Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Will Wiley · 06-05-2012, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will Wiley

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.

These deaths are on earth. And leading on from that.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this... Christ died for us.

Why do you believe deaths can only happen on earth?

I did not say that deaths only happen on earth.
I'm saying that if Paul writes, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die", those deaths or potential deaths are on earth.
And so, it logically follows, that the death spoken of when he says "christ died for us" would also be on earth.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

gurugeorge · 06-05-2012, 05:43 PM

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Originally Posted by Will Wiley

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

It's only after the Diaspora (when things must have been understandably scattered and confused) that the earthers start appearing and claiming they have the true religion and everyone else is a "heretic".

Yet there is no evidence of any disagreement between "earthers" and "celestials", after the diaspora. No one ever claimed that "earthers" were the true religion and "celestial" were heretics. We lack evidence.

Post-Diaspora, the "earthers" are upstarts, later called "orthodoxy", the "celestials" are the old remnants of the original pre-Diaspora churches - i.e. Docetists and Gnostics.

The Church Fathers, the heresiologists, etc., represent the orthodoxy, and they're constantly banging on about the "heretics" who appear to be already established wherever they go. Their complaints are the giveaway that the so-called "heretics" were first.

Cf. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.

But also, check April DeConick's 13th Apostle (or via: amazon.co.uk), where she shows that that gospel was part of a fight-back by the "heretics", and (along with some of the other Nag Hammadi texts, lost for centuries) show how it looked from their side, and how ludicrous - and even evil - orthodoxy, and the orthodox Jesus looked to them (they were "celestials" in the terms you're using).

mountainman · 06-05-2012, 05:59 PM

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Originally Posted by gurugeorge

But also, check April DeConick's 13th Apostle (or via: amazon.co.uk),

Quote:

Originally Posted by April Deconick from Amazon book description

Judas was not only not sublime, he was far more demonic than any Judas
I know in any other piece of early Christian literature, Gnostic or otherwise.

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... where she shows that that gospel was part of a fight-back by the "heretics", ....

According to the current interpretation of the evidence, the gnostic heretics were fighting back (by writing all sorts of unofficial books) against the orthodox heresiologists both before and after Nicaea.

Can anyone see a great Nicaean divide in the literary fight-back by these gnostic heretics? Should we expect there to be a change in tone from the gnostic heretics after Nicaea (after all, they were classed as political dissidents, exiled, executed, their books prohibited and burnt, etc, etc, etc).

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....and (along with some of the other Nag Hammadi texts, lost for centuries) show how it looked from their side, and how ludicrous - and even evil - orthodoxy, and the orthodox Jesus looked to them (they were "celestials" in the terms you're using).

"The Bishops are dry canals" [NHC]

Are the Bishops post Nicaean?

Will Wiley · 06-05-2012, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will Wiley

Yet there is no evidence of any disagreement between "earthers" and "celestials", after the diaspora. No one ever claimed that "earthers" were the true religion and "celestial" were heretics. We lack evidence.

Post-Diaspora, the "earthers" are upstarts, later called "orthodoxy", the "celestials" are the old remnants of the original pre-Diaspora churches - i.e. Docetists and Gnostics.

Ok,I understand your point, but we have no evidence that Doeticists or gnostics or their predesessors believed in a purely celestial christ

Quote:

The Church Fathers, the heresiologists, etc., represent the orthodoxy, and they're constantly banging on about the "heretics" who appear to be already established wherever they go. Their complaints are the giveaway that the so-called "heretics" were first.

Possibly , but we still have no evidence of anyone believing in a purely celestial christ. Both the heretics and the "orthodox" held to a christ who was seen on earth.

Quote:

Cf. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.

But also, check April DeConick's 13th Apostle (or via: amazon.co.uk), where she shows that that gospel was part of a fight-back by the "heretics", and (along with some of the other Nag Hammadi texts, lost for centuries) show how it looked from their side, and how ludicrous - and even evil - orthodoxy, and the orthodox Jesus looked to them (they were "celestials" in the terms you're using).

They are not celestials in the way I'm using it. I mean a christ who only existed in the heavens, never on earth.

James The Least · 06-05-2012, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

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Originally Posted by outhouse

this article mentions Borg, and it sounds like his work a long with Reed

http://followingjesus.org/leader/images_of_jesus.htm

Jesus as a peasant

Jesus was a Mediterranean Jewish peasant. As a member of the artisan class, his father Yosep (Joseph) and his family were on the lower end of the economic and social scale. Although a construction worker would be considered middle class today, there was no middle class in antiquity. In the first century, these frequently itinerant workers were generally peasants who had lost their land due to misfortune and indebtedness. Thus, on both the social and economic scales, they ranked below the peasants who still worked their own land.

Jesus as poor

Jesus was born into poverty. At his circumcision and presentation at the Temple in Jerusalem, his parents sacrificed a pigeon, the offering of the poor. Throughout his life, he identified with the poor and their plight.

Jesus and his family were not at the bottom of the ladder in his society, however. There were others worse off. The lowest level in the class structure were the expendables. These people existed because—despite the high mortality rates, disease, famine and war—the lower classes produced more people than the upper classes found it profitable to employ in an agrarian economy. If they found work at all, it was as day laborers. Otherwise, they wound up as beggars or bandits. In any event, their lives were brutal and short. Widows and orphans were also people totally without means, completely destitute and dependent on others for survival.

21st century euhemerization. Interesting.

"Romans" worshipped the Resurrected Son of God who promised them immortality, not the "historical" dead Jewish peasant of modern scholarship.

do you understand the term

jesus to christ???

or that biblical jesus is not historical jesus?

Yeah. Do you understand the term "euhemerize"?

GakuseiDon · 06-05-2012, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will Wiley

Paul's earthly man, from Romans chapter 5

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This death must be on earth because it is only on earth that "anyone" or "someone", could die.
This is why I say Pauls theology required an earthly man to die on earth.

You certainly are ignorant of ancient cosmology and the activities of divine figures in the heavenly spheres. Your comment is the rankest naivete, though it's common among unthinking apologists. Are all those mystery cult myths about "dying and rising human men"? When Osiris dies at the hands of Set and has his body reassembled by Isis with a refashioned penis to father Horus, is this a myth about historical human people and historical events? When Mithras slays a bull and its blood fertilizes the earth, is this an historical bull?

Why not check with GakuseiDon to see how Plutarch speaks of the death of Osiris in the region below the moon? (Oh, wait...Don tends to be as literal-minded as you are.)

Earl, I'm happy to stay out of your discussions with others, both here on FRDB and elsewhere, unless you invite me in, as you have kindly done here. Think of me as "Beetlejuice".

By "literal minded", are you referring to where you redefine "incarnation" -- normally meaning something like "taking on flesh" -- as something other than that? Despite all the discussion over "kata sarka", etc?

Or is it where you take half a sentence from Plutarch -- "contained underneath the orb of the moon" -- and make it sound like it infers "above the earth", despite the context CLEARLY indicating that Plutarch meant it to include the earth also?

Will Wiley, let me help you out. The following snippets are from Earl's "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man", p. 257-8:

Quote:

Here is Romans 5:6-8, from The Translator's New Testament:

6 While we were still weak, Christ died at the appointed time [kata kairon] for us godless men.
7 To die for the sake of a just man would be difficult, though a man might dare to die for the sake of a good man.
8 But God proves his love for us by the fact that while we were yet sinners Christ died for our sake.

Again we encounter some curiosities of expression. Paul refers to the time of Christ's death with a vague "at the appointed time." Why is he not more specific, especially if it was a recent event? The phrase poorly fits an historical orientation and knowledge, but fits well a context in which the time cannot be specified because it is not known, because it exists in another dimension...

Thus in Romans 5:6-8 we can detect no particular point of contemporaneity between humans being sinners and Jesus dying to redeem that sinfulness. At best, Paul could have in mind that the sacrifice of Christ took place 'somewhen' within the Adam/Abraham/Moses to the present framework.

There you go! Maybe in another dimension, maybe 'somewhen' within the Adam/Abraham/Moses to the present framework. It's all good!

GakuseiDon · 06-05-2012, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will Wiley

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.

These deaths are on earth. And leading on from that.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this... Christ died for us.

Why do you believe deaths can only happen on earth?

What about Osiris?

Where was Osiris killed? And the text references please?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

Or Mithras slaying the bull?

Where was the bull killed? And the text references please?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kapyong

What about the Acension of Isaiah which apparently has Jesus crucified in the heavenly sphere beneath the moon?

There is no extant text of AoI which has Jesus crucified in the heavenly sphere. What version of the text are you referring to?

stephan huller · 06-05-2012, 08:20 PM

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arnoldo - that suggest that gnostics interpreted the Epistle to the Hebrews to indicate a spiritual rather than earthly Christ.

Interestingly I can't find a reference to Hebrews in Irenaeus. That's very curious especially given the fact that his Roman contemporary Gaius said it wasn't written by Paul.

The answer perhaps is that Hebrews is 'to the Alexandrians' on the Muratorian list. This might explain why Clement is so enthusiastic for Hebrews authenticity.

stephan huller · 06-05-2012, 08:32 PM

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[Clement] has given in the Hypotyposes abridged accounts of all canonical Scripture, not omitting the disputed books, I refer to Jude and the other Catholic epistles, and Barnabas and the so-called Apocalypse of Peter. He says that the Epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul, and that it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but that Luke translated it carefully and published it for the Greeks, and hence the same style of expression is found in this epistle and in the Acts. But he says that the words, Paul the Apostle, were probably not prefixed, because, in sending it to the Hebrews, who were prejudiced and suspicious of him, he wisely did not wish to repel them at the very beginning by giving his name. Farther on he says: "But now, as the blessed presbyter said, since the Lord being the apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, as sent to the Gentiles, on account of his modesty did not subscribe himself an apostle of the Hebrews, through respect for the Lord, and because being a herald and apostle of the Gentiles he wrote to the Hebrews out of his superabundance [Eusebius Church History 6:14]

I am starting to think that Hebrews was identified as 'to the Alexandrians.' Yet another example of Clement's crypto-faith.

aa5874 · 06-05-2012, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will Wiley

Paul's earthly man, from Romans chapter 5

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This death must be on earth because it is only on earth that "anyone" or "someone", could die.
This is why I say Pauls theology required an earthly man to die on earth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

You certainly are ignorant of ancient cosmology and the activities of divine figures in the heavenly spheres. Your comment is the rankest naivete, though it's common among unthinking apologists. Are all those mystery cult myths about "dying and rising human men"? When Osiris dies at the hands of Set and has his body reassembled by Isis with a refashioned penis to father Horus, is this a myth about historical human people and historical events? When Mithras slays a bull and its blood fertilizes the earth, is this an historical bull?

Why not check with GakuseiDon to see how Plutarch speaks of the death of Osiris in the region below the moon? (Oh, wait...Don tends to be as literal-minded as you are.).....

I find it very amusing that Doherty does NOT seem to understand that characters described as Human can be total Myth.

The very writer Plutarch in "Romulus" claimed Romulus and Remus the Myth founders of Rome were Human brothers Born of the same Woman and that Romulus ascended to heaven when he died.

Roman and Greek Mythology is filled with Myth characters described with human characteristics---Jesus is NO different.

Doherty seems to have derailed his arguments when he PRESUMED the veracity and historical accuracy of the Pauline writings while SIMULTANEOUSLY arguing the Pauline writings were corrupted.

Once it is understood that the Pauline writings are NOT corroborated to be early and contemporary NOR is it corroborated that an actual character called Paul wrote letters to churches and also that NO Pauline letters have been dated to the 1st century then it really does NOT matter where people thinks Jesus was crucified.

The Pauline writings are most likely NOT credible and cannot be corroborated to be contemporary at this present time.

Now, in the NT Canon Myth Fables, Jesus the Son of God, born of a Ghost, was crucified in Jerusalem, after a trial with Pilate.

It is ILLOGICAL that it was KNOWN the Pauline writer claimed Jesus was crucified in the Sub-Lunar and still the Pauline writings were Canonised where it is claimed in the same Canon that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem AFTER betrayal by Judas.

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