Jeffrey Gibson

This is it?

So have I. And not a single one of the books that I have read that was written by a recognized authority in the subjects you name has said anything that would back up your claim that when Paul, Mark, John, Matthew, and Luke call Jesus "Son of God" in the NT texts you allude to they were proclaiming Jesus to be a "god-man" as you define the term.

Good for you. But the issue isn't whether or not you can define "god man".

The issue is whether you know what the term you take to signify "God-man" meant in the first century. More specifically, it's whether Paul or John or Matthew and Luke thought that the term hUIOS TOU QEOU meant what you define "god man" to mean and that when they applied the title to Jesus they were declaring him to be a god who had become a man or a man who had become a god.

Do Pagels or Price or Armstrong or Spong say as much?

More importantly, what is your evidence from first century Jewish usage and understandings of the title of hUIOS TOU QEOU that this was the case?

Jeffrey

Magdlyn

No. As the rest of the list shows.


Thanks for being so concerned for my welfare! I appreciate it.



That may be your issue.

You've moved the goalposts. But if you'd like my opinion, not anyone else's, I think the 4 evangelists, and Paul, all had rather different ideas of who this "Jesus" was, in essence, birth, spirit and in mission.

I don't recall, as it's been a few yrs since I read them... I have my own opinions. I do not just parrot the opinions of people I've read or talked to.

As I understand it, Judaeans did not think HaShem could incarnate or "breed." Still don't. He has a people, who are his bride, acc to at least one prophet.

spin

Why not go to the sources that talk about uios tou Qeou rather than other people's rehashes of them?

No, I'm not talking about either Magdlyn or gurugeorge. I'm more interested in your persistent recourse to secondary literature. There is no substitute for the text itself. So, you might find references because you can use the index of the secondary source, but is that really a substitute for knowing the texts?

No. I'd rather rely on my own untinctured reading than the shaping of others'.

I don't have any thoughts on the matter. I wasn't speaking to either.

Is that some sort of consolation?


spin

Magdlyn

Oh, you edited while I was replying.

Well, then they missed the boat, didn't they?

Paul: son of god at the resurrection
Mark: son of god at the baptism
Matt and Luke (and various gnostic gospels): son of god at birth
John: son of god pre-existent
various gnostic gospels: emanation of the Aeons

Jeffrey Gibson

There's no substitute for reading a text in context if one truly wants to claim that one understands the text.

Texts cannot be known/understood apart from a knowledge of the contexts which informs their meaning..

And if you think they can, perhaps you'd tell me, without a previous grounding in the customs of the land, the social context, in which the following British phrases are uttered, what they mean and what the one who says them is saying:

Time gentleman. please!.

He's got a golden duck.

I'm going to the dress circle.

I saw the lollipop woman.

Is your "untincutured " really untinctured. Is it not filtered through, and informed by, things you've read before or what your cultural context tells you a text means? Have you ever discovered that you were mistaken in your understanding of a text, that your "untinctured" reading of a text wasn't actually what that text was "saying"? If so, how did this come about.

Jeffrey

Magdlyn

Are you concerned that others here do not understand such things as popular idioms, literary forms, politics, Judaean religious schisms, other Med. religions, etc, of the 1st century? Are you attempting to make the point that we can only know these things if we have read your particular author list?

Why?

Jeffrey Gibson

How would you know?

Actually in John, its the Logos that is pre-existent.

But be that as it may be, I'm not disputing that Paul or Mark or Matthew and Luke say respectively that Resurrection, baptism, and birth is when Jesus was declared, shown, or came to be, hUIOS TOU QEOU. I'm asking you to provide evidence that what they had in mind, and what they were asserting, when they applied the title hUIOS TOU QEOU to Jesus was that he was a god who became a man or a man who became a god.

So I ask again:

1. What evidence do you have that makes true your claim that in the first century an assertion that someone was "Son of God" was always equivalent to saying that that someone was a man who was a god or a god who was a man?

2. Is this claim supported by NT scholars -- including non Christian ones -- or ancient historians who have investigated the background of the titles that NT authors apply to Jesus?

JG

Jeffrey Gibson

No. But I am pointing out that you cannot claim an understanding of these things -- let alone a definitive one -- unless you have done some reading in authoritative discussions of these things.

I should think that's self evident.

Jeffrey

Magdlyn

How would you?

I never claimed that, per se. In fact, you did, and I said you were moving the goalposts. You brought up the "son of god" issue. I don't find it, as a stand alone concept, particularly relevant to what the discussion was about. Jesus was called many things in the NT. Why are you focusing on that one?

I never did. Please don't ask again, k?

Why don't you tell us what you think? It seems you are eager to do so. I'd be happy to hear. Maybe start a new thread tho, as it's off topic.

Magdlyn

I have some understanding. I'd like to have more, and hopefully as the years go by, I will. I doubt my understanding will ever be definitive.

But I am wary of people who make idols out of their favorite authors... I've been guilty of this myself.

Oh, I've also read Maccoby, and Finkelstein/Silberman's Bible Unearthed.

AND! I've read 3 books by Freke and Gandy, 2 books by Dan Brown and Holy Blood Holy Grail. :blush: