spin

I can't help it if you can't see the context, TedM. Can you tell me what Ahijah means other than "brother of Yah"?

As I have said a number of times on this forum, I think it would be totally incoherent for a writer to do so. You wouldn't use a word indiscriminately to have two separate meanings without cueing your readers about the reference of the word -- unless you were trying to be perverse. The aim of writing to a reader is to communicate and what you are proposing would contravene the intention.

We have the terms "(more than) 500 brothers", "the brothers of the lord", "the brother of the lord", used under similar circumstances. There is nothing in Paul's writings that helps you connect "the lord" as a substitute for a nominal references to Jesus.

Tradition is unfortunately silent over a lot of matters.

The normal use of the phrase? You mean the normal use in Paul or some other normal use? The first gospel written was Mark and try to find the use of "the lord" that you want to be normal. You won't. Contemplate the quote from Ps.110 in Mk 12:36, "the lord said to my lord..." That should help you understand the distinction I'm making. It was obvious to a reader of the time that they first was god and the second was being used by Mark to refer to Jesus. (Also, the use of "lord" in the Greek vocative is used as a title, and not an absolute like "the lord (said...)".)

If Paul and Mark are reflective of the early usage then that would be the normal usage, not the one you would like.

Actually, he's quite vocal about the Jerusalem group, of which James is a member. But I guess you want more than that.

(Hell, TedM, can you get Galatians right for once? Would you ever write Romons??)

Dunno, there were more than 500 in one case. And Cephas was not included then either.

I'm sorry, but you've still got nothing, TedM. I know it's hard for you to think out of the box on this one.


spin

TedM

Re “we“ portions of Acts being firsthandIt has been a while since Carrier wrote that here, and I can’t find it now. I’m curious whether there is much in Acts beginning with the “we” portions that is considered to be strong evidence that it ISN’T historically accurate.? I’d also be curious as to whether linguistically the “we” portions are significantly different.

1:5
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

ALL 20 translations, including the one I prefer NASB, and including Young’s Literal Translation at www.biblegateway.com has “heard FROM him”, which ties in with the first verses that suggest the authors personally knew Jesus: “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands,”, “the life made manifest“. I have addressed Doherty’s interpretation that the author was elegantly describing his relationship to the “the revealed message” on my Top 20 site at http://mypeoplepc.com/members/tedrik...op20/id18.html . The message in 1:5 appears to be a message from Jesus, not God.


In supplying the various verses above and below I was addressing this statement by you:

Your comment gives the impression that we have no record in the epistles (other than the Last Supper in 1 Cor) of anything Jesus did or said before his death. I attempted to show otherwise, though they may not be 'explicit' enough to be considered 'historical'. Whether these happened on earth or not is another issue. However, I think the passages imply that these things happened on earth in some place:


It could be in another world. However, my point was that this is another thing Jesus did before his death--he lived his life as an example for others to follow



Upon reading this again, it is not clear to me if the author is saying Jesus promised this or God promised it. IF it is Jesus, it is another thing he did before his death.



I’ll again agree that this commandment could be from either God or Jesus, depending on how it is read. It is often hard to tell for certain in 1 John whether “he” is talking about God or Jesus. However, in 3:16 the author writes “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us”. We so far have the implication that Jesus taught that “God is light” and that Jesus lived his life as a righteous example. His example was one of love. It isn’t much stretch to see that the author was talking about a message of brotherly love that came from Jesus.

Let’s not overlook the words in 3:1 “the world knoweth us not, because it KNEW HIM NOT”. It doesn’t say it KNOWS him not. It is talking about the world--people on earth--who didn’t know someone in the past. God or Jesus? I think it is talking about Jesus here.



This is another thing that happened to Jesus before his death. He was tempted, and he resisted temptation. I didn’t include Hebrews 12:3 which says that sinners were “hostile” toward him. Doherty says this happened up in the heavenly sanctuary. Last time I checked, sinners were not allowed in heaven. So where, in your opinion, did were sinners hostile toward Jesus in Hebrews?



Fisrt, I want to point out that Lord in verse 2 seems to contrast with God in verse 3, which suggests that Lord is referring to Jesus, and not God. I agree that the specifics are missing as to when and where. As to ‘who’ it appears that whoever it was it included the author and unspecified others who heard Jesus speak about salvation. It is possible that this was ‘heard’ through revelation sometime after Jesus‘ death, but it seems strange that the time period of revelation appears to have ended by the time the author wrote this. Why don’t we hear him speak of himself and others who CONTINUE to hear Jesus speak of salvation?


Specifics are again missing, but again it is another example of an EPISTLE which talks about things Jesus said and did before his death.



No, but again these are all examples in the EPISTLES of things Jesus said and did before his death. It sound to me like you implied that we have none other than Paul’s account of the Last Supper. I’m just setting the record straight.



I think I have made my point that the EPISTLES include a number of references to things Jesus said and did BEFORE his death. Together with two references to his being of the Jewish race, being in the line of David, to having brothers, and the many references to his having been a flesh and blood 'man', the only reasonable conclusion is that even the EPISTLES are talking about a person believed to have been born, lived, and died on earth.

While I can’t prove that these characteristics couldn’t have been believed about beings in some OTHER world, there is no evidence for that belief. It only recently occurred to me that Doherty points out that Paul talks about ‘believing’ that Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, as if it wasn't something people had been talking about as a historical occurrance, and was simply a matter of faith. Have you ever noticed that Paul and the other EPISTLES to my knowledge NEVER talk about ’believing’ that Jesus was born, ‘believing’ that Jesus was Jewish, ‘believing’ that Jesus never sinned, ‘believing’ that Jesus didn’t live to please himself, ‘believing’ that Jesus prayed prior to his death, ‘believing’ that Jesus held a Last Supper, ‘believing’ that sinners were hostile to Jesus, etc.. IF THOSE all were a matter of faith as is the matter of resurrection, why didn’t they use the same terminology when discussing them?

ted

Chris Weimer

Tis a name. My name is Christopher, but no one calls me "The Bearer of Christ". More equivocation.

Paul's letters reflect a pre-written ministry. He's communicated with them before, and so too have they with him. They weren't written in a vacuum.

TedM

You aren't addressing what I wrote. Others here saw that the context was pretty clear in the passages I provided, and that Paul's use of "Lord" by itself in those passages was meant to refer to Jesus. It is you who are can't see the context because of your idea that Paul would have been inconsistent if it meant Lord in some places and God in others.

As for Ahijah, it has nothing to do with the context of the Galatians passage. It is a name that AFAIK was not in use at the time of Jesus and was NEVER applied to a group of Jewish people who had been given other names at birth. When you find out otherwise, let me know, and you can then legitimately claim it is relevant to the passages in question.


To use a word two different ways, with the meaning known to one's audience is 'totally incoherent'? Just because YOU don't understand it doesn't mean Paul's readers didn't understand what he meant. There really are only a few instances that are unclear to modern day readers. I think you hold Paul to an unreasonable standard of perfection. Christ was referred to as simply "the Lord" in the gospels, and by Paul (see my examples again). So is God. It simply is the way it was, whether that pleases us or not. Confusing? Maybe not to Paul's readers, even if it in a few cases is to us.


:huh: No matter how much you wish to argue that A equals B, it doesn't.


But the point is that it goes AGAINST THEIR OWN PREFERENCE when it doesn't have to! That is a strong argument for historicity. The winners in history could have made the whole brothers of Jesus thing and into what you suggest, but they didn't. That's not a fluke, spin. That's significant. Proof? No. Significant? Yes.




"brother of X" 'normally' is a biological reference, even among groups that like to refer to their members as 'brothers'. Consider this: Had James been a member of a special group of "brothers of the Lord", Paul should have written, "James, A brother of the Lord", or "James, ONE OF THE brothers of the Lord", and NOT "James, THE brother of the Lord".


Sorry, but your example "the lord said to my lord" are not close enough to what we are talking about.



Yes, if there was a special group of brothers of the Lord that James was in and Cephas and John weren't, and that were worthy of mentioning along with apostles, that had some kind of authority or reputation, I would expect Paul to have talked about it. Paul goes on and on about not being considered an apostle by some, yet says nothing about not being considered a "brother of the Lord". Such a title sounds like something Paul would have had some very definite opinions about to share, especially since James, who was an apostle according to Paul, was a member of this group too.


Old habit. sorry. Galatians. Galatians. Galatians. Galatians. Galatians. Galatians. Galatians. Galatians. Maybe that will help...


No, you don't get my point. Think about it, if "James, the brother of the Lord" would be a helpful descriptor there could not be any other James' in the group. Otherwise how would readers know which James Paul was talking about? So, this surely would mean the group isn't the same one as the "500 brothers". And, if Cephas and John weren't in the group James was in, even though they were the other two pillars, one would certainly wonder why not? It is a small, elite group. This is NOT a generic use of the word "brother" meant to apply to all believers in Jesus. If it were, Paul's use of it makes no sense.


I rarely get accused of not thinking outside the box, but I suppose it is possible you are right. Do you think it is possible that you are the one not thinking outside the "all Christian believers are brothers of the Lord God (not even the Lord Jesus)" box you seem to have built around this issue?

ted

Toto

Carrier has never written anything like this. I think you have Layman in mind. Layman spent a lot of bandwidth attacking Vernon Robbins, who had theorized that in the "we" passages, "we" was just a literary convention that was common in sea-faring stories. (Search this forum for "Robbins".)

Robbin's thesis aside, there is no good reason to infer from the use of "we" that the passages are historical. If the use of the first person plural were meant to indicate that the writer was personally present, one would at least expect the writer to identify himself at some point, which is never done.

The "we" passages stand out from the rest of Acts in their general style, and there has been speculation that those passages were based on a travelogue or sea adventure story. As for reasons for not considering them to be historically accurate, it depends on how you feel about Paul calming the storm with his prayers and such. Paul's adventures have a lot in common with other literary creations of the time.

TedM

I don't have the best memory so you may be right. What I recall is that Carrier stated he wanted to learn more about Acts, and was especially interested in the idea that the "we" portions, which portray a less historical Jesus, may have been more historical from what he had read so far. I remember being surprised that he hadn't studied up more on Acts. However, as I said my memory isn't always right......


I would agree, however, this plays into the theory that the "we" passages were from material that was grafted into Acts to produce a more complete history. IF we have examples of sea-faring stories that suddenly introduce "we" without the writer indentifying himself and that are clearly fictional stories, then perhaps the lack of identification is not significant at all. Do we? If we don't I see little reason to not favor the idea that it was a firsthand account.


IF the style is in fact different, then it must be treated differently, and examined with no preconceptions about the rest of Acts or Luke. I'd like to know more about what those things in common with literary creations of the time, and that are not in common with historically accurate stories. Calming of the storms with prayers hardly qualifies as evidence of literary invention IMO, because of the nature of storms and prayer.

It may have been Layman who enlightened many here to the numerous ways in which the stories about Paul in Acts were consistent with things he wrote in his letters. I kind of doubt that someone would go to so much trouble to write a sea-faring fictional tale about Paul since so many of the details were quite unnecessary.

ted

Ted Hoffman

About the "we" passages, even Gunther Bornkamm and Burton Mack regarded them as a historiographical convention. More recently, Richard Bauckam noted:
Emphasis mine.
Bauckam cites M. J. Wheeldon, ‘“True Stories”: The Reception of Historiography in Antiquity’, History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History (or via: amazon.co.uk) (ed. A. Cameron; London: Duckworth, 1989) 33–63, here 45–47.

As we can see, Doherty and like-minded scholars were right on the money on this matter.

Ben C Smith

I do not understand this. You start off by saying that we passages (first person plural) are an historiographical convention, then prove it by citing a scholar who says that an historian referring to himself in the third person (singular) in his narrative is an historiographical convention. How does the use of the third person singular being a convention prove that the use of the first person plural is also a convention?

Ben.

Steven Avery

1 Corinthians 2:8
Which none of the princes of this world knew:
for had they known it,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

1 Corinthians 6:14
And God hath both raised up the Lord,
and will also raise up us by his own power.

1 Corinthians 11:27
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread,
and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:29 (KJB from TR)
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,
eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,
not discerning the Lord's body.

Could you be more specific as to when you propose these interpolations to have been placed in ? e.g. 3rd century ?

Is there any textual evidence in any language whatsoever, or any early church writers, that these verses were subject to interpolation ?

Based on the definite article you simply consider the verses as interpolations ?

While you consider these verses (and all the many "Lord Jesus Christ" and "Jesus Christ our Lord" verses) as original ? The article makes the difference to you ? If there is a definite article the verse is an interpolation ?

Acts 2:36
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly,
that God hath made that same Jesus,
whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:2
Unto the church of God which is at Corinth,
to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints, with all that in every place
call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
both theirs and ours:

When claims of interpolations are developed only to support one's doctrinal or interpretative views (e.g. Rene Salm says Mark 1:9 is an interpolation to match his Nazareth theories) without a shred of auxiliary evidence, what seriousness, if any, should be given those theories ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Ben C Smith

Well, maybe not yet. But we can start if you want us to. :angel:

Ben.