Sheshbazzar

This is made even clearer in Genesis 6
(The context presents this as being, or causing evil and the degeneracy of humanity)


And also in Job
and
and The context of these verses make it clear that these 'Sons of God' were not common flesh and blood earthly men, but heavenly beings, and many Jewish writings reflect this understanding.
And this is that mythological and non-human 'brotherhood' of which J-C was the alleged 'first born son' of. NOT the first-born of mankind but among the 'heavenly hosts', only one among many such unhuman heavenly beings.

aa5874

Now, it is most remarkably that God destroyed Mankind with a Flood in the Myth Fable called Genesis because His Sons were IMPREGNATING earthly women.

But, in the Myth Fables of gMatthew and gLuke, God himself through His HOLY Spirit IMPREGNATED Mary to SAVE all Mankind.

dog-on

Perhaps more accurate to say the Son of God doesn't mean anything supernatural based on the HJ rewrite of Judaism.

EarlDoherty

It's such a treat seeing the modern 21st century literal scientific rational enlightened mind bring itself to bear on the 1st century mindset.

(a) The rulers of this age (the demons) were unaware of God's plan for their destruction, and so they unwittingly did the very thing which was designed for their destruction, and (b) to make it doubly sure that they would not suspect anything, the Son concealed his identity from them. (These motifs, by the way, are all over the place in the non-Gospel record, not just 1 Cor. 2:8.) But it is unsure whether they immediately realized their mistake and foresaw their own fate, since Eph. 3:9-10 implies that it is through the spread of the Gospel by such as Paul that the "rulers and authorities in the realm of heaven" are learning God's purpose and that fate.

OK, that's one thing. The rulers of this age now know the jig is up. Don asks, well, why don't they just roll over and assume the dead position, awaiting their final conflagration? I don't know. I'm sure Paul doesn't know. Obviously, they're not as rational as Don is. The point is, they haven't given up! In Paul's world, those stubborn demons are still fighting the gospel, even if they know they're doomed. (And the state of the world in general shows that for now they're still alive and kicking!)

So is Paul going to say to himself, gee, I guess that means we were wrong about God's plan and the demons' destruction, because it makes no sense that the demons would still continue to fight us now that they know their fate? I'm going to suspend my apostleship because there seems to be a contradiction involved in my message.

Do religious thinkers abandon one aspect of their faith just because it's called into doubt by another aspect of their faith? Do they even recognize contradiction? Did they do so in the first century? Is the NT free of contradictory elements?

Anyway, don't we have a perfect analogy to the demons continuing to fight even though they know they're doomed--right here? Don himself as a representative historicist continuing to fight his desperate rearguard action against the inevitable fate of the historical Jesus?

Earl Doherty

aa5874

The serious problem with your theory is that you have based on it on the PRESUMPTION that the Pauline writings were composed before c 70 CE when you have absolutely NO corroboration, No Credible evidence whatsoever for such assumption.

It is most remarkably that you put forward a most radical and unheard of position that Jesus was crucified in the sub-lunar WITHOUT first establishing the veracity and historical accuracy of the Pauline writings.

You, yourself argue that Pauline letters considered authentic were Manipulated.

It is already known that letters attempting to place Paul in the 1st century havee been deduced to be forgeries, that Apologetic sources show that they do NOT really know when Paul actually lived, when he wrote and what he wrote and that Apologetic sources up to the mid 2nd century appear not to be aware of the Pauline writings.

I cannot support theories that are based on Presumptions about Paul a most questionable character.

EarlDoherty

Fine, aa, we agree to disagree.

Earl Doherty

squiz

Well it does come across as implying that there is something dirty and untoward in the relationship. The only relevance might be that it would explain her fanatical support of all that Casey says, although this is also common for those in a close working relationship.

squiz

Actually even more distracting is that whenever Hofmann writes a new blog post, Stephanie feels the need to immediately write how much she agrees with him and how perfectly he put it.

squiz

I was disappointed in the vindictiveness of this comment of Stephanie's.

Check out this post of Neil's in which he describes in detail the experience of leaving the cult and how that taught him to continually question his own assumptions. What he describes is very different to her accusation.
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2011/05/...met-the-enemy/

Diogenes the Cynic

According to Paul, from his own hallucinations, but in point of fact, he did come from a town which annually burned an effigy of their deity (a version of Sandan worshiped as Herakles), and believed he returned from the underworld as the 'first fruit" of grain. There are inscriptions in Tarsus referring to Tarsean Herakles as SWTER THEOS. Did this influence Paul's beliefs about Jesus? I don't know. Probably. We are all influenced by our cultural upbringings. However he got the idea, it's what he SAYS he believes.
I would say Jesus definitely did not teach anything like that, or that he intended to get himself crucified. That is all post hoc bullshit, in my opinion. I don't think Jesus wanted or planned to get himself crucified. My personal guess, which is just a guess (somewhat following Ehrman's contention that Jesus saw the Messiah as a separate entity from himself) is that he might have been trying to fulfill Malachi 3:1.

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

My guess is that he thought he was the messenger and that God would "suddenly come" to the Temple after he cleared it. My guess is that no one was more shocked than Jesus when God didn't come and the messenger got arrested.

Of course, that's only my guess, but it's a hypothesis which does not preclude the crisis managing, post hoc apologetic that he intended to get crucified, nor does it preclude Paul from layering on his own idiosyncrasies later.

If it's not clear, I think Paul's Gospel had little or nothing to do with the real life of the real person who got crucified.



He was called that by Paul, not necessarily by the original group.
I doubt Jesus was called that in his lifetime, and I'm not sure what you would be calling "coincidental" about it if he was. It was a common expression used for a range of reasons, none of them supernatural. If you can find an example of that honorific, "son of God" being used in a a supernatural sense in any pre-Christian (or even post-Christian) Jewish writing, let's see it.

If Jesus was called "Son of God" by anyone, it would have only been the same as calling him "King." It would have been a political designation, not a religious one.