maryhelena

:lol:

jakejonesiv

Hi GakuseiDon,


No, I am not accepting a Christian apologetics reading for those passages.

Perhaps I didn't explain myself properly or you did not understand what I wrote properly. I indicated that Phil 2:5 ff can be interpreted to indicate a heavenly origin.

The Redeemer in Phil chapter 2 is not a man in the image of god, but a divine being in the semblance and appearance, but not actually, a man. My interpretation? No, but the one espoused by the Marcionite sect as the basis of their Docetic doctrine.

Again, we find that Marcionite exegesis is the ealiest we have record, neccesarliy preceding Tertullian's rebutal. So please don't come at me with the Christian apologetics angle.

Jake

archibald

I didn't mean to imply which of you is more likely to be correct.




Pushed for time today. Will read your other postings later.

aa5874

That is EXACTLY what has been attempted to be answered OVER 1700 years ago but WITHOUT success.

Celsus "True Discourse" was one of the first documented argument for an "historical Jesus"---a NON-DIVINE Jesus.

Amazingly, Celsus did NOT use Josephus, Tacitus or any PUBLIC records at all to argue for the Historical Jesus--the NON-DIVINE Jesus.

Based on Origen, Celsus only had rumors about Jesus and that he was the son of a soldier named Panthera but Celsus had NOTHING historical at all.

See "Against Celsus" attributed to Origen for excerpts of "True Discourse" the first documented argument for the "historical-non-divine Jesus".

Celsus UTTERLY failed to provide any public records or credible writers for his Historical non-Divine Jesus ONLY rumors.

Incredibly, it would appear that ALL PUBLIC records of an Historical Jesus had disappeared in the 2nd century even while the Jesus cult supposedly had MULTIPLE texts of the SAYINGS and DEEDS of their Divine Jesus.

gurugeorge

I was just reading the Celsus stuff recently, and what interested me most was that what Celsus seemed to be doing was presenting an argument between a Jew and a Christian, and in effect showing (as it were) that "they're as bad as each other".

And actually, the "historical" question only crops up wrt the way the Jewish "voice" is arguing against the Christian "Jesus" by trying to cut him down to size (bastard son of a Roman soldier).

But when Celsus' own voice (according to Origen) comes in, he's purely arguing about the nobility or ignobility of the doctrines in themselves, the validity of the ideals that their respective religions represent, and doesn't really care about the historical issue one way or another. Celsus seems happy to accept either the Jewish or the Christian position re. Jesus on their own terms, but regardless, is more interested in showing the nobility of his own way, in comparison with the ignobility of the other two - "noble/ignoble" here being construed as Nietzsche would have spoken in those terms. (Celsus is a "hard" man and has little sympathy for the broken, the malformed, the poor, etc.)

Another hugely interesting thing is that he seems to put Christianity as a "mystery" on a par with others - not necessarily big M, but perhaps in a more generalized sense.

And the third, and not least intersting thing, is that Celsus seems to casually accept the validity of a kind of reincarnation.

aa5874

That is NOT so at all.

Celsus is arguing that Jesus was an ordinary man, non-divine man born of a soldier called Panthera.

""Against Celsus" 1.69 It is CLEAR that Celsus is making an argument for an "historical non-divine Jesus"

But, Nowhere does Celsus use any PUBLIC records, Josephus, Tacitus or Pliny to show that Jesus did indeed exist.

So, WITHIN a hundred years or so DOCUMENTED RECORDS of an historical Jesus were ALREADY not used by Celsus even though apologetic sources supposedly had MANY, MANY books about his Divinity.

Nothing has changed for the last 1700 years there is just no EVIDENCE at all for an "historical non-divine Jesus".

Within a hundred years or so if Jesus did LIVE ALL documented records of his existence was ALREADY LOST to Celsus.

GakuseiDon

That's an interesting perspective, George. It makes me want to reread Origen now. That why I still come to FRDB!

GakuseiDon

I honestly don't see how you can say you aren't accepting a Christian apologetic reading... by then quoting a Christian apologist like Origen.

By the time of Origen, Jesus was assumed to have been the pre-existent Son of God. So he would naturally interpret this to mean a heavenly origin.

Same comment. The Marcionites also believed that Jesus descended from heaven, so would interpret things that way. As would a Doherty, who requires a high Christology to match his theory.

But Paul doesn't say that. Here is the passage in full. Phil 2:6-11 is generally regarded as a pre-Pauline hymn, so I will separate that out so we can ignore it for the moment:

Phil2:3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,

6 Who:

being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing,
15 that you may become blameless and harmless, the sons of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world...

Paul is using Christ as an example for unselfish behaviour here, and invokes the hymn to do this. Christ was obedient, and was exalted for it. That seems to be the point that Paul is making here. It isn't a theological statement about the origin of Christ.

As I wrote before, being "in the form of God" mirrors the idea that man is made in the image of God; "did not grasp at being equal with God" suggests Gen 3:22, where God says that "Behold, the man is become as one of us" after Adam disobeys God and takes of the fruit of the tree. I think it has to do with the office of "Messiah". The Christ was expected as being more than a man. He was going to be a warrior, or a king, or a high priest. But instead he came as a servant, obedient to God, and was thus exalted.

In short: reading a heavenly origin into the text is not an interpretation, it is an importation. Only those who require a high Christology -- your orthodox Christian apologist, your Marcionite and your Doherty -- will interpret things that way.

archibald

Hi Jake,

Due to lack of time this last couple of days, I have not had time to follow your exchanges on this item with GDon here on this thread in detail, and perhaps you are discussing something other than what I pick up from scanning them, so apologies if I get it wrong. :]

It seems you are debating the nature of Jesus' divine origins. As such, I'm not really sure how that would impact on any HJ/MJ debate, but as I say, perhaps that's not part of the discussion.

As an aside though, and in relation to the MJ/HJ thing, what I get, not for the first time, when I read that passage (above) is that it seems to indicate that there were those before Paul who did seem to think that Jesus had come, to earth, in the likeness of a man, who died on a cross. It doesn't say earth explicitly, of course, but, surely it strongly implies it (even if only for the word 'come'). For me, this fits entirely with everything that 'Paul' appears to be repeatedly saying in 'his' texts, and indeed here he is repeating an earlier source of it, apparently. But....doesn't it severely undermine certain forms of mythicist explanation, involving entirely different readings of Paul (to which I struggle to subscribe, for reasons given on previous occasions) including say, Doherty's? I believe Doherty also accepts that it may be a pre-Pauline. Am I missing something?

aa5874

Enough BS, Gakuseidon.

The LORD JESUS CHRIST was FROM HEAVEN.

1Cor 15:47 - Cut your crap, Gakuseidon.

Jesus was GOD in the Pauline writings.

Galatians 4:4 - The Pauline Jesus was NOT a man.

Galatians 1.1
Paul did NOT worship man as God.

Romans 1.25
I will NOT allow you to promote MIS-LEADING information when you should know that it was BLASPHEMY for Jews to worship men as Gods and that BLASPHEMY was punishable by DEATH in Hebrew Scripture.

It is MOST UNLIKELY that the Jesus stories were DERIVED from a publicly KNOWN blasphemer.

The Jesus stories are NO different from the MYTH Fables of the Greeks and Romans.

You should KNOW how ancients think.

You should know that ancients thought MARCION'S Phantom was a figure of history but still without birth and flesh.

You should know that Ancients thought Jesus was a CHILD of a Holy Ghost, God and the Creator.