Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Metacrock · 12-21-2003, 09:07 PM

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Originally posted by spin
Again you miss the point. We have the statues to show that there was a person, we have inscriptions to give epigraphic data from that person, we have references to that person's deeds. We are going from primary evidence. When we get to the Gallic War we have the full weight of what we have as primary evidence to allow us to deal with that text, which also claims to be primary evidence and I think it can be shown that it is what it claims to be.

Meta: The have testimony of the whole community that produced Mark, and all the other Gospels. Scholars no longer understand the Gospels as just indivudal works by one author, they see them as communal testimony. These guys believed that there was an historical person named Jesus as early as AD 50, they must have believed so for a reason. We can see that from the works they left behind, even if they aren't eye witness.

we also have eye witness testimony passed on by those who intervied them; 1 Clement, the papias fragment, and Polycarp. They knew actual eye witnesses, they spoke with them. That is just as good as interiviewing a witness. Consdier it ancient journalism.

we also have the historicans, about 12 who accepted him as real and no one doubted it. all of that estbalishes a probabilty that he was real. you have done nothing to over turn that.

why is it that you can't understand the concept of presumption?

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Here you are simply shifting data from one page to another and nothing more. History requires primary evidence, which you simply don't have. Can I get it any clearer?

Meta: who says history requires primary evidence? Who made that rule. Show me the convention! And what makes for primary evidence? Whe Clement of Rome knew Peter, and Pete is a primary character in the Gosple accounts, why is that not primary evidence? When Paul speaks of meeting Peter why is that not primary evidence?

where is your primary evidence that dipsroves he existed?You seek to change the status quoe, to overturn historical fact, it's your burden of proof.

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You have a text purporting to be from the beginning of the second century. Is it?? How do you know, given that you don't have any primary sources on the matter and you only have the text that you do through it being cited in a much later text. Is it really what it claims to be? How would you know? You have an epistemological nightmare in your hands.

Meta: To which text are you refurring? You are quite wrong that the only way to date it is by mention in another text. There are many ways to date a text. One of the major ones is thorugh attestation (meaning the MS of the text in actual copies) and the writting, the anachrinisms, the events mentioned, and so on.

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Heresay in undatable sources is of no value. Try, oh try again, when you understand what is necessary. Hell this is simple enough. Each text you want to introduce must be in some way that your interlocutor can understand validified.

You would wish that this stuff is threatening. It's just bad scholarship.

Meta: Sounds to me like you are just totally ignorant of the field. What you are talking about is called "higher cirticism" and it's been honed into a science for about 120 years now. Scholars have gotten real good at it.

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Philo, the good Platonic Alexandrian Jewish writer, happily used logos, even though he was not conversant in Hebrew. I don't know of any biblical evidence for memra, but I do know of HKMWT which/who came out of the mouth of God. Could you supply a few biblical references to the use of memra that your source indicates?

Meta: First, you are arguing form sign. Just because Philo used Logos, doesnt mean that Johns use reflects Philos. John's use can be seen in works like [b]Wisdom of Ben Sirach[b] and The Syboline Oracles it was standard eurphimistic phraseology for Memra. WE can also see the same usage in 1 pete where he speaks of "the excelent glory." Same deal, that too was a euphemism for Memra.

secondly, Philo was not in a mystery cult. Doherty creates his own neo-platonic Philo but neo-Platonism existed in the fourth century. The real Philo was also working along the lines of using Greeks terms for Hebrew ideas; for him logos also has some hint of memra (of course he was more of a syncratist so he wanted the Greeks to be Hebrews in a sense).

examples

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Link Logos to Memra.

Logos is a Greek translation of the Aramaic word Memra [God's revealed will and wisdom] in the Targum [second century Aramaic translation of Hebrew Scriptures]. In his brilliant work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim lists hundreds of verses from the Targum Onkelos,in which Memra is used of God's presence itself!. In the same usage it also means The revelation of God. Now these are entstances in which the writers of the Targumim (translations into Aramaic for use in worship services) translate other words into the word "memra." But these writers were Rabbis and they did understand their tradition and the Hebrew language far better than most Christian scholars ever will. ST. John applies to the Logos What the Targum understands of Memra. (Edersheim, 660-62). Some groups, such as House of Yahweh, and Christadelphians, who deny the Trinity, try to argue that Logos merely means "plan." That Christ was merely merged with the divine plan. It's easy to see where they get the idea. From the meanings above where it means thought or reason. But this doesn't work because a plan is something formulated and set out, while logos means reason or thought more in the way that a thought is a message, or a spontaneous ongoing deliberation or reflection, logic itself. That's why I say that "Revelation" would not be a bad translation as in "message."

Returning to the notion of God's Wisdom, The Apocrypha is even more serious about the seeming divinity of Sophia (wisdom).

"wisdom will praise herself...I came forth from the mouth of the Most High...I dwelt in the high places and my throne was in a pillar of cloud {Shekiena?}...Alone I have made the circuit of the vault of heaven." Widson of Ben Syrac (186 BC), 24:1-6

Obviously we see a connection between Wisdom and God in a sense that implies an emendation theory. Logos linked to Presence of God: Memra. Edersheim tells us that:

"Logos has this meaning in Philo, and in Targumim as presence of God, logos occurs equally in rabbinic theology. Though there it is probably derived from a different source. Indeed we regard this as explaining the marked and striking avoidance of all anthropomorphism's in the Targumim. It also accounts for the designation of God by two classes of terms, of which in our view, the first expresses the idea of God as revealed, the other that of God revealing Himself; or, to put it otherwise, which indicate a state other than an act on the part of God. The first of these Classes of designations embraces the two terms: Yeqara, the excellent glory, and Shekhinah...the abiding Presence. On the other God, as in the act of revealing himself is described by the term Memra, the Logos, The Word, a distinction of ideas also obtains between the terms Yeqara, and Shekianah, the former indicates as we think the inward and upward, the latter outward and downward, aspect of the revealed God.

This distinction will appear by comparing the use of the two words in the Targum, and even by the consideration of passages in which the two are placed side by side (as for example in Targum Onkelos on Ex. 17:16, and Nu 4:14 in Pesudo-Johnathan Gen 16: 13,14 ....[several other examples] All three words are applied by John (12:40) to Christ. Thus also the allusion in 2 Peter 1:17 to "the voice from the excellent glory " must have been to the Yeqara. The varied use of the terms Yeqara and Shekinah and then Memra in the Targum of Is. 6 is very remarkable.

In v 1 it is the Yeqara and its train--the heavenward glory--which fills the heavenly temple. In ver. 3 we hear the Trishagion in connecton with the dwelling of His Shekinah while the splendor (Ziv) of His Yeqara fills the earth--as it were, flows down to it. In vr5 the prophet dreads, because he had seen the Yeqara of the Shekinah, while in ver. 5 the coal is taken from before the Shekinah (which is upon the thorne of the Yeqara (a remarkable expression, which occurs often; so especially in Ex 17; 16). Finally, in ver 8 the prophet hears the voice of the Memra of Jehovah speaking the words of vv 9,10. It is intensely interesting to notice that in ST. John 12: 40 these words are prophetically applied in connection with Christ. Thus John applies to the Logos what the Targum understands of Memra."(Ibid.)

But, theologically, by far the most interesting and important point, which reference not only the Logos of Philo, but to the term Logos as employed in the Fourth Gospel, is to ascertain the precise import of the equivalent expression Memra in the Targum. As stated in the text of this book (Vol. I p.47) the term Memra as applied to God occurs 176 times in the Targum Onkelos, 99 times in the Jerusalem Targum, 321 times in Targum Pseudo Johanthan. Role for Messiah in Creation Edershiem makes an even more interesting discovery about the Targum Onkeles: "instead of the rendering 'underneither as the everlasting arms' Onkelos has it and by his Memra was the world made exactly as in ST. John 1:10 (on Deut. 33:27). He states that this divergence from the Hebrew text is totally unaccounted for and no one has explained it. Perhaps John knew of that reading and had that very passage in mind when he wrote. In any case, even the notion of Logos was known to the Jews of Jesus' day and linked to God. Edersheim states: "That a superhuman character attached to, if not the personality of the Messiah than at least the mission of the Messiah appears from three passages in which the expression 'the Spirit of the Lord moved on the face of the deep' is thus paraphrased 'this is the Spirit of the King Messiah.'" (178)

II.Hebrew Emanations embedded in Trinity.

A. Hebrew view of God is emanation theory.

This concept is more often found in the Kabala, where it is more explicit, but it can be seen in the Torah and in Rabbinical writings too. In the Intertestamental period, Philo the Jewish philosopher uses the term Logos (as Edersheim documents, op. cit) to refer to the emanation of God's presence in the world. The notion of memra is used in that way as well. Emanation is like light from the sun, or form a light bulb, the light is emanating out in continuous manifestations. We cannot go into the origins of Kabalism here, but even though the actual Kabala was written in the middle ages, the ideas contained in it, and the basic style of mysticism, go back to intertestamental times. Many, both Jews and Gentiles are suspicious of it, because it is basically the Jewish occult. But one of the oldest if not the earliest Kbalaistic works, Yetsirah, shows us something of the use of this term Memra. Kabalism contains influences of Hellenization through Platonism mixed with Hebrew mysticism. The basic question here is, according to Edersheim, God's connection with his creation. That connection is an emanation. God is emanating through the Sephiroth, realms which make up the world.

"These 10 Sephiroth occur everywhere and the sacred number 10 is that of perfection. Each of these Sephiroth flows from its predecessor and in this manner the divine gradually evolves. This emanation of the 10 Sephiroth then constitutes the substance of the world; we may add it constitutes everything else. In God in the world everywhere we meet these 10 Sephiroth at the head of which is God manifest or the Memra "(Logos or Word). From the Book of Yetsirah Edersheim quotes Mishnah 5: "The Sephiroth Belimah--their appearance like the sheen of lighteing (reference here to Ez. 1:14) and their outgoing (goal) that they have no end, His Word is in them (The Logos Manifest in the Sephiroth), in running and in returning and at his word like storm wind they peruse and before his throne they bend in worship." [p.693]

Note: This is not to say that the Jews thought of these things as a "Trinity." If one says Memra, to a Jew, he/she does not say "ah, yes the second person of the Jewish Trinity." There is no Jewish Trinity. To a Rabbi this is just a word for God's presence. But the Messianic Rabbis do take a similar approach to my own in their understanding of Trinity. After all, This self revealing presence of God is what John was driving at in his use of the term "logos" just as a Word reveals, so is the Logos the revelation of God.

B. Hebrew Emanations at the root of Trinity.

Hebrew emanation theories influence upon the Trinitarian doctrine. The doctrine of the Trinity is too complex to cover in full here, but it can be sufficed to say that in seeking meaning within the Pagan world, early Christian theologians borrowed from Middle Platonism which committed them to a view of three persons in one essence. However, even this view borrows from emanations views already within Platonism, and earlier Jewish notions. "Middle Plantonism can be described as emmanationist, predominately Binartarian, and possibly subordinationist. Not much needs to be said about the middle platonist preference for emanation theory in its theology of origin, partly because such imagery remains just as much at home in the Christian binartarian and Trinitarian theology..."(article on "Trinity" Westminster's Dictionary of Christian Theology p582). According to this same article there may also be some influence from Philo's Middle Platonism directly upon Christian thinkers.

The first Christian theologian to coin the term "Trinity" was Tertullian, and the analogy he used was that the sun, it's rays dappled and visible as three separate shafts but all of the same substance and emanating form the same source Classified list of passages in which the term Memra occurs in the Targum Pseuo-Johanthan on the Pentateuch

C. Edersheim's List of uses of Memra.

Edersheim complied an amazing list of several hundred instances of the use of Memra in Targimum translations:

(From Edersheim, p 663--partial list) Gen. 2: 8, 3: 8, 10, 24, ; 4: 26; 5: 2; 7: 16, 9:12, 13, 15, 16,17; 11:8; 12:17; 15:1; 17: 2, 7,10, 11; 18: 5; 19: 24;20: 6, 18;21:20, 22, 23, 33, 22: 1; 24: 1,3; 26: 3, 24,28; 27: 28,31; 28: 10,15,20; 29: 12; 31: 3,50; 35: 3, 9; 39: 2,3, 21,23; 41: 1, 46:4; 48: 8,21; 49: 25, 1,20;

Exodus 1: 21; 2: 5, 3:12; 7: 25; Lev. 1:1; 6: 2; 8: 35...

Examples: Gen 2:8 "Now The Lord God had planted a Garden in the East and there he put the man he had formed." (presumably Lord God is Memra).

Gen. 7:16 "And the animals going in were 2 of every kind as the Lord God had comanded."

(The original list is 16 rows long) The Notions on Memra and especially on the Kabala are very complex. Edersheim goes into it in much more detail. We do not have the space to follow this in that sort of detail. But I urge anyone who understands Hebrew and is familiar with Hebrew writings to get Edersheim's Book and read this section and contemplate it deeply. In fact I urge them to read and contemplate the whole book deeply.

The Point of all of this:

1) Through looking at the way in which the Targumim translate certain words for God's presence as "memra," and the interchangeability of Memra and logos, we can understand the way that John used Logos in his Gospel; he used it in the way that the Targums use Memra. In other words, the logos is an emanation of God's presence.

2) The emanation theories and the use of the term memra suggests an emanation theory of the Trinty. That is to say, we can translate the doctrine back into Hebrew terminology and connect it to the emanations of God. God manifests himself in stable eternal emanations which are roughly equivalent to the "persons" of the Trinty. We can see that clearly in the way the OT speaks of the Holy Spirit. Why speak of it? Why separate God form the Spirit of God so consistently? In passages like "I will pour out my Spirit" (Joel 2) there is clearly a distinction. We can also see as emanations notions such as the Shekinah glory which led Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and Pillar of fire by night and which rested upon the Ark of the covenant; the envelope of light surrounding God which shown as his glory. And in Memra, the downward revealing presence of God.

Don't you love it when none of these fellows ever, ever cough up the goods they complain that they have???

Meta: you just asked hot shot! I did cough it up too, now what are you going to do with it!

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Isn't that a feel-good response?

The thing that didn't get through was the word "directly". Osiris obviously was a hot topic throughout the first millennium. Even the Romans got a bit of interest... I don't discuont the notion of the dying god being indirectly powerful throughout the Levant.

Meta: what do you mean "obviously"? you offer no proof of that. He was forgetten, he wasnt even the star of his own cult by that time.

On Cumont:

Be happy, I'm not near a library.

Cumont is not in any sense primary.

Meta: my God are you fukcing ignorant! there's no law that says secondary sources can't offer proof. no historian or acadmeic in any discipline would ever argue taht. You clealry no expericne in academia to think that! Cumont documents primary sources and artifactual proof, and I don't see you challenging it with anything but whinning!

The artefacts are primary. (And I have been through at least four of the Ostian Mithaei.)

Meta: And? You don't offer any proof.

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Who gives a hoot about Koester's opinions. We have only a few fragments of texts in the late 2nd century (see Schmidt on P52), and no obvious citations of gospel material until Justin Martyr. Talking about pathetic pseudo scholarship!

Meta: you are too ignorant to even talk to! Koster just happens to be the top shcolar today in that field. We do so have more than that you child! WE have Diatesseron and all others like GT and Gpete which are relplete with pre Markan readings! Gezzzz, what an amature!

Gosh, what a meaningful response! Methodology 101 might be of use to you. You were giving authorities instead of evidence. Doh.

Meta: There is no methodology class in the world which would say that sceondary sources can't prove things, or that when there is no ther evidence in the debate that secondary sources aren't good!

You apparently don't even understand the concept of textual criticism so you have right to even coment on it. Put up or shut up! I documented this, now either challenge it with evidence or accept it!

At least try to be relevant. You made specious claims about what "means that we have to take seriously the basic storyline". This is not an argument as putting it in other contexts shows.

Meta: What? are you really that stupid! Jesus Christ what a fool you are! You have nothing. You have no respnosne. I show that 34 Gospels form first century assume Jesus was flesh and blood, you have zip1 nothing! nothing at all to fall back on! and you have the fucking gual to sit there aren crticize my methodology when you don't even god dman fucking know what textual criticism says! what a fool!

Where have you been for the last century? Who believes that Paul wrote Colossians or Ephesians? or for that matter most of Philippians?

[b]everyone you idiot! Read Luke Timothy Johnson, Helmutt Koster, (I see you don't know who he is do you? He's the arche liberal and Cross worships him) in fact Crossen himself believes it, everyone believes it. show me one scholar who doesnt.

O but you're not near a library, how convient! well I guess I have to take your word for it don't I????

And still I don't care about the opinions of the bulk of nt academics. Opinons are only opinions and numbers of believers doesn't make anything more credible.

meta: that attitude right there screams "amature! KNOW NOTHING! Non ACAdemic!"

I guess you're with the idiots who still believe in the flat earth.

[b] so let me get this staright, because you don't understand the improtance of textual ciriticism, you don't know who the major shcolars are, you have no idea what the diatesseron is, you miss basic facts known to everyone in the field like the acceptance of Pauline autoriship and the date for most Gosples around 80, because you don't understand the basics of the field, that means I"m a flat earther? I;'d like to know how your ignorance and you lack of education and insight and knowledge somehow relfects badly on me?

And historical thought has become somewhat more sophisticated and demanding than the fellows you're used to.

you don't know jack shit about histoirical thought. I'm in the field you aren't obviously!

As I have said above, substantive claims -- hey, you do claim that Jesus was a historical figure don't you? -- require substantive evidence.

I've seen what you consider evidence. Hearsay, opinions, and texts you know next to nothing about. It doesn't augur well for your God given opinions.

Meta: Those were done by real people little guy. Those works, the Gospels and so on did not just spring up out of nothing. They were complied by real people. Those people had view points. WE can learn of their views by treating their work like artifacts and using detective work like an archeaologist. It's not just a simple matter of "was he an eye witness,?" "No" Ok it's no good. Everything of an historical nature is historical evidence and can tell us something.

the fact that the pre makran narrative was so early and still saw Jesus as flesh and blood tells us that his existence was not doubted, it was assumed at a very early time. that tells us he was probably a real guy, because otherwise why did they think he was at such an early time? Doherty doesnt 'have them fleshing him out as historical until the second century. So Doherty is obviously wrong.

Metacrock · 12-21-2003, 09:18 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rlogan
A.N. -

It's good to know who is doing the responding to you as there is a set of differing beliefs here. I see Vinnie's not here yet, but he'll fall on the side of the HJ scale as opposed to myth.

Go to your chairman and ask him how many of these events, in his opinion, actually happened:

- virgin birth
- raising lazarus from the dead
- turning water into wine
- healing lepers
- healing cripples
- the slaughter of the innocents by Herod
- feeding 5,000 people with a box of twinkies
- walking on water
- rising from the dead three days after crucifixion
- dead man appears before 500

[font color=blue]Meta:[/color] I can't believe your thinking is really that fallacious. If you really think that way we have nothing to say to each other. Try to get your mind around this; just becuase Jesus existed doenst' mean he born of a virgin, you can you understand that/? is that too big a streach for you? Just because Jesus was a real guy doesn't mean everything in the Gospels happened. can possibliy understand that? is this Greek or something?

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Unless you accept all of those things and more, you are automatically in the "part myth" position. The only question is how far along the "myth scale" you fall. It is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

Meta: what? I dont' care about that. It' is all or noting, because I'm concerned with Jesus having existed.

I'm open to new evidence, and I wish to heck something would get dug up, like some early fragments of Mark or a laminated "Q".

Meta: why do you find it textual ciriticism so hard to fathum? Hmmm? Look, when someone copies a text, they copy word for word. but over time, they get some of the words wrong. Each copy is called a "reading." So we can tell by the reading, which words are wrong, which Ms was copied and when it was made. So when we find readings that show a pre Markan word order and choice, we know that reading comes from a ms tradition that is older than Mark. That's what all that Koster stuff is about. WE have that. it's in the Diatesseron. means the story was written down real early. So they assumed Jesus was real as early as just 20 years after the events. Not likely they would have made up a whole person with a hitory and everything in just 20 years.

You'll find 21st century scholarship coalescing around a lonely, obscure figure from the North proposing the "composite" approach.

Meta: No it's not. you don't know anything about scholaship, that' why you buy into the stupidest postion on the net.

Metacrock · 12-21-2003, 09:20 PM

I wont asnwer "spin" anymore. He's too, um briliant to talk to. let him go find morty go back to the mickey mouse club.

Yellum Notnef · 12-21-2003, 09:30 PM

Nothing says "Merry Christmas" quite like a post from Metacrock.

mike_decock · 12-21-2003, 09:46 PM

[Mod Mode]

OK. I've had enough of this trainwreck of a thread so I'm locking it. Archimedes: I hope you've been able to gather some useful information between the insults and I want to apologize on behalf of the posters whose passion got the best of them. I hope you stick around in spite of the tone of this thread. It's not characteristic of this forum.

-Mike...

12-21-2003, 09:30 PM	#54
Yellum Notnef Banned Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Gone Posts: 4,676	Classic Meta! Nothing says "Merry Christmas" quite like a post from Metacrock.

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12-21-2003, 09:20 PM	#53
Metacrock Banned Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Dallas, Texas, USA Posts: 1,734	I wont asnwer "spin" anymore. He's too, um briliant to talk to. let him go find morty go back to the mickey mouse club.

12-21-2003, 09:46 PM	#55
mike_decock Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Scottsdale, AZ Posts: 1,505	[Mod Mode] OK. I've had enough of this trainwreck of a thread so I'm locking it. Archimedes: I hope you've been able to gather some useful information between the insults and I want to apologize on behalf of the posters whose passion got the best of them. I hope you stick around in spite of the tone of this thread. It's not characteristic of this forum. -Mike...

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