Adam

It's not that hard, really. My Post #555 perhaps left some confusion, but in my Post #97 here I cited that post in my listing. It's the first verse in that list, the standard opening of Proto-Luke.

OK, it's not that simple. Luke 3:1-2a is surely redactional by Luke, so Proto-Luke probably started out, "the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah, in the desert. He went through the whole Jordan area proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." Other than for the genealogies and infancy narratives, all four gospels start with John the Baptist.

maryhelena

Surely, it's the context in which this Greek word has been used that should influence how it is interpreted? I've no Greek whatsoever - so while that might be an issue in a debate re the technical aspects of the disputed Greek word - it's as a reader of the context in which this Greek word has been used that plain and simple logic must have some relevance?

And that context is that 'Paul' says that there were others before him that experienced some appearances of the Christ figure. His own personal experiences was later that those earlier appearances. In that context, 'Paul's' use of the Greek word associated with abortion or early birth, is, in the context in which he is using it - being associated with his late arrival on the scene. Is he not saying something along the lines of: "I wish I had been born early, been an early birth, being an 'abortion' - but as luck would have it - I'm late born, I'm one born abnormally". Not an early abortion - but abnormally, a 'late abortion'. He would have preferred a normal birth in the context of 1 Cor.15 - an early birth, an 'abortion, that put him in the same category as those who had experienced the appearances of the Christ figure prior to his late one. He had to accept his lot as an abnormal late 'abortion'. A play on words most probably. But the point is made nevertheless...

That's the story-line. Sure, we can ditch the story-line as being unhistorical; we can question the dating of 'Paul's's epistles. That is, however, a very different exercise than one that attempts to dispute the legitimacy of the story-line. A 'fight' over the story-line makes no sense me. It is what it is.

Toto

An abortion is not a normal birth. It is not something you would ever wish for.

If there is a play on words, it has escaped every scholar who has looked at the issue. But it's possible that we are missing some sort of cultural reference.

Sheshbazzar

Fine. Now simply fully type out that actual first verse in any fashion that pleases you.

Adam

Not only are you unable to demean yourself by reading my proposed "Gospel According to the Atheists" (Proto-Luke + Passion Narrative), but you claim to be unable to see what's in front of your face in quotation marks no less.

Sheshbazzar

What I see is a "probably" started out'.....

Either shit or get off the pot. It either is, or it isn't the first verse of your miracle-free gospel.
Only you can say.

maryhelena

Sometimes a legal abortion becomes necessary (been there done that....), sometimes an abortion is a spontaneous expelling of a fetus that is not viable. Sometimes the health of the mother might be an issue. Abortion contains both positive and negative aspects.

So, perhaps 'Paul' is simply saying that he wished that his late birth, in the context of those others in 1 Cor.15, would have been an abortion - and that he would have preferred to have been born earlier. Still a play on that Greek word for abortion though....

And really, is what 'Paul' is saying here simply a common, pretty normal idea. People say this sort of thing all the time: from wishing I had known my late grandfather to I wish I had been young during the Beatles era etc.

Toto

The word abortion in this context means "miscarriage," not the induced abortion that is sometimes a necessary or desirable medical procedure.

You can see how the terms are used metaphorically in English, although the use of the word abortion seems to be less common since it has become a political issue. You speak of a miscarriage of justice, or an aborted mission. People used to speak of a failed project as an abortion. (I think I am showing my age..)

No, if Paul had been aborted, he would have been dead.

That's what the Christian harmonizers want the text to mean, not what it clearly does mean.

maryhelena

Ah - now we might be getting somewhere. Take that Greek word out of its 1 Cor.15 context - and away we go. 'Paul' is an abortion, he was born dead - he never was born. 'Paul' is simply a fictional character (most probably a composite character) in the literary work of the writer of the epistles. Christian harmonizers are not on my radar screen......

However, lets not fall into their game plan by trying to refute the NT story-line. The ahistoricist/mythicist need to rise above playing the 'harmonizers' game and call out the NT story for what it is - a christian theological and mythological origin story. The whole bang shoot of it. Christian origins are apart from any mythologizing and literary reconstructions of it.

LegionOnomaMoi

1) The term mean "miscarried" but could refer to abortion.
2) PAUL WAS NOT "LITERALLY" ABORTED. Ergro, the use is metaphorical. This is so blindlingly obvious your above statement seems nonsensical. Both readings ("late to the game" and "aborted matter from the pleroma") are clearly metaphorical interpretations.


No, it doesn't. Abortion is a deliberate action, as opposed to a miscarriage. The greeks distiinguished between the two (and had methods for the former). But Paul was born. So he was neither miscarried nor aborted. He is using the word in a metaphorical sense it was not intended for. The word itself means "born untimely" with the typical sense "miscarried." So Paul is using the word metaphorically (as he was obviously born). The only question is how.

Mead's interpretation relies on one later metaphorical extension someone made up (for which we have no evidence). Louw-Nida and others claim that either Paul's using the term in a way someone else made up but we have no texts before him (which is exactly what Mead is doing), or he made it up (which would be true under Mead's interpretation, just of someone else).

Both rely on metaphorical extensions someone made up. The question is just which we have more evidence for.

We call that "metaphor." The literal meaning, however, isn't "abortion." It CAN mean abortion.

We don't know that the word means "born too early." We have clear uses which contradict that reading. What we know is that it usually referred to a birth in which the baby/fetus was dead (stillborn, miscarriage, abortion, etc). The extension "born at the wrong time to late" is a lot closer than "metaphorically aborted from some cosmological perfection."



When you can tell me what work you have read on metaphor in cognitive linguistics, then tell me why Paul's usage is less "obvious" than using beer to mean increments of time..



For almost every single author from ancient history, all of our earliest manuscripts date from the middle ages. And we usually have merely a handful, if that. The one exception is the NT. So if this is an argument, then you should apply it even more to just about every greek and roman author we know of. The NT is the best attested work (from a manuscript point of view) we have from the ancient world.

And what have you read on the genre of ancient historiography?