Magdlyn

What would count as an "equivalance" to a crucifixion and burial, in your mind, one wonders?

Book of Enoch 1 and 2. Pre-christian. 300 BCE-70 CE is given as possible date. Storehouses of thunderbolts and all kinds of stuff was up there in part of heaven. Different kinds of angels, some good, some demonic. Angels fighting angels with weaponry, arguing over the body of Moses.

Let's see...
Where is Dudael?

"Stars" commit crimes and are punished in heaven.

Chapter 21angels in fetters in heaven

Chapter 54men riding in chariots in heaven making so much noise the earth falls off its foundation...

Chapter55
Next, a horrifying "agitation" in heaven, and Enoch shits himself.

Chapter 58
2 Enoch VII
and in the third heaven:

in the 5th heaven:

Does this type of fanciful writing and detailed description of goings-on serve as a demonstration of what writers of the day imagined could happen in a "heavenly" realm?

Magdlyn

Or, see Vorkosigan's arguments from last yr:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/archive/index.php/t-149337.html

GakuseiDon

That's what I am looking for -- anything that supports Doherty's view of what Paul believed. I've found evidence against his view, but nothing to support it.

I think these are good examples that help reinforce my point. From the literature of the day, we can see what people believed occurred in the supralunar and sublunar realms. All your examples are from the supralunar realm (except Dudael, which appears to be a type of hell). There are thrones, armies, etc, sitting up there above the firmanent.

But the dilemma is that Doherty has placed Christ's crucifixion in the sublunar realm, which is the area under the moon. He has to put it there, since Satan is the "god of this world", and has sway over the area of the sublunar realm (which includes the earth), but no power in the supralunar realm. Again, we can see what people believed about the sublunar realm from the literature. Daemons and the spirits of heroes live in the air and are worshipped as gods or used for magic. But they are denizens of **the air**, not of a "mythical strata of heaven". There is no flesh there, nor crucifixion. At least, not that I've found in the literature, nor has Doherty presented anything to support it. All the examples he gives (e.g. "the heavenly Jerusalem") are about the supralunar realm, like yourself.

But, you may contend that people believed wild things in those times (as per the examples you gave), so why couldn't Paul have believed that Christ was crucified in a fleshly sublunar realm? Doherty usually presents it that way, e.g. "it is possible...", "we can't rule out...", etc. And that is fair enough! I've never ruled out that Paul may have had his own idiosyncratic beliefs. If that is what Paul believed, then that is what he believed. But my argument has always been that there is no evidence of such a belief existing in Paul's time, and from those examples of the literature that I have seen the evidence is against such a belief.

Unfortunately mythicists read Doherty's book and come away with the idea that such beliefs about the sublunar realm were common place in Paul's time. This is not the case at all.
Yes, that's a good thread. See how Vork talks about how "the crucifixion happened in another sphere of reality" in the sublunar realm, a concept that isn't found in ancient texts. The modern terminology is misleading, as I point out to him. TedM's comment captures the problem for the "sublunar crucifixion" mythicists: "If I might jump in, normally when a person is described as having descended from a specific earthling, having been born of a woman, into a known earthly culture, having bled, suffered, and died on an earthly object and in a city found on earth, and then buried, it is assumed that the person died on earth and not somewhere else. Especially if he never alludes to it happening elsewhere."

If Paul believed that Satan crucified Christ, then, assuming Paul reflected the thinking of his day, Paul would have believed that Satan crucified Christ on earth. Proposing that Paul had his own beliefs not reflected in the beliefs of his day raises the bar on the burden of proof that Doherty needs to address AFAICS.

Doug Shaver

Because you said it was.

I never said it was clearly stated in Colossians that he came in a sublunar realm.

Not quite. Belief in a sublunar realm is well and unambiguously attested for a very long period of time prior to Paul. Belief in a historical Jesus is not unambiguously attested until, at a minimum, many decades after Paul. What mythicists are reading into Paul is known to have existed in his time. What historicists read into Paul is not known to have existed in his time.

Doug Shaver

That is what Christians nowadays mean by the gospel. How about a quote from Paul in which he clearly states what he meant by the gospel?

Where, according to Colossians, did that happen?

Ben C Smith

I cannot speak for everyone, though I suspect I was speaking for more than myself alone.

Except for the one from 1 Thessalonians 1.10, no. The rest do not, of themselves, imply a past appearance.

(The one in 1 Thessalonians 1.10 I regard as implying one because the death is placed in the past, and I of course reckon that death as being envisioned as having taken place on earth. I readily grant that, if your view of the earliest Christian view on that death were correct, then this verse, too, would lack any necessary implication of a past appearance.)

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Come, now. Earl called for a higher degree of critical thinking here. That a belief in the existence of a sublunar realm is attested means absolutely nothing in the debate at hand. What matters to us is what people regularly believed happened there.

Ben.

Doug Shaver

In every case? Any English speaker?

OK, let's try this.

I'm the committee chairman. The committee meets all morning and breaks for lunch. After lunch, I call the meeting back to order. I summon Jones and say, "Thank you for coming." We talk a while and I excuse him. Then I summon Smith and say, "Thank you for coming." We talk a while and I excuse him.

Now, in which case am I implying "Thank you for coming back"? Did Smith or Jones testify that morning? Both of them? Neither of them?

And how do you know?

Doug Shaver

What matters to the current debate is how we infer what they regularly believed at a particular time in history, as revealed in a particular document or set of documents from that time. If the inference relies on other documents, it makes a lot of difference whether those other documents were written before or after the time in question.

Ben C Smith

Well, of course. And this has nothing to do with what we were discussing originally.

Ben.