stephan huller

avi

But we should expect to make sense of exegetical traditions.

avi

You are not in error, Stephan, because you should point out my ignorance, whenever I forget to highlight that fact.

However, my ignorance is a sad affair, which affects only ME. I appreciate your effort to induce me to improve my lowly status, it is very generous of you.

You are one of the few folks on this forum, who display a natural tendency to try and help people understand, THANK YOU.

However, notwithstanding your generosity, and kind intentions, I must protest that my own sorry mental state is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether or not we possess RELIABLE information about the beliefs of Marcion.

My claim does not depend on my miserable mental condition, but rather on the absence of reliable information. We are not unlike a group of medieval monks arguing about aristarchus versus aristotle, i.e. heliocentrism versus geocentrism, without having access to either scholar's treatise.

If one of the monks in the monastery is a bit inebriated, and somewhat incoherent, and mumbling, does that mean that the other person, the sober fellow, is correct, and the drunkard wrong?

We need to know the contents of those two scientist's scholarly publications, rather than argue the merits of the mental state of the two monks. My impoverished intellect is irrelevant. Focus instead on the issue: where's the data?

I fear the drunkard threw Aristarchus' work in the fireplace....

avi

stephan huller

I have to go to dinner but this is serves as an interest parallel to the creation of the Mishnah. The Jews being a pragmatic people grouped together all the acceptable interpretations of scripture. If this were a synod or a congress with a similar aspiration both spin's position and earl's would be deemed 'acceptable' as they have very early witnesses and multiple attestations. Let's make peace and get on with our lives. We shouldn't imitate the inflexibility of our religious forefathers.

neilgodfrey

The last time I accepted interpretations like this was when I was a true Christian believer faithfully willing to embrace any rationalization that enabled me to identify the Bible and Church doctrine.

Paul is explaining to Christians who question the "fact" of a future resurrection how such a resurrection will occur. Paul is addressing those who would ask: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” (1 Cor. 15:35).

And that leads Paul into his explication of there being many types of bodies (avian, lunar, etc) and thence to his coming around to there being the two types of bodies, natural-air-breathing-physical bodies and spiritual bodies.

He is reassuring his Corinthian doubters that while they are now physical bodies they will, in the resurrection, become spiritual bodies.

The concept of Christ as a physical body becoming spiritual is nowhere in sight here in verse 44 or elsewhere.

If Paul or anyone had preached some sort of gospel to these Corinthians that Jesus was flesh and then was resurrected as a spirit being there could never have been any such quandry for Paul to address in the first place.

P.S. While Earl is the first, as far as I am aware, to have publicly identified spin and tim he is by no means the first to have suggested this identification.

GakuseiDon

The concept of a physical resurrection was more controversial than we think today, predating Christ and rumbling on well into the Third Century CE, which I talk about below.

The controversy existed despite Paul preaching Christ was flesh turned 'spiritual'. That's why Paul used Christ as an example in 1 Cor 15:

[12] Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
[13] But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
[14] And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
[15] Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
[16] For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
[17] And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
[18] Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
[19] If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
[20] But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
[21] For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

If Christ was spiritual in the first place, then it would be a bad example for Paul to use. He would effectively be saying, "Look at Christ, an example of a spiritual being who died and then was resurrected as a spiritual being! But if there is no resurrection of the fleshy dead guys, then the spiritual being that is Christ is not resurrected as a spiritual being. But that spiritual being has risen as a spiritual being, and become the firstfruits of those fleshy guys now dead." The example works best if Christ was fleshy, regardless of whether he was on earth or in sublunar heaven.

Paul himself is clear about what is going on. Juxtapose Romans 1 with 1 Cor 15:45:

Rom 1 [3] Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
[4] And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead
...
1 Cor 15 [45] And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

It seems pretty clear that Paul thought that Jesus (wherever he originated from initially) was flesh and then later a 'quickening spirit'.

The idea of resurrection of the dead was controversial in the ancient world, and there were various arguments against it. One of the Gospels records the Sadduccess question about a woman who married many brothers. When they all died, who got the wife?

Another classic example goes: a man dies at sea; fish eat him; another man eats the fish. When they are both physically resurrected, who gets the flesh? If I have time I'll find examples in ancient texts, but I'm certain that Paul is responding to prevailing views against the idea of physical resurrection, particularly of the long dead, that existed at the time.

GakuseiDon

The controversy over resurrection of the flesh, in "On the Resurrection", attributed (though dubious) to Justin Martyr:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...urrection.html

They who maintain the wrong opinion say that there is no resurrection of the flesh; giving as their reason that it is impossible that what is corrupted and dissolved should be restored to the same as it had been. And besides the impossibility, they say that the salvation of the flesh is disadvantageous; and they abuse the flesh, adducing its infirmities, and declare that it only is the cause of our sins, so that if the flesh, say they, rise again, our infirmities also rise with it. And such sophistical reasons as the following they elaborate: If the flesh rise again, it must rise either entire and possessed of all its parts, or imperfect. But its rising imperfect argues a want of power on God's part, if some parts could be saved, and others not; but if all the parts are saved, then the body will manifestly have all its members...

They say, then, if the body shall rise entire, and in possession of all its members, it necessarily follows that the functions of the members shall also be in existence; that the womb shall become pregnant, and the male also discharge his function of generation, and the rest of the members in like manner...

Well, they say, if then the flesh rise, it must rise the same as it falls; so that if it die with one eye, it must rise one-eyed; if lame, lame; if defective in any part of the body, in this part the man must rise deficient...

But again, of those who maintain that the flesh has no resurrection, some assert that it is impossible; others that, considering how vile and despicable the flesh is, it is not fit that God should raise it; and others, that it did not at the first receive the promise...

Some solutions:

Those, then, who are called natural philosophers, say, some of them, as Plato, that the universe is matter and God; others, as Epicurus, that it is atoms and the void; others, like the Stoics, that it is these four--fire, water, air, earth. For it is sufficient to mention the most prevalent opinions. And Plato says that all things are made from matter by God, and according to His design; but Epicures and his followers say that all things are made from the atom and the void by some kind of self-regulating action of the natural movement of the bodies; and the Stoics, that all are made of the four elements, God pervading them... there are some doctrines acknowledged by them all in common, one of which is that neither can anything be produced from what is not in being, nor anything be destroyed or dissolved into what has not any being, and that the elements exist indestructible out of which all things are generated. And this being so, the regeneration of the flesh will, according to all these philosophers, appear to be possible...

... [they say] the flesh is a sinner, so much so, that it forces the soul to sin along with it. And thus they vainly accuse it, and lay to its charge alone the sins of both. But in what instance can the flesh possibly sin by itself, if it have not the soul going before it and inciting it?... And if it is the flesh that is the sinner, then on its account alone did the Saviour come, as He says, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Since, then, the flesh has been proved to be valuable in the sight of God, and glorious above all His works, it would very justly be saved by Him.

spin

It's bad enough that Earl has gone into a protacted hissy fit. This sort of stuff of yours is just plain unwarranted. You've just lost an audience until you cut the crap.

spin

How often has Paul talked of christ being raised from among the dead? You're still trying to dictate how Paul should write again.

To understand ψυχικος, Earl, it is sufficient to understand that it works on the notion of what is perceived as driving the earthly body, ψυχη. Jockeying versions doesn't really help get closer to the idea.

In 42-44a there is in fact a repeated progression: it specifically talks of what is sown and then raised.

The notion of progression is fundamental to Paul's analysis here. He is trying to explain resurrection, how a person can be resurrected, ie how they continue once their physical body is dead. As Paul asks: "With what kind of body do they come?" (35b), "they" being the entities who have died in the physical body. To ignore the progression is to misunderstand the basic concept.

This is just not accurate. You're still refusing to make the connection that Paul does between v.44 (all of it) and v.45. V.44 talks of the two bodies and how one is first a physical body and then a spiritual body. V.45 is about the first of each, the two Adams. Of all dead bodies, christ was first to become a life-giving spirit, raised a spiritual body.

The radical notion is that you can ignore what the verse is connected to.

But then Adam once dead is destined for resurrection to a spiritual body and Jesus before he died and was resurrected from a dead body to a spiritual body, what was he? Paul's implication is obvious: a physical body.

When are you going to stop playing with translations and deal with the Greek, Earl?

This is what picking and choosing can do for you. Let's forget about the progression of the text up to 44b. Well done, Earl. Shaping the text will get what you want. But the rest of us should be able to see that what is sown is also raised. 44b in its context makes it clear that it refers to these what is sown that is also raised. How can you ignore what is plainly in the text, so that even you can't complain about it? I guess it's compartmentalization.

You have no way of saying that it doesn't relate when you don't deal with the text as integral. Paul has been referring to the two states of the one entity all the way to v.45. Verse 45 deals with those two states with Adam as an emblem of the first and Jesus of the second.

That "Period" has the weight of hydrogen. Christ does not "represent" per se the spiritual so much as being the first spiritual being to be resurrected. If one truly doesn't want to consider the notion of Adam, both first and last, then one isn't going to miss half the text. Adam is the first living being; christ is the first to become a spiritual being.

You can seek to understand that christ was a corpse before he became a spiritual being, before he was raised from that state. Christ didn't start off a corpse.

Paul plainly gets the idea across that there are two Adams, one who is first to become human and the other who is first to become spiritual. And if christ wasn't raised from the dead, those who were in christ have perished.

Still not reading well here, Earl. Adam is the first to be physical. Christ is first to be spiritual. The only contradiction is conjured out of nothing in your mind.



I doubt if many can follow this necromancy.

Obviously 44b is related to 44a: sown a physical body, raised a spiritual body doesn't allow you to separate the entity of the physical body from that of the spiritual body. If a physical body is raised a spiritual body then you can't have a physical body without there being a spiritual body. That is the significance of v.44. Then we must read v.45 with regard to the whole of v.44 (and what came before it). You're engaged in an extented effort at dodging the text.

Adam was literally dust in Jewish thought before god put the ψυχη in the dust. You are working your way into missing the point once again:

Being made living requires nothing before. Being made a spiritual body requires resurrection.

The spiritual body comes after resurrection, as Paul labors to tells us. I guess you want to forget about that. Christ was resurrected from the dead. Before he was raised he was not a spiritual body. What is sown a physical body is resurrected as a spiritual body. :wave:

That's what came from resurrection.

What is sown a physical body is raised a spiritual one. Christ was raised and became a spiritual body. You can't avoid the text.

Paul relates the spiritual body to resurrection. It is sown a physical body and raised a spiritual body. We are told that christ was resurrected and the text says he became a spiritual body. According to Earl, we shouldn't put these two together.

Playing with versions will be the death of your ideas, Earl. You just fiddle and fiddle until you find a version that can help, but you need the Greek. Trying to be fully literal and not adhering to Eglish grammar for that sake:

ουτως και γεγραπται
"and so it is written"

εγενετο ο πρωτος ανθρωπος αδαμ εις ψυχην ζωσαν
"became the first man Adam into living soul"

ο εσχατος αδαμ εις πνευμα ζωοποιουν
"the last Adam into life-making spirit"

Or a bit neatened up:

And so it was written, "the first man Adam became a living soul", the second Adam a life-giving spirit.

If you want to complain, refer to errors in the translation and stop playing versions.

This last bit is in Earl's imagination, based on version playing. Here is the verse:

ο πρωτος ανθρωπος εκ γης χοικος
"the first man from earth (gen.) dust (acc.)"

ο δευτερος ανθρωπος εξ ουρανου
"the second man from heaven"

or

"the first man is from the earth, dust, the second from heaven."

There is no indication of the substance of the second man, merely his origin. We do know though that the spiritual body comes after resurrection.

Jesus was from heaven, but then the tablets of Moses were from heaven and in the desert the bread was from heaven. Did he exist in heaven before he was crucified and died and resurrected to the spiritual body? There is no indication.

That's a great version there, Earl.

και οι χοικοι
"as the (one of) dust such and the (ones of) dust"

και οιος ο επουρανιος τοιουτοι και οι επουρανιοι
"and as the one of heaven such and the ones of heaven"

or

"just as those of dust are like the one of dust, those of heaven are like the one of heaven"

Your interpretation is dream team.

Again, translation, not Greek. No wonder Earl is making such a mess. He has invented a Paul talking about Earl's "heavenly man". He equates being of heaven as meaning "heavenly". But the Greek:

και καθος εφορεσαμεν την εικονα του χοιλου
"and as we bear the image of the (one of) dust"

εφορεσαμεν την εικονα του επουρανιου
"we bear the image of the one of heaven"

You have reified your idea of a "heavenly man" and are stuck there, for nowhere does Paul actually enunciate such an idea, the closest being v.47 "the second man, from heaven". From there Paul moves to "the one of heaven".

By inventing as you do the notion that "the one of heaven" must mean "the one of heavenly stuff".

What would make you think the translator's image of "wear" is the most suitable translation of φορεω? He didn't know how you would come along and twist it as you do. What makes you think of skin when Paul is talking of images?

Except for the text. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. Jesus was raised and is imperishable. In fact he was the first raised (hence the Adam allusion). Being raised implies that there was something before. Before he was raised imperishable, the option Paul supplies for everyone including Jesus is the perishable. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. Jesus was raised in power and before?

Being made human doesn't imply a "before" state for what is made, but being raised certainly does. Jesus was raised implies that he was something before. He was raised into power says he was first in weakness. He was raised into being imperishable, his death indicates that, before, he was perishable. Before being a spiritual body he was a physical body.

And (46) "it is not the spiritual that is first" (continuing with these separate categories), "but the physical, then the spiritual." Is there anywhere in this discourse that allows one to compartmentalize as you do, ie that Jesus was just spiritual? Spiritual is not first. And spiritual comes after being raised. This leaves you with nothing to be crucified, Earl. You can't see past your conclusions to the fact that Jesus was something before he was raised and that can only be a physical body. There is no room for your hedging.

Done once again above.

Jumping from translation to translation to fit those prior conclusions. Yes, let's skip over that.

Your conclusions have already made it rather difficult for you to see anything, because they're in the road.

Your use of sources is not serious. You jump selectively from one translation to another, NIV, NEB, Jean Hering, choosing for your conclusions rather than for what the text actually says. You should just use the original text to make your point. Instead you play the version game: I like what X says here and I'll use Y for that point and perhaps Z for some other thing. Why not sit down with your trusty Liddell and Scott and do your own work?

Looking back over your post, there is very little meat in it. There is basically one point: by selectively reading 1 Cor 15:45, 47-49 you think you can argue that Paul doesn't present Jesus as anything other than your "heavenly man". You've failed to demonstrate it.

(And the second part so far doesn't seem to be adding anything.)

spin

I have tried to explain to Earl (and to a few other people) a relatively simple rule about communication. I haven't succeeded. The rule is this:

If a word or phrase has more than one significance, in the vast majority of cases there is an unmarked significance in which the word doesn't need significant contextualization and other more marked significances that do need significant contextualization. (The first, I've called the common meaning of the word.) Unless the context is marked, the common significance is the one that people will understand from a statement.

As a quick example, if I use the word "game", one would normally think of something somewhere between a sport and a pastime. But let's mark the context:

1. The game's afoot.
2. The game's plenty in Sherwood.
3. The game's got a limit of $100.

But, if I just said,

4. The game's in the kitchen.

it could mean any of the above three. For example you go in and see a lot of people making complex preparations, or you see dead wild animals, or you see people round a table with money. But with just the words in #4, you have no reason to think of them. You'd eliminate things like baseball or football because of the kitchen, so you'll think of some pastime.

The common meaning of "man" is male human with sufficient adult status in the society. I can clearly use it differently.

5. There's a man in the kitchen.

This will elicit adult male, as expected.

6. The man on third base is asleep.

This will conjure up not necessarily an adult and perhaps not even a male.

7. Your man is on Broadway and I have two hotels on Broadway.

You'll think of a plastic symbol for a player in a game of Monopoly perhaps.

8. Have your man pick it up.

And there is a person who does jobs for another.

But, the unmarked meaning will function in unmarked situations.

Who does not understand what I have described? Who thinks I've made some mistake?

[hr=1]100[/hr]

OK, now look at Rom 1:5,

if the many died through the one man‘s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

What is marked in this statement from Romans to tell the reader that either instance of the word "man" does not indicate the word's common meaning? If the answer is nothing, as it seems to me, there is no reason to look for a less common meaning.

[hr=1]100[/hr]

I move on to a phrase frequently talked about here. I have four examples that I read to indicate the same basic idea with regard to blood relationships between people.

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

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

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.

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

Given the four examples of "according to the flesh" (κατα σαρκα) I cited, all with similar contexts, Earl wants to see them differently. But on what contextual grounds can one separate the phrases above about Jesus from the others? If there are no contextual indicators, then there is no way for a reader to glean Earl's desired meaning.

Chili

Points to ponder:

Man = in he image of God = man is God
human = earthly man with human condition = sin-full and not God.

Man = sinless flesh
human = sinfull flesh

likeness of man = sinless flesh
likeness of human = sinfull flesh

First Adam = created by conjecture in Gen.3:7 cf 2:25 in the "shame-no shame paradox" = the [sinfull] second nature now added to man in 'shame projection' that is also known as 'hu-man condition' wherein the 'heavenly man as created in Gen 1, and was formed in Gen 2, became an 'earthly man' also known as 'hu-man' and no longer God but now 'like -God' instead, and 'thus' no longer God.

Second Adam = he who crucified the illusory 'first Adam' identity or human condition to set 'man' free, . . . here now called Christ.

So therefore it is not possible to have a physical crucifixion becuse that would kill "the man" instead of just the human condition.

Having said this does not mean that 'they' did not crucify people in those days because 'they' used to burn them at the stake as well or feed them to the stork to aid their cause so that they may die to the flesh in a more speedy way . . . which does not make it right, althougt it may appear right to them and so it was only done to help their cause as they believed in it, and would or were willing to die to get it 'done.'

Soo, "likeless of flesh" means "sinless flesh" and the omission of the word "sinfull" warpes the phrase to mean just opposite to what Paul had in mind and serves the so-called self proclaimed 'Christian' well, who needs an affirmation to confirm their stand (and not become unbelievers instead).

Now with all respect to Earl as he must have reason to write what he does simply because he believes in that. So there really is no argument but he is only wrong to make a right known and that has been done before.

Christ-crucified does not mean that Christ was crucified but that Jesus was severed by way of crucifixion and Christ just walked away from it as the sinless flesh Paul had in mind. Hence Jesus was crucified identity and was raised again and ascended to heaven to be with Christ. Hence we call him Jesus Christ today and not just Jesus or just Christ . . . wherefore it is not possible to be a Christian today but at best we can be another Christ = Christian religion is an obomination can't you see!