GakuseiDon

Actually, I have argued that a combination of passages dealing with Jesus in Hebrews tends to disprove your particular mythicist case. That's still my argument. But there are more mythicist arguments out there than just yours. I'm really only interested in yours and Acharya S, since you both make statements about how people thought back then, a topic of interest for me.

I agree. On Hebrews 4:14, I lost. I cannot support the point I made.

Well no, I've been wrong before, and I will be wrong again. It's precisely why I emphasize my amateur status. People shouldn't take my word for anything here. They should always check these things for themselves.

Thank you.

I agree I did shift ground on that point. I agree that I lost on that point.

If what you say on "dierchomai" is correct, then yes it is compatible with a starting and a finishing point entirely within the layers of heaven.

If you have an airtight case, then that's wonderful!

I agree. That I find your "fleshly" sublunar nonsense unprecedented and unrepresented in the wider literature of the time doesn't mean that I am right.

Earl Doherty, the modern-day Galileo! We've been arguing this for years now, and you know what my objection is here: not that there was a sub-lunar realm, but that there was a fleshly sub-lunar realm. One where the following can take place:

Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same...
16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

And:

5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

And:

7:14 For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.

And we CAN say certain things about ancient thinking. Radius above asked:

Is it really so outlandish to conclude that Paul’s Jesus died and rose again "in the body" within this third heaven?

Not that we can rule out anything with certainty, but I would tend to think that based on the literature of the time, it is very unlikely. What about you, Earl? Do we know enough to rule it as unlikely?

This statement is approved for distribution by GakuseiDon.

judge

What is is Earl is non-rational.
It is non rational because.

1.There is no record in the entire ancient christian corpus of this idea.

2. You yourelf did not find this idea idea in any ancient cosmology....(and we are talking about a man sacrified.)

3. You imagined you saw it in hebrews, then tried to bend platonism and pauls writings to accomodate it.

The rational idea as there is no record of a man being sacrificed in the heavens in ancient christianity in platonism and in jewish though is that you just made it up.

Earl you made this idea up.

Doug Shaver

I said I found it. I would not have said so if I didn't think it was there.

I cannot remember off the top of my head whether you claim to have read the book, but I'll assume for the moment that you have. If you now say that you find no evidence in it for Jesus' nonexistence, then I can think of only two possible explanations.

(1) You construe the word "evidence" in such a way that by definition, evidence for any false proposition cannot exist. Therefore, since you remain convinced that Jesus did exist, there cannot be evidence for his nonexistence except for whatever evidence it would take to change your mind. But you have not changed mind, and so it logically follows that you have seen no evidence.

(2) You would admit that there could be evidence for a false proposition, but you have failed to find any in Doherty's book. If that is the case, then I am compelled to believe that you did not pay proper attention to what you were reading.

I am not about to pick sides in any argument between you and Earl, or between you and anybody else, over how a particular phrase in ancient Greek ought to be translated into modern English.

Besides, no matter what the author of Hebrews could possibly have meant by eis ouranos, there is no way the historicity debate is going to be settled by looking at one sentence and simply disregarding everything else written by every Christian writer during the first and second centuries. That would be proof-texting of the worst sort. Any theory of Christianity's origins has got to address the entire body of pertinent documentation from those two centuries.

Do you know what "concise" means?

In one post? When I was newspaper reporter, I got really good at conveying a lot of information with just a few words, but there are limits even to my abilities in that area.

It will be mostly consistent. I don't agree with him on every particular point he makes, but the case against historicity does not depend at all on which of us is right -- or for that matter whether either of us is right -- on those points.

EarlDoherty

Of course there is. 1 Cor. 2:8 tells us it was the demons who crucified Christ. The demons operated in the lower heavens. The Ascension of Isaiah 9 tells us that Christ was hung on a tree in the firmament by Satan and his evil demons. (Oops! That was a red flag waved in front of Don!) The epistles' treatment of scripture and how Christ is revealed within it points directly to a mythical venue for Christ's activities. Even the fact that Christ's dying and rising acts are never given a time and place in history, with no allowance even for an unknown history (a la Wells), leaves only one available alternative. Then there's the whole picture of the activities of savior gods in the mystery cults given a heavenly orientation in pagan writers of the period, pointing to a Platonic understanding of the myths within the cults themselves. (Oops! Another red flag. Hopefully Don will refer to my rebuttal to his review for the answers to any challenges he may be itching to make on this score, because I don't intend to go all over them again here.)

A "man"? You mean a human man sacrificed in the heavens? Of course there is no such idea. Where did you get such an irrational thought? Gods, or even demigods, are another matter.

I saw it in many places, and implied in countless other places. Why not read my new book and educate yourself? In fact, I'll make the same challenge to you that I did to Don. Read the section in Hebrews on verse 8:4, which tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus was never on earth, and rebut it. Demonstrate the irrationality of it. Someone as linguistically competent as you are can surely show where my analysis and logic have gone wrong. There is some discussion of the Greek in it, but I don't think that part is essential to understanding my case for this verse.

Of course, I know you will ignore this challenge (just as Don will). You find it much easier to snipe at me from behind your barricade of ignorance.

Earl Doherty

Solo

Heb 8:4 doesn't tell us anything of the sort. The verse simply contrasts Jesus as a high priest in heaven with the function of the high priests appointed by law on earth. Where they the latter purify the earthly temple (of the first covenant) with the blood of sacrificial animals, he purified the heavenly temple with his own blood to ratify the second covenant. It is clear from the contexts that the sacrifice took place on earth. To read anything else into the verse is not going to work.

8:4 certainly does not say or argue that Jesus was not on earth. To make such a point you would have to first prove - and I mean 'prove' - that the sacrifice in 7:27 was not on earth, because it is that verse which directly informs the proposition in 8:4.


But my objection to your reading of Hebrews is larger: you are using a semantic 'divide and conquer' technique which is to deconstruct separately the incarnation and the locale of Jesus' sacrifice. So, eg. when 2:14 plainly states : "Since therefore, the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature" you are all over yourself on the "likewise" (παραπλεσιως), arguing that the word means "similar to" but not "the same" in plain view of the verse actually saying what you deny it says, namely that he partook the same (flesh and blood) (μετεσχεν των αυτων). Having denied that Jesus actually was flesh and blood, i.e. being of the same nature as the "children", you deal with 5:7 the days of his flesh, by noting first (p. 227-228 of JNGNM) in your bold theory of flesh in outer space that elements of earthly incarnarion are missing.

But they are not missing, you just do not want to see them! If Christ of Hebrews is of the same (nature) as ordinary humans, it's the kind of likeness of human flesh you see on the streets and in parks, in houses and caves, each with 60-80 kPAs of gravitational foot pressure assuring they stay grounded.

So, once free of gravity you proceed rapidly through assurances that the "tears and supplications" do not relate to the story of Gethsemane (which I grant you but is a tangential matter to the issue at hand) to a quote from Harold Attridge as one who understands the days of flesh as "connoting the sphere of weakness and suffering to which Christ was subject". This quote you promptly interpret as a "tacit permission[sic] to locate the 'days of his flesh' including his crucifixion , in the spiritual world above the earth".

But this just simply misapprehends what Attridge meant if he - as you admit yourself - regards "the days of flesh" as reference to Christ's incarnation. Why can I say this without even looking up Attridge's book in the library ? Simply because, the chances are near zero he understands incarnation the way you do.

In much the same way you interpret another crucial verses of Hebrews: 12:2-3 - namely the "hostility (or opposition) to himself from sinners". You note dutifully that the nature and location of the crucifixion is not "elucidated". Well yeah, but since when do sinners who have an account to settle with Jesus, operate above ground ? Besdes, it kinda throws a wrench into the 'done-by-demons' theory of yours, doesn't it ? Which was it 'demons' or 'sinners' ?

Again, to my peasant brain, it seems pretty clear what the intent of the text is here: 'you earthlings take heart and do as he did, when he was down here himself', enduring what you have to endure for the great promise of the second covenant.

Best,
Jiri

judge

How curious, in places you have said it could indicate demon now you say it does.
The best you can speculate is that it could, although there is no mention of demons in the text.
As for the ascension of Isaiah, your contortions were seen here .
Something in the text refutes your theory so you claim it was added by a later editor. What would be amusing is to count just how many times you need to claim this kind of thing
Dont go to your grave stubbornly clinging to this theory. You've given it a good go, and full marks to you. Might be time to move on and admit it wont work.

radius

Not really. Do you draw that level of specificity from that particular verb, or from passing through or travelling in general?

It seems to me that JC is described here as passing through, or travelling in, the various heavens. It is difficult to make head nor tail of Hebrews precisely because it is so mystical - your case for the Jesus of Hebrews being "a man like us" would be stronger if there were some specific placenames and people hooked into his backstory. In this instance, if he had been said to have passed into the heavens from east Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives – but this was detail (like everything else - kind of the opposite of euhemerism?) which was accrued later via supposed prophecy in the LXX. Though I would note that locations in mythology (e.g. the Mount Kaukasos Prometheus was chained to) do not necessarily imply a historicised conception of the myth: it is entirely possible in ancient myth for events to 'take place' on earth in a very vague way, as well as in the prehistoric past and in unspecified mystical realms. Of course such things as incarnation do strongly imply the state of being 'a man like us' to the literal modern mind.

An interesting example of the 'real-world' of Hebrews is the word oikoumene. In Luke’s nativity story it means the habitable world (in effect, the Roman empire) - one might assume the same meaning at 1:6, where God brings 'the firstborn' into the world. OK, no Bethlehem, no Galilee or Judaea – but oikoumene means the world, and we can't get clearer than that, right? Yet at 2:5 the author says s/he has been talking about the oikoumene tēn mellousan – the world to come. Have I read that right? I do find Hebrews difficult to understand, and slow to read, so it may be I have missed something. But yes, it does seem heavily mythical and dependent on scripture rather than real-world report. I've commented already on the apparent use of location words (there is probably a more technical term) in Hebrews for locations in scripture, and a few more have popped up as I've trudged through the first few chapters…I will make notes as I go but am unlikely to finish Hebrews in a few weeks (other things to do). I haven’t reached 7:14 yet.

We may as well go through the non-existent texts which indicate that Jews had a propensity to believe that God could have a son and incarnate. However, I'm not sure that the archons of the aeon = Satan, and where and when the early-epistle Jesus was incarnated, killed and resurrected is not specified.

radius

The strong feelings around the HJ issue do interest me, but not enough to engage in this sort of internet knockabout.

judge

Oh please
At least Don has been forthright about it. You OTOH are doing it more subtly and self righteously pretending you're not.

judge

Yes vereses like the following have been confusing people for nigh on 2000 years.

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.
Hebrews 5:7

For nigh on 2000 years people have wondered, did this mean he was a man on earth or is it referring to some strange sub lunar realm...oh wait hang on...no one ever wondered about such nonsense.