Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 02-12-2013, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

I understand the Eucharist as continually repeating the sacrifice of Christ's blood in the heavens. Earl, you have Church history and practice supporting you!

The Church continually muddles the past and the present, and the future.

What Church??? The Church of Doherty!!!

The Last Supper happened on earth according to the Teachings of the Church.

Luke 22

Quote:

17And he took the cup, and gave thanks , and said , Take this, and divide it among yourselves:

18For I say unto you , I willnot drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come .

19And he took bread, and gave thanks , and brake it, and gave unto them, saying , This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

20Likewise also the cup after supper , saying , This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

21But, behold , the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.

.

TedM · 02-13-2013, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Too many problems here, Ted. First of all., any role of Jesus as High Priest in the continuing present can relate only to his duty of intercession. Where Jesus is concerned, intercession is not performed through an act of sacrifice, or even of “offering”....

Thanks. I"m too swamped to think through your response until perhaps this weekend. Ted

Clivedurdle · 02-13-2013, 06:59 AM

AA - quote mining!

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...24&version=KJV

Quote:

And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

24 And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

aa5874 · 02-13-2013, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

AA - quote mining!

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...24&version=KJV

Quote:

And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

19 And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

24 And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

Your post has nothing to do with your original claim that you understand the Eucharist as continually repeating the sacrifice of Christ's blood in the heavens.

Luke 24 is about the resurrection and post-resurrection visits by Jesus in Jerusalem.

Bernard Muller · 02-13-2013, 11:20 AM

Emphasis mine

to Maryhelena,

Quote:

'Truth' does not need to be supported by intimidation and bullying tactics. 'Truth', as the saying goes, will out.

Yes, Maryhelena, that's very true. Unfortunatly that's a big part of Doherty's methodology against his opponents.
Another one is to have the last word, so he can claim to have refutted successfully his opponents.
He also have a tendency not to address replies which are hard to reject. Instead, he jumps on errors, mistakes, out of line remarks and ignores the rest. Now, he is resorting to a musical piece in order to ridicule his opponents:

Quote:

The group of five flutes are Bernard, AA, Jake, Roo and Maryhelena, repeatedly supplying the same inadequate and failed answers (or rather, answer, since it all seems to boil down to the same thing), only with each repetition they seem to be losing their cool in empty rhetoric.

Wishful thinking. Despite Doherty's personal attacks against me, I am not loosing my cool in empty rhetoric. But I am sure that's what Doherty wishes. Furthermore, I just do not see why I am put in the same bag that the others, when I do not necessarily share their arguments, viewpoints or tactics.
And since when one of the debater is also the judge? From my side, Doherty is also prone of "inadequate and failed answers" (that is if he does answer).

BTW, I am still waiting for answers on 2:14-17 and 5:7a, more so 2:17a, "Wherefore it behoved [was necessary for] him in all things to be made like to [his] brethren," (DBY) where Doherty thinks "in all things" allows the blood & flesh of the brethen and Jesus to be very different (real for the brethen, spiritual for Jesus).

And on one important post of mine, where I was bringing out new points, I got this "almost no answer":
"I've been over all this, Bernard, both in my book and in previous discussions here. A passage is quite capable of referring to events or situations in more than one time frame. I've explained that the present tense in the opening verse of ch.8 does not preclude him moving to a subsequent focus on a past tense. I am not going to go through it all again."

Doherty has been accusing me to be atomistic. Well, from early on, I asked Doherty to comment on my views for 7:14, 2:14-17 and 5:7, in order to clarify 8:4a. I finally got a partial reply, but not earlier than yesterday. I wanted to see a bigger picture, but Doherty did not want to, apparently.
Very often he makes his points from only one word. And in the case of 8:3b, a very important point of his was based on the tense of a verb which does not exist in the Greek. In another case, he used a faulty NEB translation in order to deduct that Jesus' blood & sacrifice were spiritual.

Doherty wrote:
"Like I have said, Bernard thinks things through, and drills down into the text, to a depth of about a quarter of an inch."
I do not think this mainly illiterate audience were drilling as deep as Doherty in order to conclude, through biased interpretations, what Doherty found in the depth of the texts.

I want to conclude with some comments by GR Gaudreau on JesusMysteries:
"I've been thinking a lot about Occam's Razor lately, and when I see all of
the complicated twists and turns some have to take to explain why Jesus
didn't exist, it just sours the cream for me."

Cordially, Bernard

andrewcriddle · 02-13-2013, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grog

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Hi Grog

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking but I'll try and answer.

The Apocryphon of John in its present form is a post-resurrection revelation by Christ to the apostle John hence it is Christian influenced. It is possible that this framework is a later addition and that the original form of this work had no Christian elements. However as a work of Sethian gnosticism it is unlikely to be before 70 CE and hence it is post-Christian even if possibly independent of Christianity.

The Paraphrase of Shem is probably in dialogue with Christian groups which it attacks for their practice of water baptism. In any case it is almost certainly after 150 CE, its parallels are with Numenius the Chaldaean oracles and Bardesanes. Basically its background is very late Middle Platonism.

The Apocalypse of Adam may or may not have Christian elements I'm not sure. It is a work of Sethian gnosticism and, given its apparent reference to Mithras' birth from the rock, 2nd century CE in its present form.

Andrew Criddle

Thank you, Andrew.

I think your dating is assumption laden. What I have read on the Apocalypse of Adam is that it is 1st or 2nd CE. You only mention 2nd CE. You can see two references at earlychritianwritings, McRae and Charlesworth. Parrott states that a ""first century C.E. date would not be surprising." Parrott also says, "scholarship now generally adopt[s] the view Apoc. Adam is non-Christian, although secondary Christian touches are not denied. Whether it is also pre-Christian remains undecided."

Now my question referred to whether or not we can sort out if works like this are evidence of emerging Christian beliefs. Scott Carroll wrote (while adopting a post-Christian view) that Apoc Adam, if pre-Christian would be evidence of a pre-Christian redeemer myth. Can't this all be seen as part of an evolutionary trajectory? Thus my question about pre- and proto- Christians. If Christianity did not emerge with a crucified founder figure but rather evolved out of pre-existent beliefs, one would expect to find evidence of pre-Christian beliefs that were not quite christian. Apoc Adam would be one of those, presumably. But how do we sort all of that out?

A date before 70 CE for the Apocalypse of Adam is unlikely in terms of the history of Sethian gnosis. (If you want to suggest a plausible scenario before 70 CE for the radical rewriting of Genesis found in the Sethian tradition then please elaborate.)

In general a date in the very late 1st century CE would be plausible but we have the reference

Quote:

And the eighth kingdom says of him that a cloud came upon the earth and enveloped a rock. He came from it. The angels who were above the cloud nourished him. He received glory and power there. And thus he came to the water.

This is widely thought to be a reference to the birth of Mithras from the rock. If so then familiarity with this tradition probably requires a date after the 1st century.

There is a discussion by Roger Pearse mithras-in-the-apocalypse-of-adam Roger is dubious about whether this is a definite reference to Mithras, but agrees that if it does refer to Mithras then it requires a later date for the AofA.

Andrew Criddle

maryhelena · 02-13-2013, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernard Muller

Emphasis mine

to Maryhelena,

Quote:

'Truth' does not need to be supported by intimidation and bullying tactics. 'Truth', as the saying goes, will out.

Yes, Maryhelena, that's very true. Unfortunatly that's a big part of Doherty's methodology against his opponents.
Another one is to have the last word, so he can claim to have refutted successfully his opponents.

Hi, Bernard

Don't forget the last little bit I added to that truism:

'Truth', as the saying goes, will out. It is errors of judgement that require all of the haughty display of 'right' that their misguided proponents can marshal.

There may be many things in life that require one to put up a 'fight' - but an interpretation of a scriptural verse is not one of them.....

Quote:

He also have a tendency not to address replies which are hard to reject. Instead, he jumps on errors, mistakes, out of line remarks and ignores the rest. Now, he is resorting to a musical piece in order to ridicule his opponents:

Quote:

The group of five flutes are Bernard, AA, Jake, Roo and Maryhelena, repeatedly supplying the same inadequate and failed answers (or rather, answer, since it all seems to boil down to the same thing), only with each repetition they seem to be losing their cool in empty rhetoric.

:boohoo::boohoo::boohoo::boohoo::boohoo:

Quote:

Wishful thinking. Despite Doherty's personal attacks against me, I am not loosing my cool in empty rhetoric. But I am sure that's what Doherty wishes.

Indeed, Bernard, keeping your cool is indeed commendable...:thumbs:

Quote:

Furthermore, I just do not see why I am put in the same bag that the others, when I do not necessarily share their arguments, viewpoints or tactics.

It looks like it's all the same to Doherty - question his theories and you get lumped with everyone else....

Quote:

And since when one of the debater is also the judge?

When it's a 'debate' with Doherty.....

Quote:

From my side, Doherty is also prone of "inadequate and failed answers" (that is if he does answer).

BTW, I am still waiting for answers on 2:14-17 and 5:7a, more so 2:17a, "Wherefore it behoved [was necessary for] him in all things to be made like to [his] brethren," (DBY) where Doherty thinks "in all things" allows the blood & flesh of the brethen and Jesus to be very different (real for the brethen, spiritual for Jesus).

And on one important post of mine, where I was bringing out new points, I got this "almost no answer":
"I've been over all this, Bernard, both in my book and in previous discussions here. A passage is quite capable of referring to events or situations in more than one time frame. I've explained that the present tense in the opening verse of ch.8 does not preclude him moving to a subsequent focus on a past tense. I am not going to go through it all again."

Doherty has been accusing me to be atomistic. Well, from early on, I asked Doherty to comment on my views for 7:14, 2:14-17 and 5:7, in order to clarify 8:4a. I finally got a partial reply, but not earlier than yesterday. I wanted to see a bigger picture, but Doherty did not want to, apparently.
Very often he makes his points from only one word. And in the case of 8:3b, a very important point of his was based on the tense of a verb which does not exist in the Greek. In another case, he used a faulty NEB translation in order to deduct that Jesus' blood & sacrifice were spiritual.

Doherty wrote:
"Like I have said, Bernard thinks things through, and drills down into the text, to a depth of about a quarter of an inch."
I do not think this mainly illiterate audience were drilling as deep as Doherty in order to conclude, through biased interpretations, what Doherty found in the depth of the texts.

Bernard, my opinion is that debate with Doherty is futile. His theories have become, in my view, the Fundamentalist version of the ahistoricist/mythicist position. It's that simple.

Quote:

I want to conclude with some comments by GR Gaudreau on JesusMysteries:
"I've been thinking a lot about Occam's Razor lately, and when I see all of
the complicated twists and turns some have to take to explain why Jesus
didn't exist, it just sours the cream for me."

Cordially, Bernard

Yes, I saw that quote on JesusMysteries. It's very sad that what should be an invigorating and exhilarating time, for the ahistoricist/mythicist position, has been so badly compromised by Doherty's Fundamentalist theories.

Bernard, I've never been influenced by Doherty's theories. I've always found them to be inadequate as a 'solution' to NT questions. Particularly so in regard to the gospel story. I've been in the ahistoricst/mythicist camp for something like 30 years now - never had any need for Doherty's theories - and don't need them now.

The ahistoricist/mythicist position has to be open-ended. It can't become a dogmatic, closed-shop, Fundamentalist position. One can't prove from the NT that it's Jesus figure did not exist historically - or that this figure did live historically. That cannot be done. What one can do is take either position and see how far it takes one; takes one to a more comprehensive understanding of early christian origins. That is the only goal that has some potential. The historicist/ahistoricist JC debate, based as it has been on interpreting the NT texts, cannot be settled either way.

It is my opinion that taking the ahistoricist position, on the gospel JC, has far more potential to achieve a better understanding of early christian origins than the opposite position, the JC historicist position. That position is a dead-end - it is what it is - it has no potential for forward movement in the search for early christian origins. And that is the goal here; the search for early christian origins. Why? Because it is good to know the origins of what is a major player in our Western culture. A Western culture that, today, necessitates some serious rethinking of it's social/political theories....

(That the historicist JC will get knocked down from its pedestal is a side issue - not the main objective. However important that issue also is in the wider scheme of things.....)

Bernard, I can sympathies with you re trying to get your own views across to Doherty, i.e trying to get him to consider the other side of the coin, so to speak. Sadly, Doherty can't seem to grasp that in regard to Heb.8:4, that there are two sides to this coin. Past and Present sense. Both contexts, the Past and the Present, need to be accommodated in an interpretation of this verse. Thus, while Doherty has a point re the Past tense - you have a point re the Present tense. It's not going to be beneficial to the text, or to Hebrews, to have to choose between these two contexts.

That's why I quoted above from Philo:

Quote:

Philo: Allegorical Interpretation, II

Now the heavenly man, as being born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earthlike essence. But the earthly man is made of loose material, which he calls a lump of clay.

Hoffmann:

Quote:

There is no doubt at all that there is a is a mythical Jesus, and we already know where to find him. My point is simply that the plausible Jesus of the gospels is not that figure. This is where the process begins.

http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com...h-about-jesus/

Or to rephrase Hoffmann: There is a spiritual Jesus and there is a mythological Jesus. One is placed on the earth and the other is placed in heaven. With, at times, an overlap between them. Two interconnected entities that retain their core differences. Although the focus is on the heavenly Jesus, Hebrews also relates to a Jesus on earth. Indicating, of course, that the writer of Hebrews is aware of that gospel Jesus story.

And that, Bernard, is an example of what the ahistoricst JC position can accomplish. There are two Jesus figures in the NT. An earthly man (albeit a mythological earthly man, a literary created earthly man) and a spiritual, heavenly man. That position allows some logic, some sense, to be credited to the NT story. The NT is not a story about magic tricks re being physically brought back from the dead and beamed up to heaven. It is a story about two aspects, two elements of our human nature: matter and mind, body and spirit. Two completely different, non shape-shifting, contexts - but two contexts that are interconnected. And, of course, plenty of scope with that basic image of human nature to allow for all sorts of allegorical, mythical or theological/philosophical stories to be created....

Yes, Bernard, there is history involved with the gospel story. But it is not a history of its JC created literary figure. That JC figure reflects history, it reflects elements from the life stories of historical figures: it is a composite figure - it is not a historical figure.

aa5874 · 02-13-2013, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

...Yes, Bernard, there is history involved with the gospel story. But it is not a history of its JC created literary figure. That JC figure reflects history, it reflects elements from the life stories of historical figures: it is a composite figure - it is not a historical figure.

The JC figure does not reflect history. We have the stories of Jesus in existing Codices.

The JC figure reflects Mythology.

We have the mythological conception and birth of Jesus.

We have the mythological activities of Jesus.

We have the mythological resurrection of Jesus.

We have the mythological ascension of Jesus.

The Jesus stories were fabricated in the 2nd century or later and falsely attributed to fictitious characters like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

maryhelena · 02-13-2013, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

...Yes, Bernard, there is history involved with the gospel story. But it is not a history of its JC created literary figure. That JC figure reflects history, it reflects elements from the life stories of historical figures: it is a composite figure - it is not a historical figure.

The JC figure does not reflect history. We have the stories of Jesus in existing Codices.

The JC figure reflects Mythology.

We have the mythological conception and birth of Jesus.

We have the mythological activities of Jesus.

We have the mythological resurrection of Jesus.

We have the mythological ascension of Jesus.

The Jesus stories were fabricated in the 2nd century or later and falsely attributed to fictitious characters like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And that position, aa, is a dead-end approach to the NT story. It has no forward movement. It does nothing for advancing a search for early christian origins.

aa5874 · 02-13-2013, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

...Yes, Bernard, there is history involved with the gospel story. But it is not a history of its JC created literary figure. That JC figure reflects history, it reflects elements from the life stories of historical figures: it is a composite figure - it is not a historical figure.

The JC figure does not reflect history. We have the stories of Jesus in existing Codices.

The JC figure reflects Mythology.

We have the mythological conception and birth of Jesus.

We have the mythological activities of Jesus.

We have the mythological resurrection of Jesus.

We have the mythological ascension of Jesus.

The Jesus stories were fabricated in the 2nd century or later and falsely attributed to fictitious characters like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And that position, aa, is a dead-end approach to the NT story. It has no forward movement. It does nothing for advancing a search for early christian origins.

What??? You cannot be serious.

It is actual evidence--actual existing written statements in the Codices, NT manuscripts and relevant sources that must, must, must be used to resolve the question of the historicity of Jesus and the start of the Jesus cult.

We have the evidence. The matter is resolved.

The Jesus character was a Myth and the Jesus cult originated in the 2nd century.

It is your approach that is a dead end. You are still at the very same position for years and counting.

Hebrews and the Entire Canon are products of the 2nd century or later.

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