Clivedurdle

I think there is a need to get out of our current ways of thinking and back into the minds of the people who wrote this stuff! We see as through a glass darkly!

Magical thinking is a very important starting point. There is no reason for any - or more than a minimal amount of logic to appear in these writings.

Their belief systems are a mishmash of ideas - Paul talks of various levels of heaven, of demons and archons and things that go bump in the night.

The purpose of these writings is to somehow relate the good news that God has sorted it for humans, one sacrifice has got rid of repeated sacrifices, we are all priests, we can all go to heaven - (but which one?).

There are beliefs about hidden worlds having the perfect image, of words doing things for God, etc etc.

If you seriously look at the plot of Star Trek, it soon unravels. Same with the New Testament - it has to be taken as like a cinematic or theatrical experience, where you suspend belief. The compilers did a pretty good job of keeping the show on the road, but the plot has not stood the test of time!

Amaleq13

This is what I've been trying to say.

ichabod crane

Obviously, the New Testament has various contradictory perspectives amongst its different authors. But let's just stick to Paul (by the way, reading the above it seems you guys think Paul wrote Colossians - I don't agree! Ephesians and Colossians share a similar perspective but it's distinct from Paul's). I don't accept that we can just dismiss contradictions within the 7 genuinely Pauline epistles as unclear, mythical type thinking. We might want to see some kind of development of his thinking, but here are my reasons:

(a) Paul engages in extended, carefully reasoned arguments to support his claims. Obviously, he employs OT texts in highly unusual ways and his logic may not always appear convincing to us, but it seems to me that there is clearly "method in his madness". He is not the kind of guy who would just allow contradictions willy-nilly. He is too "anally retentive" for that. These kind of carefully reasoned arguments are simply not characteristic of mythical and magical literature.

(b) It seems that this idea often plays the role of saving Doherty-type theories from refutation. In other words, reading the text from a Doherty set of assumptions about its historical context leads to contradiction X; so we just say, oh well, doesn't matter, they didn't think too clearly about these things anyway. But this overlooks the fact that the contradiction may be an indication that the perspective from which the text is being read may be flawed. There may be a better set of assumptions that doesn't require us to assume that Paul just accepted obvious contradictions. In short: Rule #1 for reading ancient authors, is that if I read them to believe an evident contradiction, then the most likely explanation is that I haven't understood them properly (i.e. it's more likely that I am stupid than they were).

Personally, I think there probably was a historical Jesus, and I suspect he was probably crucified: that would explain the obsession with crucifixion. But I doubt whether we can know anything more about him than that. I think the gospels are late and probably entirely fictional. I agree with Doherty that Paul was a lot more Hellenistic than he is often painted, but I wouldn't go so far as to altogether deny his roots within Judaism. I think that Paul de-emphasized the historical Jesus for pragmatic and theological reasons. The pragmatic reason is that he was attempting to become the leader of a movement that was already established and led by people who knew the historical Christ, and hence had a natural advantage over him in terms of claim to leadership. Paul neutered this advantage by basically saying well, they knew the historical Christ, so what, the historical Christ isn't relevant. He then developed this idea theologically (2 Cor 5:16). In so doing he undercut the one thing that prevented him from taking on leadership (like Arnie needs to modify the US Constitution in order to become President). Later on, people in other communities began to historicize Jesus again after the radical de-historicization undertaken by Paul - hence the gospels. But the impact of Pauline anti-historicization is that accurate records of the historical Jesus were obliterated. I suspect the movement was always within Hellenized Judaism from its outset, and was very small until after Paul, and I doubt that it ever gained any attention at all from mainstream Judaism until much later.

This hypothesis, it seems to me, has all the advantages of Doherty's theory, without any of the disadvantages. It allows that Paul thought that Jesus was an actual historical person, while explaining why historical details are lacking from his works. It better accounts for physical dualism (i.e. spirit versus matter) in Paul's thought, because Doherty has to have a sort of have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too approach in which Jesus during his mission is neither really spiritual and heavenly but also neither really fleshly and earthly, but inhabits a kind of twilight zone.

But it's all a very long story.

Amaleq13

I think you are being too literal here. It is my understanding that "lower" is relative to our physical reality and should convey a sense of distance from the True Reality of God in the "highest" heaven.

I think you are unfairly blaming Doherty for the fundamental incoherence of a magical belief. We aren't discussing concepts from physics that can be demonstrated or tested or even entirely explained in a rational manner. We are talking about articles of faith and such beliefs quite often require one to simply believe something that one cannot actually explain. The Trinity is a great example. Christians believe that three separate entities are somehow also a single entity. I see no difference between the "somehow" that produces belief in the Trinity and the "somehow" that produces belief in celestial entities with corporeal forms.

And I think that results more from the fundamental incoherence of the belief system he is describing than any failing on his part.

I don't agree with your assertion that one cannot use metaphors to describe one's beliefs about events in a celestial realm. Frankly, I don't see how one could describe them without using metaphors and analogies.

Faith.

It is my understanding that the majority of scholars do not consider this letter to be authentic to Paul so we may very well be dealing with later beliefs of someone else.

I don't understand how you can limit the possibilities when we are apparently dealing with a vision Paul had and was sharing.

I assume there were but Paul is only repeating the initial visions that started the movement and his own. We know from what he says about his churches that visions, revelations, and various magical powers were common claims by believers.

That they were the first would seem to be more than sufficient to make them special.

I think you are reading this "lapse" into Paul. There is no reason to assume that no one else claimed the risen Christ appeared to them prior to Paul's claim. As the movement grew, how could anyone know about all the different visions being claimed? Why would they be important for Paul who was trying to argue for his legitimacy as an apostle?

According to what theory of psychology?

Really? You don't think a guy who believed the risen Christ had appeared to him despite his actions against Christians and specifically to choose him to minister to the Gentiles would imply such a thing? I do.

You are talking about "the basic order of the events" in a magical, invisible realm. It actually makes more sense to discuss the type of wood from which the cross was made than to attempt to discuss the details related to such a place. They are really only limited by the imagination of a given believer.

If that was their objection, it should make you wonder if they considered the sacrificed Christ to be the same as a dead man. IIUC, however, their objection had more to do with the general resurrection than the notion of resurrection in general.

The events in the lower realm were, in some sense, corporeal but in a way that was somehow different from our physical reality. IMO, ambiguities like this are inescapable when one is dealing with magical thinking.

According to what "rule" of metaphysical thought? There is nothing to stop one from using a metaphor to describe what one believes has taken place in a spiritual realm.

Where?

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4, KJV)

The only difference between magic and miracles is one's belief in the latter.

And I'm trying to impress on you that Paul really doesn't tell us enough to determine the exact rules of his "game" so it doesn't make any sense to complain against Doherty for not being more clear.

Nope but we've had at least one discussion on the issue of shrines and I think they are less likely the more apocalyptic you assume the early Christians to have been.

Perhaps I should have used "analogy". That is how Doherty describes the author's depiction of Christ as High Priest.

JayM

Blasphemer!

andrewcriddle

One verse that may be relevant her is Galatians 3:13 which is based on Deuteronomy 21:23 Deuteronomy seems to mean that a hanged (or crucified) man is a source of pollution to the holy land of Israel, if Paul understood the verse in this light, then claiming that Christ became a curse in this way would seem to mean that Christ was crucified not only on Earth but in the land of Israel.

Andrew Criddle

NOGO

I really enjoyed your recontruction. I nearly died laughing.

Now you must realize two things.
1. We may be missing some essential bits of this story.
2. The MJ may only have been in existance for a couple of centuries thus not much time to sort all the details.

But what about the HJ?

This is off the top of my head. I am sure that I can do a better job if I take the time. This is the story which Chriatians have had 2000 years to perfect.

God promised a saviour.
He was upset because some people got knowledge of good and evil and he forbate it. To punish them he made them and all their descents mortals.

Some Christians say that they had been waiting for this saviour a long time.
Paul says that his existance was kept secret for ages and only now revealed but not by Jesus himself but by scriptures.

So one day God decided to impregnate a virgin in order to have a Son.
He picked a woman who was promised to this man, Joseph, thus preempting his honeymoon.
Being a God has its priviledges.
Now this new born Son of God did not come into existance as a human.
He existed beforehand. Long beforehand.
He was with God in the begining and he was God.
So God had a son and the son is God.
But since there is only one God then God had himself as a Son.
Go figure!

So, this God incarnated in order to save mankind.
To do this he had to die. That should not be a problem because all humans die. But he had to die spilling blood or else it does not count.
So, he did whatever he had to do to get himself killed and spill his blood.
God had to sacrifice his only Son who was himself. There was just no other way to do it. That was the plan.
Evil people killed him. A good thing since if Jesus had died of old age humanity could not have been saved. Nice guys those evil people! They fulfilled God's plan.
They saved mankind.

Why did he have to die?
Well his blood was needed. Christians are encouraged to eat Jesus' body and drink his blood. BUT there is a big problem. His body vanished never to be seen again. As for the blood, it certainly was spilled but no Christians bothered to catch any of it. We are not told that his disciples stood there at the base of the cross with bowls. So no blood was collected either.
The net result is that Christians started to eat his body and drink his blood only symbolically, very much as if this Jesus was just a Mythical Jesus.

So, Jesus resurrected.
Paul tells us that the resurrected body is very different than the physical body. The former is incorruptible. But some people swear that Jesus resurrected with the same body with which he died, wounds and all. We are told he could also eat fish and was not a ghost.

With his new body Jesus reentered heaven and sat on right hand of God.
But since he is God he sat on his own right hand. This is kind of hard to imagine since God is a spirit and does not have a body and therefore no right hand and Jesus who is God returned to heaven with a BODY and one wonders what he is doing with this body in heaven where everyone else is a bodiless spirit except perhaps for Elijah and Enoch who entered heaven with their bodies as well.

Anyway mission acomplished. Jesus saved mankind by spilling his blood on earth.
But how does that save humanity?
Well this sacrifice appeases God or appeases himself since Jesus is God.
This way he can forvgive us for being human and give us eternal life.
But there is a proviso. Not everybody is saved by this sacrifice.
You have to believe.
You have to believe that Jesus was the son of God and that he was God.
You have to believe that he came to save us for our sins.
You have to believe that he resurrected on the third day.
If you fail to believe any of these things then you get eternal hell.
Nice guy this God.
He is a merciful God.

Amaleq13

I think you are correct in describing Paul's understanding but, IIRC, previous discussions of this verse indicated that the traditional Jewish interpretation is different. Again, IIRC, they understand this passage to be saying that those who fail to take the body down are the ones cursed by God because the hanged man is "a thing lightly esteemed of God" (YLT).

krosero

From my Jewish Study Bible (Jewish Publication Society):

"If a man is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale him on a stake, you must not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury him the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess" (Deut 21: 22-23).

The notes enlarge on the interpretation suggested in the translation, and do not mention different interpretation (thought this Bible does not claim that notes can touch on anything more than the tip of the iceberg).

By the way, Amaleq, if you agree with AndrewCriddle's description of Paul's understanding, then you believe Paul was a historicist? Just asking for clarification.

krosero

Hi, in my opening post I did count Colossians as one of the authors who came after Paul. We all seem to be working here with that assumption, though I've emphasized Colossians enough to make it seem like I was taking it to be written by Paul. In any case I don't think that the importance of Colossians in this discussion is how it contradicts Paul. It does, but my question about it is very basic: how can a Colossians author who is a mythicist (and Doherty certainly has not excepted this letter from that category) say that God descended to the lower heavens and nailed the Law into the cross, or say that Christ nailed the Law into the cross? In a way, the authorship of Colossians doesn't matter as much as that author's own thought under the MJ model.

I do agree with your post, though; you have some interesting explanations for elements of Paul's career. My one quibble is with this:

Probably I'm just disagreeing with your wording. Paul's developed theology had room for the importance of God's incarnation (born of woman, born under the Law, and above all, crucified like a humble servant). I agree with you about why he wanted to neuter his disadvantage, but he wouldn't have quite said that the bodily aspect of the story was irrelevant.