Ben C Smith

Since I am trying to make comments that come from the earliest traditions and thinking, I am sorry to have missed it by so far.

Ben.

krosero

:notworthy: :notworthy:

It looks suspiciously like refusing to see what you don't want to see.

Rick Sumner

That's exactly what I was saying. At first it seemed a case of simply picking the argument that helped the most, regardless of what was argued previously (if one was to switch outright from to the other). But then it was expressed as a case of taking all arguments, which isn't any better.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

jakejonesiv

Heretics: Jesus was a docetic phantom, not human. (Gal. 4:4 the "woman" doesn't exist Marcion's version).
Orthodox: We will fix that by inserting "made from a woman" in Gal 4:4.
Heretics: Well even so, Jesus just used the woman as a conduit but didn't partake of human flesh
Orthodox: Argghh, change it to Born of a woman! Scribes, get busy.
Doherty: Doesn't matter, Jesus wasn't born on earth. Sub lunar spheres!
BenCSmith: Circularity!!! Kata sarka!!
JJ4: Go to step 1

:funny:

Ok, here is the break down.
Proponents of a Historical Jesus insist that "born of a woman" is evidence that Jesus existed.

Doherty can respond with two options.
1. Jesus was born in another "sphere"
2. The passage is an interpolation (probably in a footnote of the next edition of The Jesus Puzzle)

Logically, he does not have to "pick" either one. Earl can present both and let the reader decide. But the HJ proponents must disprove both if they want to "refute" Doherty's main thesis. No wonder you guys are scrambling.

Jake Jones IV

jgibson000

No, it's evidence that Paul belived Jesus existed.

I'm not sure where you learned logic, but in point of fact If "GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS" means "born in another sphere" as Earl insists it does whether said by Paul or anyone, then its interpolation into the text of Gal. 4 by the orthodox is inexplicable, since it would be to make Paul say what they denied. If it was inserted by the "heretics", then it is impossible to explain its continued attestation in the MSS tradition.

No one is scrambling. I, anyway, am calling attention to a contradiction and that there is an attempt going on here to have one's cake while eating it.

Jeffrey Gibson

jakejonesiv

Me? I work in a magazine distribution center. Sometimes the covers fall off and I read them on break.

Earl has slipped through your net, and I am satisfied to hide and watch to see exactly how he phrases his response.

Jake Jones IV

krosero

It's true that anyone can present two mutually exclusive schemes as alternatives to choose from. What we'd like is for Earl to present the significant differences between them. In one scheme, Paul's phrases are significantly un-earthly. In the other, they are so earthly-sounding that they would be commonly understood as opposing unearthly ideas about Christ.

That's two Jesus Puzzles right there. In one book, each questionable passage gets a certain kind of treatment, analyzing Paul's Greek and pronouncing it ambiguous. The other Jesus Puzzle has none of those arguments, and is filled only with arguments about manuscripts and interpolations; in fact this second book concedes historicist readings of Paul's (now interpolated) Greek as denoting an earthly savior. It's a very different book.

That sort of choice is not presented adequately in a footnote, as you suggest. It requires much more explanation.

And of course, as you say, logic imposes no requirement on Earl to choose one scheme or the other. But if he doesn't choose, will any reader believe that he has true confidence in either scheme? If he seems unable to choose between unearthly and earthly readings of the same Greek words, then any skeptical reader will wonder how much he really understand those words.

This statement suggests that you consider Jeffrey's arguments in post #42 not to have addressed or successfully refuted both options. If you don't regard the following arguments as successful, why not, specifically?

jgibson000

But I addressed my questions to you. Have you yourself no answers for them? Does it not seem odd to you that if GENOMENON EK GUNAIKOS was known to mean nothing but "born in a non earthly realm", orthodox scribes would then place it in Gal. and have an authority such as Paul (not to mention Scripture) deny what they believed. If not, why not?

Does it not seem strange to you that if the phrase was known to have no meaning other than "born in a heavenly realm", that orthodox scribes would have perpetuated the reading as the MSS tradition shows they did? If not, why not?

Jefrey Gibson

krosero

Rick, it seems as I re-read Earl's opening post that he was already taking all arguments, to some degree:

This formulation allows him to keep his former argument about ginomai sounding significantly unearthly (his description here suggests that the term was not "graphic" enough), while at the same time advancing another argument that it was inserted.

This is cutting it very finely. Of course, the problem is that no matter how fine you cut it, Paul's phrase is now being invoked as one that would be commonly understood as contradicting the supernatural and un-fleshlike Christs such as the docetists had in mind. So if the phrase's earthliness and humanity were strong enough to contradict any ideas that Christ was the sort of supernatural being that did not fully partake of our flesh, then the phrase must be comunicating that he fully partook of our flesh.

The phrase, on the one hand, is unearthly enough for Paul to communicate to his readers something about a Christ whose activities took place above the earth and were somehow, but not fully, of the sphere of the flesh; yet at the same time it's earthly enough that anti-docetists jump for it in an attempt to communicate that Christ, in fact, partook fully of our flesh.

I don't see how he can have it both ways.

Ben C Smith

Did the orthodox add made of a woman to the Marcionite Paul? Or did Marcion delete made of a woman from Paul?

Problem 1: In Against Heresies 3.22.1 Irenaeus uses the phrase made from a woman against the idea that the woman was just a conduit. Why? Because Gibson is correct; γι[γ]νομαι already means born in a context like this. Compare the LXX of Genesis 4.18, 26; 6.1; 10.1, 21; and many other verses.

Problem 2: The manuscripts with born from a woman date, if Gibson is correct, from century X or later. Century X!

Gibson is correct again. Born of a woman is evidence of what Paul thought (which in turn can be used as evidence of historicity, but one step at a time).

Hence the allegations that such an approach is ad hoc.

The strength of the interpolation hypothesis, as it has been phrased so far on this thread, rests on the meaning of born of a woman being so straightforward and ordinary that the orthodox naturally lit upon that phrase to support their contention of a physical Jesus. The strength of the other hypothesis, on the other hand, rests on the meaning of born of a woman being quite odd and abnormal if the intended meaning was a physical Jesus. Yet the very fact that these are the only two combinations on the table (interpolation with a normal meaning; original with an abnormal meaning) rests on the notion that Paul could not have written born of a woman with a normal, physical meaning; and that is the very proposition to be proved. It cannot simultaneously serve as a premise.

If we remove that premise (so that it can now serve as our conclusion) we have to reckon with a third combination, to wit, an original phrase with a normal meaning. (The logical fourth option, an interpolation with an abnormal meaning, would seem to support neither side, I think.) If Doherty argues for both of his proposed options, then he will at one time be arguing for the originality of the phrase and at another time for the normalcy of its meaning; he will, in effect, no longer be arguing for Pauline mythicism, but rather for either mythicism or historicism, depending on how the chips fall. His exclusion of that third option will be transparently arbitrary.

There are too many logic errors still floating around to deserve a good scramble.

Ben.