Chris Weimer

In other words, Doherty's wrong?

spamandham

Doherty may be wrong on some points, and right on others. I would hesitate to claim he's wrong on any particular point, since:

a) He's way smarter and much more read than me
b) I am not familiar with all his claims
c) no-one would care about my position on the matter

Ben C Smith

It means nothing. Paul can derive physical or fleshly details from scripture as easily as ethereal or spiritual details.

The Christians in the analogy I gave, which you have not responded to, appear to admit that scripture is their exclusive source for the datum that Jesus was not a handsome devil. Yet they are still speaking of what they consider a real human being in real history.

(And where does the genuine Paul equate the mystery with Christ? Is that not a deutero-Pauline conception?)

What arguments are those? How do you argue that Paul is speaking mystically in such a way that entails he is not even thinking of an earthly figure? Where are the analogies?

In Romans 9.7 Paul speaks of all the descendants of Abraham as the seed of Abraham, even those descended from Ishmael instead of Isaac. By seed of Abraham, then, Paul appears to mean all blood descendants of Abraham.

In Romans 11.1 Paul says that he himself is an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham. By seed of Abraham, then, Paul appears to mean that he is descended from Abraham.

In Romans 9.3 Paul calls his brothers kinsmen according to the flesh and then proceeds to identify them as Israelites. By kinsmen according to the flesh, then, Paul appears to mean ethnic Israel, to whose members he is related physically by race.

In 1 Corinthians 10.18 Paul writes of Israel according to the flesh and then discusses the sacrificial system. By Israel according to the flesh, then, Paul appears to mean ethnic Israel, Israel as physically descended from the patriarchs.

In Romans 1.3 Paul calls Jesus the seed of David according to the flesh. By this phrase Paul appears to mean that Jesus is physically the descendant of David.

All of these instances have in common the description of a person or group of persons by their physical descent. Two of the instances use the seed metaphor; two others use the phrase according to the flesh. Our instance of choice, Romans 1.3, uses both.

These verses (and others from other parts of Paul and from other authors) are the basis for my reading of Romans 1.3.

Now, what is the basis for your reading? (Note, I am not asking for your reasons for subverting the natural reading; I am asking for your reasons for thnking your reading is the more natural.)

I absolutely agree. And yet it means nothing to the matter at hand, since Augustus and other earthly figures, both historical and mythical, were also regarded as something far beyond a human entity. I asked you in post 113 what you thought of my analogy with Augustus (in post 103). You never answered, as far as I can tell.

Nor does the Priene inscription place Augustus into an historical setting on earth. Nor does the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil.

In my judgment, your reading of 1 Corinthians 15 (as I understand it) is so far off kilter that seventy times seven threads on this forum could not set it straight.

But let me take a different tack here in a desperate attempt to keep the discussion focused on the meaning of these phrases. Let me concede (purely for the sake of argument, I assure you) that you are correct about 1 Corinthians 15, that in that chapter Paul tells us outright that Jesus never had a physical body (not, as on the usual reading, merely that he had no physical body after his resurrection).

What then? How does this affect the clear meaning of Romans 1.3? You cannot automatically jump to the conclusion that Paul must have meant something unusual by his seed of David according to the flesh phrase. You have to consider, for example, whether the same Paul who penned 1 Corinthians 15 also wrote Romans 1.3! What if the line in Romans 1.3 is a proto-orthodox insertion?

This is one way of identifying such insertions, after all; the insertion contradicts something that the author elsewhere affirms. But how would you know whether the potential insertion contradicts something else if you can warp its meaning at will?

To be sure, there are some phrases and expressions that admit of several possibilities of roughly equal merit, and in those cases it is perfectly legitimate to let the rest of what the author has written guide our interpretive decisions. But seed of David according to the flesh does not appear to be one of those ambiguous expressions.

In fact, I can say with near certainty that, if you were to succeed in persuading scholars at large of your interpretaton of 1 Corinthians 15, many if not most of them would then regard Romans 1.3 as an interpolation. That would be the easiest way to resolve the tension. (This is, IIUC, what Jakes Jones IV does on this very discussion board; he thinks Paul was speaking mythically in 1 Corinthians 15, and he regards Romans 1.3 as a proto-orthodox, anti-docetic insertion.)

Or, to look to another hypothetical possibility, what if Paul contradicted himself royally? Changed his mind between the two epistles? How would we ever know, if we are allowed to turn seed of David according to the flesh into whatever we want?

Thus I insist that we should figure out what seed of David according to the flesh means on its own merits (using the usual kinds of evidence, generally involving a lexical study of other instances of the terms and phrases involved) before deciding its place in the Pauline epistolary corpus.

This is another of those passages I think you butcher mercilessly.

But again, let me concede the point (just for the sake of argument, of course). Let us assume that Galatians 3-4 proves that Paul had no physical or earthly personage in mind at all when he wrote of Christ. What then? How does that affect the plain meaning of seed of David according to the flesh? We are back to the usual options: Paul contradicted himself; Romans 1.3 is an interpolation; Paul changed his mind.

If you think that Paul did indeed write Romans 1.3, and yet did not believe in an earthly Jesus of some kind, then it is up to you to provide the evidence for your reading. Instead, you are trying to overwhelm what appears to be the natural reading of Romans 1.3 with other data, other verses, that do not directly relate to the meaning of the language. You are, IOW, not showing us why your reading is the natural reading of Romans 1.3 and Galatians 4.4; you are rather trying to show us why the natural reading cannot be right. Do you see the difference?

We know these things from analogical evidence from other passages. Where are the analogies for your reading?

I can make the above hypothetical concessions in good faith on this thread, since the topic here is supposed to be what those physical-sounding phrases mean, regardless who wrote them. I realize that in my OP I asked contributors to assume that the Pauline epistles were genuine pretty much as they stand, and that I have here brought up the possibility of interpolation. I hope contributors will indulge this brief change in policy, since I want to make the point that providing unrelated counterpoints does not answer the call for related analogies.

Ben.

TedM

I'm looking forward to Earl's response on this. Very good discussion IMO.

ted

EarlDoherty

Ben, you are still stuck in your modern/orthodox/preconceived paradigm that a phrase like “of the seed of David according to the flesh” must be interpreted in what you regard as a “natural” way.

You start from that assumption, so that nothing I say can change your position. I’m not saying that, for us, this is not a valid assumption. For us, how we think in the modern era, “of the seed of David according to the flesh” is natural. We couldn’t possibly understand it any other way. We have no mental contexts in which an alternative could fit, and especially when we think of it in the words of the English translation.

What I am trying to do is bring in other considerations of context to, shall we say, ‘soften’ that assumption and lead us to think that perhaps Paul (or whoever wrote this phrase and others like it) could have had something else in mind, or could have been influenced by other considerations to adopt an idea which, perhaps even to them, in whatever rational faculties they may have possessed, made something less than literal sense.

I offered a number of considerations in regard to context, to what Paul elsewhere says which would lead us to assume he did not see Jesus as a human being on earth who could have had a physical descent from David. I offered, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:44-49. If it could be shown that Paul, in light of this passage, had no thought of Jesus having a human, physical body, then we are automatically forced to regard Romans 1:3 has having some other meaning in his mind, since the two would be incompatible. How do you deal with this? You first of all heap scorn on my exegesis of it (without addressing that exegesis, but I'll give you a chance below and hope that we don't get the "different conceptual universe" response yet again); then, perhaps as a readier alternative, you allow (for the sake of argument, of course) that if I am right in regard to that passage, Romans 1:3 would have to be set aside as by someone else, perhaps a proto-orthodox insertion. Either way, you have hardly discredited my contentions.

“Warp its meaning”? How about, in light of the apparent contradiction and not to be guilty of simply appealing to interpolation to resolve such things, we see it as setting aside your conceived “natural” meaning and asking if there is another way to interpret such contradictions? If someone comes along and offers such a way, which resolves the contradiction, how can you reasonably refuse to consider that alternative way and simply adhere stubbornly to your “natural” meaning and label the alternative “warping its meaning”? That’s what makes it so difficult and frustrating to debate with you and others like you.

I offered another point of context relating to “born of woman”, in that I pointed out that the immediately preceding verses, Gal. 3:23-25, have Paul declaring that what has arrived in the present time is “faith in Christ” not Christ himself? How did you deal with that? More of the same scorn, without addressing my arguments on those verses. It looks like whatever I bring up to make my points, you simply reject out of hand as nonsensical, and/or appeal to your necessary “natural” interpretation. Is this proper debate? Do you think you are thereby discrediting my position?

Yes, and it would be a cop-out. The line of least resistance, and the one which manages to preserve scholarship’s stubborn adherence to orthodoxy as the only acceptable solution. Are we to trust and respect that sort of approach? (Don't mythicists get dumped on when they blithely appeal to interpolation?)

This kind of dismissal is also difficult if not impossible to deal with, because it is once again based on your immovable assumption of what certain words, as envisioned by their writer, must mean, a priori. In my presentation of Paul (and the epistles generally, indeed the entire documentary record of the period), I regard the overwhelming conclusion to be that the early cultic Christians were not speaking of an historical human Jesus who lived on earth. Given that context, a context which fits into a larger philosophical and savior-god context of the time, we are faced with a handful of “human-sounding” phrases. What does the scientific-oriented mind do with that? Does it take those latter phrases, refuse to consider any alternative understanding of them, hold on to their perceived “natural” meaning (one, of course, that for many is also confessionally-based) and insist that all alternative-leaning evidence is irrelevant nonsense? That is essentially what you and others here are doing. You stick your fingers in your ears, loudly recite your mantras of “kata sarka” and “born of woman” to drown out any mythicist argument. All other anomalies are ignored or dismissed out of hand as meaningless and irrelevant.

Does not appear to be? By what standard? Your a priori assumptions about it? Are you saying that language is never used in an allegorical/metaphorical fashion?

About a year ago, I posted a lengthy piece here analyzing the uses of ‘sarx’ in the Paulines in which I studied those “instances of the terms and phrases involved”, the various ways in which the writers speak of the “flesh” of Christ, and put forward the conclusion that we could not assume one standard meaning, let alone that Paul had to be regarding Jesus as a human being. So I have done precisely what you appeal to.

And I keep repeating this point to no avail. We cannot assume that a given phenomenon may not be solely represented by itself. And I have stressed time and again that in regard to Christianity, as opposed to other savior-god and salvation religions, there is present a unique element in regard to the derivation of its beliefs: the Jewish scriptures. When that feature is factored in, we can see that Christianity’s ideas deserve special considerations of interpretation which no other does. And lo and behold! That very feature is what figures prominently, indeed exclusively, in its self-presentation in those early writings. Everything that Paul and other writers say is presented as based on scripture. Scripture determines what they believe. Scripture is the source of revelation. Therefore, we should not look for, or demand, analogies from other religions which do not have such a basis. Therefore, we open our minds to considering that “of the seed of David” is based on scriptural reference, which is indeed exactly what Paul is saying in Romans 1:3. And if we are then led to think that Paul could have something else in mind in that passage other than “physical descent from an historical David” (some allegorical meaning, or simply something he didn’t fully understand himself), then we open our minds to it, not just blindly appeal to what we think is or was the “natural” and only possible significance the phrase could have had for him.

You can see that what I am being forced to argue here is first and foremost not the actual texts, but the closed-minded attitudes being brought to the question which we simply can’t get past.

However, let’s address some of those points of context you so scornfully dismiss:

Well, just so we can be sure that how you “understand it” is based on what I’ve actually said, and whose kilter is off, here is a passage from my Article No. 8: Christ as “Man”: Does Paul Speak of Jesus as an Historical Person?. It’s lengthy, but arguments like this cannot be laid out in a few words (in contrast to “Such-and-such a phrase can only mean one thing!”)

As for Galatians 3:23-25, have I “butchered” this passage? Here is my treatment (much shorter) of it in my “Sounds of Silence” website feature:
Here in a nutshell is Ben’s situation: If we translate verse 24 as does the NEB, there is an apparent anomaly between it and verses 23 and 25. Do we simply hold on to the NEB verse 24, because that is what we want it to mean, or do we consider an alternate meaning for it, especially considering that one such alternate exists, used by many translations? And what of the universal translation of verses 23 and 25? If I follow Ben’s lead, should I not claim the “plain, natural meaning” of what Paul says? “We were held prisoners of the Law until faith should be revealed.” In any case, this is in keeping with the constant theme of revelation by God throughout the epistles; no revelation by Jesus is ever mentioned. Paul does not say: "We were held prisoners to the Law until Jesus arrived." Didn't he have a role in it? For Paul, "faith" is consistently the product of revelation, not proceeding from Jesus' own work on earth. Verse 25 is more of the same: “Now that faith has come” is again in keeping with the constant theme of the epistles that the time of the present is the time of faith, of revelation (consistently using revelation verbs) to apostles like Paul, of a gospel derived from scripture, not the time when Jesus lived a life on earth. (Am I "warping the meaning" here?) Even the “of David’s seed” in Romans 1:3 is presented in that way: it is part of the gospel of God revealed in the prophets (v.2), a “pre-announced” gospel that looks forward, not to Jesus’ life, but to Paul’s own gospel. Even in the allegedly most problematical text of all, Gal. 4:4’s “born of woman, born under the law”, Paul goes on to say that what has been “sent” in the present is “the spirit of (God’s) Son into our hearts”, which certainly compromises the supposed effect of “born of woman”, perhaps another indicator that the phrase is simply a later insertion (for orthodox purposes) or else refers to something that is not regarded as material history; or, like Romans 1:3, it is a statement entirely dependent on scripture, in this case Isaiah 7:14, regardless of how Paul may have understood or applied it.

On all these things I am appealing to context immediate and large, to exegetical argument, to careful analysis of texts rather than an a priori reading into them what tradition has always done, not to “well, it can only mean one thing.”

P.S.:

I don’t recall answering, either. But I would ask, was Augustus made the creator and sustainer of the universe? Was he made pre-existent with God from all eternity, right after the moment of his death? There’s hardly a comparison. And I can’t check Virgil right now, but is it the case that the entire body of writings about Augustus for almost a century after his death do not place him in an historical setting on earth, and presents the history of Rome following Julius Caesar as though an Octavian/Augustus never had a role in it? And if, out of that body of writings, we found one document which presented an “historical Augustus” by casting him exclusively in terms of the legendary Romulus of sacred tradition, should we be expected to embrace that document and reject the significance of all others?

Earl Doherty

Chili

Jesus does not reveal anything but unto him it is revealed according to the faith of Joseph the Jew = faith coming to rest in understanding wherefore faith is a liability until all doubt is removed and Thomas (the flipside or twin of faith) could rightfully say "my Lord and my God" to innitiate ascention = no 'faithers' in heaven or 'doubters' would go there and by extension of the slippery slope impoverished believers such as atheist would go there as well . IOW faith (Peter) is the enemy, doubt (Thomas), the antagonist, hope (James) is vainglory and wisdom (Mary) is to solution to it all.

Born of a woman just means that Mary was not human and therefore sinless while Joseph was Jewish and therefore sinner under the law that was given to Moses to convict the outer man of sin so the inner man can be set free, here now born of woman that once was taken from Joseph to be his dowry in betrothal if and only if he kept her virgin by his intergity as the "upright Jew."

Ben C Smith

Indeed. But what I am seeking from you is hard evidence from the ancient era of what those words mean.

I agree that Paul could have had something else in mind. I am asking you for evidence that he did have something else in mind.

If an historicist wrote something like this against your view of Philippians 2.9, you would immediately recognize it for the act of desperation that it is, right?

I should have been more restrained in my wording, especially since I had no intent of addressing your argument on this thread. My apologies.

Let me just say neutrally that I disagree with your exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15, but just for a moment am willing to go along with it so that we can get to the meaning of Romans 1.3 and Galatians 4.4.

I am always interested in other ways of interpreting things. But I am equally interested in evidence for those other ways.

I elevated the argument above natural and a priori, and you did not see fit to respond. I will do so again here in a moment. But, before I get to that, let me point out an argument you make on one of your web pages regarding the proper translation and interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11.23:

As for the frequent translation of a phrase in the opening verse, "on the night he was arrested/betrayed," the latter renditions are dependent on Gospel preconceptions, whereas the word itself (paradidomi) has a basic meaning of "hand over" or "deliver up," which can equally apply in a mythical setting. Other passages in Paul (e.g., Romans 8:32) speak of God doing the delivering up, or even Jesus himself (Ephesians 5:2 and 25), which rules out, or renders unnecessary, a Gospel understanding.

Here you grapple with the tendency to interpret that Greek word as betrayed, thus implying a knowledge of Judas Iscariot on the part of Paul. You do two things to answer this tendency:

1. You present the basic or usual meaning of this Greek word, and it does not (have to) mean betray.
2. You provide instances in which Paul uses this word in a similar context (delivering Jesus up), but to mean something other than betray.

This is a good argument. I first encountered it in G. A. Wells, and it is effective.

Now, how does the following procedure on my part for Romans 1.3 differ from the procedure you used for 1 Corinthians 11.23?

Let me repeat that last part. Those verses (and others) are the basis for my reading of Romans 1.3. Not just what I perceive to be the most natural reading. You went on and on in your post about having to fight through what I perceive to be natural a priori, but did not reference any of these verses that I expressly told you were my argumentative basis.

I do not think it is going too far to say that you, Earl Doherty, do not think Paul was thinking of Judas when he wrote 1 Corinthians 11.23; you present evidence that he was thinking of God, or of Jesus himself, or of just being delivered up in general. That is what I think with regard to Romans 1.3. I think that Paul was thinking of a descendant of David, and I have presented evidence for this.

If somebody tried to topple your argument on 1 Corinthians 11.23 without even glancing at the verses you offered, such as Romans 8.32, I know you would see through such evasive tactics immediately.

I just described a group of hypothetical scholars who now accept your approach to 1 Corinthians 15, that is, who now think that Paul had no physical human figure in mind at all, and who now regard Romans 1.3 as an interpolation... and you are assailing them for their orthodoxy??

Just exactly how far to the left of center are you standing that a group of interpolation-hunting Jesus mythicists should strike you as too orthodox?

Or are you draining even the word orthodox of every last vestige of its meaning, too, just as you are trying to do with flesh, seed of David, and born of woman?

Surely this, if nothing else, deserves a different conceptual universe comment.

Well, you just dumped on my hypothetical mythicists.

Excellent. If you could just link to the relevant post(s) or, better yet, copy and paste the relevant argument(s) on this thread, I would be most appreciative.

IOW, there are apparently no analogies.

So, I ask you once again (you ignored this the first time round), was Richard Carrier just plain wrong to even ask for analogies?

And I gave you examples of people using the Jewish scriptures to prove physical points about what they regard as a very real and historically human Jesus.

You never bothered to refute my point, yet here you are claiming once again that finding elements in the Jewish scriptures somehow removes those elements from perceived history.

I am not necessarily seeking analogies from other religions, though that might be helpful. I would be happy with analogies from Judaism or Christianity.

That is exactly the article that I was thinking of.

However, I decline (for now) to go into it. I want to keep this thread on track. I would like to address your argument on 1 Corinthians 15, but some other time. Thanks.

I do not think the natural meaning of Galatians 3.24 does anything to help (or hurt) historicism.

I gave you a 6-point comparison of the conceptual similarities between Augustus and Jesus, to wit, being sent from God (or providence), being born of a woman, belonging to the progeny of an important historical figure (David, Aeneas), dying, ascending to heaven, and having a gospel preached. And there is hardly a comparison because of possible differences?

(I do not even agree with your differences, from a Pauline perspective! But even if they were legitimate differences, they would not nullify the similarities between Augustus and Jesus, which have been pointed out by scholars as diverse as Deissman, Talbert, Evans, and Price.)

Is this the same Earl Doherty who has written the following in supplementary articles 13A-D?

I have made the point earlier that there are different forms of 'resurrection'. All are variants on the basic idea of 'conquest of death' by the god, and all have the same result regardless of their differences, namely the guarantee of some form of positive afterlife for the initiate.

....

So again, in the end the similarities are just as significant as the differences, and inhabit the same conceptual universe.

....

If this were true, there is an inherent contradiction here. On the one hand, the new scholarship highlights the incompatible differences in concepts like resurrection in order to divorce the two, but then hedges its bets by saying that the similarities evident between pagan and Christian in the same evidence can be put down to borrowing in the other, permissible, direction.

....

Justin, in defending Christianity against pagan similarities, does not say, 'But we have the only god who was resurrected!' This is one reason why we can say with confidence that the pagan mysteries must have had a 'resurrection' concept for their gods, even if it wasn't exactly equivalent to that of Christianity—although in the 1st century, before the Gospels began to circulate, it would have seemed equivalent. This is a huge red herring, and modern scholars are to be faulted for not recognizing, or admitting it as such.

And who quotes Price approvingly?

It is very hard not to see extensive and basic similarities between these religions and the Christian religion. But somehow Christian scholars have managed not to see it, and this, one must suspect, for dogmatic reasons.

Smith's first error is his failure, as I see it, to grasp the point of an "ideal type," a basic textbook definition/description of some phenomenon under study.... Smith, finding that there are significant differences between the so-called dying-and-rising-god mysths, abandons any hope of a genuine dying-and-rising-god paradigm. For Smith, the various myths of Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and the others, do not all conform to type exactly; thus they are not sufficiently alike to fit into the same box—so let's throw out the box! Without everything in common, Smith sees nothing in common.

Smith's error is the same as that of Raymond Brown, who dismisses the truckload of comparative religion parallels to the miraculous birth of Jesus: This one is not strictly speaking a virgin birth, since the god fathered the child on a married woman. That one involved physical intercourse with the deity, not overshadowing by the Holy Spirit, and so on. But, we have to ask, how close does a parallel have to be to count as a parallel? Does the divine mother have to be named Mary? Does the divine child have to be named Jesus? Here is the old "difference without a distinction" fallacy.

Of course there are differences between Augustus and Jesus. I myself even mentioned that at the time.

But the differences do not overwhelm the similarities.

No, it is not the case. And yes, it is utterly irrelevant. I stated as clearly as I could that the Augustus parallel was not, repeat not, intended to demonstrate historicity. I stated that I could have constructed other parallels, not quite so close, with other figures, some of them mythical (Romulus, Dionysus), so historicity is not the issue.

In fact, I have adopted something of a soft mythicist position on this thread so as to highlight the nature of Romans 1.3 and Galatians 4.4. So, if you think that the nearly instant deification of Jesus and the relative lack of harder evidence for his career spell doom for an historical Jesus, so be it, and I will agree for the sake of argument just to get back to Romans 1.3 and Galatians 4.4. I am still asking what Paul meant in those verses, regardless of whether he believed in an HJ or not.

No, we should not. We should be prepared to acknowledge the parallels between Augustus and Romulus and accept the consequences cheerfully. Likewise, you should be prepared to acknowledge the parallels between Augustus and Jesus and accept the consequences cheerfully. In this case, the consequences may affect your understanding of the words born of a woman and seed of David according to the flesh. For, if Augustus can be given these attributes in their concrete sense, as well as more spiritual or divine attributes, then it stands to reason that Jesus can, too, regardless of whether Jesus really existed or not.

You have so far in this debate ignored (A) my analogy with Augustus until I pressed you again (so much later in the discussion that you seem to have forgotten why I originally even brought it up), (B) my presentation of the other Pauline verses that seem to parallel Romans 1.3 (similar to your Pauline verse that seems to parallel 1 Corinthians 11.23), and (C) my question to you about Richard Carrier. Hopefully you will not ignore the following.

What do you make of Ignatius? On your reading, Ignatius knew of mythicist opponents and writes against them. His diatribe against them includes these descriptions of Jesus:

...τω κατα σαρκα εκ γενους Δαυιδ, τω υιω ανθρωπου και υιω θεου ([I]one from the race of David according to the flesh, son of man and son of God).

...εκ σπερματος μεν Δαυιδ (from the seed of David).

...του εκ σπερματος Δαυιδ (one from the seed of David).

...του εκ γενους Δαυιδ (one from the race of David).

...αληθως οντα εκ γενους Δαυιδ κατα σαρκα (being truly from the race of David according to the flesh).

If Ignatius was countering mythicist claims, why was he using mythicist phrases pioneered by the mythicist Paul to do so? Why did these phrases seem like such handy prooftexts to him against mythicism?

One last thing that I hope you do not ignore. On a recent thread I brought up the Christ hymn in Philippians 2 and opined that the most natural (yes, natural) way to read it is that God bestowed the name of Jesus on Christ at his resurrection; if this is indeed the correct way of reading this hymn, it strikes a rather large blow for mythicism, as Price points out. IOW, I willingly conceded that, despite my larger views on mythicity and historicity, this one passage, on its own terms, seems to point against my overall stance.

G. A. Wells did a similar thing, though perhaps less forcefully, in his online response to you. While backing up a lot of his points against your views, he admitted that the issue of the archontes in 1 Corinthians 2.8 seems to turn somewhat in your favor and against his own view. He willingly conceded that his own reading of that verse involved a reading into of sorts that your avoided.

What I would like to know is this: Can you willingly concede that, despite your overall views on historicism and mythicism, the born of a woman and seed of David according to the flesh lines seem, on their own terms, to point against your type (though not all types) of mythicism?

Ben.

Chili

Except that Jesus died after Christ was set free and rose again to be with Christ now called Jesus [the] Christ. Christ is the universal and Jesus the paricular wherefore we can be brothers of Jesus in Christ but not brothers of Christ in Jesus for Jesus is the way and Christ is the end. Hint, remember how bar-abbas was set free to crucify the bare naked ego called Jesus after his disciples (called shepherds prior to metanoia) had abandoned him?

Chili

Actually Ben, Jesus was never addressed as Christ in any of the four Gospels until after his resurrection to make it known to the reader that he was not Christ, but was, at best, 'Christ-in-becoming' if and only if he could find completion on the cross. Hence the "now it is finished" in John after he identified his bosum-buddy [John] as the providential son of wo-man in the flesh of David who was son of man in exile and here now fully man in completion to isolate and identify the purity of Jewish godmanship.

Resurrection after the crisis moment is needed to transform a potential [Senecan] tragedy into a [divine] comedy.

EarlDoherty

But that's just asking me to acknowledge what the "natural" meaning of those two phrases are, and there is no dispute about that. The question has always been, are there reasons to look for a different understanding of such phrases, and I have always maintained that there are.

If the case against an accused man is dependent entirely on one piece of evidence, and yet many other pieces of evidence point to his innocence, what should one do? Simply convict him on the basis of the former? Should we not, on the basis of the latter, try to see if there is another way to explain that apparent piece of incriminating evidence? And if the defense attorney manages to do just that, while at the same time demonstrating the strength of his client's alibi, or his inability to have physically performed the murder, or whatever, shouldn't the jury weigh the relative merits of guilt and innocence? That's all I'm asking you to do.

I don't have a problem with either of those two 'incriminating' pieces of evidence. I see Romans 1:3 in the context of its scriptural derivation and can readily accept Paul stating it on that basis--yes, even if he didn't understand it (I simply say that as a possibility), which I don't see as an element of "desperation". I have recently given a detailed analysis of Romans 9:5 as constituting much less than a direct statement that Christ is of "human descent" from the Israelites. I have pointed out the contradictions in the context of Gal. 4:4. This sort of thing should make it clear to you why I am comfortable with not deriving the kind of literal, natural meaning from our 2 or 3 passages in question. And I still see merit in regarding certain problematic phrases, such as the last one, as very possibly interpolations.

And when I read passages like 1 Corinthians 15:44-49, or Titus 1:3, or many of those I have highlighted here and elsewhere, which indicate to me beyond shadow of a doubt that Paul and other early writers have no recent historical figure in their minds, then like my ideal jury, I am forced to set aside the odd passage which seems to lean in the other direction if we simply assume their "natural" meaning.

So in sum, I sleep very well at night.

Now, in regard to your appeal to Ignatius. You overlook a basic anomaly here. The best example is in Smyrneans 1. Here is the Loeb translation of the pertinent verses:

Now, how can this "Lord" be a physical descendant of David (which is the strict meaning you want to assign it) and at the same time be "truly born of a Virgin"? Did Ignatius subscribe to the modern apologetic "desperation" measure of regarding Jesus as descended of David through Mary? That would be even less supportable in the ancient way of thinking than in the modern. We have only two alternatives. One is that Ignatius meant something else than the literal in his first statement, that he had some kind of metaphorical meaning in mind. Or else he simply let the contradiction stand, even if by our rational standards the two are utterly incompatible and mutually exclusive. Why? Because both were required dogma. At least one, perhaps both, were derived from scripture (going back to Paul, and thus in keeping with mythicist outlook), but virgin birth was also a 'requirement' in the world of saviors and illustrious men.

We encounter a similar situation in Acts 2:30.

The author of Acts, you would surely agree, regards Jesus as born of Mary and the Holy Spirit. How then can he point to scripture and appeal to such a promise to David? The same two alternatives offer themselves. Either this was regarded in some other way than the literal and "natural" one, or else the contradiction was accepted because both views were required, and the religious mind is quite capable of accepting an irrationality, a contradiction, a "mystery".

Now, you may want to opt for the latter alternative in each case in order to preserve your appeal to the "natural" meaning, but it's a rather inglorious choice. My preference really borrows from both. It was something which all concerned, from Paul to Ignatius to the author of Acts, ultimately derived from scripture. In their minds it had to apply, one way or another, mythically, metaphorically, or simply undefined. What that way was we can't know for sure, but that it was originally compatible with the view that Christ was an entirely spiritual being, I personally have no problem accepting.

And thus I feel that I have, if indirectly, answered your question:

We can only glean meaning from contexts. I have supplied much in the way of contexts in the course of this debate which tend to indicate what certain phrases do not seem to mean in the mind of the writer. If a certain person were described as "fortunate", let's say, and yet the same writer also describes him as poor, diseased, accident-prone, spending half his life in prison, deserted by his friends and family, and dying young, I think we would be led to consider that the writer meant something else by his use of the word "fortunate" than we would tend to do ourselves. That's the situation we encounter in the epistles. And we've just encountered it in Ignatius and Acts. (You may also recall our discussion of the word "oikoumene" in Hebrews 1, whose context would seem to require a different understanding than the usual one.)

Whether I will continue this discussion much longer is debatable, since we are simply repeating ourselves to little avail, which is the usual way these things end up.

Earl Doherty