let us turn now to Paul's use a alleged midrash or biblical exegesis to reinforce his arguments. An example often cited to show Paul's rabbinical style is the following:
'Christ brought us freedom from the curse of the law by becoming for our sake an accursed thing; for Scripture says, "A curse is on everyone who is hanged on a gibbet." ' [Galatians 3:13] Here Paul adduces a verse from Deuteronomy in order to explain how great the sacrifice of Jesus was: he voluntarily took upon himself a curse by the manner of his death
so that mankind would be freed from the curse of sin.
It has been assumed by most scholars that Paul's interpretation of the verse in Deuteronomy (i.e. that anyone hanged on a gibbet is under a curse) was part of contemporary Pharisee exegesis of that verse, and that consequently Paul took his basis for argument from the Pharisee stock, though he developed it in his own way. This, however, is an error. The idea that anyone hanged on a gibbet is under a curse was entirely alien to Pharisee thought, and the Pharisee teachers did not interpret the verse in Deuteronomy in this way. Many highly respected members of the Pharisee movement were crucified by the Romans, just like Jesus, and, far from being regarded as under a curse because of the manner of their death, they were regarded as martyrs. The idea that an innocent man would incur a curse from God just because he had been unfortunate enough to die an agonizing death on the cross was never part of Pharisee thinking, and only a deep contempt for the Judaism of the Pharisees has led so many scholars to assume that it was. The Pharisees never thought that God was either stupid or unjust, and he would have to be both to put a curse on an innocent victim.
Even is the hanged person was guilty of a capital crime, he was not regarded as being under a curse, but, on the contrary, as having expiated his crime by undergoing execution.[5] the verse in question (Deuteronomy 21:23) was interpreted by the rabbis as follows: an executed criminal's corpse was to be suspended on a pole for a short period, but the corpse must then be taken down and not left to hang overnight, for to do this would incur a curse from God; in other words, the curse was placed not on the executed person, but on the people responsible for subjecting the corpse to indignity. One interpretation was: it is cursing God, or blashpemy, to allow the corpse of an executed criminal to hang, for the human body was made in the image of God.[6]
The New English Bible translates the verse, 'When a man is convicted of a capital offence and is put to death, you shall hang him on a gibbet; but his body shall not remain on the gibbet overnight; you shall bury it on the same day, for a hanged man is offensive in the sight of God.' This is in accordance with the Pharisee interpretation of the passage, which was a correct reflection of the meaning of the original Hebrew.
Paul's interpretation was thus not taken from any Pharisee source, but was his own personal reaction to the rather ambiguous translation given in the Greek Septuagint. Far from providing an example of Pharisee midrash, Paul shows himself in this passage in Galatians to be far removed from the spirit of the midrashic interpretations. Vague concepts, such as being under a posthumous curse because of the baleful magical effect of the manner of one's death, belong to paganism, not to Judaism, much less Pharisaic Judasim, which regarded the manner of one's life as the decisive means of obtaining the favour or incurring the displeasure of God, not the manner of one's death, especially when the latter was not under one's control. As for the idea that Jesus removed a curse fromother people by taking a curse upon himself, this too is alien to Jewish thinking, but this, of course, belongs to Paul's central theology, not to his style of argument, and will be discussed in a leter chapter."

[5] Tosefta, Sanhedrin 9:5, 'Those who are put to death by the court have a share in the world to come.'

[6] Rabbi Meir's explanation, Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 46b. The Mishnah (Sandedrin 6:4) gives another interpretation: that this punishment is given only in a case of blasphemy, when the accused has 'cursed God's name' (the translation is thus, 'He is hanged because of a curse against God') This interpretation too involves no curse on the executed man, who expiates his sin by his death.