joedad

In your OP, you quotedSo I thought that was the main thrust. It's late here in the east. Later.

Layman

You've managed to miss the entire thrust of the article.

The issue is whether Paul refers to a human Jesus who existed on earth for a time or a spiritual lower-celestial realm Jesus that never came to earth.

Doherty argued that there were pagan parallels that supported his theory that Jesus was entirely spiritual and never came to earth. I pointed out that he had failed to point to any such pagan examples. Indeed, to the extent any of the pagan god-men could be said to be similar to Jesus, they too existed on earth for a time in human form.

This isn't just a pagan-copycat argument by either side.

Now please. Do you have anything substantive to say? So far we've traded six posts and you have not.

spin

Paul never claimed to have met Jesus before he died.


spin

NOGO

Repeating religious dogman does not help.

This statements attempts to have it all even though it makes no sense.

Did God resurrect David's genes and made them acceptable?
Or ...
was it the original heavenly God who resurrected and declared Son of God?

Did the spirit of a God die because a human body died?

Let me put another way whatever descended on earth went back to heaven or do you believe that it inherit some of David's genes in passing?

You insist that the incarnation took place at birth but apart from the fact that this is the view found in Matthew and Luke what proof do you have?

GJohn has another point of view!

Do you deny that in the Gospel of John the heavenly God referred to as the "Word of God" incarnated a human Jesus when he was
an adult?

Gregg

D'oh. Doherty never argues that there has to be a "pagan" parallel for everything. Christianity had some aspects that were unique to it, of course.

Layman

Nope, but he met his brother.

Layman

But he did argue that there was a pagan parallel for this: "Even some of the pagan saviour gods could be said to possess an ethnic lineage." Doherty, op. cit., page 84.

I love the way you guys attack me for taking Doherty at his word.

Dominus Paradoxum

I think your article was overall a very convincing rebuttal of Doherty's views of kata sarka.

What I find most convincing about Doherty's case is the silence of the second century apologists. Many defended Christianity without ever mentioning a human Jesus, and one even declared that they did not believe in a crucified savior. If you could come up with an explanation for these silences, I think you'd have a pretty airtight case. You would also have to explain why Paul and the other letter writers seem to be so ignorant of many of the historical details of Jesus' life, especially the parables and the Q sayings material.

Layman

I appreciate that.

Many things are in the works. I hope I have at least proven that I take Doherty's views serious enough to respond to them in a serious manner. I intend to do so on other issues.

I suspect my next piece will be on Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum, specifically addressing many of Doherty's comments on the subject.

joedad

to which Price respondsPrice is wrong right off the bat. This is clearly a reference to a godman, not a mere human. Vork is right. There is no methodology. This is why you are getting no substantive responses on this thread.

And when Price later condemns Doherty on grounds that Paul was merely speaking "as any good Jew or Christian would," I felt the read was clearly not worth any more time.