sotto voce

Like all the other Joshuas. There were hundreds, nay thousands of Messiahs running around.

sotto voce

Too late. First impression counts.

You've obviously never met one until now.

That tends to be the case.

As far as everyone is concerned, I think. Though there will be the usual burial party/ies.

It's a pleasure, sort of. You'll be better prepared next time, I'm sure.

Bingo the Clown-O

Yep. You certainly are.

For one thing you’re failing to recognize that you are the one making the claim that Phl 2:5-11 is a pre-existing hymn, and so you have an obligation to defend it.

Another thing you’ve failed to recognize is that the “every knee will bow to the lord” motif (originally from Isaiah 45:23 LXX) is also found in Romans 14:11. And that suggests that those passages are contemporaries.

Ditto the “God gives Jesus a name” motif. That idea is also present in John 17:11-12. And again, that suggests that those passages are contemporaries.

Bingo the Clown-O

John 17:11-12 says that the name that God gave him was God’s name.

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me.

Now was God’s name “Jesus?”

Bingo the Clown-O

It looks to me like the name in question is intentionally vague.

It looks to me like it’s a literary tool.

It looks to me like there was no actual name.

It looks to me like it’s all based on the “mysterious unspeakable name of the Lord” theme in Leviticus 24:16 LXX.

sotto voce

:deadhorse:

EarlDoherty

So Paul, in Romans, is quoting scripture. That means that anywhere else we find an appeal to the same scriptural passage or idea, that not only makes them both contemporary, they both have to be by the same person?

If we read in a 20th century writing by a theologian a quote of the same scriptural passage, that suggests that he is contemporary with Paul? Which of the three rings in the circus offers this hilarious example of logic?

As for defending the hymns as pre-Pauline, obviously you have done no reading on the subject. There are some half dozen 'hymns' sprinkled throughout the Pauline corpus (including the forgeries in Paul's name), and one in Hebrews. Their language and tone is very similar and suggests an established circle of common religious philosophy, especially since they have a liturgical nature which suggests a Sitz im Leben of sedentary congregations. This is not naturally reconciled with the apostle Paul's wanderings from place to place. The Philippians hymn when broken down into chiastic lines indicates that the phrase "even death on a cross" is an addition (very Pauline, by the way) which does not fit into the meter of that verse. Also, the similar liturgical bit in Hebrews 1:2-3 cannot be by Paul himself, yet it obviously falls into the same category as the hymns in Paul. Even the Prologue to the Gospel of John has been included in the hymns, in its pre-Gospel original form before being adapted to the Jesus of Nazareth figure and an historical link with John the Baptist.

It is also highly significant that none of these hymns, as they have been reconstructed metrically, contains a reference to the "cross". Paul clearly had to add it in Philippians, as did the writer of Ephesians in 2:14-16. Now, do you really think that Paul could have created all this liturgy without a single reference to his obsession, the CROSS of Christ? Give me a break.

An excellent book on the subject is J. T. Sanders' "The New Testament Christological Hymns" (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971). No doubt you checked that out, or another like it, before donning your suit under the big tent. This is what Sanders has to say in summation:

"This examination of recent literature dealing with the problem of the historical religious background of the several NT Christological hymns...has shown that the background is in all probability to be sought in pre-Christian Judaism." (I've styled them proto-Christian, a step above the Odes of Solomon which has no sacrificial element to its Son and Beloved.)

Well, it looks like this thread has been hijacked by a jester and a pseudo-theologian, though sometimes its hard to tell the difference.

Earl Doherty

Solo

The idea is not to as much discredit Q as it is to dispense with it as Farrer wrote. As far as Q being (originally) faith-based, I refer you back to Goodacre's book, who convinces me that the argument for Q is largely circular.

What is the evidence that Paul (in his authentic letters) references common faith shared with the Jacobite church ? Why do passages like 1 Cor 11:23-26, 1 Cor 15:3-11, Gal 1:18-23 raise so many flags ? Well, obviously it is because of passages in which Paul refers to his gospel which does not come from men but from direct revelation to himself. So, you will have to make up your mind which of the three scenarios on offer is the historically correct one: 1) Paul receiving revelation, and going to preach on his own first to Nabatea and then to Damascus, and after fourteen years desiring to become an apostolic figure recognized by the Jerusalem congregation (Paul's Gal 2:1-10 as his first visit), or 2) Paul, starting on his own but going to Jerusalem early in his preaching career to familiarize himself with the beliefs of the Jamesian church (Gal 1:18-23), and 3) Paul being blinded by the light and knocked off his donkey (as you once put it), and then - within days - restored to his faculties by a church agent and baptized and introduced by Barnabas to the apostles in Jerusalem (after unspecified time) and spent some time with them. You can't have all three, or a combination as they are mutually exclusive. So, you will have to choose one and stick with it.

If you opt for #1 you will see instantly the difficulty with holding that anything Paul wrote was derived from the beliefs or liturgical blueprints of anyone else. Paul says in 1 Cor 3:10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. 1 Corinthians would have been written prior to the visit of Jerusalem in Gal 2, which according to scenario #1 was the first visit.

Does this make it any clearer ?

As you know I favour the historical referent of Nazarene Jesus, though by no means I am welded to it. Whether there was a martyred founder of a messianic cult or not, it seems near certain to me that "Jesus" was at the start commonly agreed mythic personification for psychic phenomena experienced by highly excited pneumatics. Hence the sharp dissension at the start about the relationship of a definite human to the common delusional schema in which one experiences him/herself as 'someone very special and in God's eye' and the underlying theological argument that in the case of one person, Jesus, it was not a delusion.

So, I don't think that the "Nazarene" Jesus absolutely had to be historical. It is just simply that I don't understand the process of transforming the veneration of Joshua the son of Nun into the Nazarene Jesus and his assumed mystical crucifixion. It seems to me much simpler to posit a historical figure by the same name which among the messianic visionaries was connected by midrash to the Joshua of the OT and specifically to the prophecies of Zecchariah.

One of the reasons I don't believe the hymn in Phl 2:5-11 is from Paul's hand is that it projects an divine appearing in an unimpeachable earthly incarnation, which is somewhat removed from what I perceive as the core Paul's teaching. Paul did not worship Jesus in the form he was sent, but the man from heaven, i.e. the spirit of risen Christ. It was that which was to be emulated, not the human form or appearance that preceded it. The Nazarene traditions on the other hand had portrayed Yeshu who was pure and blameless, and who was done in by the hand of the agency of the lawless (Acts 2:23).


The Acts of the Apostles. Paul experiences no Holy Spirit until he is baptized by Ananias on behalf of the church.

Very often that people end up saying or writing something else they intended say or write. You are correct in saying that the verse on the text level suggests that the name Jesus was bestowed posthumously. But we have an example of Paul saying elsewhere (1 Cr 2:2) that he will have among his congregation nothing but "Jesus and him crucified" which of course suggests that there was Jesus before crucifixion.

Best,
Jiri

sotto voce

Why did he have to do that?

stephan huller

Jiri

If you want an idea of the original text to 1 Cor 3:10 look at Clement's stromata. it actually makes your argument even stronger. I am amazed how similar our understanding is of the development of the gospel (albeit in my case built around two versions of Mark). Maybe we've been hanging around each other too much here or maybe its a European-Canadian thing. I don't know. Scary (for you at least)