Originally posted by Sparko
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Thanks to everyone for their critiques and constructive criticisms. I appreciate it when people can disagree civilly with such a controversial and radical idea. Looking closely at the grammar of Matthew 28:20 was especially something I needed to be reminded to do. Another thing I forgot to mention was Peter claiming he had given up everything alongside with them speaking of "Peter's house" may be explained by the concept of usufruct that Schnabel speaks of (although I haven't found other sources to back him up)
". . . In Qumran, the surrender of one's property upon entry in the Qumran community was obligatory. The paradox that the members of the Essene community are said to contribute all their wealth, while they still appear to have retained private property, can be explained as follows: Jews in the ancient world did not regard the adjectives "private" and "public," when related to property, as mutually exclusive as we do today. Property that an individual "had" could be understood to "be" both for the individual and for the group. Thus, "the donor offers the right of usufruct to another but retains the right of ownership," a concept that explains the practice of shared property at Qumran. . . "
https://books.google.com/books?id=fj...ufruct&f=false
His footnote states: "The term "usufruct" is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the right of temporary possession, use, or enjoyment of the advantages of the property belonging to another, so far as may be had without causing damage or prejudice to this""
Eckhard J Schnabel is also someone who wrote a commentary on Acts that disagrees with the idea of them literally having everything in common but he only breifly talks about the Church in Acts so I do need to check out Craig Bloomberg book at some point. I may post back here later with a paper on the topic from the perspective I have but it needs some more editing first. I will welcome critiques on that as well. Thanks.
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