Roo Bookaroo

Bernard:

It seems that you have a defensible point about the nature of the addressees of the Letter.

The text that I quoted dates back to 1985. Paul Ellingworth's big book on Hebrews dates to 1993. I have not found this book in my library, but I would love to check his position there, not just about Hebrews 8:4, but about the whole letter of Hebrews.

Note that he is still active in Aberdeen. I have tried to find an email address for him, and if successful, will be happy to let you have it as well, in the hope that we can start an email discussion with him, on 8:4 first, branching out to the whole theme of the letter.

Ellingworth seems to be retired, and should probably welcome a little discussion with learned readers like you.
He is now involved in helping the Scottish Bible Society in putting out a version of the Gospels in Gaelic! He is their expert on the Greek text, not on Gaelic.

This will be a refreshing change from discussing Doherty's argument in circles, until the cows go home.

And no, I don't agree that focusing on the general thrust of the epistle takes us off topic. 8:4 is intimately linked to the whole argumentation of the letter. Knowing the full context and background can only reinforce our perception of the intended meaning of 8:4 (by now pretty well established, wouldn't you say so?).

I must say that I have grown impressed by the author of this epistle to the Hebrews. What a nimble mind, and a good orator.
How refreshing after so much of Doherty's rambunctious prose.

I was impressed by Mark, by Sirach, by Qoheleth, and now by this Hebrews author. I can clearly understand the appeal he has for so many commenters.

I had read the full 66,400-word article by Doherty on Hebrews, and instead of filling me with enthusiasm for and interest in this unique document, its unending argumentation left me in such a state of catatonic stupor that I started developing a severe case of allergy and phobia to his bloated and convoluted prose.

I am glad that Ellingworth is restoring an authentic light on this unique writer.
What a shame we don't know anything more about him.

spin

I have the tendency to keep away from threads about Doherty's work, having little interest, but casually coming across Roo Bookaroo's numbing diatribes here I find myself longing for Doherty's incisive prose.

What we find out in the last revelation of Roo's mind is that

1. he'd like a copy of Paul Ellingworth's book on Hebrews, but can't be bothered to chase it up;

2. he's learned that Ellingsworth is involved with a translation of the bible into Gaelic;

3. he doesn't like Doherty's work, which he finds "rambunctious", "going around in circles...", bloated, etc.;

4. he likes Mark, Sirach, Qoheleth, and Hebrews;

5. numbers seem to have great impact on him (Doherty's 66k-word article, & earlier the 7,300-word Hebrews text or Ellingsworth's 800 page book or 73 commentaries on Hebrews); and

6. he is vaguely interested in Heb. 8:4.

Talking about leaving one in "a state of catatonic stupor"! If Doherty is out with the cows, Roo must be there beside him. There is almost no constructive contribution to anything or anyone in this relatively long post. It is all either tangential or ad hominem.

There's a wonderful old word to describe a kind of writing that goes in one direction on one line and continues in the other on the next line: boustrophedonic. It's a metaphor from the movement of an ox pulling a plough. The ox marches on in one direction or the other. It doesn't matter where it's been, just that it gets fed at the end of the day. Backwards and forwards. Up and down. The point is hard to see. Isn't it.

Roo Bookaroo

Bernard:

However, the Amazon listing for Ellingworth's commentary on Hebrews
The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Greek Testament Commentary (or via: amazon.co.uk)
allows a lot of peeking through the LOOK INSIDE feature.

Note that in the first two pages of the preface, he lists the 21 names of his major sources, in impeccable scholarship style.

Note that, similarly, when Arthur Drews published his Christ Myth book in 1909, the second word of his preface was David Strauss, and in the first page he had added Bruno Bauer and John Mackinnon Robertson as his key influences. In his first 6 pages, he listed 37 names of the key sources for his work, with a short outline of their thesis, their value and impact on his work.

That is how first-class scholarship has been conducted in Germany. Disclosing and evaluating one's sources upfront is an absolute must.
Even today, not doing so leads to the revocation of Ph.D.s diplomas in Germany. A member of the German cabinet, Annette Shavan, minister of education, was stripped of her 1980 Ph.D. because "Frequent citations without identification... amounted to “deliberate deception through plagiarism”.
No level of scholarship anywhere surpasses the rigor and exactitude of German scholars.

Ellingworth also indicates that, for Hebrews, the output of the great German scholars is unsurpassable, and regrettably has not been translated into English.
And G.A. Wells, in the same spirit, has often mentioned that reading German fluently was more valuable to him in NT studies than Greek.

spin

More tangent.

<rhetorical>Moderators, could we set up a hate-Doherty thread and pack all this turgidity off to it? Could we stop having these things drone on over several threads and reduce the number of posts to them to one a day by each poster? It's all just so boring and dysfunctional.</rhetotical>

Will Wiley

:devil1:To be fair and balanced we could have a love-Doherty thread also.

aa5874

Your post is absolutely fascinating. You want moderators to set up a hate-Doherty thread!!!

Something has gone wrong, spin!!

Toto

spin is suggesting that most people are bored with this excessive emotional targeting of Doherty and would like the posts quarantined so they can be more easily ignored.

aa5874

What??? Spin's post is recorded and spin is asking for a hate-Doherty-thread.

<edit>

Bernard Muller

Yes, and that how "Luke" described Apollos of Alexandria in 'Acts':

"Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, well versed in the scriptures." (18:24)

" ... he knew only the baptism of John.
He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila [followers of Paul] heard him, they took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately." (18:25-26)

"When he arrived [in Achaia], he greatly helped those who through grace had believed," (18:27)

"While Apollos was at Corinth, ..." (19:1)

That early visit to Corinth is implied in 1 Corinthians 1:12, 3:4, 3:5, 3:6, 3:22 & 4:6
"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." (3:6)

Years later, Apollos was still in demand in Corinth:
"Now concerning [our] brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brethren, but he was quite unwilling to come at this time; however, he will come when he has a convenient time." (1 Cor 16:12)

OK, let's cut to the chase, I take Apollos as the author of Hebrews, sent to the Christians of Corinth.
That epistle was written before most of what Paul wrote, including to the Corinthians. The letter provided badly needed answers on important items that Paul was not able to provide. In fact, I consider that epistle as the mother lode for Christianity and, consequently, the most important epistle of the NT. If I had to choose who was the main creator of Christian beliefs, that would not be HJ (by a lot), not even Paul, but rather, you guessed it, Apollos of Alexandria.

Explanations and Justifications here then here

Cordially Bernard

EarlDoherty

I’d go for that! What a change of pace that would be!

Now we know AA’s problem: an ultra-literalist mind incapable of detecting nuance, irony or humor.

But I am not back just to take pot-shots at AA. I needed a break not only from the vitriol and bankrupt contributions to this thread (and others), but because of my longstanding eye problems, which staring at a computer screen for long periods can be most inhospitable for. It’s not a vision problem, just the condition of the eyes themselves. It was this which forced me to drop out of my M.A. year many decades ago and suspend my journey toward a PhD. I’ve had off and on improvement since then, but last year I had cataract surgeries and the after-effects have been problematic. So I am not back here with bells on and certainly not daily, but I did feel that I ought to say a few things to try to keep Roo and Bernard honest (probably unsuccessfully).

There is no ambiguity at all. 8:4 has ambiguity only in regard to the grammar. I have demonstrated that there is no ambiguity in regard to a choice between past and present meaning. The whole point of this thread was to challenge those who disagreed with me. Every attempt at disagreement has failed, or the challenge was simply ignored. As for other passages, the only ambiguity is brought to them by those who bring along the Gospels in their reading. To whit:

There is no ambiguity in 7:14. I have demonstrated that the “it is evident” has the meaning of “evident from scripture.” There is no ambiguity in 2:14-17. I have demonstrated that the writer has Jesus taking on “a resemblance” to human blood and flesh, not human flesh per se, a motif found throughout the epistolary record. In 5:7 the writer has Jesus doing things “in the days of his flesh” which are taken from scripture. There is no ambiguity in any of that. It is consistent with Jesus being known only from scripture (not a word or deed of Jesus located on earth, including in 2:14-17), and acting in a dimension revealed by scripture. His “tempting” has only to do with his acts of salvation, not any life or ministry activity on earth. No ambiguity. Unfortunately, none of this is ever acknowledged by Roo or Bernard.

I have already given you a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. When one side of the contrafactual involves something which continues into the present (and that includes the two other examples in Hebrews of the same usage of the imperfect in a past sense), in the 8:4 case the state of earthly priests still continuing their sacrifices on earth, this is probably what draws the verbs into the imperfect, since an aorist in both cases would imply that the earthly side of the contrafactual had ceased. True to form, Bernard simply ignores this and still laments that he can’t understand why the imperfect would be used in a past contrafactual.

Utter nonsense. And it only illustrates that he hasn’t read my Hebrews chapter, using my alleged verbosity and the limits of his own attention span as an excuse. Hebrews 8:4 is only one small piece of the overwhelming totality of how this document has no-earthly-Jesus written all over it. What makes 8:4 unique and a “smoking gun” is that this verse in itself, when one goes beyond the ambiguous grammar, can be perceived to state that Jesus was never on earth.

Yes, the great majority would, because they are governed by the same personal subjectivity that you are, namely a personal interest (for whatever reason) in refusing to see it otherwise. Besides, this is simply an appeal to authority.

More fallacious nonsense. Because the NT Canon was put together with the Gospels and all the epistles with the supposition that they were all talking about the same human figure, this automatically means that the original writer and readers of Hebrews understood the Gospels in the background, even though not the slightest hint of that Gospel story is to found in it? The illogic of this is breathtaking!

What—in the same way that the “natural and instant understanding” of Galatians’ “brother of the Lord” must be known to us, even though 99% of the appearances of the term “brother” in the epistles refers to members of the sect? And just as Bernard’s mind can reach back into antiquity and impose his own “natural and instant understanding” of such phrases on the ancient mind. Another breathtaking case of begging the question!

And it’s nice to know that Roo is able to dismiss all of modern scholarship as totally misguided and unnecessary in its delving into different or obscure meanings in the texts, since all any sensible person has to do is read it with all the “natural and instant understandings” which people like himself are easily capable of in regard to the ancient mind and its immersion in its own culture and views of the universe. Breathtaking pomposity! My own confidence pales in comparison.

As for consulting Paul Ellingworth, I think it’s a great idea, though it will have its limitations. Ellingworth, like all commentators on Hebrews, brings a Gospel understanding to it a priori. He rejected the past-sense option in 8:4 precisely because “it would imply that Jesus had never been on earth,” a subjective, a priori preconception, even though he admitted the grammatically possible option. So his comments will certainly be slanted.

But let’s look at the quotation from Ellingworth which Roo has posted here:

One might ask Ellingworth what there is in the document outside of the postscript which justifies him saying it was “sent off to another congregation”? The main text, as I have pointed out in my Appendix posted here, conveys the clear implication that the writer is writing for his own congregation.

I have left in Roo’s bolding here, but added an italicization of my own. Roo, of course, by his first bolded phrase, is implying that “what they already know” is the Jesus of history, even though not a single element of the Jesus of history is offered by the writer, let alone a “reminder” of it. Nor is “Jesus as high priest” or a “new title” for him ever presented as a later development over a previous state of being without it, let alone on earth. Jesus has entered upon the stage undertaking his role as High Priest, and any preparatory activity is consistently supplied from scripture, not from history. Not only is there no history, there is no dealing with any “superficial contradiction with history.”

Thus ends Roo’s quoting from Ellingworth. Perhaps some will have noted that in supplying this ‘summary’ of the epistle to the Hebrews, Ellingworth has been able to make not one single reference to an earthly Jesus or activities on earth. Not that he deliberately left any out, but because the epistle’s own text simply did not lead him, did not enable him, to make any such references, even if (like Roo himself) he may have held an HJ in mind behind a couple of his phrases.

My presentation of Hebrews is in no way circular. I have pointed out the consistencies within the text, what it says and what it does not say. And those consistencies point in one direction only. And we all know what that is.

Roo and Benard, conjoined at the hip by now and no doubt enjoying a beer together, will of course ignore all of this. They will certainly make no effort to provide a broad and substantive rebuttal—other than by repeating things they’ve already said and which I have more than adequately dealt with already. But don’t look for any heavy involvement by me in further debate here, at least for now. Quite apart from the eye demands, it would be a complete waste of time.

Earl Doherty