CX

Your argument seems to belie the idea that a Greek/English Lexicon is equivalent to a Greek/English dictionary. It is not. "motion downwards" is not THE primary meaning, but a meaning. Words change throughout different periods and this is no less true (and perhaps moreso) of ancient Greek. Furthermore, we have very little in the way of attestation for Koine outside the New Testament save some mundane notes and financial records discovered at Oxyrhynchus. Which makes nailing down the meanings of words doubly difficult. That being said, unless we are a priori aiming to support a particular view, there is no reason whatever to choose "motion downwards" as the intended meaning of KATA in the phrase KATA SARKA. Additionally that it is used that way in classical texts (such as Herodotus or Plato) says nothing about what it meant in the Koine period. Lastly there is the quite reasonable supposition that KATA SARKA may have had some particular colloquial meaning which has since been lost. I am not being petty. I am raising a reasonable objection to a particular interpretation. That I also consider the idea of "sublunar realms" in the NT goofy is irrelevant to my argument.

Richard Carrier

I was asked to comment on the issue of kata. My time is limited, so I am only here to address that matter. First, it is quite right that Doherty's interpretation is not necessitated by the context, but merely consistent with it. So whether his interpretation is correct depends on the merits of his total theory. I explain this in my review, in particular why his theory works, but is not thereby proved. This holds for this issue as well as his theory as a whole, because the two are inexorably linked. In short, there is a difference between "It's possible" and "That's it!" The evidence is inadequate, IMO, to cross that line in the case of Doherty's theory (but neither is the evidence sufficient to eliminate "It's possible" either).

People here seem to not have read what I actually wrote so I include the most relevant material here (there is more, so be sure to read it all):

Now Haran asks:

Correct: and as I say in my review (see above), as far as I have seen, it always takes this meaning only in the context of citing authors, and thus has no semantic connection with how Christians are using (in fact, abusing) the word.

The reason kata Euripedes means "according to Euripedes" is that the Greek actually says "down in Euripedes" or "after Euripedes" (and hence "in the works of Euripedes") and it just so happens that in English we can say this with "according to Euripedes." But that is English, not Greek. The connotation of "according to" in referring to an author is radically different from its connotation in a sentence like "according to flesh." There is, to my knowledge, no basis in Greek for the latter connotation.

Indeed, "down in" or "after" or "in the works of" actually fits Doherty better: "in the works of Euripedes" and "in the works of flesh" would mean essentially the same thing in Greek, and that meaning is what Doherty has in mind, not what Christians have in mind. However note again what I say in my review: logically, what Christians have in mind is still compatible with what Doherty has in mind, since "descending to the realm of flesh" can mean becoming incarnate and living on earth, just as easily as it can mean descending to and incarnating in the sublunar heaven. So Doherty's translation, though more accurate, does not prove his theory. But it does support it, in a way that normal Christian translations inappropriately conceal.

Haran then notes:

The passage in question would most literally translate "after their species" or even more exactly "down into [different] species." In this context kata is a sorting word (you will find this connotation in a good lexicon). This doesn't help the Christian case, since Jesus is not being sorted into several different categories, but assigned to only one--and even if we accept a sorting into a single category, this does not help identify exactly what category is meant (i.e. even Doherty would agree that Jesus could be sorted into the category of the things of flesh).

Incidentally, kata does not mean "down from" with the accusative, but only with the genitive. It means "down to" or "down in" in the accusative (i.e. the opposite motion--this is in fact universal in Greek: the genitive is always the case of origin or separation, and the accusative is always the case of destination). So the noun that kata precedes is always the destination, not the origin, when it is in the accusative case. When it is thus used to refer to authors or laws, it is referring the reader to a destination: that law or author. Hence kata nomon means "down to the law," such that if I behave kata nomon I am behaving down to the point of the law and hence "according to the law." Likewise if I say to read the gospel kata Markan I am saying, "read the gospel down in Mark" or "down in the category of Mark" and hence "as told by Mark." Mark is the destination, of the reader's or author's attention, not the origin (again, grammatically speaking--obviously, logically, this destination is also an origin in another sense, but that is not the sense referred to by kata with the accusative).

Haran then says:

That's not true. Lexicons only discuss the meanings of kata, not every noun kata can be or has been joined with. So it is folly to expect to find any particular kata phrase in a lexicon--only example phrases appear there. So you can't rule out a translation simply because the lexicon did not include your phrase as one of the given examples.

In this case, the lexicon says "in the region of" is a valid translation (by extension from "down in the category of"), and gives this example: "the stars that happen to be in the region of the sun," which astronomically meant (at the time) the sphere of the sun, since the heavens were believed to be literally sorted into several layered spheres, which is the reason Doherty uses the culturally correct connotation of "region" as "sphere" in such a context, though you can replace the one with the other in his works without changing the meaning of anything he says. See: kata.

However, to conclude yet again: though it can mean this, it does not follow that it does mean this. We may never know for sure what Paul meant. But Doherty's theory is as plausible as any other--and, overall, more plausible than most. That still does not mean it has been proved true.

Rick Sumner

It's not true even beyond that:

A bigger problem for Doherty in general (though not for this specific instance, which, as you noted, may or may not be correct), is that he implies in his book and has stated outright on the JM list some time ago, that he thinks that kata sarka has no semantic range--that is, it always reads in the manner he's suggested. Given that he provides minimal support for the argument to being with (virtually his entire case is based on an appeal to Barrett), one can't help but observe what appears to be what Rand termed the "Stolen Concept Fallacy"--taking a conclusion while ignoring premises upon which it logically depends.

"Sphere of the flesh" is supposed to have a roughly equivalent semantic range to "kata sarka," hence the not infrequent usage of the phrase in lieu of the more standard translation of "according to the flesh." You don't get to take the interpretation and ignore the semantic range upon which the translation is logically dependent. With that in mind, it needs to be assessed what an author intended on a case by case basis.

Given that, Doherty's argument is, at best, lacking. It's among the most poorly defended positions in the entirety of his book. This is not to say that others have not stepped up in his stead to offer better reasons than those he provides, it's simply to say that his own reasons border on non-existent.

Does he show that it sometimes has that connotation? Sure. But, again, it needs to be argued on a case by case basis. It's not enough to say that "In situation X it had this meaning," when situation X isn't remotely analogous. If he's going to rely on analogy, he needs to find one referring to lineage, or at least to familial relations in general, else I'm left no reason to presume that I'm looking at uses of the phrase bearing the same intended meaning, and, despite Doherty, there can be little doubt that its possible meanings are vast.

Nor is it enough to appeal to Barrett who, as noted, is not supportive of Doherty's position. In the end, what we're left with is a great deal of positive evidence about the meaning of the phrase in this context, and very little grounds to presume that Paul meant anything other than what he always meant when he used the phrase as such. We don't get to call it an exception by fiat.

I can't help but think that Doherty would have been better off to suggest, a la Bultmann, that Paul was simply copying an earlier apostolic address. Subsequently, it could be suggested that we ultimately have no hope of knowing what exactly was meant. For what my own opinion is worth, that would be my position.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Haran

Perhaps you are correct. However, it would be interesting to submit such a phrase to the TLG software.

I'm not sure that the passage would "most literally translate 'after their species'". To be sure, there are translations that have it that way, but we shouldn't forget the Hebrew that underlies the translational Greek. It appears that here, and in other places, kata represents the Hebrew preposition le, which means to, toward, "belonging to", and "according to". I don't believe that "in the region of" is within the usual semantic domain of le, but I could be wrong. For instance, in Gen. 10:20, the JPS TaNaKh reads "according to their ... languages" for kata in the Greek and "le" in the Hebrew (which also makes me wonder why this translation is supposedly a Christian thing...and of course there is Josephus' use of kata sarka in Jewish War 2:155 which seems possibly somewhat similar to Paul from context).

It seems to me that Paul's usage of kata sarka could simply be "semitized Greek" meaning "according to" the flesh in contrast to the spirit.

You are correct. I misspoke.

Of course I know that lexicons do not discuss "every noun kata can be or has been joined with". My beef was with the use of "sphere". You have shown an example that others did not. However, is there any lexicon that specifically mentions "in the sphere of"? This translation seems to me to carry extra weight (ie. meaning) in English that is not necessitated by the Greek.

With respect to comments made by others earlier in the thread, this, IMO, is the crux.

flippant

So far it's pretty much about whatever I can get my hands on, and of course I'm cross-referent. There are a lot of resources to tap into. I'm slow at it but I'm getting the feeling with these particular projects that trudging along could be in my favor. I'm inspired by all the intentional (conjecture)misrepresentations. I'm looking at it from a data perspective rather than poetic-out of shock at how botched the English translations have become. Sometimes it's translated in a completely different person.....and missing content to boot.
This brings me to my own question- does anyone know for a fact that Aristotle used the word theo? All I've seen so far is a reference to a "divine fire". :huh:

ficino

Haran, nai, drepomai polu, idiaitera giati then diavasa ola ta minimata s'autin tin 'klwsti.' Then milousa apolutws sovara, alla...

Good answers on this thread, and much valuable fruit of research, everyone. Thanks for contributing to our understanding.

Flippant, I can't now find the original question about Aristotle. Do you mean, does he use the word "theos" for "god"? If that's your question, then, yes, relatively often: e.g. in the Metaphysics and De Anima, for starters. It's neat that he says in De Anima 402b7 that there is a different sort of soul of a horse, a dog, a human, a god. The adjective "theios", divine, is perhaps even more common in Ari. Plus lots of compounds with theo- as a prefix.

Ted Hoffman

Doherty's take. Noteworthy is his take on Carrier's "necessary" and Rick's argument that Doherty relies on Barrett, yet Barrett doesnt share Doherty's conclusions:

"First of all, Sumner says that I have implied, and even stated outright on JM, that _kata sarka_ always has to be read in the manner I suggest, presumably "in relation to" my discussion of Romans 1:3. I recall making no such statement or implication, and this is probably a case of those who don't agree with me tending to cast my claims "according to" the most negative interpretation. (I guess these phrases should be "kata" with the accusative. Even so, both do not have the same sort of meaning, which would suggest that Sumner's claim about me is erroneous.)

Although it's a little hard to follow Sumner's line of argument against me in that post, one of the things it boils down to is something I've encountered from others like him. Namely, that I appeal to a translation/meaning suggested by C. K. Barrett, but that somehow this sort of thing is dishonest because Barrett himself doesn't support the application that I use it to make. This is like saying that one scientist or researcher cannot make use of an opinion or evidentiary element from another if he is going to draw a different ultimate conclusion from it. That, of course, is nonsense.

To make matters worse, Sumner does exactly what he accuses me of being guilty of, when he says that there is "very little grounds to presume that Paul meant anything other than what he always meant when he used the phrase as such." Does every usage by Paul of _kata sarka_ mean exactly the same thing? Is it the same in Romans 1:3 as it is in 2 Cor. 5:16? Apologists are always claiming that 1:3 refers to "human descent in history". Is that what it means in 5:16? Again (though by coincidence), I have appealed to Barrett, as well as others such as the NEB translation, to interpret 5:16's _kata sarka_ as NOT being a reference to Christ's own presumed flesh, but to fleshly/earthly standards by which Christ, and others, are being measured. So all in all, it is not a case of trying to make an "exception by fiat" where key passages like Romans 1:3 and other sarka/sarki passages in the epistles are concerned, but of realizing that the phrase does enjoy a wide variety of meaning and application, and trying to sort them out in ways that allow for, or even support, the mythicist position.

If I interpret this thread correctly, there seems to be an objection to my use of _kata sarka_ in contexts like Romans 1:3 on the basis of meanings that involve motion, such as "down to" or "down from". Although the development of meanings for that preposition, within linguistic evolution, may indeed be based on original connotations of motion (as Carrier and others point out), that really should be left aside as needlessly esoteric, and we should just look at how the preposition is used in various ways during the time period in question. My focus was on _kata_ in those phrases meaning "in relation to", "in accordance with", "with respect to", etc. As we can see from Barrett's and the NEB's reading of 2 Cor. 5:16, the phrase "in relation to the flesh" does not have to spell out the nature of the flesh itself (or its location, or whatever) as much as some aspect of relationship.

Thus, my interpretation of _kata sarka_ in passages like Romans 1:3, does not have to address or involve (much less founder on) a direct meaning of moving down into the sublunary sphere, which one poster found "goofy". It simply has to mean, in general fashion, "in relation to the flesh or sphere of the flesh", and then we can postulate how Paul and other NT epistle writers may have envisioned this, within the context of philosophical and cosmological views during the period. I have suggested that those views are Middle Platonic in nature (involving a layered universe with ascending spheres of 'purity' of spirit with counterpart relationships between higher and lower, and so on). This doesn't have to mean Paul took a course in orthodox Middle Platonism and followed some kind of party line. Ideas were fluid (and always are), and could be influenced by other inputs.

The key question is this: if these early writers were working in this kind of philosophical context, and wanted to express the relationship between certain aspects of a spiritual Christ in the heavenly world acting on the earthly world through a counterpart relationship with it, what words would they have chosen? I suggest it might well be _kata sarka_ "in relation to the flesh." That's what was available and they pressed it into service. There is no denying, as Carrier has pointed out, that this is an odd phrase when one seeks to apply it to more orthodox understandings. The fact that such an oddity is universal, and appears in the absence of anything more specific about a life on earth, has to be given weight. It would be nice, as Carrier and others lament, if we could find other usages of such a phrase with my suggested meaning, elsewhere in the literature of the time. But this phraseology just might be unique to the early Christian milieu; or perhaps it wasn't, but we just don't have similar literature from those other areas that might have expressed themselves in similar fashion, namely the savior god mystery cults. They worked in a straitjacket of secrecy that Christianity never wore.

I have never claimed that my interpretation of _kata sarka_ (or at least, certain specific occurrences) is a "necessary" one, as Carrier points out. If it were that slam-dunk, we wouldn't be here. But Carrier is also correct in saying that the force of my interpretation is very much dependent on the merits of my total theory. But isn't that what it's all about, in this or any other context? If the elements of a theory as a whole cohere very well, if they support each other, if they have the most compelling meaning within that supportive context, then on the spectrum of "consistent...to...necessitated" one can place a given interpretation further along in one direction.
On what grounds can Sumner or anyone else claim that Paul and other writers could not have had a Platonic-type meaning in mind with some of their usages of _kata sarka_? That these writers are constantly referring to Christ's life in human flesh? That they place him in earthly settings? That Colossians 2:15 talks of Pilate and Calvary? That 1 Cor. 2:8's "rulers of this age" is held by no reputable scholars to refer to the demon spirits, or that Ephesians 6:12 doesn't focus on the cosmic struggle with the "rulers and spiritual powers in the heavens"? (Lest anyone miss it, such questions are facetious.) Scripture is pointed to in passages like Romans 16:25 as the source of knowledge about the long-hidden Jesus, several epistles say that God has "revealed" his Son in this final age, it is God who supplies the gospel Paul preaches, Christ is consistently portrayed as a mystical force with whom believers are joined in ritual ways, salvation theories of the age as reflected in the mystery cults involved linkages between flesh and spirit, between material and heavenly counterparts--in other words, relationships between the material and the spiritual, between humans and heavenly beings, between higher and lower worlds. Not only is the mythicist interpretation of _kata sarka_ "consistent with" the going philosophical and cosmological trends of thought, it is the only interpretation that fits and complements all the other expressions (and silences) we find in the early documents and in the wider world outside them. One might call it an argument to the best explanation (ABE).

Incidentally, it is the "in accordance with" meaning of _kata_ that I apply to the interpretation of 1 Cor. 15:3-4 and its "according to the scriptures". The orthodox interpretation is "in fulfilment of", but this is unsupported by anything else Paul says. No one ever compares scripture with historical events (the list of "seeings" are all visions of a spiritual being, just like Paul's in the list); scripture is the *source* ("according to") of these gospel doctrines (in the context of revelation, as Paul declares in Gal. 1:11-12), something these writers are constantly saying, and even Romans 1:3 tells us this outright: it is part of the gospel of God's son as found/announced/promised in the prophets, making my interpretation of _kata sarka_ in that passage something that fits hand in glove with all these elements of the total picture. (Keep in mind, that when one is advancing a new and radical theory, interpretations are always going to come up against the 'received' way of viewing things and to look more radical than they might really be. Continental drift looked pretty "goofy" in 1915.)

Carrier is careful to say that while _kata sarka_ *can* mean this, it does not follow that it *does* mean this. But this amounts to asking for laboratory science results. What I am suggesting is that taking the case as a whole (which Carrier advocates), the balance of probability does indeed point "down into" that direction. All I am asking of anyone is to have the courage to follow the "kata" and evaluate that balance of probability. Necessity or mathematical truth doesn't enter into it."

Rick Sumner

He observed on the JM list some time ago that when he saw kata sarka, he read something along the lines of "like flesh" or "related to flesh." Those aren't terms that have much in the way of semantic range. If he meant otherwise, then apologies for the misunderstanding. More troubling is the apparent crossed lines below, as it attributes to me a nonsensical point of view that bears no relation to what was actually said.

This isn't at all what I said, and has nothing to do with the "stolen concept" fallacy. The translation of kata sarka as "in the sphere of the flesh" is quite fine, which is something I noted above. Doherty certainly isn't lonely in his application of it, and it ultimately makes no difference whether we translate it as "in the sphere of the flesh" or not. It's quite fine because it has a roughly equivalent semantic range in English as kata sarka does in Greek, and thus using Barrett's translation has absolutely no bearing on what Paul means in Rom.1.3. Paul can mean "in the sphere of the flesh" in the literally incarnate sense just as easily as any other, and does so frequently. In the end we've simply taken one ambiguous Greek phrase, and replaced it with an ambiguous English phrase. Allowing the translation does nothing to help Doherty's argument one way or the other.

Using Barrett's argument to support different conclusions is not inherently fallacious. What I'd believed he was doing (above, regarding what appears to have been my misunderstanding) is using Barrett's conclusion but omitting Barrett's argument. Since it appears that this wasn't his intention, there should be no issue.

If we're in agreement that kata sarka has a very broad semantic range (Mounce suggests that "sarx" has among the broadest semantic ranges of all Greek words), then I would delight in seeing some reason to presume that Paul meant anything other than what he always meant when he was using kata sarka to refer to lineage. Context is everything, and when Paul uses the phrase in this context, it always means exactly the same thing. Since "in the sphere of the flesh" has such a broad semantic range, it needs to be argued based on the context. Thus far, it's fallen short of the mark. Even the sporadic arguments presented either [a] find analogy in weak parallels (the term has different meanings in different contexts, thus any analogy must be a strong one to hold up) or [b] ignore what Paul is saying in favor of an arbitrarily invented context (handled nicely by Jeffrey Gibson here) about the nature of Paul's "gospel."

Where's the meat? As much as I like hearing that such a translation may be "quite useful," I've yet to see any reason to believe it's more "useful" for the Jesus Myth than it is for an HJ. "Sphere of the flesh" works just dandy for either

Regards,
Rick Sumner

flippant

Yes, it was my question-
Thanks for the response there ficino , and maybe I can go find a complete Metaphysics somewhere.....My copy is mostly English translations- making it mostly irrelevant. efaristoh.....If someone could tell me how to do this without having to use my own version of phoenetics that would be peachy.

Andio,
Flippant

ficino

Dear Flippant,

If you go to Perseus

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

and click on the word Classics on the upper left of the home page, you eventually get to a menu of on-line texts of classical authors. You can do word searches, and you can type the Greek in transliteration through a little screen you can open up. Alternatively, you can go to the English translations on the same website and do word searches in English, find passages, and click on the Greek text to see what the Greek original is.

It's too complicated to try to explain how to do all this, but a person of only average computer literacy like myself was able to figure it out from their site.

another thing you can try: go to a library that has the Loeb Classical Library. That's a handy series because it has Greek or Latin on the left and English on the right. You can look up many words in the indices of various volumes of that series.

Kali epitichia (good success!)