we should note that we're using massive anachronisms in this discussion. 'theology' didn't exist as an independent discipline we'd recognize until Christianity became Romanized. the distinction between public and private life was much less clear. the line between 'religion' and 'politics' did not exist (Caesar was the Son of God too). and so on.
Why do you get hung up on whether or not they had identified disciplines? Don’t you believe people can patterns in the way that they go about arguing without having to have studied methods of argument? If that were the case, no one could explain anything at all without first taking a class teaching them how to explain things. Whether they were aware of the method they were using is irrelevant.
And you’re misrepresenting the disagreement between Peter and Paul in Gal ch2. You’re attempting to paint it as if they had differing doctrines, but it doesn’t state Peter and Paul disagreed on doctrine. To the contrary it said Paul confronted Peter because Peter withdrew from the Gentiles when he noticed the legalistic Jews were observing them. It explicitly states Peter was being “hypocritical”, meaning Peter’s withdrawal from the Gentiles contradicted what Peter himself believed…So Paul and Peter were on the same page theologically, Paul just had to set Peter straight when Peter lacked the courage to practice what he believed (in this case, that Jews could associate and eat with the Gentiles).
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Yes, I understand many of the churches in the 1st Century had messed up practices which contradicted the faith – hence the reason many of the letters of the NT were written in the first place – to correct the practices in many of the churches. (Likewise, there are many differences today among Christianity)…but just because there wasn’t complete harmony in belief among the churches, that doesn’t mean the NT has to be out of harmony with itself and self-contradictory.
So, as the apostles traveled from country to country, they would win followers to Christ and help the new converts set up churches (many of which met in homes), then the apostles would move on to the next city. So, being left alone and without apostle supervision for long stretches of time, it is no surprise problems and heresies crept into many of these churches.
And one way to apostles tried to follow up with the new churches and set them straight, was to write letters to them, many of which were saved and passed along and became the letters (books) of the NT.
But, again, just because there were problems and errors that crept into the churches, which the books of the NT were written to straighten out, doesn’t mean the NT itself has to have those same flaws.
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See, this is a perfect example of what I don’t get. When both the book of Acts ch15 and Galatians ch2 claim that James, along with John and Peter, were in theological agreement with everything Paul taught…how can you state that there was a theological difference between James and Paul?!
And just because “James is written much like old-school, Solomonesque wisdom literature”, that doesn’t mean he had theological differences with Paul. To different people can have different writing styles, yet still have the same doctrine. Example: there are hundreds of millions of Christians who believe stealing is a sin, yet those very hundreds of millions of Christians don’t share the same writing style.
Why even bring up the fact Paul and James have two different writing styles as if they have to share the same writing style to have the same belief?!
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