aa5874

Notice robto said, .." a god" and not "God". The son of God is a god. And furthermore, if your father's surname is Weimer, then I guess you are the son of Weimer and that you are a Weimer, but I may be mistaken.

Chris Weimer

Evidence for your statement?

Brother Daniel

Oops. Silly me. Thanks for that.

But there’s a similar thought in 1 Cor 8:6, where Jesus is put beside God as (co-)author of all things.

In general, Paul’s Jesus is a highly exalted figure who suffers death as part of a divine plan (for some cosmically-significant salvific purpose) and to whom “every knee will bow”. To me, that makes this Jesus look more like a god than like a first-century Jewish preacher. YMMV, of course.
Let me get this straight.

I shouldn’t describe Paul’s Jesus as a “god” because Paul doesn’t explicitly call Jesus a “god”. The god-like qualities Paul ascribes to Jesus aren’t good enough.

But it’s okay to claim that Paul’s Jesus wandered around and preached to people (though Paul never says so), or that Paul’s Jesus healed sick people (though Paul never says so), or that the setting for the life and death of Paul’s Jesus was first-century Roman Palestine (though Paul never says so), or that Paul originally learned about Jesus through a chain of human acquaintance (though Paul never says so, and indeed explicitly denies it).

Is that about right?

See what I mean by double standards?
Okay, so Paul happened to visit some guys named Peter and James. So what?

First, the fact of Paul’s having met “Peter” and “James” does not establish a chain of acquaintance from Jesus to Paul unless you can establish a connection from Jesus to Peter or James. And don’t go making a circular argument by using the Gospels to explain who they were. Remember, the historicity of the Gospels is what’s under dispute in the first place!

(I imagine that you’ll want to remind me here that Paul refers to James as “the Lord’s brother. Granted, that datum does create some tension for the MJ position. But it appears to me (though I don’t expect you to agree with me) that it is quite plausible that that appellation is a mere nickname, and that that bit of tension for the MJ is no greater than the tension that Rom 13:3 creates for the HJ (to think of a single example, though there are many).)

More importantly, the significance that Paul attaches to his meeting with Peter and James is not what your argument requires. He claims (verse 12) that he had his knowledge of Jesus through “revelation”, three years before he ever visited those guys (and he says nothing about receiving any instruction from them).

(Hence, regardless of whether my earlier musings about “the Lord’s brother” have any merit or not, Paul’s meeting with James does nothing to resolve the problem that I have described (i.e., the problem of Paul’s source of knowledge of Jesus). The mere fact of James being called “the Lord’s brother” needs to be dealt with separately; it adds nothing to the present discussion.)

aa5874

Well, these are the so-called words of Jesus, the son of a God, in John 10:30, "I and my Father are one.

Chris Weimer

So when Obi Wan said to Luke "Be one with the force," - does that mean that Luke was actually becoming the force? Perhaps you are just ignorant of what it means to "be one". Note, in Latin, to make one is unificare, hence unify. It doesn't mean to make the same.

Chris Weimer

But we're not delineating who is who, though. What may be a god to you isn't necessarily a god to someone else. One of the big questions in studying Roman religion is the difference between numina and gods.

Correct. Paul makes a clear distinction between God and Jesus. They're both lord, but one is God, and one is not.

No, that wasn't "Paul's Jesus". That was the person whose name and death Paul took and added to.

No, all I see is your misunderstanding.

I won't go into epistemology, seeing as you have no clue that the relationship between the Gospels and Paul is nearly identical with other literary sources, but fortunately, Paul does make a connection. As you already noted, Paul calls James the Lord's brother. Objections that it's merely a nickname demonstrate ignorance in how "nicknames" worked in the Greek days. But that's not all. Paul also contrasts his own position (direct revelation) with the Pillars' position, which is a fleshly tradition, a tradition of men. The essential exegesis of the passage is that while James and the Pillars received the gospel through human forms (which reinforces the notion that the brother is a literal brother, and not a title or an appellation), Paul received his from direct revelation, thus establishing the physical meeting of Jesus with the Pillars.

But before he had his revelation, he persecuted Christians, thus establishing his knowledge of Christianity before the revelation.

Come on, think logically here. We have a guy who persecuted Christians, later converted to Christianity, but differed from the founders of the religion (the Pillars), whom he implies had met Jesus and even is related to him (at least James), and when he actually meets these founders, he disagrees with them, and later attacks them in his letters.

What is the logical induction from the scenario? It doesn't seem so difficult to me.

aa5874

So, what about John 1.1&14, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and Word was God.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Jesus appears to be a god in those verses.

robto

Um, here's what I wrote:
And no, "son of God" does not necessarily imply deity, either in Greek or Jewish tradition. If you've studied Christology at all, you should know that much.

robto

Brother Daniel, you make some good points. I have to disagree about the double standard; I think a fair evaluation of the evidence supports (some sort of) HJ.

All I was asking for was for Toto to back up the specific claim he made by providing quotes or references. He hasn't done so.

Are you trying to tell me that asking for someone to give evidence to support his claim makes me like a creationist? That's a bizarre distortion of logic.

Chris Weimer

How soon you seem to have forgotten your instruction.