Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Magdlyn · 07-24-2004, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Is human sacrifice, someone dying for our sins acceptable to Jews?

Officially now, no.

But there is evidence it once had a cadre of believers in its efficacy. See the martyrdom of the seven sons in the apocryphal Hellenistic/Jewish 4 Maccabees. I suggest looking it up in the New Oxford Annotated, with its helpful opening essay. 4 Mac is estimated to have been written between 100 BCE-100 CE, or around 20-54 CE more specifically.

Quote:

According to the interpretation advanced by the book, it was their noble sacrifice...that ultimately secured God's favor for the Jews and rescued them from apostasy and foreign oppression.

Toto · 07-24-2004, 09:28 AM

4 Maccabees courtesy of Peter Kirby's EarlyJewishWritings.com

Clivedurdle · 07-24-2004, 09:55 AM

But this says the writer of 4 Macabees was heavily influenced by Stoic thought!

More evidence of Romano - Greek (Greece was the minor player then) influences on Judaism leading to a hybridisation and a new religion!

Amlodhi · 07-24-2004, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

What would you suggest is outside the framework of acceptable Jewish eschatology in the Pauline epistles?

It looks thoroughly Jewish to me.

I had primarily in mind the concept of the deification of Jesus and the advocation to forsake Mosaic law.

namaste'

Amlodhi

Rick Sumner · 07-24-2004, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amlodhi

I had primarily in mind the concept of the deification of Jesus

Quite to the degree that Paul does is a little off, but the deification of men was not unheard of.

Quote:

and the advocation to forsake Mosaic law.

Did Paul advocate forsaking the Mosaic Law? Or did he state that it didn't apply to Gentiles?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Magdlyn · 07-24-2004, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

But this says the writer of 4 Macabees was heavily influenced by Stoic thought!

More evidence of Romano - Greek (Greece was the minor player then) influences on Judaism leading to a hybridisation and a new religion!

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Clivedurdle · 07-25-2004, 04:12 AM

From Nazarenus

Quote:

According to John Pilate said to them:

Behold the man.

This is one of the passion scenes that has most influenced the imagery of the Christians through the centuries. Scholars have long debated about what Pilate meant by Behold the man. The most common explanation is that Pilate intended to elicit pity: Behold the poor man. Another explanation is that Pilate intended to express contempt; still another is that Pilate intended to convey that Jesus was a ridiculous figure, in general or at that moment, that his claim to kingship was a ridiculous one. An opposite, less common, interpretation is that Pilate intended to express admiration by saying: Here is a man! The overt disagreement among the interpretations reflects the fact that the Greek sentence used by John does not have a parallel in Greek literature, so that we are left wondering as to its meaning.

The expression Behold the man is an attempt to translate the Latin sentence Ecce homo, which is exactly the sentence used by the Vulgate version of St. Jerome in retranslating the Greek into Latin. Ecce homo is a perfectly common sentence in Latin; very similar ones are found in the dialogues of Latin comedies. It means He is here in person or There, I give him to you in person. What Pilate wanted to indicate was that in substance he was handing him over to them for a decision. They could hail him as their king, but instead they made their decision by screaming: Crucify! Crucify!, the words that many people remember best from the passion story. The masses who through the centuries have been aroused to anti-semitism by this episode more than by any other text of the New Testament, have grasped better than most commentators the dramatic intent of this scene.

It is characteristic of Seneca’s dramatic style that as the action of the play approaches its climax the chorus assumes a more active role, and the lines spoken by it acquire a sense of urgency, becoming brief and argumentative. Pilate’s response to the demand that he crucify Jesus is to throw the onus back on the Jews:

You take him then and crucify him; I find no guilt in him.

This is the third time that Pilate declares Jesus innocent. Luke, too, reports three such declarations by Pilate, with the last one immediately following after the crowd’s demand for crucifixion. The chorus responds:

We have a law that says he ought to die,

because he claimed to be the Son of God.

The three-fold declaration of the Roman governor that Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him caused his accusers to change their tune. The charges originally brought against Jesus by the high priests had been tailored to appeal to Pilate’s concerns: urging the people not to pay taxes and declaring himself king in opposition to Caesar. After Pilate has declared Jesus innocent of these charges for the third time, Jesus was considered to be cleared of them. The Jewish leaders had no alternative but to reveal that Jesus had already been indicted on a charge of blasphemy. Hence Pilatereturned to the praetorium once more and asked Jesus:

Where do you come from?

Pilate was in effect asking whether it was true what the Jews were alleging, that he claimed to be the son of God. Jesus did not respond, just as he had maintained his silence when asked a similar question by the Jewish Senate. But Pilate pressed him further:

You will not speak to me?

Remember I have the authority to set you free

And also have authority to have you crucified.

Pilate explains to Jesus the essence of clemency, as conceived by Seneca: the restraint on the part of someone who has the power to punish. But Jesus retorts:

You have the authority over me only because it was given to you from above.

That a ruler acts at the sufferance of heaven was a concept dear to Seneca. Not only is it the initial and leading thought in his treatise On Clemency, it is brought out again in his Thyestes, where the chorus addresses the rulers of men:

You whom the ruler of sea and land

has vouchsafed high authority over death and life

lay aside your inflated and pompous bearing.

All that a lesser being fears of you

A greater master holds over you;

your sovereignty is subject to a higher sovereignty.[3]

Having reduced Pilate to a mere instrument, Jesus points to the real villain:

Therefore the one who gave me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

John reports that these words made Pilate even more anxious to set him free. Pilate must have uttered words to this effect, because in the very next verse some members of the crowd are heard shouting their response:

If you set him free, that means that you are not Caesar’s friend!

Anyone who claims to be a king is the Caesar’s enemy.

Suddenly Pilate finds himself on the defensive. He capitulates, but at a price. John reports that Pilate now took Jesus outside for the last time and sat down on his magisterial seat of judgment. This means that the main actors, including Pilate and Jesus, appeared at stage level. As mentioned earlier, the conventions of the ancient theater would not have permitted a major personage like Pilate to use one of the side doorsit was the central doors of the praetorium that now swung open to reveal Pilate leading Jesus, who was still dressed in the royal robe and wearing the crown. Hence Pilate said to the Jews:

Here is your king!

This is a more positive statement than his earlier declaration: Here is the man! Likewise, the shouts of the Jewish leaders become more fervent:

Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!

At last Pilate is in a position to extract his political price by asking them:

Shall I crucify your king?

They are no longer able to equivocate, as they had done in the previous scene. Having raised the specter of Pilate’s disloyalty to Rome, were he to set Jesus free, they had no option but to declare their own allegiance to the Emperor:

We have no king but Caesar!

Just as Pilate was given the last word in the debate with Jesus, he won the debate with the Jews by forcing them to acknowledge Caesar as their king. Pilate, as a Skeptic, was not concerned about the genuineness of the Jewish expression of loyalty to Rome. An outward manifestation of loyalty is all that is important to a Skeptic. In terms of the dramatic development of Act Two, Jesus had been a mere pawn in Pilate’s struggle with the Jewish leaders. His purpose accomplished,

Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be nailed to the cross.

Has anyone reconstructed the Passion, assuming it was first written in Latin, as a play, and looked at the results?

Amlodhi · 07-25-2004, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Quite to the degree that Paul does is a little off, but the deification of men was not unheard of.

No, it was not unheard of. But the focus was the Jewish perspective, and to them it was unacceptable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Did Paul advocate forsaking the Mosaic Law? Or did he state that it didn't apply to Gentiles?

Paul preached that Jesus' sacrifice was the once and for all, perfect atonement for sin. As such, he could not possibly have advocated animal sacrifice as further atonement for that sin.

Acts 21:21 "And they are informed of thee (Paul) that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses . . ."

The apologetic is that these were "false rumors". That seems unlikely.

See also:

Rom. 7:6
Gal. 3:10 & 3:18
Gal. 3:24 & 3:25
Heb. 10:14, 17 & 18

Also, Heb. 10:26, where a close study of the context indicates "Paul" is saying that once a Jew has accepted Christ as atonement, falling back into Mosaic sacrificial law is a spurning of that perfect atonement and now there remains no more efficacious sacrifice available to that person. IOW, he is back under the law and will be condemned by the law.

As always, namaste'

Amlodhi

Clivedurdle · 07-26-2004, 03:35 PM

Quote:

We do not possess the Greek New Testament.�* What we have is a mass of manuscripts, of which only about three hundred date from before A.D. 800.�* A mere thirty-four of these are older than A.D. 400, of which only four were at any time complete.�* All these differ, and all at one time or another had authority as the known text.1

Ehrman's recent and thorough discussion of the NT text leads him to conclude that, during the earliest period of its transmission, it "was in a state of flux" and "came to be more or less standardized in some regions by the fourth century, and subject to fairly rigid control (by comparison) only in the Byzantine period" (Corruption, p. 28).�* He adds in a note that this is the view of a wide range of scholars.�* His reviewer J.K. Elliott, himself a textual critic, has underlined the importance of this book.2 The footnotes that correspond to the above quotations can be found immediately below. They contain important information, so please give them at least a glance.

Footnotes

1�* D. Parker, 'Scripture is Tradition', Theology, 94 [1991], p. 12.�* Cf. P.M. Head's article 'Christology and Textual Transmission:�* Reverential Alterations in the Synoptic Gospels' (Novum Testamentum, 35 [1993], p. 111), where he notes that " Gospel manuscripts from the second century are very scarce, with only two fragments of John's Gospel definitely written before A.D. 200 (i.e. P52 and P90) "�* He adds that, although fragmentary manuscripts of the synoptic gospels are extant from around 200, " of all the synoptic manuscripts which can be dated to the fourth century or earlier, only two (P45 and P75, both of the third century) contain more than a chapter." [From The Jesus Legend, by G. A. Wells.�* Open Court, 1996, page 230.�* Emphasis added]

Why exactly could the earliest versions of the Gospels not have been written in Latin?

Why are they not adapted from a Roman play?

Toto · 07-26-2004, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Why exactly could the earliest versions of the Gospels not have been written in Latin?

Why are they not adapted from a Roman play?

The earliest fragment of a gospel that we have is in Greek. The Latin Bible is assumed to have been translated by Irenaeus from the Koine Greek.

Greek was the common language used in the Roman Empire in the areas where Christianity got going. It would be far fetched to assume that the gospels were written in Latin, then translated into Greek, then later translated back into Latin.

This does not mean that the gospels were not adapted from a Roman play, or a Greco-Roman play. There are in fact a number of aspects of the Passion that conform to standards of the Greco-Roman theater. But it is just speculation to assume that play was written by Seneca, or that Seneca knew anything about Christianity.

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07-24-2004, 09:28 AM	#32
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	4 Maccabees courtesy of Peter Kirby's EarlyJewishWritings.com

07-24-2004, 09:55 AM	#33
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	But this says the writer of 4 Macabees was heavily influenced by Stoic thought! More evidence of Romano - Greek (Greece was the minor player then) influences on Judaism leading to a hybridisation and a new religion!

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