Amaleq13

Yes, you added an irrelevant extra detail to what is probably the closest you intend to come to a direct answer to a fairly straightforward question.

Whether the meaning was axiomatic is irrelevant to Ben's OP. That you recognize the face value meaning is but only in that it might allow you to provide an analogous example in answer to Ben's request.

Again, Paul's source is irrelevant to recognizing the face value meaning of the phrase he used.

Yes, we are stuck with the evidence we have but unsubstantiated speculation such as you suggest is rarely helpful.

Tell that to the folks toward whom Ben's OP is primarily focused as they do reinterpret the face value meaning of the phrase and claim it was intended to mean something else. It is an analogous example of that which Ben is requesting. If you want to discuss Paul's sources (and you clearly do), you need to find or start a different thread.

Yes and it continues to be irrelevant to this thread. Do you know what "relevant" means?

None of the information you request is actually relevant to recognizing the Paul's own words deny your earlier assertion.

stuart shepherd

Ok ..so tell me. Where was Joseph?
Explain your post because I don't get it.
Show me the Scriptures that pertain to your comments about the Maji and Joseph.


stuart shepherd

Chili

. . . because she was never created to have one but was taken from man to be his dowry in betrothal and actually contains the blueprint (genetic code)of man's flesh. Hence, "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" wherefore Paul could rightfully say that Christ was born of the flesh in the image wherein God hath created the man called Joseph.

Joseph the Jew made reference to the human condition unto whom the woman returned after the inner child was reborn that must mature and become fully man in the Gospels (purgatory we call it) and finally crown her queen of heaven and earth in recognition of the fact that that she is the formal cause of his flesh and bone (the woman presides over the tree of life).

So really, there is no human flesh nor is there spiritual flesh but just the cold fact that we are outsiders taking charge of a body that is not our own. Once we realize this there is nothing 'super' left in nature nor is there much left of God.

Chili

Joseph wasn't, or it can be said that he was 'beyond theology.' Rebirth is a non-rational event and so it is wrong to plunk Joseph right smack in the middle of it for two reason: The magi would not have seen the star, and if they did but Joseph suddenly appeared they would not have entered the stable, which is the conscious mind of man . . . wherefore Joseph must have been absent (note that the Magi followed the essence of the star of Bethlehem because starlight is also an illusion).

In our Catholic nativity Joseph is represented by the ox and the mule who symbolize the pacified Adam and Eve of our conscious mind = beyond theology (a phrase I borrowed from Allen Watts).

The ox and mule are infertile (= no creation or rational activity) but are needed to provide body-heat in the manger scene where the event takes place = uploading the vacant conscious mind with te new creation.

Sorry if this is too Catholic stuart and you are not familiar with it.

If you compare this with Luke you will see that the shepherds did see Joseph and understood who they were and what their flock was all about = peace of mind. Remember here that they were deeply troubled and taking turns herding their flock on midwinter night.

jackal5096

I'd have to go back and reread it, but I think Philo of Alexandria does this with his discussions on the Logos of God, wherein the literal 'word of God' becomes a personified diety.

stuart shepherd

I see you mentioned genetic code.
But there is a problem. If you took Biology in school you will remember that a woman has XX chromosomes and a man has XY chromosomes.
Mary had XX chromosomes.
If Jesus is a man he has XY chromosomes.
But in a virgin birth you can only have females XX because without a sexual contribution from a man XY there is no place to get a Y chromosome.
Unless the Holy Spirit has sperm XY and had a sexual union with Mary.
But then if the Holy Spirit XY had sex with Mary wouldn't that make Jesus' birth illegitimate since Mary was unmarried at the time of Jesus' conception.
Then Jesus would be a bastard.
Deuteronomy 23:2 (King James Version)
A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

A bastard Jesus would be totally ineligible to have any employment with God.

stuart shepherd

Chili

But did I not just write that the woman has no created image of her own to have a genetic code except that of her man and if the HS wants to have sex with Mary he'll have to get her throught Joseph.

Yes I like the 10 generation neutral zone between heaven and earth.

dog-on

Cool. So you think that the scriptures appearing to indicate, to Paul, that Jesus was a Jew and a descendant of David is an irrelevant extra detail with regards to the clear meaning of Paul's use of these words?

hmm......

...but I never had a problem with the "face value". The "clear meaning" must be understood in context, in order for the clear meaning to be understood. Why should I help build this strawman?

...but very relevant to Paul's actual meaning...

...but it is funny and carries almost as much weight as all those HJ cards that were laid out on another thread...

but I never said that the face value meaning of these words were not clear...


I asked you to substantiate your claim....remember? You gave me the "assembly of God" crap, and I asked you to clarify...

So? I repeat my question:

What was preached by this "assembly of God"? Who were these people? Where did they come from?

Answering these questions should help to truly understand the "clear meaning" of "Paul's words and not simply the elementary "face value"...

gstafleu

I've been scratching my head about this one for a while, perhaps because the whole premise of the thread somehow doesn't feel right. I'm still not quite sure why this is, so perhaps I may be allowed to ramble a little.

We are faced with a situation where a person , Jesus, whom our culture knows in fair detail as historical, is described in an almost completely non-historical way by one of his greatest "fans," to wit Paul. All historical details are missing in Paul, but there are a few instances in Paul, like "born from a woman," that can be seen as referring to a historical person rather than a mythical one.

The first problem, that I just want to mention in passing, is that these instances are too few to make much of an impression to lead us away from the otherwise mythical account. One can of course get around this, but this necessitates extra assumptions, e.g. that Paul was a mystic.

Apart from this there is a second issue: to what extent do the "earthly" passages refer to the real earth? Let us consider the modern example of Harry Potter for a moment. He is portrayed as a real boy walking around in a real England. But is this boy real in the sense that you and I are real? Is his England real in the sense that the England of Winston Churchill is real?

Fairy tales often take place "once upon a time" and "in a country far far away." The princes, princesses, wolves and what-have-yous that populate these times and places are presented as quite real, but are so only in a Harry Potter like fashion. Now when it comes to Paul's Jesus, how do we know, given his generally mythical and/or mystical approach, that he didn't place his earthly events in a similar "far far away" earth? He may even have believed that this place was somehow real--I'm sure many of us remember believing in Santa Claus. But that doesn't make his earthly statements any more "real" in a non-Harry sense. In Paul's case this argument gains strength because he nowhere gives any details that would bind his Jesus to a known time and place (unlike the gospels). He may not use the words "once upon a time" and "in a country far far away," but that is certainly how he presents things (and how J.K. Rowling presents things by deliberately including magic). And that means the Jesus he presents is more like a Harry Potter than a Winston Churchill.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

Thanks, Gerard.

This is a fictional approach. It is very different than the approach I was tacitly attacking in the OP, which asserts that Paul was not even thinking of the earth. Rowling, it is clear, is thinking of the earth, and of England. It is a fictionalized England, but it is indeed England (not some parallel universe). And, if Rowling uses physical language of Potter (I do not know that she does, but if she does; I have read the first two books, but that was quite a while ago), I am sure she means it in the usual way (that is, if she says that Potter was born to his mother on such-and-such a day, then she intends born and mother in their usual way). That realistic use of language is consonant with either history or fiction. So this thread is not intended to distinguish between those two.

Yes, it is possible that Paul is writing religious fiction of some strange kind (but fiction not driven by narrative?). However, the viewpoint that I am calling into question is one that asserts that, when Paul wrote that Jesus was of the seed of David, he did not mean it to be taken that way; he did not intend to place Jesus, even fictionally, after David in time.

Ben.