spin

Thanks, that helps.

This, I think, would cause you problems, if you meant what I did by "defining". I am dealing with the premises of logic and if "sinful" were defining, you'd have a subset of "flesh" which would be "sinful flesh". This you have already intimated is not what you hold to, when you gave the analogy: "To judge by Doherty's writings, he believes all religions are superstitious." If all religions are superstitious, then being superstitious doesn't help us understand any further about particular religions. It doesn't help us define a subset, while "polytheistic" and "henotheistic" do.

While I agree with "He is discussing the fact that Christ has set the believer free from sin and death", we see the "likeness of sinful flesh" differently.

I perceive that Paul is making a difference with "sinful" in the expression. He has the ability to make sweeping generalizations and then provide an exception. Consider:

1 Cor 6:18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.

Every sin is outside the body, yet fornication is against the body, ie it has effect on the body. So we can have generalization and escape hatch. (I don't know what he'd say about grievous bodily harm.)

Another of Paul's generalizations:

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—

All men have sinned. Well, that's not quite the whole story, though Jesus was a man, born under the law, of a woman, hence flesh, there is an escape hatch:

2 Cor 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Sinful flesh was the form Jesus was given. Flesh has the natural tendency towards sin, but Jesus didn't know sin: he was flesh, but not sinful flesh. He was like everyone else in that he was made of the same stuff. He was flesh. He was a man, born of a woman. He had the likeness of sinful flesh. It's just that he "knew no sin".

To claim, as you do, that he took on a form that was the spiritual equivalent of flesh seems to miss out on the necessity of being liable to the law. You cannot be a proxy for someone if you don't fit the same basic conditions. If Jesus is the spiritual equivalent to a human being he isn't suitable to take the place of sinners. He has to have all that is necessary in order to be able to sin and yet not sin. The temptation must be real. Otherwise the whole process is a sham.

"Likeness" as you would have it seems to miss the point of Paul's theology--in my eyes. Jesus proves his worthiness by doing what everyone else does while knowing no sin. He can't do what everyone else does if he is not the genuine item.

Being hung from a stake ("on a tree") is a curse, yet he knew no sin. He was cursed, not by his sin, not by the law, for no commission. He was made to be sin, yet was blameless. That act Paul makes his message of redemption. He sees the sinless man through his heinous death able to take the sins of others, somewhat as the scapegoat could.

EarlDoherty

I would say that you are using the term “defining” more technically than I am. For the present discussion, it isn’t necessary. If I say (or Paul says, if we can judge his views from his writings), “all flesh is sinful”, “sinful” serves as a definition of flesh within Paul’s parameters, just as my analogy is letting “superstitious” serve as a definition of religion within my own parameters. For Paul, where sin is concerned, he doesn’t seem to have any subsets within “flesh,” which is why I suggest that Romans 8:3 should not be interpreted as being a subset within flesh in regard to sin. If he had a “sinless” subset for Christ, one that many would like to read into Romans 8:3, one would expect that Paul would at some point recognize the need to put it forward.

Was there a tradition that Jesus in his earthly life had been sinless? It is curious that when the epistle writers speak of Jesus’ sinlessness (e.g., 1 John 3:5 or 1 Peter 2:22), they often speak of that state as existing in the present, not in the past. The latter writer, in fact, draws on scripture to make his point (Isaiah 53), not on historical tradition. He knows it from scripture, like everything else that is known about Christ in the early Christ cult. As in my quote above, the same writer (1:15) is capable of declaring that God is holy, quoting Lev. 19:2, and urging his readers to emulate God (not Jesus)! (Which shows that a divine entity can be portrayed as sinless; he doesn’t have to be human. And as I’ve said before, Jesus could be tempted to sin—that is to disobey God, or succumb to pride—in his heavenly role. He doesn’t have to have been on earth. In fact, any allusions to particulars about Jesus’ own sinlessness are entirely limited to the circumstances of that role. No one ever suggests he had to resist temptations of a more human sort.)

Yes, but here Paul spells out his “escape hatch.” Since he provides no such thing in regard to flesh and its sinful- or sinless-ness, one can’t simply read it into the matter. That would be begging the question. I have made the point that Paul nowhere provides an exception for the sinfulness of flesh—indeed, he is profoundly silent on the one that would have mattered, a very dramatic one: the sinlessness of Christ’s human flesh.

Seeing the latter quote as an escape hatch is problematic. First of all, why was that escape not voiced at the time it was most needed? (We can hardly think that Paul’s readers were expected to be familiar with all his letters, especially ones to a different destination.) The Romans declaration that “death spread to all (men) because all have sinned” is pretty encompassing, and should have cried out for an exception made for Christ on the spot.

Second, I don’t know what translation you are using for 2 Cor 5:21, but the Greek original is not as accommodating as you suggest. This is it literally:

”The one who did not know sin was made sin on behalf of us, in order that…”

You say (following on your above words):

I don’t see that the Greek says this. Yes, it says that Jesus was sinless, but that doesn’t tell us what his state was in regard to being earthly or heavenly, since he could be tempted in either venue. What does “made sin” signify? It would be odd to think that this was Paul’s way of saying that Jesus took on the form of sinful flesh in his earthly incarnation, or to think that Paul would expect his readers to understand it that way. In fact, it might even be misunderstood as virtually a statement that Jesus was sinful, not sinless. If he was sinless, in what way was he “made sin”? He became accursed because he was hung on a tree (an acceptable concept), but he hardly became “sin” because he committed sin (an unacceptable concept). You can’t say, as you attempt to do, that it means Christ took on the form of sinful flesh but was not sinful, because in that case, he was not “made sin” in any sense that we would expect that phrase to be used. Paul’s language here would have come across as contradictory, and if he meant what you suggest he meant, he would have used different language.

Consider the NIV’s very plain and direct translation: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.” That can hardly mean that ‘God made him sinful flesh only he wasn’t sinful’. That would be too convoluted. And if he wasn’t sinful, (a) this becomes a tautology with the first part of the sentence, whereas (b) the juxtaposition of the two is meant to highlight the opposite of being a tautology, he’s making a contrast, that though being without sin, he nevertheless became sin for our sake. Such a meaning is incompatible with taking on the form of sinful flesh but without the sinful element.

So in what way can a sinless being be “made sin”? Perhaps only in regard to an alternate understanding of the word which some translations offer, including the NIV in a footnote: “sin” here = a sin-offering. A sacrificial victim in the Temple cult which is given as an offering for the people’s, or the ruler’s, sins. This, of course, fits right in with Paul’s (and the Christ cult’s) soteriology.

Bauer’s Lexicon says this of 2 Cor. 5:12 as a definition of the hamartia: “As abstr. for concr. … (God) has made him to be sin (i.e., subject to death) who knew no sin, for our sakes 2 Cor 5:21. Or (hamartia) may=sin-offering here, as Lev 4:24.” Lev 4:24 in the Septuagint uses hamartia, and may very well have been the source of Paul’s terminology here. The male goat to be offered (v.23) must be “without blemish” (in other words, ‘sinless’).

You and Ignatius (or whoever wrote the epistles in his name) would have gotten along very well. That was his argument against the docetism in his own community (not a gnostic one, as I point out in my new book). Yet he was giving it in opposition to those who seem not to have seen it that way. And this is one argument which is entirely missing in the New Testament epistles. Paul does not make it—except by having such an implication read into his texts. Moreover, some of the literature of the time seems to present a very different picture to Ignatius’ position. It is something which scholars call “paradigmatic parallelism”(actually, that’s my preferred wording of their idea), in that entities in heaven have counterpart characteristics to people on earth. The Similitudes of Enoch is a good example. The “Righteous One” in heaven is the counterpart (the “proxy” if you like), and the champion, of the righteous saints (of the Jews) on earth. The latter will receive their thrones and crowns, their exaltation, when the Righteous One is revealed and comes to judge, not when he is incarnated to earth. He is not a sacrificial figure, but the principle is the same: he does not have to take on the earthly flesh of his counterparts below to effect his guarantees. He simply shares in their common characteristic of being righteous, and he has been appointed their champion.

The Christ cult goes a step further. Those “common characteristics” include experiences of suffering and death (as well, the devotee undergoes a mystical one through ‘baptism into Christ); a future common characteristic will be resurrection: as Christ was resurrected, so shall we be guaranteed such (Romans 6:1f). But there is nothing to prevent a god from undergoing those things in common, of doing what everyone else does, if there is a way to do it in the heavens. And, of course, there is, because the god need merely descend to the realm of corruptibility where he can take on the common characteristics, and this includes the lower heavens below the moon (or however the cult may have conceived its location). However, this is where that pervasive motif of “likeness” comes in. If he went to earth and took on human flesh, that motif would be entirely unnecessary, let alone be a mode of expression universally adopted by, as far as we can see, all of early Christ belief, in diverse communities with no central organizing forces. He would simply be “made flesh” (as the Word is in John 1:14—no “likeness” there).

There is no association in Paul’s designation of Christ as becoming a curse (Gal. 3:13) with the question of sinlessness. The former is prompted only by the act of Christ being hung on a tree, something handy to Paul for linking it with the curse of the law his readers are now free from. It is another clever contrast like the ‘one free from sin being made sin.’ And Paul’s message will work just as well if Christ’s act took place in the heavens, especially in the Platonic context of the era which saw so much going on there, with many connections and relationships between the higher and lower worlds. The Heavenly Jerusalem could be the next-world transformation of the earthly city without having to be made of material atoms as well.

As for Jesus being “under the Law” (an allusion, I am sure, to Gal. 4:4), there are ways of seeing this in a mythicist context, but as I have said elsewhere, I now lean toward seeing the “born of woman, born under the law” as more likely an interpolation motivated by the 2nd century docetic conflict (supported by Bart Ehrman’s observations about the frequent doctoring of this part of the text to support orthodoxy, and Tertullian’s pretty clear indication that the phrases were not in Marcion’s earlier version). Besides, if Paul could make a point of stating that Jesus was somehow “under the law” and he could say that knowledge of the law made him conscious of sin or even made it possible for him to sin (as in Romans 7), surely that would require making it clear that Jesus was an important exception to all this.

Earl Doherty

spin

I don't have any problems with the literal translation of 2 Cor 5:21 you provided:

"The one who did not know sin was made sin on behalf of us, in order that..."

And my comment,

Sinful flesh was the form Jesus was given. Flesh has the natural tendency towards sin, but Jesus didn't know sin: he was flesh, but not sinful flesh...

was not solely derived from 2 Cor 5:21. It used the fact that Jesus knew no sin. It is also derived from the notion of "man".

From what Paul says regarding sin, we learn that it involves choice:

Rom 6:12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.

1 Cor 15:34 Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more;

If, as these verses indicate, sin works on the notion of commission, then it is not an inherent attribute of flesh. One has to choose to sin and, if one doesn't sin, there can be sinless flesh. This seems to me entailed in Paul's views. Whether he specifically says it or not it is inconsequential to that entailment.

There seems to me to be a logical equivocation regarding your position regarding the significance of "man", given that Jesus is called a man. This needs to be elucidated.

A man is of the same stuff as Adam. You know, flesh and blood.

Paul uses the notion of "according to the flesh" to indicate derivation in the natural manner. Paul the Jew says,

Rom 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.

His "my own people" is paralleled with "my kindred according to the flesh", so we are talking about a flesh and blood connection between Paul and the Jews, a connection reiterated here:

Rom 4:1 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?

This same sort of connection is used regarding Jesus:

Rom 1:3 his Son... was descended from David according to the flesh

and again,

Rom 9:5 to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah

Jesus, the man, got here by what Paul would consider to be the normal natural means, ie according to the flesh. Coming from a woman in the sense of birth in Gal 4:4 is in line with his descending from David "according to the flesh". If he is a man and a Jew according to the flesh, then he is consequently flesh--though, as he knew no sin, he was not sinful flesh. Being a man, he has the likeness of all other men in the sense of the likeness of sinful flesh.

The escape hatch in 2 Cor 5:21 is that, unlike everyone else under the law, this man knew no sin. And, as to "under the law", you may have "ways of seeing this in a mythicist context", especially pointing to Marcion's Galatians not having either "under the law" or "made of woman", but there are good reasons based on Marcion's theology to explain why he wouldn't include the words, so I don't consider the indication strong.

It's problematic to import ideas from the Similitudes of Enoch, a section of the Ethiopic book of Enoch not found among the numerous fragments from Qumran. This is a compelling silence. As I said long ago, Milik, the editor of these Qumran fragments, dated the Similitudes to long after the time of Paul. Even referring to John's prologue is a red herring here, for it s certainly post-Pauline, though how "post" may be surprising.

There is no reason to expect him to conform to your understanding of what he would say. He was not writing in a coherent manner for posterity, attempting to leave a well-articulated thesis. He was cobbling together letters he hoped would help him keep sway over groups of his proselytes, while he went about his business.

However, Paul's discussion regarding sin, its connection with the law and Jesus's sinlessness would mean little if Jesus were not under the law at the time of his salvific act. Sin has no significance without the law. Jesus's sinlessness would be inconsequential. This relationship with sin validates the notion of Jesus being under the law.

maryhelena

However, since Jesus is a literary construct what is validated is that Paul's literary Jesus construct is reflecting some history, some flesh and blood history, ie historical figures that were Jewish, were under the Law. Hence Paul is able to have his cake and eat it too! Able to take his flights of intellectual/theological fantasy while keeping his two feed squarely imbedded within terra firma. You know, the Jerusalem above and the earthly Jerusalem - body and spirit, material and spiritual....

I don’t understand why Earl seems to want to deny Paul’s Jesus figure any historical reflection in it's construction, ie a historical, flesh and blood, component, especially, as some years ago, probably 10 or so, he wrote the following on his website:

EarlDoherty

You say you have no problem with the translation, but you continue to ignore a common understanding of “made sin” as ‘made a sin-offering’ which removes the phrase from having anything to do with sinful flesh, or even sinless flesh. In that understanding, it means that Jesus was made a sacrificial offering for the sins of others. It says nothing about Jesus’ own state, sinful or sinless. In that case, your comment cannot be derived from 2 Cor. 5:21.

You also appeal to the “fact that Jesus knew no sin.” As I have been at pains to point out, the actual appearances of this thought in the epistles entail nothing to do with what would have to be seen as earthly temptations and earthly sins. It is either solely to do with his salvific acts of suffering and death (which are never specified as having taken place on earth), or it is an unclarified statement, which in view of the former we thus have reason to apply simply to those salvific acts. To take a bare statement that “Jesus knew no sin” as necessarily meaning “knew no sin as an earthly man” is nothing less than begging the question. You can’t defend historicism by begging historicism.

You appeal to the term “man” as entailing the flesh, sinful or sinless, of a human being. That, too, is begging the question. I have pointed out in a separate thread the very feasibility of the concept of the Heavenly Man. You say later in your post:

Well, a Heavenly Man is not of the same stuff as Adam. And if you were to read my 10-page discussion in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man, you would know that Paul in 1 Cor 15:35-49 defines Christ as anything but a physical human man made of the same flesh and blood as Adam. He does precisely the opposite. He describes Christ as “the heavenly man” (v.48: ho epouranios); he says that this man was made, not of earthly stuff like the first man Adam, but of heavenly stuff (v.47). He says that the first man Adam was created as a “living soul,” whereas the last man was a “live-giving spirit (v.45).” He says that the physical man came first (referring to Adam), and the spiritual man came second (referring to Christ).

What Paul does not say is what every traditional scholar has tried to make him say, what has been read into the passage because they cannot believe it is not there in Paul’s mind. Paul does not say that at any time this “heavenly man” was once an earthly man, made of the same stuff as Adam. He does not say that after the physical man Adam came the physical man Jesus. He does not specify that all these qualities he gives to his heavenly Christ came after he had resurrected from a physical death on earth. He does not use a Christ who had allegedly done that very thing as the logical and compelling example of how the dying physical body can indeed be resurrected to a different spiritual body, how the physical man can become a heavenly man—even though the Corinthians are demanding proof that such a thing is possible, and Paul is desperately trying to offer arguments and analogies for it.

For centuries scholars have been guilty of reading the Gospel ethos into the epistles, where it is not to be found. And they usually have to tie themselves in knots, or be guilty of the most blatantly fallacious reasoning, in order to do so. Here is an example, and I’ll include it in a larger quote from JNGNM (p.193-5) to illustrate the problems that face the historicist here:

You also say:

And yet, has not Paul said only a few verses earlier (Romans 5:12): “It was through one man that sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death pervaded the whole human race, inasmuch as all men have sinned.” [NEB]

Theory aside, in practice all flesh has sinned, therefore there is no existing subset of sinless flesh. All flesh is sinful flesh. What does his “choice” apply to, what is the only circumstance in which it can be exercised in a positive direction? Again, look at the Romans context. “We know that the man we once were [i.e., the man of sinful flesh] has been crucified with Christ, for the destruction of the sinful self, so that we may no longer be the slaves of sin…(6:8)” Prior to baptism into Christ’s death, by which we died to our old selves, we were sinful flesh. No choice was involved. The only way we can emerge from that slavery (do slaves have any choice to free themselves on their own?) is by joining ourselves to Christ. The “choice” hinges on that act. In Paul’s mind, it was not operable prior to it or under any other circumstances.

Your discussion of “according to the flesh” (kata sarka) ignores the fact that the phrase is used in more than one manner in the NT literature. Thus you cannot take its meaning and significance in a few passages and claim that it must mean exactly the same thing in all of them. This should be clear from passages like 2 Cor. 5:16 which proper translations (like the NEB) recognize kata sarka as having the meaning of “in a worldly manner” (nothing to do with anyone’s flesh); or like Gal. 4:29, in which Ishamael, son by Hagar, is referred to as born “kata sarka” while Isaac, son by Sarah, is born “kata pneuma”. Since the latter, too, was born in the normal way (the standard meaning of kata sarka), the phrase must be being used of Ishmael in a non-normal meaning. JNGNM devotes an entire chapter to an examination of the use of sarx in the epistles, and particularly kata sarka, and I show that the phrase in Romans 1:3 does not have to be understood in the same fashion as in 9:5. (Those on this board who go back several years will know that I read it as meaning “in relation to the flesh,” which could entail “in the sphere of the flesh”.) But to get these ideas across here would involve laying out or quoting much more material than I’m willing to do. As always, I suggest reading my book.

I’m not sure why you find it compelling, or in what way. Regardless of when or by whom it was inserted, the Similitudes are regarded as a separate addition, so the fact that this one independent section happens not to be found with the main body of the work at Qumran hardly prohibits appealing to ideas from it in a given context. Even were it a document entirely independent of the Book of Enoch, it could still stand on its own as containing an example of the idea I was discussing, paradigmatic parallelism. The validity of this has nothing to do with whether it is part of 1 Enoch or not, or whether it was found at Qumran.

As for Milik’s dating, it’s not generally accepted by anyone else. Here, in part, is what M. Knibb has to say in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol.1, p.7:

Besides, for Milik to consider that the Similitudes is in any way Christian when it contains the figure of a heavenly Messiah which is in no way linked with an earthly Gospel Jesus or any form of death and resurrection is ludicrous.

I fail to see why it is a red herring. It was presented as an example of how a Christian writer aware of the Gospel story as history (we assume, though even that is not sure) referred to Christ incarnated to earth: “made flesh,” not “made in the likeness of flesh.” How far after Paul it was written doesn’t matter. My comparison relates to how those two separate bodies of literature, the epistles and the Gospels, use language to refer to their Christ. If they both shared the same view of their Jesus as incarnated into flesh, why the radical difference in that description? And a radical difference exists in relation to other things than just the “likeness” idea.

A similar principle is involved here as well:

Your first remark here is reminiscent of Don in his review of JNGNM. According to him, we are never entitled to evaluate the circumstances in which people write, and make a judgment as to why certain things are said or not said. Well, we do that all the time, even for ancient writers. If, as in 1 Cor. 15 above, Paul’s argument would greatly benefit from using a risen earthly Jesus as an example of the type of resurrection he is advocating, and yet he is silent on it, or if he gives us no physical body for Christ, we have every right to evaluate that silence. If he places no historical Jesus between God’s promises and his discovery of God’s gospel of the Christ in scripture, we have every right to evaluate that exclusion. If the writer of 1 Peter (and so many others) says that Christ is “revealed in the present time (some specifying it was through scripture)” instead of “was incarnated to a life on earth, about which we have historical traditions (instead of appealing solely to scripture)” we have every right to evaluate that curious and universal kind of language. And especially when such oddities are so pervasive and all point in a single direction.

And now the excuse for Paul in giving us all those oddities is that he was writing in a hurry? Behind the incoherence lies the thing we want to see there, even if it seems impossibly absent? Into that incoherent void we are entitled to import the Gospels? Why does incoherence have to resolve itself in the direction of historicism? Perhaps Paul’s hurried incoherence is the reason why the mythicist picture is not better spelled out, as Don likes to claim. In any case, documents like Romans and the epistle to the Hebrews are obviously very well-thought-out and articulated pieces of writing, hardly put together overnight or with no attention to coherence.

I have to disagree. As I tried to explain, there is no reason why a savior god acting in the heavens, within a multi-level universe perceived as interdependent and enjoying mutually-affecting relationships between the higher and lower realms, cannot have a salvific effect on his believers below. And divine beings could sin (consider the fallen angels), as well as be sinless, yet they were not under the Law. Besides, if Jesus was required to be under the law in order for his sinlessness to have significance, or for his salvific acts to have their desired effect, then why is none of that ever discussed, ever explained in all of Paul’s passages about soteriology? Galatians 4:4 doesn’t do it. The significance of that double “born” phrase is not discussed there or anywhere else; indeed, it is so irrelevant to its context, this is a good reason in itself to reject it as inauthentic.

Jesus acting in any realm would have to be sinless, it would be automatic quite apart from any connection to the Law. First, the whole idea of Jesus’ sacrifice is derived out of ancient views of the sacrificial victim, especially in Judaism. One of its features was that the victim must be without blemish. A flawed goat or lamb is not acceptable to God. Even the Greeks and Romans felt that the gods appreciated perfect sacrifices. Second, Jesus as sinless would have provided a good example to emulate. As I pointed out, he need not have been human to provide that example. And isn’t it curious that Paul and other writers can appeal to Jesus’ sinlessness, but never appeal to it in a context where a human life is made clear?

Hurried incoherence can only go so far as an excuse.

Earl Doherty

judge

You seem to be misquoting (or misparaphrasing) Paul again in a way that could mislead. One could read what you are saying as meaning paul is referring to Jesus prior to the salvic act.
But as far as I can see there is nothing to support this.
If Paul was talking about Jesus pre the salvic act then, yes, he wouls say was, but he doesn't say was.

Paul right from the start of the letter to Rome he divides christs existence into two periods.

There is the period that was, and the period that still is. When you write that.."he says that this man was made, not of earthly stuff like the first man Adam, but of heavenly stuff " you make it sound as though this refers to the earlier period, but you have no reason to read this into it.

You see? payul seems to have christs earthly life, prior to the salvic act, and then his existence as an heavenly man or live giving spirit, after the salvic act.

spin

This is your misunderstanding, focused on what interests you rather than what I said. Let's jump past this error--In that case, your comment cannot be derived from 2 Cor. 5:21--

Yes, this is what I was appealing to when I cited 2 Cor. 5:21.

What you point out and what is actually derived from the texts don't necessarily coincide.

You are confusing me with someone else. We are analyzing texts, not history.

You have the burden, when going against the common understandings of a term such as "man", to demonstrate that the term is used out of the norm. Paul doesn't help you, despite your best efforts to make him.

There are two related bodies, a natural or physical body and a spiritual body, both pertaining to one entity, as indicated by 1 Cor 15:45a -

It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.

In the normal order of things the physical body comes first and the spiritual body second. Where is Jesus shown to be different?

(The word for "physical" (ψυχικος), is derived from that indicating "soul" (ψυχη), so here the idea of "soul" needs to be attenuated to fit the context.)

What Paul does not say is anything about a "heavenly man". He talks of a second man... from heaven (ο δευτερος ανθρωπος εξ ουρανου). He then changes his rhetoric subtly, leaving out "man" and talking of "the one from heaven" (επουρανιος), so that Paul's followers can be included as επουρανιοι. This notion of yours of the "heavenly man" is not Pauline.

Paul gives Jesus's origin as from heaven. He is not indicating anything about substance by that.

Then, why is he "the last Adam"? Is he of some different Adam category (given that "Adam" means "man")?

Nor does he claim that they didn't.

I'm afraid that this begs the question as to the significance of dying. Once again you put yourself against the common usage of terms to force a conclusion. What does "die" mean in "Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom 5:6), if not the obvious?

I'm not interested in the historicist. You are shooting in the wrong direction. Your analysis of 1 Cor 15:35-49 is a tendentious effort that requires you to overlook what brought the passage's existence--"How are the dead raised?", which in turn looks back to 1 Cor 15:15 and god raising christ. He labors that issue before getting more specific about how it works.

Stumbling over a Pauline generalization, "all men have sinned". Paul calls christ a man, so according to your logic, christ has sinned. But we know that he knew no sin. Paul is not scientific with his use of language, but you are trying to pin him down as if he were. And note your sleight of hand moving from "man" to "flesh".

This is you, not Paul, and the claim does not reflect Paul.

The choice is there in potential, as the cited verses indicate, but "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it." (Rom 7:8) The intention is there to do right, ie one can make the choice, though not follow through. Unlike everyone else though, it seems christ can do it.

Nobody is ignoring anything, Earl. Why have you escalated the rhetoric?

I chose the specific examples of “according to the flesh” so that you could not seriously quibble. Your reference to kata pneuma is not relevant to Paul's fact that "his Son... was descended from David according to the flesh".

The dating issue, Earl. That's what is talked about. The document isn't where it should be, ie Qumran, so it is unlikely to date that far back.

So Knibb is being conservative. Even his dating doesn't help you.

An interesting but vain thought experiment.

Thanks for that factoid.



This should tell you how it works. Not like this:

You have no reason to expect such noise.

We can only really argue from what Paul says. Not what you want him to say. I can only say this so often.

1 Peter, Earl, really? You may as well bring in Thomas Aquinus.

Don't confuse haste with opportunity. Otherwise you start talking about nothing relevant:

Attempt at converting your desired text into the only possible text.



And we've seen how interested Paul is with the sins of angels. The relation of sin to the law which Paul argues through his letters has nothing to do with angels, as angels have nothing directly to do with humans. And it is human salvation which is at the core of Paul's theology. Angels are another red herring, used to try to lever Jesus away from suitability as the ideal scapegoat, a sinless man to take the sins of man.

You have not dealt at all with the nexus of ideas that ties together sin, death, the law and man. The common meaning of "man" has not been removed from our understanding of christ the man. The common meaning of death has not been stripped from christ's death. Death, related to sin under the law, all point to a common understanding from Paul of "man" even when applied to christ.

The importance of Jesus being sinless for Paul is that he is liable under the law given to men, competing as he did in the same stakes. Death is the result of sin in the context of the law. Jesus died, not because of his sin, being sinless, but because someone had to die according to the law for the sin. This is Paul's god's escape hatch.

It seems to me that your analysis of 1 Cor 15:35-49 is not based on the text itself or its function in the wider text, but on your conclusions.

Iskander

You are inventing Christianity.

Why should anybody read your books?

Doug Shaver

To find evidence that they're wrong, if they are wrong?

Kapyong

Gday spin et al,

Thanks for your answer.
Let me try again. I expressed myself poorly.

In response to me post, I note you pointed out :
"but christ hasn't actually been crucified"
and
"there would be no actual sacrifice"

The essence of your answer is that Christ was not "actually" crucified (because I confusingly called it "metaphorical.)

What I was trying to say is that FOR PAUL it was NOT "metaphorical" as we might see it nowadays, but actuallly happened in the heavens.

In other words - I think that Paul believed the crucifixion REALLY, ACTUALLY happened - but in a lower heaven.

This makes the metaphorical followers 'crucifixion' a copy or reflection of a REAL crucifixion of Christ that took place in some lower heaven.

Of course, nowadays, such a concept is not very real to us at all.

I wonder spin - have you ever travelled out-of-body? Ever been to the 3rd heaven? Any heaven? Ever met a demonic being?

It's pretty clear that Paul had such experiences, so did the writer of 1 John. So have many others, so have I. When I first read 1 John I was like "wow, I know just how you feel."
(*)

These experiences are very very real - to the people that experience them at least.

Now of course, others don't generally believe such experiences that others may claim to have. But back then, many more people DID believe in stuff like that.

So - I think Paul REALLY believed - he actually believed that Christ was really crucified - in heaven, a 'real' place that he had been to.

For Paul, Christ's crucifixion in heaven was very very 'real' - allowing his folllowers to be metaphorically 'crucified' themselves.


Kapyong


(*)
I make NO claims about the actual reality of such experiences.
I make NO claims that I 'know' the answers as a result.