Rick Sumner

My, it has been a horribly long time. Looking it up, I'll have to apologize to avi and other readers.

Clement says all Israel is descended from Jacob, but Jesus and Jesus alone is described as doing so "according to the flesh."

The argument Doherty missed here didn't pertain to the virgin birth, it pertained to the special use of sarx. It did, or at least it arguably did, have a special connotation pertaining to Jesus.

I think it's obvious that the contrast is intended to discriminate between Jesus' spiritual origin and his earthly one, and that the "special" meaning is the implied (but not always stated) spiritual origin. but Doherty could argue otherwise. He should have argued otherwise, and that he missed it is a fairly large oversight.

Paul employs a similar distinction when he speaks of Israel "after the flesh." The literal descendents distinguished from "Israel" after the promise, which includes Paul's proselytes.

The reference to David and the virgin birth is in Ignatius To the Smyrnaeans. It tells us that the frequently used argument--that Paul's terms preclude knowledge of the virgin birth--is not necessarily true.

Apologies again for the confusion, I have to be more careful when working from memory.

avi

Well, no sperma here! As I understand, (and of course, I don't!) ἐκ γένους means something like "of the race", and with David's name misspelled, I guess that would correspond to the genitive case, so, "of the race of David". I still have not yet figured out which verb kata sarka is modifying. It isn't ἀληθῶςwhich simply means truly, if I am not wrong, and I think that ὄντα simply corresponds to "really", or "indeed"...

In summary, then, I don't see any support here, for my notion that David was resurrected from the dead to furnish the genetic material needed to construct a Jesus.

avi

Imnotspecial

Does it matter what Jewish notions of family linage were? Jesus is genetically connected to David through Mary. So he can be called son of David. No falsehood in the Bible there.

The virgin birth is a miracle. There is nothing else to be said about it. Other than that is is just a neat story. Can a rational person of today still believe it?

spin

What would ever make you think that Mary was of the line of David? Her cousin or kinswoman Elisabeth (Lk 1:36) we are told was of the family of Aaron (Lk 1:5b), making Mary of a different tribe from David.


spin

avi

Thank you for asking. Thanks spin, for that interesting rejoinder--I did not know that Mary was not of the house of David.

My attitude is this: The purpose of this thread was to attempt to build support for the case of a mythical Jesus. I sought to show, and failed to do so, that the ancient Greeks understood enough about genetics to realize that claiming fertilization of the ovum, i.e. conception, by way of a spirit (pneuma), instead of the good old fashioned method, was unlikely to persuade the farmers of Galilee to join the nascent Christian movement.

In contrast, the "apostles" were already running around proclaiming that, Jesus was the son of God, and a guy who had raised the dead, and had walked on water, and had restored vision to people who had been blind for decades, so, Jesus' lineage to David, in fulfillment of a prophecy from the old testament, was thought to be necessary, in order to persuade many of the potential Jewish converts, that this guy was the real deal.

So, how does one establish this link back to David? In thinking about this, I tried to imagine the mindset of the authors of Romans 1:3. Why were they putting that particular ink to papyrus? Kata sarka, seemed to me, crucial to the issue. Why was the idiom inserted, if it were just so much palaver? I guessed, in ignorance, that maybe it was not just an expression corresponding to "according to the flesh", but rather, a method of assuring legitimacy to the claim that Jesus was a descendant of David, in fulfillment of the old testament prophecy.

In other words, I thought that perhaps kata sarka represented the notion that David's own genetic material was used to create Jesus. Another way of expressing this thought, is that kata sarka may refer to the act of conception, (verb = "to be made"), rather than the act of birth. In my mind, if no one else's !!, Galatians 4:4, "born of a woman, born according to the law", represents "Paul's" response to a criticism he must have heard very often, on his travels, namely, how is this guy Jesus related to David? My answer was: David furnished the genetic material used to construct Jesus in utero.

David would then, in this model, represent Jesus' biological father, since we know that it was not Joseph who fulfilled this function, and since Jesus was "born according to the law". The role played by the Holy Spirit was then, to resurrect the centuries' long dead David, not easily imagined by us, but probably not that difficult for the superstitious people of that era to believe.

avi

sschlichter

The 'incident' I am referring is the slaying of Onan. It had nothing to do with sperm. He was not killed because he wasted sperm. He was killed because he was expected to continue his brothers line by having a son with his dead brothers wife as if the son was his dead brothers. (Deut 25:6) Instead of saying No, he used Tamar and was killed for it.

sschlichter

I am not sure I am explaining the issue with Onan and why he was slain. If you google Onan and Levirate law, you will get a better explanation that I am capable of supplying. I do not see any relationship to slavery.

The word is used twice in Gen 38:9. the second time is most definitely referring to a desendant of his brother (as in denying his brother a descendant). the use of the word in a literal sense (referring to actual sperm - or at least a limited understanding of the relationship between semen and pregnancy) does not preclude it from also having a figurative meaning.

The same is true for your original post. Your original post referenced a thesis that was above your head - way above your head. You used a figure of speech that is very common and was understood by everyone even though it has an entirely different meaning if taken literally. Why did you use this figure of speech when you could have used plain english to say that you did not understand parts of the thesis? Probably the same reason that NT authors knew that everyone would understand what is meant by the seed of David.

~Steve

Imnotspecial

Sorry, you are right. I was hasty, missing the first line where it says that Jesus is thought of as the son of Joseph. I did hear though from Christian sources that Jesus through Mary was related to David. Must have been just Christian propaganda. Thanks for straightening me out on this one. It is rather important since it clearly shows it a lie that Jesus is of the house of David as per prophecy interpretations.
This is such an obvious mistake. How is it possible that the Christian world just ignores this one? Do they accept that adoption is sufficient?

Jeffrey Gibson

Mary's Davidic lineage is asserted in The Protevangelium of James10:1 and Ignatius Eph. 18.2. And I'm not sure that Luke speaks against Mary being a Davidid in his note in 1:36 that Mary was related to Elizabeth, an Aaronid. The term Luke uses in this designation is not ἀνεψιός but συγγενίς - which is vary vague term. It implies blood-relationship but does not define its degree. So the fact that Elizabeth is a descendant of Aaron, does not necessarily rule out Mary being a descendant of David.

FWIW, Origen understood the phrase of the house of David to modify παρθένον and his understanding gave rise to the later Church's view that Mary too was of Davidic descent.


Jeffrey

show_no_mercy

This is what happens when you try to apply logic to religious writings :huh: . The "logic" makes sense if there were people who thought that Jesus was not born κατα σαρκα. Like the Docetists.