krosero

I am in the middle of The Jesus Puzzle, and I've read a lot on Doherty's website, but I'm asking for help from those who know Doherty's view more thoroughly. I'm trying to construct a "history" of the heavenly Christ, through Paul's letters -- assuming for the moment that there are no interpolations. Have I understood it correctly, or can anyone add to it?

He was born of an unnamed (celestial) woman. He was in some sense from the line of King David. (What Doherty has written may imply that since Christ was prepared by God for the salvation of Israel, people, if they were Israelites, came to speak of him as being in the line of King David). He was also subject to the Law in some way. God then sent him into the lower heavens, to redeem mankind. On a certain “night� in these spheres, he took bread, broke it, said that it was his body, asked someone to do the same in remembrance of him, and was, literally, “handed over� or “delivered up� (but not upwards). In these lower heavens he was crucified by the demons which ruled the earth (and which by Paul’s time were passing away). He shed blood, which presumably fell to earth. He was buried in this lower realm. He rose on the third day according to the scriptures, though he spent enough time in the lower realms, after his rising, to be seen by Paul, as well as men whom Paul met, and hundreds of others. He is, by the time of Paul’s letters, seated at the right hand of the Father. Probably after his ascension, he gave Paul at least one explicit command (1 Cor 9:14), and communicated with Paul and others in visions of a different kind.

Writers other than Paul added scenes, which Paul may or may not have believed in prior to their writings. In Colossians 2:14-15, God canceled the “bond which stood against us in its legal demands� by nailing it to the cross, where he (or Christ, the more sensible choice of Doherty’s translation) took the evil powers captive and led them in a procession. Ephesians 4:8 transmits a saying, "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men." Hebrews adds a great deal about the heavenly priest. Revelation adds a future history. Etcetera.

krosero

I'm bumping this up because I'd like to see it discussed. I'm not aware of any place where Doherty lays out the history of the celestial Christ as Paul and other Christians believed it to be, though I'd be glad if Doherty did write a summary somewhere. A positive description of the mythical Christ is easier to evaluate and test than one that is merely suggested negatively by opposing the key historicist passages.

Some examples of how Doherty's thesis might be tested:

Where does Paul believe the Last Supper took place? Are the lower heavens, open as they are, really capable of allowing any entity enough time to have an apparently mournful and private meal?

Why does Paul use words which imply "delivered up" if Christ was in fact delivered downward? Perhaps the words convey the meaning of "handed over," but why use ambiguous or possibly confusing words without giving an explanation?

Why does no Christian say something to the effect that though Christ was killed in the lower heavens, his precious blood did in fact make contact with the earth, or so may be the hope, when it dropped?

He rose from the dead on the third day, but seems to have spent enough time afterwards in the lower heavens to be seen by a long procession of people, including someone who was "late" to the party, Paul. Why did Christ continue there? Paul says that in his time, the archons are still passing away, which suggests that when Christ was raised, he was still in their realm. Apparently he had enough power after being raised to stay safe long enough to be seen on earth, but not enough power to destroy the demons and claim the lower heavens for himself and for God. Is this what Christians believed, from what their scriptures tell us?

If Christ was buried in this realm, then why does Colossians say that his victory over the demons took place right on the cross? Is this a "metaphor" for events that are already celestial and unseen? Both the actual crucifixion in the heavens and its "metaphors" are unseen?

If the victory took place right at the cross, and the archons were led away in a triumphal procession, why does Paul say that the archons have still not passed away in his own time?

Why does Hebrews present the crucifixion as a priest entering a sanctuary, with various other details incompatible with a crucifixion? Is this another "metaphor" of events that themselves were unseen?

And why does Colossians say that God, or Christ in other translations, nailed "the bond" to the cross? Christ would not be said to do any nailing at his own crucifixion, though Doherty seems to have "Christ" in mind for that passage. If we mean God, though, then God is seen as descending himself to the lower realms. Why send Christ, then? And why does God need to do the nailing? And if God descended to the crucifixion, would not the demons have fled in terror? Why does God not destroy the demons right there? Does he nail the bond and then abandon Christ? Why do the epistles not speak of these elements of the drama more explicitly?

This last point about Colossians seems far more crucial than the others, for two reasons. One, if Christ did the nailing, it makes no sense: it contradicts the basic Christian picture in the most basic way. Two, if God did the nailing, it still defies logic in the ways I've tried to highlight with my questions, but it also seems to say that Colossians rejects a fundamental of the Christian faith as described in the MJ model: namely that God sent his own Son to die alone. Rather, God sent him and followed him, and took part in the nailing of a "bond" to the cross.

In the historicist model, all these things make sense. Christ was a lowly carpenter who could be delivered up to higher earthly powers. The earth provides many places of temporary and private sanctuary for a meal. Christ's precious blood did touch the earth, but nothing was noted because his whole body was on the earth. Christ could be nailed to the cross by earthly powers, and could be buried dead, while in heaven his spirit is in fact leading a procession of defeated powers -- but archons on earth are still plainly in sight, not yet passed away. Christians would offer up many suggestions, actually, for what happened in heaven, since nothing certain could be known about an unseen realm: hence Hebrews offered the description of a heavenly priest.

All these contradictions seem at least as serious as any contradictions in the Bible as it is traditionally read, and certainly more serious than contradictions in Matthew's genealogy.

Steven Carr

You seem to be of the opinion that people don't believe things which don't make sense. This is a false assumption.

The same chapter of Colossians says that Christ circumcised the new Christian converts.

Possibly he did that with the same nails that nailed Christ to the cross.


Or possibly such literal questions do not do justice to the genre of 2 Colossians.

Colossians 2 says that the law was nailed to the cross.


He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

On the historical method, God was a Roman soldier?

Or is it all rather metaphorical and not referring to a real nailing of a real law. Perhaps I should hammer this point home - that nailing the law to the cross is not a description of a historical scene. You don't need history to make such a metaphor. Perhaps I'm nailing my colours to the mast here, but Colossians 2 does not make more sense on a historical model, than on a mythical model

krosero

No assumption here. It did cross my mind that Paul's beliefs could contradict themselves, as could the beliefs of Christianity in general. The question is how basic can those contradictions be? We'll see what others say, but this picture of the celestial Christ seems non-sensical in some basic ways, and not merely "mysterious" as the historicist understanding is. Now, I agree that a fundamentalist/literalist understanding is nonsensical in many basic ways. Which is why I'm glad you said this:

If all I've done here is point out that the Bible, traditionally understood, is constantly undermined by critics who read its statements literally without room for metaphor, then that's enough for me.

If we take Colossians literally, these statements do not make sense. But even a fundamentalist is not so literal to believe that Christ himself came down from heaven and did the circumcision, or that God himself descended to the cross and nailed the law to it. God had already descended to earth in the form of Christ; the nailing of the law was a metaphor, or a vision seriously believed about what happened in heaven at the time of the crucifixion below. I think Colossians does make sense with a historical model. So does the picture of the circumcision: Christ's spirit was behind it. A lot of things in the historicist model make sense if you imagine the Christians envisioning heavenly scenes, or theological metaphors, or spiritual agency, for things that happened on earth.

I'm not sure whether you were reading Colossians literally when it came to the historicist model. You left room for metaphor when it came to the mythicist model, so I'm genuinely not sure.

freigeister

I :love: Krosero!

Amaleq13

What do you mean by "open as they are"? If someone could be killed there, why can't someone eat a meal there?

Why do you assume this wording was confusing or ambiguous to Paul's readers?

Why do you assume it would be necessary for blood to leave the lower celestial realm and make contact with the earth?

Where do you find this delay mentioned by Paul? He seems to me to have believed that Christ was in heaven with God upon being resurrected and subsequently appeared to various people on earth.

This seems like an ultimately meaningless semantic quibble to me. One could argue that the victory took place with the sacrifice or with the resurrection from either position.

I think you are confusing earthly archons and "archons of the age" which is understood to represent the demonic powers.

It seems pretty obvious that this is a metaphor regardless of one's position. I don't understand why you think the metaphor is a problem for Doherty.

Again, I don't understand why this creates more of a problem for Doherty than the traditional view. It makes no sense to interpret it literally so, either way, it offers no challenge to any description of what "really" happened.

They seem to me to make just as much "sense" within the context of Doherty's thesis. It seems funny to me to be talking about what makes sense when magical concepts (ie heavenly events) are being discussed.

Christ took on the form of a lowly servant who could be delivered up by God to the demonic powers for sacrifice.

A spiritual realm lacking physical limitations of space would appear even more capable of providing room for a meal.

The sacrifice of Christ in the lowest heavenly realm has consequences on earth but nothing was noted until the risen Christ appeared and/or it was revealed hidden in Scripture.

In the lowest spiritual realm, the form of flesh that Christ took on could be nailed to a cross by demonic powers and buried while leaders on earth are still plainly in sight, not yet passed away.

Same with Doherty.

krosero

Amaleq, thanks for that point-by-point response. Let's see what I make of it. A note at the beginning: I don't insist on any interpretation unless I say that it's the only possible one. I do insist that all contradictions be explored thoroughly even after this thread is done.

I meant that there's no place to hide. Someone can certainly be killed there, and can certainly eat there. On the run. But how do have a meal in which there's time to break bread and speak to someone? Certainly there's room enough. But how do hide from archons, who are powerful enough to kill you, in the sky where there's no place to hide? How do you have a meal with at least one more person?

Which is something I did not bring up yet. How did Paul conceive of this meal? Who was with Christ? If he's on earth, the answer is human beings; his followers. But the MJ model says that Christ was sent by God, and mentions no one else being sent. Surely humans don't hang out in the sky, so the belief must have been that Christ was speaking to angels. Why is this not mentioned in the epistles? Why do angels need to take his body and blood; in what sense can these be for them? (Would no one in the Christian audience think to ask this question?) Why are angels being asked to do this in remembrance of him, when Paul clearly thinks that the Last Supper must be imitated by the Corinthians?

And who betrayed him on that night? A demon in disguise seems to be the only answer. But nothing in the epistles mentions that the archons betrayed him. In the historicist model, the earthly rulers killed him, and he was betrayed by someone else, one of his own. In the MJ model, no angel would have betrayed him. He was killed and betrayed by the archons, but Paul does not describe things in that way exactly; he mentions only the killing.

No assumption made. "Delivered up" may or may not have been confusing. I do wonder why Paul did not choose words that were more apt. If I were speaking in English of a spirit who was handed over in the lower realm to other spirits, I would use a word that could only mean "handed over" and did not have any strong, or even weak, potential to mean "upwards."

It's a subtle and small point, though. This point won't go far. But it is precisely the KIND of question I'd like to see applied to Doherty's model.

Paul says "as to one untimely born." It's an enigmatic phrase, but here it could very well mean, "someone born almost too late to participate." When he says "born" he could also, incidentally, mean it the way Christians mean when they say "born again." In short, Paul got his sight of the truth in an untimely manner, i.e., late.

If he appeared after rising to the right hand, it brings up the question of why the appearances from Peter through Paul were special, and why Paul speaks of any kind of lateness. If they were not physical sightings of the Lord in the lower heavens, they could not be physical sightings of God's throne. So they were meditative or visionary sightings. Those, presumably, could be had by anyone of faith at any time. How do you make sense of Paul's intimation of lateness, or the suggestion in Corinthians that these first sightings were something special or unique?

Semantic quibbles are when someone says "book" and someone else says "text." Quibbles over contents of the text are not mere quibbles, unless something really peripheral is being discussed. The point about burial is not peripheral. It specifies an internment for an undisclosed length of time: a resting after a real defeat. If I had heard the MJ Christ preached, I would think that the archons buried him, for whatever reason -- though enemies are not known to bury each other. Instead they leave the executed hanging, or disgrace his body in some way. In the historicist model, again, Christ had human friends, who could do this for him. In the heavens, who was there to do it, except the archons? Why did they do it? Some sudden conversion? The epistles don't speak of it; Paul says they're still ruling, though passing way. And what does "burial" mean if Christ achieved the victory on the cross? In the historicist model, the earthly Christ was defeated briefly, but in heaven the victory was won. Doherty's model has only the heavens. What happened in those spheres? Mystical as the ancients could be, they were not indifferent to basics of the narrative -- certainly not narratives that they lived by.

I'm not sure what you mean. Paul says the archons of the age crucified the Lord and are passing way. Doherty takes this to mean strictly the demons. I spoke in reference to the "strictly demons" interpretation. If they were led away in a procession, why have they still not passed away by Paul's time?

I ask the question to raise the issue. It may be that a metaphor works just as well for Doherty. Maybe not. I'm asking for an understanding of where Christians, in the mythicist model, left off speaking of facts about the heavens, i.e., "This really happened in the lower heavens," and where they saw themselves free to say, "Now I'm speaking just metaphorically of a priest." Some understanding of the difference would be necessary in the Christian community. Can that understanding be detected in the texts? Do the texts "speak" that way. I think to answer this question would take a long investigation.

I spoke of a problem because I find it hard to believe that early Christians started speaking of Christ as choosing, or being forced, to nail anything, much less God's law, into the cross. Had he chosen to do it, the archons would not allow it. They would not force him to. Only God can be believed to do this -- but I asked, why did God send Christ into this realm, then?. So he could participate in the crucifixion of his own son? And why did the archons not flee in terror? Did God nail the bond and then abandon the Son? Can the text support these interpretations?

Of course what "really" happened is not at issue here. The issue is what Paul and other Christians believed.

When people sense that spirits perform magical acts, nothing needs to make sense; all rules are out. But Doherty has suggested on p. 103 of his book that "The demonic spiritual powers belonged to the realm of flesh and were thought of as in some way corporeal, though they possessed 'heavenly' versions of earthly bodies." These beings were thus not purely spirits. They were super-natural, i.e., natural, but with power beyond the natural. (There are other definitions of "supernatural" as purely magical but I am not using the word in those senses). Some physical rules still applied in the lower heavens. Bodies could fly, but they also ate, and bled. They were crucified. In such a world, a narrative still has to follow basic rules. Night has to follow on day; "do this in remembrance of me" has to be spoken to somebody; a man crucified cannot do his own nailing. Etcetera.

I meant "nothing was noted" in the same sense as you, i.e., noted after the appearances. It would not have been noted before then; the extant Christian texts were not written until after the appearances.

But Doherty does not say that "archons" in this passage refers at all to leaders on earth. You're slipping into the historicist model, where this point does make sense. If Paul meant that historical powers crucified Christ, Doherty's model is finished.

Paul spoke in 1 Cor 2:6 of "rulers of this age" who are passing away," and two verses later of "rulers of this age" who crucified Christ. Are you arguing that they're different? Paul says nothing to indicate a difference.

I don't assume it. I just find it hard to believe that Christian disciples would not wonder about this point, and even desire contact, the same way Christians desire artifacts. A god losing blood is a significant event. Why would the human imagination not wonder at how much of this blood could be recovered? Certainly Mel Gibson was wondering the same thing when he had the women mop up Christ's blood. And the blood, in all models, is said to be the very thing by which salvation is bought. Christians, I would think, would definitely wonder whether it had touched the human sphere in some way. Christ's descent to a place very close to earth would have made such thoughts quite natural and even pressing.

Now I know that Doherty on p. 122 of his book has said, "The Greek salvation myths ... spin stories about their deities, born in caves, slain by other gods, sleeping and dining and speaking. None of these activities were regarded as taking place in history or on earth itself. The bull dispatched by Mithras was not historical; the blood it spilled which vitalized the earth was metaphysical. No one serached the soil of Asia Minor hoping to unearth the genitals severed from the Great Mother's consort Attis."

I can't be sure that no one did search for those things, or pretend to have them. If people pretended to have the nails of the cross or the crown of thorns, bearing traces of Christ's blood (the only thing left of him, since his body was taken up), they certainly could have presented pagan things. I don't know why they would have wanted the bull's blood, since its only purpose was to vitalize the earth; taking it out of the ground would not serve that purpose.

But my point is: did Paul believe these things happened or not? Was he saying, "It's fitting to speak of Christ AS IF he'd been killed in the lower heavens where he might have been seen by Cephas, James, and myself." No, salvation did not come from speaking AS IF. Salvation came because these things had happened, in his mind. The only remaining question is where Paul thought they took place. On p. 98 of his book, Doherty agrees: "In this higher world, the myths of the mystery cults and of earliest Christianity were placed. Here the savior god Attis had been castrated, here Mithras had slain the bull, here Osiris had been dismembered. (For more sophisticated thinkers like the first century Plutarch ... such mythical stories were not literal, but merely symbolic of timeless processes which the human mind had difficulty grasping.)" So the common people took these stories literally. I don't know how you square that with the statement that "None of these activities were regarded as taking place in history or on earth itself," and that no one searched for pieces of the gods.

So until we get a clear answer from Doherty about what Paul, other Christians, or other ancients believed, I'm going to go with the statement on p. 103 that "The demonic spiritual powers belonged to the realm of flesh and were thought of as in some way corporeal, though they possessed 'heavenly' versions of earthly bodies." Christ, then, in the MJ model, was corporeal, with supernatural powers, and he died in the lower heavens close to earth. I know many Christians have been surprised to learn that Doherty proposes a corporeal Christ (I was one of them), and they have good reason to be confused: Doherty seems to be unclear himself on this point. So let's hear from him which it is.

Amaleq13

My understanding of this lowest heavenly realm is that it pretty closely resembles our physical reality. I see no reason to assume that a place where a cross could be erected would not also allow a house to be erected.

Unfortunately, Paul did not expand upon the topic so we are left to speculate wildly.

Paul doesn't say so we don't know.

Nobody. He was "delivered up" by God. Betrayal appears to be a later development that is arguably after Mark and arguably derived from Scripture.

The choice of terms appears to me to be entirely apt for Paul's stated beliefs. He believed God delivered up Christ and later raised him up. The real question is why Paul did not choose words that were more apt to the Gospel story.

His conversion was "untimely" relative to those who came to believe before him.

Why does being resurrected into heaven prior to appearing reduce the importance of those appearances? That they represent the beginning of the movement seems sufficient to make them special. I would think that even if Paul had not persecuted anyone he would feel obligated to somehow apologize for not being part of it from the beginning.

Yes and I consider arguments about whether Christ obtained victory on the cross or upon rising from the dead to be an equivalently meaningless distinction. It seems silly to me to quibble about such technical details when we are talking about a magical process.

If it wasn't peripheral, why does Paul only mention it only once?

Your definition does not appear to apply to the context. It is pretty clear that the death of Christ on the cross was not a "real defeat" but was believed to be the ultimate victory. According to Paul, baptism was a symbolic burial with Christ.

That sounds more like the apologist model than the historicist model to me. Joseph of Arimathea looks to me like a literary creation intended to avoid the fate more likely to have been obtained.

I'm not sure what passages you were talking about. Where are they lead away in a procession?

Again, I do not understand why, if this is a problem for you, it is only a problem within the context of Doherty's thesis. Frankly, I don't see why such a metaphor would be a problem for either position.

I would say that applies whenever anyone discusses magical acts being performed. Rules are arbitrary when it comes to magic. I think it is unfair to expect Paul's magical processes to always make sense regardless of whether they are applied to the death of a human on earth or a fleshly appearing Son in the lowest heavenly realm.

But which ones, I think, are at the whim of the believer.

No, I thought you were referring to another reference but just to "archons".

It is my understanding that the connection was inherent and understood as such by any who accepted a Platonic worldview. What happened in the heavenly realms was actually "more real" than what happened on earth.

Do gods have blood? Or does it make more sense to attribute the blood to the fleshly form taken on by the Son? It seems to me that Paul is not at all concerned about the literal blood. References to "blood" symbolize the sacrifice.

Yes. Unfortunately, Paul does not appear to have considered being explicit on that subject to be necessary for his efforts.

krosero

Closely resembling our physical reality: that would be more or less how I always defined the Platonic worldview. So you seem to be taking the position that Doherty's thesis speaks of a spirit-world that somehow "mirrors", as in a reflection, our physical world, and not a sphere of supernatural flesh very close to the physical earth, where gods basically travel in the open sky. Supporting your proposal is Doherty's statement that no one in the ancient world thought of these things as happening in a concrete sense, and that no one looked for pieces or artifacts of the gods. (I'd like to know if in classical studies there are surviving objects which look like they were regarded as artifacts from a god. If it happened with Christ, and he was purely supernatural, it surely must have happened with pagan gods).

But Doherty has divided the heavens into lower and higher spheres, in which the gods were thought to undergo all their major experiences (like the castration of Attis), and I know his model hasn't gone without challenge (this is not, incidentally, a subject I know a whole lot about). "Lower" implies a physical perception; I assume these lower heavens were not just thought to be "lower" in the sense that they were morally lower or something like that. It seems to me that Doherty is speaking of heavens which were regarded as "lower" because they were physical places, in the sky directly above earth. God's realm was too high to be seen. Supporting this is Doherty's statement "The demonic spiritual powers belonged to the realm of flesh and were thought of as in some way corporeal, though they possessed 'heavenly' versions of earthly bodies." That sounds like a hedging statement, and Doherty does hedge when he says that nobody regarded these events as "really" taking place -- even though they were "corporeal"! I think he means that spirits in this realm were corporeal, with supernatural powers, like the ability to fly -- but where do we have a statement from him that would clarify?

I don't really think Doherty is clear on what he's proposing. On this board I've seen Christians assuming that he wants a purely spiritual Christ (i.e., having no flesh or corporeality), only to be corrected. But now you're saying that this world was really Platonic: it mirrored ours, had a ground and tables and chairs (but no humans). Meanwhile, Doherty's statements are confusing. He seems to hedge so he can have it either way as needed, but I'd be happy to see him try to synthesize his statements. We could then test them further.

You were saying how Colossians and Hebrews were metaphors, and therefore not problematic for the MJ model. A purely platonic world can have no metaphors: it can contain only abstract events sitting next to other abstract (or immaterial) events. If you had said that a fleshly Christ was crucified just above the physical earth, and some Christians made metaphors about those physical events, you have something. But you seem to have chosen here a world mirroring our own, in which the ground the cross is staked in, and the table that Christ reclined at, are not visible to human eyes (because these things are incorporeal). Can we stick with one view, or have a clarification?

And I have to repeat my question from before: how do purely immaterial events bring salvation? Paul believed these things really happened, and Doherty makes more sense when he argues that Paul thought of our fleshly realm as redeemed when Christ descended to a fleshly realm just above ours. What is Paul protesting about when he says that dead men can indeed rise, if all these events were immaterial? An immaterial man can certainly do anything at all! The Corinthians would not have a hard time buying it.

Of course, I don't think they had a hard time buying the idea of a supernatural Christ dying in the heavens and rising in the heavens. What's hard to believe about a god, in his own realm, rising and dying? Weren't there countless gods dying-and-rising in their own supernatural realm? Did they not have the power to do this? What the Corinthians doubted was that a man could do this.

The "procession" I'm thinking of, since you asked, is Colossians 2:15: "He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him."

I was not speculating wildly, I was saying that there were only a few things that Paul could possibly be thinking, if we know anything about his thought. You say we don't know, but it's not as if I asked for a name or anything unknowable like that. I was saying, WHAT could have been with Christ when he said, "Do this in remembrance of me." A human, angel, demon? There aren't that many choices.

All of this arguably true, yes. And the topic of Judas is a complex one we won't need to revisit here.

I don't buy this. If a movement in which enlightenment of some kind, a seeing, happens to one person, others will soon start having it. Paul says 500 brothers soon had it. And James. Then all the apostles. Then for some reason there's a lapse. No other apostles see him, until Paul comes late, in relation to the others. Why is there not a continuous stream of visions right down to the day of Paul's writing? If all Paul is referring to is visions attained in meditation and imagination, what made the first ones special? You say they're special because they were the first appearances: to "apostles" and "brothers". These were the first Christians, you say. So why does Paul give the impression that there's a lapse after "all the apostles"? There should only have been a continuous stream of visions. Paul says Christ appeared "last" to him. I just don't think he would have implied that anything culminated in him. He should have just said, "Then, Corinthians, he appeared to me, the least of the apostles." Then it was my turn. No, there are a lot of problems with your challenge to the view that some kind of visions ended with Paul.

"Technical details" makes it sound as if we're talking about the kind of wood the cross was made of. I'm talking about basic events in a narrative, and the basic order of the events. The Corinthians objected to the idea that dead men could rise, which is proof enough that rationality was not absent in the ancient world.

If you want to go with the premise that the events in the lower realm were corporeal, and that Colossians represents a metaphor for these physical events, we can test that premise against Paul's text; I still think that is what Doherty believes. If you want to say that the redeeming events in the life of the celestial Christ were platonic, purely immaterial, you can't have a metaphor. You can only have immaterial shadows next to other immaterial shadows.

Paul says himself that the burial is one of the matters of "first importance." And he says that he and the other apostles all preached these matters. There are many things in Paul's list which he does not mention elsewhere, like the appearances to all but himself; but they're matters of first importance, or, as I argued in another thread, supports or proofs for such matters, therefore still extremely important. The burial, in any case, is not a support or proof of anything; it's one of the centrally important things.

If Paul associated baptism and burial, then did he have a baptism in mind for Christ after the crucifixion? I'm not saying you're arguing it, but I'm saying that if we're going for linguistic evidence, Paul does seem to equate baptism and burial. What is the verse?

Another complex topic that we don't need to discuss thoroughly, but for the sake of clarification, I was not insisting on Joseph of Arimathea or any particular burial story. I was saying that Paul was told about a burial, and that in the historicist model, it makes sense: other human beings, anyone disposed to do so, could have buried him. What does burial mean in the MJ model?

In the historicist model this is not a problem because it's a metaphor for physical events on the earth: a belief that certain things were happening simultaneously in heaven during the crucifixion on earth.

The mythicist model needs to explain whether this is in fact a metaphor for physical events just above the earth, or a purely platonic and immaterial event sitting next to another platonic dream in which Christ did not nail anything to his own cross.

If by "magic" you mean miracles in which death can be reversed, or someone can be turned into a toad, okay (never minding for the moment the differences between magic and miracles). But arbitrary is not the same as nonsensical. A resurrection still has to follow upon a death. Nothing in this discussion is so basic at that, but I'm trying to impress on you that the ancients did not just shuffle the whole game around so it no longer made sense. The Corinthians thought you should keep the rule that dead men don't rise, which shows they wanted rational rules; and even if they objected under the MJ model, it shows they wanted rules of some kind. Christ would not choose of his own accord to nail God's law into his own cross, would not have been allowed to, and would not have been forced to.

It has been suggested many times that Paul was not explicit about things that were taken for granted. I think that's a legitimate historical method: try to deduce what seems to be the common understanding between the letter writer and his audience. Letters, it cannot be said enough, are conduits between people with a common understanding (unless the letter is a "cold call"). It rests on a deduction rather than on positive evidence, but certainly the MJ model is not one that rests fundamentally on positive evidence (unless its advocates have started saying that the positive MJ evidence now outweights the argument from silence; such a claim would be news to me).

You speak of implicit, shared knowledge here, on this point about blood dropping to earth:

Blood attributed to a fleshly form is corporeal, therefore no less real than our blood, though in a god's case it would be full of power.

Medusa spilled blood when Perseus slew her. Gilgamesh slew a bull from heaven, and spoke of his own blood (I don't know how "divinized" his myth ultimately became, though). Mithra's bull must have shed blood, though I don't know if it was divine. Attis was castrated and presumably shed his blood. What about the half-mortals like Achilles? And the Cyclops bled profusely. I don't think references to blood (or inferences to such) are going to be hard to find in the pagan myths.

Paul may not be concerned about the literal blood; he wasn't concerned with physical things at all. I can see Paul chastising people for running after such things as drops of physical blood, and for not paying attention to spiritual matters, to the things that lay ahead. I don't see Paul thinking of Golgotha, in Doherty's words, as a "sacred place" that he needed to run off and visit because the Lord had spilled his blood there. Pilgrims today do so because of our sense of being displaced in both time and space from the event; and our lack of a sense that Christ is about to return. Doherty says himself that shrines are to be associated with Constantine's edict and his empire (in which a sense of displacement among millions of new Christians would have been become widespread), yet historicist Christians had appeared long before then. So where are the pre-Constantine shrines?

Yet if Doherty is correct about the lack of shrines, why not turn the tables and ask what why people did not say, "Here, on this very spot, in the sacred land of Israel, the blood of Christ fell to the earth"? Do you have any doubt that the ancient mind could tend in that direction?

Doherty speaks about blood on p. 121 of his book, where he's discussing Hebrews and the heavenly sacrifice. He says that this NT book "does the mythicists' work for them", and when it speaks of blood, it does away in one stroke with those many places in the epistles that speak of blood. It's all "spiritual blood" (his phrase). What he should say, if he wants to stick to his parallels with the pagan world, is that it's blood filled with spiritual power.

So Doherty does not see Hebrews as a metaphor, which you argued it was. Whatever "spiritual blood" means, it was not metaphorical and immaterial: for Doherty, the blood in Hebrews is another example, not a metaphor, of the "blood" in Paul and the other writers. And I don't think that he sees Paul's conception of salvation history as achieved through immaterial events. I wonder if Doherty sees Colossians, but not Hebrews, as a metaphor. It would be interesting to know.

cass256

I think Doherty is missing some points. As I said on the other thread, there were only 12 Apostles, and Luke in Acts 1 has them fufilling the psalm that says about judas, "let another take his office", which was an APOSTLE, andwould get them back to 12 Apostles. However, in the Corinthians 15 quote Paul reduces the Apostles to simply and then adds other Apostles, after James, and then makes himself an Apostle in vs 9, the least of the Apostles. (I believe he said Least and fulfilled Jesus message of what would be called about those who do not teach to keep the law, as said in matthew, but that's another subject..)

If you notice on 121 Doherty is using this Hebrews 10:5
for the spiritual realm body and blood.

The problem is that whoever was writing to the Hebrews would have used the quote from the Hebrew Bible and not the Greek Old Testament.. Psalm 40 does not say "and a body thou has prepared for me" in the Hebrew.. it says compare that to the Hebrews quote on page 121 Doherty. There was no mystical body talked about in that Psalm in the Hebrew bible. Hebrews must've been written to Greek speakers who could not read the Hebrew OT. No body prepared., only open ears, and also they left out "Yea thy law is within my heart".

Besides, the blood sacrifice was to be done at the temple according to the law mentioned. And there was a physical Temple at the time.


there is no in the psalm 40 hebrews 10:5