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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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I don't think it's anachronistic at all.

Like I said...

it's difficult to appreciate if you're coming from a mind-space where some sort of separation between the "church" and "the state" or "clergyman" and "politician" is assumed to be the default.

...but to the average Roman or Judean in the first century there was no clear delineation between the Roman Nation State and the Roman Gods/Religion. The Consul and the High Preist were by definition the same guy. That it might be possible to both pay your Roman taxes while remaining loyal to the God of Abraham was indeed a radical concept at the time, which is why the crowd was astonished/taken aback. Similar to my response to @Supah_Schmendrick below, i kind of feel like your objection is really only illustrating my point.

...and as for Paul being influence by Plato, Jesus himself makes references to Homer and Aeschylus, we all stand on others' shoulders do we not?

The point I'm making is the idea of a Jewish person paying taxes to gentiles ruling over them was not at all new and is well trodden in the old testament. To turn that into separation of church and state is anachronistic, and I feel like I'm repeating myself to explain why.

Yes people stand on the shoulders of giants, but they add something too. My point is that nothing in that quote was new or interesting at the time.