TedM

Hi Jake,

You are stating this as though it is fact. Isn't it just a theory? If not, please provide the proof that those phrases are later catholic redactions that aren't in the Marconite layer.

ted

yalla

jj4:
"The mentions of Jesus "according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3; 9:5) and "born of a woman" are later catholic redactions in reaction to the more original doctrines. They do not occur in the Marconite layer."

Hmmm, I dunno about that...ie I don't know.... thus I will now have to check it out...another bloody tangent...clues everywhere all leading in different directions. Fascinating.
Care to give me a headstart by giving a synopsis of your theory..sort of as TedM asks?
cheers
yalla

ps I have some questions for you but I reckon they would be better asked after you have explained the context of your post above. OK?

Ted Hoffman

So, now, downward motion is not a vertical motion? This is really silly.

rlogan

I'm also thinking that yalla is more on the right track here, ted. he might not have it exactly right, but it isn't IMHO about motion or even literally "living human on earth" meaning.

We just don't see citations of people being descended from someone "in the flesh" or "according to the flesh" or whatever in contemporary historical literature. (contemporary with Paul) They are simply descendants.

With the risk of being anachronistic, preachers today are constantly reminding us of the loathsome wants of "the flesh" in contrast to the goody-two-shoes donations to the offering plate. I don't thnk it is anachronistic in view of the behavior of both Jewish and Christian cults or sects of the time. We're talking prudish comportment and spiritual snobbery here.

A myth can have wants or motivations or features "according to the flesh" and the purpose of distinguishing these is not to tell us that the myth is a real historical person or that they travelled from one place to another (motion).

yalla

rl
''I'm also thinking that yalla is more on the right track here, ted. he might not have it exactly right,"

Thanks rl, I'm fumbling about in the dark here heading for a dancing will-o-the-wisp.

I reckon it's an important topic cos it is frequently cited as the major reference of Paul to an HJ, so to figure out what Paul was actually saying is relevant to that.

I'm getting most of my ideas, indirectly, from FF Bruce "The Epistle of Paul To The Romans'' Tyndale NT Commentaries 1963.
Old, conservative but informative.

Try some quotes of his, all on flesh/spirit, from around page 40 onwards..I'll try to keep context neutral and indicated in brackets [ ].

. "...in their distinctive Pauline usage relate respectively to the old [flesh] order superseded by Christ and the new [spirit] order inaugurated by him."
No HJ involved.
. " When Paul speaks of "my flesh'' he means his sinful propensity...''
. "The flesh....... is corrupted by sin...specially associated with the body....but also... include...sins of the mind. Thus Paul's catalogue of "the works of the flesh'' in Gal 5.19-21 comprises not only...but also....Sin of any kind, in fact, is a work of the "flesh''."
. "To be in 'the spirit' en pneumati is the opposite of being 'in the flesh' en sarki....
.FN p.51..."This redeemed body of the resurrection is described by Paul in 1 Cor 14.44 as a 'spiritual body'..
That's not JC's body of course....but could it be?
. FN p.44 "In Gal 2.20 'the life I [Paul] now live in the flesh'..[means] "in mortal body'. The phrase is the same, GK en sarki, but it is quite different from that discussed above [relates to Rom 8.8]

There's more, I find the old fella interesting, of course he believes in an HJ, but I see his comments on flesh/spirit/paul as actually leading away from Paul obstensibly believing in an HJ.

So come on rl help us get it "exactly right''.
cheers
yalla

jakejonesiv

Hi ted,

The so-called Pauline epistles originated with the Marcionite communities, which have been adopted after significant redaction by the catholic church. In particular they are second century pseudoepigraphs on legendary Paul's behalf.
Here is a timeline to visualize the dates.

Marcion's recension of the Apostolicon is no longer extant. However, it can to a large degree be reconstructed from the writings of the church fathers, who wrote volumes to refute Marcion.

There has been a great amount of work on the reconstruction of Marcion's Galatians. Notably from a historical perspective is To the Galatians: Marcion's text, as reconstructed by W.C.van Manen. van Manen wasn't perfect in his reconstructan, as we shall see, but it good enough to make the point.

OK, let's start with an example, Galatians 4:4, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law".
Did this appear in Marcion's version of Galatians? The answer is no.

Take a look at Tertullian Adversus Marcionem 5.4.2:
Tertullian would not have omitted "made of a woman, made under the law"; he certainly would have refuted Marcion's docetism if he had found them in Marcion's text.

The question is then, which is the origianl text? Did Marcion omit these words, or were they added by a later catholic editor? The reasons for prefering the later are given in HERMANN DETERING: THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS – EXPLANATIONS pages 65-67.


Recently (August 2005) Dr. Detering published a study of the letter to the Romans. Romans, it is claimed, harbors many internal contradictions.

HD argues that an earlier Marcioniti recension was expanded by a later catholic redaction. For this he offers three lines of evidence: text-critically, linquistic and theological. All three approaches agree in that there are two distinct layers identifiable in Romans, a longer catholic and a shorter marcionitischen. This cannot be explained by Marcion's "chopping out" what he didn't like. Rather, the Marcion layer was earlier and the catholic layer was added later using different vocabulary and theology.

http://www.radikalkritik.de/roem_einl.htm

http://www.radikalkritik.de/RoemSpr.htm

http://www.radikalkritik.de/Vergleich.htm

Jake Jones IV

TedM

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the links (again). I have printed out his position regarding Galations 4:4, which covers 3 pages. I think I can handle that much..maybe.. When time permits, I'll look into this some more.

ted

Ecrasez L'infame

Ladies and gentlemen, there is actually a FACT that we can all agree and hold on to in this mess (at least I hope so): whatever else kata is, it is not (in this case) "according to". We all like the phrase, we're used to it, it's in all the most readable Bibles - but Richard Carrier has shown that it is never a translation of kata except when claiming authorship (the first words of my Greek NT are kata Maththaiov, According to Matthew). Are all of us, from Jeffrey to Earl via the two Teds and all the other players, agreed on this small thing?

Richard Carrier

Rightly so, since that is exactly what I already make clear in my Review of Doherty (see below).


Though one should use caution with words like "never" (e.g. Empedocles, as quoted by Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione 334a, "The ether goes down into the earth with long roots," d' aithêr, phêsi, makrêisi kata chthona dueto rhizais), the general idea is correct, exactly as I make clear in my Review of Doherty (see below).

I have never claimed it meant vertical downward motion in the passages in question, nor, do I believe, has Doherty (at least he never does in his book, which I reviewed).

Let's not succumb to hyperbole. The only reason there is any idea of going "down river" is that the path is not horizontal--if it were, there would be no river, but a lake. Greek application of kata in this sense is routinely used for land routes that descend elevation (as in downriver, toward the sea, down the hill, etc.), so it is not strictly horizontal motion that is imagined even in these examples. Even so, it is certainly correct that one would not normally say "fall down from the sky" or "fell from the sky down to the earth" or things like that with the accusative. I don't know who has claimed otherwise, but neither I nor Doherty have.

Here is what I wrote:

Do I say here anything about vertical motion? No. Quite the contrary, I say "motion, usually over or through its object." In other words, horizontal motion.

Then, when I get to Doherty's use, do I say the meaning there derives from or relates to motion? No. Neither the word "at" nor the phrase "in the region of" contains any hint of motion, in any direction. I list other definitions after that that also do not involve motion.

So who are you criticizing? Not me. And at least as far as what he says in his book, not Doherty, either.

jgibson000

Well, we'll have to agree to diagree how clear this is, expecially since Ted/Jacob and many others here have been taking you to have said otherwise.

Any idea of verticle movement in this quote from Empedocles is contained in the verb DUW (cause to sink, sink, plunge), not in the preposition KATA. A better translation of 334a is (as Harold Joachim notes) 'But the ether, (to quote his [Empedocles] words), sank down upon the Earth with long roots".

Jeffrey