Bernard Muller

Layman wrote:
Paul did not rely on Philo. It is likely, though, that Paul and Philo were both dependent on already existing Wisdom Traditions in Jewish thought.

How do you know? Why would Paul not have the opportunity to read Philo's work?
And then most of your long discussions are about theological lecturing, which does not interest me. So I'll go into the beef. However I notice you need a deluge of words to counteract the evidence I presented. And then the same old argument: this is not a carbon copy of what Paul wrote, so it is irrelevant.

Layman wrote:
Indeed, whereas Paul stresses that the "first Adam" was earthly and the "last Adam" was heavenly, ... Paul is speaking of the resurrection, and comparing Adam to Jesus

You accept that heavenly Adam is Christ.
But "The last Adam became a life-giving spirit"
and because:
"the second Man is the Lord from heaven"
and
"we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man."

that would make the raised ones "in the image of the heavenly man", that is spirits.

But I do not know where the following fits:
"Paul identifies the original man with the second Adam."
Does not the second Adam refer to Christ?
because the second man is the Lord of heaven (obviously Jesus).

A quote from Wright that you reproduced:

"The point is not, in other words, that the new humanity will exist in a place called 'heaven'. Rather, it will originate there, where Jesus himself currently is in his own risen and life-giving body;"

I thought that Paul wrote about a life-giving spirit, not body:
"The last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (1Cor15:45). Does 'life-giving body" by Wright not an outright lie?

What striking is when Paul wrote about the "transformation", the new clothing, etc., he does not say anything about any physicality of the new heavenlies, but always mentions & stresses immortality. He is always avoiding the issue of the physicality & substance of heavenly "bodies" of the raised ones. Paul is going around the bush and never addresses the issue straight on, even if he had opportunities to do so.

Layman wrote:
This is very similar to Paul's statement in Philippians 3:20-21 "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself."

Most of this passage in very unPauline and a later Christian interpolation. Here is why:

3:20b from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

This passage is a late addition (but the words in Italics can be authentic). It certainly appears to be an outright (long) extension of the preceding sentence.
According to his letters, Paul certainly did not present Jesus Christ as some kind of all powerful God. The "Father" is the one raising the dead and "transfiguring" dead & alive ones: 1Th4:14, 1Co8:11,15:38, 2Co5:1,5
Ro8:11 "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you."

Paul never used the title "Savior" in his (authentic) letters. However the same title (for Christ) will become very popular in later epistles, attributed to him or Peter:
Eph5:23, 2Ti1:10, Tit1:4,2:13,3:6, 2Pe1:1,11,2:20,3:2,18

Best regards, Bernard

Layman

Because Paul doesn't even use the same language and does not repeat the same thoughts. At least not here. And despite their using differnt terms and completely different contexts, you do not even attempt to show Paul and Philo meant the same thing by what our English translations label "heavenly man." I suppose I could taunt you for a while and insult you, but I'll give you some actual time to come up with a real response on these issues.

Layman

I don't dispute Jesus is meek. Or that you can grab onto variant readings. But you are still ignoring the fact that the term suggests a physical presence.

Why not tell me what significance you think you've discovered here? And, given your complete ignorance of Greek, do you have any translations that adopt your usage of this term?

Yes, I know. I find it an important source.

Ah, how childish. In any event, you completely missed my point. I was pointing out that since Thayer's is built in large part on how words are used in the New Testament it was self-defeating of you to cling to it's definition while rejecting the examples I offered.

Ah, I did not know that. I rarely use the NIV. My apologies.

Umm, "went with them" has the same connotation as "followed." The rock was when with the Israelites whever they went. None of them are using the definition you seem to prefer. And if these leading scholars of Greek and the New Testament have no idea what Paul meant, how do you know?

How so, I think Paul meant that the rock followed the Israelites around the wilderness.

Sure. I always go out of my way to tell others they should take as much time to respond to my posts as they need. I get annoyed by petty taunts about how long it's taking someone to respond. I assume they have lives, other interest, families, and jobs. I do not assume that my posts are so earth-shattering that they simply MUST be answered within a day or two. To do so would be very egotistical.

So, perhaps you should take your own advice about exerting some control. When I tell you I am busy and am going to spend some time with my family and will get to your post at some later point, then don't seize upon such a moment to declare victory by default. Do not taunt me because I have a different time table and different obligations and, perhaps, different priorities than you do.

And especially do not do so when you continue to ignore the opening post in its entirety. Accusing someone of taking too long to respond (a day or two delay) when you have ignored the initating piece in the thread for weeks is hardly going to endear you to other posters.

Hmm. If you really believe that, then why do you do it so often?

Open on what matter? That you continue to duck my opening post? Or that when I say I want some time with my family you take a cheap shot and claim I'm ducking the debate? Such behaviour could quite clearly be labelled taunting. Not that I'd whine to the moderators about it. I prefer to just call you on your pettiness.

If you kept your comments on topic we could avoid these tangents BM.

Bernard Muller

Layman wrote:
Sure. I always go out of my way to tell others they should take as much time to respond to my posts as they need. I get annoyed by petty taunts about how long it's taking someone to respond. I assume they have lives, other interest, families, and jobs. I do not assume that my posts are so earth-shattering that they simply MUST be answered within a day or two. To do so would be very egotistical.

How can you say that?
I wrote:
"Hi Layman, I am misssing your rebuke
Did you notice I posted on this thread (5 posts before this one) something about Paul getting his inspiration about the manna, drink & rock from Philo's writings?
Best regards, Bernard"

Did I ask you to answer immediately?
Furthermore, I did not know about your family situation, then. You explained it later.
And you were answering somebody else then, rainbow walking, who sent post sandwiched with mine. So I thought you missed it. That's why I said "did you notice ...".
Do not insult anyone because of your erroneous speculations.

Layman wrote:
Or that when I say I want some time with my family you take a cheap shot and claim I'm ducking the debate? Such behaviour could quite clearly be labelled taunting.

Who claim you are ducking the debate? You are imagining things.

Layman wrote:
it was self-defeating of you to cling to it's definition while rejecting the examples I offered.

Always spin and polemic. Why self-defeating? I showed the same Thayer's Lexicon supported my viewpoint on "joined".

Layman wrote:
But you are still ignoring the fact that the term suggests a physical presence.

Not so, Christ as the spiritual rock, dispensing spiritual drink, could have done so from heaven, joining the Israelites then and there as their attendant (as Paul would have conceived it).
"joined", or even "followed" or "accompanied" can be done from heaven too. After all, God (or Spirit) did not have to physically go with (or follow) the Israelites on earth in order to provide them with the manna, spiritual or not.
The spiritual manna was supplied by God or the Spirit from heaven, would you agree? So I do not see why the spiritual drink would not come from there too. Both are the same, spiritual.
Paul himself said he could be in spirit somewhere else (Corinth) from where he was actually (Ephesus) (1Cor5:3).
Followed, or joined, or accompanied *spiritually*, not physically, more so by something **spiritual** (rock), dispensing **spiritual** stuff may very well be what Paul intended to mean.

I also note that in 1Cor2:12, the Spirit from God in heaven has a way to reach the earthlies in order to provide godly knowledge:
"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."
Also 1Co2:10 "but God has revealed it [God's secret wisdom] to us by his Spirit."
So Paul was aware of spiritual sustenance from heaven!!! As in
1 Cor12:13 "... we were all given the one Spirit to drink."

Best regards, Bernard

Layman

Perhaps because of this gem:

BM: I guess your strategy now will be to step up the rhetoric and debate me to death on this "join", and not answer the rest of the post and my other one. Am I right?

Why did you leave this one out, BM?

I simply have no time to deal with this kind of dishonesty, BM. I do not want to be forced to continually comb through your posts to point out this kind of gamesmanship and insults on your part--all the while with you playing the martyr and begging for the moderator to come save you from mean ole' Layman.

Layman

I will try and explain this once again. I was responding to your dismissing several scripture I offered as examples of how the Greek term at issue could be used as "joined." You dismissed them out of hand and relied on Thayer's. Or at least you purport to. My point was that since Thayer's itself gains its definitions in large part from the usage in those very scriptures I cited, you were being somewhat inconsistent in your reliance on Thayer's while dismissing my examples.

There was no spin here, just another misunderstanding. Yours. I don't even think you try.

But you are just wasting my time again. This whole tangent is just another red herring. Do you really think grasping onto an obscure interpretation of this word found nowhere in any translation or commentary helps your case?

Layman

What do you mean? The verse fits into the flow of the chapter quite well. Paul is talking about gaining the resurrection here.

Paul several times mentions the award waiting ahead for him. He several times mentions, explicitly, the resurrection. It is not out of place at all for Paul to refer to it again at the end of the passage.

You are being naive here. Paul quite often refers to Jesus as God and attributes to him power and worship usually reserved only to God.

1. "For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen." Roman 9:5 (NASV-other versions containing the same clear reference to Jesus as God are: NIV, NLT, KJV, and NKJV).

2. "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:9-11. This verse clearly refers to Jesus having the same name as God: Yahweh. (See also Hebrews 1:4).

3. 1 Cor. 8:6: "yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."

What is going on here behind the scenes is that Paul has modified the Shema and inserted Jesus right into it. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 was THE key OT passage demonstrating Second Temple Judaism's monotheism. It was the core of their religion. It reads:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Known as the Shema, it was the "basic Jewish confession of faith." N.T. Wright, What Did Paul Really Say, at 66. It was recited three times a day practicing Jews during Jesus' and Paul's times. It was a rejection of all that paganism stood for with its many gods, and a basic reaffirmation of Jewish monotheism. However, as we can see in Paul's letters, the early Christians took this basic Jewish affirmation of monotheism, and inserts Jesus into it by explicit reference to Deut. 6:4-5, the Shema.

The relevant passage,1 Corinthians 8:6, reads:

"yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."

There is One God--through whom all things came.

There is one Lord, Jesus Christ--through whom all things came.

Paul is making an explicit statement that Jesus is God, while making an explicit statement that Christians still believe only in One God. Christianity did not add a new God to Jewish Monotheism, but recognized Jesus as a manifestation of the One God's unique identity. "Paul has in fact reproduced all the words of the statement about YHWH in the Shema..., but Paul has rearranged the words in such a way as to produce an affirmation of both one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. It should be quite clear that Paul is including the Lord Jesus Christ in the unique divine identity." Richard Bauckham, God Crucified, at 38. As stated by Wright, "Paul has redefined the very meaning of the words that Jews used, every day in their regular prayers, to denote the one true God... he has quoted the most central and holy confession of that monotheism and has placed Jesus firmly in the middle of it." Wright, at 66-67.

4. Philippians 2:6-11: "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

This last example is informative as it is from the same letter in which you assure us Paul would not never equate Jesus with God. Yet he clearly does.

Morever, you are forgetting one of the key texts here: 1Co 15:45: "So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul.' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit."

By describing Jesus as the life-giving spirit, he is equating him with God, who breathed life into Adam in the text Paul is referring to here in Genesis 2:7. So Paul quite clearly refers to Jesus becoming that life-giving spirit--THE Spirit--upon his resurrection.

Thus, this distinction between the actions of God and those of Jesus you erect are artificial. God is acting THROUGH Jesus to redeem the world.

2Co 5:17-21: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. "

So this argument provides no support for declaring this scripture an interpolation.

This, your only other argument for interpolation, is insufficient. Paul often uses phrases and terms only once in his known corpus. For examples, your favorite scripture in which Paul refers to Jesus as a life-giving spirit is unique among his corpus. As is Paul's reference to the "heavenly man." Not found anywhere else. So the unique usage of a word is no grounds to reject a term or phrase otherwise well attested. And there is no manuscript evidence suggesting that Phil. 3:20-21 is an interpolation.

To the extent that you must find some other explanation for the use of the term "Salvation" here, you should not ignore the possibility that Paul is relying on a preexisting Christian tradition here. Pheme Perkins, in her thorough work on the resurrection, identifies several pre-Pauline resurrection formulae in the Pauline corpus, including Rom. 1:3; 4:24; 8:34; 10:9; 1 Thess. 1:10; and 1 Cor. 15:3-11. Perkins, Resurrection, New Testament Witness and Contemporary Reflection, at 217-228. That the early Church in Palestine to whom Paul submitted his gospel would have many such formulaes about its most prominent belief--the resurrection of Jesus--is only to be expected. "And some have argued that the use of saviour in Philippians 3:20 is due ot Paul's use of pre-Pauline tradition at this point." A.B. Luter, Jr., Savior, in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, at 868.

Accordingly, there is no basis for concluding that Phil. 3:20-21 is an interpolation.

Bernard Muller

Layman wrote:
Paul several times mentions the award waiting ahead for him. He several times mentions, explicitly, the resurrection. It is not out of place at all for Paul to refer to it again at the end of the passage.

What does that have to do with Jesus himself raising & transforming the Christians & called Savior?

I am sorry you felt you had to write that in the middle of the night. I certainly did not ask for it.

Layman wrote:
You are being naive here. Paul quite often refers to Jesus as God and attributes to him power and worship usually reserved only to God.

But still in your passages you quoted later, there is nothing about Jesus raising (transforming) himself the Christians. You have a word for that: irrelevant.

The translation on the mumbling of Paul in Romans 9:5 varies:
For example, the NIV displays a translation as "Christ, who is God over all", but in its note, warns "One of the clearest statement about the deity of Jesus Christ found in the NT, assuming of the accuracy of the translation" and then proposes two other translations, as valid (and more according to what Paul wrote in other passages (as in 1Cor11:3)):
9:5 Or "... Christ, who is over all. God be forever praised!"
9.5 Or "... Christ. God who is over all be forever praised!"

The issue is where Paul (or rather his scribe, Tertius) would have put the punctuation, which probably was not existing (as for spaces) in the original letters.

The rest of your passages is subject to heavy interpretations (& Wright again comes into play!). And still nothing specific about Jesus raising himself the Christians, which goes against what Paul wrote 6 times in 4 different letters.

As far as "Savior" is concerned, Paul had many opportunities to use the word, but it appears only once, in 'Philippians'.
Two things which do not show elsewhere in Paul's epistles (but later they did, in other Christian texts!) appear within a few words. That's an interpolation in my book.

Layman wrote:
Perhaps because of this gem:
BM: I guess your strategy now will be to step up the rhetoric and debate me to death on this "join", and not answer the rest of the post and my other one. Am I right?
Why did you leave this one out, BM?

"perhaps": You are not sure!
I do not see in my comments anything to rush you to answer. Instead, I was trying to protect myself against a deluge of dictatorial rhetoric and be pinpointed on a detail, which I got accustomed to from your side.

Best regards, Bernard