mg01

Running for the moment with the idea that Paul was refering neither to an earthly divine Messiah nor a future mortal king who would restore a lost kingdom, but instead a cosmic figure offered by God as a sacrificial substitution to reconcile man and his sin, what OT passages exist that may have "inspired" this position?

Essentially, if perhaps the earliest view of Christ was a spiritual self-sacrificing being offered by God, can we tell specifically where might this perspective have been derived from?

I don't just mean all the "son of man in the clouds" references and such, but is there anything in particular that when reading the prophets would make one think, "oh hey look, this is meant meta-physically, not literally", or is that a perspective gained at a different level of interpretation beyond the text itself?

GakuseiDon

Doherty suggests some passages in Psalms:
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp09.htm

judge

How else might one reconcile all the divergent views of what the messiah was to be?

Jeremiah 31 was a passage quoted by the NT authors concerning the new covenant. Now, if it was the messaih who was to usher in the "new age" and the new covenant is correlated with it (and I dont see how else to look at these things) then the messiah oversees the inner, psychic transformtion of men. And this it is often argued is the heart of metaphysics.

arnoldo

True, Jeremiah 31 was a passage concerning a "new age" which according to human wisdom Yeshua did not accomplish in his earthly,bodily existence over 2000 years ago which Paul wrote about (also the early church fathers vehemently argued against the early first and second century gnostic heresies which claimed that Yeshua did NOT have a bodily and physical existence). However according to christian theology, or mythology if you prefer, the Kingdom of Israel will be fully established after what is commonly referred to as the Second Coming, thus fulfill everything which is written in Jeremiah 31 which you have pointed out.

Solo

I believe you are mistaken about the "existence": the mystery of Jesus duality (of man and spirit/later God) whether gnostic or not, had nothing to do with with physical existence of Jesus as we conceive it. The earliest "Jesus" mystics and after them the gnostics were people who had experience with "the spirit". They captured their transports and their post-euphoric psychoses as the "knowledge" of Jesus. A debate broke out whether Jesus (the real one) was just like one of the Spirit experiencers or figures in their gospel records, i.e. whether he was made to appear as fully human or merely in a fully human form which in reality was a clever fake. The factum historicum that Jesus was sent, walked the earth, said things and interacted with other folks, never entered into the debate, TMK.

Jiri

arnoldo

Just for clarification, is it your position that there were in fact early first century christians who experienced a kind of "group psychoses/hyper-religiosity event" which led them to become willing martyrs (to the Roman executioners) due to their "knowledge" that upon death they would be with Yeshua?

Solo

No.

Jiri

arnoldo

Thanks. . . However, many writings of Paul are strictly against the heresies of a "symbolic/cosmic christ" and his message was primarily on the cross, for example please note 1 Cor 18:18

If you are aware of any scriptures which Paul wrote concerning a cosmic christ please provide, thanxs.

mg01

The idea built on the fact that Paul never mentions any of Jesus's deeds on earth in his epistles. Some of the episitles credited as not being the hand of Paul also support this.

If there are passages in the epistles that can be related to the events in the gospels I'd be interested to know what they are.

arnoldo

Read the book of Acts.. . IIRC, Paul literally is blinded by the light on his road to Damascus encounter with the Risen Lord which correlates perfectly with the Gospels.