Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ted Hoffman · 07-12-2006, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000

Really? What I see they say (not think) in the entry in their Lexicon you presumably have looked at is that there is "such a Greek word as" ARCWN (alpha rho chi omega nu).

But they neither say, let alone think, seemingly or otherwise, that there is anywhere in Greek, as you claim there is, such a word as ARCON (alpha rho chi omicron nu). And they certainly don't say (or give any reason for saying that they think), that, as Jake initmates, there is such a Greek word as ARCONS (alpha rho chi omicron sigma), especially, again as Jake intimates, as a/the plural form of ARCWN.

So how did you not see this? The only explanation that comes to mind is that you are unable to distinguish the siglia L&S use for omega from what they use for omicron, and that you can't read with any facility the notes on the various inflected forms of ARCWN that are set out and discussed in the entry in question.

But I'd be happy to be corrected on this.

Jeffrey Gibson

The Interpreter's Bible indicates that a chi is transliterated as "ch" not a "c".
We have seen several scholars use archontes and not arcontes.
This is absurd.

Ted Hoffman · 07-12-2006, 07:37 AM

FYI, Origen, De Principiis, Book I, Chapter V, distinguishes all rational beings into three genera and species.

Quote:

For we find in holy Scripture numerous names of certain orders and offices, not only of holy beings, but also of those of an opposite description, which we shall bring before us, in the first place; and the meaning of which we shall endeavour, in the second place, to the best of our ability, to ascertain. There are certain holy angels of God whom Paul terms "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation."90 In the writings also of St. Paul himself we find him designating them, from some unknown source, as thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers;

Book III, Chapter 3,3:

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We must, indeed, endeavour to ascertain whether that wisdom of the princes of this world, with which they endeavour to imbue men...

Solo · 07-12-2006, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000

Actually no. To think, as you seem to do, that Paul is understandable without the brain that I'm sure you have making some good contact with contemporary and classic Pauline studies and the history of the interpreration of Paul and the new perspective on Paul, let alone without some broad and sure grounding in knowledge of

--the world in which he wrote, or

--the background to, and the import of, the issues he discusses, or

--the meaning, as this is is established through diachonic and synchronic
lexical studies, of the imagery and language he uses,

--the cultural force and the 1st century presuppositions about the import of
and the expectations created by the rhetorical ploys and the topoi he
takes up or fights against,

--the contours and the aims of the methods of the exegetical and typological
tricks he employs,

--the nature and the history and the stakes of the conflicts he was involved
in,

--the understanding of how, according to Paul (and not to Luther or to Calvin
or the other reformers), God reveals his righteousness

how atonement takes place

what reconciliaition is

what PISTIS and PISTIS IHSOUU entails,

what his soteriological and anthropological terminology would have
meant in the first century

what his view of what it means to be a faithful Jew was

what the story of Israel is and how his view on this it differs from or is
similar to that of other Jews and Jewish groups,

none of which can be gained simply by reading Paul

all you are likely, if not certainly, to do is to engage in eisegesis when you read him,. All you are likely, if not certainly, to have, is an "understanding" of Paul that is as unsound as it is untrue. And you will be not know with any degree of certainty when your understanding of Paul's beliefs don't square with someone like Dunn, whose understanding is actually better.

Not a lecture. Just a statement of the facts.

Jeffrey

You understand though, don't you, what Detering wrote about you - how can he understand what people said 1900 years ago, when he does not understand what his contemporaries are saying to him ?

You have misread a very simple statement I made.

For example, how do you infer that the "the office upstairs who gives out brains" did not give me one which is cognizant of, if not all, then most of the matters, that you have listed above. What proof do you have I lack that understanding ? Well, I'll show the elementary logical mistake in your "eisegesis" of my statement. You assumed that when I said "...and by reading of Paul" I meant "by simply reading Paul". But I did not say that, did I ?

So how is that warranted ? Could you tell us how you determined that the brain "the office upstairs" gave me did not make me aware of the things I need to know in order to make my case (no matter how esoteric) ? Certainly not by reading Jiri who says to Julian that a kid bagging groceries would not "likely", if he really was intelligent, assume he could make a valid call about this or that in the NT by simply performing a series of mental chores. So how did you make it ?

It's an exegetical mystery, isn't it, Dr. Gibson ?

Jiri Severa

jgibson000 · 07-12-2006, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

The Interpreter's Bible indicates that a chi is transliterated as "ch" not a "c".
We have seen several scholars use archontes and not arcontes.
This is absurd.

I am using the Biblical-Greek scheme of transliteration

http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/index.html#read

http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/transliteration.txt

which is widely regarded amongst Biblical scholars and amateurs who post on matters Greek on the net as the standard for transliteration.

I would urge it's adoption here.

But how one transliterates chi is not what is at issue (nor did I make it so) in post #357049.

What is at issue is whether Liddell & Scott (or, for that matter, any Greek lexicographer/scholar) assert, as dartsec (oy, another poster hiding behind a silly moniker) claims they do, that there was a Greek word that was spelled alpha rho chi omicron nu and that the plural form of this word was spelled alpha rho chi omicron nu sigma.

How did you miss that this, and not the "proper" transliteration of chi, was the point of contention, especially since I literaly spelled it out for you?

Jeffrey Gibson

jgibson000 · 07-12-2006, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

You understand though, don't you, what Detering wrote about you - how can he understand what people said 1900 years ago, when he does not understand what his contemporaries are saying to him ?

Detering seems to have misuderstood what I wrote. And where are his hints that he was being ironic, let alone that he disagreed with Van Manen?

Quote:

You have misread a very simple statement I made.

Have I now?

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For example, how do you infer that the "the office upstairs who gives out brains" did not give me one which is cognizant of, if not all, then most of the matters, that you have listed above.

Are there such brains to be given out -- i.e., one's that upon the giving already and automatically possess such understanding? If so, many posters here, when in that office, got in the wrong line.

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What proof do you have I lack that understanding?

I don't know if it's "proof", but I think I had good evidence for such a conclusion in your statements that your view of what Paul believed didn't square with what Dunn argued about Paul's beliefs and that you were assuming that he represents standard scholarship in matters Pauline.

Quote:

Well, I'll show the elementary logical mistake in your "eisegesis" of my statement. You assumed that when I said "by reading of Paul" I meant "by simply reading Paul".

Sorry, wrong conclusion on your part. I assumed -- and I think legitimately, since you did not say, or even hint, anywhere in your message that you were reading anything about Paul or, more importantly, anything other than Paul -- that when you said "by reading Paul" you meant "by reading Paul alone".

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So how is that warranted?

See above.

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It's an exegetical mystery, isn't it, Dr. Gibson ?

To you perhaps.

Jeffrey Gibson

Solo · 07-12-2006, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000

Detering seems to have misuderstood what I wrote. And where are his hints that he was being ironic, let alone that he disagreed with Van Manen?

He made the statement (or reasonably close one to the one) I presented. That is all that is relevant in the context here.

Quote:

Are there such brains to be given out -- i.e., one's that upon the giving already and automatically possess such understanding? If so, many posters here, when in that office, got in the wrong line.

But again, you are reading things into that statement that are not there. I was speaking metaphorically to make a point. You could fairly infer that I believe there is "something" and "above" that gave me some (unspecified !) capacity: perhaps to experience something most other people don't, perhaps the ability to educate myself in a new field, perhaps just being bright and whatever flows from that, but none of "perhaps-es" an intelligent reader, let alone a savant, should automatically assume to be true. They have to be tested, somehow.

It is patently silly, and manifestly contrary to what I believe, to say that I meant to imply receiving a brain "already" and "automatically" possessing an understanding.

Quote:

I don't know if it's "proof", but I think I had good evidence for such a conclusion in your statements that your view of what Paul believed didn't square with what Dunn argued about Paul's beliefs and that you were assuming that he represents standard scholarship in matters Pauline.

No, I was not assuming anything. Nor can it be concluded logically from reading a sentence which begins, In my reading of Paul, no doubt esoteric if Dunn passes for academic standard.... . That Dunn passes for academic standard was an assumption only in the context of viewing my beliefs as esoteric.

Quote:

Sorry, wrong conclusion on your part. I assumed -- and I think legitimately, since you did not say, or even hint, anywhere in your message that you were reading anything about Paul or, more importantly, anything other than Paul -- that when you said "by reading Paul" you meant "by reading Paul alone".

I said by getting a brain, "....and by reading Paul". Besides, ignorance is not an argument, Jeffrey. I have made a scores of posts on BCH, with references to sources, on which I either base, or which are vouching for, my opinions.

JS

andrewcriddle · 07-12-2006, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

I have not yet read Dunn on that verse. If you have, what did you think of his argument?

Thanks.

Ben.

I found Dunn interesting and plausible when I first read him some years ago, but on reflection was uneasy about his final conclusion that preexistence is taught in John's Gospel and epistles but nowhere else in the NT.

Once I decided that Dunn's denial of the presence of an idea of preexistence is at least sometimes unreasonable (eg in Ephesians and Matthew), I became less convinced by his whole argument, although I still think that Paul's idea of personal prexistence is at best undeveloped.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith · 07-12-2006, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

I found Dunn interesting and plausible when I first read him some years ago, but on reflection was uneasy about his final conclusion that preexistence is taught in John's Gospel and epistles but nowhere else in the NT.

Once I decided that Dunn's denial of the presence of an idea of preexistence is at least sometimes unreasonable (eg in Ephesians and Matthew), I became less convinced by his whole argument, although I still think that Paul's idea of personal prexistence is at best undeveloped.

Thanks, Andrew.

One thing that I am indeed wary about in arguments that deconstruct other positions one verse at a time is the tendency to forget the force of the whole. Sometimes a thesis rests, not on any one or two or three strong points, but on a swarm of smaller indicators all pointing, each in its own small way, in a single direction. Such an argument is called cumulative.

In this case, the danger is to read each of the Pauline verses that seem to point to pre-existence on its own merits only, without considering that, if Paul did not believe in the pre-existence of Jesus, then he certainly handed the concept to later fathers on a silver platter of prooftexts.

Of course, sometimes prooftexts are invented out of verses that originally had nothing to do with the thing proved. In keeping with the theme of this thread, those words born of a woman have certainly provided fodder for theologians who like to see the virgin birth in them (it says born of a woman; where is the man?), even though, if anything, the argument should be the other way round, that born of a woman is an indicator of a perfectly ordinary birth. So we do have to look case by case.

But the case for a doctrine (however undeveloped) of pre-existence in Paul consists of several passages, not just one.

The jury is still out for me.

Ben.

jgibson000 · 07-12-2006, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

In spite of Jeffrey's failure to handle the issue of archontes directly and comprehensively

Could you please tell me not only (1) what the issue about ARCONTES is that I have "failed to handle" "directly and comprehensively", but (2) what ever the issue is, why it was/is my responsibility to handle it in any way at all?

So far as I (and others such as Jiri) can see , what is in question here is whether you know and can show that any scholar who actually thinks that the ARCONTES spoken of 1 Cor. 2:6-8 are demons also opines that the ancients thought that when ARCHONTES/demons acted as the ARCONTES are said to act in 1 Cor. 2:6-8, they always did so apart from, and without the instrumentality of, human agents.

How this became something I have to show is beyond me.

Quote:

Secondly, he asks [emphasis mine] whether "these authors held to the view that these specific demonic powers never used human beings as the instruments through which they carried out their will, and, more specifically did not use human agents to carry out what in 1 Cor 2:6-8 they are said to have carried."

This is a very important question [emphasis mine]. It is important because the authors can hold the expression to mean demonic powers while at the same time holding that Paul believed that these demonic powers used human agents to execute their will. But this is a point Jeffrey has to argue. It cannot just be assumed.

:huh: Where have I ever assumed, let alone stated, that it was a fact that "these authors held to the view that these specific demonic powers never used human beings as the instruments through which they carried out their will, and, more specifically did not use human agents to carry out what in 1 Cor 2:6-8 they are said to have carried [out}"?

And if I have not done so, why should I have to argue it?

As you yourself note above, my words "these authors held to the view that these specific demonic powers never used human beings as the instruments through which they carried out their will, and, more specifically did not use human agents to carry out what in 1 Cor 2:6-8 they are said to have carried [out]" was not only part of a question, but part of a question that I put to you.

The onus is on you to answer it, not me.

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Consider Origen, who writes:

Quote:

When he [Celsus] thinks that the daemons worshipped by the heathen are God's servants, there is nothing in his argument which would lead us to worship these. For the Bible shows they are servants of the evil one, the prince of this world". Origen, Contra Celsum, Book V,2, Translated by Henry Chadwick, 1965 (see also De Principiis Book One, Chapter V, IV, p.256-7, Book Three, Chapter III, 1-3 (ANF IV, p.334-5)

[Chadwick notes that the "prince of this world" in this passage refers to 1 Cor. 2.

But does it?

Quote:

Leon Morris (1 Corinthians, pp. 53-54) also says Origen took the 'princes of this world' to mean demons]

Actually, he says "Origen took this to refer to the demonic powers behind world rulers [emphasis mine]".

But even if he said what you say he says, so what? Apart from the fact that I have never denied this, how on earth does what you appeal to show that, let alone have any bearing on the question of whether, Origen denied that these demons act, when they act as the ARCONTES are said to do in 1 Cor. 2:6-8, through human agents and more importantly, that Jesus' crucifixion was not carried on earth by Pilate, as you seem to think it does?

Quote:

There are several others. The important thing is that Jeffrey's point cannot just be assumed.

It's not my point. Nor is it anything I'm assuming.

It's a question I raised about what you seem to be assuming, namely that those who argue for ARCONTES in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 as meaning "demons" deny that people like Paul always though, let alone ever countenanced the idea, that when ARCONTES/demons acted as they are said to act in 1 Cor. 2:8-9, they did so though human agents.

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He has to argue it on a case by case basis.

Not me. You. It's your claim.

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And even if it were indeed the case that these scholars that favour the interpretation offered by mythicists do not constitute the majority (as Leon Morris states),

Actually, as your own quotations comentators on 1 Cor. 2:6-8 show, it's Ellingworth, not Morris who said this.

Quote:

It remains true that that interpretation has support from several scholars.

I never denied this. But, again, that is not the point at issue.

Quote:

You had marginal success. You are yet to deal with the following:

1. Paul Ellingworth, A Translator's Handbook for 1 Corinthians, p.46
2. W. J. P. Boyd, '1 Corinthians ii.8,' Expository Times 68. p.158.
3. C. K. Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, p.72
4. Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ, p.56
5. Jean Hering, The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, p.16-17
6. S. G. F. Brandon., Time History and Deity, p.167
7. And those mentioned by Doherty and others like Delling, Jean Hering, Conzelmann, Thackeray, Schmiedel, J. H. Charlesworth.

Not my job to deal with them. It's yours. But on Schmiedel, see below in my quote of Roberston & Plummer. And as to Thackeray, try this on for size:

The employment in these last two quotations of the phrase 'the prince (or princes) of this world' leads one to enquire whether we have not another reference to this imperfect knowledge of the angels in a passage of St. Paul where at first sight such a reference is not apparent. In 1 Cor. 2. 6-8 St. Paul asserts that, although the word of the cross does not consist in worldly wisdom, yet Christians have 'a wisdom which is not of this world nor of the rulers of this world which are coming' , to nought; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory: which none of the rulers of this world has come to know, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' Origen (Hom IV in Matt) understood 'the rulers of this age' to mean the angels, taking the phrase to be the concrete equivalent for the commoner nAI ARCAI and Everling follows him. The present writer cannot bring himself to reject the prima facie view, that the earthly rulers are intended who crucified the Lord [emphasis mine]. In favour of Origen's view we have the parallel phrases in St. Paul, hOI KOSMOKRATORES TOU SKOTOUS TOUTON (E. 6. 12) and hO QEOS TOU AIWNOS TOURON (2 C. 4,. 4); ; we have the identical phrase used of Satan and his hosts in Ignatius (apparently alluding to the passage under discussion), and in the Ascension of Isaiah; their coming to nought (KATARGOUMENOI) is illustrated by 1 C. 15 (hOTAN KATARGHSH PASA ARCHN, K.T.L.); and we may lastly refer to the connexion between the angelic powers and the crucifixion in Col. 1. 15. On the other band, the exact phrase does not occur in St. Paul of the angels, whereas the ignorance of the earthly rulers who condemned Christ is a subject which meets us in his speech at the Pisidian Antioch Acts 13. 27 ..., cf. A. 3. 17); moreover the whole context seems to demand the ordinary interpretation. The rulers are the rulers in the sphere of intellect, power, and rank, the SOFOI, DUNATAI, EUGENEIS of 1. 26; the use immediately afterwards of the phrase EPI KARDIAN ANQRWPOU OUK ANEBH (not taken from O.T.) is an indication that the ignorance of men, not of angels, is intended. (H. St. John Thackeray, The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, pp. 156-57)

How on earth -- except perhaps by not reading him and by trusting in "authorities" who make it a habit of selectively quoting and misrepresenting what is to be found in the works to which they appeal to support their views -- did you ever come to the conclusion that Thackeray accepts the view that Paul regards the ARCONTES he speaks of in 1 Cor 2:6-8 as "demons"??

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Marcion's understanding of archons,

archons?

Quote:

per Tertulian's Adversus Marcionem v.6, was consistent with that of JM.

It may be. But, again, that's not the issue. The issue is whether Marcion believed that demons that acted as the ARCONTES of 1 Cor. 2:6-8 are said to act -- i.e., as bringing about Jesus' crucifixion -- did so without human agency and not on earth. Marcion's belief that Satan entered Judas to get Judas to initiate the events leading to the crucifixion is clear evidence that he didn't.

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Marcion is indeed a good basis and so is Ignatius (note that Robertson and Plummer indicate that the Marcionite interpretation "perhaps exists already in Ignatius", A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, p. 37).

"Perhaps" is not good enough when the question is whether it actually does.

And I find it interesting to note that in appealing to Roberston and Plummer to support your claim, you've ignored what (or more than likely, you actually don't know that) Robertson and Plummer go on to say on p. 37 re the view of the ARCONTES in 1 Cor 2 = "demons" that

this interpretation is wholly incompatible with v 8, as is also the very perverse suggestion of Schmiedel that Paul refers to Angels [emphasis theirs] whose rule over certain departments of God's government of the world belongs only to this dispensation. and ceases with it (KATARGOUMENWN), and who are unable to see into the mysteries of redemption"

and who also note on p. 36f that

It is quite evident from v. 8 that the ARCONTES [spoken of in vs. 6] are those who took part in the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory. They, therefore , primarily include the rulers of the Jews ... But Pilate was also a party to the crime; and the 'rulers of this dispensation' includes all, as well ecclesiastical as civil".

More importantly, even if it is the case that Ignatius did indeed think that the ARCONTES referrerd to in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 were "demons" and not earthly rulers, it is fallacious to conclude, as you seem to do, that he also had to have believed, let alone actually did believe, that these ARCHONTES did not use human agents to bring about Jesus' crucifixion, let alone that the crucifixion spoken of in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 did not take place on earth. In fact, as I've mentioned before, it's quite clear he believed just the opposite of what you assume.

Quote:

Ignatius still applies because the mythicist argument is that we do not have to assume that Paul meant earthly rulers. All we have to argue is that there is another viable alternative interpretation to the HJ. That is enough to make the JM hypothesis a competing paradigm to the HJ hypothesis.

er .. what?:huh:

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Frankly, tangential; issues aside, I do not see how you can pull this off without demonstrating that I am wrong about this, without you locating Schmiedel, Conzelmann et al and proving e.g. Robertson and Plummer, Leon Morris etc wrong about them.

It's not my job to "pull this off". It's your (undemonstrated) claim that Schmeidel, Conzelmann. Barrett, Thackery, Herring, Delling, etc. not only state that the ARCONTES referred to in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 are demons and not eartly rulers, but deny that Paul and other ancients though that when ARCONTES/demons acted as they are said to act in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 they did so through human agents. So the job is yours to show that they do.

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As an amateur, I am right to rely on experts. If you disagree with these experts. Just prove them wrong.

Well, leaving aside the questions of

a. whether some of the people you call experts (i.e., Earl) really deserve the title, and

b. whether as an admitted amateur you can even understand, or be as cock sure as you tend to be in your readings of, what they say, and, most importantly,

c. whether, as you seem to be saying, "amateur status" actually absolves an amateur like you from doing primary research or checking the sources upon which he/she relies (doesn't it makes it more important than ever that he/she does the hard slog work if he/she wishes not only to be taken seriously, as I'm assuming you want to be, but to leave being an regarded as nothing but an [ill informed] amateur behind?),

it should be pointed out that, given your track record regarding accurate reporting of what the experts you rely on do indeed say on the matters at hand (you've been wrong on Ignatius, Butterick, "Fitzmyer", Murphy-O'Connor", Barrett, Schmieidel, Thackery, Robertson & Plummer, Ellingworth, Morris, etc.), it would be a very good thing, when you are arguing a point based on "expert's" testimony, first for you to show that what you claim these experts say is really what they do in fact say.

Otherwise, you end not only looking like a fool, but becoming one.

Jeffrey Gibson

jakejonesiv · 07-12-2006, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Thanks, Andrew.

One thing that I am indeed wary about in arguments that deconstruct other positions one verse at a time is the tendency to forget the force of the whole. Sometimes a thesis rests, not on any one or two or three strong points, but on a swarm of smaller indicators all pointing, each in its own small way, in a single direction. Such an argument is called cumulative.

In this case, the danger is to read each of the Pauline verses that seem to point to pre-existence on its own merits only, without considering that, if Paul did not believe in the pre-existence of Jesus, then he certainly handed the concept to later fathers on a silver platter of prooftexts.

Of course, sometimes prooftexts are invented out of verses that originally had nothing to do with the thing proved. In keeping with the theme of this thread, those words born of a woman have certainly provided fodder for theologians who like to see the virgin birth in them (it says born of a woman; where is the man?), even though, if anything, the argument should be the other way round, that born of a woman is an indicator of a perfectly ordinary birth. So we do have to look case by case.

But the case for a doctrine (however undeveloped) of pre-existence in Paul consists of several passages, not just one.

The jury is still out for me.

Ben.

Hi Ben,

One of the few things that the Marcionites and the proto-orthodox agreed on was the pre-existence of Jesus. Since both agree, as a reading of the Church fathers will attest, there is no need to parse the Pauline literature into redactions on this point. Where ever Jesus was believed to be crucified and by whomever Jesus was believed to be crucified, he was believed to be the Lord of Glory. "None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." 1 Cor. 2:8.

On this point, I don't think you have any need for concern. If you have any turmoil of mind on this point (not my business what it is), set your mind at ease. gibson is filling your head full of trash. If in fact, anybody in the 2nd century believed gibson's spin, what would be the name of the heresy?

According to the hymn of Phillipians 2, Jesus shared the divine nature (2:6), and subsequently humbled himself by taking on the appearance of a man.

2 Corinthians 8:9. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."
Jesus was rich (in heaven with God) before he humbled himself on the mission of redemption. Now, if non existence means rich, the believers of 2 Cor. 8:9 are being promised annilation.

"But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son" Gal. 4:4. To be sent forth, Jesus must have existed before hand.

"yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him." 1 Corinthians 8:6

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things To Him be the glory forever. Amen." Romans 11:36

from the deutero paulines:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:" Col. 1:16-17. This is a plain statement of pre-existence.

Here is another statement of pre-existence.
This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?" Eph. 4:8-9 NIV

From the Pastorals,
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." 1 Timothy 3:16. (arguably pre-Pauline)

Jake Jones IV

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