Ted Hoffman

Unearthly, has similar meanings to mythical. Kata sarka, IMO, is about reincarnation, not birth. Paul says Christ was killed by archotons and we know from writers like Justin that the early christians believed that the archotons/demons were like fire and dwelt in another place.
You cannot know in advance. You dont know in advance what I mean when I write "that woman", until you see the context under which I said those words. You have to study Pauline christology, Pauline phraseology, the surrounding context, Greek, the cultural miliueu, philosophical worldviews and so on. Then, and only then, can you state what Paul means when he writes kata sarka.
Instead of trying to be prophets, what we ask ourselves include questions like: why does Paul he use the peculiar expression "sphere of the flesh" if he simply meant "earth"? Yet he uses the word "earth" in Romans 9:17, Romans 9:28 and Romans 10:18?
Why not in Romans 1:3?
Why does't he mention any earthly details about Jesus? No Mary, Joseph, Pilate, Nazareth etc?
Why doesnt he place Jesus'activities temporally in history?
'Why does he rely on the OT for information regarding Jesus yet the OT was written before Jesus?

It is these questions that guide us in determining how best to interpret what Paul meant.
Why does he need to do that? The TDNT translates the primary meaning of kata sarka in the same manner Doherty and Barrett do. Lexicons show that kata has a semantic range and we have no reason to force it in one box.
Please explain why Doherty should spend pages explaining to readers how translations are normally done.

I dont think Doherty needs to explain why Barrett, or the TDNT, or certain Lexicons, translate kata sarka as the "sphere of the flesh". This is not a reasonable expectation IMO. I do not believe explaining scholarly sources was part of his tasks in writing TJP. You need to read Barrett for that, not Doherty.

Suggests is not strong. Actually, Barrett does interpret kata sarka as meaning in the sphere of the flesh. I misspoke when I mentioned unearthly birth. Doherty only talks of the sphere of the flesh with respect to Barrett's translation.
To be clear, I cite Barrett as cited earlier by Jeffrey.
Note that the orthodox translation is according to the flesh. In the sphere of the flesh opens up a mythicist avenue in view of the platonic worldview.

I am glad you mention this because I need to clear this up.
The views Burton holds that are consistent with a mythicist view are as follows:
1. The pre-existence of Jesus. Note that this is inconsistent with the Markan, adoptionist view.
2. That Jesus' appearance/birth had no temporal relation with his being sent.
3. That Paul's phraseology about Jesus being born/incarnated are ambiguous and do not strictly convey the idea that Jesus was "born".

What Burton is opposing above, wrt Sief. and Zahn, is the virginal conception of Jesus, about which he states can only be reasonably supposed "only in case it were otherwise established that the apostle knew and accepted the dogma or narrative that Jesus was so born, and not even then would it be certain that this phrase was intended to refer to this aspect of Jesus' birth. But of such knowledge or acceptance the writings of the apostle give no hint. GUNAIKOS is probably, like NOMON in the following phrase, not indefinite,"
He is not opposing the mythicist view, which he appears oblivious of. But as he stridently refutes the virginal conception, we see the mythicist interpretation, which has been lurking behind him, awakening, yawning, stretching itself, and beginning to move with freedom even as Burton types away a path to the orthodox view. Some of us choose to follow the other path.

You need to be told, and Doherty does tell us in some cases. But lets not get carried away. Burton appears oblivious of the mythicist perspective in the scheme of things so does not bother to reject it. What is clear is that he chooses certain interpretations of certain Pauline phrases that clearly differ from Doherty's interpretations. That is why I have dropped the word "supports" or "favours" to describe the degree of harmony between the interpretations that Doherty favors and those that Burton or Barrett favor.
And give Doherty some credit. He indicates that Cranfield, for example, departs from his (Doherty's) favored interpretation.

The question serious students of Biblical study ask themselves is, why does this scholar/ commentator choose this particular interpretation over that other interpretation? Remember, several Pauline phrases are amenable to multiple interpretations. That is why it boils down to interpretive frameworks.
Then you, the reader, have to decide, based on the balance of probability, which one is the most probable meaning, and which one has greater explanatory power for the kinds of questions I asked above.

This is Burtons chosen view. There are basic meanings, and there are derived views or personal views. You cannot treat them as the same same. I quote Burton citing a linguistic fact below:
From this unshaped wood, Burton proceeds to sculpture a historicist, Orthodox view of Paul's words. From this unfashioned wood, Doherty equally proceeds to shape a mythicist meaning of Paul's words.

Where there is ambiguity, or a semantic range, you have to admit, one chooses the interpretation that makes the best sense. That is where the Argument of the Best Explanation comes in, and as far as ABE is concerned, Carrier says, Doherty's thesis wins hands down. And I think Carrier is right.
Burton here, feretts out pearls for the mythicists. But since he is hunting for food, he does not notice the jewels, which Doherty picks in his trail.
It flies alright.

The idea expressed by the italicized words is incorrect. It is the other way round. I requote Doherty:
I don't know much about root words and the like (you use the word orgy when you write orgiastic) but Doherty's basic argument stands and is not contradicted by Burton: Paul used an ambiguous expression to express the "birth" while there were other straightforward expressions he could have used. You can make a hue and cry about the wrinkles and the shades but that basic argument remains solid.

I don't think this is a fair characterization of what Doherty does. One can certainly get that impression, but that does not mean that Doherty presents Burton as making christ's birth abstract.

Doherty only notes two points wrt Burton which are both true:
1. The being made subject to the law/ coming to being has “no necessary temporal relation to the main verb ‘sent’.�
2. Paul uses a passive and ambiguous verb to describe Jesus' birth.

I think all the claims check out. You have faulted me for my usage of the words favour and support wrt scholarly positions/interpretations vis-a-vis Doherty's position and I have admitted error. Burton's rejection of virgin birth was unimportant to me. But I did quote that passage.

So far, I have seen no reason to doubt Doherty's integrity or to find his presentations misleading.

jgibson000

I get his argument. Probelm is that D has to read into Barrett things that Barrett does say or imply in order to make his argument.

Jeffrey

GakuseiDon

TedH, can you explain a little bit more about the "platonic worldview", and how it relates to "flesh".

I see that Ed Tyler on the Biblical Studies board asked you a similar question, but I can't see your answer. Since I believe that Doherty's working usage of a "platonic worldview" is inconsistent with those of Middle Platonists, I regard this as an important issue.

This is part of Tyler's reply to your point on "kata sarka":

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblic...s/message/8781

I'd also be very interested in seeing such a reference.

krosero

My question was how we can know in advance what Barrett, not Paul, meant. But in either case, I agree with these general principles you're laying out. Let's say for argument's sake that all the factors from the surrounding context and milieu point to "in the sphere of the flesh" as the correct reading. That is Barrett's reading, and the question here has always been whether Doherty uses it correctly.

Granted. I have no wish to force "kata" to mean only one thing. "In the sphere of the flesh" is Barrett's reading and I'm not disputing it.

This may be a misunderstanding, because I did not say that Doherty needed to explain how translations are "normally done." I suggested that if he uses another scholar's translation, the reader does want, in that case, to know as much as possible about how the scholar's translation was reached, in order to ascertain whether the very different meaning that Doherty sees in the verse is justified. If I don't know exactly why scholars and particularly linguists think that Paul was using a word for "sphere", then I have reason to suspect that it is merely Doherty who is reading his own ideas about the space underneath the dome of the sky (a "sphere") into Barrett's English words.

Though I was not asking Doherty to do all this, now that you bring it up, let me make one comment. Since Doherty's thesis does depend in large part on unorthodox translations of key Biblical verses, it might be a good idea for him to devote a section of several pages to the general question of how translations are done. Perhaps it's not something a typical book on biblical matters requires, but Doherty's claims and interpretations are very unorthodox, and more explanation rather than less will help his case.

One last point: if Paul did think that the sphere of flesh extended above the earth, and he spoke of how Christ came into the "sphere", in the sense of all the region underneath the dome of the sky, we still don't know whether Paul meant an unearthly birth, since the surface of the earth also counts as part of the "sphere of the flesh," in all models that I've ever heard of. I know, of course, that Doherty is not saying that Paul's verse proves the unearthliness of the birth, just that the verse leaves room for an unearthly birth; I get that.

Exactly, Doherty restricts himself to speaking of the "sphere of the flesh" when he talks about Barrett's translation. Barrett does suggest the "sphere of the flesh." He does not, as we all agree, suggest that this sphere extended above the earth, or that Christ's birth occurred above the earth.

I've begun wondering in what way this mythicist avenue is opened up. If we retained the traditional words, "according to the flesh" (a reading that I don't necessarily favor myself), Doherty needs only to say that "flesh" existed in the whole region under the moon, and that Paul was simply linking Christ with that region when he said that Christ was born "according to" flesh. Why does "sphere" seem to you to support an unearthly birth? Is it because "sphere" brings up the idea of a dome, or something like that? I'm just asking.

You may have noticed that I gave him credit for noting in his book that Burton did not share his interpretation. That's how I know for sure that he is not lying. If he had failed to note it both on his website and in his book, I would have more cause to wonder. I just think that he should be consistent. There are many people who read his website before they buy his book (if they buy it).

The contradiction I was pointing to is still unclear, apparently. I thought it was enough to link to Doherty's last post, but this time I will quote what he says there. Note that he is quoting Burton and putting his own comment in brackets:

So, here Doherty is saying that Paul does not use GINOMAI (and that GINOMAI is GENNETHENTA, the word that Burton identifies as plain, unambiguous). But Doherty's former argument, which dovetailed with yours, is that Paul used GINOMAI, an ambiguous term meaning "to become":

There is an error here somewhere. I don't need to know Greek to see that Doherty attributes GINOMAI to Paul, and that Doherty claims that Paul fails to use GINOMAI.

Nor do I need to know Greek to see that in one place, Doherty identifies GINOMAI as the unambiguous verb for "birth," while in another place he identifies it as an ambiguous term meaning "to become."

And when I read the original, GINOMAI does not appear to be there, so I can validly ask, which of Paul's words can be identified with GINOMAI?

If I understand Gibson's argument at all, the dispute concerning GINOMAI is the point he was making his strongest objections about. Jeffery?

jgibson000

Are they? Let me at least comment on the first of these claims

Even if we accept that your paraphase "the being made subject/to the law/coming into being" accurartely represents Burton' "The employment of the aorist presents the birth and the subjection to law as in each case a simple fact" - which, for the record, i do not think it does -- Burton does NOT say that the events of Jesus' birth and subjection have no temporal (let alone, no "necessary temporal" relation to a and especially to "the main" verb, in Gal 4:4. On the contrary, what he says is that the temporal relation of the events of Jesus birth and subjection to Law to EXAPESTEILEN "is something to be inferred solely from the nature of the facts referred to" -- one of which, by the way, is, as Paul and Burton note (but, curiously Doherty doesn't), that the sending took place "in the fullness of time", i.e., at a certain point in Israel's history.

Therefore to take Burton as saying -- or even allowing or inadvertantly giving grounds for the idea -- that Paul though that there was no temporal relationship between the sending and the birth/subjection is to misread and misinterpret Burton, for what he actually says not only affirms that Paul thought a temporal relationship is there, but goes on to state the grounds for how we are to know what Paul thought that relation was.

Perhaps, then, it's time for an eye exam.

Jeffrey

EarlDoherty

Oops. I should have tuned in sooner. Yes, I goofed on the following:

The phrase I added in square brackets should have been "[that is, the verb "gennao"]. I can't fault the eye, just a mental lapse--call it a senior moment, if you like, since I'm only 8 months away from that esteemed status.

I've talked about those two verbs so often, I guess I've become too blase about them. Thanks to Ted Hoffman for pointing out that I do have it correct in my book!

Best wishes,
Earl Doherty

jgibson000

Several observations, if I may:

1 Strictly speaking, Burton does not say that Paul uses a verb to describe Jesus' birth. He says (and observes -- correctly) that Paul uses a participle. They are not the same thing. And that you or Doherty apparently do not know this casts some doubt on the claims you make both about Burton and about matters Greek.

2. While Burton does recognize that the participle GENOMENON does not always mean "born", he nowhere states that in the expression in question (i.e., GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS) it has, or that it could on any grounds be taken as having, any meaning other than "born" or as indicating anything other than an earthly birth from a human parent. Indeed, it would be hard to see how he could in the light of the facts, noted in LSJ, TDNT, BDAG, Spicq, in other Lexicons and surveys of the use of the participle and the verb from which it is derived, and universally in other commentaries on the Greek text of Galatians (1) that when used, as it is here in Gal. 4:4, of a person, as Burton acknowelges, the participle and that verb from which it is derived never had any other meaning; (2) that GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS echoes the Hebrew expression YeLud Issah found in Jb 14:1, 15:14; 25:4; !QH 13:14; 1QS 11:21 and which there has no meaning other than human birth; (3) that the aorist middle of GINOMAI to signify "born" was common in Greek speaking Jewish circles for "born" (cf. Sir. 44:9: 1 Esd. 4:16; Tob. 8:6; Wis. 7:3; 2:216; 7:21; 16.382; Joseph. Ant. 15.14; 25.4).

3. Nor does Burton anywhere imply, or give us the slightest reason to believe that he himself believed, as Doherty says he does when Burton says " GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS evidently refers to birth", that GENOMENON might yet be used in this expression with some other meaning. For contray to what Dohrety alleges, "evidently" does not -- and certainly when Burton's wrote, did not, and was never used to -- mean "apparently" orto signify that someone had reservations about what he/she was claiming. On the contrary, it meant and means "manifestly", "obviously", "clearly", "as all the evidence testifies", "as may be clearly inferred", "ithout possibility of mistake or misunderstanding" (on this, see, e.g. the OED, the AHD, etc.), and is therefore a statement that not the whiff of a doubt hangs around what one claims.

So seeing Burton as "hedging" his claim about the meaning of GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS, and therefore as himself directly or indirectly fostering or subscribing to (even if only tentatively), let alone legititimizing, any claim that GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS can be taken as implying the belief on the part of Paul in, let alone the expression on his part of, Jesus' birth as something having taken place somewhere other than on earth and to a human mother, is not only to be bereft of an understanding of what Burton is claiming about the meaning that GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS has at Gal. 4:4; it is to woefully misrepresent what Burton actually says.

4. When Burton says that "Had the apostle desired to express the idea "born" in both phrases, he could have done so unambiguously by the use of GENNHQENTA" he is not making a claim that the verb GENNAW is, especially with respect to the idea of a person being born, less ambiguous than is the verb GINOMAI.

Nor is he claiming, even only indirectly, that if Paul was really intent to say that the "birth" referred to in the expression GENOMENOS EK GUNAIKOIS was an earthy one, he would have used GENNAW.

For, in the first place, and as Burton well knew, and as LSJ, TDNT, and BDAG show, GENNAW, like GINOMAI, has a variety of meanings, most of them causitive in nature ("to bring forth", "to produce", "to grow" "to cause") and which, when used, even in a participial form, with reference to human beings, means "beget" "to give birth to", "bear" not "be born".

In the second, the expession GENNHQENTA EK GUNAIKOS, even if it was not grammatically and styntactically a solecism (one is begotten "by", not "of" or "out of"), nonsensical in meaning (men beget, not women), and an expression that is, to my knowledge, wholly unattested, would not express the idea of being born.

And in the third place, it is clear that Burton's statement about the how, if Paul desired to express the idea "born" in both phrases, "he could have done so unambiguously by the use of GENNHQENTA" is something that was inteded only to mean: "had Paul wanted to be absolutely and unequivocably clear that he did indeed mean "engendered under the law" rather than "subjected to the law" he would have said GENNHQENTA hUPO NOMON

Both its context (which is explicitly and only Burton's taking up the specific question of whether by GENOMENOS hUPO NOMON Paul means "engendered under the law" or, as he thinks is likely, "placed under the law") and the fact that Burton is absolutely certain that GENOMENON in GENOMENON EK GUNAIKAIS has no other meaning but "born", show that any other reading of the meaning and intent of this sentence is a misunderstanding and a misreading of it.

So, unlike you, Ted/Jacob, I see plenty to make me doubt the validity of Earl's claims regarding both what Burton says and what Burton's discussion of Gal. 4:4 allows one to say.

Jeffrey

EarlDoherty

Really, Jeffrey, this sort of thing should be beneath anyone here. A participle is a form of verb (the parent family, shall we say), and for someone to refer in a general way to a "verb" instead of the--"strictly speaking"--participle is hardly an error. (Dictionaries call a participle "a non-finite verbal form".) Often the context invites a reference to the verb 'parent' rather than the specific term participle. To go on and claim that this means that neither Hoffman nor myself "apprently know" that a participle is not exactly the same is petty, and considering that you are trying to suggest to the non-afficionado in grammatical terminology that Hoffman and myself are this abysmally ignorant, smacks of deceit.

It is this sort of thing about apologists that makes them not worthy of debating.

jgibson000

I'm not sure about dictionaries, which if they do what you say are far too vague (so, after all, is an infinitive), but Greek Grammars and Greek Grammarians call them and know them to be "verbal adjectives". See, e.g.,

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin...ek&formentry=0

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin...Ahead%3D%23548

The notion that a participle is just a form of a verb is as misleading as it is innacurate. And it is an error.

But since the context in question was both the quoting and using of what Burton said (with an implicit claim on yourpart to be summarizing accurately what he said) as well as an attempt to get at the import of the specific Greek words he used, there was in this instance no such invite to do so, even should you be right about what otherwise might often be the case..

Is it? So far I haven'y had any evidence that you do know this. Your definition above of what a participle is does not inspire any confidence in this regard.

I was speaking what appeared to me to be true to those on this list. Whether they are non afficianado's or not is unknown to me. And I'd appreciate it if you'd not try to divert attention from the question of whether what I said is true by speaking about my allged motives for raising the question.


.

Well, Ted is pretty ignorant of Greek. That's demonstrable. You may not be, but one thing is certain from your discussion and representation of Burton: your discussion of Greek is sloppy and your lexical claims are not very well informed.

What sort of thing, even granting your claim that I am an "apologist"? The insistence that when you quote someone and discuss the terms he uses, you do so accurately?

Please.

Jeffrey

Toto

The word apologist is not productive here, and any discussion of apologists is off topic. Please stick to the subject matter.