aa5874

You have inadvertently corroborated that Doherty indeed is the one who needs some kind of course.

I am intelligent and logical and what I do is well-thought out so it must obvious that I do not at all claim or argue [b] that the Canon is all of a piece and the parts that compose it were all composed from more or less the same point of view about an entity conceived of in the same fashion in each part.

It is the complete reverse.

I have argued intelligently and logically that the stories about Jesus were changed, that the short gMark story is NOT about Remission of Sins by the crucifixion and that the Pauline letters are anti-Marcionite Texts composed after c 150 CE.

My position is extremely solid and cannot be overturned.

The Foundation of Christianity is NOT the Epistle to the Hebrews it is the short gMark.

Chili

Never read Hebrews but I see it as feed for the wolves, i.e. your antichrist, just from the few passages I read. Who, and especially not Catholics, would try to convert a Hebrew?

jakejonesiv

How do you explain the secondary character of the epistolary material in Hebrews chapter 13?

stephan huller

Mike, So if I am to understand you correctly, if I decided to buy Doherty's book (which I am half convinced to do) I am going to find many references to the interpretation of the Pauline writings attested by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and the like. I already know there will be no reference to Marcion (which I can half live with). The rest of what you are saying I don't quite get the relevance of:

I don't get this. Let me take an analogy from Genesis chapter 15. After God promises Abraham to multiply his descendants like the stars we read:

So according to you and Doherty, the best way to interpret this passage is to sit down and look at the original language of the text and assume the plain meaning is right and then - freed from all ancient and early interpretation - pick some position that 'just so happens' to marginalize the religion associated with the passage as well as its relationship with its divinity. I know there will be a cry that Doherty is not trying to marginalize the Christian experience, but let me reiterate - everything we know about early Christianity suggests that the religion was founded on a real life encounter with the divinity in the here and now, in this world. Why reject that original understanding? Because the Catholic tradition presents Paul as only having a 'visionary experience' with the divinity? But it also presents Peter and the rest of the apostles actually meeting Jesus. Why pick and choose what is convenient for a hypothesis.

The Marcionites and the heretics are also ignored. Their tradition also upholds an encounter with Jesus in the here and now because - as I have noted many times now - Origen and the Acts of Archelaus acknowledge the early understanding that Paul was the 'Paraclete' who - according to John 14:16 'comes back' after Jesus disappears. In order for the Paraclete to 'come back' after Jesus to the disciples, Jesus must have been understood to have originally been with the disciples on earth.

Indeed there is no positive evidence that I can see of an exclusively 'visionary' cult of Christ. The reason for this is obvious to any objective observer. If these half-hysterical followers (= cf. Celsus) had visionary experiences, why should we expect them to have stopped short of saying that Jesus also appeared on the earth as we see so many times in early texts. Surely both ideas existed side by side - i.e. Paul claiming he went to heaven and had visions, appearances in the street (= Damascus), in the countryside, in the bathroom etc. Thus to limit Jesus to a heaven or a third heaven (if I am understanding Doherty correctly) is unlikely and seems to be forced.

But getting back to the original example. That passage from Genesis chapter 15 is used by all the earliest rabbinic sources as the clearest attestation of the raising of the dead. I can explain the understanding from the original sources if you'd like. But the understanding is critical for the final rejection of anyone who tries to interpret the gospel or the Pauline letters without referencing an established exegetical tradition from antiquity.

The point is that both Jewish and Christian sources assume from a very early period - in Christianity's case the very beginning - that there was a (secret) oral teaching attached to the various passages in scripture. As Irenaeus notes:

So unless you are telling me that you or Doherty navigate your interpretation by means of the original 'supernatural Jesus' tradition noted here (i.e. Marcion, Valentinus etc) I don't understand what value this interpretation has unless it is present as merely an attempt at (a) entertainment i.e. as an entertaining novelty or (b) a polemic tool (i.e. a position to combat 'historicists'). It cannot be the right answer to properly understand the Pauline writings as everything we know about their original interpretation suggests a need to reference a (lost) oral tradition which is clearly at odds with Doherty's proposition.

Remember I am not arguing that Jesus is a historical man. I am saying that not only was Jesus a supernatural being our understanding of how he was supernatural, the original context of how this supernatural being communicated with his followers can only be understood if we follow the original sources.

jakejonesiv

Hi aa5874,

You make a nice case based on lack of external citation that the Epistle to the Hebrews was a late 2c. composition. Well done.

Indeed it started me to thinking. Just when and by whom was the first external citation of Hebrews 8:4? I can't find it in the Church Fathers. (Help please!)
It seems someone would have noted--if it is of such importance as E.D. invests in it.

Also, E.D. has not explained the secondary character of the epistolary material in Hebrews chapter 13. link I am hoping E.D. will say a redactor added it! Why? Have you ever opened the door and tried to let in just one dog?

Now the last question I have about Hebrews, and I hope both aa and E.D. will reply. Why is every reference in Hebrews to Jewish sacrificial ritual to the desert tabernacle of Moses rather than the Jerusalem Temple?

It is as if the desert temple were still in operation?!? :constern02:

Jake

stephan huller

http://www.biblindex.mom.fr/ but you should use this in conjunction with this http://earlychristianwritings.com/e-catena/ because the French overlooked Irenaeus's writings for some inexplicable reason (!). Ephrem is also ignored as well as many Syriac Christian writers in both sources.

EarlDoherty

AA's case is non-existent. Who dates a document solely on when it is first attested to? That is nonsense. And aa completely overlooks, as do you, the fact that early Christianity was a diverse movement without a single point of origin or central organization. When you take into account not only the early Christian record, including non-canonical, as well as the wide range of Jewish sectarian writingss contained in the so-called Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, one can see that there were many threads within the broader movement, some of them living in apparent isolation. The epistle to the Hebrews is a document produced by a group or sect which shows no connection to anything else we know of (the content of the epistle alone will tell you that), and probably only migrated outside its own circle sometime around the middle of the 2nd century. But that doesn't mean we can date its composition to that time. That is a completely nonsensical methodology. A lot more goes into dating a document than its first attestation, and any reputable scholar will tell you that.

And it is clear, once again, that people like Jake and aa simply don't read my writings. Jake asks about chapter 13. I devote a lengthy Appendix in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man to addressing the question of dating Hebrews and the authenticity of the postscript. I have made a good case for dating it prior to the first Jewish War, and I argue for several verses at the end of the epistle being clearly an addition. For St. Pete's sake, the e-book version of JNGNM costs only $14.95. Don't you think that before pontificating against me, or coming up with some of the ill-informed arguments both of you have launched in my direction (here and elsewhere), you should at least read what my arguments are?

I have, and I have just told you where you can find it.

Jake, please stop showing your ignorance. Have you even read the epistle? If there is anything lying in plain sight on the pages of Hebrews it is the reliance this writer and sect has placed on scripture. It is the sole source of the information about the Son this group believes in. The picture of the Son's sacrifice set as a mirror to the sacrifices of the temple cult is based on scripture for two reasons:

(1) It is scripture that contains the account of the sacrificial cult (primarily Exodus and Leviticus), and a sect whose faith and revelation has been derived from scripture is naturally going to use that as their focus, not the goings on of the writer's own day. The setting up of the first 'temple' in the tent at Sinai also contains a full description of the structure and the process, to which the author is comparing the imagined sacrifice of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary.

(2) The epistle describes the supplanting of the Old Covenant made by Moses on earth by the New Covenant made in heaven by the High Priest Christ. Therefore, his focus is going to be on the Moses story and the establishment of the Old Covenant. Please note, both Jake and aa, that the author is completely ignorant of any words spoken by Jesus at a Last Supper which mirror those of Moses at the establishment of the Old one, a parallel that the writer of Hebrews simply would not have passed up making, which makes hogwash of declaring that Hebrews comes after and knows the Gospel storyline.

You know, people, I have a life outside FRDB and JM. I cannot devote all my time to answering uninformed declarations and objections delivered by all and sundry who very often do not know what the hell they are talking about. I know the Internet is free and open and all that, but that doesn't mean that everyone can be answered, or deserves to be answered, especially when you don't take the least trouble to educate yourself before sounding off. I would like to have responded to TedM's bit on Hebrews 8:4 (which I had not noticed before), but now I've been sidetracked. And of course, when you don't get answered, you blithely assume that it's because there is no answer that can be made. That, too, is nonsense. Whether I'll be able to get around to Ted, I don't know, but it won't be before Friday or Saturday.

Earl Doherty

Bingo the Clown-O

Read below.

It looks like he was expecting you.

Bingo the Clown-O

Why is it nonsense?

Note that AA is not the one saying that we should date it SOLELY on when it is first attested to.

You are.

So cut it out! Play fair! Don’t give us that bullshit! We’re not buying it!

Just what do you think we are? A bunch of clowns?

EarlDoherty

You'll have to explain what you mean here. I date it before the Jewish War. I have said that it is not attested to before the latter 2nd century. So what are you trying to say? Is this a circus joke?

Earl Doherty