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Originally Posted by Ben
At the risk of picking nits, I ask again, why does the instance of οικουμενη have to encompass heaven in 1 Clement 60.1?
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First of all, I was quoting Bauer, so to get an answer to your question, you’ll have to ask Bauer. He certainly was more knowledgeable than I am, so I’m quite willing to take his word for it. But if you ask for my own opinion, I can only speculate based on my own reading of the text. It may have been based on Clement’s use of the word
aenaon in the first part of the sentence: “…didst make manifest the eternal fabric of the world (
kosmos).” [Loeb/Lake trans.]. And Bauer actually designates TWO “extraordinary use”s: he includes under that heading the second example I quoted, Hebrews 2:5. Personally, I think he missed a third: Hebrews 1:6. When you create a scene which to all appearances looks like it takes place entirely in heaven, attended only by angels and drawing only on scripture, then the use of
oikoumene in such a context looks like “an extraordinary use” to me.
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You stated on your website that Hebrews 8.4 was a smoking gun against an earthly tenure. I answered that the construction was a present contrary-to-fact condition, not a past one, unless context can somehow coax a past meaning out of it, which it cannot in this case.
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Well, Ellingworth didn’t agree with you, nor did the translators of the NEB. The former agreed that the latter was grammatically possible (at least as including a past meaning).
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So, again, just for the sake of what exactly is at stake, it is manifest that, if the author of Hebrews thought that Jesus became high priest at a time which the historicist position places during his earthly tenure, Hebrews 8.4 would be a smoking gun for your mythicist position. If, however, the author of Hebrews thought that he became high priest only after his earthly tenure, Hebrews 8.4 means nothing either for or against your mythicist position.
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So, again, just for the sake of trying to get my point across, I will repeat myself yet once more. Your second alternative cannot work. If the author of Hebrews were aware of an earthly tenure for Jesus and a death on Calvary, he could never have been led to think of and present him as high priest only after death. Because an essential part of the sacrifice would have been performed on earth, the shedding of his blood which brought forgiveness of sins, and thus his role as High Priest would have had to encompass that event on earth. And thus Jesus would have been a priest on earth, at the same time as the priests in the Temple. But this would contradict the dichotomy he has set up between Jesus and the earthly high priests and contradict the thought surrounding 8:4. But if he was
not aware of an earthly tenure and death on Calvary….(I’ll continue that thought below)
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Indeed, the author does so clarify. He separates the days of his flesh (5.7) from the time of his priesthood. During the days of his flesh, he was learning obedience through his sufferings (5.8). It was only when he was perfected, or completed (5.9), in that process that he became the source of salvation and a high priest after the order of Melchizedek (5.10). Is there really any doubt that the culmination of this process, in the mind of both author and reader, was death?
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Again, if “the days of his flesh” referred to a time on earth, then they included the crucifixion and death, on earth. I am not saying that the “days of his flesh” are not separate in the writer’s mind from the act of “sacrifice” which the author defines as the
entry into the heavenly sanctuary and the
offering of his blood. The question is, does “days of his flesh” refer to a time
on earth? I maintain that it does not, one reason being that the activities during those “days” are from scripture, not history. So while there is a separation between the death/suffering/perfection and the entry into the sanctuary,
both took place in a spiritual setting. Again, if that death/suffering/perfection
had taken place on earth, the shedding of the blood aspect would have taken place on earth, and this being a normal aspect of sacrifice would have set up an apparent contradiction with the earthly priests which would have to be resolved. But if the death/suffering/perfection had taken place in a lower part of the celestial realm, not heaven itself, then it created no contradiction or anomaly in his own mind or the minds of his readers, and thus he could apply his concept of “priest” only to the post-death situation. Remember that all this debate has arisen over 8:4, and if none of Jesus’ activities took place on earth, then no problem is created.
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But to call only the sprinkling of the blood the sacrifice, to the exclusion of the actual slaughter of the animal, seems a semantic exercise unconnected with the present argument. For of course I meant that Jesus shed his blood in one spot and then sprinkled it in another. If you find some place where I used the term sacrifice inappropriately, I hope you will excuse me and take me for what I am obviously arguing, that Jesus was not killed (according to our author) in heaven.
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Perhaps you misunderstood me. I simply pointed out that for the author of Hebrews, Christ’s “sacrifice” is never spoken of as anything other than the entry and offering in the heavenly sanctuary. Whether, if pressed, he would also have included the death and shedding of blood, that’s quite possible. But he has ignored that aspect of it, which I suggest he could not have if it had been an earthly event in recent history which had given rise to his faith movement and his own conversion. I agree that he would not have thought of Jesus as being killed in heaven itself, if by this you mean the highest sphere of God himself which also seems to (and logically would) include the heavenly sanctuary where he offered his blood. But he could certainly have thought of him being killed in a lower part of the heavens.
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The author tells us that Jesus entered the world (10.5) or the inhabited earth (1.6), that during the days of his flesh (5.6) he was being perfected, that he partook of blood and flesh just like us (2.14), that he was crucified (6.6; 12.2), and that after his death he went into heaven (9.24), and the implication that he died on earth is conspicuous by its absence?
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But none of those passages speaks in earthly terms. That’s the fundamental problem. In your first three examples (10:5, 1:6, 5:7) he does something
in scripture. They all use the present tense, which causes commentators problems, as I pointed out. Ellingworth even allows that the setting is “a timeless present” represented in scripture. You can hardly label these as references to earth conspicuous by their
presence! As for the others, we have long discussed the legitimate application of “blood and flesh” and even “crucifixion” as things that can be undertaken by a heavenly savior in a heavenly setting. And if he suffered death in a corruptible part of the heavens, then he could indeed enter the highest “heaven” after that death.
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He ignored that dimension only if the world or the inhabited earth means something other than earth, if flesh means something other than flesh, if his crucifixion happened somewhere other than the usual venue for crucifixion, and if, when he went into heaven, he was already in heaven to begin with.
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You have it exactly.
All the best,
Earl Doherty
08-07-2006, 06:30 PM
