Clivedurdle

A personal point to start. I was brought up pentecostal, and my experience actually gives me no problem emotionally with a mythical jesus. It seems to be quite easy for me psychologically to take this view.

What does that show?

That in fact the mj position is strongly supportable from the Bible.

This quote from TH A TM discussion I think illustrates this.


This is the important bit:

Is Paul actually arguing against a historical Jesus? Is this "other Jesus" the historical one?

The dispute is thought to be about circumcision and law and grace. Is it actually about spirit and flesh - i.e if you argue for a fleshy historical jesus his spiritual death is in vain? If you take up the symbols of fleshiness - law and circumcision and a historical jesus, you are preaching another Jesus?

Is this verse a possible editorial insertion?

These are the classic verses that I have heard preached a myriad times! I think it is Paul clearly stating the other Jesus is the historical one, the historical one is the heresy. Accepting a historical Jesus is taking up the yoke of slavery!

seebs

I don't think that fits with Paul's other comparisons of spirit and flesh, but I could be wrong. His usage is, uhm, sometimes a little unclear. Paul would never have made it as a technical writer.

Chili

Right on Clive!

The transformation is from the Historical Jesus to the Mythical Jesus and Paul's idea is that once we arrive 'there' we must leave the Historical Jesus behind as the necessary foundation that led to this freedom of mind that we found in the Mythic Christ. This freedom includes both freedom from religion and from our slavery to the flesh. This would be where religion comes to an end and will have served as a vehicle to reach this end.

The Galations were what we would call "born again" and for them it is wrong to take up the yoke of slavery a second time. They must find freedom from religion in the Mythic Christ wherefore I hold that it is wrong for Christians to go to church and those who do will have taken up the yoke of slavery a second time. They will eventually die in the saved-sinner paradox as if they were children of God going around in circles for the rest of their life because they failed to have victory over sin.

Notice that this does not deny the Historical Jesus but allows it to be foundation needed for the transformation of our mind, that, after all, is in charge of our flesh. In this sense can it be said that we must raise the Kundalini not just from the croth to the heart but also from the heart to the mind so that our body might be fransformed.

It is also wrong to argue against the Historical Christ if he must the serve as the beginning towards this end. Paul's argument here is against those who have been born of the spirit before God's own time and therefore they will fail to become perfected in the flesh. They are the those who preach the false Gospel when they urge us to become born again and go to Church. Sad but true.

Edited to add: Incredibily sad but ever so true.

Clivedurdle

Did Paul invent a messianic stripped down Judaism for gentiles, using the concept of god with us and the term Jesus not as a name but as a title - saviour?

Was his saviour entirely heavenly based, to such an extent that his tirades against works actually are tirades against the idea of the saviour being human and doing things?

Was there never a second coming but the coming of the Lord was the only coming to sort everything out?

Was this going to the ends of the earth his attempt to hurry the coming of the messiah who had not yet been?

Chili

No, he encountered it. Judaism is the basis for faith that only testifies on behalf of God and salvation but which itself becomes a liability when Jesus in the second person must become saviour in the first person. The Galatians were half-way there, they had encountered Jesus in the first person but worshiped him in the second: O, sorry Galatians, who was it that bewitched you? If it wasn't it should be since this savior is entirely heaven based. Good works are good except in the name of goodness much in the same way as it is good to receive a prophet except in the name of a prophet. Yet, and apart from this nevertheless will our good works accompany us in heaven where there is sure to be the name of a prophet shine upon them (Rev. 14:13). The difference is that in doing things for the sake of righteousness the rewards will be ours in the acquisition of righteousness. It was this kind of earned righteousness that Paul tirades against. There never will be a second coming of the Lord and things are sorted out. As Catholics are we Christians in awakening and until we are Christians are we Catholic. The return of Jesus makes us Jesuit by nature who will crucify the Catholic in us. Not to hurry him but just to find him because that is where he is at. I think that 'the end of the word' is a better metaphor because that is where heaven begins.

TedM

No. It is obvious (to me) from the contents of the letter:

He has identified his opponants position quite clearly. To read into it some some or historical vs spiritual Jesus is quite a distortion from an overly creative interpretation. What he says doesn't leave questions unanswered--it is clear.

No. It is about circumcision and law and grace. There is nothing to support your argument.


THere is nothing in Galations to support this kind of interpretation. You are deriving it out of thin air.

ted

Clivedurdle

Might be thin air! I see a huge amount of gnosticism in Paul, probably more than Pagels does, and I have had responses from others that the dating of the NT is circular and self referencing. I see messianic beliefs picked on by this guy who has a vision, and who goes on and on about "flesh" whatever that means and uses strange possibly magical phrases like "Lord Jesus Christ" which might mean yhwh saviour messiah - a super amalgam god, and I just wonder if Calvin et al with their faith and works turned it all upside down and misunderstood it all because they were early protestants who were beginning to become scientific and seeing works can change things.

I think we all now have real issues getting inside the head of someone like Paul ( and the myriad editors and scribes who have subtly altered it all) to see a truly alien world where things do go bump in the night, there are principalities and powers, heaven is above the vault of the earth and by going to the ends of the earth you can magically bring on the end of the world!

The problem as I see it is to get god and humans to work together.

Immanuel, God with us, Come Lord Jesus, salvation, resurrection from the dead are all attempts by us humans to reconcile the fact that we are biological creatures that die but we are also conscious. Paul probably created a very interesting way to answer these basic questions, but sided strongly on the gnostic, faith, spiritual, grace end of the continuum whilst others were on a circumcision, works, god become man, historic jesus end of the continuum. The result is what we see today, no real answers to the meaning of life (except Python and 42!), just attempted religious solutions that some people are satisfied with!

TedM

Fair enough. But I still think Galations is pretty easy to decipher if you take it literally and don't assume a bunch of add-ins.. If you don't understand a passage in it, let me know and I'll give you my take..

ted

Chili

Galatians is pretty easy and let's take this one (5:4) very literally "Any of you [born agains] who seek your justification in the law have severed yourself from Christ and fallen from God's favor." In other words, it is wrong to be a follower of Jesus and seek justification in the law.

Paul is taking to those who instead of finding freedom in Christ have found a new slavery to Jesus. It is unto him that these people have bundled some bible passages together whereupon they soar through mid-heaven ("halfway there" and thus not the midst of heaven) from where they try to change the world below them. They are the Second Beast of Rev. 13 and a description of them is given in Rev. 14:6-12 . . . wherefore things "do go bump" in their life by day and by night.

Paul was omniscient (gnostics are omniscient if they have noetic vision and if they do not have noetic vision they are not gnostic). The point here is that if we can have the mind of Christ we can be omniscienct as Christ (sic). This is not a 'stretch' but just our mandate in the bible.

I should point out that the new creation of Paul was censored by natural law (as in "a broken reed he shall not crush") where circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything.

Chili

It doesn't matter if they were early or late protestants because to be protestant is not necessarily wrong. Things only go wrong (for both Catholics and protestants) when innocent believers are led to drink from the living water (which is from the well that flows from deep within as per Gen.2:14) and thereafter remain torn in the saved-sinner complex due to the premature awakening of God's love withing the human mind (eg. Songs 2:7).

Evangelist preach this false Gospel and they and their followers rejoice in this practice because they know that it will have a lasting effect on the believer who him or herself does not know 'what' happened to them. All they know is
'that' something happened to them and they will try to fall line by 'jumping for Jesus' like the rest of them.

Paul's idea of the Gospel is to be "reborn from above" as per Jn.1:13 in God's own time instead of human or carnal desire which would be "from below." The difference here is that if it was God's will we will be taught "in the reign of God" instead of having been given a desire to learn "about the reign of God" and fill in the blanks with a display of good works. In Rev. 13 this difference is presented with the first and second beast.

There was nothing new about the early reformers except that the Reformation made it legal to fan the flames of hell on earth. You see, if it was God's idea that we be born again we'd only spend 42 months in Galilee (our purgatory) and never die while the Galatians will spend 40 years there and still die. In other words, in the false Gospel we enter the race willfully and will spend the rest of our life trying to finish it but never will and therefore still die in the end. The upshot here is that they will spend the rest of their life trying to work out their own salvation while those who can do this in 42 months will spend the rest of their life in heaven . . . as they must, to make hell the equivalent of a race without end in sight until we die. Ouch. Nice wish but that doesn't work. The effeminate Church must be the mediator between God and humans (Mary is the Mediatrix between God and humans).Of course there is. We just don't like the answers and would look stupid if we did.

Anyway, the punch line here is that historic Jesus worshippers remain stuck in the saved sinner paradox while the mythicist will have taken Jesus from the cross and placed himself upon it.