NatSciNarg

That is fair enough, although I'd like Clive to confirm that he really meant that he thought that 'magical' thought was pervasive in quite this widepread manner, and then argue his case from there. [I've lurked here for enough time to see people write words that don't entirely reflect their views - now and again, I like people to confirm exactly what their view on an arguement is.]
Matthew

NatSciNarg

Minor query:
Surely asking if any did is akin to asking for evidence that some did, as I suggested?
Matthew

Ted Hoffman

Leaving aside your inability to explain the applicability of your assumptions, there is no reason to assume that Jews and Greeks had any homogeneous beliefs. Jewishness is not an ideology or a mindset. Neither is being Greek.
You have asked a wrong question.

Clivedurdle

Would a basic ubiquitous way we think do? In fact the communist belief that there are two classes in opposition is arguably another example of analogue thinking. I haven't got the details of the arguments of the neuroscientists, but the anthropologists definitely confirm this. We all do it all the time. Read that wiki article and read around the subject!

Clivedurdle

http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/current...AA/paper2.html

(University of Cambridge Dept of Social Anthropology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality

jjramsey

Errm, the question was asked by Clivedurdle. It was he who suggested that Jews and Greeks had a common mindset of magical thinking. Gibson challenged Clivedurdle's suggestion.

jgibson000

And how do you know this?

Jeffrey Gibson

Ted Hoffman

From History.

jgibson000

And what is the source of your knowledge of history?

Jeffrey Gibson

Doug Shaver

Maybe I misunderstood your interpretation. I thought you were suggesting that Paul was emphasizing Jesus' actual humanity. I don't remember Doherty's particular observations on this point, but I do realize that Paul need to attribute some human attributes to his Christ.

A point well taken, but I'm not sure how analogous that is. Two thousand years can do a lot of things to the presuppositions people bring to the religions they grow up with, not to mention the religions themselves. Institutional Christianity has for so long emphasized Jesus' divinity, it's not surprising if a variant of docetism has settled in among the churches' rank and file: Yes, he was a real man, but not a man just like us.

And in a way they're right. The church has said for all these centuries that Jesus was without sin. He aas supposed to be perfect. No ordinary person can think of such a man as just like them. Moral perfection is not just more of the same that any of us are capable of. Most of us cannot reasonably aspire even to sainthood, and saints are not supposed to be perfect.

I have occasionally reminded people that I am only human, and not because I thought they suspected otherwise.
A focus on the humanity of someone whose humanity is undisputed is a reminder against unreasonable expectations. And people do tend to forget, in a way, that the disciples were human. With one obvious exception, they all became saints, and although saints are not supposed to be perfect, they are supposed to be not exactly like the rest of us, either. They are supposed to have a special kind of virtue that most of us lack. I suppose there could be arguments about whether we all could acquire such virtue if we were sufficiently determined, but the fact is that most of us don't have it, if only because in fact we are not so determined.
I don't think references to Jesus' humanity, now or in Paul's time, can be usefully unpacked by comparing them with references to the disciples' humanity or our own. No preacher who talks about Jesus' humanity ends his sermon with, "Therefore, you cannot expect Jesus to ______."
Something had to make him want to. Something he knew or suspected about the Galatians' thinking gave him the notion that this was something they needed to hear. He would not have thought that they needed to be reminded of Jesus' having been born of a woman unless some of them were thinking that, in some sense or other, he had not been so born.