Didymus

Or... a Levantine variant of Platonism that appropriated selected clips of Hebrew scripture.

Didymus

EarlDoherty

Again, some brief responses:

A few observations. I hope you’ve noticed that leading into this passage is a quote from scripture, Psalm 68:18:

“When He ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives, and gave gifts to men.�

Once again, an early Christian writer is making statements and drawing conclusions about Christ based on scripture. No historical tradition is in sight. He takes a verse from the Psalms to demonstrate or ‘prove’ that Christ also descended. What historicist viewpoint would possibly be led to express things like that? Notice that the “gifts to men�, if applied strictly to Christ, takes place not on the descent, but at the time of the ascent. The only reference to things Christ ‘did’ (again, apparently after the ascent) is the inspiring of certain believers to be apostles, teachers, etc. (9:11), all of it consistent with revelation and inspiration through the Spirit. There is no hint of anything done in person, on earth.

There are scholars who regard the “descended first into the lower parts of the earth� as a reference to Sheol, since why would the surface of the earth be described as “lower parts�? This would be consistent with the idea in 1 Peter 3:18-19 (where the doctrine of the descent into Hell is derived) in which the only things Christ is described as doing is the bare death and rising (in “flesh� and “spirit�) and this descent into Sheol, all of which has a mythological character. And, of course, it’s consistent with the lengthy description of what the Son does when he descends in the Ascension of Isaiah, once we remove the obvious interpolation in chapter 11. Isn’t is strange that at every turn in the early Christian record before/outside the Gospels we consistently have to deal with this odd, exclusively mythological way of expression with a universal void of any hint of a life on earth?

As for the archons, or demon spirits, crucifying a human Jesus on earth without benefit of involvement by human authorities, I have no idea how such an idea could have arisen, and I see no reason to prefer it over the death of Christ in a spiritual/mythical region.

Not to the same “higher� heaven where the sacrifice in the sanctuary took place, but it could still be in a ‘heavenly’ sphere in the sense of the upper reaches of the sublunary realm. We don’t need to assume that “days of his flesh� has to refer to human incarnation on the surface of the earth. Anywhere in the sublunary realm would place Christ “lower than the angels� and in a realm of corruptibility which the angels did not inhabit (except for the evil ones).

We also have to be very careful here about translations. The area around Hebrews 5:7 is a favorite for introducing “Gospel� readings into an original Greek which is nowhere near so explicit as, for example, the NEB would like it to be, using words like “earthly� and “grave.�

I’m not sure why Andrew finds it difficult to believe that the death of Jesus could have taken place in a lower spiritual region, while the “sacrifice� of his blood took place in the highest spiritual region. Surely the two are at least consistent. If anything, 8:4 actually supports this, because if the death had taken place during incarnation on earth, this would have placed Jesus the High Priest and an important part of his act of salvation (one he could hardly have ignored) into the same realm as the activities of the earthly high priest, which would have introduced a glaring contradiction into his strict dichotomy of the two figures and roles and their two exclusive territories of operation. If the author was familiar with an historical Jesus, historically crucified on Calvary, can we really believe that this facet of his heavenly Jesus’ redeeming act would have been totally ignored and unidentified in his picture of salvation? It doesn’t make any sense. Once again, orthodoxy is forced to deal with this bizarre silence and exclusion of everything to do with a human Jesus and historical event. That an entire movement across half an empire through many authors and documents would consistently express itself like this is beyond belief unless—well, you know the “unless.�

And I’ll squeeze on in for Don, before I have to run.

But this is exactly my point. What “evidence� are you claiming suggests that the ancients didn’t? The ancients’ myths are full of things like trees and caves and knives slaying bulls and heavenly cities and heavenly sanctuaries with spiritual blood and all the rest of it. While some of this originally had its roots in concepts of things happening in primordial times (which is not the same as “historical time�), that progressed through the Hellenistic age under the influence of Platonism to concepts of it happening in spiritual/mythical dimensions of reality. (See my Appendix 6 in The Jesus Puzzle). What was the heavenly Jerusalem envisioned as consisting of, what were the thrones and crowns in heaven for the righteous if not spiritual versions of earthly things? Yes, Don, I do keep accusing you of not envisioning such things because you keep saying that they didn’t exist in the minds of the average ancient believer in such myths and mythical counterparts. I still don’t understand whatever distinctions you are trying to make. Plutarch and Sallustius are exceptions in regarding these things as strictly allegorical.

That’s all I have time for now, and I realize that I’m slipping behind the thread postings. However, I also note that much of this has gone more or less off topic where “kata sarka� or the Ascension is concerned, so I’m not going to be too concerned if I don’t get around to responding to all these tangential discussions (which is my own fault, anyway, for throwing in all that ‘background’ material in my original post).

In any case, I’ll throw in another ‘clip’ from my website, this one in response to TedM’s contention that Hebrews 9:28 refers to a “return� of Christ. (Sorry, don’t recall which translation this is and don’t have time to look it up.)
Best wishes,
Earl Doherty

andrewcriddle

What I was finding very difficult is not necessarily the idea that the author of Hebrews thought that the death of Christ did occurr in LH rather than EA but the idea that he thought that it had to occur in LH and could not occur on EA.

Earl Doherty suggests that the slaughter of a sacrifice on EA and not only the offering of the blood of a sacrifice would conflict with the exclusive role of the Aaronic priesthood and particularly that of the high priest.

However in Hebrews the things which are on earth reserved to the earthly Aaronic priesthood, which are a shadow of what Christ has done, are the things done within the holy and most holy place. (see Hebrews 9 ) and the sprinkling/offering of blood, not the act of slaughter itself.

In fact the Mishnah clearly states that while the offering of the blood of a sacrifice can only be performed by a ritually suitable Aaronic priest a non-priest can validly perform the act of slaughter. See tractate Zebahim particularly sections 2:1 and 3:1.

Andrew Criddle

TedM

Hebrews 9:27-28

It isn't a perfect parallel. It is as though the author is saying this:

Men die in their sins: Christ died once
Men are judged: Christ bore men's sins which relates to their judgement
AND, Christ will come a second time to bring salvation for those who haven't died

The need for a parallel disappears with the last phrase, because he introduces a new idea--what about those who haven't died and been judged?


At Biblegateway.com, 18 of the 19 English translations use the word "second". That includes the literal Young. The one translation that doesn't is Message which still refers to a "next" appearance. Even your own translation is of a 'second appearance'.

I don't know Greek, but at the Blue Letter Bible site http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_d...4906-3992.html it says that the Biblical usage is

1) the second, the other of two

, and that the KJV shows the NT usage as follows:

"second", 34 times
"the second time + 1537", 4 times
"the second time", 4 times
"again + 1537", 2 times
"again", 1 time
"secondarily", 1 time
"afterward", 1 time

Of the 47 times it is used, only once does it seem to mean "next in sequence" (Jude 1:5)


And, the author of Hebrews uses it in 4 other places, each with the meaning of "second":

It seems that the evidence quite strongly favors the meaning of a second (or again) appearance, as opposed to an afterward appearance.

ted

GakuseiDon

Yes, though I see it as saying "someone still alive shouldn't ascend to the seventh heaven". That's where the saints who had passed away are. Anyway, Isaiah wasn't "in flesh" at any time he was in the heavens.

GakuseiDon

Yes, I think that may be more useful for this question. The only problem is that the sky was also referred to as "the heavens" in early writings, so it could become confusing. (Early writers also debated on this. E.g. when the OT says that "God made the earth and heaven", they debated on whether "heaven" meant the sky ("visible heavens"), the heavens above the sky or both). So discussing texts outside of AoI may be more difficult.

Clivedurdle

All the stuff about a new heaven and earth and it all happening within this generation makes far more sense with a heavenly sacrifice to reunite heaven and earth and the coming of Christ to earth as a first coming to a perfected heaven and earth....a unifying of the two priesthoods.

But Paul mentions priesthood of all believers - an old Greek idea in contrast to the Persian and other groups ideas of high priests....

Paul et al had had this wondrous good news revealed to them!

The Eucharist as the catalyst of the new heaven and earth, the marriage of the bride and groom etc.

Soup.

Brother Daniel

Isn't it a rather modern idea to assume that whenever someone describes an event, they must have a specific, identifiable place in mind for it?

We've had the surface of the earth fairly well mapped out for 200 years or so, so it's natural for us to want every event in every story (that is set on earth) to have a specific latitude & longitude (at least in principle). But if you're not so sure of the shape and size of the earth, it's more natural to imagine events happening in "one of the many places on earth that I haven't seen, an uncertain distance from here, in an uncertain direction".

All the more so when you're dealing with a story with a mixture of heavenly and earthly elements in it. I see no reason to expect the writers and preachers of ancient saviour-god mythology to have felt the need to define exactly where their stories were set. I'm not convinced that the question would even have occurred to them.

When I look upward "to the heavens", I naturally find myself thinking in terms of vast expanses of vacuum, galaxies, stars, planets, all that stuff. Like others here, I'm familiar with the basics of modern astronomy. But for the ancients, the shape and structure of the cosmos was far more uncertain. (Or so I would think, but I'm no expert. I'm happy to be corrected.) Wouldn't there have been plenty of room for undefined or ill-defined settings for saviour-god stories -- including stories with a "fleshy" element?

In short, I would simply set the saviour-god mythology "Somewhere Else". But of course I can't speak for Earl or for youngalexander.

GakuseiDon

I honestly don't know, I'm afraid. There was a tomb for Jupiter in Crete, Hercules was born at Thebes, Tacitus dates Moses in relation to Isis reigning in Egypt and Jupiter rebelling against Saturn, etc. On the other hand, Spiderman was raised in New York and Sherlock Holmes lived in London. But on the third hand, Spiderman and Holmes didn't act in a mythical "world of flesh" separate from earth.

The indications appear to be that the Hellenic gods were believed to have either acted on earth (perhaps euhemestically) or the stories were allegorical (so didn't happen at all).

Hypothetical question: if the evidence shows that the saviour-god mythology placed the gods acting on earth (except when ascending or descending from heaven) and not "somewhere else", would that be evidence against Earl's theory IYO?

mikem

I would add that the gods were believed to have been seen on earth. In his book "Pagans and Christians", historian Robin Lane Fox refers to ancient reports of people claiming to have seen various gods wandering near their temples. And this was not uncommon apparently. And then there is that marvellous story in Acts where Paul and his travelling companion are mistaken for Hermes and Apollo!.