Freethought & Rationalism Archive

bacht · 08-27-2008, 01:41 PM

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Originally Posted by storytime

Would Rome have merely dumped bodies without proper burial? Seems the odor would have been unbearable, not to mention dogs dragging body parts through the streets, flesh parts rotting in fly infested corners everywhere. Disease from such a situation would have killed thousands.

I thought the Romans burned corpses, didn't that happen in Jerusalem during the Revolt?

Rick Sumner · 08-27-2008, 03:24 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

I don't recall Doherty backing off the observation that there was no Jesus industry. There was a lot of resistance to drawing the conclusion from it that there was no Jesus. I think he was just trying to meet his critics half way. Opinions may differ.

Doherty and I have never discussed it in any detail on this board, so it is astonishing to me that you remember him meeting me halfway on any point. It was, as I noted, in correspondence. And it became a "smaller piece" of a larger puzzle. Given that his phrasing in his book is "perhaps the single strongest argument," calling that anything but backing right off is extremely generous.

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We don't actually know much about the authors of the DSS or who the Teacher of Righteousness

We don't need to. He was a Jewish leader. He was deified.

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and I don't want to get into a side discussion of whether Qumran was a pottery factory or a garrison or a commune.

Neither do I. It's quite irrelevant. So why bring it up at all?

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Perhaps the lack of veneration for the ToR is an indication that this person is as mythic as Jesus, or so long dead that he only existed in legends

This is assuming your conclusions. You need to show that we have a reason to conclude anything from whether or not someone has venerated artifacts before you can use it as a point for or against. We've had this discussion before. You still haven't provided a single example, much less a pattern of behavior that would reasonably require the expectation. For this conclusion to hold it needs to be shown that veneration *usually* occurs.

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or that the documents at Qumran did not originate there

What? Who said anything about Qumran? It doesn't matter where the DSS were written, nor who they were written by. The point holds if they were Essene at Qumran or Sadducean at the temple. It doesn't matter.

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or that the community rejected the actual deification of a man, or the various wars destroyed whatever was there. (The idea that the ToR was deified is not universal. Little is in this area.)

The "community" didn't reject it. They applauded it, it's why 1QH was preserved. And there can really be no doubt that the speaker of 1QH has deified himself. I'll be delighted if you can cite some of the dissenters you assure me exist.

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But I thought that memorializing graves was an expected practice in the culture of the time. Consider the tomb of Joseph, still a point of contention in middle eastern politics.

You'll note that I pointed out that Doherty shied away from it on all points save the tomb. A point I cheerily concede.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner · 08-27-2008, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Is that because he didn't exist?

See my response to Toto. To draw that conclusion you need to show that the expectation should consistently be met.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Solo · 08-27-2008, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

So I've been doing some research about early Christianity, and it's alleged in one of Paul's letters that he knew and was jealous of some of the other apostles because they had known Jesus "in the flesh".

The only passage that I know of that might possibly qualify is 1 Corinthians 15:3-8:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.
After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.
Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time

The "born out of due time" is interpreted by some as meaning "not knowing Jesus in person".

Jiri

Toto · 08-27-2008, 10:11 PM

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Originally Posted by Solo

...

The "born out of due time" is interpreted by some as meaning "not knowing Jesus in person".

Not by anyone who knows what it means. The Greek term is ektrwma, which is sometimes translated as "abortion" or "miscarriage." ("Untimely born" or "out of due time" are Victorian euphemisms.)

The term had a specialized meaning for the gnostics, discussed more in this thread and others linked in it. Paul is saying that he was born dead, or born before being fully formed, the opposite of being born too late to know Jesus.

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In the mystic cosmogony of these Gnostic circles, "the abortion" was the crude matter cast out of the Pleroma or world of perfection. This crude and chaotic matter was in the cosmogonical process shaped into a perfect "aeon'' by the World-Christ; that is to say, was made into a world-system by the ordering or cosmic power of the Logos. "The abortion" was the unshaped and unordered chaotic matter which had to be separated out, ordered and perfected, in the macrocosmic task of the "enformation according to substance," while this again was to be completed on the soteriological side by the microcosmic process of the "enformation according to gnosis" or spiritual consciousness. As the world-soul was perfected by the World-Christ, so was the individual soul to be perfected and redeemed by the individual Christ.

Steven Carr · 08-27-2008, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Is that because he didn't exist?

See my response to Toto. To draw that conclusion you need to show that the expectation should consistently be met.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

So you have zero evidence that this 'Teacher of Righteousess' actually lived?

Chili · 08-27-2008, 10:24 PM

Pauls was also raised from the grave if he was born in due time . . . due time is full term is opposed to born before "its own time" (from Songs 2:7).

spamandham · 08-27-2008, 11:00 PM

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Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

So I've been doing some research about early Christianity, and it's alleged in one of Paul's letters that he knew and was jealous of some of the other apostles because they had known Jesus "in the flesh". If this was the case, did he know about Jesus' empty tomb? If so, did he ever visit it?

I'm guessing you're referring to something in 1 Cor. 15? Parts of 1 Cor. 15 are contested as genuine by respected scholars. IMHO, all of 1 Cor. 15 is a later addition.

Paul makes no mention of an empty tomb in any of his letters, including the inauthentic ones.

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Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

I'm under the impression that crucifixion victims in Roman history didn't get their own tomb after crucifixion, that they just got thrown in a ditch and/or mass grave.

I've heard this before, and used to accept it myself, but now I question whether there's any truth to it.

Josephus records an account that is contrary to this idea, and archeology contradicts it as well. The crucified ankle of a Jewish man has been unearthed buried properly in an ossuary, implying the body had been properly treated all along rather than dumped in a trash heap.

At best, you might claim the typical treatment of the bodies of the crucified within Judea was to throw them in Gehenna (and what is that claim based upon!?), but there is both reliable textual and archaeological evidence to support the claim this was not always the case.

storytime · 08-28-2008, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Would Rome have merely dumped bodies without proper burial? Seems the odor would have been unbearable, not to mention dogs dragging body parts through the streets, flesh parts rotting in fly infested corners everywhere. Disease from such a situation would have killed thousands.

I thought the Romans burned corpses, didn't that happen in Jerusalem during the Revolt?

I've read that Jesus compared hell to the Jerusalem dump where dogs and other animals were thrown, and maybe criminals. "The smoke of its burning rising up forever", as a symbolic gesture for reminding Jews about separation from their god.

Why would Romans have taken it upon themselves to burn dead Jewish corpses in Jerusalem?

Solo · 08-28-2008, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

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Originally Posted by Solo

...

The "born out of due time" is interpreted by some as meaning "not knowing Jesus in person".

Not by anyone who knows what it means. The Greek term is ektrwma, which is sometimes translated as "abortion" or "miscarriage." ("Untimely born" or "out of due time" are Victorian euphemisms.)

I was not passing any judgment on the only instance in Paul's letters in which he is clearly abasing himself before the other apostles. I am not certain of the interpretation; I was merely trying to point to a possible source in Paul's letters of the idea that he was 'jealous of other apostles, because they knew Jesus "in the flesh" '.

But since you're bringing it up, I think there is a certain probability that the interpolator was thinking just that. I find the type of interpretation like the one below much more congenial than taking it as a gnostic terminus technicus.

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Untimely born (1626) (ektroma from ek = out + titrosko = to wound thus to cut or excise out, to cause or suffer abortion, to miscarry) refers to an abortion, miscarriage, or one born prematurely, the picture of each being that of a life that was unable to sustain itself. The term implies an untimely, early birth.

The Amplified Version renders it...

He appeared also to me, an unperfected, stillborn embryo (Amplified Bible - Lockman)

.......

Stedman quips that...

Had Paul written his spiritual biography, the title would have not been Born Again, it would have been The Miscarriage, The Abortion, or something like that. This is what he thought of himself, largely because of the way he came to birth.

He is thinking of the twelve apostles as being born in a very normal way. When they heard the word of the Lord, they began to believe it. Gradually it developed in their minds and hearts until they came to the place where they believed it totally. In this way their spiritual birth followed a normal pregnancy that could be observed developing. But Paul's experience was not like that. It was abnormal; it was sudden; it was very precipitous and unexpected. That may account for the fact that Paul had a difficult time in his early Christian life. When somebody is prematurely born he does not just leap out and handle life like a normal baby. He is cared for specially; he is nurtured in private; he is protected from exposure to danger and germs and it is a long time before he begins to function normally. And this was the case with Paul. http://www.preceptaustin.org/1corinthians_156-8.htm

Now, you may recall that in the pseudo-clementine Homilies Peter disdains Simon's (read 'Paul's') revelations as delusions of someone who did not know Jesus in person. So, obviously this kind of view of Paul existed in the early church.

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Hom XVII. 13. Finally, you alleged that, on this account, you knew more satisfactorily the doctrines of Jesus than I do, because you heard His words through an apparition. But I shall reply to the proposition you made at the beginning. The prophet, because he is a prophet, having first given certain information with regard to what is objectively said by him, is believed with confidence; and being known beforehand to be a true prophet, and being examined and questioned as the disciple wishes, he replies: But he who trusts to apparition or vision and dream is insecure. For he does not know to whom he is trusting. For it is possible either that he may be an evil demon or a deceptive spirit, pretending in his speeches to be what he is not. But if any one should wish to inquire of him who he is who has appeared, he can say to himself whatever he likes. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vi.iv.xx.xiv.html

Jiri

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08-27-2008, 10:24 PM	#17
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	Pauls was also raised from the grave if he was born in due time . . . due time is full term is opposed to born before "its own time" (from Songs 2:7).

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