gstafleu

So your scenario is that Jesus started out as a fleshly type, then was crucified, and after the crucifixion somehow got converted into spirit-type and thus conquered death, right? Now 1 Cor 42f doesn't say that. It just says that after the fleshly Adam Jesus arrived as a spirit. And the incorruptible raising of the dead is an analogue of that (before death: like Adam; after death: like Jesus, at least if you are a believer), no crucifixion needed.

Now of course Paul frequently mentions crucifixion elsewhere. What I'm not sure about though, is that it is necessarily the crucifixion that turns Jesus into a spiritual being. It is equally possible, I would say, that the crucifixion gives Jesus, already a heavenly spirit, the special status that makes him a "savior." After all, not just any dead heavenly being can save. This idea is reinforced by the 1 Cor 15 passage, which explains about how after death we will be like the spirit Jesus, without mentioning the crucifixion: apparently it is not necessary to mention the crucifixion which allegedly converted Jesus from flesh to spirit. Rather, the spirit analogy works without that. The passage simply says that after the fleshly Adam the spirit-like Jesus arrived--spirit-like without any intervening crucifixion.

Gerard Stafleu

EarlDoherty

Brilliantly stated!!! Thank-you, Gerard. I have occasionally put forward this very idea, but never quite so succinctly. In answer to the regular observation that the myths of the Greek savior gods are always set on earth, even if primordial or not anchored in identifiable history, I have pointed out that such myths were first formulated when they were envisioned as taking place on earth. When this concept was later replaced (I maintain) by more Platonic conceptions of spiritual dimension location, the myths were not recast by Platonizing them (what an undertaking that would have been!), but simply tacitly had a new understanding brought to them (and no doubt not by everyone), a new understanding that can be detected in various ways—such as I laid out in my Appendix 6 of The Jesus Puzzle.

But the myths of Jesus, as presented in the epistles, did not have those earth-sounding elements to them because they were not formed when such things were regarded as having taken place on earth. They arose entirely within the new Platonically-rooted context of gods (especially savior gods) operating in the heavens, in the spiritual dimensions, and thus could not possess any primordial-earth elements and especially earth-sounding events, events cast as though historical. To the extent that they had any earth-sounding elements, such as ‘of the seed of David’ or ‘born of woman’ these were—uniquely within the traditional savior-god milieu—derived from the Jewish scriptures, which is why they are woolly. (That applies to the 'fact' of crucifixion and resurrection, which are also woolly in regard to any historical setting.)

And they certainly are woolly and indefinite. Gerard makes another point which I will enlarge on. If ‘myth’ requires placement within a setting that people can understand and relate to, why didn’t any of the early writers supply that? If the Greek cults had such things (and they did, in the form of their earth-based myths) why wouldn’t the Christ cult have followed suit? If Jesus really lived on earth and had a history, if many traditions were floating around and were known to these writers, how could they possibly not have supplied them? How could they possibly have ‘lost interest’ in them? How could their readership not have needed and demanded them? If we presume they must have, how could all those epistle writers—when answering that very need and demand—have gone to scripture to supply those details, to illustrate Jesus’ humility by Isaiah 53, to illustrate his suffering by the same passage, to illustrate Jesus’ “voice in the present time” (Hebrews 1) by going to scripture and ‘quoting’ him from there (2:12f) instead of offering sayings of his which surely ought to have existed in oral tradition? How could they illustrate the promise of resurrection by going to scripture instead of Jesus’ own promises? How could Paul say (1 Thes. 4:9) that you are taught by God to love another, when Jesus would surely have been regarded as teaching such a thing? How could they illustrate what was expected at the End-time by not going to Jesus’ own apocalyptic prophecies but rather to scripture (2 Peter 1:19). And on and on.

It was at most two generations that the early cultic Christians (which, note, at the time had nothing to do with Q and the Galilean preaching movement, which had no Christ slain by any “rulers of this age,” no “savior” Jesus, no resurrection, no ‘myth’ of the Pauline type with its heavenly “flesh” and unification of the universe through the “body” of Christ, etc.) were content with this myth which had no earthly connection beyond a couple of basic derivations from scripture. As you all know, I am often challenged to explain how or why “Jesus mythicism” does not surface in the second century, to be attacked as heretical by the 2nd century commentators? (Well, it is by Ignatius at the beginning of it, but not identifiably beyond that.) The answer is, because it was so deficient in that very thing which people crave, as Gerard points out: “is a mythologically unstable situation; most human beings are not mystics and require some earthly grounding in their sacred stories.” Paul, and most of the early epistle writers, were “mystics”—that is clear from Paul’s basic “unintelligibility” by our rational, scientific standards—and an earthly-grounded development of that myth cried out to be formed. I happen to think that some of that took place independent of the Gospels, little tentative steps to place Jesus on earth (as reflected behind 1 John 4), but when the Gospels came along, rooted in that initially unrelated dimension of the Galilean preaching movement, the spark generated by their contact ignited the whole thing, Jesus mythicism rather quickly went up in smoke and an historical Jesus was born out of the ashes. It took a couple more generations to fully take shape, and in more than one form, which we can categorize into proto-orthodoxy and Gnostic docetism. Meanwhile, another form had been developing in parallel, what I call Logos-religion which, like the Pauline myth, had a divine Son of the Jewish God and other aspects in common, but lacking the key aspect of Paul’s type of cult, namely a sacrificial Son. (Such parallel threads are hinted at in Paul’s “another Jesus” remark and in 1 Cor. 1, where he condemns those who do not have a theology of the cross.) And no doubt there were other bits of Jewish-oriented (in their ideas, if not always in ethnic makeup) groups and beliefs here and there in this broad “seething mass of sects and salvation cults” of the time (John Dillon). Eventually, they all merged under the sponsorship of Mark’s Jesus of Nazareth.

Not only does all this point to non-historicity and a Platonically-rooted spiritual/mystical/heavenly mythology of Paul’s Christ Jesus, it explains why the early cultic Christians adopted that “kata sarka” language, which is the point I’ve recently made. In that initial, transient period there was no other language available with which to describe those aspects of the spiritual Christ and his activities which were perceived to relate to, have an effect on, the material world and humans. Since scripture was regarded as a window onto that Christ and his activities, anything it was perceived to say about him which related to the material world (such as “of the seed of David”) had to be placed within a mode of thinking and language which reflected that relationship….

Ergo, “kata sarka”: in relation to the flesh, in respect to the world of the flesh, in regard to the sphere of flesh, corruptibility and material things and people. In relation to Christ’s nature and his activities within that sphere—as we know from scripture (influenced by a Platonic interpretation of it)—he was of the seed of David, he was “born of woman, under the Law” (if that’s not an interpolation, and whatever the second phrase might mean), he had a “body” (Hebrews 10:5), he offered “blood” in the heavenly sanctuary. It explains the consistent “likeness” concept, rather than directly stating that he was human. It could call him a “man” (though in a highly mystical sense, never in a mundane earthly one) in light of the Platonic concept (as in Philo) of a “Heavenly Man”.

I could go on, but I’d like to eat today. (Unless the moderators would like to serve wine and cheese…) Having addressed my mundane bodily needs and features (which Paul never does in regard to his “kata sarka” Christ), I’ll return to offer more observations on the topics and passages which Ben is so concerned about, and further about the phrase “kata sarka”. (Perhaps Ben would prefer to wait until I enlarge on my comments of yesterday before essaying his own views.)

Earl Doherty

Clivedurdle

Do not some of Paul's comments for example about third heaven and spiritual food show he favoured the spiritual world and was happier with it? The gnostic secret knowledge themes? See Pagels.

His revelation and writing is far more likely to be about an unearthly Christ because that fitted his mindset!

And there may be some interesting routes into understanding the Eucharist here.

What sort of body and blood would the - mythical is possibly the wrong word - purely spiritual? - Christ have given for us? A new Adamic one?

The Eucharist - do this in remembrance of me - becomes about something far more important than a death and resurrection (what exactly is the connection with Calvary especially when blood is an insignificant part of that death?).

It is to remember the new Adam we are all to become, bread into Christ's heavenly body and wine into Christ's spiritual blood.

The marriage of the church in Revelation to Christ also makes sense this way.

And Mark et al makes sense because very few of us are so spiritually minded to be of no earthly use, and we consistently tell each other to stop day dreaming and get on with it, so a spiritual christ would only have been satisfatory for the purists - the model b nazarene one works far better for the masses.

Clivedurdle

Just thinking about the stations of the cross. Has this been seen as the transformation of the human into the spiritual christ, written to join up the dots between the old adam and the new adam? We even have a transitional phase post resurrection when Jesus is only partly morphed - can eat and can walk through walls.

It is finished actually belongs with the ascension when he fully becomes the new adam!

What sort of kata sarka is Jesus's post resurrection flesh?

There is archaelogical evidence for this - the traditional church structure - you are welcomed in the Baptistry, you spend most of your life in communion in the body of the church, you look forward in the tower to the spiritual world. Later churches have rearranged this but the classic design - Florence, Pisa etc - is of three separate buildings with the tower at the front, not above the baptismal font.

Solo

But then again, if you deny Jesus to Paul was a flesh-and-blood human, then what state was he raised from to his true spiritual self ? Get it, Gerard ? What does resurrection mean ? Passing from one spiritual abstract to another ?

15:50 looks like Paul's answer to the Jerusalem followers of Jesus who were following their master in teaching that the kingdom of God "was within" (Lk 17:20-21) and present already ! There is a very strong support of this view of resurrection in the NT (eg. consistent with Jesus' answer in Mark to the Saduccees Mk 12:18-27, Rev 2:11, and the esoteric "dead" in the Q saying "let the dead bury their dead"). It is against such views that Paul broiled: he was saying to the Petrines: you are nuts; you are in flesh only to suffer - as was he ! The message of Jesus - as interpreted by Paul - is, flesh cannot inherit the kingdom, because the kingdom exists only as a spiritual category. It's not the earthly Jesus teachings that mattered to Paul but his fate as fleshed out human. In effect, Paul was saying : even if you are God, if you accept to be clothed in humanity, you will suffer death (of the flesh).

...will not inherit the imperishable !

1 Cr 15:46: But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.

First of all, adam derives from the Hebrew adamah meaning ground, earth. So it would be inappropriate for Paul to use the epithet of the last Adam for JC if he had in mind a purely spiritual entity which had no earthly connection to humanity. I also think you and Doherty are misreading the intent of "from heaven" in 15:47. Adam, the transgressor from Eden, is the epitomy of the fallible nature of humanity. JC - through the revelation to, and gospel of, Paul - stands for the spiritual essence of man. JC's godlike status "from heaven" was confirmed by his (spiritual) resurrection. It was not meant to deny that Jesus dwelled on earth.

You behave, you'll get a pass at the gate, never fear ! That was in nutshell Paul's message. Jesus was sent down to suffer in flesh and blood, to be rejected, humilated, tortured and killed by law-thumping earthlings. Paul was sent to explain that what killed him was sin - specifically the sin of Adam, which befalls all men. Paul received assurance (though bodily experiences) that Jesus was resurrected spiritually after the death of his flesh.

Without Jesus' self-sacrifice as God, without his coming to earth to drink from the cup as a humble servant, the parallel scheme that Paul devised for his community would not have worked: reject the desires of the flesh - crucify yourself to the world and you will experience the life in heaven with Christ. If you are a saint like Paul, you might get some foretaste of what that is like while still breathing.



Jiri

Clivedurdle

We really must do some serious theobiology here. What sort of flesh was Jesus before death, for forty days after death (hint religious number there) and after ascension?

EarlDoherty

Well, let’s look at your “four”.

1. Romans 9:3 – “…for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh (kata sarka)…”

2. Romans 9:6-8 – “…Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel; nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all his children, but ‘it is through Isaac that your offspring [lit., seed] will be reckoned’ [Gen.21:12]. In other words, it is not the natural children [lit., the children of the flesh, tēs sarkos] who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as (Abraham’s) seed.”

3. Romans 11:1 – “For even I [Paul] am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”

4. 1 Corinthians 10:18 – “Consider Israel according to the flesh (kata sarka)…”

As I suggested yesterday, even when used of human descent or racial identification, the phrase “kata sarka” is quite odd. In fact, I think I’ll turn the tables on you. You and others have often demanded external parallels to my reading of certain usages of “kata sarka” in the epistles. If you would like to dispute my contention that even Romans 9:3 and 1 Cor. 10:18 are “strange and woolly” to refer to ethnic descent or membership in a human race, perhaps you will give us an external parallel in the literature of the time (or any time in the ancient world) showing that non-Christian Greek speakers ever used “kata sarka” to express themselves as Paul did in those two passages. I’ll point you to one spot where it does not: Demosthenes’ Funeral Oration 12 says: “just as they were akin in the flesh”, but does not even use the word “sarx” (rather, hosper tas phuseis ēsan sungeneis).

OK. So Paul in some instances uses “kata sarka” to refer to a human being of the seed of another human, and a human being of the race of such-and-such. What does this prove? Are you claiming that language, words and phrases, can never be pressed into service to encompass a new situation, a different meaning? That phrases always have one particular application and no other? That they don’t often encompass both literal and figurative meanings?

And what is the range of meaning of ‘flesh’ in “kata sarka”? We’ve seen in past discussions (and in my essay) that it can be used both literally and figuratively. To refer to human flesh as in 1 Cor. 10:18 (although even here, it’s somewhat figurative, for it really means “race”, not actual flesh as you could dig out of your arm), all the way to entirely metaphorical meanings like “in the way of the world” or “by worldly standards.”

This liberty is even more evident when we actually look at the range of possible translations of “kata sarka”. The standard “according to the flesh” is itself quite woolly, and we have to specify what we mean by “according to”. If you say “according to the flesh, I am an American” do you mean, according to what’s written on the flesh of your arm, or the color of it, you are an American”? When Paul says (2 Cor. 5:16) “We know no man according to the flesh” is he saying that we no longer know the color of his skin? No, and that’s why translations that realize the proper application of this phrase in that verse, say “by worldly standards”. When he says in Eph. 2:14-15 that Christ has abolished “in his flesh [en tē sarki] the Law with its rules and regulations,” is he saying he has removed the Law from under the skin of some body part?

And when one considers that “kata sarka” (or “kata” anything), can be translated in as general a way as “with respect to” the thing itself, this opens up a very broad range indeed. How much could be said to be “with respect to politics” or “with respect to history” or “with respect to the human condition” or “with respect to my way of seeing things”?

And in passing, I’m going to address one longstanding point of misunderstanding about the meaning I assign to “kata sarka”, in case anyone is still confused. In threads over the past few years, I have been accused of maintaining that “kata sarka” itself has to imply motion, ‘down to’ (the region of) flesh, as though I base my whole concept of a descending god on such an alleged meaning of this phrase. What a straw man that was, and perhaps still is. Now, I did mix in with the idea of “relation to” the realm of flesh (as I’ve talked about it here), the idea of ‘location’, whether this is specifically thought of as below the moon or not. The realm of flesh, while at the same time as being abstract, also in some contexts naturally takes on a ‘location’ sense. The two, in those cases, can live very well in conjunction. Christ may have a relationship with “flesh” in the mystical sense, especially when performing his redemptive acts, but during those acts he also took on a sort of “flesh” and entered a “fleshly realm”, perhaps below the moon or simply some sort of mythical “other place” where something like crucifixion or hanging on a tree when “in the likeness” of a human could take place. This sort of thinking, of course (despite Don’s adamant protests), can be found in the mythological outlook of the time.

To get back to the main point, a concept, and the phraseology which expresses it, can be applied to two different, if related, situations. Suppose I asked two questions: Who was Ramses? Who was Amun? I could answer:

In regard to nationality, Ramses was a pharaoh of Egypt.
In regard to nationality, Amun was a god of Egypt.

If I left out the words “pharaoh” and “god”, does that mean that Amun was a human? I think that we can style “Amun” Egyptian as to nationality. We might even take nationality literally, in that in those times I’m sure the Egyptians regarded their gods as having some kind of ‘ethnic’ connection to themselves, just as the Sumerians did of their gods. (No one before the Jews—and they later than we traditionally imagine—except for Akhenaton was monotheistic, or rejected the national gods of others as non-existent.) National mythologies often had humans descended from the gods, so there could be a concept of lineage relationship there as well.

So above I have used the word “nationality” within the phrase “in regard to / with respect to nationality” to apply to two different situations, that of a god and that of a human. Why cannot Paul and other early cultic Christians have done the same? Especially when, as I outlined yesterday, that kind of thinking and language would be virtually imposed on them due to the nature of their soteriological cosmology and the influence of scripture.

In my above analogy/questions, suppose we were to substitute “Osiris” for “Amun”? Now we introduce a euhemeristic dimension. Whether Osiris was actually originally a human, a king around whom legend grew until he evolved into a savior god cult, the perception of that on the part of devotees of the cult would even more likely lead them to introduce things like lineage and descent from. (Not quite as Paul has done, since the analogy is inexact). And if in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which was the cult’s holy scripture, there were some reference to Osiris that led one to link him to something or someone earthly in the same way as one human was to another, would we be surprised if the cult said that he was “such-and-such kata sarka”? (Sorry, don’t know the hieroglyphic equivalent.)

(I know you will want to jump on this “euhemeristic” element and claim Jesus is a parallel: once a man, later a god. Unfortunately, those who are the earliest to profess him as a god never make it clear that he was ever a man; and in fact, except for that handful of passages we are debating, they definitely convey otherwise. And considering that Paul was converted to Christ Jesus within only a few years of this man’s death, and we know the Christ cult existed before him, we would be hard put to imagine the euhemeristic process working in such a microscopic period of time, if indeed there is any time available.)

I suggest that this way of looking at things amply neutralizes the objections over Romans 1:3 and Romans 9:5.

But let’s take a closer look at your #2, for there is more hay to be made here:

2. Romans 9:6-8 – “6…Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel; nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all his children, 7 but ‘it is through Isaac that your offspring [lit., seed] will be reckoned’ [Gen.21:12]. 8 In other words, it is not the natural children [lit., the children of the flesh, tēs sarkos] who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as (Abraham’s) seed.”

(The NEB translates v.8: “That is to say, it is not those born in the course of nature who are children of God; it is the children born through God’s promise who are reckoned as Abraham’s descendants [seed].”)

It is clear from this passage that Paul is applying the word “seed” in a non-literal way. “Children of the promise” must refer to something more than Isaac and his physical descendants, because the others they are contrasted with (in v.6) are called “natural children”, “children of the flesh. Ergo, the children of the promise are not of the flesh, of natural human descent, or at least while technically they are, of course, since all have been humanly ‘born’, they are defined by some other standard. That they include gentiles is clear from 9:24f: “Even us whom he has called, not only from the Jews but from the gentiles.” The gentiles are hardly physical children or seed of Isaac, or Abraham, but they are “regarded as Abraham’s seed.”

The whole idea is repeated in Galatians 3 at even greater length. It is “the men of faith who are Abraham’s sons” (v.7). “The blessing of Abraham should in Jesus Christ be extended to the gentiles” (v.14). And how are the gentiles “of Abraham’s seed” and children of the promise? Through Christ, who is himself “the seed” of Abraham (due to the dubious device of seeing the key word in scripture in the singular “seed” rather than the plural “seeds”. This means to Paul that only “one” is being referred to, and that, for him, has to be Christ. By extension, through being part of Christ and linked to him through faith, the gentiles are the seed of Abraham (v.26-29).

Two things: First, “seed” can obviously be used in a non-literal, mystical sense. And yet Paul envisions a reality to it (not just a metaphor). In fact, by attaching it to the mystical reality of his one body in Christ Jesus (head and limbs, etc.), he implies the same mystical reality to the idea of being of some historical figure’s seed. Where do we draw the line on this? If it can apply to gentiles, why not to a spiritual Christ? Can a ‘mystical reality’ apply to humans but not to a mystical figure?

Second, I thought Christ was of the seed of David according to the flesh? If this means human descent, doesn’t this make him a literal seed of Abraham by extension? Why not appeal to that ‘historical’ feature, and simply link the gentiles to Abraham through that channel, rather than rely on a singular noun in scripture? Why not discuss that Romans 1:3 connection if it refers to history, bring it into the picture? Wouldn’t Paul want to explain to his gentiles that, given this literal descent from David and beyond, it was ultimately from Isaac and Abraham anyway? Or that it was all meaningless anyway, this descent of Jesus from David, because it all went by the boards. The seed of Abraham meant by scripture was nobody but Christ—remember it’s just singular “seed”—and by extension only those who had faith in Christ, meaning the happy believing gentiles and those Jews who chose to join them and believe in Christ too and get “baptized into union with him” (v.27). So what was the point of him being “of the seed of David”, “kata sarka” or otherwise? Isn’t it irrelevant, since Christ (or any human) enjoys no privilege by dint of being descended from someone, or some tribe of people who by definition are not “children of the promise” anyway, since the latter, according to Galatians 3, only begins with Christ himself? Doesn’t Romans 1:3 have to conflict in a basic way with Paul’s point and exegesis in Galatians 3? Wouldn’t he have to resolve this conflict which has been set up right within the same epistle to the same audience?

Clearly, there are conundrums within conundrums and I think, with all due respect, that Ben and others are arguing on a very simplistic plane, generally the literal one which is seen entirely through the imposed prism of the Gospels, leaving them in the dark as to meanings and subtleties and insights into the early Christian faith and philosophy of the time.

(OK, where’s that wine and cheese? I’m getting hungry again….)

Ted Hoffman urged me to be “comprehensive”. You seconded the motion. By all means, let’s be comprehensive. You held up a handful of phrases and demanded that I address them. How many passages have I held up and demanded that you address? What response do I get beyond relegating me to a different conceptual universe? Or that I have butchered the text? Or that you merely choose not to address them?

On the one hand, I have had to deal with those few phrases involving “flesh” and “blood”, etc, which seem peculiarly used and turn out to have a feasibly different application. I have had to deal with “born of woman” which could fall into the same category, though it could also be an interpolation on the grounds of Ehrman’s observations and the Marcionite text not having contained it. (I’d judge it 50-50). I have dealt with “brother of the Lord” which renders this at the very least ambiguous, if not a quite feasible interpolation. (I see-saw as to my preferred view toward it.) 1 Timothy 6:13 is 2nd century and so irrelevant, although there are reasons to suspect it too is an interpolation. And 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 is acknowledged by “a majority of (critical) scholars” (Ellingworth) to almost certainly be interpolated and so also irrelevant.

On the other hand, what do you have to deal with? I hardly know where to begin. You have to deal with all the passages assigned to describing Christ and his experiences which have been taken from scripture rather than historical tradition. You have to ‘explain’ why Paul seems to say he was crucified by the demon spirits rather than by human rulers. There are all those “revelation” verbs employed to speak of Christ appearing in the present time, one who is revealed rather than who lived a life. There is Romans 1:2 which implies that God’s gospel in scripture fore-announced Paul’s revealed gospel rather than the life of Jesus himself. There is Titus 1:3, which allows no room between God’s promises and the preaching of the gospel by Paul. There’s Paul in several letters talking about the progression between the old age and the anticipated new one in the future, with no glance at Jesus’ life and redeeming acts being an event located anywhere along that spectrum. There are epistles talking about anything to do with Christ being “mysteries” hidden for long ages and only revealed through scripture and revelation, nothing revealed recently by Christ himself. There is much talk of Christ “coming” conveying no sense that he had already been here (other than an ambiguous reference in Heb. 9:28 which is neutered in any case by Heb. 10:37). There is Romans 10 which talks of the preaching to the Jews by apostles, but no sign of Christ himself preaching to them. There is Romans 11 which talks of the Jews’ killing of the prophets, but no sign of them killing Christ. There is 1 Cor. 1 detailing the “folly” of having a crucified Messiah without mentioning the folly of turning a man into God. There is 2 Corinthians 5:5 which says that God, as a guarantee of eternal life, has sent the Spirit, not Jesus. There is 2 Cor. 5:18-19 in which Paul speaks of the “ministry of reconciliation” being bestowed on him by God, or 3:5 in which Paul is the dispenser of the new covenant, or 3:7-11 in which the parallel to Moses splendor in the giving of the old covenant is paralleled by the splendor of Paul’s ministry through the Spirit, with nary a whisper of Jesus’ own role in any of this. There is Romans 12-13, a compendium of Christian ethics, with much resemblance to Jesus’ Gospel teachings, with not a whisper as to who supplied it all—unless it be God himself, as in 1 Thess. 4:9. There is 1 Cor. 12:28 which has the various apostles, prophets, teachers in current Christian communities appointed by God, not Jesus. There is 1 Cor. 15:44-49 which states that Christ has a spiritual body in contrast to Adam’s material one, with no hint that Christ ever had the latter; in fact it is ruled out by the structure of the argument. There is Paul’s repeated insistence that he is the full equal of the Jerusalem apostles, with no acknowledgment or recognition that they enjoy any status through having known the historical Jesus; in fact there is Paul’s declaration in Gal. 2:8 that it was God who appointed Peter to be apostle to the Jews while He appointed Paul to be apostle to the gentiles. There is Ephesians 4:8-12, in which the writer ‘knows’ Jesus descended to earth because a scriptural passage implies it, performing on earth not material but spiritual things. There is Philippians 1:6 which says that the movement was started in the work of God and will be brought to completion when Jesus arrives from heaven. There is, of course the hymn of that epistle, in which the unnamed savior receives the name Jesus only when exalted to heaven after his sacrifice. There is 1 Thess. 4:14 which says that “we believe Jesus died and rose again,” making the death a matter of faith. There is the hymn of 1 Timothy 3:16 which has the figure of worship seen only by angels, proclaimed among the nations but nowhere proclaiming any message of his own. There is 1 Timothy 4:1 which has predictions of false preaching being made by God through revelation, not by Jesus. There is 1 Timothy 6:16 saying that no man has ever seen God, not even the man Jesus. There is 2 Timothy 1:9-10 which has Christ breaking the power of death and bringing immortal life “through the gospel” as preached by Paul, not by any actions on earth. (All these indications and more in the 3 Pastoral epistles indicate that the writer(s) knew of no historical Jesus and that the reference to Pilate in 1 Tim. 6:13 is an even later insertion—something supported by scholarly observations that the phrase does not fit well within its context.) There is Hebrews 1 which demonstrates the Son’s superiority over the angels through passages in scripture taken to refer to him, rather than any pointing to his incarnation, resurrection or anything else he did in an earthly life. There is Hebrews 7:15-17 which says that Jesus had a life that cannot be destroyed, proven by a passage in scripture. There is the infamous Hebrews 8:4 which tells us (if we read it with an open mind) that Jesus was never on earth. There is Hebrews 10:37 which specifies that “the one who is to come will come,” with no thought that he had already been here. There is Hebrews 12:18-29 that parallels the mount of Sinai with Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem, not Calvary, the words of the Old Covenant are paralleled by more passages from scripture; the words of the prophets by “the voice of the one who speaks from Heaven.” There is the epistle of James, chock-full of Christian ethics, with no indication of who had delivered it. There is 1 Peter which, allegedly by Peter, is never made to say that he knew a Jesus on earth but simply refers to himself as a “fellow-elder”. There is 2 Peter 1:19 which labels scripture as the “lamp” which guarantees the promise to Christians until the Parousia arrives, not Jesus’ recent life and teachings. There is 1 John 2:27 which says that the initiation received from God upon conversion is all you need to know, no other teacher is necessary, that the command to love one another is God’s, that we can ask and will receive from God anything we want, that again, God has never been seen by any man (4:12). There is 1 John 5:6-11 which enumerates the channels through which we have knowledge of Jesus Christ: the Spirit, the water and the blood, the latter two being apparently rituals of the community….

And that’s just some of the high points.

Ben, you are facing a fire-breathing dragon with a slashing tail shooting acid from its nostrils, confidently armed with a slingshot. (Too bad the story of David and Goliath is sheer fantasy on the part of a biblical writer.) Or perhaps in an analogy more fitting, you face an elephant in the room with a couple of peashooters. That’s about the state of your context as opposed to my context.

If anyone wants a full picture and discussion of all the elements of the epistles that could, or have been claimed to be, a possible reference to an historical human Jesus, please see my website article 20 Arguable References to an Historical Jesus in the New Testament Epistles. It’s an adjunct to my comprehensive feature “The Sound of Silence: 200 Missing References to the Gospel Jesus in the New Testament Epistles.” Thus far, Ben has refused to address them, saying that if there were two thousand (or whatever number) of them, it wouldn’t trouble him in the least.

Earl Doherty

Chris Weimer

The only problem with your theory, Gerard, and Earl's endorsement of it, is that there's nothing about dying in heaven that makes him a savior. For all the complaining about "lack of evidence" for mythicists, there's at least the gospels. Doherty's theory has absolutely zero evidence for it. Not to mention the parallel would be lost on people if Jesus didn't actually die as a human - spirits dying and being raised has no significance for soteriology, but a human dying and being raised, conquering death, means that it's possible for everyone to accomplish it as well.

Chris Weimer

This is really funny:

"OK. So Paul in some instances uses “kata sarka” to refer to a human being of the seed of another human, and a human being of the race of such-and-such. What does this prove? Are you claiming that language, words and phrases, can never be pressed into service to encompass a new situation, a different meaning? That phrases always have one particular application and no other? That they don’t often encompass both literal and figurative meanings?"

Sounds like special pleading to me.

Amaleq13

I understand why, within the context of your thesis, Paul might choose such an odd phrase to describe the nature of the incarnated Christ (it certainly isn't a typical situation) but why do you think he would also choose to use it to describe actual flesh or descent?

Wouldn't it make more sense, again within the context of your thesis, for Paul to choose more common terminology to describe mundane descent or flesh?



Doug