jakejonesiv

Hi Kent,

I understand where you are coming from. As long as you agree with Earl , you will be fine.

Jake

thief of fire

Tha's good. The strength of the theory is dependent on the evidence.

Are you sure?
This seems to be one of Earls major weapons. It's a logical falacy known as argument from (personal) incredulity
One can argue against nonsense he posts here if he posts nonsense.
Can you explain why, without using an argument from personal incredulity?
Lot's of people get convinced about lots of things, but, you still haven't explained much.
If you say so.
These are all arguments from personal incredulity. I don't find them as convincing as you did.

jakejonesiv

AA5874, that is a very good point. That is Doherty's blind spot. Even the Greek myths were believed to be on earth, and that didn't make them figures of history, even though they were often placed in faux historical settings.

jakejonesiv

Hi aa,

There is no known heresy of ancient Christianity, that believed what Leader Doherty teaches. So he is always creating communities out of thin air because they must have existed to support his theories.

Kent F

'
I'm as sure as I can be. If someone would refute Doherty in a very convincing way, then I would change my position. But no one has.

It's not a logical fallacy. It's reading what's actually written. Explain to me how Athenagoras could write that a god made of flesh is no god at all and Minucius Felix could describe those who believed in a dying criminal on a cross to be depraved people if they believed in a Jesus made of flesh who had walked this earth. Sure, I could imagine that they still believed in a Jesus made of flesh and nailed to a cross, but that would be totally illogical and make nonsense of what they actually wrote.

But it shows that you don't want to challenge your own beliefs by reading the book.

I re-read the epistles without gospel-colored glasses and the textual evidence for a spiritual Jesus was convincing.

I repeat, why did they write as they did? To apply the "argument of incredulity" on these writings doesn't prove a thing. It's a cop-out.

thief of fire

Ok.
Well, you are arguing from incredulity.
Which does not mean its not an argument from incredulity. The whole christian idea of a trinity is illogical and confused, it's no wonder that religious people end up the same. Not to metion that whatever we know of Athenagoras is subject to the usual uncertainties of anyone from that time and place, where little remains.
You really need to give a bit more context and explanation I think here.
I have tried to read one of Earl's books but they aren't the most readable works. He's comes across on here as unbalanced and that makes me less inclined. I may have another look.
But, if Earl, posts nonsense here I don't need to read every thing he has written to respond.
Ok. I think its there too. Paul thinks Jesus had a spiritual body post resurrection.
As it was you who introduced them it seems appropriate for you to explain why they are not.

aa5874

Minucius Felix wrote no such thing.

Athenagoras wrote NOTHING about Jesus.

What total BS. Virtually ALL Epistles Ignore Jesus' Life on earth.

Examine the SEVEN Ignatian letters to Churches---Nothing about the miracles and Life of Jesus.

Examine Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians--Nothing about the miracles and Life of Jesus.

Examine the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians--Nothing about the miracles and Life of Jesus.

You really don't know what you are talking about. Justin Martyr claimed Jesus, the Son of God, was born in a cave in Bethlehem and was crucified under Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.

First Apology First Apology There is no support anywhere in antiquity that it was claimed the character called Jesus Christ, the Son of God was never on earth.

maryhelena

Yes, Jake, aa makes a very good point here - but Jake, aa also makes another very good point - that the gospels are pre the Pauline epistles. How about considering that position...

Following Doherty, like some ahistoricists/mythicists have done, has led to the situation being discussed in this thread i.e. because of a Doherty interpretation of the Pauline epistles - that these epistles make no mention of a Jesus on earth - therefore, Heb.8.4 must be interpreted in Pauline terms to "eliminate the ambiguity". But, Jake, whichever way one chooses to "eliminate the ambiguity" boils down to applying ones own rule or standard to the verse. i.e. interpreting this verse either past or present tense, does not provide any kind of 'smoking gun' against the JC historicists - or likewise, for a validation of a historical gospel JC.

If it's the JC historicist/ahistoricist debate we are interested in - then it's the gospel story that has to be put on the table - and as aa is saying - and with which I agree - that story comes prior to the Pauline epistles and Hebrews. (Yes, at one time I also put the Pauline epistles first - but I found that position gets one nowhere fast.......Dating documents is of no help here - it's the JC story and the story development that holds out prospects for forward movement...Pauline interpretations are of no help with that gospel JC story....)

(actually, regarding Heb.8.4, I'm beginning to think that there is no choice here - the ambiguity, the apparent contradiction, indicates that both past and present tense need to be accommodated in ones interpretation.....)

Roo Bookaroo

Bernard:

This is the most complete textual analysis of this discussion of Hebrews 8:4, getting rid of all the extraneous brambles and undergrowth Doherty has started hacking through to make the text more ambiguous than it really is, prima facie.

There's another question, which relates to history, history of reading.

Before Doherty appeared, with his 9 pages and 4,700 words of explanations in the big book, (and well before the 66,400 words of his dissertation on Hebrews in his site, which I maybe the only person on earth crazy enough to have read — a nightmarish experience hard to forget), how did people, simple believers, priests, book lovers, theological pundits and scholars read Hebrews 8:4?

How did they read those verses for 2,000 years since they were written?

It is practically certain that they read it as it reads, prima facie as you maintain in your analysis:
"8:4 "if indeed he were on earth, he would not be a priest, being these [priests] offer gifts according to the law".
Nobody ever gave it more than five seconds' thought and without a pause, went on to the next verse, 8:5 and so on.

Nobody stopped and started mental gymnastics lasting for hours, torturing his brain as to whether he/she had got the true meaning.
What most readers do is read the whole thing as a unity, as we read most of the verses in the OT and the NT, and then perhaps come back later for a quote, barely pondering.
For the pondering is not what the author of the Letter was conveying, he was offering the obvious apparent meaning of his words.
So it is clear that for 2,000 years, Hebrews 8:4 has been read in the most immediate manner, in the present tense, as you so eloquently demonstrate, without an artificial torturing of one's brain.

To come 2,000 years later, and claim:
"Hold it, the words are not what they seem. Let me show you,"
and then chase all the big dictionaries of the present, find one that assures you:
"[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]Yea, indeed, after my 60 years of Greek philology I can confess that, from a pure grammatical viewpoint, considering the immensity of my readings in Greek since age 13, you could say there's some ambiguity in this verse"[/COLOR],
and then start gloating:
"[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]See, I told you, the best authorities confirm there is ambiguity, and I am going to show you that this ambiguity is not one. It is not the unambiguous line that unschooled readers read in their spontaneous prima facie reading, it is another non-ambiguous reading, more clever, more sophisticated, and it is this non-obvious version that is the absolutely correct one.[/COLOR]"

And who is the expert who claims the great novel sense that has escaped everybody over 2,000 years: an autodidact who learnt Greek late in life, entered the field of NT studies in his 50s and, like a new Jack in the box, wants to pass as the final expert of NT interpretation?
Even in the movies, this script would not be credible.

maryhelena

Don't forget the 'gobbledygook' that Earl like to throw around......

It's almost as though Earl's theories are fast becoming the Fundamentalist version of the ahistoricist/mythicist position. i.e. no historical gospel JC - THEREFORE - the 'real' JC story takes place in heaven. Case closed. Only dogmaticism can follow. For if that is the case - there is nothing anyone can do or say that can overturn such a spiritual, invisible, story. Every interpretation is to that end - building up that grand invisible heavenly entity - but it's a building without a foundation. That foundation is the gospel foundation, the gospel story. And without that gospel foundation - 'Paul's heavenly JC has no relevance to anything at all on terra-firma. It's purely an intellectual day trip for the imagination. Sure, faith in things unseen is part of our living experience (love, the workings of our mind...) but we also live in the physical world. Reality, physical reality is fundamental - and no story, no gospel story, no NT story, in attempting to articulate a vision of 'salvation' can surrender that reality.

Yep, as Wells once said regarding Doherty's ideas - it is not all mythical...