Peter Kirby

Just because these threads have a memetic tendency to generate their polar opposites, I am heading this one off at the pass.

I am looking here for the strongest arguments that Paul believed in a Jesus who was on earth. (Or, as may be stated negatively, that Paul disbelieved that Jesus' activity was in some timeless or supraterrestrial sphere.)

The main request I have here is that the poster positing a piece of evidence from the letters of Paul interact with the Doherty material on the cite. There is some comment from Doherty on all the (20+) cites that are commonly adduced here.

spamandham

It would be helpful if you posted a link.

Peter Kirby

The 20 arguable references page from Doherty can get us going.

3DJay

3. Romans 5:15 (Christ as man, "anthrôpos")
"one man"
"human nature" ... "descendant of David" ... "resurrection from the dead"
"raised ... from the dead"
"his death"
"who raised ... from the dead"
"who died" ... "was raised to life"
"raised him from the dead"
"raised him from the dead"
"crucified"
"the Jews ... killed the Lord Jesus"
"came into the world"

So there's the "one man" who "came into the world" and had a "human nature", being a "descendant of David", "who died", "the Jews" "killed" him, having him "crucified". And then, "was raised to life", "from the dead".

Where is all this supposed to be taking place, if not on Earth? Where else would you find a descendant of David, who has a human nature, who came into the world, who lived, who died, by crucifixion, by the Jews, and was raised to life? Do humans live someplace else, other than Earth? Do the Jews? Can you live and die, by crucifixion, and then be raised to life again, in some timeless place?


Peace

3DJay

Peace

Solo

Doherty misreads Paul by miles and one of the major reasons is that he imagines that Paul's Christ was a product based on Paul's reading of scriptures and detached philosophical speculation. But Paul makes two major references to his state of health and correlates them with the preaching of his gospel.

He writes to the Galatians:
and if the 'ailment' does not seem psychosomatic enough, we have a confirmation in a letter to the Corinthians:

So, Paul started to preach in both places in a state of huge excitement which he knew rendered him in the eyes of his audience, dismissible as someone who was just plain nutcase. But Paul had a considerable insight into his condition, and he turned what surely was a handicap to his advantage. He asserted what he knew were signs of abnormal behaviour into proof of his direct communication with God (For, if we are beside ourselves, it is for God, if we are in our right mind, it is for you
2 Cor 5:5). His ability to articulate his knowledge that he does look weird must have had a startling effect on people, as it was rare that psychotics (pneumatics) had the ability to explain themselves. Hence Paul's insistence that 'interpretation' was the greatest of all spiritual skills.

Doherty does not understand the origin of the dividing line between flesh and spirit (or spiritually filled soma) and that is why he cannot imagine that both are present in Paul's view of Jesus. Paul's silence on HJ is rejection of Jesus of the flesh (to whose doings and ideas he was violently opposed before his conversion, but about whose real purpose on earth(!) he received a revelation directly from God). Paul imagined (and I believe with a good reason) that God afflicted Jesus of the flesh the same as he did Paul, and then caused him to transgress the law to show Paul that his pride in earthly wisdom and "Judaic traditions" was nought. Now, Paul knew that no man under the power of spirit is responsible for his/her actions. He/she says or does whatever the spirit tells him/her to say or do ! The spirit is God's agent, manifestation of God (later installed into the Trinity), so the person's actions which can be extremely embarrassing (later, when one is in one's right mind and realizes what one had done) are really "no sin" in God's eye. That is why Paul says that if the archontes had wisdom (i.e. gnosis, that Paul had) they would not have crucified Jesus, who really, against all appearances and conventional wisdom, was God's unique gift to his creation. Paul of course interprets his highs as coming from Jesus Christ in heaven, and lows as the coming Judgment.

But the point that Paul makes is that Jesus did transgress the letter of law and under the law he was justly executed.
This passage, coupled with Gal 4:4, confirm that Jesus was born and died under the law. That I consider the strongest indicator that Paul was talking about a real human, however mystically.

Jiri

spamandham

I don't think there really are any strong arguments, but it can be inferred by piecing together a number of thoughts, as 3DJay has done above. I don't think this is a valid approach though.

You really need to investigate each potential indicator of humanness in context, which is what Doherty has done, rather than simply piecing sentence fragments together to arrive at the conclusion desired.

EarlDoherty

This is going to be a useless exercise if people are going to argue on the basis of English translations that beg the question by reading Gospel meanings into the epistle texts. The Greek says nothing about "human nature" in Romans 1:3 and elsewhere but uses the very ambiguous and variously interpretable "kata sarka", which all of us here know has been argued to death. Similarly, Hebrews 5:7 does not say "days of his life on earth".

And if anyone is going to claim that the concept of "death" itself can only apply to human death on earth, then they know nothing about the mythicist case, let alone ancient religious mythology.

And right after he quotes my passage about Philo's "Heavenly Man" and my comments on 15:47 a poster quotes the phrase "one man" as indicative of Paul's understanding of Christ as a human man. That's about at the level of the infamous Nomad's side of the debate with me several years ago. ("I can read!")

If Peter is going to propose a topic like this, I think it is encumbent upon him to exercise some kind of control over blatant vacuity like this.

I have no intention of getting involved in this thread.

Earl Doherty

Graceman

Then why bother posting at all?:huh:

If you are in a room and you don´t like the discussion, fine. You can say "I don´t need to listen to this!" and just walk out of that room.

But this isn´t a room we all are stuck in, is it?
One has to be active and "getting involved" to make the point you´re making above, right?

All the best,
Graceman

Peter Kirby

You are right, of course. Posters such as Jay do nothing to advance the state of the discussion.

Given the necessity of attention to the Greek text in evaluating your argument, and given the general inability of the layman to use the tools of study for New Testament Greek, why is it that you have been so keen up to now on "taking it to the street" with your argument, getting it before the eyes of your average incompetent layman, and so reluctant in making efforts to take it to the door of the academy, where there are plenty of people with the knowledge and ability to analyze the argument effectively and actually advance the state of the discussion?

I have no idea what this means. I start a thread; I go to sleep; I wake up...what am I doing wrong?

That's all well and good. Perhaps you could get involved in the original and opposite thread that I made, the one where I ask for an argument for the conclusion of the Doherty hypothesis of Paul's Jesus. You may find this exercise redundant with your extensive website, but firstly its very extensiveness is a problem (whereas a logical argument can be stated succinctly, even if many particular examples go into the support of the premises), and, secondly, at least one person before me has commented on the very pedestrian mode of thinking and argument on your website, which does not engage itself on critiquing the premises of its argument explicitly so much as attempting to illustrate the argument, in what can only be an inductive or abductive manner. So I am probably not alone in desiring a logical exposition of your argument, if you would consider such an exercise worth your time. Otherwise we will depend on secondary interpreters to present your argument, which can only be less than fully satisfying.