Ben C Smith

There is also the infancy gospel of James 10[.1]:

Εγενετο δε συμβουλιον των ιερεων λεγοντων· ∏οιησωμεν καταπετασμα τω ναω κυριου. και ειπεν ο ιερευς· Καλεσατε μοι ωδε επτα παρθενους αμιαντους εκ φυλης Δαυιδ. και απηλθον οι υπηρεται και ευρησαν επτα ευρον εξ. και εμνησθη ο ιερευς οτι Μαρια εκ φυλης Δαυιδ εστι και αμιαντος εστιν· και απηλθαν οι υπηρεται και ηγαγον αυτην.

And there was a council of the priests, who said: Let us make a veil for the temple of the Lord. And the priest said: Call to me seven undefiled virgins from the tribe of David. And the officers went away and sought and found seven virgins. And the priest remembered that Mary was from the tribe of David and was undefiled; and the officers went away and brought her.

And Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 21.5:

An quia ipse est flos de virga profecta ex radice Iesse, radix autem Iesse genus David, virga ex radice Maria ex David, flos ex virga filius Mariae, qui dicitur Iesus Christus, ipse erit et fructus?

Now, since he himself is the blossom of the stem which sprouts from the root of Jesse, the root of Jesse being the race of David, and the stem from the root is Mary [who is] from David, and the blossom from the stem is the son of Mary, who is called Jesus Christ, will not he himself be the fruit as well?

Perdón?

You have just argued that these early Christians contradict themselves on Jesus being both born of a virgin and descended from David. That was one of my options on the other thread, not yours:

Strictly for the sake of argument, if you recall, I allowed that your reading of 1 Corinthians 15 was correct, and that it proved that the author of that chapter had no earthly Jesus figure in mind at all. I then asked: Now what? (Or something like that.) In my book there would then be a contradiction between 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 1.3, and this would imply either that one of the two was not by Paul (which is what came before my quotation above) or that Paul contradicted himself (which is what the quotation itself is saying).

I made the point that the only way we could realize that 1 Corinthians 15 (on your reading) and Romans 1.3 contradicted each other was to let each text speak for itself. And is that not exactly what you are doing with this issue of virgin birth and seed of David?

On the one hand, you are taking phrases like εκ παρθενου in their most normal sense in order to show that these Christian commentators really thought Jesus came from Mary and really thought Mary was a virgin. On the other hand, you are taking phrases like εκ γενους Δαυιδ κατα σαρκα in their most normal sense in order to show that these Christian commentators also really thought that Jesus was a descendent of David. You are doing in this case exactly what I recommended you do in the case of Romans 1.3 and Galatians 4.4.

From this contradiction (which you discover by taking things in their normal sense) you draw the conclusion that, since descent was normally traced through the father, these Christians are doing something weird with Jesus, Mary, and David. And you are correct. They are bending the rules, so to speak (well, at least as far as I am aware). But how do we know that? Because we have evidence of it. We have text after text (Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, the infancy gospel of James, Tertullian, many others) telling us, directly or indirectly, that early Christians traced the lineage through Mary.

And this is where the analogy between (A) tracing the lineage through Mary and (B) applying Romans 1.3 and Galatians 4.4 to a purely spiritual figure appears to disintegrate. We have loads of evidence for A; what is the evidence for B?

Ben.

EarlDoherty

I take those phrases in their "normal" sense, not because I choose to read them as normal, but because we know (or can surmise) that those writers are so interpreting them, since it is clear from their writings that they believe in an historical Jesus and the two conflicting doctrines. This is not the case with Paul, who in fact gives us plenty of evidence that he does not have an historical Jesus in mind and has no concept of a virgin birth. It is not the nature of the phrases, but the condition of our knowledge that determines my reading.

I don't know the "contradiction" because I take phrases in their normal sense, I know it from the independent knowledge of their conflicting, mutually exclusive doctrines.

Earl Doherty

aa5874

Is it an historical Jesus in the normal sense or Jesus the
historical god-man?

The NT and the early church fathers presented a god-man which in the normal sense is a mythical figure.

gstafleu

Well, exactly. Let's assume that you are right and Jesus' Davidian lineage is not via Mary. Then whence? It takes two to start a pregnancy. In Matthew we find that "she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit," while in Luke we find the second party represented as "the power of the Most High will overshadow you." In both cases the role of what normally is the male is taken by a clearly supernatural being. Since we know that the Davidian lineage was not transmitted through Mary, it has to be through this supernatural entity. So there you have it: a supernatural entity transmitting Davidian lineage, just like you say Paul meant. Now this was in the gospels, not in Paul, but if the gospel authors could think that Davidian lineage could be transmitted supernaturally, then why not Paul as well?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

What makes you think the evangelists thought the holy spirit transmitted Davidic ancestry? They never say so. We may as well speculate that they mentally resolved the problem in much the same way as the later church fathers (Davidic ancestry through Mary). They do not say that, either.

The truth is, Matthew and Luke do not tell us how they personally resolved the problem; in fact, they do not even tell us that they recognize it as a problem to be solved. (They may have simply been handling materials that they received without having thought it all out; they seem to have done that in other spots, as well.) Whatever we place in their minds, then, will be speculation, since they have written nothing on that particular topic to let us know what they were thinking.

Ben.

Doug Shaver

It looks valid to me. Obviously, he's not attempting to rest his whole case on it.

I think something that tends to be forgotten in this protracted debate is that no single datum establishes a high probability that there was no historical Jesus. That conclusion rests, in my judgment, on a disinterested examination of the entire body of evidence pertaining to Christianity's origins. I believe that an ahistorical Jesus provides the most parsimonious explanation of that body of evidence, but the evidence has to viewed in its entirety.

I think it also has to viewed in light of who, for approximately a thousand years, was solely responsible for preserving that evidence.

No Robots

Read: none of the shit we throw sticks, but we throw so much that we must be right.

gstafleu

Because it seems to be the only remaining possibility. Ancestry is transmitted through the parents. In the case of Jesus we have as parents (or as closest available analogue) Mary and the holy spirit. So if Mary did not transmit the ancestry it has to be the holy spirit.
Maybe so, that does not change the fact that the holy spirit seems to be the only possibility. So we seem to be left with two scenarios:

1. M&L believed that the ancestry was transmitted through the holy spirit, in which case it is not unreasonable to think that Paul may have thought something similar.
2. M&L didn't think about the issue at all or ignored it. In that case it is reasonable to assume that Paul did something similar, which leaves the meaning of his "from the seed of David" pretty much up for grabs.

In other words, if logic forces you to the conclusion that the ancestry was transmitted via a supernatural entity, then saying that the people in question weren't very logical doesn't do much to solve your problem: you're still in the same pickle, as ex absurdo sequitur quodlibet.

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

That these writers use these phrases to refer to what they think of as an historical personage is evidence of what the phrases actually mean, right?

I know that you regard Paul as using them in a different sense. But how is Ignatius, whom you regard as specifically addressing mythicist concerns, getting away with using these phrases as prooftexts, as it were, for an historical Jesus? Why was he seemingly unaware of any other way to take them? (Yes, this is another of those questions I asked on the other thread and you never answered.)

Ben.

No Robots

After Christ's death it was naturally an easier and a more attractive thing for his relations to believe in him: no longer did they feel inhibited by him personally, and they had now become authorities themselves. The very fact of being related to him made them important, and they may have endeavoured to heighten Christ's significance by using their own power to give the family what it still lacked. The magnificent genealogy establishing Christ's Davidic descent is supposed to have been supplied by his relations. In part they may have wanted to counter certain rumors about Christ's father being someone other than Joseph, but they were also concerned to offer some defence, some palliative, with regard to his undeniably illegitimate birth. What, otherwise, are women such as these doing in Matthew's genealogy? For one thing, women have no business in genealogies (Baba b. 110b: The mother's family is not reckoned as family, i.e., they are not counted as a man's ancestors.) Here, however, they are of interest precisely because of their more or less doubtful reputations.—Brunner, Our Christ, p. 253.