Chris Weimer

Uh, no. Try again.

Toto

Chris - what exactly do you disagree with here?

Chris Weimer

Specifically this:

This stuff is PhilosopherJay's mangling of ancient beliefs. It's anachronistic, as it's Jay's own personal interpretation and not in accord with anything ancient.

andrewcriddle

My point is that the 'we' is a group of people who were originally hostile to Jesus but who have subsequently become his followers.

This group goes back to the time of Jesus' death (ie some at least of its members were around when Jesus died and despite their hostility or indifference Jesus still died for them).

Therefore at least some of this group were around at the time of Jesus' death and subsequently became believers in the resurrected Christ.

However it seems clear that the message of the resurrection only began to be preached a relatively short time before Paul's conversion.

But people who had been around at the time of Jesus' death are from the argument above included among those who subsequently became believers. (Otherwise there are no people who were hostile or indifferent to Jesus at the time of his death but who subsequently benefit from that death and resurrection).

Hence this rules out a very long gap between the death of Jesus and Paul's conversion.


Andrew Criddle

jjramsey

When Paul refers to James as "brother of the Lord" in Galatians, he is singling out a particular Christian with a descriptive phrase that apparently does not apply to the other Christians that he names, like Peter. It hardly makes sense then to say that he is using "brother" here to mean "Christian" the way he has in other letters.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Chris,

In Stephen Hultgren's recent article, The Origin of Paul’s Doctrine of the Two Adams in 1 Corinthians 15.45-49, in The Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Vol. 25, No. 3, 343-370 (2003), he states:

The point of Paul's 'two Adams' doctrine is first and foremost to illuminate the concept of two different kinds of bodies.

Later he notes:

Paul is not polemically reversing the order of the two men, but simply emphasizing the qualitative and temporal distance between as a way of explaining how resurrection is possible.

This is really what I am saying when I say that for Paul the two Adams are two different species. The are "two kinds of bodies" with a "qualitative and temporal distance" between them.

'Species' is not a modern concept but an ancient one going back to Aristotle (from Categories):

Yet species and genus do not merely indicate quality, like the term 'white'; 'white' indicates quality and nothing further, but species and genus determine the quality with reference to a substance: they signify substance qualitatively differentiated.

Paul is trying to differentiate the two Adams, showing their differentia, showing the two species of the genus "Adam".


As far as my use of the concept of "Homunculi," Here is some background information from an article on the history of Biology" at http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/hist_sci.htm:


Aristotle, one of Plato’s most famous pupils, lived from 343 to 322 BC, and contributed much to what we now consider to be in the realm of biology. His refinement of the systems of animal and plant classification have profoundly influenced the course of biological thought ever since. His classification system included what he called the Scala naturae, the “scale of nature.” He said that all organisms are arranged in a hierarchy from simplest to most complex, like rungs on a ladder with no vacancies, no mobility, and no change possible since all the spots were full. This idea also was borrowed by early Christianity and replaced the Hebrew concept of “Let the Earth bring forth. . .” Our current technical terms “genus” and “species” are Latin translations of Greek words first used by Aristotle. Aristotle thought that pangenes, particles representative of the various organs, pass from those organs to the reproductive elements (whatever they may be) and convey their own nature/characteristics to the homunculus, a preformed, tiny human that just grew in the mother. This belief was held by people up through and including Darwin, and has led to some very interesting folkloric explanations for birthmarks and birth defects. Aristotle speculated whether an embryo just grew/enlarged from the homunculus (preformation) or underwent development from some undifferentiated (no distinct body parts) unit to a differentiated embryo. This speculation led to 2000 years of debate and controversy.

The concepts of species and homunculi are ancient and not anarchonisms. They are very relevant to the time and understanding of the writings of Paul.

Without understanding the background concepts that people are working from, we often misunderstand people. Therefore it is important to bring these background concepts to the foreground to show what people mean.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

spamandham

I see nothing in the text that suggests this.

spamandham

Ok, but Paul has already demonstrated that the concept of brotherhood was applied to fellow christians and not just blood relatives, with the phrase '500 brethren'. Does Paul ever use the concept of 'brother' in an unambiguous way that means blood kinship?

So there is no reason to prefer blood kinship over this other context when Paul refers to brothers. 'brother of the Lord' more likely refers to James' leadership role in the Jeruslam church than to blood kinship.

Regarding Peter specifically, Paul does not respect Peter, but instead considers him a hypocrite, so I wouldn't expect Paul to bestow lofty titles on Peter.

Chris Weimer

Jay, do you have the article? I do not have access to Sage Publications. Also, that U. Cincinatti website you linked to does not have any references cited at all. If you could bring your cites up to par, that would be greatly appreciated.

andrewcriddle

Paul says
If none of the people who were around when Christ died later accepted the Gospel then there are no people who at the time Christ died were indifferent/hostile to Christ but who later benefitted from his death.

If only those who were born after the death of Christ ever accepted the Gospel message then Paul should have said something like Andrew Criddle