Gamera

It's not completely candid to focus on the "Son of David" remark as Paul's sole reference to Jesus' embeddedness in Jewish history. Paul twice connects Jesus directly with Abraham and the patriarchs.

Gal 3:
10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."[c] 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."[d] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."[e] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."[f] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Romans 15
7Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. 8For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews [lit. circumcision] on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs 9so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written . . .

On it's face, these passages don't explain what it means for the blessing to "come through" Jesus to the Gentiles. But they presume that Christ stands in some historical relationship --genealogical or otherwise -- with both.

By the way, since Paul states that Christ "confirms" or connects the promise of Abraham to the gentiles, and redeems us from the law, there is at least a terminus ad quem for Jesus' redemptive act in Paul's soteriology/historiography: it has to be sometime after Abraham received the promise and in particular after Moses received the law.

Chili

It does so prove that beyond a shadow of doubt because to become eternal humans must be reborn of a woman who is without the human condition and thus without sin. If that is required to make our existence known it follows that humans do not exist but mereley think that they exist and therefore "surely will die."

Ben C Smith

Item 1 seems okay.

Nothing wrong with item 2.

(I am going to deny myself a detour here and concede for the sake of argument that Paul is admitting here that he got the seed of David bit exclusively from the scriptures; I do not think he is.)

I see nothing wrong with item 3, either.

It is the combination of items 1 and 3 that is untenable. You have Paul thinking that Jesus is a purely spiritual figure who never set foot on the planet but saying that he was born of a woman, of the seed of David, and so forth.

Once we abandon the clear and obvious meaning of words, of course this is what we are left with.

And such a startling lack of confidence from a man who can read our single extant work by Theophilus and thereby get inside his mind enough to know what he thought of a human Jesus!

You mean in all seven or eight authentic letters that are extant, when we know for a fact that we do not have all that he wrote?

But, to answer your question more directly, I suspect it is because we possess only one letter of his that was written to a church he had not yet even visited. Without the usual stock of shared information that would have come from having personally founded the church, he is being slightly more thorough than usual.

Straw man. I have already stated several times (including at least once on this very thread, IIRC) that I am attracted to the idea that the seed of David idea derived purely from messianic predictions, not from historical information about Jesus. It is what the application of this prophecy implies about the thought processes in the background that is of interest to me here. (I gave what I consider to be a pretty good analogy involving preachers who claim that Jesus was not particularly good-looking; did you read it?)

????

How can Davidic lineage for a messiah figure be considered unimportant? Maybe it was not absolutely necessary (did bar Kokhba claim Davidic descent?), but of no great significance?

And I cannot help but suspect that you are starting to erect another straw man in my honor. I am perfectly willing to concede (for the sake of argument on this thread) that all Paul knew of Jesus is what he tells us or implies for us. I am not out to prove all the gospel details, or even (on this thread) that Jesus exists. I am hosting an inquiry on your interpretation of certain phrases. That is all.

And let me push that inquiry one step further now. You have claimed that Paul was thinking of a purely heavenly savior and that anything he wrote that seems to imply an earthly tenure he either did not mean or did not understand (or both). I personally regard this as a momentary lapse of reason on your part. If he meant it when he said that Jesus was sitting at the right hand of God, why did he not mean it when he said that Jesus was of the line of David?

But there is more to this picture. I wish to do what you have so far refused to do. I wish to present an analogy. Here are some things that Paul writes about Jesus Christ:

Sent by God (presumably from heaven).
Born of a woman.
Of the seed of Abraham and of David.
Crucified, buried, resurrected.
Exalted into heaven.
Gospel about him.

These items are listed basically in the order in which they have to occur. Notice that they are a mixture of the physical (born of a woman, Jewish and Davidide, crucified and buried) and the more ethereal (sent by God, exalted).

On your view, apparently, the ethereal elements ought to kill off the physical elements; Paul meant that Jesus was a spiritual being, but did not really mean that Jesus was a fleshly being.

But what is really happening, IMHO, is that this résumé is filling out a recognizable pattern. And all of these elements participate in this filling out of the pattern, not just the ones you like best. For here are some things that were believed of Caesar Augustus:

Sent by providence from heaven.
Born of Atia.
Of the progeny of Aeneas.
Died.
Ascended into heaven.
Gospel about him.

There are quite a few people, both historical and mythical, from antiquity that match this profile to some degree. Augustus is possibly the closest match to Jesus. (I do not by that comparison intend to suggest that this alone means that Jesus existed, just because Augustus existed; things are rarely that simple.) What I wish to point out is that we have recognizable analogies for virtually everything that Paul says by way of outlining the career (for want of a better term) of Jesus, and these analogies involve a belief that the figure in question was human, at least in some way, and did indeed touch down on this planet.

This is true even of probably purely mythical personages such as (for the Greeks) Hercules and Dionysus and (for the Romans) Aeneas and Romulus. So, again, my point is not that this proves that Jesus existed.

Rather, what it shows is that the elements you would dismiss as not meaning much from the pen of Paul are every bit as much a part of the heroic or divine résumé as the elements that you embrace.

I submit that this analogy (and I could construct less complete analogies with Alexander, Apollonius, and others) is evidence that Paul was thinking of a Jesus who was every bit as human as Augustus (whether or not he was correct to do so, that is, whether or not Jesus really did exist). There is no reason to slough off into despair or imagine fleshly realms in which gods can be born of women but not on earth. Paul wrote born of a woman because he thought Jesus was born of a woman.

Ben.

PS: There are differences, of course, between Jesus and Augustus, as well. For example, Paul imagines the earthly career of Jesus as a kenosis of some kind, and Augustus was not crucified. There are very good reasons for the differences and, at any rate, the differences should not distract from the clear similarities.

gstafleu

Allow me to qualify this a little: "born of a woman" can be read that way, and if we do that the level of "reality" of the birth is the same as the level of reality of Dionysos from Semele.

As another example, I mentioned the Inana story, which, BTW, is afaik (one of) the oldest texts extant, so I'm sure it meets your criterion of "antiquity" . In this story we find an earthly reference, to wit: Inana walks the earth and the place where she does so is Eridu. In Paul we find a (possibly) earthly reference: Jesus is born from a woman, period. Something to note straight of the bat is that the Inana story is more explicit: it tells where Inana walked, hence it does not need a qualifier "possibly." The Jesus story gives no such details, and hence is vaguer so it needs a "possibly." Taking the "possibly" in the "yes" direction, the reality, or historicity, of the birth of Jesus is of the same kind as the earth-walking of Inana. BWT, note that Dionysos birth is also detailed: a mother is mentioned (and sometimes a place).

One further note. It seems that all (most?) of Paul's earthly references are not only vague in the sense that they don't provide any earthly details other than the event (no who or where e.g.), they are also qualified by Paul as "kata sarka," and hence should be seen against the kata pneuma / kata sarka dichotomy that seems to pervade Paul. This influences the meaning of the reported events, the problem being that we don't quite know how. But, given the event is qualified, we cannot assume an unqualified earthly event.

Maybe. As I said, no place or time is given, so it has to be "once upon a time (which is mythical and hence different from the historical ancient times), in a country far far away." Can we narrow that down to after David, i.e. after the time that Paul thought David lived? Maybe, but not necessarily. The Australian aborigines think of events in the dreamtime as both having happened and still continuously happening. In Christian mythology, think of the idea that Jesus was pre-existent to everything (earthly). It could well be that Paul is refering to a mythical line of David, call it a "preordained one" if you will, that exists and or existed before and outside earthly time. We just don't know, but in mythology this certainly isn't an unusual concept.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

Hi, Gerard. What do you think of the analogy with Augustus?

Ben.

JoeWallack

JW:
JW:
Congratulations Ben, you've gone from Ignore to Deny. "another (besides Paul) ancient example of someone claiming that somebody is of the seed of David (or whoever) but meaning something very different than the original meaning." This kind of restricts from your original post, doesn't it.

We have plenty of Church Fathers writing "seed of David" for Jesus but explaining that it did not mean that Jesus was a biological descendent of David through his father. They believed in the virgin birth which Paul didn't. Why don't you add another restriction.

My analogy works just fine based on your OP. Marcion was responsible for a specific Gospel per your brand of Christianity and could have changed whatever he wanted, just like your "Matthew" and "Luke" did. Apparently he did not feel the need to change the Real Family story, even though the plain meaning you are looking for is that Jesus had a real family. He had no problem given an other than plain explanation which presumably his Legion of followers had no problem receiving.

Your restriction here is especially unfair as the whole point of your exercise is to support a HJ and the Early Fathers used the exact same story I used to try and prove a fleshy Jesus, that he had a real family. Really.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Clivedurdle

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=205276

(Augustus)

Ben C Smith

You rarely seem to be having any fun looking into these things. You seem eager to make things personal, a game which I prefer not to play.

I am not following, and I am not trying to be difficult. I thought it was pretty clear I was seeking analogies.

Why should I add restrictions? The very idea of an analogy is restriction enough, I should think.

But this looks like a hopeful avenue. If you could present the relevant texts (or at least the references you have in mind) I would be most appreciative, especially if you can bring yourself to do so sine ira et studio.

I agree. It just happens to be analogous in a way that does not support a spiritualized way of reading Romans 1.3-4.

I have no idea what this means. Per my brand of Christianity? Please elucidate.

My Matthew? My Luke? What on earth is going on?

Do you have some evidence of which I am not aware here? I am going by Tertullian. Marcion (or somebody) retained this incident for its punchline: Who are my mother and brothers? This could be understood as Jesus denying that the people waiting for him outside are his relatives. You and I know (I think) that he is just speaking figuratively, making a point, but the spin that Marcion (or whoever), according to Tertullian, puts on this episode absolutely depends on a very literal meaning for mother and brothers (those are not his relatives, because he cannot have any). Likewise, the spin that the fathers put on this episode also absolutely depends on a very literal meaning for mother and brothers (those are his relatives).

(Both sides would agree, I think, that the final words of Jesus in this pericope are figurative, so that is not a difference between them. But that figure of speech is obvious in context, and does not require explanation from either side.)

Ben.

EarlDoherty

An interesting observation, which I had not noticed before. One wonders if even Ehrman noticed it, since he not only fails to mention it when speaking of “the same change appear[ing] in several Greek witnesses as well, where it is much easier to make…” (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, p.239), he translates the similar scribal change in Romans 1:3 as “being born of the seed of David.” Moreover, here the case is genitive (modifying huiou), yet he refers to the original and substitution as “from genomenon to gennwmenon, nor does he comment on the change from aorist to perfect. Am I missing something here, or has Erhman been a bit sloppy? Or perhaps he feels Greek actual usage was looser than the strict grammatical principles you have laid out?

Moreover, I haven’t been able to check a printed declension in any of my grammars of the perfect (or aorist) passive participle of gennaw in the masc. sing. Might you reproduce one for us? Not only do I not carry around the forms of irregular verbs in my head, I’m doubly uncertain, because according to my Analytical Lexicon, gennwmenon is a present passive participle, which doesn't agree with your presentation.

Well, one answer is the one you’ve supplied yourself:

Your earlier interpolator of the original phrase was not only more proficient in Greek (assuming the whole assumption which you have led off with in the quote above is valid), he may have had that very motive, that he felt that using gennaw wasn’t suitable to convey the son of God coming down to earth. So he used ginomai. Whereas, the later amender to gennaw wasn’t as proficient (as you say, sophisticated Greek had generally declined), and to him, the latter verb seemed an even better stress of the fact that Jesus had been “born human”, so he changed it.

Now, one might say that your suggestion is the reason why Paul originally chose ginomai rather than gennaw to convey Jesus’ human birth. (I have challenged his use of the former to convey birth, since it is not as specific and could have been seen as conveying the ‘mythological’ overtones of the matter.) True enough. You can’t have it both ways, but neither can I. However, the difference might lie in that Paul was not a scribe, and not as attuned to the niceties of middle ginomai vs. passive gennaw. Furthermore, we ought to look at the contexts in which the uses of ginomai occur. The scribe was working in isolation on that one passage (Gal.4:4), not composing the whole epistle, whereas Paul was (presumably).

When he wants to say “born” in the normal way, he consistently uses gennaw, including a few verses later, in the allegory of Gal. 4:22-31. Since Jesus was presumably born in the normal way (regardless of the impregnation), why would he feel uncomfortable with using gennaw for Jesus? Conversely, he consistently uses ginomai in the sense of “becoming”, as in 1 Cor. 15:45 (Adam ‘created’ as a living soul, not ‘born’ of anyone); In Eph. 3:7, Paul himself “became” (egenethen, sorry, can’t be consistent with my eta’s when they flank n’s) a minister of the gospel (no birth there). He even says of Christ in 1 Cor. 1:30, that “Christ has become (egenethe) to us wisdom from God” which is not a reference to his birth. Thus we should ask whether Paul would deliberately use ginomai to mean birth when it risks being confused with his usual use of the verb. (Note that the egeneto understood in 1 Cor. 15:45b, from 45a, cannot mean “born”; though how it should be taken is another matter discussed elsewhere.)

In sum, I somehow don’t think that Paul would have subjected his epistle to the kind of niceties of close examination when talking of Jesus being ‘born of woman’ as you suggest might have operated in regard to a scribe; and I don't think he would have chosen ginomai in light of his regular use of both verbs. We might also note that the evangelists have no compunction about applying gennaw to Jesus’ birth, which they do consistently, never using ginomai, even in the context of a virgin one, or a Son of God coming down from heaven.

All of this, of course, is quite subtle, and I wouldn’t bet the family farm on any of it. We’re simply weighing relative possibilities about the authenticity of “born of woman, born under the law.” (We’re also trying to arrive at accurate analyses of Greek grammar.)

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

You're still not getting it, Ben. In fact, you're begging the question. You are claiming that if Paul "says" that Jesus was born of a woman, of the seed of David, that he can only have a human birth in mind, a human relationship with David--which indeed would make the combination of my 2 items untenable. But what I'm stating is that Paul does not have to have your reading in mind. He can be deriving it from scripture solely, and understanding (or not understanding) it in a way that is not the same, not in the same context, as how you and I would normally, or solely, take it. On that basis, Nos. 1 and 3 are not untenable.

I have never claimed I can "get inside" Theophilus' mind. What I can do is judge what he believes by what he says, and by what he does not say. Certainly, that's a good notch above you or others claiming you can get inside and know the content of his mind in the absence of any indication by him of such a content. Nor is it valid for you to suggest that you can do such a reading by assuming the content of some non-extant works imputed to him.

I said there were things of greater significance. And it hardly seems to have been significant to Paul, since he never mentions or appeals to it anywhere else.

You are stretching my statement. I never said Paul didn't "mean" it when he spoke of Jesus as of the seed of David, and the like. It was in scripture, so it was "true" in some way, only Paul may not have understood how, or he applied his thinking about the mythical realm to the idea, in ways we can't know, since we can't get inside his mind. In fact, you are drawing a very pertinent conjunction above. Both those items in Romans 1:3-4, being part of the gospel of God in scripture, can thus be seen to be derived from scripture, and solely from scripture. Paul is showing us that from scripture he can derive something "kata sarka" and something "kata pneuma". Does this not suggest that he is understanding them on the same grounds? He meant Jesus' sitting on the right hand of God in the same general category as Jesus' being of the line of David: both existed in the mythical/spiritual dimension revealed by scripture.

What it really boils down to, Ben, is that no matter who says what, you keep coming back to your adamant statement that, by God, if Paul says "born of woman" he can only mean "born of a human woman in human history on earth"! You either refuse to countenance, or fail to understand, any argument which says that Paul does not have to mean this. So we are automatically at an impasse.

Of course, that's assuming Paul even said "born of woman." But as you often state in principle, for the sake of the argument let's allow that he did.

Earl Doherty