gnosis92

The author of Epsitle of HEbrews and Mythical Jesus, an early Christian document writes

Hebrews 5

"7During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission."

Hebrews 2

" 14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—

Hebrews in many cases speak of the Son as a heavenly redemptive figure not unlike what is the thesis of the Mythical Jesus, however, these passages clearly affirms a historical Jesus, not a purely spiritual figure, and provide a simpler more parsimonious explanation to those passages that seem to speak of a spiritual figure -- Jesus did exist, as the author of Hebrews attest, but the early Christians attempted to reconcile Jesus' death and failure to their belief in his Divinity, so they had to envision Jesus as a heavenly figure to reconcile the historical Jesus' failure to live up to their expectations. As Bart Ehrman pointed out, we have no evidence of any Jewish groups prior to Christianity of envisioning a messiah who would be crucified -- they believed the Mesiah would be a military figure and political leader like King David.

Since many believers believed Jesus was the messiah, and he was crucified, those who continued to believe in him had to come up with abstractions, like Paul and the author of Hebrews to reconcile their belief with reality. This explanation accounts for both the human sounding passages and the mythical sounding passages.

This is hinted at the beginning:
Hebrews 1
The Son Superior to Angels
1In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

EarlDoherty

[Sigh...]

I wish that if someone is going to challenge the mythicist position on a given document or passage(s), and considering that--around here, at least--I seem to be regarded as the leading 'mouthpiece' for such a position, that they would familiarize themselves with what has been said by me, either in my book or website, or at the very least on this forum, in response to such timeworn arguments as...(whoever he or she is, "gnosis92" is not a name I am going to bother to address)...is offering from Hebrews. I have neither the time nor the inclination to take the trouble to do that again here and now, except to say that these examples do no damage to the mythicist case, and in fact support it, 5:7 being a reference to "actions" taken from scripture in the context of the 'heavenly flesh' Platonic principle (which has been argued ad infinitum already), 2:14 being the classic homologic comparison of "likeness" between the spiritual and material, and 1:1-4 being another classic Platonic description of the heavenly Son who is the image of God, acting in mythological fashion and "speaking" through, again, new interpretations of scripture, with his "superiority to the angels" being demonstrated entirely through scriptural passages, with no reference whatever to the superiority that should have been evident and appealed to in his incarnation, death and resurrection on earth.

Once again, an historical Jesus defender has ignored the obvious and actually made the mythicist case on my behalf. Thanks muchly.

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

Indeed, around here you are crown prince.

(Hi, Jacob. :wave

Ben.

gnosis92

Hello,

But I don't see how this interpretation can prove Jesus did not exist given, or that it is the "obvious" interpretation, given the phrase,
"During the days of Jesus' life on earth" implies the author believed in a historical flesh and blood Jesus, or why your interpretation would be a better inrepretation than the one I offered, that the heavenly-talk of a spiritual figure is a way to reconcile Jesus' miserable failure with messianic expectations.

jgibson000

Sigh indeed.

In the light of Earl's recent admonishment to Jiri that "if you are going to debate on this forum, I would suggest that you have at least a passing familiarity with scholarly opinion on various key topics and passages", I feel duty bound to point out the following:

The idea of the worldview of the author of Hebrews as that of Plato, or that the author's language and imagery and assertions and methods of exegesis are characteristically Platonic, has long ago been regared as false and untenable among the NT guild and rejected by modern commentators on, and scholars of Hebrews, thanks largely to the work of Caird, Barrett, R.P.C. Hanson, F. Schroger, and R. Williamson. It was given a death blow by Lincoln Hurst and William Lane. Even Spicq -- the most ardent of its defenders -- turned his back on the idea.

So if I may use Earl's words, it is my wish that if someone is going to attempt to build the Mythicist case from Hebrews, he/she would "at least familiarize him/herself with what has been said by" those who have been working since the 1950s on Hebrews and not rely, as apparently Earl does, on outdated and discredited scholarshp for his interpretations, and assertions about the background and characteristics, of given passages within that work

Jeffrey Gibson

gnosis92

How does the sentence in Hebrews
"During the days of Jesus' life on earth"

support the mythicist case?

Toto

Read Doherty's take on Hebrews on his website: Hebrews and his supplemental article A Sacrifice in Heaven.

"Jesus' life on earth" is not a precise translation of the original Greek.

jgibson000

How would you translate it, then? What is a more (or the) precise rendering of hOS EN TAIS hHMERAIS THS SARKOS AUTOU?

Jeffrey Gibson

EarlDoherty

I don’t know about Toto, but I would translate it: “In the days of his flesh.” Not, as ??? has given us, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth.” That is reading Gospel associations into the epistles, which is done all the time, of course, by many translations. Now, I can ask in return, why did this author not in fact write “In the days of his life on earth,” which would have been a far more natural way to put it? Why does no one in all the epistles write such a phrase? There is a perfectly good word available for “earth.” If they had used it, we wouldn’t have these endless debates over the stereotyped and odd use of “sarx” all through this literature as the sole means of expressing Jesus’ supposed earthly career.

Then there’s another question to be asked in regard to Hebrews 5:7. If this is a reference to Jesus’ life “on earth”, why is what he did “on earth” taken from scripture? This isn’t simply my opinion, commentators have identified the scriptural passages drawn on here (“offering up petitions” = Psalm 116:1; “loud cries and tears” = Psalm 22:24), and remarked on the curiosity of it, just as they have remarked on the curiosity of the fact that in chapter 2, all the ‘quotations’ from the Son who “does not shrink from calling men his brothers” are taken from scripture instead of Jesus’ earthly ministry, in which according to the Gospels Jesus made several very usable pronouncements in this regard. And just as they have remarked on the curiosity of 10:5 which has the Son “entering into the world” saying (in the present tense) a passage from Psalm 40. And just as I have remarked on the curiosity of the author in chapter 1 demonstrating the Son’s superiority to the angels entirely through scriptural means which have nothing to do with, nor make any mention of, his career on earth. So we not only have a curious phrase to allegedly describe a “life on earth”, we have all sorts of places in the epistle where this “life” shows no sign of having been on earth in history, but rather in scripture. (Not to mention 8:4 which virtually tells us outright that Jesus had never been on earth.)

Jeffrey appeals to recent scholarship which downplays the Platonic nature of Hebrews’ thinking. It certainly does. Which doesn’t make it right. A good example is G. A. Buchanan’s declaration (Anchor Bible, p, xxv) that the relationship between heavenly prototypes and earthly antitypes is “understood in terms of historical sequence and faith that is foreign to Platonism.” But Hebrews shows no such understanding. There is nothing in the text to support Buchanan’s contention. That is him reading what he thinks should be in the background into the text. It is true that in regular Jewish biblical exegesis, prototypes in scripture could be seen as anticipating later antitypes “that were also historical and earthly.” But this is clearly not the course followed by this epistle, which focuses all its attention on the work of Christ in the spiritual world, as High Priest. It never bends its Platonic principles to accommodate history or an earthly sacrifice. These things it never mentions. And if you want the proper reading of 9:26 and environs, with its revelation verb (which, of course, standard scholarship insists on reading as a reference to the incarnation), see my website article on Hebrews A Sacrifice in Heaven. (All these things are further discussed in my Sound of Silence feature.)

So I would say that Jeffrey and others have a lot more explaining to do, than I have in regard to translating hOS EN TAIS hHMERAIS THS SARKOS AUTOU. But, of course, they won’t. They will simply ignore all these problems and fixate as they always do on one particular point. When you refuse to allow yourself to think outside the box, you will be forever imprisoned within it. Too many here have locked themselves into their own cell and thrown away the key.

It is not surprising that modern scholars get on a bandwagon in regard to the interpretation of Hebrews, as they do on so many other things. They recognize that there is strength in numbers. In the early 20th century, it was common to regard Josephus’ Testimonium Flavianum as entirely a Christian interpolation (see Goguel and Guignebert, for example). In the latter part of the century, everyone decided that there must be a recoverable authentic residue in it, though all the efforts in the world have not succeeded in demonstrating this with any degree of reliability, which has not stopped the bandwagon effect. The early 20th century made strong connections between the mystery cults and Christianity. Then in stepped people like Gunter Wagner and Jonathan Z. Smith in the 1960s and 70s to present all manner of strained contrasts to discredit such a connection, and everyone jumped on that bandwagon. (Robert Price did a good job of debunking that whole apologetic transparency in his Deconstructing Jesus.) I have seen and documented too many unfounded and fallacious interpretations of this and that document by modern scholars in their attempts to force them into preconceived molds, for me to get all upset at Jeffrey’s appeal to yet another list of authorities. (And how is scholarly ‘consensus’ on this any different from the scholarly consensus on Jesus’ existence? It usually relies on interpretation of evidence designed to bring about a desired result.)

(And I thank Ben for injecting a note of honest opinion on my behalf in regard to yet another misguided accusation, this time that I have misrepresented C. K. Barrett on 2 Corinthians 5:16. One has to wonder at the integrity of those who would suggest that I would ever imply that any of these well-known mainstream scholars are in fact Jesus mythicists. This kind of accusation I have to see as deliberate distortion, a shabby and all too familiar tactic of those who have little concrete to say.)

All the best,
Earl Doherty

Chris Weimer

The reason why the author of Hebres used "in the days of his flesh" is because the author of Hebrews and many other early Christians argue that once Jesus died, he became spirit, i.e. he was flesh but soon lost it. We see the exact same thing in Paul.

In both cases, the evidence stands strongly that Jesus was once a man who became spirit.

But since I'm ignoring the problem, obviously none of this counts.

Oh, and of course, there is nothing in Earl's post defending a Platonic Hebrews, but merely an analogy to Josephus. Substance, people, substance!