stephan huller

But that part of the Stromata is strange. Clement never references the names of the canonical gospels and here in the span of a few paragraph he repeatedly breaks the pattern. The citation purports to be from Luke but it is not. Look at it carefully. Look at it in Greek. It's not from Luke. My guess is that someone corrected an obvious 'error' in the original text. Jerome hints that it may have been Eusebius. But again if you look at this section in particular he keeps saying 'Matthew' and here 'Luke.' I am not on board Doherty's 'never came to earth' thing. But he's right about Jesus as a heavenly being.

aa5874

But, Doherty's 'never came to earth' thing is the Hebrews 8.4 challenge and that is precisely what you disagree with.

Just like you, I am NOT on board with Doherty's Jesus 'never came to earth' thing.

And, Doherty is wrong, wrong, wrong. Jesus of the NT was God Incarnate, the only begotten Son of the Father who was made Flesh and Dwelt among us.

Clement of Alexandria's Stormata V

EarlDoherty

aa, I have answered your objections, and similar ones by others, multiple times. If you and they choose to ignore those answers, or if they are simply lost on you, that is not my fault, and I am not going to keep repeating them. The only other thing you contribute here is your broken-record appeal to authority. Nobody agrees with me? Even were that true (and it isn't), tough. Not a single one of those who disagree with me has actually dealt directly with my arguments for an interpretation of 8:4 (and that includes Stephan and Carrier) and shown where my analysis is deficient. So far, everyone is stuck on the grammatical considerations, and even there, no one (including you and Bernard, and Carrier) has demonstrated that the imperfect tense in this construction is not ambiguous and cannot apply to a past situation in regard to Jesus having been a priest on earth.

So instead of all this apoplexy and repetition of your same old mantras, why not try directly shooting holes in my reasoning as to why the writer cannot mean a present situation but must mean it in the past?

And how many times must I repeat that attestation proves nothing, and that later Christian commentators viewed Hebrews, as they viewed all the epistolary literature, through Gospel-colored glasses, which every orthodox Christian by that time was wearing? The fact that they did not manage to see anything seriously amiss in 8:4 means zero, nothing, nada, because it is perfectly understandable that they would not.

And as for Paul, there is a mountain of evidence within the epistles that he did NOT view Jesus as coming to earth, poor little Gal. 4:4 notwithstanding, which can hardly stand up to the tidal flood of all the rest of the evidence. And I have at length argued for 1 Clement, Theophilus, Athenagoras (which you have failed to disprove) not knowing an earthly Jesus and as well the Apology of Aristides, with Epistle to Diognetus thrown in for good measure, too. But being aware of all that, of course, would require you actually reading my work.

Earl Doherty

TedM

I've reviewed your reply.

First, I think you have made a persuasive case that the 'something to offer' by Jesus in 8:3 is NOT referring to ongoing intercession or prayers. It is referring to the sacrifice of himself for sins, which was a one-time event, which was in the PAST.

This does set the stage for verse 8:4 possibly referring to a hypothetical past visit to earth by Jesus, which is your claim.

You say the following:

Nowhere in Hebrews does the author indicate that location of his 'sacrifice' was in heaven, only the OFFER of his sacrifice took place in the heavenly Tabernacle. Otherwise I agree with you -- the offer reference in the second part of 8:3 is with regard to a past event.

8:4 is contrasting the earthly offers under the Law with the heavenly offer under the new covenant.

However, this contrast doesn't require that 8:4 references a past visit by Jesus on earth. The contrast isn't about WHEN Jesus would have been on earth, or WHERE. If it it was about WHEN or WHERE then the author surely would have hammered the point home. Rather, it is about WHY he would not be or would not have been a priest on earth: He offered a different kind of sacrifice--one not of goats or lambs, but of himself. His sacrifice and offer didn't require that he be a priest on earth.

Related to this, you write:
It would have been just as acceptable to write:
I agree with you that earth was not the place for Jesus to offer his sacrifice as high priest. Heaven was the place. The author agrees, and 8:3 - 8:4 is consistent with that view.
As such, I don't see how verse 3 helps you with verse 4.




You point out that it is normal to refer generally to something in the present tense, followed by a past tense application:


You apply that reasoning to 8:3-4 8:3 being a present tense generality (which I'm ok with), and 8:4 being a past tense application.

I've got a question (not an argument) -- just seeking clarification: If the author meant to be discussing the PAST, it seems very awkward to not have just made verse 4 crystal clear:


I don't know the rules of Greek, but in English of course this could well have been written

Was this clearer way of describing it as a past tense event not part of the Greek grammar? Isn't that a lot more clear? It may be that this was the only way to express it as a past occurrence, but if it wasn't it begs the question: Why wouldn't the most clear grammar have been used? (I allow that it could have been 'corrected' by later scribes, but that isn't my question).



I'll close with a question related to the location of Jesus' sacrifice:

In 10:5, Hebrews says that Jesus came into 'the world'. While the same Greek word is used for 'world' in 11:7 to mean earth, the fact is that the word used in 8:4 for 'earth' is not used in 10:5, and the word that is used could mean 'universe', so it 10:5 doesn't quite satisfy me that it is referring to earth.

However I do find the following verses in Ch 13 interesting:
It seems to me that if the author were trying to parallel the sacrifice of blood by earthly priests in Jerusalem with the heavenly sacrifice by Jesus, he would have had Jesus crucified within the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem, inside the heavenly Tabernacle, and not bothered to say that he 'suffered outside the gate', which only seems to mess up the parallel.

What are your thoughts about what appears to be an unnecessary breakdown in the Platonic parallel?

Ted

Bernard Muller

Doherty said:

The imperfect case is not ambiguous for a present contrafactual case. It is questionable (but possible) for a past contrafactual case.
But you take that possibility and ambiguity to the extreme in your conclusion in JNGNM (emphasis mine):

I also note "if he had been on earth" would be a good translation if the author had the aorist (but did not). It is not the normal translation.

1 Clement (as Jesus a descendant of Jacob) and more so Aristides (see next quote) wrote about an earthly Jesus. Many Christian writers in the 2nd century, in their writings which survived, acknowledged an earthly Jesus.

Doherty said:

In the Pauline epistles, there are pieces of evidence about Jesus being an earthly human, even, but less clearly, being crucified on earth. The tidal flood you are mentioning probably refers to your massive amount of words you used in order to dispel this evidence.

aa5874

There is no mountain of evidence to support you--it is ZERO. You read things into your sources that are NOT there.

It is most fascinating that Earl Doherty is 100% wrong about FIVE sources.

Theophilus and Athenagoras did NOT mention Jesus or Jesus Christ either in heaven or on earth and Clement, Aristides and Diognetus all claimed or implied Jesus had Flesh and was on earth.



The Apology of Aristides1 Clement 49 The Epistle of Diognetus

EarlDoherty

Ted, it doesn’t say that. The explanatory clause in 8:4 says nothing about a different kind of sacrifice, it merely says that Jesus could not have been a priest on earth, because there were/are already priests there who offer sacrifices. If he meant a different kind of sacrifice, he would have had to say that.

Nor does the text back you up here. There is not the slightest statement that the writer ‘defines’ the sacrifice as something that took place on earth, or in regard to the crucifixion, and that the offering is something distinct from and following this sacrifice. That would be clear from the fact, if nothing else, that the earthly sacrifices with which it is compared constitute the high priests on earth entering the sanctuary and smearing the blood on the altar. Such earthly sacrifices do NOT refer to the prior slaughter of the animals, which it would have to if the parallel were to the cross.

In 8:5, the parallel is between the two places of the respective sacrifices: “they minister in a sanctuary which is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly.” Jesus the heavenly minister acts in the heavenly sanctuary, the priests on earth in the Mosaic and temple sanctuaries. This has nothing to do with the place of the slaughter, either of Jesus on the cross or the animals by the priests on earth.

Heb. 9:19-22 also makes it clear that the act which cleanses and forgives is the act of sprinkling the animal blood on the people and law-book and sanctuary and vessels, not the slaughter itself of the animal. That application of Jesus’ blood was performed in the heavenly sanctuary.

These parallels and identification of location takes place all through the middle section of Hebrews, so your statement that nowhere does the writer identify location is simply erroneous.

Nor can 13:11-13 be twisted to refer to an earthly setting for Jesus’ crucifixion. The reference to him suffering outside the gate, (for the purpose of using his blood inside the gate to consecrate and gain forgiveness), is offered as a counterpart to the burning of the bodies of the animals—which is an entirely unworkable parallel, and shows that the writer is simply trying to find parallels with the scriptural comparison. It in no way uses the motif to style the suffering as what constitutes the sacrifice. In fact, Jesus' suffering is not even paralleled to the animal's suffering and slaughter. It is poorly compared to the burning of the body afterwards.

As for your query on this passage, the writer could not have made Jesus be crucified within the heavenly Jerusalem, because suffering and death could only take place in the lower heavens. But that still preserves the Platonic higher and lower world counterpart principle.

Ted, this kind of interpretation is what I refer to as a pointless non-sequitur, even gibberish. Why would the writer even think of making this kind of statement? Jesus has made his sacrifice in the past, it was once-for-all. He has said that Jesus has conducted his act as priest in the heavenly sanctuary. There is not even a theoretical possibility or need for him to do it again, whether in heaven or on earth. What reason would he have to make such a statement as you attribute to him above? It is a further unlikely thought because the reason you give for him not conducting his role as a priest—because there are already earthly priests here—is precisely the opposite situation to that which supposedly existed in the past when you claim he DID conduct his role as a priest on earth. How could he claim impossibility for a situation in the present which is precisely that which took place in the past? Don’t you see the contradiction here?

For a clear answer to that question you would have to ask the writer. But I suspect that it was pulled into the imperfect because the comparison with Jesus was in terms of the high priests on earth, who still in the present conduct their sacrifices. Again, it’s like (though not exactly like) the examples I offered in an earlier posting. If, let’s say, you were writing the history of Louis XIV in France and, in view of the history of traditional claims by French kings on the monarchy in England, you made a statement that Louis could not have become king of England (past tense), because the English have their own royal family which supplies kings and queens (throughout past and present), you might make that combination of past and present thought. I agree that taken by itself, the contrafactual statement could have been clearer (at least to us) using the aorist, but the imperfect (and don’t forget that the imperfect is technically a past tense) still does the trick and it could have been prompted by the present-sense situation of earthly high priest activities still being ongoing.

Besides, we have seen that there is in Hebrews itself two clear-cut cases of the writer employing the imperfect tense to convey what is clearly a past situation. Obviously, he felt comfortable with this construction as applicable to the past, for whatever reason. Thus we can hardly accuse him of not being clear in doing the same in 8:4. And since in both of those other passages, it could also be said that the situation being referred to does have an ongoing dimension extending into the present, perhaps my suggestion regarding his reason in 8:4 makes sense.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

Aren't you the least bit curious, aa, as to how I deal with these documents and my contention that they do not witness to a Jesus on earth? If you can't be bothered, neither can I continue to be bothered with you.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

My above comment to aa applies equally to you, Bernard.

And you are still going around in circles with the grammatical argument. I've answered it and I'm not going to waste my time going through it all again. You can take something from my just-posted response to Ted.

Your final comment sounds like you're stealing a page from Rooney.

Earl Doherty

aa5874

I simply RESPONDING to your posts of THIS THREAD in which you made claims that were 100% in error.

It is wholly erroneous [100%] that Theophilus, Athenagoras, 1 Clement, Aristides and Diognetus did NOT view Jesus as coming to earth.

I am curious about what you post in this thread.

Don't you understand what it means to be 100% in error??

Earl, you are not even on the map.