EarlDoherty

“Well said,” Ted? If you’re talking about Jiri’s empty rhetoric, I suppose even that could be “well said.” But as usual, Jiri has offered nothing substantive in response to my arguments but a lot of snide insult and bluster. Just insistence on his own way of seeing things and little if anything in the way of rebuttal to my presentation. That doesn’t constitute counter-argument.

Jiri maintains that there is no mention of a heavenly altar in Hebrews. And just what does he think was contained in the “heavenly sanctuary”? A refreshment stand? The ancient Hebrew rites of sacrifice involved the sprinkling of blood, the origin of which Hebrews 9:18f describes. In any animal sacrifice (not just on Yom Kippur) “a basic part of the ritual was the pouring of the blood on or near the altar” (Roth’s Jewish Encyclopedia). “On the Day of Atonement…the high priest…performed the Day of Atonement ritual, which cleansed the sanctuary of all impurity. It consisted of two sin offerings…whose blood was brought not only into the sanctuary but into the inner shrine itself, the Holy of Holies…” (Harper’s Bible Dictionary, p.1145).

Now, if you want to argue there was no specific “altar” within the Holy of Holies itself, that’s fine. Hebrews does not specify where exactly within the “sanctuary” (temple or heavenly) the blood was used in sacrifice. But there was definitely an altar in the sanctuary confines, and Hebrews presents the earthly high priests making an offer of animal blood to cleanse and to obtain forgiveness. (9:22: “everything is cleansed by blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”)

If you will read the succeeding verses (23f), you will see that Christ’s sacrifice, the offering of his blood, is located in a heavenly equivalent to the earthly sanctuary. Not on Calvary, not on earth. As I constantly reiterate, a location on earth, even of part of the sacrifice, would contravene that principle of division and contrast.

“Christ has entered, not that sanctuary made by men’s hands which is only a symbol of the reality, but heaven itself, to appear now before God on our behalf. Nor is he there to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the sanctuary year by year with blood not his own.”

Since Hebrews—yes, “at every turn”—is presenting a close comparison and contrast of the heavenly with the earthly, we can see no other than that Christ enters, with his blood, into the heavenly sanctuary, and wherever it might be within those confines (the writer does not give us a schematic diagram of the layout), he offers that blood to God to forgive sin and to establish a new covenant supplanting the old. The “sacrifice” is that entry into the heavenly sanctuary and the offering of the blood, whether he smears it on an altar or sprinkles it on the “heavenly things” spoken of in 9:23, even if not itemized. This is the “sacrifice”, just as the “sacrifice” in the earthly counterpart is not the slaughtering of the animals outside the sanctuary, but the offering of their blood within the Temple sanctuary: (“as the high priest enters the sanctuary year by year with blood not his own”). Christ is high priest in a “tent of priesthood (which) is a greater and more perfect one, not made by men’s hands, that is, not belonging to this created world; the blood of his sacrifice is his own blood” 9:11-12. The term “sacrifice” is always applied to that act, that heavenly “tent”, that priesthood located in heaven, that act of entering the heavenly sanctuary. Not on earth. (Compare 9:14.)

Even if Christ’s heavenly counterpart were not spelled out to the extent that it is, the clear understanding of the earthly counterpart would unavoidably impose an equivalent on Christ’s action in heaven, because that is the Platonic modus operandi of the author. If the author makes an earthly altar part of his earthly side of the equation, we can be sure that he has a heavenly altar in mind for the other side of that equation.

If you (Ted and Jiri) can’t see that, I say again, you are being wilfully blind to the text, and—I say again—it is pointless to try to argue with you, even though I regrettably find myself doing so.

Right. When nothing else works, label the one you don’t agree with a devious charlatan. (Can “Son of Satan” be far behind?) You would have been better advised to give us quotations from the text which indicate your claim that Jesus’ sacrifice took place “prior to his entry into the heavenly abode.” All the verses I indicated above, as well as others, convey quite the opposite.

Then you appeal to 9:15-16 because it contains the word “death” and you have atomistically seized on this and think to have it override everything else. But you needed to give this a bit more thought. The author has been pulled into the subject of the death because of the term “covenant” (diathēkē), which in its basic meaning refers to a “testament” in the sense of a will. He appeals to the principle that “For where there is a testament it is necessary for the death of the testator to be established. A testament is operative only after a death; it cannot possibly have force while the testator is alive.” (9:16-17). Since Jesus is the inaugurator/mediator of the new covenant/testament, he must be confirmed to be dead.

This passage (15-16) I dealt with in my 3-part website article on Hebrews, but for space considerations I left it out in the book. Let me offer it here:

The same sort of observation and argument applies to 13:12. Again, you have not read the verse carefully:

”Those animals whose blood is brought as a sin-offering by the high priest into the sanctuary, have their bodies burnt outside the camp, and therefore Jesus also suffered outside the gate, to consecrate the people by his own blood.”

Even though (as I have pointed out in the article), the comparison is poor and even flawed, what is Jesus ‘suffering outside the gate’ being paralleled to by the writer? What else than the burning of the bodies of the animals? Otherwise, there would be no point to bringing in the latter datum and setting up his sentence as though the two are being paralleled. Does this burning of the animals constitute the act of sin-offering? That would be ridiculous. It follows that Jesus’ suffering and death prior to entry into the heavenly sanctuary is not the equivalent of the sin-offering. It is, like the slaughter of the animals, the necessary prerequisite to producing the blood which when offered within the sanctuary constitutes the sacrifice which consecrates the people. It is the latter and later act which is in parallel to the "sin-offering" referred to.

The verb “consecrate” here is “hagiadzō, to make holy, sanctify. Chapters 9 and 10 are full of the concept of ‘sanctifying’, using that verb:

9:13 – For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkled ashes of a heifer have power to sanctify (the unclean)…

Was it the slaughter of the animals which sanctified? Of course not, it was the application of their blood within the sanctuary, just as, in the writer’s carefully constructed parallel, offering of Jesus' blood in the sanctuary effected the sanctification of the believer.

10:14 – because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy…

The “sacrifice” being, in parallel with the temple and in the only application of the term in the entire epistle, the entry into the heavenly sanctuary to offer his blood.

10:29 – (a man)…who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him.

How was the new covenant inaugurated? Not on Calvary, not by the suffering and death, but by the act of Jesus entering the heavenly sanctuary to offer his blood. All of these clearly stated things override your atomistic focus on the references to suffering/death in 13:12 and 9:15.

And since, even though I have little doubt that you would miss it, I will even point to 10:10, which states that "we have been made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ." But where has the author gotten the term "body"? His use of it here has been determined by his immediately preceding quote from Psalm 40, which he treats as words being spoken by the Son in scripture. "...a body you have prepared for me" as a substitute for the old sin-offerings and burnt offerings which this sect (and others) now regarded as no longer being desired by God. To conform to scripture, he repeats the word "body" (which of course can include the blood which, after death, is offered as a sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary).

We can note a couple of verses later (10:12) that the writer says:

But when this priest (Christ) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God.

But wait a minute. If the "sacrifice" took place on Calvary, and immediately afterward Jesus sat down at the right hand of God in the divine throne room, where is there time made for the entry of Jesus into the heavenly sanctuary to offer his blood there (let alone time for appearances on earth to his followers or waiting 3 days before exiting his tomb)? Clearly, the "sacrifice" was made in that heavenly sanctuary, not prior to it, and from there Jesus went through whatever heavenly doorway led into the presence of God.

Jiri, you simply don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t read the texts, you don’t understand them, you don’t bring an open mind to considering alternative interpretations, and you certainly don’t take a larger view of a document and its contexts and interlink the different parts. You are locked inside your box, and you can only throw scoffs and insults from within its walls. It really is a pity, but your ilk is legion.

And in order for you to make this sneering comment, you had first to adopt the preconception which all six-year olds have been indoctrinated with, that no matter what, an historical Jesus of course existed, and all who say otherwise are idiots and frauds. Congratulations.

I’m not sure that this is even semantically clever, but again, it’s typical and once more empty of counter-argument.

Again, simple dismissal. If my argument is technically flawed, why not analyze it in detail and point out exactly how? Of course, that would take quite a bit of effort, something you have not been willing to do. Far easier just to dismiss and insult and make your own unbacked claims.

P.S. I guess I can add the accusation that I am a liar, since you couldn't believe it possible that I would find an argument of yours incomprehensible. I've looked at Zech. 3 and cannot see any application to Hebrews. Joshua may be called "high priest", but to claim that this flimsy element renders the whole of Hebrews as based on it in some kind of midrashic metaphor for an earthly sacrifice is totally baseless except in your imagination.

P.P.S. Considering that this discussion of Hebrews has deviated a great distance from the OP, it's too bad it wasn't stripped off earlier. However, I can't see myself continuing this fruitless debate for much longer.

Earl Doherty

TedM

I take it back. It sounded good but I hadn't done my homework on the thread. Hebrews is one I'd like to look at closely because I think it is probably one of the strongest works in support of your ideas, but I haven't prioritized it as of yet. I'll butt out at this point. Carry on..

Doug Shaver

Ted, you may be driving Earl up the wall, but I think there's hope for you yet. Even if you don't eventually come around to ahistoricism, it seems to me you're doing your darndest, considering where you're coming from, to give it a fair hearing.

aa5874

The Canonised Hebrews does NOT support that Jesus was never on earth.

The Canonised Hebrews is about God Incarnate, Jesus Christ, who shed his BLOOD for the REMISSION of Sins that is METAPHORICALLY compared to a High Priest.

The very first two chapters of Canonised Hebrews introduce Jesus as God, the Creator, who was later made man.

But, examine Hebrews 9.28 In Canonised Hebrews, people saw Jesus at least one time.

Now, Canonised Hebrews MUST be expected to be compatible with the Teachings of the Church that Jesus was crucified UNDER Pilate in Jerusalem and was RAISED from the dead on the THIRD day and was seen by his disciples.

Solo

Earl, how is what I think relevant to the "heavenly sanctuary" depicted by the author of Hebrews ? Does he or not place an altar there and is that altar smeared with Jesus' blood ? The answer is 'no'. Simple as that. We don't need to rhapsodize around it.

Well, thank you very much. I am delighted to see that we are making progress. I think it would be fair to say that the idea of a physical transfer of blood into the heavenly sphere would be alien to the thinking of anyone suspected of Platonist inclinations.

What on earth is your problem, Earl ? Why do you keep arguing the exact opposite of what the text plainly says ? Verse 9:22 that you quote clearly indicates these types of sacrifices (the sprinkling of blood) are done on earth, in the copy of the 'heavenly sanctuary''.
The very next verse, simply denies the analogy of such a sacrifice takes place in heaven:

9:23 αναγκη (necessary) ουν (it was then) τα μεν (truly)υποδειγματα (that the copies ! of things) των εν τοις ουρανοις (in the heavens) τουτοις (with these) καθαριζεσθαι (ought to be purified) αυτα δε (but) τα επουρανια (the things of heavens (themselves, αυτα)) κρειττοσιν (more excellent) θυσίαις (sacrifices) παρα ταυτας (compared to these).

So, AFAICS - and you are free to correct my reading of this verse, Earl - Hebrews 9:23 denies blood and gore is part of the heavenly sanctuary. The writer of Hebrews clearly believed in Christ's pre-existence (1:2), that he was 'from heaven' (the formula of 'the days of his flesh' clearly needs to be read with that in mind), which evidently confuses the hell out of you.

I have already given my reading of that verse and shown why it cannot be read the way you propose without a terminal loss of meaning. You believe that the entry into the heavenly sanctuary itself (!) was the sacrifice which I don't see as in any way conversant with the epistles of Paul or any other NT writing, i.e I can't fathom the later gospel accounts being pre-figured by such beliefs.

And that even if - as I showed - is not the case at all ! :huh:

TedM and I are two different people, Earl. But, the point is, my objections, or objections that would parallel mine, I am sure, you will face whenever you open up on your reading of Hebrews. I doesn't really matter how hard you try to deny it - you have not made your case and you will not be able to make it with most of people who have a decent overview of the matters under discussion.

You are illustrating a mental process known in psychology as
projection. There is an easy test for anyone who is interested, has basic knowledge of the texts and how they are read, and who followed this discussion. If one wants to know who reads into the verses a theory the author did not hold, one only needs to go back and compare the quotes of verses you and I pulled out and decide what the texts "convey".

FWIW, I did not label you a devious charlatan and have no intention of labeling you a Son of Satan. You are projecting into me your own hostility.

You have that part right, atomistically or otherwise.

I don't see how this adds to the discussion; this is boring and repetitive mantra which you have no way of substantiating. You have denied that Jesus' sacrifice and atoning death took place outside of heaven, prior to his entry there. You accused me of all sort of iniquity and poor comprehension to make such a conclusion and now you are bringing up Attridge who, lo and behold, argues the same thing. And he is promptly dimissed as "somewhat misleading" and his view supplanted with your idea that Christ's death would be only a necessary "first step" in performing the sacrifice. But it is not the first step; it is the whole hog so to speak. There is no other sacrifice to speak of. There is the act of purification of the sacrifice which has yet to take place, and which indeed has to take place in heaven. Jesus has to be rehabilitated vis-a-vis the Lord under whose law he was executed. But that is not the concern of the verses. The concern is the diathēkē ("covenant", "testament", or "settlement") which cannot become effective while the one who makes the covenant is alive. You are missing the point here though - it is the sacrificial death here that ratifies a special covenant, not just a technical force of a last will. The writer of Hebrews does not suggest an analogy with a regular instrument of "last will".


Same 'ol, same 'ol - you are making your own rules on how to read the text and when things are pointed out to you accuse the critic of plotting to make you seem a Son of Satan. But the simple fact is that Jesus death was a sin-offering (later ratified in heaven) and the 13:12 analogizes his death with the death of the animals (διο και Ιησους) in the preceding verse.

Look, we have been through this. This is a legalistic football by means of which you are using to deny that :

a) the sacrificial death of Jesus was the substance of the sin-offering,

b) that it took place outside of the heaven's gate.
Some people read it as the gate of Jerusalem, but both readings clearly do not agree with your interpretation.

....more of the same desperate wshing to kill an argument by hoping reciting your own gospel; nothing new added here to our previous discussion. You are on the record as saying that the Heb 13:12 Hebrews denies that Jesus shedding his blood was the redemptive act, to wit:

To which I responded that you are making too much out of the "acceptance" step, which properly speaking is outside of the scope of sacrifice. If I was a good Jew in the time of the Second Temple and took a fattened calf there, had it butchered, it would not matter a great deal whether I sacrificed the animal to God, or to a belief that the sacrifice would be sanctified to God. You are just harping mindlessly on irrelevant issues, to wit:


So, if he entered offering to complete his harakiri and mess up the place to confirm your theory.....


I have showed you how Heb 3:1 can be read as reference to Zech 3, the rehabilitation and investiture of Jesus in heaven. You don't want to take it as a legit midrash, I am good. Just don't say that I have pioneered the view that upon entry Jesus immediately seated himself at the right
hand of God.

I am not sure what you are trying to do with 10:10 but by all means, be my guest, if you want to believe that it helps your theory. (Not sure what you think I should have missed this time, the fact that LXX has "body you prepared for me" rather than the Hebrew "ears you have prepared", but anyhow, it's withourt effect.) That the writer of Hebrews uses "body" rather than "blood" in 10:10 is likely given by the quotation from Psalms. Incidentally the "giving one's body to be burned" has also a gnostic connection (1 Cr 13:3) but since you appear to be innocent in that respect also, we'll leave that one alone.

Ah, is that how it works ?

Thanks for sharing, Earl; it's been most entertaining !
To all the things that I have been accused of in my life I now have to add the ultimate insult: I can't interlink; I don't know how I san possibly cope with this indignity !? :constern01:

You are twisting what I said, Earl. I said that six-year olds apparently handle better than you the proposition that Jesus went to heaven only after he was dead.

Nope, I have not said that. You need to tame your obssessive generalizing of what you read, Earl. Surely, no one else but you would dream of reducing what I said to this one element.

For the record, I do believe that the Jerusalem congregation of James connected some obscure contemporary figure named Jesus to Zechariah's Jesus as the high priest, and that this view of Jesus sits wholly outside of the Pauline idiom. Hebrews looks like an attempt to reconcile the Pauline Christ to this presumed Jesus of the Jerusalem tradition. The writer however uses mostly Paul's syllabus and evidently addresses traditions which were on the wane at the time of his writing. Under no circumstances do I claim - and note this well because you often misread the more nuanced points - that my reading of Heb 3:1 is a guarantee of historical Jesus.

Well, it's not going to get much better for you here if you don't wisen up and relent on the preposterous idea that Hebrews 8:4 is a "smoking gun" to historical Jesus.

Because it is not !

Best,
Jiri

TedM

Thanks Doug. I am trying to be fair, as being truthful and learning the truth is more important to me that winning arguments (at least I hope so..) I've sent you a private message.

EarlDoherty

No, Jiri, why is it so hard to get any idea across to you? It is not the “entry” into the heavenly sanctuary that constitutes the “sacrifice”. It is what is done by Jesus with his blood within that sanctuary. Just as it is not the entry of the high priest into the temple (on Yom Kippur, the Holy of Holies) which constitutes the sacrifice and what it effects, but what he does with the blood of the slaughtered animals once he is there.

And why should you expect or require that the thought of Hebrews has to conform to that of Paul? The very point that it does not is what reveals the true nature of early Christianity: an uncoordinated, diverse faith movement inspired in independent expressions from scripture, which did not arise from an originating founder or unified movement of apostolic preaching, something else which the letters of Paul very much reveal. And I have hardly said that the Gospel accounts grew out of anything relating to the thought of the Hebrews community.

No, it is not, nor is it the concern of any of the verses in the entire document. “Act of purification of the sacrifice”? Where do you get that in Hebrews? “Rehabilitated vis-à-vis the Lord under whose law he was executed”? Where is that? More imagination on your part. The death of Christ is the “whole hog”? Where is that death even mentioned in chapter 8-9 outside of the reference to a “will” which brought in the incidental idea that a death must take place before a will can be ratified? The latter does not—repeat NOT—make the death the “sacrifice” or the act which confers forgiveness and cleansing, just as the slaughter of the animals does not do that, but rather the usage of their blood in the sanctuary afterwards.

You don’t get it, Jiri, and you don’t make any effort to get it. Which is why I gave up on you more than once in the past, and will now do so again.

And if anyone should know anything about psychological mental processes, it’s you.

P.S.:

So prove it. Take my 8 page argument apart and discredit it, in detail and with substance, not lame denunciations and arguments of personal incredulity. I would hang around for that. So far your attempts in that direction have been nothing more than empty declarations, despite all of my prodding.

Earl Doherty

Solo

Partly, the difficulty in arguing with you is in that you evidently don't know what you believe yourself. Here is what you said just a few days back (post #6871358):

In simple terms, you constantly confound "sacrifice", with a "ritual (priestly) offer of that sacrifice", and an " acceptance of the sacrifice".

I did not say "conform....to Paul"; I said "being conversant...with Paul, and any other NT writing". The difference is that while I do not believe in some rigid archetypal belief system identifyting Christianity and dating from Jesus, there are nonetheless common theological and mythopoetic structures in the texts that evidently identified ideas about Jesus as falling inside or outside of the perimeter of the forming proto-orthodox beliefs. By the the Nicean canonical standard, Hebrews was in, GThomas was out.

Much as you may dislike it, the partistic church knew its own and would have unlikely included an epistle whose ideas and mythologems lied generally outside that perimeter. You may rest assured that if the fathers had felt that Jesus' self-sacrifice in Hebrews was not understandable within the corpus, they would have discarded the text.

This relies on my reading of Heb 3:1, as refering to Jesus cleansing and investiture in heaven (midrashic reading of Zech 3:1-8). As a first step, the Lord rebukes Satan for his accusation of Jesus.

9:22 ...under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

You will not dispute - I hope - that Jesus' death , for the writer of Hebrews, as it was for Paul, relates to the atonement for sin, wherever you may believe they believed it happened.

Incidental idea ? Or a sine qua non ? Isn't the death you call 'incidental', that by which those who are called (very Paul-like election BTW) 'may receive the promise of eternal inheritance' and 'redemption from transgressions under the first covenant ?' (9:15)


So you have been sayin' since we started, Earl. :huh:

Jiri