Doug Shaver

Some of the responses here to Earl remind me of nothing so much as fundamentalist apologetics, where one proves one's devotion to truth by one's intransigence and the scientitific penchant for changing one's theories to accommodate new data is construed as evidence that science is never to be trusted.

Like Earl, I am loath to appeal to interpolation absent clear evidence in the instant case that it must have occurred. Without that evidence, it is just too handy, and the defenders of orthodoxy can justifiably dismiss it as special pleading. But once it is established that a particular document has been tampered with at all, then I think it quite reasonable to offer at least the possibility of other interpolations in defense of alternative theories. Orthodoxy cannot at that point insist that the document must be presumed totally authentic. It is not logical to insist that it must be all authentic except for whatever is provably otherwise.

So it is with Josephus. At least part of the Testimonium is almost universally acknowledge to be an interpolation. The only debate is whether all of it is or it contains an "authentic core." But if we know that at least some of it is forged, how in the world does anyone get away with insisting that the rest cannot be? That is not science. That is dogma.

Considering Paul's writings in their entirety, and putting them in the context of all other surviving documents having some bearing on Christianity's origins, it seems likely that his Christ was not a recently martyred Galilean preacher. Against that there are a handful of statements in his letters that seem to suggest otherwise and so the question becomes whether a plausible construal hypothesis about his intended meaning, consistent with mythicism, is available. If there is, then the passage is not a proof against mythicism. It might not be proof for it, either, but at most all we can say is that the passage is consistent with either historicism or mythicism. A proof text for historicity must be of such a nature that Paul could not plausibly have intended it to mean anything but as a reference to a human. Otherwise, the historicist can say no more but that Paul could have been thinking of a man when he wrote it.

If Paul wrote (apparently) that the Christ was "born of a woman," it suffices for mythicists to offer a credible interpretation that does not presume the Christ's historicity. Of course we can debate just how credible any particular interpretation is, though that would take us off topic. But given a mythicist interpretation with some credibility, then if there is also reason to suspect the text could have been tampered with, then still less does it serve as a proof text for historicity.

"Paul wrote X about Jesus" is not a cogent argument for historicity if (a) we can reasonably construe X to refer to a mythical being and (b) it also is reasonable to doubt that Paul wrote X in the first place. If X appeared on its face to be an unambiguous reference to a human, such that a mythicist interpretation would be manifestly strained, then the interpolation argument would probably need stronger evidence that "We know that some of Paul's writings were doctored." But if the mythicist interpretation is credible to start with, then the argument loses no strength from the observation that Paul just might not have written it in the first place.

And just by the way, it seems really odd to me when secularists ape evangelicals in their insistence on the integrity of canonical manuscripts.

Ted Hoffman

Books.

jgibson000

So, secondary sources, eh?

And how do you know that what these books say about Judaism and Greek thought is true? What do the authors use as the evidence for their claims?


Jeffrey Gibson

Ted Hoffman

Who said anything about second hand sources? Josephus, Philo, Shepherd of Hermas? Paul? Second hand sources?
Anyway, I wont further interrupt those who are engaged in serious discussion. I asked you a question which you clearly cannot answer so I will let the matter rest.

krosero

Ben, this is an interpretation I agree with, and I think it challenges any proposal for interpolation. Maybe, after all, Paul was just preaching the basic fact that his savior was really their savior, really relevant to human beings. Earl agrees (as you noted, Ben):

So if both the HJ and MJ models are claiming that Paul was emphasizing Christ’s likeness to human beings, what does that do to the case for interpolation? The MJ model is reaching for interpolation, but the MJ model LIVES on the premise that Paul, in his preaching, was proclaiming what Earl calls the spiritual-material counterpart principle, i.e., the human likeness of Christ.

I can’t quite figure out the MJ scenario.

Let’s start at the start. What is the premise of interpolation? Is it that second-century historicists added “born of woman” as a phrase that was so earthy that no opponent could interpret it as anything but an earthly savior? Well, Earl has been arguing that “born of woman” is a very strange way, because of Paul’s choice of (Greek) words, to denote a real human birth. That’s his main argument, and if he’s right, then the interpolaters chose self-defeating words. Earl and others have frequently asked, why didn’t Paul just say, “He was born on earth”? Well, why didn’t the interpolaters? Why did THEY choose words that make Christ sound like he was born above the surface of the earth?

But maybe now the claim is that “born of woman” really does slam home the idea of an earthly creature born of a human woman, and that the interpolaters chose it for that reason.

Does this mean that the pages and pages of arguments that were advanced for the MJ case concerning ginomai and kata sarka and all the rest did not really happen?

jakejonesiv

Has someone provided a definition of what is meant by the term "magical thinking."

Let me provide one. "A conviction that thinking directly affects reality, characterized by lack of realistic relationship between cause and effect." That is a starting point, and likely a poor one. Please correct as necessary.

If that is accurate, my conclusion will be that "The NT contains many instances of magical thinking."

For example,

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9 NASB.

Would that qualify as magical thinking? Why or why not?


IMO, the following represents magical thinking.

They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mark 16:18.

Please note, I am not asking if the passage is "authentic", I am asking if it represents magical thinking.

The NT is full of magical thinking, but maybe you guys have a definition that would rule this out.

Jake Jones IV

Ben C Smith

My suggestion was that Paul was emphasizing that Jesus was just like us humans so as to redeem us humans. This statement is noncontroversial with regard to the law in Galatians 4.4-5, since Paul immediately turns around and explicitly tells us that Jesus was born under the law so that [ινα] he might redeem those under the law. My suggestion was that the phrase made [or born] from a woman is being used in the same way, to emphasize that Jesus was just like us. He was born of a woman (meaning he was human) so as to redeem those born of women (meaning humans).

This is what Doherty wrote in post #42 of this thread:

If you mean his particular observations in his book, I would not know. I have not read it.

Believe me, such expressions are used in churches whose members and pastors have no earthly idea what docetism is, and whose official stance on the nature of Christ is that he was 100% human and 100% God at the same time.

Not in this case. Here (as in the other references I gave you, most of them Pauline) it is a reminder, on the principle that the redeemer must be like the redeemed, that Jesus was like us and thus able to redeem us. Context.

Or unless he was making the explicit point, as he explicitly does with the law, that the redeemer must be like the redeemed.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

Browsing in Borders today, saw this

A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion

May I ask anyone who wants to pontificate that the Bible, the Greeks et al are not chock full of magical thinking kindly refute wiki and texts like the above.

I also want to strongly recommend Terry Jones' Barbarians.

Apart from discussing xian bishops in Persia in the 200's, he has a wonderful discussion about Ambrose in the 390's (Jones notes Constantine was baptised by an Arian Bishop!) when Catholicism was forced on the wicked arians of Constantinople, and a Catholic bishop later complained no one was attending communion, followed soon after by Cyril and his 500 equivalents of the Taliban!

Tampering of texts? After Eusebius most definitely! Well these catholics introduced the heresy of God being three and were proud to comment it was irrational. In fact they stated that to think rationally was pagan!

Ben C Smith

I think this is what Rick meant when he called this approach ad hoc. I recently watched an old episode of Law and Order on DVD in which Stone, the District Attorney, lampooned the defense that he was hearing from the other side as follows (I am paraphrasing from memory here):

So... your client wasn't there. But if she was there she didn't do it. And if she did do it she was acting in self defense.

With regard to Galatians 4.4 the danger exists that a similar chain of mutually exclusive options could pop into being:

Born of a woman is not a normal way to say that Jesus was a human on earth. But if it is a normal way to say that then the phrase is an interpolation. And if it is not an interpolation then it must mean that Jesus was in a parallel fleshy sphere not on earth.

The danger of circularity, likewise, is patent.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

Not the creed of the catholic church! Go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect £400!

Actually you are making odd comments that come from later traditions and thinking - I can't find them now - and it feels you may be misunderstanding the mythical position because of that.

Got it

These pastors are quoting the Catholic line and are ignorant of the arian argument that sons are not equal to dads! But this is a 400 year later argument and there seems to be an assumption that it can be used in arguments about an HJ.

To me, the emperors reinvented Christ in the 4th/5th century as a new political tool and Catholicism became the chosen creed. The earlier godman became the emperor in the heavens - some catholics actually said God had a body hands feet etc!