Toto

Is this distinction important? Did story telling change?

I was contrasting real with not in a parallel universe.

Gone with the Wind is historical fiction. It could have happened, but it didn't.

Harry Potter is fantasy, and the England that is its backdrop is not a real England.

Ben C Smith

Of course it has changed. We have concepts at out disposal that the ancients had not yet invented.

However, none of that matters very much for our present purposes. Do you have an analogy, even within Star Wars (if you like), that will illuminate what Paul meant by seed of David and the rest?

All I have seen from you so far is some vague notion that fiction exists, therefore Paul could be writing fiction. I have already said that this is at least possible, and that the line between fiction and history (both of which would take a phrase like seed of David in the same literal way) is not at stake for me here. For our purposes, Paul could be simply lying.

What is at stake is what Paul could have meant when he wrote that Jesus was of the line of David, unqualified. Did Paul mean that Jesus was a descendant of David, or did he not?

Do you not understand the question? Is the task still unclear? It is the same question Carrier asked, and he was favorable to the overall theory. Where are the analogies (ancient, preferably) to what Paul has written?

Nor is an England that exists in a parallel universe. I do not think this line of inquiry is remotely related to what Paul meant.

Point blank: What did Paul mean, and what is your evidence that he meant it?

Ben.

Toto

Sorry, I think we're too far apart, and perhaps I should not have jumped in here. I think Paul was working in the category of myth, not fiction. But I don't think he was a careful analytical thinker, or that his words can be analyzed that precisely, or that you are going to be able to find some language that fits your narrow definition of saying born of a woman, but clearly meaning something else, while at the same time not fitting into your definition of fiction.

Ben C Smith

I am not trying to be difficult. I am simply not understanding your point.

That is quite valid. However, there are myths in which the heroes are said to be born of a (usually specific) woman from a specific lineage, and I think the language used means just that: Dionysus was the son of Semele, and his tenure (on earth!) was conceived of as postdating his birth. That is just so natural, it seems nearly unassailable.

But this is not what is sometimes claimed of Paul. It is claimed that, for Paul, Jesus was a personage who stood outside of time, certainly not in any direct temporal relationship with Abraham or David or some mortal woman somewhere.

I repeat myself: On this thread, I do not care if it fits the definition of fiction. I do not think Paul is writing what he would consider fiction, or even lies, but that is not important here.

I am coming to realize that it is not Paul, not myth, not so much fiction or history that the respondents on this thread do not understand; it is Doherty that is not being understood. He goes to great lengths to show how Paul -- despite saying that Jesus was a descendant of David, Abraham, and Adam, despite saying that Jesus was born under the law -- does not regard Jesus as postdating David or Moses or Abraham or Adam, does not think he stands in temporal sequence to them, and does not imagine Jesus traipsing around the earth as the son of anybody. I am looking for an analogy to that. I am coming to see that practically nobody understands that concept except for Doherty himself.

Ben.

Toto

Somehow I understand what Doherty means (although I actually think that the passages are interpolated.) I don't understand why you are taking such a literal interpretation of the language.

ynquirer

In genomenon ek gunaikos, genomenon upo nomon the participle genomenon is accusative. The reason rests with the whole sentence being … exapesteilen ho Theos ton huion hautou genomenon ek gunaikos, genomenon upo nomon (“… God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law”), where the subject is ho Theos while ton huion hautou is the direct object, so accusative, and genomenon as modifying the direct object is accusative, too. Therefore, if genomenon ek gunaikos, genomenon upo nomon is an interpolation, it is a very good one. Both exapesteilen and genomenon are aorist, which is normally used to narrate historical events.

As you suggest, gennaw points at birth in a very specific form, more specific than ginomai, which may convey many more meanings - in each case to be ascertained by context. This explains a later corruption of genomenon to yield gennwmenon as recorded by Ehrman. On the other hand, the occasional substitution of gennwmenon for genomenon unveils an interesting issue.

genomenon is aorist middle participle accusative singular masculine, while gennwmenon is perfect passive participle nominative singular neuter - which is at least a double mistake, since neither may the Son be “neuter” nor nominative is the right case this time. The correct form would be gennhthenta. As the corruption stands, gennwmenon is in concordance with the subject - ho Theos - rather than with the direct object, though even so the concordance is imperfect since God is usually masculine, not neuter. The sentence would more or less read: “ … God, born of a woman, born under the law, sent his son.” It is a conspicuous case of a misplaced modifier. In all likelihood, the scribe took care to preserve a phonetic similitude, but the phonetic similitude was conducive to a grammatical mess. That proves that it was not very easy to make good interpolations, specially for 3rd century scribes and later, the quality of whose Greek was on the decrease.

Thus, there is one suspect interpolator, who allegedly interpolated the whole phrase genomenon ek gunaikos, genomenon upo nomon, and another one, a convict, who substituted gennwmenon for genomenon, so rendering the whole sentence a mess. Yet, the former looks like one that wrote acceptable Greek. Why didn’t he write gennhthenta ek gunaikos, gennhthenta upo nomon, which would have produced a greater effect - according to you - to reinforce the orthodox doctrine of an HJ?

Assuming that the phrase is not an interpolation, there is an explanation for the use of ginomai instead of gennaw. The latter in koine has not an aorist middle participle; at least, you won‘t find it either in the Septuagint or in the New Testament. Accordingly, gennhthenta is passive, not middle voice of gennaw. Now, the passive voice of gennaw, which literally means, “to be born,” is hardly suitable to mean the way in which the son of God can come down to earth. The son of God may not be purely passive. He rather uses a woman to become a man. To convey the overtone, the middle voice of ginomai is more apt than the passive voice of gennaw.

Chris Weimer

I seriously doubt that the passages are interpolated. The Jesus myth was a zero argument in antiquity, so there would never have been a need to insert this passage. Besides, being born under the Law is a "Judaistic" effect which would have been antithetical to the separatists, and would have given more room to shoot from if they didn't have to make Jesus fit into a Jewish framework (which is what we see with Marcion).

Solo

Big Ben in Edinburgh ? Excellent idea !

par·al·lel
Pronunciation: 'per-&-"lel, 'pa-r&-, -l&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin parallelus, from Greek parallElos, from para beside + allElOn of one another, from allos...allos one...another, from allos other

Jiri

Ben C Smith

What is your preferred interpretation, then (if they are not interpolations), and how do you defend it?

Ben.

gstafleu

This thread is actually threatening to become interesting . It is starting to veer in to territory that often seems to be avoided on this forum (at least by some), and that is the land of smoke and mirrors of myth. That land is called the "dream time" by the Australian aborigines, and quite rightly so. So if anyone has a feeling of being lost, of strangeness, just compare the situation to dreaming, and you'll understand what we're up against.

It may be necessary to go into more detail about the various types of reality, but I'm sort of hoping we can be spared that and just let that implicitly follow from the discussion. So, to get back it:
First of all, whether Paul is speaking of Jesus in a human state is the issue at hand, so there is a bit of question begging here. Ignoring that, I repeat what I said: there are not enough passages that are candidates for pointing to a human state, and what there is isn't very clear and can easily be explained as real(M). You mention Virgil and Augustus, my guess would be (haven't read it) that Virgil is probably more explicit about the situation than Paul is. But whatever the case, Paul remains rather sparse on the issue. He is certainly not sparse on the myth parts, hence that wins. BTW, I'm not sure if your 90%-10% is all that accurate. Wouldn't it be more like 99%-1%, or even less (on the earthly part)? That is of some importance, because the sparseness of the earthly passages, both in number and in detail, plays a role in the argument.
Exactly, they did not (always) differentiate between real(H) and real(M). The point is that we moderns are in the end interested in real(H), but the best we can get from Paul is real(M). In addition, because Paul may not have distinguished between real(H) and real(M), it may be that when he says something that can be interpreted as "I (Paul) think that Jesus was real(H)," he actually means real(M) in modern terms. Confusing, I know, but that's what you get when you try to describe an ancient mindset with concepts which that mind didn't know.
Lets burn that when we find it .
Correct, and that is what we these days call real(M). However people of those days did not distinguish between the two, so it was often presented as something that looks like the modern real(H). Nevertheless, we don't call it real(H).
Quite possible. As far as I recall from reading Doherty, he at one point tries to sketch some specific details of the mythology that he thinks was Paul's. Personally I have never thought that to be of paramount importance to the whole MJ/HJ discussion. For me the important thing that Doherty has done is shown that Paul never portrays Jesus in any historical detail, and that the same goes for all the other early writers. Plus he showed a number of "positive" silences which seem to directly contraindicate an HJ. The exact details of Paul's mythology, while interesting, do not bear on the overall conclusion that his Jesus was mythical and not (demonstrably) based on any real(H) person.

If the only thing you want to discuss in this thread is these exact and rather esoteric details posited by Doherty, we are indeed at cross purposes. My points here are the following:

1. Paul is overwhelmingly mythical
2. The few earthly looking passages are easily explained as real(M)
3. Plus, Paul did quite possibly not distinguish between real(H) and real(M), so that something that looks real(H) in his language might actually be real(M). And given the preponderance of myth in his writing, real(M) is what we would have to assume.
4. Hence we cannot find evidence for an HJ in Paul.
5. If we find evidence for an HJ somewhere else, than Paul may be harmonized with that to the extent you have indicated.

None of this, to state the obvious, depends on the exact details of Paul's mythology, fleshy sub-lunar realms or otherwise.

Gerard