Magdlyn

I'm sorry. I wouldn't normally point this out, but since we are quibbling about semantics and tiny shades of meaning in this thread, and since you used it twice...

the word is disingenuous.

Magdlyn

Wait for the revealing, not the reappearance.

No inference of a reappearance.

Raised from the dead on earth, or in a mythical strata of heaven?

"Appearing" not, reappearance.

Agreed, this mentions an offering, and specifically says "appear a second time."

The Lord? YHWH, or JC? James is very Jewish. I would suspect the former.

The prev 3 say nothing about a reappearance!

EarlDoherty

First to Ben, briefly. I am not too sure that I understood from all the kerfuffle over Carr’s appeal to Wright’s statement that everyone was chiefly, let alone only, objecting to a purported implication that Wright was intentionally addressing me and thinking to refute me. I didn’t take it that way. I felt it was simply Carr picking out a quote from Wright and suggesting to the forum that this could be taken as refuting my claim, and wondering what we all thought about it. Perhaps Carr was guilty of misleading us, or at least those of us who took it the way Ben is suggesting. The issue is hardly that important, and I’m dropping it.

But Gamera is another matter. I do not intend to address every point he raises. First of all, he refuses to address the pertinent parts of my website article in regard to what we are arguing, and thinks to dismiss it by some general condemnation of my methodology. That’s a cop-out, and I’m not going to do his work for him. So we’ll have to leave discussion on the ins-and-outs of 1 John to someone who is willing to actually grapple with my presentation of the document.

But his so-called linguistic discussion is a farce. First of all, I will grant that my point about non-overlapping meanings was unwise, since it was meant to apply only to the word under examination (appears vs. reappears), whereas he has taken it as a general principle, and such a general principle would indeed have many exceptions, a few of which he has supplied (like “double” and “redouble”). In any case, that remark of mine was entirely incidental, a throwaway thing. It has no bearing on how we are entitled to take the word “appear” in the textual contexts we have been looking at. That ball he picked up and ran with, as though somehow it has discredited me in everything I said. That’s ridiculous, and it’s simply a smokescreen on his part. No matter how many exceptions to his misapplication of my statement, the situation with the word “appear” has to be judged on its own, and in its own contexts. And that is where he gets into trouble.

The main problem with him, specifically in the “Condi Rice” analogy he offered, is that he is incapable of distinguishing between the knowledge contained in a given background situation, and what is inherent in the meaning of the words themselves, taken by themselves.

If Rice is testifying for the first time, the speaker will say: “Thank-you for appearing here today.”

If Rice had also testified at some time in the past, the speaker can still say: “Thank-you for appearing here today,” and not be implying anything about whether she has been here before.

The “reappearing” idea is not inherent in the language. It is present in the given background. The latter comes from a different source, not from the quoted words. In the epistles, such a background as Jesus’ previous “appearance” on earth is not supplied, but read into things. It is not present in the epistle’s words themselves, which do not specify a REappearance. I don’t know how to make it any clearer.

Gamera himself has provided a good example of what I mean (despite his misspelling of phanerow).

We know that the rising of the sun is repetitive, that’s background knowledge. It is not contained in the statement “the sun rose (appeared) this morning”. The word “rose” does not in itself contain the repetitiveness, and moreover is not intended to. It could only be understood as entailing that by the application of the background knowledge. When that knowledge is not present (and, again invalidly, he has given an analogy in which it is impossible for that knowledge not to be present), we have no right to claim the repetitive understanding. It is the latter situation that exists in the epistles; the previous appearance of Jesus on earth (and certainly in any Gospel sense) is not present in the background unless we read it into the epistles. And that’s what Gamera is doing.

As for his subsequent ‘refinement’ on his Rice analogy, that

This is bizarre, and anything but “coherent”. Rice comes back after lunch, to continue her testimony before the committee, and the chairman says: “Thank-you for appearing”??? “Usage is usage” and a dismissal of “logic” doesn’t cut it. The chairman simply wouldn’t say it like that, even if some bemused congressmen would be capable of remembering, despite such an odd expression, that she had been there that morning. If this is Gemara’s methodology in argument, then I won’t be “appearing” here for my own testimony in response. (And would anyone take that final phrase, by itself, as even implying that I had been here before? Would I ever phrase the thought in such a way if I was in fact talking about making further testimony on this forum?)

All but one of his examples of epistolary texts are invalid. He is reading his own assumed background of the texts into the words he is examining; it is not there in the words themselves. For example:

I don’t think it’s necessary for me to point out how these quotations, taken per se, contain no implication that Christ has previously been on earth. Does anyone here agree with Gamera? Do you, Ben, think that these quotations, taken on their own, in any way imply a previous presence on earth? Quite the opposite, I would say. “Wait for the revealing of J.C.”? This implies he’d already been here, seen by thousands??? “We await a Savior”? This implies that the Savior had already been received--and recognized--by many followers and believers a few short years ago, when he preached and worked miracles to show who he really was and underwent the saving acts of crucifixion and resurrection in our midst??? “To wait for his Son from heaven…” means he had already come from heaven previously??? Even the addition in this last example of the phrase “whom he raised from the dead” does not locate the latter on earth, and it would ignore the fact that this is the crux of the mythicist contention, that the death and resurrection occurred in a time and place other than earthly history. Paul certainly does not identify any such time and place, nor do any of the other epistle writers of the first century, so no such background as Gamera is trying to impose is evident in those epistles. (And please don't bring up 1 Thess. 2:15-16 or 1 Timothy 6:13; we've discussed those to death, the former as a widely accepted interpolation and the latter as being in a 2nd century document.)

As for his final example:

Now here we can see that the English text he offers actually tells us that Christ was here before. None of the other examples do this. But the question is, is this a valid and sole likely translation of the Greek in this case? Well, I called attention also to the Epilogue of my website article on Hebrews which argues that it is not, but of course Gamera didn’t bother to take that into consideration either. (One can also find a discussion of the point in Endnote 25 (p.334) of The Jesus Puzzle.)

Quite frankly, if he does not come up with something which displays a greater proficiency at reasoning and argumentation, I am likely going to ignore him from here on. I have better things to waste my time on.

And thanks to “Magdlyn” for joining in.

Earl Doherty

Gamera

I see nothing here addressing the semantic field of phainerow, which suggests what I suspected: you never bothered to research its semantic range, and are now stuck assuming your conclusion.

This is the only real issue.

You may be right in the end, but not because you actually researched the matter, and made an informed conclusion. That's just bad philology.

As to the English word "appear," let the reader decide. It's simply a desperate argument to say that an English speaker couldn't (or hasn't) said "thank you for appearing today" to a witness who had already appeared that day, thus meaning, "thank you for appearing again." It's a common practice in meetings and sessions I have been to (being an attorney among other things), and you can just google Congressional transcripts to find it. In every case, an English speaker understands the sense: "Thanks for appearing again."

And that's all that counts. If you understand it, it's in the semantic field. Appeals to logic are feckless.

But again, this is just a sideshow and suggests naive linguistic views. The semantic field of phainerow -- can you honestly tell us you analyzed this issue in any depth before you entered into the argument with Wright? Or did you, as I suspect, just look the word up in a lexicon?

Gamera

One does. Three arguably do. Given the context in which the author of Hebrews refers specifically to waiting for Jesus' return, it is fair to say that the other references may also involve waiting for a returning Jesus, since they are clearly escatological references in the same vein of Hebrews, talking to a similar audience, who had a similar gospel.

Understand, the "return" of Jesus is a complex concept to the minds of these authors It involves not only some physical recurrrence, but an escatology, a consummation of God's plan, a culmination of all the community's hopes, an ultimate salvation. Jesus returns, yet it is not the same Jesus, but a Jesus in a new escatological role.

So it's not surprising that it's spoken of in prismatic terms, sometimes, as with Hebrews, just a return, and sometimes, as with Paul, as a manifestation of ultimate meaning.

Still, there is little doubt that these texts eitiher refer to or intimate an expectation by the authors that Jesus, in some form, in some way, for some purpose, would return.

Julian

Not responding to a thread does not represent a lack of critical thinking, in most cases, quite the opposite, nor are the statements of a single individual representative of the mental capabililties of the forum as a whole. One must pick one's battles with great care or risk overextension. Concentrating your comments on the arguments at hand would be advisable as opposed to deprecating the audience in general. While I may, or may not, agree with your theories, I would certainly hold you in high enough regard so as to think you better than this kind of tactic.

Julian

Magdlyn

Nah, Hebrews is rather unique and has some very different ideas about Jesus as a high priest with a lot of ramblings about Melchizedek. It's one of those books that was not accepted into the canon readily.

It's not clear at all and so contradictory, a rational person can not make anything sensible out of any of it. Really. Trying to mash them all together as being coherent and agreeing is irresponsible.

Not at all. You have not demonstrated anything that has left me with little doubt. I see one mention of a reappearance, as I said above. It might be a reappearance, in the flesh, it might be an unveiling, as a revelation, it might be God coming and not Jesus. It's not consistent. And just saying it is, does not make it so.

Peter and Jude were written late as literalist polemics against gnostic Pauline and Johannine ideas, so they may well speak of Jesus as having once walked the earth as a human being, and may have expected another fleshly appearance.

GakuseiDon

Thanks Magdlyn. I thought it looked wrong as I typed it in, but was too lazy to check. :blush:

GakuseiDon

What exactly is a "mythical strata of heaven", in terms of the beliefs of the people in Paul's time? Can you give examples from primary sources, showing equivalences to burial, crucifixion, etc, occuring there? (Let's assume that this is not a modern concept that you are anachronistically applying back to the people of Paul's time)

GakuseiDon

Yes, that's the danger of trying to examine each letter in isolation: ignoring the background knowledge. Yet (if you don't mind me saying so), so much of your overall argument seems to rely on this very thing. If a letter doesn't mention A, why then the author wouldn't have known about it. (But somehow they were aware of fleshly sublunar realms despite the complete lack of references to such in primary sources) Sometimes this is reasonable, sometimes not. On the question of Christ having appeared earlier, I think it is reasonable to assume that this background knowledge existed to the authors of Col and 1 John from a mainstream scholarly perspective. The assumption by Wright in this case is a good example of your claim regarding how people read a historical Jesus into the text. Perhaps further examples may present themselves, Mr Kettle.