spamandham

All you're doing is presupposing that Paul is using 'we' in a specific sense as shorthand for "you, myself, peter, james, ...", rather than the more general sense to simply indicate a group that he belongs to, namely "sinners".

"while we were still sinners Christ died for us"

Notice the word "us" here? If Paul is using "we" to refer to specific people rather than a more general group, then he is also using "us" for the same purpose. This then implies that Paul thinks Christ died just for himself and whoever else is included in the specific group referred to be "we". Clearly that's at odds with Paul's overall salvation gospel, so that can't be the sense in which he's using "us"/"we".

The passage merely points out that Christ died for sinners, and that Paul considers himself a former sinner.

Ben C Smith

The debate over James the brother of the Lord is of course a worthy enterprise in its own right, but it kind of misses the point of the cumulative argument. The force of the cumulative argument is not that each separate item on the list has to be true, but rather that there are too many items to chalk up to chance. I do not think it can be argued that brother of the Lord cannot refer to a blood relationship; it obviously can. And, so long as it can (and so long as that meaning of the term brother is not an outlandish or inherently unlikely one), this item can still count as one of the cumulative elements. With a cumulative argument, one can always pick out a couple of the elements and ascribe them to chance; the point is that it seems unlikely that all of the elements line up that way by chance.

The best ways to diffuse a cumulative argument are:

1. Show other elements, missed in the selection (my selection, in this case), that seemingly point to a different conclusion. (For instance, if you found several indicators pointing to the time of Pompey, they would counterbalance my indicators pointing to early in century I.)
2. Show that most or even all the elements on my list owe themselves to a single explanation. (IOW, show that they are not truly independent indicators.)

Trying to sink each element individually in a cumulative argument misses the point entirely.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I think that is in perfect accord with his overall salvation gospel. He thought he was living in the last human generation, the generation that had already seen, in his view, the beginning of the end times. His we was meant to cover himself and his contemporaries. I do not think he had us in mind some two millennia later, however much we like to identify with the we in Pauline thought.

At the end of Romans 4 Paul distinguishes the we from Abraham and his direct biological progeny; at the end of Romans 5 he uses different (and third-party) terms to refer to those who lived between Adam and Moses. The we is not meant to apply to the entire human race.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Hi, Jay. Every once in a while you come up with a post that just confuses me no end.

For example, in the above, you seem to be implying that my view demands that the phrase last Adam means last human being ever to live. Your view obviously does not demand that meaning; but nor does mine. :huh:

And the rest of your points seem equally beside the tracks.

Ben.

spamandham

Unless the odds of each point are estimated, there is no cumulative argument at all. 'The weight of evidence', or 'parsimony', are much too vague to have any meaning to anyone but the speaker or those who already agree with her. IMHO, this is why you and Doherty can examine the exact same evidence, and draw different conclusions based on a 'cumulative argument'.

This is not a scientific process unless we can figure out how to weigh the odds of each component and calculate a composite probability.

We might not agree on the assessment of probabilites for each piece, but can we agree this is the proper scientific approach? If so, then we must examine each piece of the puzzle and come up with a liklihood.

I agree. Based on the comment regarding the '500 brethren', I think we must also weigh the odds that it is merely a title. Do you agree this is a reasonable liklihood as well based on that fact?

I've stated previously my disdain for informal cumulative arguments, for this very reason.

Who does the "us" refer to in "christ died for us"?

andrewcriddle

However on your interpretation Christ did not die for the sinners alive at the time of his death but only for sinners born much later.

This failure to offer the Gospel to the sinners alive at the time of Christ's death (the ones who rejected Christ) seems contrary to Paul's statement about how God's love is extended to the undeserving.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

You are not describing a cumulative argument proper. The odds of each individual item do not matter as much for a cumulative argument as for a theorem or such.

I absolutely agree that for each instance of the term brother in Paul we should first evaluate whether it means a brother in Christ, a Christian, a believer, or a fellow member of the church, since that is how he most frequently uses it.

It is just that I believe this usage fails the tests of Galatians 1.19 and 1 Corinthians 9.5.

Paul and his contemporaries, the final generation (in his view). The same people the spirit was given to in Romans 5.5, and I do not think that Paul imagined the spirit had been given before the end times (Joel 2.28 is the locus classicus).

Ben.

Ben C Smith

This is what I am talking about when I mention the cumulative argument. Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 305:

Cumulative or converging evidence is virtually circumstantial. It is "a heaping up" (L. cumulus) of bits of evidence, individually never more than probable, and often only slightly so, until they form a mass of evidence, the net result of which is certainty. But, as already noted, the resulting certainty does not issue directly from the mass or cumulus of probabilities, since no number of mere probabilities added together can logically produce certainty. To produce such effect, one must invoke the "principle of sufficient reason," by arguing that the only possible explanation why so many bits of evidence point to the same alleged fact, is that the fact is objectively true.

Notice that we are not accumulating probabilities in a mathematical sense, and that the probability of each item need not be very high. The force of the argument is in its odd convergence on a point, even if each item converging is minor and, on its own, quite explicable.

Ben.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Chris,

I can send you the article privately if you want me to.

Here is another relevant article that is online for free which includes footnotes: "And the Word was Begotten," Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John by Adele Reinhartz of McMaster University, available at ( http://tinyurl.com/32pgk4 )

It talks about epigenesis in the Gospel of John. This theory rivaled the idea of preformation (more closely associated with the belief in Homunculi).

It is my belief, which I hope to show more clearly in future work, that Paul's epistles come out of the John cult as does the Gospel of John. There is a gnostic reworking of Paul in the Second Century (and later Proto-Orthodox reworkings in the Third/Fourth century). While this article supports the ideas of epigenesis being at the base of the gospel of John, we find the rival ideas of preformation pushed in the later gnostic portions of Paul. So we have this interesting battle of philosophical-biological ideas being played out in the early Christian texts of John and Paul.

Note this in the conclusion in Reinhartz work:

Viewed through the lens of Aristotelian embryology, the Gospel of John
describes the creation of a new species, called the “children of God.” The
ultimate cause and origin of the species is God, the divine father, who sent
his lovgoı and pneu'ma into the world through the generation of his only son in
human form. The son, Jesus, continues the work of generation not through
his seed, but by the postresurrection infusion of his spirit into those who
struggle for true knowledge of the father through the son. These believers, in
turn, are sent into the world (17:18) to propagate future generations, not
through their own flesh and blood, but through the word—the lovgoı—of
God (17:20).

As I mentioned, Paul is trying describe that new species when making his comparison of Christ and Adam. It is certain that Philo was aware of Aristotle's biological ideas of preformation and epigensis, and I suspect strongly that it is through him that we are getting the earliest references in both the John and Paul texts.


Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

I apologize for the confusion.

I believe I was considering your proof #2 of the historicity of Jesus from your first post when I wrote this:

Evidence that Paul regarded Jesus as having lived recently, within living memory, as an older contemporary:
...

2. Paul believes he is living in the end times (1 Corinthians 10.11), that he himself (1 Thessalonians 4.15; 1 Corinthians 15.51) or at least his converts (1 Thessalonians 5.23; 2 Corinthians 4.14) might well live to see the parousia. Paul also believes that the resurrection of Jesus was not just an ordinary resuscitation of the kind Elijah or Elisha supposedly wrought; it was the first instance of the general resurrection from the dead at the end of the age (1 Corinthians 15.13, 20-28). When, then, does Paul think Jesus rose from the dead? If, for Paul, he rose from the dead at some point in the indeterminate past, then we must explain either (A) why Paul thought the general resurrection had begun (with Jesus) well before the end times or (B) why Paul regarded the end times as a span of time stretching from the misty past all the way to the present. If, however, Paul regarded the resurrection of Jesus as a recent phenomenon, all is explained. The resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of the general resurrection and thus the ultimate sign that the end times were underway.

Now here are the relevant passages:

51: Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

This just says we are not going to die but we are going to get changed in the future (into spiritual beings). It does point to the writer believing the Kingdom of God is at hand and these are getting close to the endtimes. This is simply John the Baptist's beliefs.

1:Thessalonians 5.23: And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This just points to the good old Jewish belief that a Christ will come in the future. It does not point to a belief in an historical Jesus.

from 1 Corinthians:

12: Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13: But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain...

This is a logical argument:

You preach Christ (anointed one) comes from the dead. If you preach this, how can there be no resurrection of the dead.

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. The Saducees we may take it here are arguing in favor of an anointed one (Christ) coming from the dead (Moses, David or Joshua perhaps) Paul ("John" in the original text) is arguing against the Sadducees.

If we agree with you that there is no general resurrection of the dead, then we/you who preach Christ from the dead are preaching in vain.

The writer here is simply pointing out a logical contradiction. If one person will come back from the dead, then there must be resurrection of the dead. It is as if somebody said, "You cannot claim that nobody flies and then say that we will see Superman flying; because if nobody flies, Superman cannot fly either.

The simple change of Christ from future to past is simply a proto-orthodox revision and does not affect the argument which has nothing to do with a past or future Christ but with the idea of Christ in general.

1. Thessalonikians 4.14-15
14: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15: For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

Here we are just getting a hypothetical. If we believe in the coming of Jesus on the clouds (as John predicted in Revelation), we will live to see Jesus' crew/comrades rising along with him (as predicted in Revelation).

20: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21: For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23: But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
24: Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25: For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
26: The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Here we have a prediction of the future.

All men die because Adam died. When the Christ (the first to be resurrected from the dead) will come, then the followers of Christ will be made alive (presumably the followers of Moses or David or Joshua). With this army of the dead, Christ will be able to conquer all God's enemies and give this world to God. At this point, God destroys death and we all live forever.


38: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
39: All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.
40: There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
41: There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
42: So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45: And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46: Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47: The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
48: As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
49: And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

Here again, Paul is basing himself on logic not historical president. We are simply getting a lesson in how the dead are resurrected. People die in a material body, but they will rise in a spiritual body. We got our bodies from Adam because God made Adam from material (clay to be exact), we will rise in our spiritual bodies after the resurrection of the dead from a second, spiritual Adam who is made from the dead (rotting corpse material).

Interpreting the text this way appears to solve the problems put forward, "(A) why Paul thought the general resurrection had begun (with Jesus) well before the end times or (B) why Paul regarded the end times as a span of time stretching from the misty past all the way to the present."

The answer to 'A' is that the writer thought the endtimes had begun and someone would be resurrected as Christ and the answer to 'b' is that Paul (or John, originally) thought the endtimes were at hand because the kingdom of God was at hand and he knew that the Kingdom of God would come in the endtimes.

Now, I considered how could I read this text to support the idea that a Christ had come, let alone a recent Christ. The only answer that I saw was if we take the sentence. "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." out of context. Taking it out of context, we could say that since the first Adam came at the beginning of time and the last Adam came at the end of time, Paul must be referring to an Adam in the recent past. But once we do this, I realized that Paul would have to consider himself coming after the last man, the post-last-man generation. Such a concept would truly be anachronistic and echo late 19th century Nitzchean concepts combined with late 20th century postmodern concepts.

So, I cannot see how this material proves the idea that the text is talking about a recently deceased figure. On the contrary, one has to assume while reading this text that Paul is talking about a recently deceased figure to arrive at the idea that Paul is talking about a recently deceased figure. But this begs the question.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay