Toto

All of these definitions of "cooking" involve fraud or deception. So you agree that your definition charges Richard Carrier with fraud and/or deception?

You can email him from his profile: Richard Carrier

jgibson000

Well, let's first deal with the question of whether his source for what he wrote on Kata was the entry in LSJ on KATA and that he was therefore aware of what that entry stated about the range of meanings that KATA with the accusative had.

Is this his source or not?

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

We do not just talk about water. When we discuss water we bring to the table a huge amount of baggage - h2o, sewage systems, hot baths, swimming pools, ice, steam engines, kettles, tea, deuterium, modern chemistry and biology, underwater volcanic vents...

The ancients did not have most of the above - there was a toy steam engine - and their world view included stuff like daemons, air water earth and fire. Their chemistry was alchemy, astronomy was astrology. Some - Euclid, Pythagoras...had done brilliant work but they were burdened by what was possible in their time.

When we look at ancient texts we must attempt to understand what was - and was not - in their world view.

The comments of Paul about hair are probably a good illustration of how if we do not define the context clearly we can badly misunderstand.

Discussion of women and hair in churches is nowadays around social custom, ignoring the reality that Paul believed hair is related to sperm so a woman's glory is a sexual matter - but interestingly, even the concept of privacy is a later invention!

We do not understand air water earth and fire in the same way as the ancients. When translating and interpreting we must keep out modern assumptions which were not there.

I wonder if a translation done by an anthropologist who was an expert in Greek thinking would look very different to the New English Bible I was brought up on!

S.C.Carlson

If one searches on the word cooked with Google and click on the link for definition, the first definition listed by Answers.com reads:

Processed. Said of data that has been manipulated in some manner. Contrast with raw.

This definition is from the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia.

Clivedurdle

Is not the issue more about the interactions that become possible dependent on the world view? The ancients believed in an interaction between flesh and spirit - which is now one of the major belief systems on the planet.

We now have utterly different sets of interactions - that water is h20, that baptism is only wetting someone and not some magical act that can turn a baby from hell to heaven. Flesh is clearly defined biologically. Bread cannot become the flesh of Jesus at the Eucharist.

jakejonesiv

Hi Toto,

I think you are on to something.

The term "docetic" comes from the Greek dokein which means "to seem" or "to appear". The Docetics believed that Jesus was not human, but a divine being and thus only seemed to have human flesh. This Jesus was a phantom as in Mark 6:49. Being human in appearance only, Jesus could not have really suffered. Tertullian well realized these implications, "for He suffered nothing who did not truly suffer; and a phantom could not truly suffer." Adv. Marc. III., c. 8; cf. De Carne Christi, c. 5.

Opinions vary on who the opponents were in 1 John, but Bart D. Ehrman in The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 1993, argues convincingly that the opponents were docetic Christians (page 133). (Those in 2:18-22 are not necessarily the same group).

The affirmative statements made by the author of 1 John reveal the opposing position.
#1. Jesus did not come in the flesh. 1 John 4:2-3.
#2. Jesus could not be seen or heard. 1 John 1:1-4. (Except by those
of perception?)
#3. Jesus came by water only, not by blood. 1 John 5:6. This is confusing, but may be related to the notion that Christ used Mary as a mere conduit into the world rather than taking on flesh. "Christ, moreover, was sent by that First-Father who is Bythus. He, moreover, was not in the substance of our flesh; but, bringing down from heaven
some spiritual body or other, passed through the Virgin Mary as water through a pipe, neither receiving nor borrowing aught thence."
Valentinus according to Tertullian, _ Appendix. Against All Heresies_ chapter IV.

The arguments made in 1 John are very similar to those in Ignatius.
See Ignatius, Smyraeans, Chapters 2 and 4; Trallians, Chapter 10.

According to Tertullian, in the work cited above, the earliest heretics (namely Simon Magus, Meander, Saturninus, and Basilide) are described as Docetic: Christ had come in merely phantasmal shape, devoid of the substance of flesh, he had not suffered among the Jews.

The question then is, which conception was earlier, the Docetic Jesus or the proto-orthodox Jesus as flesh? And what effect, if any, does the answer have on the larger question of the existence of the Historical Jesus?

There are some indications that a Docetic Jesus was a very early conception. In what has (perhaps inaccurately) been called a "Pre-Pauline Hymn" Jesus is described as a divine being that takes on only the _likeness_ and _appearance_ of men. Phillipians 2:6-8. He appeared in
the _likeness_ of sinful flesh. Romans 8:3.

Turning to the gospels, in what sense can Jesus be human, who even before the alleged resurrection walks on water (Mark 6:49), reads minds, and cannot be grasped by his enemies (Luke 4:29-30)? (Of course, plenty of seemingly human actions are attributed to Jesus in the gospel stories.)
The Gospel of John consists of mixed messages about Jesus. Is GJohn sponsoring docetism or trying to oppose it? Along side the portrayal of a seemingly Docetic Jesus are blatant contradictions that he was real flesh. A reasonable conjecture is that GJohn was redacted by proto-orthodox scribes who inserted pro-flesh statements, of which John 1:1-18; 6:51-66; 19:34f are notable examples. (Even if it is argued that GJohn was not gnostic or docetic at its inception, it certainly contained material amenable to latter proponent of these views. Thus it shouldn't be controversial if we find some "creative" text editing by orthodox scribes to counter their opponents).

Consider the schizophrenic resurrection appearances
where the phantom appears behind locked doors, insists that he is flesh, but nobody actually checks it out. That's right. Jesus allegedly invites Thomas to put his fingers and hand inside the apparent wounds, but Thomas does no such thing. He believes based on the appearance only. More blessed are those who believe without seeing anything! John 20:19-29.

We find the same thing in Luke 24:36-39. Jesus appears in a ghostly manner and invites his disciples to touch him. Well, they don't touch him, and still don't believe (v. 40) so he eats fish. It is not said that this is convincing either. It is only when Jesus reads the scriptures that their "minds are opened" (v. 44,45). I think this is revealing: the reality of Jesus is not in physical existence, but "in the scriptures." This is a point Earl Doherty has made before, but not that I am aware in this context.

It is certain that the proto-orthodox scribes corrupted the scriptures the strengthen the case against their Docetic opponents. Ehrman gives several examples in OCS. A notable instance is the bloody sweat of Luke 22:34. (p 189ff). 'the account of Jesus’ “bloody sweat� is a secondary incursion into his Gospel.' (p.190-191). This incursion is confidently dated to the middle of the second century, and was in fact used to combat Docetics. Justin (Dial. 103), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. III, 22, 2), and Hippolytus (Adv. Noetum, 18).

I think the same thing was at work in the Paulinics. The proto-orthodox interpolated the handful of passages that refer to Christ’s flesh in the battle against the Docetics (esp. Marcion). It is noteworthy that most of these feeble references to JC’s flesh are not in the Marconite version, according to HDetering. These are the very passages that Earl Doherty spends so much time battling (by supposing sublunary realms!), but receive a much simpler explanation as orthodox corruptions against Docetism.

Jake Jones IV

Ahab

I agree. I think you make very good points about the different concepts that can be associated with things like air or flesh or hair. Anybody wishing for a better understanding of ancient culture or literature is going to have to try and understand those differences.
Yet both an ancient and a modern asking for a drink of water would still expect the same type of liquid brought to them. Or if Paul went to get a hair cut he would expect the barber to do something similar to what a modern would expect.

Remember, I was origianlly responding to your claim that Josephus could not possibly be referring to human flesh. So far, I fail to see how you can substantiate that claim.

Ahab

As a non-practicing Catholic, I can assure you that moderns have no trouble accommodating themselves to the view that the bread and wine in the Eucharist truly become the body and blood of Jesus.

Toto

Why ask me when you can ask him?

jgibson000

Because I want to know what you think.

Jeffrey