Adam

aa has a sense of humor? It's a miracle!

But the Historical Jesus is already here. Read my recent posts.

GakuseiDon

Salm writes in his review of Erhman's "Misquoting Jesus":

The third section of this chapter deals with another unfortunate term, “separationism.” Here Ehrman means the division between human and divine. He writes: “According to most proponents of this view, the man Jesus was temporarily indwelt by the divine being, Christ, enabling him to perform his miracles and deliver his teaching; but before Jesus’s death, the Christ abandoned him, forcing him to face his crucifixion alone” (170). This is, in fact, a description of adoptionism which Ehrman attempted to treat in his first section. Its placement here highlights once again the utter confusion of the author’s categories and, it must be suspected, the confusion that reigns in Ehrman’s mind.

Confusion in Ehrman's mind? An extraordinary comment by Salm. While adoptionism and separationism have similarities, they are not the same.

On adoptionism, Ehrman writes:

The first area I will consider involves the claim made by some Christians that Jesus was so fully human that he could not be divine. This was the view of a group of Christians that scholars today call the adoptionists. My contention is that Christian scribes who opposed adoptionistic views of Jesus modified their texts in places in order to stress their view that Jesus was not just human, but also divine...

We know of a number of Christian groups from the second and third centuries that had an “adoptionistic” view of Christ. This view is called adoptionist because its adherents maintained that Jesus was not divine but a full flesh-and-blood human being whom God had “adopted” to be his son, usually at his baptism...

According to the Ebionites, then, Jesus did not preexist; he was not born of a virgin; he was not himself divine. He was a special, righteous man, whom God had chosen and placed in a special relationship to himself.

In response to these adoptionistic views, proto-orthodox Christians insisted that Jesus was not “merely” human, but that he was actually divine, in some sense God himself. He was born of a virgin, he was more righteous than anyone else because he was different by nature, and at his baptism God did not make him his son (via adoption) but merely affirmed that he was his son, as he had been from eternity past.

Now, Ehrman's description of separationism:

A third area of concern to proto-orthodox Christians of the second and third centuries involved Christian groups who understood Christ not as only human (like the adoptionists) and not as only divine (like the docetists) but as two beings, one completely human and one completely divine. We might call this a “separationist” Christology because it divided Jesus Christ into two: the man Jesus (who was completely human) and the divine Christ (who was completely divine). According to most proponents of this view, the man Jesus was temporarily indwelt by the divine being, Christ, enabling him to perform his miracles and deliver his teachings; but before Jesus’s death, the Christ abandoned him, forcing him to face his crucifixion alone. This separationist Christology was most commonly advocated by groups of Christians that scholars have called Gnostic...

For Christian Gnostics, Christ is this divine revealer of the truths of salvation; in many Gnostic systems, the Christ came into the man Jesus at his baptism, empowered him for his ministry, and then at the end left him to die on the cross. That is why Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” For these Gnostics, the Christ literally had forsaken Jesus (or “left him behind”). After Jesus’s death, though, he raised him from the dead as a reward for his faithfulness, and continued through him to teach his disciples the secret truths that can lead to salvation...

The controversies over separationist Christologies played some role in the transmission of the texts that were to become the New Testament. We have seen one instance already in a variant we considered in chapter 5, Hebrews 2:9, in which Jesus was said, in the original text of the letter, to have died “apart from God.” In that discussion, we saw that most scribes had accepted the variant reading, which indicated that Christ died “by the grace of God,” even though that was not the text that the author originally wrote.

Ehrman examines textual changes by the proto-orthodox to combat adoptionists and the separationists. I don't know how Salm can have misread Erhman here, because Ehrman is very clear on the differences, and textual changes by proto-orthodox scribes to combat both.

GakuseiDon

More extraordinary comments from Salm:

No it isn't, as Ehrman makes clear. "Separationism" is the belief that Jesus and Christ were separate beings, with Christ separating from Jesus at the crucifixion. "Adoptionism" is the belief that Jesus the man was adopted as Son of God (and so became the Christ) at some point.

No, that IS "separationism".

Celsus didn't appear to believe that Jesus didn't exist. He thought Jesus was a "juggler", a charlatan. And "not coming in the flesh" doesn't mean "he didn't exist" as far as I have read.

It will be interesting to read Salm's review of Ehrman's latest book.

aa5874

It is extremely significant to understand that Christians Mythologized Jesus and it was Celsus who attempted to historicize Jesus.

Origen vehemently argued that Jesus was the Son of Ghost and Celsus argued that it was a LIE. Jesus was rumored to be an illegitimate son of Panthera according to Celsus

Against Celsus 1 Apologetic sources did NOT historicize Jesus--they did made him a MYTH.

Tertullian claimed Jesus was of the seed of God WITHOUT a human father in "On the Flesh of Christ".

Remarkably it was Celsus who attempted to historicize Jesus but did NOT use a single historical source LIKE Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius or Pliny the younger just RUMORS.

outhouse

what a extremely ignorant statement, christians didnt exist then.


hellelnistic roman jews like paul helped to start the biblical mythological jesus.


They took a mortal man, and were forced to make him mythical so he could be more powerful then then other deities that were mortal men in power with magical powers attributes to them.


Even the jews who were close followers in his inner circle who were not christians nor ever intended to be started the mythical content by applying OT prophecy to him after his death, that started the oral traditions that paul and the other unknown authors used.


christians didnt exist for a long time after jesus death.

Sheshbazzar

One of the most difficult ideas to get through peoples heads.

There were no 'christians' till decades (if not hundreds of years) latter and then in a foreign land, and the mythical 'thing' that was then being described had almost nothing at all in common with any person that had ever walked the earth.

outhouse

true

nothing at all really need's to be brought up again



we have the real man, a poor traveling jew, who wanted judaism to return to its true roots of worship to Yahweh. Not a helleinized version controlled by romans.

He was a hard worker not by choice but because its what he had to do to survive due to the severe roman taxation. He was more a zealot, but not the ones we use by definition. jesus knew you could not beat the romans with violence, after what he witnessed with John. He probably lost relitives in the revolt during his childhood. He knew if you had nothing to loose, they had nothing to take. he probably ate better traveling around preaching and healing for scraps then the 6 days of hard labor from sun up to sun down

jesus would have hated romans and much worse the roman infection in the temple


and what are we left with to understand the real man?


A hellenized version written to a roman audience by what amounts to jesus very blood enemies.

Who also redacted much of the message eliminating the true message to mythical sound bites.

Its a wonder there is any historicty at all due to a cross culture telling of legends that grew with time.



oral tradition can remain in tact within a culture, but since his movement was for poor hardworking normal people who were for the most part illiterate. they didnt have the means to organize the movement to keep its original form.

Sheshbazzar

But you know that I don't believe you have any real man, or evidence of any actual poor traveling Jew.

All of this is something you imagine to have been the basis of the JC tale, and how you imagine the situation could have been.
The texts don't support it. There is no contemporary witness nor attestation to it. Real History does not support it.
There is no historicty to it at all.
You may as well be telling us what you imagine Humpty Dumpty did for a living before he sat on a wall.

Adam

"out" with it, man,
Isn't my dogmatism less tiresome than Shesh's? At least I have some original thoughts. I have some evidence for what I say, he does not.

Vorkosigan

But, DG, didn't the Adoptionists believe the Spirit left Jesus at his death??

Way cool. This is what happens when you read Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoptionism

• Spanish Adoptionism was a theological position which was articulated in Umayyad and Christian-held regions of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th and 9th centuries. The issue seems to have begun with the claim of archbishop Elipandus of Toledo that – in respect to his human nature – Christ was adoptive Son of God. Another leading advocate of this Christology was Felix of Urgel. In Spain, Adoptionism was opposed by Beatus of Liebana, and in the Carolingian territories, the Adoptionist position was condemned by Pope Hadrian I, Alcuin of York, Agobard, and officially in Carolingian territory by the Council of Frankfurt (794).

Someday I will proudly be able to answer that question in the bar trivia contest....