Ben C Smith

(Are you addressing me here? Oh, well; even if not, here goes....)

Joshua is an anglicized spelling of the Hebrew name יהושע (Yehoshua or Yeshua); the hero of the sixth book of the Bible bears this name. The LXX (the ancient Greek translation) rendered this in Greek as Ιησους (anglicized as Jesus). Jesus of Nazareth (whether historical figure or fictional) simply bears the same name as the Joshua famous from the exodus and conquest; many other Jews of the period also bore this name.

No.

Refer to my list of instances of בשר in the Hebrew scriptures. Refer also to my list of instances of σαρξ in Paul.

Ben.

Solo

We know from Genesis what "form" ha-adam was and that form was a likeness of God (Gn 1:27. 'kat eikona theou'). With JC it's a different thing: Paul does not supply the specs for the "pre-existent" one. We are not told what 'divine' form the son had before human birth. But the Phl. 2 hymn gives 'Christ Jesus' attributes of a separate being, making it his decision to be incarnated.

There are some contemporary theologians who would prefer that Paul had preached "Christ exemplary before crucified", as that would make Paul a good Christian team player and a regular church goer. So they argue (and I am sure Jeffrey's connivance in this is purely co-incidental) that the pre-existence thing has been overblown, and that Paul did not really mean it "that way". James D.G. Dunn, e.g. argues well that Paul merely clothed Jesus as Wisdom /Logos personified - i.e. making it God's secret that would become operational as the bodily replacement of the Torah. The problem is that he also believes that Paul preached the cross as ...the fullest embodiment of the wisdom which created the universe and which humans need if they are to live the good life (Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, Michigan 1998, p.274). Well the problem is that Paul did not care a whit about a good life, that the life with his flesh on was one only of frustration and pain and misery and affliction and persecution, and that his real Life was not on this earth but in his phantasms of a pre-existent and post-mortem JC. That's Paul's ontology.

Jiri

Malachi151

To add to what Ben said, as far as Paul and other early Christians were concerned Jesus and Joshua were exactly the same, they were spelled exactly the same, and thus there was no distinction between the name of Joshua in the "Old Testament" and "Jesus" in the New Testament. As Ben notes, both were spelled Ιησους.

Where the difference came in is later. I don't know the details on this, but I would assume that folks like Jerome created this distinction when he used the Hebrew for the "Old Testament" and used the Greek for the New Testament as he translated them into Latin.

Thus, by translating יהושע into Latin he arrives at "Joshua", while translating Ιησους into Latin he arrived at "Jesus".

I'm sure someone here can clarity this, and provide the real history on it, but the main point is that if one were reading the Septuagint (the Greek "Old Testament" that was in use at the time) and the writings of Paul and the other early writers , then there would have been no distinction between the names of Joshua and Jesus, they were both Ιησους.

At least, that's my understanding of the subject.

Jeffrey Gibson

Why on earth would you assume that -- especially since your question is just silly and (since you are an intelligent human being) you know very well what my infelicitous terminology was getting at, namely, that those, including Paul, who speak of someone as "pre-existing/pre-existent" are/were asserting that the particular human being (i.e. one they knew as having "lived on earth" and as having had "historical existence") to whom they attribute "pre-existence", of whom they claim was one who was with God before the creation of the world or was already "there" when God brought the world into being, was alive and had full existence not only as a person (with self awareness, volition, etc.), but as the person they were historically, with the full compliment of personality traits and attitudes and psychological tendencies and character that they displayed and were known to have during their "time on earth", before he/she was born/lived on earth/was "alive"/had "historical" existence", etc.?

Do you think that they were saying otherwise? And do you know whether those who have studied the use and import of "pre-existence" language by inter-testamental writers would agree with you, if you do?

I await your informed reply.

Jeffrey

Solo

We know from Genesis what "form" ha-adam was and that form was a likeness of God (Gn 1:27. 'kat eikona theou'). With JC it's a different thing: Paul does not supply the specs for the "pre-existent" one. We are not told what 'divine' form the son had before human birth. But the Phl. 2 hymn gives 'Christ Jesus' attributes of a separate being, making it his decision to be incarnated.

There are some contemporary theologians who would prefer that Paul had preached "Christ exemplary before crucified", as that would make Paul a good Christian team player and a regular church goer. So they argue (and I am sure Jeffrey's connivance in this is purely co-incidental) that the pre-existence thing has been overblown, and that Paul did not really mean it "that way". James D.G. Dunn, e.g. argues well that Paul merely clothed Jesus as Wisdom /Logos personified - i.e. making it God's secret that would become operational as the bodily replacement of the Torah. The problem is that he also believes that Paul preached the cross as ...the fullest embodiment of the wisdom which created the universe and which humans need if they are to live the good life (Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, Michigan 1998, p.274). Well the problem is that Paul did not care a whit about a good life, that the life with his flesh on was one only of frustration and pain, and that his real Life was not on this earth but in his phantasms of a pre-existent and post-mortem JC. That's Paul's ontology.

Jiri

spamandham

(I enjoyed reading that post by the way...)

Most Christians view the OT as an albatross they just have to live with, and so they have no problem apologizing away any aspect of it. But Jesus is central to their beliefs. To admit he might not have even existed, is to admit that all their faith is baseless.

Didymus

Yes, but that's not what I've done. There's much in the gospels that's pretty mundane, but I don't keep any of it, except for the fact - not the surrounding story, but only the fact - of the crucifixion.

I find it implausible that the notion of a recently crucified messiah would have just wormed itself into public consciousness without a dramatic precipitating event. I believe the crucifixion was that event. It is the one earthly event which appears both in Paul's writings and in the much later gospels.

Because of its public nature and Jerusalem location, it's also the only event in all four gospels that could have been possibly been verified by an author and his readers living in the last part of the first century.

The crucifixion occurred in a well-known historical context with at least one well-known public figure - Pilate- present and accounted for, and another - James the Just - in the wings. Even as late as 70 or 80 - the likely dates of Marken authorship - an author inventing such an event would have put himself at risk of exposure as a charlatan. (I'm just talking about the core event itself, not the story surrounding it, which IMO was created to make sure the crucifixion was viewed as the fulfillment of prophesy.) In contrast, the Galilee stories took place in obscure locales and included no well-known historical figures, so no holds were barred.

An actual crucifixion is sufficiently dramatic and emotionally compelling to have served as the impetus for the formation of Jesus cults in Jerusalem and elsewhere. I don't think a few scrolls referring to a fictional crucifixion, unsupported by first-person accounts, would have had such impact.

As Mack and others point out, there were numerous models for the figure of a wandering preacher in Galilee, and, per Michael Turton's "Commentary on the Gospel of Mark," virtually all of the the teachings and pericopes can be sourced in the Septuagint. So there were literary sources for both the Galilee bio and the Jesus teachings - no historicity required!

Ddms

Solo

Is that a trick question ? Or an attempt at setting straight some infelicitous terminolgy ?

Not 'otherwise', but neither in the overblown schema in which you have put it, evidently to condescend to me.

No, I don't know that (,which of course follows logically from my previous answer but which I am stating for the sake of wanting clarity).

Jiri

spamandham

...you don't think the destruction of the Jewish temple could have been such an event? You don't find it odd that the Gospel writers knew so little about Jesus - a man of alleged recent history - that they had to invent his ministry whole cloth from the old testament, or that Paul seems to be oblivious to details about the life of Jesus?

Crucifixions were commonplace, as were summary trials of innocent people. Personally, I don't see it even slightly plausible that such a big deal would be made of this particular crucified man, while simultaneously, everything else about him was forgotten.

Once you remove the miraculous and completely implausible aspects of Jesus from the stories, there's no longer anything even remotely remarkable about him. Had he been a rebel leader, or someone who had the ear of the emperor, then perhaps elevating him to god status might be plausible...but a wandering preacher with a small following who was unjustly executed? no.

There're a lot of unquestioned assumptions about early Christianity going into the idea that there had to be a crucifixion.

Amaleq13

The contrast between "form of God" and "form of a servant" could go either way but the contrast between "form of God" and "the likeness of men" does not seem to support Jeffrey's contention.