Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 06-02-2013, 10:18 PM

typo page p. 47

"the Jewsih historian"

stephan huller · 06-02-2013, 10:20 PM

correct page reference needed on p. 50:

"(above, pp. )"

stephan huller · 06-02-2013, 10:27 PM

p. 54

Mankinds’ = Mankind's

also this typo a line or two later:

"in nature as they are historically unheDisciples' Prayerful"

stephan huller · 06-02-2013, 10:33 PM

p. 58 empty; scriptural reference need

"social status ( ),"

spin · 06-02-2013, 10:40 PM

Umm, Stephan, can you save up and post them all together, rather than at a dribble at a time?

stephan huller · 06-02-2013, 10:46 PM

p. 61

I am not sure you offer any evidence to support the idea that self-denial isn't supposed to be connected with asceticism. You just assert that it isn't. Not that it matters necessarily (I haven't gotten through to the end of the book). But I found this jarring because it goes against everything ever written on the subject without so much as a footnote or an argument.

I can see where you are going with this when you continue on to the next bullet (= greatness). I don't know if you can just leap over two thousand years of interpretation with just the wave of a hand. I don't even know if you need to. Isn't asceticism just the preparation for the kind of humility you suggest in the next section any way? Maybe you don't need to reject asceticism as much as arguing it is an exaggerated expression of what you are about to suggest (= keeping with in bounds the "self aggrandizement which such lordship allows.").

stephan huller · 06-02-2013, 10:48 PM

okay I will pool them together. But we know no one is going to say anything in the thread because people here won't read Jeffrey's book or any other book for that matter because it gets in the way of their own rigid notions. I felt free to do this because at least someone is taking this up. Just allow me one more (because that's how my brain works; I lack any disciple whatsoever). p. 67 - I couldn't help remember that Irenaeus's description of the Marcosian prayers speaks about a throne and 'the great ones' (megaloi). I never made the connection with Matthew before. But in this case the megaloi are clearly angels. That's the one comment I have half way through the book. Gibson seems to be ignoring the mystical interpretation of the material (i.e. throne, angels, to be 'sons of god' etc) and focusing instead on a literal, political dimension to the material. He might be right of course. Everything he says in the book is how I - and probably everyone else - interprets the prayer. But the marshaling of evidence seems all in one direction. I just don't know if he explored the idea that the disciple's prayer is about something mystical - i.e. passing through the gates of the heavenly watchers etc. Just a thought.

Also magical practices seem to be left out of the earlier discussion of contemporary parallels to the Disciples Prayer. Edmund Harris Kase, Jr., ed., Papyri in the Princeton University Collections (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1936), vol. 2, pp. 102-3, no. 107. "The Lord's Prayer is commonly quoted in Christian magical papyri, either in whole or in part ..."

p. 73 wasn't the 'chief of police' or justice of the peace called an eirenarch in antiquity? I remember that from the Martyrdom of Polycarp where Herod (probably Herod Atticus) was so called. Don't know if that is useful to mention.

p. 88 not sure Numbers 20:12 can be argued to be about the sanctification of the Divine Name. It's more about faith (= הֶאֱמַנְתֶּ֣ם). Same thing with Numbers 27:14. The English translations add 'honor' and 'holy' but the Hebrew just talks about 'rebellion' from God's 'command' (singular). Maybe the LXX is more favorable to this interpretation. I haven't checked.

p. 102 capitalize the B in Brown of 'Raymond Brown'

p. 105 it is odd to argue for many pages against parallels with the Kaddish and then crown your argument against the 'divine passive' by means of the Kaddish:

Quote:

And in the third place, in the parallels to Matt. 6:9//Lk. 11:2 found in such Jewish prayers as the Kaddish, the expression equivalent to "let your name be hallowed", namely, May his Great name be magnified and hallowed in the world which he has created according to his will, no divine passive is found. Rather the idea expressed there is that of the sanctifying of God's name by Israel

p. 107, 108 the arguments here are very sound as is your conclusion "[s]o we are left with those who are viewed within the prayer as having the right to call God "Father", i.e., those who are covenantally related to him, and those whom God proclaims as Sons. And the only ones who qualify here are the disciples." Do you think you really need the long drawn out discussion of Ezekiel that precedes it (p. 106 - 107)? I mean I assume your readership (the people you provided those boxes at the beginning) won't demand it. I think you will have to settle on who your audience is. If if its for the people who need those boxes cut the Ezekiel argument. Your arguments here reinforce the association between 'hallowing the name' and "God mov[ing] decisively not only to restore Israel to the land"' (= the kingdom and echoes of the very Jewish prayers you want to deny association with the Disciple's Prayer).

p. 109 but “bread for the morrow” is surely eschatological. The rabbis made a broad distinction between this age (ha-'olam hazeh) and the age to come (ha-'olam habba). Yom habba "the coming day" (Jer. 47:4). hayye ha'diam habba (= life of the age to come). Surely if Jerome is right and the Gospel of the Hebrews had 'bread of tomorrow' it meant something supernatural and eschatological. This is certainly Jerome's interpretation of the meaning. I didn't see you tackle that.

p. 115 This:

Quote:

Like the “bread” request, then, the forgiveness “request” is not only non eschatological in intention. It is actually a declaration of intent – in this case about what the disciples are willing to accept as the basis on which they are willing to be judged as sinners.

should be repunctuated:

Quote:

Like the “bread” request, then, the forgiveness “request” is not only non eschatological in intention - it is actually a declaration of intent. In this case about what the disciples are willing to accept as the basis on which they are willing to be judged as sinners.

p. 118 but surely the forgiveness of debts could be eschatological in nature by means of the Jubilee (something reinforced by Jesus's reading of Isaiah at the beginning of the gospel). I am not sure that you need to deny the validity of the other claims in order to prove your interesting observations. Surely the Disciples Prayer (a) could be related to the various Jewish prayers and (b) have an eschatological dimension but (c) your interpretation is not only valid but a better explanation than (a) or (b) because it also demonstrates how Christianity was ultimately distinguished from Judaism.

I guess what I am asking is whether (and I haven't finished your book yet) isn't it possible that all that you suggest is the realization of a pre-existent eschatology through the perfecting humanity in the here and now. Again I haven't finished your book yet but I am seeing where things are heading (I suspect).

stephan huller · 06-03-2013, 12:12 AM

p. 119 you set up Jeremias as the spokesperson for 'the (Jewish) apocalyptic' in Christianity. But by tearing down his claims do you really wipe out the eschatological dimension in the Disciple's Prayer? Really?

p. 121 you write:

Quote:

Notably, it fares no better. While it is true, as I’ve noted previously, that that ðåéñáóìüò does, as the eschatologists claim, mean “a test of
faithfulness”, there is absolutely no evidence that it referred to "the final/eschatological test", "the test of faithfulness to which believers were [supposedly] to be subjected at the `end of the age'".

Yes you might be right in the sense that no judgment was to accompany Jesus's 'visit' (a heretical notion). But surely if Christians thought that Jesus was God come to earth THAT IS THE ESCHATOLOGICAL EVENT 'realized' from the pages of the Qumran texts. No, it isn't the classic judgment of the wicked/reward of the righteous etc. But the event still is 'eschatological' insofar as mercy was preceding the final judgment.

p. 123 you write:

Quote:

We should also note the implications 87 of the fact, pointed out by Schuyler Brown, that those whom the seer says are to experience the particular ðåéñáóìüò spoken of in Rev. 3:10, namely, "the inhabitants of the earth" (ôï×ò êáôïéêïØíôáò ¦ðÂ ô*ò ã*ò), are actually not Christians, but the persecutors of the church.

But is the eschatological understanding of the author of Revelation the same as that of the evangelist(s)?

p. 125 on the unavoidable nature of the test. Ephrem throughout the Commentary on the Diatessaron references Jesus's words in Mark 10:35 - 45 and parallels (a section of text you used earlier to great effect) as a challenge to the disciples. He was understood to be 'dropping the gauntlet' as it were to encourage them to prove themselves. This was widespread in Syriac literature. It's a Pauline theme too.

p. 129 "To repeat, then: Given the biblical teaching on the inevitability of ðåéñáóìüò for those who would serve God, it makes no sense for Jesus to urge the disciples to pray for exemption from experiencing or ever coming into contact with it." Bravo! This is the core part of the book and it is a brilliant observation. It could get you on Oprah or popular talk shows if more of the book was devoted to it. But again the question is who is your audience. The people who you make the boxes for want more of this and less of the arguments against the other interpretations. But the question again is who is the book written for?

It is at this point that I am convinced that James McGrath did not read your book. This stuff is too thought provoking for that paragraph he wrote.

p. 135 "What, then, would be more appropriate in such a situation than a prayer to have help in not putting God to the test?" But if Jesus was understood to be God, isn't the ensouling of God in the disciples not the proper context for the testing? In other words, you are saying that it is the testing of God not the disciples which is being prohibited. But couldn't the prayer already assume the Incarnation as understood by the Alexandrians and now the Copts. Here is a PDF Stephen J Davis's amazing book http://ixoyc.net/data/Fathers/503.pdf

Quote:

Origen expresses the paradox or mystery of the Incarnation as part of a divine 'economy' (oikonomia) that encompasses God's providential actions even before the Creation narrated in Genesis. As in the case of Clement, Origen trains his attention on human souls as the prime beneficiaries of this plan of salvation, but he goes far beyond Clement in developing a fuller account of Christ's own human soul and the role it played in the Incarnation.

As a speculative theologian, Origen was keenly interested in conjecturing about the nature of the divine realms and raising questions regarding the existence of the cosmos before the creation of the material world. In an attempt to answer such questions, he envisioned a primal cosmos in which all rational beings (oi logikoi) or 'minds' (oi noes) enjoyed a blissful union with God and shared in God's eternal attribute of love, which is conceived as a form of warmth or heat.

However, according to Origen's cosmology, this original union was disrupted by a heavenly fall of these rational beings from the singular, divine perfection. He pictures this fall as one grounded in free will; after becoming distracted from the contemplation of God and choosing to sin, the rational beings begin to cool, condense and fall away from God. In the process they become souls; for, as Origen observed, the Greek word for soul, psyche, comes from the verb psychesthai, meaning 'to cool.' As these souls fall, God transforms their ethereal bodies into material bodies that differed according to their degree of merit or demerit. Some souls ended up being assigned to archangels and angels, some to demons and the devil (who is cast as the most material of all beings).

According to Origen, the mind of Christ was the only one that did not become distracted and sink away from God; his was the only 'soul' that did not cool off in this primeval fall. In remaining united with God, Christ's soul thoroughly assimilated God's 'essential attributes' (substantiae), and was therefore ideally equipped to function as the crucial mediating element between the divine Word and Christ's human body in the Incarnation.

Therefore in Origen's thought, the Incarnation marks the union of both the Word and Christ's human soul (which are bound together for eternity) with the body of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary. As in the case of Christ's soul and its union with the divine Word prior to creation, so too in the case of his human body assumed by the Word in the Incarnation: in both instances the superior power of the Word effects a change in that with which it unites. Having already conferred the 'essential attributes' of his divinity upon Christ's soul, the word deifies Christ's body as well. 'We say that mortal body and the human soul within it have received the greatest things not only by their communion (koinonia) with him, but also by their union (henosis) and mixing up (anakrasis): after having partaken of his divinity, they were changed into God.' [Cels. 3.41.7 - 11] This passage is taken from his apologetic work Against Celsus. Earlier in the same treatise, he characterizes Jesus as a 'partaker in the divine nature' [cf. 2 Peter 1:4] and then goes on to emphasize that through the Incarnation 'the human nature and the divine began to be woven together, in order that the human, by communion with that which is more divine, might become divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who, with the help of faith, grasp hold of the life that Jesus taught.' [ibid 3.38.46 - 49]

In such passages one begins to discern how Origen's doctrine of deification takes the mechanics of the Incarnation as a generative model. In Origen's other writings, 'this life that Jesus taught' is variously described as a form of progress into 'the order of angels', a process in which the faithful become 'sons of God' and 'one spirit' with the divine Son, and a means by which they 'become superior not only to their bodily nature, but even to the wavering and fragile movements of the soul itself', by which the soul itself casts off the vestiges of irrationality and is made 'wholly spiritual.' [De Princ. 1.8.4] Thus through imitation of Christ's example, human beings too may be transformed (through the vital agency of the Godhead) into 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4) [ibid 4.4.4]

Like Clement of Alexandria before him, Origen describes the fruit of such deification primarily in terms of the rational activity of the human mind or soul. This is especially evident in chapter 2 of his Commentary on Gospel of John, where he emphasizes the connection between the Word's singular status as divine Reason and our multiple participation in the Word as rational beings: 'The Word (ho logos) is the source of the reason (ho logos) that is in each rational being (ho logikos); the reason (ho logikos) which is in each creature is not like the former called, par excellence, the Word (ho logikos). [Com John 2.2.15] Later in the same work Origen similarly describes how human beings are endowed with reason, how 'we become rational creatures (ho logikoi) in a divinely inspired manner (entheos) [ibid 37.268]

Thus Origen defines human deification in terms of a parallel correspondence between God's divine essence and our participation (metoche) in God's attributes. 'Everything that exists beside the Very God is deified by participation in God's divinity, and is not to be called 'God' (ho theos, with the article), but rather more properly 'god' ('theos', without the article). [Com John 2.2.17] In the end it is the incarnate Christ who effects the transformation from the Godhead like water from a well 'so that they might be deified, he gave them a bounteous share of it according to his good nature.' [ibid] Human beings are said to 'take the form of gods (morphousthai theoi) when they remain, along with the Word, 'in unceasing contemplation of the Father's depths.' [ibid 2.2.18] Through such rational contemplation, human souls hold the potential for reattaining union with God.

While Origen could readily envision the divinization of the human soul, the human body also began to play a role (albeit, a somewhat more ambivalent one) in his doctrine of human salvation. The fact that Christ's body attained union (henosis) with divinity to such an extent that it was changed into God (eis theon metabeblekenai) raises the potential that it should serve as a model for human bodies as well. Indeed in Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John, Christ is identified as 'the pattern for the entire unified body of the saved.' [Com John 1.35.225] However, Origen notably characterizes the nature of Christ's bodily participation in divinity in terms of a 'lightening' of the flesh: 'It follows upon this to investigate whether it is possible to see in human affairs something between "the Word became flesh" and "the Word was God" - in such a way that the Word was reconstituted and made lighter little by little after he had become flesh, in order that he might become what he was in the beginning, God the Word who is with the Father.' [ibid 1.37.276. 1 - 6] Thus, when Origen speaks about the deification of the body assumed by the incarnate Word, he is in fact envisioning a process whereby that body is increasingly divested of its fleshly aspects.

One sees a mimetic correspondence to this christological lightening of the flesh in Origen's eschatological descriptions of human bodies and the forms they are to take in their final redeemed (i.e. deified) state. While he does not arrive at a definitive answer on the subject, he tends to support the notion that, in this state, human bodies either 'lead a bodiless existence' or at the very least are 'united to best and purest spirits' and 'changed ... into an ethereal condition.' [De Princ. 2.3.7]

However in this life, it is the soul's contemplation of God that specifically anticipates and enacts the future condition: 'An intellect which has been purified and has transcended all material things is deified (theopoieitai) by what it contemplates in order that it may perfect the contemplation of God.' [Com John 32.27.338 - 339] Furthermore, prayer and the cultivation of moral virtues are prerequisites for those who wish to be deified: by 'praying without ceasing' [1 Thes. 5.17], one acquires 'a condition that is being deified by the Word' Through such a prayerful contemplation, souls are 'fed' (trephomenoi) by the Word - 'the supra-substantial bread' - and thereby experience a foretaste of deification. Here, Origen invokes the image of eucharistic participation in the body of Christ, by (like Clement) interprets this participation as one that primarily pertained to the spiritual faculties of the human soul.

stephan huller · 06-03-2013, 01:02 AM

Here is your approach to the idea of 'putting God to the test' - the temptation.

Quote:

that is to say, since it is because Jesus, according to Mark, sees Peter James and John as on the verge of putting God to the test that he [Jesus] commands these disciples to pray to be protected against becoming agents of ðåéñáóìïò", then in Mark's eyes the "testing" which Peter, James, and John are commanded by Jesus to pray against engaging in can be nothing other than that of God and his faithfulness ... that the “temptation” request in the Disciples’ Prayer means "Father, prevent us from ever putting you to the test" is indicated by the fact that this is the way Matthew read the petition.

I don't remember you tackling the question of Jesus as God before in the book. You presented Jesus as a first century Palestinian Jew. You suddenly assume here that Jesus was also understood to be God. Not that I have a problem with that. It just seems strange that this isn't fleshed out more. My only addition is that if we can just throw that out there - don't you think that the gospel already anticipates the disciples being ensouled with God through baptism also?

I've got to stop right there at p. 140 and read the rest tomorrow. Fascinating stuff. I think you have some fascinating ideas and penetrating insight. You might even by 90% right.

Jeffrey Gibson · 06-03-2013, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

I don't remember you tackling the question of Jesus as God before in the book.

Why should I? Despite what you seem to believe, it is not a NT belief. It certainly does not appear in the synoptics -- which are the Gospels from which I draw my data regarding Jesus and his aims.

Quote:

You presented Jesus as a first century Palestinian Jew. You suddenly assume here that Jesus was also understood to be God.

I do? Not to my mind. So either I have not been clear in what I am asserting or you have misread me.

Quote:

Not that I have a problem with that. It just seems strange that this isn't fleshed out more. My only addition is that if we can just throw that out there - don't you think that the gospel already anticipates the disciples being ensouled with God through baptism also?

"Ensouled with God"??? Is this anything one finds in the Synoptics?

Jeffrey

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06-02-2013, 10:18 PM	#21
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	typo page p. 47 "the Jewsih historian"

06-02-2013, 10:20 PM	#22
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	correct page reference needed on p. 50: "(above, pp. )"

06-02-2013, 10:27 PM	#23
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	p. 54 Mankinds’ = Mankind's also this typo a line or two later: "in nature as they are historically unheDisciples' Prayerful"

06-02-2013, 10:33 PM	#24
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	p. 58 empty; scriptural reference need "social status ( ),"

06-02-2013, 10:40 PM	#25
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	Umm, Stephan, can you save up and post them all together, rather than at a dribble at a time?

06-02-2013, 10:46 PM	#26
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	p. 61 I am not sure you offer any evidence to support the idea that self-denial isn't supposed to be connected with asceticism. You just assert that it isn't. Not that it matters necessarily (I haven't gotten through to the end of the book). But I found this jarring because it goes against everything ever written on the subject without so much as a footnote or an argument. I can see where you are going with this when you continue on to the next bullet (= greatness). I don't know if you can just leap over two thousand years of interpretation with just the wave of a hand. I don't even know if you need to. Isn't asceticism just the preparation for the kind of humility you suggest in the next section any way? Maybe you don't need to reject asceticism as much as arguing it is an exaggerated expression of what you are about to suggest (= keeping with in bounds the "self aggrandizement which such lordship allows.").

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