TedM

The question for me is "of whom"? It could be either "of the Lord" or "of other fellow believers". Without evidence as to which one he means I don't find it helpful to either case, though it is a unique use by Paul.

ted

Ben C Smith

I guess what I am driving at on your end of the discussion is that this distinguishing mark is not very distinguishing. Surely there were other brothers called Quartus (just as there were probably others in the 500 called James).

(Then again and come to think of it, though, maybe not. I have read that Quartus is relatively and surprisingly rare as a Latin name in antiquity, though I have no stats to turn to. I once posted that tidbit on this board, IIRC, before remembering the Quartus from Romans 16; but Paul gets away with the bare name Cephas, presumably because it was quite rare as a name, so perhaps here he gets away with the bare name Quartus because it too was rare, and calls him the brother only because he has honored every single other person in the chapter with some pleasant description.)

Ben.

TedM

I did miss your point. Sorry. The context and tone (greetings from various people) suggest that whether Quartus is a common name or not, the people Paul was writing to knew which Quartus he was referring to. Therefore "brother" was not a helpful descriptor. However, it does have some meaning. Whether that is "fellow Christian" or a member of a select group, is not clear since the who he was a brother to isn't mentioned.

In the case of James in Galatians, it may be that "of the Lord" also is not a helpful of necessary descriptor because the Galations would have known who James the apostle is. However, since he had already identified James by calling him an apostle, it seems odd that he would have added any further descriptor there since he didn't do so for Cephas in the prior verse. This suggests to me that the term was a further helpful indentifyer that didn't also apply to Cephas.

Am I addressing your position appropriately?

ted

TedM

I appreciate your response, but my reply may be a bit fiesty, for that is how I feel at the moment. be warned

At some point in time I think common sense needs to be used. The "we" portions of Acts don't read like a typical fictional religious story. There is little in the way of supernatural events, and plenty in the way of useless information that doesn't help make the story interesting. There is little of the way of strong theological messages also. Could it be a fictional historical account? Sure. Does it read like religious fiction? no. The other thing, which I mentioned is that I think it was Layman who showed some 100 items of consistency between Acts and the epistles of Paul. Yet, some basic areas that look inconsistent exist, which someone who was just trying to create fictional history by relying on Paul's epistles likely would not have done. All considered, it seems like this was a valid, first-hand account by someone who travelled with Paul.


It seems to me that if "proof" is what is required then evidence without proof means nothing.

Thanks for the info from Strongs' about John 1:5 (of vs from).

Other interpretations are possible, though most would assume that if someone says they heard, saw and touched something, it happened in the physical world on earth. It is the first interpretation most would have because people normally don't mention all three senses being involved when discussing visions and revelations and messages. And, they normally would mention the vision, and revelation if that is the way in which they obtained the information. Instead the author of John says that the Word of life was manifested, was with God, was Jesus, and was in the flesh (1 John 1:1-5, and 4:2).


It is a misleading impression, that I don't think you should feel good about. What WOULD be ok is to suggest that the dozen or so things we have about Jesus before his death apply to some other world, but not just ONE thing.


[Quote=Originally Posted by TedM ]
I think the passages imply that these things happened on earth in some place:

The problem is that you give no good reason to believe they happen elsewhere, as far as I've seen. The existence of Platonic thought is as close as you get, though we have no examples besides a badly distorted LATE version of the Ascension of Isaiah that are even close to showing us examples of what took place in these other worlds. And, unfortunately for Doherty, the events that took place regarding Jesus in THAT book are most reasonably interpreted as having occured on earth. It is sad that that's the best positive evidence he can present for his theory, and that so many people gobble it right up.



I felt that you were MINIMIZING this 'life' of Jesus, wherever you think it occurred. The more you minimize it so that it looks like he simply existed and then was crucified, the more misleading that is because the 'other world' theory isn't as difficult to support. I'm saying, HEY let's look at ALL the things Jesus is said to have DONE or said during that life so that we can be more realistic about WHERE that life occurred.


Why is that not credible? "we should be called the sons of God (like the Son). therefore the world knoweth us not (since we are now sons too), because it knew him (the Son) not".

It is possible that it is referring to God the Father. But, it is also referring to a past event, despite the obvious existence of current opposition. Saying it "knew him not" rather than "knows him not" implies an event in the past on earth. Now, that could have been a past rejection of the heavenly Son concept, rather than a Jesus of Nazareth, but that seems an odd position to take since one of the main issues was a current dissenting sect that "knows him not".



If I recall, the heaven in Hebrews is where God Himself resides so it wasn't some intermediate heaven. If that is the case, your response cannot stand:

The holy place of sacrifice was where GOD resided. Again, how can the sinners who put him to death have lived in heaven with God?


That's a possible explanation. It is interesting to me though that ALL these supposed things that Jesus did in some other world were NOT referred to as a matter of faith or belief by Paul or anyone else in the epistles. Rather, as statements of facts. One would think that at least a few times Paul's thoughts would have been betrayed on the subject, had he really been thinking the way Doherty suggests. To use his manner: It would be INCONCEIVABLE for him not to have referred to those events as being a matter of faith!


But he had no problem convincing them that it happened in some place in the heavens, right? That's why the theory fails and miserably IMO. There isn't a shred of evidence for such a preposterous belief by Paul. Everything Paul writes about Jesus is in accordance with the belief that he came from heaven with God to earth to live as a man, lived sinlessley, was crucified here, was resurrected and is back in heaven with God.

I don't think Paul's focus was on belief in the crucificion. The crucificion meant nothing to Paul without the resurrection. We don't have the evidence from Paul that the crucificion by itself was a matter of faith. Nowhere does he say people must believe that Jesus was crucified without following up with "and resurrected".

ted

Doug Shaver

They are not typical of a fictional religious story that anyone would write nowadays. I'm not so sure they were atypical of religious fiction that was being written during the first century. But, I must confess, I have no idea what was typical in those days. Perhaps you could cite an example?

I don't know any reason to assume that religious fiction in ancient times invariably included supernatural events. If you have evidence that it did, I'll be glad to examine it.

I have read a lot of fiction, both ancient and modern, with such information.

When I see his list, I'll tell you what I think it proves. Until then, I cannot consider it evidence for anything.

Then he probably was not relying on Paul's epistles.

Obviously, it does seem that way to you. I'm under the impression that it does not seem that way to a majority of New Testament scholars, and I am aware of no reason to suspect that the majority opinion is mistaken in this instance.

Nowadays, yes.

Only if I'm wrong.

Pending further progress in my own research, the only reasons I can offer are ones to be found in Doherty's work. The fact that Doherty has not changed your mind does not mean his reasons are not good ones.

That is your judgment. Mine differs.

They're too far apart. Five sentences intervene between them, and those sentences do not sustain the reference.

The context does not justify your parentheticals.

If it happened in a place where no sinners could live, then it didn't happen on earth, did it?

So, according to what Christians have believed throughout most of their history, it could not have happened either in heaven or on earth. Which means that, no matter what the author of Hebrews was thinking, it was not anything like what we in the modern world are accustomed to thinking.

I am seeking to demonstrate no more than that. I'm not the one claiming that no reasonable person can disagree with me.

As far as Paul was concerned, they were just as factual as the existence of Jerusalem or the Roman empire. To his mind, the only difference between the facts about this world and the facts about the spirit world was the means by which one became aware of the facts.

I can easily conceive of his supposing that, having mentioned once or twice that faith was the means by which one came to a knowledge of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Christ, he saw no need to repeat himself on that point every time he said anything else about the Christ.

Right. Of course, if his readers had known things about the universe that are known to us today, then he would indeed have had a problem.

Well, obviously, on either a historicist or a mythicist interpretation, in Paul's thinking the crucifixion would have been meaningless without the resurrection. However, he never once offered his readers any more reason, or any different reason, to believe in the resurrection than they had to believe in the crucifixion. That is not plausible on the supposition that the crucifixion was a matter of common historical knowledge. And I say again: Paul apparently never had to convince anyone that a crucified man was the savior.

spin

Dunno. Did Jesus have another brother called Quartus? Maybe it was a nickname for the fourth sibling in the Jesus family. Obviously he wasn't simply one of the members of the Roman church. He calls them all adelfoi, so adding "brother" as a qualifier to Quartus should mean no extra content. Besides, Quartus is in the nominative, so he is apparently with the writer (be that Paul or a later writer), Gaius and Erastus, greeting the Romans. I don't think the text gives enough away to make any meaningful evaluation.


spin