exapologist

Hi Clivedurdle and Postmortem,

Thanks for the welcome! And yes, I suppose I am now one of the lions!

Clivedurdle

I posted on one of the current mythicist thread a comment that maybe the second coming was a first coming. Paul's revelation of a heavenly Christ who was sacrificed in classic alchemic traditions in heaven to bring together the elements of earth and heaven, mixed with platonic beliefs that the current earth - the shadow of the real - would be replaced by a new - real - heaven and earth.

The urgency was due to the belief that they had discovered the magic formula to do all this - the eucharist, and that the revelation of the sacrifice had occured - all that was missing was to carry out the ritual enough. Because they had all this new gnosis they were definitely in the end times!

The revelation of John brings it all together in the concept of the marriage of the church with christ.

Evangelicals make a major mistake by assuming the purpose of it all is to save us from personal sin - it isn't - it is to bring about a new heaven and earth, and all sin is is the current "unreal" shadowland - the glass darkly.

gregor

graehme,

Thanks for the reply. However, your originally circular argument (essentially, Jesus' eschatological statements are true because they are in the bible) was now repackaged as an unsubstantiated and unconnected misdirection (Jesus' eschatological statements are true because all the apostles died rather than recant).

Your new or refined position is dramatically untenable on many, many levels (that regulars here have discussed ad infinitem).

1. Please provide any contemporaneous record of apostolic martyrdom.

2. Please tie any purported martyrdom to eschatological preaching (as opposed to some other element of the neo-Xian theology)

3. Explain how some can die for a religious theme that no one could accept as reasonable (ref: Jonestown, comet-watchers, branch davidians, etc.)

mens_sana

His book was written 100 years ago, so he was really not up to today's research. What will go down in his bio is his position that Jesus was a preacher of the imminent apocalypse. A novel notion at that time, this is now standard fare in scholarly studies. If you think that selection is bad, try reading his MD dissertation, a psychological evaluation of Jesus. His conclusion that Jesus was unbalanced is based upon his acceptance of ALL the Jesus sayings in all four Gospels as being authentic. Today that would be laughed out of the psych hearing.

mens_sana

Crossan's methodology is stunning. No one before worked in terms of multiply attested Jesus Sayings in all early Christian documents, which were independent of each other, quite so carefully. The only really solid debate about his conclusions rests on his dating of (portions of) the documents (which, in turn, affects his multiples). And this is where the preacher-as-apocalypticist problem lies, right smack in the "layers" of Q. I would suggest both his Birth of Christianity and his Historical Jesus, along with his Who Killed Jesus?

EssEff

Does anyone believe that the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem was fulfillment of the prophesy?

exapologist

This discussion encourages me to think that the dilemma I mentioned earlier is a sound one. We can express it as follows:

1. Either the gospel passages that have Jesus falsely predicting the eschaton are authentic or they aren't.
2. If they are, then Jesus is a false prophet, and Christian denominations that take a non-metaphorical interpretation of the NT are false.
3. If they aren't, then since the theme of the immanent end is fundamental to the gospels (and the NT in general), then Christian denominations that take a non-metaphorical approach to the NT are false.
4. Therefore, either way, Christian denominations that take a non-metaphorical approach to the NT are false.

The premises are roughly stated, of course, but I suspect that with some refinement, the argument would have significant force. What do you think?

hatsoff

The passages you speak of are too vague to prove anything such as what you're attempting. They are very suggestive, sure, but since they never say anything directly, they're useless as proof of a Biblical contradiction.

exapologist

I disagree, but I agree that I need to post a list of the relevant passages to meet my burden in the argument. I'll do so soon. But in the meantime, consider, e.g., Mark 13. The disciples ask when the events of the end times will occur. Jesus then lists all of the events -- the whole time refering to the disciples standing in front of them as though it will happen to *them*(e.g., v. 29: "...when *you* see these things happening...") -- with v. 30 having Jesus say that *this* generation will not pass away until *all* these things have happened." The natural interpretation is that Jesus is saying that all the apocalyptic events he just listed in Mk. 13 will occur within the lifetime of his disciples. Other interpretations are obviously ad hoc, for the sole purpose of getting Jesus off the hook.

FatherMithras

From what line of reasoning? He clearly mentions imminent destruction. He even gives a time limit "Some of you who are hearing will yet live".