mountainman

The word however becomes a fully developed thesis by Plotinus in the later 3rd century when he applied it to Platonic theology. Did the Nicaean regime just steal it along with Plotinus's Platonic trinity (ONE SPIRIT SOUL). What is the integrity of the evidence to substantiate that the word was not added to Hebrews after Nicaea? Who wrote Hebrews anyway, and when?

mountainman

The oldest example of Early Christian plastic art is cited by Graydon Snyder
in his book Ante Pacem: archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine:

Sheshbazzar

But when men create a god in their own image and after their own likeness ....
Well then he's simply -got- to act like the humans that made him act.
Get old, retire, and turn the family business over to God Junior.
Time for YHWH, like any decent human father, to sit back and enjoy his 'golden years', maybe take up whittling a little,
or keep himself occupied with puttering around the garden, as long as he stays out of the way, and doesn't doesn't interfere with the way God Jr. intends to run the family business.

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Getting back to the O.P., and the article on Smith's hypothesis, I find Lovejoy's criticism of Benjamin Smith deficient in two ways. First, he suggests repeatedly that Smith hid information that counteracts his views. A more charitable critic would have brought up his counterarguments without insinuating that Smith had maliciously or inexplicably hid them. We should assume that Smith did not think these counterarguments subverted the case he was making. Lovejoy should have presented the counterarguments as his own readings of the material and not as obvious and clear arguments that Smith in his stupidity or sinister intent had missed or suppressed.

Secondly, in Lovejoy's final dismissive attack against Smith, what Lovejoy contends could not have happened, the movement from a high Christology to a low Christology, is hardly as inconceivable as Lovejoy insists. It is precisely what every historian acknowledges who claims that the letters of Paul predate the Gospels. Lovejoy condemns Smith for following the historical literary evidence that Jesus was a God before anybody wrote of him as a man. In this case, Smith is sticking to the historical evidence, while Lovejoy is quite ignoring it.

Because of dismissive critics like Lovejoy, it has taken an entire century for Smith's brilliant hypothesis to become popular.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

James The Least

"The literary excellence and the moral profundity of many of the sayings and parables in the Gospels is the result, not of the inspiration of a single Master, but of the long social attrition through which they were sharpened and polished, and of the gradual process of spiritual selection of which they are the fit survivors."

That sounds good, but then the argument goes awry when he starts using Acts as a serious historical source. Acts is a novella that has as much reliable historical information in it as a Spider-Man comic book. Nothing can be "proven" by appealing to Acts.

But also interesting to see real doubt about the existence of a first century Nazareth this early!

arnoldo

On pg. 176 of Understanding Early Christian Art (or via: amazon.co.uk) , the depiction of infants is symbolic of the newly baptized becoming like infants. Jensen provides the following quote from St Augustine in her book;

sotto voce

Why does either Plotinus or Constantine's puppetry matter? It's not as though either devised anything true that was not obviously so, or so obviously untrue that the only interest is the fact of untruth. This word is used by the author of Hebrews, and it is the only occurrence of the word used in this way in the Bible. It is therefore the only use that has any meaningful authority, anything else being very liable to be misinformation, usually deliberate imv. Any association of Nicaea with trinitarianism is anachronistic, as we have seen several times before.

What a question, from one whose conviction is that Hebrews and everything else recognisably Christian was product of the aforementioned puppets!

sotto voce

One is bound to enquire as to how the supposed apotheosis of this movement was, in its own view, nailed to a cross between thieves outside the walls of Jerusalem.

mountainman

It provides the chronological and political context for the emergence of the term "heavenly hypostasis" in the conceptual framework of antiquity. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is unknown, although "Pseudo Paul" might be appropriate.



While that may be so, all things in history relate to priority dates, and this also applies to anonymous epistles published by the 4th century forgery mill, such as the letters of Pseudo Paul to Seneca.



True.




Epistle to the Hebrews


The church fraudulently dates its anonymous unprovenanced epistles to the century it pleases. The evidence points the other direction, towards a massive revolution at a time when the "heavenly hypostatis" was an established part of the conceptual framework of the 3rd century Platonists.

The epistle to the hebews has no author and no date.

When do you think it was included in Paul's collection?

sotto voce

Except for the Letter to Hebrews— so comprehensive and indeed cosmically definitive a work that it leaves little undefined; as it happens.

So we have read it? Theology matters?

Light entertainment, eh. I'd rather get the low-down from Bugs Bunny, personally.