judge

Ok, you claimed,
1. there were references to "the likeness of flesh".
2.Romans 8:3 refers to "the likeness of sinful flesh"

If you weren't misquoting this passage then where did you get that phrase from? You can clear this whole thing up right away by showing where these references are.

How do you know you didn't do it unconsciously? If you did it unconsciously you wouldnt know you did it would you?

As you are unable to explain where it came from, and it looks suspiciously like Romans 8. Can you see that it sure looks like you unconsciously misquoted it?

And misquoted it in a way that suits your purpose.

judge

I actually think there is much value to your work but that you have made an error here.

Overly dramatic.

Mythicism could be true. When someone who has devoted so much time to it as yourself and who has so many fans here makes those kind of slips it makes me think the case must be pretty weak.

spin

This tango has gone on rather long, given that the music has run its course. Can we get to a little resolution without going on to the following crass rhetoric?

When judge starts making this sort of value statement you know that he's used up his content and is running on empty. Earl hasn't done any better with the bleeding heart,

Umm, boo-hoo. That was deeply felt.

If I understand Earl's analogy,

he is claiming that in "the likeness of sinful flesh" the word "sinful" is a non-defining adjective and can be omitted without functionally changing the writer's intent, given the premise that "all flesh is sinful". This should indicate that he had no intention of misquoting anything, but of giving an equivalent of the quote from memory, which reflects Earl's understanding of the verse.



Can we get to a more amicable discussion?

judge, what do you say?

Kapyong

Gday spin,

Thanks for your comments :-)

Well maybe -
But if the followers were crucified metaphorically,
why can't Christ's crucifixion be metaphorical ?

IOW - is it really so clear that
"for Paul Jesus was crucified physically" ?

Because Paul does not seem to argue a distinction between a literal crucifixion of Christ and the metaphorical crucifixion of himself and the followers.

Indeed Paul essentially equates the two :

Gal. 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. "

Rom. 6:5 "For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him,"

Gal. 6:14 "But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. "

This all looks symbolic and/or metaphorical - looks to me as if Christ's crucifixion was just as metaphorical (I hate using the other 'M' word any more.)


Kapyong

judge

Ok i'm done. Ive probably been a bit pedantic.

spin

First, there would be nothing for a metaphor to be based on. If I have been crucified with christ but christ hasn't actually been crucified, what am I saying?... Nothing.

But more importantly, for Paul if there was no actual crucifixion and death of christ, there would be no basis for the religion. How could actual people be freed from the judgment of the law? What would be the meaning of statements like "if justification comes through the law, then christ died for nothing"? If Jesus only died metaphorically, then there could be no notion of substitute sacrifice, for there would be no actual sacrifice.

EarlDoherty

Sorry to have reduced you to tears, spin.

I would not style “sinful” as “non-defining.” It very much serves Paul’s intent, just as my “superstitious” serves to elucidate intent (or reason for) in the analogy about superstitious religions. Besides, Paul’s reason for including “sinful” is clear from the context. He is discussing the fact that Christ has set the believer free from sin and death. Sinful flesh (all flesh being sinful) has been liberated from that state by Christ’s sacrifice, by him assuming the form/likeness of that sinful flesh and undergoing his sacrifice in that state. Thus, “sinful” was totally natural and appropriate as a descriptive here. There is no need to see its inclusion has having some intention of implying that Christ’s own flesh was not sinful.

The key word here, in any case, is “likeness”. Why include it at all? Either he assumed flesh or he didn’t. If “sinful” relates, as the context indicates, to the state of the flesh of the redeemed, then there is no necessity for the “likeness” idea (and certainly no necessity for an entire body of early literature—a practice totally abandoned once the Gospels came along—to constantly harp on the idea of “likeness”). Christ assumed flesh, period. But in that case, there would be a definite necessity for Paul to clarify that in this particular instance of Christ’s human flesh, it was not sinful.

Is the likeness idea deliberately adopted to get around this? Hardly likely. If that were the intention, Christ’s sinless nature could have been simply and openly stated, as an exception to the “sinless” definition. Also, the likeness motif appears all over the place, not just in contexts where the “sinful” idea has been stressed and would highlight an anomaly in Christ’s flesh. In fact, the idea appears in entirely different contexts, as in Hebrews 2 where the comparison is for the sake of Christ and the believers having a commonality of experience, that of suffering and death.

Actually, in the “likeness” situation (Christ taking on a spiritual equivalent in form to that humans), the difference between humanity’s human flesh and Christ’s spiritual “likeness” flesh, is sufficient to eliminate any association with the sinfulness of humans which would be in danger of implying the same for Christ, and thus any need to make a qualification for Christ’s “flesh.” In fact, any such commonality of ‘weakness’ between humans and Christ, when it is occasionally stated in regard to common temptations as in Hebrews, is limited to those temptations he would meet in his experience of suffering and death, the temptation to refuse God’s will and try to avoid his fate. But that sort of temptation he could face equally so in a heavenly setting.

There is an illuminating parallel in Galatians 3:13: “Christ brought us freedom from the curse of the law by becoming for our sake an accursed thing.” He became accursed by scriptural definition since he was hung on a tree. All men hung on trees are accursed. All flesh is sinful. If Christ was hung on a tree (in heaven or earth), he would be by definition an accursed thing. But this creates no christological problem and Paul has no objection; in fact, he is very much OK with it, since it brings freedom from the Law. On the other hand, if Christ became human and adopted human flesh, he would by Paul’s definition of flesh be sinful. But this one would create christological problems and would not be OK, for Paul or his readers. Thus the necessity for qualification in this instance. A qualification we do not get, either here or anywhere else in the epistles.

Earl Doherty

GakuseiDon

This is my take on why Paul uses "likeness of sinful flesh": I think Paul is acknowledging that Jesus was born a Jew under the law. I'll go through the reasoning below, but I'll state here that I am assuming that Jesus was historical, so this isn't part of the mythicism debate.

Paul believes that Jesus 'knew no sin', which is appropriate if he thought Jesus was a sacrifice to God, since sacrifices had to be without blemish:

2 Cor 5
[21] For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

This is consistent with the theme that Jesus was either perfect or attained perfection through obedience in the writings of many early Christians. I've put some passages on this at the end of this post.

I think this is an important point, since it touches on why Paul used "sinful flesh". (I don't think that Paul thought that flesh itself was bad, but rather it was weak. So "sinful flesh" wasn't a tautology.) First, some background: Paul notes that sin only exists where there is law. You have to know Law in order to sin. No Law, no sin:

Rom 3
[20] Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Rom 4
[15] Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

Rom 6
[14] For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
[15] What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

So those under the law are under the dominion of sin. Thus the law was a 'curse' to the Jews of Paul's time, because through the law they knew sin. Similarly, Jesus Christ, who (I am assuming) was crucified in Paul's recent past, became a new law and new 'curse' to the Christians.

The passages leading to 8:3 continue the theme that those under the old law were under the dominion of sin:

Rom.8
[1] There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
[2] For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

However, Jesus was born a Jew, under the old law of sin and death. How could Paul describe a Jesus who never sinned?:

Rom.8
[3] For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh...

"Sinful flesh" here is Paul's acknowledgement that Jesus was born under the old law, i.e. as a Jew. Jesus' death and resurrection, as the perfect sacrifice, condemned the old law of sin, and give Christians a new law that allowed them to walk in the Spirit of righteousness rather than in the flesh.

Paul continues:

Rom.8
[4] That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
[5] For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

Paul again acknowledges Jesus' Jewishness when he writes that Christ came from the Israelites, who had been given the Law:

Rom 9
[3] For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
[4] Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
[5] Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came

All of this has to do with Paul's continuing battle against the Jewish Christians and the requirements of adhering to the old Law. Paul addresses those 'that know the law' later on in Romans:

Rom.7
[1] Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
...
[5] For when we were in the flesh, the sufferings of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
[6] But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

I think that this is why Paul writes the following in 2 Corinthians:

2 Cor 5
[16] Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.

I think Paul is saying that Christians used to associate Jesus ONLY with the old law, but don't do so anymore. In fact, in Rom 2:26 Paul asks whether the "uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?" and later calls Jesus "a minister of the circumcision":

Rom 15
[8] Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
[9] And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.

For Paul, those who walk in the Spirit are "the circumcised", which seems to be his way of trying to get the Jewish Christians more sympathetic to Gentiles who were "spiritually circumcised" rather than physically.

#################################

Jesus as perfect man:

Ignatius:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...s-roberts.html

I undergo all these things that I may suffer together with Him, He who became a perfect man inwardly strengthening me.

Justin Martyr:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...guetrypho.html

Trypho:

... rather[should] say that this Jesus was born man of men. And if you prove from the Scriptures that He is the Christ, and that on account of having led a life conformed to the law, and perfect, He deserved the honour of being elected to be Christ...

Justin's response:

... But since I have certainly proved that this man is the Christ of God, whoever He be, even if I do not prove that He pre-existed, and submitted to be born a man of like passions with us, having a body, according to the Father's will... though it should appear that He was born man of men, and [nothing more] is proved [than this], that He has become Christ by election. For there are some, my friends," I said, "of our race, who admit that He is Christ, while holding Him to be man of men...

Hebrews:

Heb 2:
[9] But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
[10] For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
...
[14] Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same...
[16] For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
[17] Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren...

Heb 5:
[7] [Christ] Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
[8] Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
[9] And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

Heb 9:
[13] For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
[14] How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

EarlDoherty

He doesn’t pretend. He is simply ignorant of them because it is beneath him to actually read the writings of those he is condemning. On the subject of whether Paul tells us that “Jesus was a man,” in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man,” after substantial discussions of the “Heavenly Man” in Zoroastrianism, in Gnosticism, in Judaism, and in Philo, I address “Paul’s Heavenly Man” (p.185f):

This is followed by a ten-page analysis of 1 Corinthians 15:35-49, in which I demonstrate that Paul not only does not tell us that Christ was a human man on earth, he excludes that very idea from his argument. This passage is one of the best examples in the entire New Testament in which traditional scholarship is guilty of reading into it what they want to see there and cannot believe is not. It is one of the most effective discussions in my entire book. (One, incidentally, which GakuseiDon spent not a word addressing in his review of that book.)

Earl Doherty

aa5874

Does Jesus have to exist for people he BELIEVE he did?

Did Romulus and Remus EXIST before people BELIEVE they did?

Did the ANGEL MORONI exist for people to BELIEVE that an ANGEL named MORONI spoke to Joseph Smith?

The very Greeks and Romans who BELIEVED the offspring of the Holy Ghost was Crucified also BELIEVED in hundreds of MYTH fables.


But, in any event, the Jesus MYTH fable is about GOD INCARNATE that was CRUCIFIED under Pontius Pilate on earth and because the Jews REJECTED God Incarnate, the Son of the God of Moses, his FATHER caused the Romans to destroy the Temple and Jerusalem.