Jeffrey Gibson

I wonder if you'd be kind enough to do the following:

1. Define what you mean by "God-man";

2. Show that what you mean by "God-man" is really what any NT author says Jesus is (or was intent to prove Jesus was);

3. Show that any NT scholar - and especially those who have investigated and written on NT christology (i.e. Bousset, Bultmann, Dahl, DeJonge, Dunn, Collins, Cullmann, Hahn, Hengel, Hultgren, Karris, Kingsbury, Loader, Marshall, Martin, Matera, Neyrey, O'Collins, Schnakenburg, Sinclair, Taylor, Wright, Fuller, Hurtado, Brown, Kraemer, Fitzmyer) -- assumes that any NT author portrays Jesus in terms of the "God-man" concept that you believe is part and parcel of NT christology.

4. Show that scholars who are experts on the christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries and on Nicea and especially Chalcedon believe that the "God-man" concept you think pervades NT Christology is part of NT christology;

5. List what scholarly works on NT christology you have actually read.

With thanks in advance!

JG

Roger Pearse

This would appear to involve the fallacy of the omitted middle.

Before proceeding with this demand, we would need to be clear that there are indeed only two alternatives, and clearly define them both. Your statement above is already some way from a reasonable description of either, you know.

I often see reports on the news media of some bus-crash or whatever. The numbers of people involved often vary from source to source, simply because the journalists concerned don't bother very much whether it is 50 people or 52 people involved. But few of us would infer from this that the bus crash did not happen.

L. Ron Hubbard fabricated much of his biography. It would be curious to infer from this that L. Ron never existed.

I'm sorry to tell you this, George, but I think that the dichotomy which obviously has impressed you would strike most people as deeply obtuse. Life isn't like that. Honestly it isn't.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Magdlyn

Self-evident? A man that is a god or a god that is a man. Either by resurrection after death (Paul), adoption at baptism (Mark), birth (Matt and Luke), or pre-existant (John).


That's quite a list of requirements!

Jeffrey Gibson

Perhaps. But it is what is absolutely necessary to show whether claims such as yours (and George's) about what Paul (at Rom. 1:4) or Mark (at 1:1 and in 1:11 or Matthew and Luke (in their infancy narratives) or the author of GJohn (in 1:1-18) said vis a vis who Jesus was have any merit.

And though I actually asked the questions of George, may I have your answers to them? Or is it the case that you haven't really investigated, through perusal of the scholarly literature on NT christology, let alone critical commentaries on Romans and the Synoptics and on GJohn, whether what you think Paul and Mark and John claim about Jesus, given, say, their use of the title "Son of God" of him, is true?


Jeffrey

Magdlyn

Why are those scholars so qualified to determine Truth TM? Are they "believers?" If yes, then their opinion wouldn't be worth much to me... maybe of interest, but not necessarily True.

No, I have not read all of them. And I don't need to, just to define "Godman." Altho I wouldn't be averse to reading them for fun, mind you!

spin

What do you expect someone to get out of the works you refer to that cannot be gleaned from the source texts?


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

Context and background and knowledge of usage.

Jeffrey

spin

What knowledge of usage do you expect beyond what a decent lexicon supplies? What background and context do you expect that can't be derived from other texts of the period? Thanks.


spin

Magdlyn

I do own and have read repeatedly an Oxford Annotated Bible which provides a good deal of context and translation and redaction issues. I've read Price, Armstrong, Spong and Pagels. I've also read Jos Campbell and a good deal of Jung for another kind of context. I've also read books on Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Babylonian and Canaanite polytheism (esp goddesses), ancient Egyptian religion, Gnosticism and other early Christianities, Kabbalah, Talmud, Platonism, Greek mystery religion, and Celtic religion.

I think I can adequately define "godman.":huh:

Jeffrey Gibson

What lexicon do you have in mind as a decent one? TDNT perhaps? And if you grant that one should or needs to use a "decent Lexicon" of the language of the source texts in order to understand or get the semantic range of the meaning of such titles as the NT authors apply to Jesus, rather than, as you originally proposed, just by reading (in translation?) the source texts themselves, why not use a dictionary article on hUIOS TOU QEOU such as we find in the ABD or the IDB? And if a dictionary article, why not a monograph on this title like Hengel's _Son of God_ or Kramer's _Christ, Lord, Son of God_ or articles like A.Y. Collins' "Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Jews" and Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Greeks and Romans"?

Are you really saying that if Magdlyn or George looked up hUIOS TOU QEOU in a "decent lexicon" like the TDNT, they'd find confirmation that in the NT -- and more importantly at the particular places Magdlyn mentioned - hUIOS TOU QEOU meant what they claim it means?

And are you saying that your own understanding of NT chistological titles mean has not been broadended or changed from what you once "knew" them to mean by books or articles on the Christology of the NT?

What's more, do you think that Magdlyn and/or George actually have looked them up anywhere?

Magdyln has practically admitted that she hasn't. And George's silence is telling.

Jeffrey