TedM

Wow. I thought I was clear. I'm saying that is the perception of the avg modern day person, because it is so strongly taught as fact in the churches, and they can always pull up the early Church father writings and some external historians to support the martyrdom concept, as well as the NT writings themselves.

Not if they aren't aware of it. But you can't just ignore all of the teachings of the Church about the historical development of Christianity. You can't just point to evolution and particle physics and say " see Christianity is bunk". Those two major 'triumphs' of science are extremely lacking in evidence for coherent theories!

Perhaps.

EarlDoherty

Too bad, mh, I'm offering it at bargain-basement prices.

Whaaa???

"Two Adam figures...one a natural body and the other a spiritual." "Both contexts retain their differentiation." Then, "Jesus operates within both contexts." Please demonstrate by an analysis, including in Greek, of 1 Cor. 15:35-49, that Jesus, according to Paul here, operates within both contexts. Please demonstrate from the text that Paul is referring to Jesus with both Adams. Your flights of fancy are astounding, maryhelena. Too bad you don't follow your own advice and keep yourself anchored on terra firma.

Gobbledygook. Or if you prefer a more neutral phrase (a preference of one of the mods), incomprehensible.

Earl Doherty

Bernard Muller

Here, "to offer himself" is the equivalent of "to suffer". Of course "repeatedly" is hypothetical. And the ending of 9:26 is
"But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."
I note the appearance "once for all" refers to Jesus being temporarily outside heaven (ref 9:24, 10:25), and that's where "he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself". That happens not in heaven and cannot be the later offering of blood.

Also, Heb 7:27 is most interesting:
"He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself."
Here the daily sacrifices for sins by high priests is replaced by a "once and for all" offering of himself (Jesus). But what are these sacrifices? Could they be offering of blood? No, because these offerings of blood, for the author of Hebrews, do not happen daily, but yearly:
"... the high priest goes [in the inner tent, the holiest sanctuary] , and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people." (Heb 9:7)
So "sacrifices" (and consequently the "offering of himself") in 7:27 does not refer to blood offering(s).

As for 10:5, why do you say, if "body" is part of a quoted psalm, that does not count, as if it did not exist? Just because you do not like it, that does not mean it is not here.

As for 10:10, it does not repeat or paraphrase the psalm extract of 10:5-7. Only "will" and "body" are common. So if the author was unconfortable with the "body" of 10:5, why did he not drop it in 10:10, such as "the offering of the body of Jesus ..." to "the offering of Jesus ..."?
Instead he wrote it. That's what I would call confirmation.

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller

I did not say Doherty claimed that. And where would that be in the scriptures? the author of Hebrews did not supply any quote for "evidence".

Anyway, it's amazing that someone in a spiritual body can do these: loud cries and tears (they must be spiritual tears!), suffer and die.

Cordially, Bernard

maryhelena

And that's why, Earl, that your own position is taking such a beating - it's Gobbledgook to many people...

And, Earl, linguistics is not going to provide any solutions to the problems raised by the NT story. Why? Because we are dealing with a story - a story, Earl, a story.

It's a story that is not logical. It's a story that is not rational; it's a story devoid of any moral sense. Theology won't help either. Theology is hell bent on magic tricks. It's surgical precision that is needed - and that, in the case of this written material, is attained by the use of logic.

The ahistoricist/mythicist position denies a historical gospel JC. But, Earl, the NT story is not only about the gospel Jesus. It is also the story of the Jesus of the epistles. There are two Jesus figures in the NT. The Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of the epistles. The NT story can be read that these two Jesus figures are one and the same figure. However, logic demands that they are not synonymous figures. Logic demands that matter and mind, flesh and spirit, are not assimilated. That the NT story can be read, or rather interpreted, as a shape-shifting story, speaks more about ones credulity than ones rationality.

Hebrews 5:7 and 8.4 are indicating two contexts in which a Jesus figure, a 'salvation' figure, functions. Flesh and Spirit. Matter and Mind. Earth and Heaven. History and Eternity. That, Earl, is all there is. Everything else is window dressing.

So, yes, a logical and a philosophical approach to the NT is a rational approach. Linguistics can never have the final word on questions of logic and morality.

And that position, Earl, allows for no Gobbledgook ......:wave:

MrMacSon

I find it very hard to follow someone when they write as if something like this is fact

MrMacSon

Exactly!!!

Exactly!!!

Yep!!

TedM

Sorry, I thought you have 2:3-4 in mind.

I guess if you have a spiritual body that also is like us in every way, it can do everything a human body can do -- somehow..

Bernard, I've lost (or maybe never quite got) the significance of the location of the sacrifice. If you are right that some (or ALL) of it occurred before he got to heaven, can't Doherty say "Ok, but that doesn't get you anywhere closer to saying it happened on earth, because it happened in the 'lower heavens', which was still a spiritual place where beings could take on flesh and suffer and cry etc..." As such, his priesthood still all took place in the spiritual realm.

Bernard Muller

To Ted:
First a correction: in Doherty's world, a body with spiritual blood and spiritual flesh is mortal. But a spiritual body is eternal.:constern01:

Probably the best evidence in Hebrews for the crucifixion on earth is
Hebrews 7:14

Added to that, and despite Doherty lame objections, there is corroborating evidence here:
Heb 2:14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
Hbr 2:15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.
Hbr 2:16 For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham.
Hbr 2:17 Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people.
(From RSV)
Of course, Doherty thinks that similarity would apply between humans with physical flesh & blood and allegedly, a Jesus with spiritual flesh & blood (when below heaven). I cannot agree with that.
Doherty wrote on this forum he would have expected "identical" to express physical bodies for both human and Jesus. Well I am as human as my neighbours, but certainly not identical to them.

Another evidence is Heb 5:7
"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death,"
"his flesh" is describing a flesh & blood physical human condition:
Ro6:19 Darby "I speak humanly on account of the weakness of your flesh."
2Co7:5 Darby "For indeed, when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest ..."
Gal4:14 Darby "and my temptation, which [was] in my flesh, you did not slight nor reject with contempt; ..."
Gal6:8 Darby "For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh ..."
Gal6:13 Darby "... but they wish you to be circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh ..."
Heb12:9 Darby "Moreover we have had the [real!] fathers of our flesh as chasteners, and we reverenced [them] ..."

And then considering:
Heb 9:24 "For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf."
Heb 4:14 "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession."
What would be the starting point, the lower heavens, that is the sublunar realm above earth, OR earth? The traditional Jewish system consists of three heavens, the lowest starting right above the earth.
And
Heb 12:26 "His voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven."
Anything not earth is heaven.

Cordially, Bernard

Roo Bookaroo

Bernard:
More than amazing. What does it really mean that a spiritual body "dies".
The whole notion of "spirit," "spiritual", the "soul" has been adopted as that of an entity that never dies. In fact the concept of dying, changing, does not apply. The spirit is the opposite of the mortal, and changeable, it is death-free. And the soul was conceived in the same manner as a component that never dies.

This is what the ancient Egyptians conceived of their Gods, and of souls. It is possible that this immortality idea was originated by the Egyptians and then was applied to their Gods by the ancient Greeks. Although the filiation is impossible to trace. Souls were conceived similarly as immortal.

So introducing an idea that the soul or the spirit can "die" is mentally, an act of acrobatics.
This has been the major problem of "dualism" throughout the history of philosophy.
The problem is the interfacing. Always impossible to explain or even imagine. So what's being done is the invention of a "third" layer to act as conduit between both sides of any dualistic construction.

Here we find a good example provided by TedM who is supposing this "third" layer to solve (only in words, not in concepts) the problem of the interfacing, by endowing "lower heavens" with the necessary properties to act as "third" layer.

But, in doing so, you abandon the original contrast that led to the assumption of dualism. If you introduce a "third" layer, very soon you can introduce a "fourth" and there's no limit to the number of layers, only the fertility of your imagination.
If spirit can die, then what is spirit in the first place? Or is it a phony concept in the first place? A lot of thinkers have rejected dualism for that very reason and embraced "monism", including a lot of ancient Greeks. This is the remarkable feature of the ancient Greek minds: their extraordinary flexibility to generate a huge variety of concepts and religious expressions that would seem incomprehensible and irrational to our modern minds.

Also, Bernard, note that when the concept of "spiritual flesh" is bandied about, the direction of the "copying" has turned around: it goes now from earth (where flesh is first defined) to "heaven" (which may provide a base for the concept of "spirit", but not one for "flesh").
So the model direction is reversed. The original object, "flesh" is on earth, and its copy "spiritual flesh" is in the sky or heaven. This turns around the popular simplified image of "Platonism" for dummies, indeed.

Bernard, note finally that there has been, accidentally, a parallel discussion of Hebrews 8:4 on the "JesusMysteries" site, earlier in January.
There was an interesting exchange between Jake, Doherty, and Hermann Detering, the founder of the scholarly site "Radikalkritik" (which has revived all the scholarship of the old Dutch radical School).

I took the trouble to transcribe a digest of excerpts of that conversation. Mainly to illustrate the mental assumptions of the participants, more than to reach a conclusion (which was no more reached there than here).
It is too long to post here (2,700 words), but I added it as a comment to my Amazon review of "Neither God nor Man".

Bernard, you can find it here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2PSKRO...x27JSSZCBVQPM6