Ben C Smith

My analysis of the Greek of this statement in Hebrews is by no means complete or exhaustive, but I think Doherty and Carrier may have a point here; the author may not be saying that Jesus will appear a second time, but rather that he will appear next, not necessarily implying a first time (nor necessarily ruling against a first time, either).

Ben.

Malachi151

First I'm not of Doherty's view that the first concept of Jesus is one in which no aspect of his life took place on earth or that he was totally immaterial, I don't really see that as a big issue.

If you look at the "heretical literature", the various "against heresies" documents by Irenaeus, Tertullean, etc., you see that its basically grape shot. Pretty much every idea under the sun was out there, from Jesus having never been born and having descended from heaven to Jesus having been just a normal person who was born in the normal way.

But this is no different from the discussions surrounding Hera, Dionysus, Adonis, etc., etc., etc. There are literally thousands of gods and heroes from the time, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, and otherwise, who were incarnated in various forms, parts of whose stories took place on earth, in human form, or other forms, etc., so whether or not Jesus was viewed as "bodily" is not a big issue, what is certainly a bigger issue I think is him NOT being seen as bodily which was certainly the case.

In other words, it was not uncommon to depict mythical figures as real people, but it is always of course uncommon to depict real people as phantoms, spirits, composed to stardust, etc., as the many "heretics" did.

Malachi151

Good call, this is something that I missed from ED. I'm not exactly sure what the implications are, nothing major, but I'll look for what Earl had to say about it.

GakuseiDon

I'm not really sure what you are arguing here. The key issue from a HJ/MJ perspective would be whether they thought that Jesus was someone who walked around and interacted with people. If they did, then it doesn't matter what they thought he was made of. If they didn't, again it doesn't matter what they thought he was made of.

Are you arguing that the "heretics" you refer to above didn't think that Jesus walked around, interacting with people?

Malachi151

Well, there aren't any such mentions in Paul or even Hebrews.

What I'm saying is that it was not uncommon to view gods and heroes and incarnate, so that Jesus would become described as incarnate is not odd, even if he started as a myth. IN addition to all that, Hebrews gives us meaningful theological reason to view him as incarnate, and I see it as no coincidence that the same work that argues that blood must be spilt in order complete a sacrifice and create a covenant is also a work that described Jesus as bodily, though still not in any historical context.

GakuseiDon

Then, have you already gathered information to show that he started as a myth? That is, how does Hebrews help you to show that Jesus is a myth? I'm not sure under what grounds you think that it is halfway along a historization process, unless you've already suggesting you have enough information elsewhere. If you are relying on Paul, then I don't see any real differences between Paul and Hebrews with regards to the "historical" data provided.

Again, it seems to have the same level of context as Paul. Why can't we assume it is going in the other direction -- Paul believes that Jesus had normal flesh-and-blood, while Hebrews is the halfway point that shows how the concept of a docetic body appears: a perfect sacrifice requires a perfect body.

youngalexander

About 20% thru the article.
What a splendid resource!

Apart from MJ/HJ, the convenience of accessing Gospel allegoric references to Scripture is outstanding.

Requires a decent edit re syntax and typos, but no doubt that will be forthcoming. Rather more accessible than the previous format.

Malachi151

I have this in print format now. Actually, its a heavily revised combination of both articles, with a different introduction, things are reordered, and a different conclusion.

I also give an acknowledgment to this forum among the introductory pages, though you can't see that in the preview, its a page that is skipped.

http://www.lulu.com/content/687167

youngalexander

I am only marginally confused. I gather you now have a 256 pg book. Seems a remarkable expansion of the previous two articles?

Jesus - A Very Jewish Myth:

"This work contains modified republications of the following previously published articles: Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ | Jesus Myth Part II - Follow-up, Commentary, and Expansion."

Malachi151

Well, the first article was already 176 pages or so in Word on 8.5 X 11 with standard margins, without any pictures.

The book is in a smaller format than 8.5X11, plus it has pictures, plus its a combination of the two articles, plus additional information, though some was also removed to remove some of the duplication between the two, plus title pages, etc.

Yep, that's what it comes out to.

Hey, my evolution article came out to a 344 page book! That sucker is as thick as a textbook. The print quality is very impressive as well, its as good as a regular store bought book. The only thing is that some of the images are not as clear because I could only find 72 dpi images not the 300 dpi needed for print quality, but considering its not too bad. I'm very impressed with the technology. Its a great system for what I'm doing, which is "not so professional publishing". This makes publishing a book about as easy as publishing a web page. Pretty amazing, though I don't consider these "real books", they are not, this is a fancy process of taking a document to Kinkos and having them print it out and bind it for you.

Nevertheless its a good way to get things into print format if simply getting them into print is what is important. I don't consider this "real" book publishing by any means.