Malachi151

This is the problem with all of the Early Christian Writings.

First of all, I do not accept Doherty's view on "Mythicism", i.e. that Paul himself believed Jesus to be a "mythical figure".

That, however, does not mean tnhat Jesus wasn't A MYTHICAL FIGURE.

Why did Paul believe that Jesus was a man, a Jew, born of a women "under the law", descended from David, etc., etc.?

For THEOLOGICAL REASONS.

IN every case he gives THEOLOGICAL reasoning for his beliefs, he doesn't present one stitch of "evidence".

For example, here is Paul's claim about the "bith of Jesus":

Paul's whole accont of Jesus being born is nothing but theological /philosophical diatribe. It has no basis in "evidence", no basis in observation, no basis in any account, first hand, second had, or even 100th hand.

It's just a bunch of theological stuff that is made up based on Jewish scriptures.

It doesn't matter whether people believed that "Jesus was real" or not, people also beleived that Hercules was real, Romulus and Rehmus were real, and countless other heroes, gods, and demi-gods.

That doesn't "make them real".

It also doesn't help matters that the people who believed in this religion were overwhelmingly the poorest and least educated people in the region. "Least educated" may not even be an appropriate word, its more like the NON-educated.

GakuseiDon

Yes, and you stated that you didn't disagree with me. :huh:

This is the thread where I brought up Ocellus:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=143542

I wrote:

From here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/m/midplato.htm
"Ocellus understood the cosmos as divided in two parts, the supra-lunar and the sub-lunar, the gods existing in the former and daemons and humans in the latter. It is only in the sub-lunar regions, he argued, that generation and decay occurs, for it is in this region that "nonessential" beings undergo alteration according to nature."

So the "daemons and humans" existed in the sub-lunar regions. This obviously extended to the earth.

You'll note that there is nothing like "Ocellus himself said this!" I used that quote because it neatly encapsulated the views of that time, not because Ocellus said it. AFAIK the comment is completely non-controversial. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been Freddus the Froggus who'd said it. Here is what you said later when I pressed you on it:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...hlight=ocellus

I am quite willing to acknowledge that Pseudo-Ocellus (as far as he goes) may well represent the basic essence of Middle Platonic views of the universe, and I have never said that any writer contradicts that essential view.

You then went on to say that this didn't discredit your own presentation, though this is a separate argument.

:huh: The author was irrelevent to my point. Did the cosmological view being expressed accurately represent the view of the people of that time? IMHO yes.

Sorry. I actually thought you were being serious in your "who knows" evaluation.

The reason that I have looked at Plutarch is that examination of Paul and AoI is colored by the argument that the texts went through the hands of Christian "historicists", so "sublunar Jesus" references were altered or removed. But this would have been less likely to have happened to pagan texts like Plutarch. I doubt that Christians would have been too concerned with an Attis who was castrated in a "world of myth". Plutarch's text is useful in that he gives the views of contemporary and past writers. I believe that if he doesn't give an indication of a "world of myth" concept (which IMHO is the case) then your comment of what "the average pagan" believed needs to be re-evaluated.

So, let me ask the "who knows" question seriously: Which pagan writer from around the period shows evidence of a "world of myth" belief?

Malachi151

Who are "the people"?

No, this was definately not the view held by either Stoics or Atomists (Epicurians, Democritians, etc.), not that this is particularly relavent to your argument.

However, it is impossible to claim that any set fo ideas of "representative of the people" at that time. First of all the Roman Empire encapsulated many different cultures, and even among the educated "Greco-Romans", opinions were divided, and when you get to the uneducted people when its all over the place and poorly defined, and when you move on even further to the Jews, much less uneducated Jews, you have a group of people that don't even have a background in the same sets of ideas and beliefs.

So, IMO, the whole Ocellus quote issue is completely mute.

I disagree with Doherty's view, but not because of this, and I agree that you don't have a leg to stand on.

Its quite easy to show a great diversity of opinion about the nature of the "universe" during the time of the riise of Christianity.

GakuseiDon

That's an important point. This is the statement in question:

"The cosmos as divided in two parts, the supra-lunar and the sub-lunar, the gods existing in the former and daemons and humans in the latter. It is only in the sub-lunar regions, he argued, that generation and decay occurs, for it is in this region that "nonessential" beings undergo alteration according to nature."

I believe that this adequately summarizes the views of those whom are commonly referred to as "Middle Platonists" on the nature of a two-tiered universe. Opinions differed about what was in the supra-lunar realm, but they were much more consistent about what was in the sub-lunar realm (IMO because they could see it directly). It is the sub-lunar realm which has been my focus. What are some of the diversity of opinions on this among those at the time of the birth of Christianity?

youngalexander

We should require as many facts as there are. So, is that it? Are these the sum total of facts which may be marshaled for an HJ from Paul?

“to be a man, a Jew, born of a woman, descended from David, who ate dinner, spoke to a group, and was crucified and buried”

I am not going to argue these points. That has been done in exquisite detail on this board and elsewhere many times over. Most of us have by now come to a considered opinion and follow the current discussions in the hope that some fresh insight may emerge.

And yet it seems a trifle thin? What I find difficult to understand is why a person with Paul’s ambitions and conceits would not exercise the extent of his intellect in extolling his theological viewpoint and in combating his opponents. Yet he clearly pulls his punches re the substantive value of the historical reality of Jesus. Instead we are generally treated to a discourse from the OT.


Pardon! Is this not the point under dispute? Where is the evidence that Paul’s congregations were convinced that Jesus was human?


Well, if Paul knew ‘virtually nothing’ about Jesus, is it not at least possible that there was nothing to know?

We have all read heaps of stuff about what Paul supposedly does or does not think or believe. The truth is that none of us knows. We can only go by what he says, even tho we may differ upon what it means. The fact is that he says very little about an HJ, and that very little is decidedly contentious.

EarlDoherty

Don,

Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. One of the problems with your appeal to “Ocellus” (original or pseudo) was that you were unable to quote from him to illustrate your point. The brief description you give from the Internet Encyclopedia is not sufficient to support your claim. Yes, there is supra-lunar (incorruptible realm) and sub-lunar (corruptible), according to “Ocellus” and I do indeed agree that this is basically true. That’s simply an irreducible minimum, and no one would dispute it. But this basic description in no way rules out that something could go on in the upper atmosphere involving descending gods and demon spirits. Even if you could quote from the actual text of pseudo-Ocellus (and you will remember that we all did our best to dig up such a text, as quoted in the 5th cent CE Stobaeus, but were unsuccessful), I doubt that he would say anything which would support your claim. Certainly the language of the Encyclopedia does not serve that purpose:

Does Ocellus say that “generation and dissolution occurs” only on earth? I doubt it, since the realm of corruption starts at the moon and includes the aer/firmament. Are “non-essential beings” limited to humans? (Is this Ocellus’ language or the Encyclopedia’s?) Since the demons are banished to the sub-lunary, they engage in their activities within it; and they are hardly restricted to the surface of the earth. So there is nothing in your appeal to “Ocellus” which supports your contention that a descending god could not undergo suffering and death in the air/firmament, whether one wishes to label this a separate ‘dimension,’ ‘location,’ or not. In fact, the language of the Ascension of Isaiah 7 conveys exactly that. Nor am I aware of any other Middle Platonic writer who describes the universe, or the sublunary realm in particular, in such a way as to preclude it either. So your appeal to “Ocellus” was indeed misguided, if not disingenuous.

Nor are you (or Didymus, or anyone else) able to demonstrate from anyone’s writings that all savior god mythology was looked upon either as “primordial” (having taken place on earth in a ‘non-historical’ past) or “allegorical.” The former, as I have said many times, was the earlier, more primitive way of viewing such things, and it no doubt survived in some ways in the language and thinking of the turn of the era; we don’t have enough writings on the subject to understand this clearly. But my Appendix 6 in The Jesus Puzzle (“The location of the myths of the savior gods”) demonstrates that most if not all of the surviving material indicates that the thinking had swung to a Platonic setting, that such mythical activities were envisioned as taking place in an upper, spiritual world. The layered universe replaced the sacred past. You have offered nothing to disprove this. Your basic objection to regarding the myth of Attis’ self-castration as ‘factual’ seems simply to be that you cannot envision a heavenly knife! As I have tried to point out many times, in this you are being entirely too literal, or imputing too much modern literalness to the ancient mind.

Didymus keeps going on about “lack of evidence”, but it is the entire thinking of the era which provides that evidence, or at least the setting within which texts can be read and have the meaning behind them understood. Paul’s one (authentic—I rule out 1 Thess. 2:15-16 as an interpolation, as most critical scholars do) reference to the crucifixion of Jesus which has any specificity of time, place or agency (and it is only the latter) is 1 Cor. 2:8, “rulers of this age”. Since most scholars agree that the phrase itself refers to the demon spirits, and since no human rulers are ever referred to by Paul or anyone else as “rulers of this age”, and since it would make no sense to think of Paul as characterizing Pilate or Caiaphas as being such things, rulers of the entire aiwn, that gives me a plus in my column, and none in yours. That plus is supported by the most straightforward interpretation of Ascension 9 (along with all the other echoes of descending god mythology inside and outside Christianity, including the hymn of Philippians 2). The standard contention that 2:8 refers to demons working through earthly figures cannot be shown by the texts themselves to be anything more than wishful speculation.

Whether Plutarch is big on allegory is secondary, since we cannot extend his thinking to everyone, including the devotee-on-the-street. (However, I intend to take a closer look at Plutarch per se in light of your recent contentions and Carrier’s own analysis.) But can we realistically think that all these savior god myths were looked upon simply as allegory, and nothing else? I recently asked you if you thought the priests of Attis would willingly castrate themselves if they regarded the myth as allegorical only. Just as we might ask whether Christian ascetics over the centuries would have physically punished themselves if they regarded the story of Jesus’ crucifixion as allegorical only. (Would Mel Gibson have made half a billion dollars on The Passion of the Christ if it were prefaced by a disclaimer that the depiction was simply an allegory?) Could countless numbers of devotees of the various savior deities have centered their lives and hopes on nothing more than allegories? Is Gnostic mythology of salvation processes nothing but allegory, the heavenly Pleroma of emanative generation of Aeons culminating in the Demiurge and the creation of the material world only symbolic?

If you had read my “Refutations” article, you would have seen that Goguel, in discussing the Ascension in conjunction with the Philippians hymn, makes this admission:

I don’t think such a myth would have been looked upon as allegorical.

The demand for cut and dried, literal ‘touch-it’ evidence can be misplaced. It would be nice, but it is not always needed. It can be inferred, deduced. The theory of Q lacks an extant witness, probably even an attestation (though Papias’ “Matthew” as a collection of sayings may be such, if only indirectly), but it can be demonstrated through internal evidence found in certain documents. I know that all the anti-Qers will object, but (a) mainstream and majority scholarship’s examination and deduction of the question have made a very good case for it (unlike their failure to use the same tools and demonstrate the existence of an HJ), and (b) the non-Q position is based on an even weaker ‘internal evidence’ process. The case for the Christ myth in the early documents is supported by inference and deduction of a much wider nature, and Didymus’ smugness about ‘lack of evidence’ only illustrates his own failure of imagination.

And by the way, one must not overlook that part of the case for the Christ Myth is a default one. That is, mythicism’s case and evidence entails two sides to the coin. Much of it is devoted to demonstrating that the early evidence (especially the "positive" type, as in my analysis of the epistles) indicates there was no historical Jesus involved in such a movement; and where the Gospels are concerned, it shows that nothing of the Gospel content can be shown to be based on history (but rather on midrash and echoes of wider savior god myth). In that absence, the mythicist reading of Paul & Co. becomes even more compelling and inevitable.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I guess that means I can't put you down for a copy?

But seriously, I wasn't trying to solicit advance orders, just general opinions about such a publication, whether anyone thought there might be a use for such a thing. I'm not surprised at your reaction, Rick, but there are others who might have a different opinion, or use, for a compendium of material from the Jesus Puzzle website. (And there would be some new material involved.) On the other hand, there might not be. That's what I'm trying to decide, before risking even someone else's money.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

jgibson000

You have stated this before, largely, it appears, on the basis of a statement in Ellingworth's (and Hatton's) first edition of his translator's handbook on 1 Cor. But as Ellingworth and Hatton themselves now note, this simply ain't so.

In the ἄρχοντες as "human rulers" camp, there's not only Wesley Carr, who has demonstrated in his “The rulers of this age_1 Corinthians 2.6–8,” (New Testament Studies 23.20–35) (1) that in the NT references to any supernatural dimension use the singular ὁ ἄρχων (e.g., John 12:31) not the plural ἄρχοντες; (2) that ἄρχοντες, rulers (in the plural), always is used in the NT of human political rulers, especially in relation to the crucifixion (e.g., Luke 23:14, 35; 24:20; Acts 3:17; 4:8, 25; 13:27); (3) that there is no evidence of any kind, either in Jewish or Christian writings until the second century, that the term was used of demons; and (4) that even to the Corinthians, “the word ἄρχοντες would have conveyed … no immediate demonic sense, unless we first assume that the Corinthian Christians were under some gnostic influence in which the word had become a technical term” (for which there is absolutely no evidence).


There is also J. Schniewind and G. Miller, Heinrici (1880), Findlay (1900), Robertson and Plummer (1911), Parry (1916), Bachmann (1936), Grosheide (1954), T. Ling (1956), W. J. P. Boyd (1957), Morris (1958), Munck (1959), Feuillet (1963), Thrall (1965), Bruce (1971), Miller (1972), M. Pesce’ (1977) Davis (1984), Fee (1987), Strobel (1989), Kistemaker (1993,) Lang (1994), Witherington (1995), Wolf (1996), Hays (1997), and Horsley (1998)

And N.B. even the majority of those scholars who think that the ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου that Paul mentions are not human, do not believe, as you say they do, that these ἄρχοντες are demons.

I've shown previously how you and Ted Hoffman have mis-represented Hering (1948) on this score. But see also such advocates of the non human ἄρχοντες view as Dibelius (1909), Weiss (1910), Lietzmann (1933), Delling (1933), Moffatt (1938), Knox (1939), Craig (1953), Bultmann (1952), Wendland (1956), Wilckens (1959), Barrett (1968), Conzelmann (1969), Senft (1979), Merk (1980), and Schrage (1991).

So I think your claim is as uninformed as it is bogus.

You'll have to tell that to the majority of the Greek fathers (not to mention Calvin) who, as Thiselton (The First Epistle to the Corinthians : A Commentary on the Greek Text (or via: amazon.co.uk)) notes, do just this -- that is to say, use the phrase ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου to refer to, and interpret it as meaning, political rulers who shape the present world order. See e.g. Tertullian, Against Marcion, 5:6. Origen, Commentary, sect. ix, lines 14–15, and especially Chrysostom, who notes (Hom. 1 Cor., 7:1) that “By ‘the rulers of the world’, here, he [Paul] means not certain demons, as some suspect, but those in authority, those in power … philosophers, rhetoricians … leaders of the people.

It doesn't? Then, leaving aside the fact that you assume what needs to be proved when you claim that the expression ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου means "rulers of the entire aiwn", that you may be arguing an irrelevant thesis and putting forth a red hering, and that your claim here is based in an questionable and unexamined criterion of "sense" that in the end seems to be based in personal incredulity -- perhaps you'll not only (1) explain how this is so to Grosheide, who notes (Commentary, 63) that AIWN TOUTO means "this world order" and that by ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου Paul "has in mind both "magistrates" and all those other earthly rulesrs who "set the pattern of this world”, but (2) give an account of why it is that Tertullian, Chrysostom and other Greek fathers saw no difficulty whatsover in thinking that Paul could, would and did characterize those humans who crucified Jesus as "being" ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου.

If you say so Earl.

Staightforward according to whom?

Right.



Jeffrey Gibson

Toto

Er, could you provide a little bit more detail? Say, the title of the book, or perhaps a link to a bibliography?

jgibson000

I'm tempted to tell you ask Earl, since in the light of what I assume he means us to see as an authoritative (and therefore well informed) pronouncement on his part about what the majority of scholars accept and believe, he must be intimately familiar with this data, has it close to hand, and be capable of giving what you ask for.

Otherwise how would/could he know what he claims to know, let alone that we shopuld take his word seriously and as something that is as accurate as it is true?

But in the off chance that none of this is the case, here is "a little bit more detail".

(For full bibliographical details of works by any of the authors I mentioned and whom I haven't already discussed and cited in IIDB threads on 1 Cor. 2:6-8 and on the meaning of ἄρχοντες and ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου [Ling, Boyd, Hering] -- as well as a few other studies on the issue -- see below).

Jeffrey

Dibelius, Die Geistwelt im Glauben des Paulus; Lietzmann, An die Korinther, 11–12; Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, 53–57; Moffatt, First Epistle, 29–30; C. T. Craig, “ἄρχων,” IB, 10:37–38; Wendland, Die Briefe, 27–28; Barrett, First Epistle, 70; Bultmann Theology of the NT, 1:174–75; Schrage, Der erste Brief, 250; Wilckens, Weisheit und Torheit, 52–96; Merk, “ἄρχων,” EDNT, 1:167–68; Collins, First Cor, 129

Findlay, Expositor’s Greek Testament, 2:778; Robertson and Plummer, First Epistle, 36–37; Grosheide, Commentary, 63 Thrall, 1 Corinthians, 25; A. Feuillet, “Les ‘Chefs de ce siècle’ et la sagesse divine d’après 1 Cor. 2:6–8,” in Studiorum Paulinorum Congressus Internationalis Catholicus 1961, 1:383–93; Le Christ, Sagesse de Dieu 1968), 37–57; Bruce, 1 Corinthians, 38; Davis, Wisdom and Spirit, 87–92; Fee, First Epistle, 104; Kistemaker, 1 Corinthians, 80; Witherington, Conflict and Community, 127; Lang, Die Briefe, 42–43; Strobel, Der erste Brief, 65–66; Wolff, Der erste Brief, 53; Hays, 1 Cor, 43; Horsley, 1 Cor, 58.

These and more works on Rulers of this world order

Arnold, C. F., Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

Caird, George B., Principalities and Power (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956).

Carr, A. Wesley, Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “hai archai kai hai exousiai,” SNTSMS 42 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981).
———, “The Rulers of This Age — 1 Cor. ii:6–8,” NTS 23 (1976): 20–35.

Cullmann, Oscar, Christ and Time (Eng. trans., London: SCM, 1951), 191–201.

Dibelius, Martin, Die Geistwelt im Glauben des Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909).

Elliott, Neil, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1994), 114–24, “Paul and ‘the Power.’ ”

Feuillet, A., “Les ‘Chefs de ce siècle’ et la sagesse divine d’après 1 Cor 2:6–8,” in Studiorum Paulinorum Congressus Internationalis Catholicus 1961 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963), 383–93.

Hanson, A. T., “The Conquest of the Powers,” in Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology (London: SPCK, 1974), 1–12.

Kovacs, Judith, “The Archons, the Spirit, and the Death of Christ: Do We Really Need the Hypothesis of Gnostic Opponents to Explain 1 Cor. 2:2–16?” in Joel Marcus and Marion L. Soards (eds.), Apocalyptic in the NT: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, JSNTSS 24 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 217–36.

MacGregor, G. H. C., “Principalities and Power: “The Cosmic Background of St Paul’s Thought,” NTS 1 (1954): 17–28.

Miller, G., “Ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος — A New Look at 1 Cor. 2:6–8,” JBL 91 (1972): 522–28.

Morrison, Clinton D., The Powers That Be (London: SCM, 1960).

Newman, C. C., Paul’s Glory Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric, NovTSup 69 (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

Niebuhr, Reinhold, Moral Man and Immoral Society (London: SCM, 1963 [1932]).

Schniewind, J., “Die Archontes dieses Äons, 1 Kor 2:6–8,” in E. Kähler (ed.), Nachgelassene Reden und Aufsätze (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1952).

Scroggs, Robin, “Paul: Σοφός and πνευματικός,” NTS 14 (1967–68): 33–55.
Theissen, Gerd, Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology (Eng. trans., Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1987), 374–78 (cf. 368–74).

Whiteley, D. E. H., The Theology of St Paul (Oxford: Blackwell, 2d ed. 1974), 23–31, 283–86.

Wilckens, Ulrich, Weisheit und Torheit (Tübingen: Mohr, 1959), 52–96.
———, “Zu 1 Kor. 2:1–16,” in C. Andersen and G. Klein (eds.), Theologia Crucis — Signum Crucis: Festschrift für Erich Dinkler (Tübingen: Mohr, 1979), 501–37.

Wink, Walter, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).
———, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the NT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).
———, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986).