stephan huller

No there is another path. The path that 'I don't know WTF the right answer is, that I am not an apologist for a particular point of view, but I can dismiss this or that point of view because it contradicts this or that principle or tenet.' That's where I am. I am agnostic because I can't find the exact answer which squares with all the evidence - (a) gospel, (b) apostolikon (c) Patristic evidence. In the case of (a) (b) and (c) I am willing to give a pass for some sort of inexactness (i.e. that it only partially agrees or in some way agrees) because the evidence has been corrupted. But my difficulty is that you entirely throw away (c) but assume the Patristic canon for (a) and (b). I find this irreconcilable. If there were many canons in antiquity and ours was associated with the 'god from a woman' camp, how could that community (which was native Greek speaking for the most part and finally attuned to the language in ways we are not) have completely misinterpreted THEIR canon. Alternatively why would the Marcionites have altered the canon of the 'god through a woman' party beyond references to 'god through a woman' if the text already reinforced the heavenly god concept? The Marcionites were better readers in this respect but 'failed' in other respects?

You don't need to respond. I have to make lunch for my son. But I want you to understand what I find difficult to reconcile at the outset. You are throwing the entire exegetical tradition of the gospel and apostolikon - i.e. (c) - out the window to make this work. I simply can't believe that we have to abandon history to get to the right interpretation of the Christian Bible. It seems strangely anti-intellectual.

EarlDoherty

Astonishing translation drivel. Do even YOU not read Greek, sv?

Anyone who does not should disqualify themselves from discussing these passages in Hebrews which allegedly identify Jesus as a human man.

2:14 - (literal translation from the Greek): "Since therefore the children have partaken of blood and of flesh, also himself in like manner he shared the same things, in order that..." There is no "shared in their humanity", despite how the NIV and others might prefer to translate it to reflect the Gospels. I have regularly pointed out that "blood" and "flesh" also belong to certain heavenly entities, and that "in like manner" (paraplesios does not mean "identical to" but "resembling", that ever-present "likeness" motif which does NOT say that he became an actual man.

5:7 - (literally) "in the days of his flesh", NOT "in the days of Jesus' life on earth". No one in all the epistolary record of the first century ever uses such a phrase, never uses the word "earth" in connection with Jesus, never uses the word "human". And what he is said to have done in the days of that "flesh" has been taken from scripture, not from any historical record. (And don't take one of those things as referring to Gethsemane. Even mainstream scholars admit it does not. Besides, Gethsemane is a literary invention of Mark, something the writer of Hebrews clearly never encountered.)

Also, 2:3 does not have "salvation spoken by the Lord", but "through the Lord", which as I have argued in my posting earlier can be the spiritual channel of the Son, or, taking into account chapter 12, could simply be another reference to God himself.

And anyone who thinks that "God" can be taken as a reference to Jesus because Jesus was God has placed himself on the same absurd level as J. P. Holding, whose favorite argument this is for explaining all silence on Jesus the teacher throughout the epistles.

Earl Doherty

Chili

Haha, you even make me look good since I took Greek and would be able to read the Gospel of John before I was finished with 2 classes in Greek at the U of Waterloo by correspondence in one winter.

My problem was that I could not remember the alphabeth, just kidding, but soon learned that it was not for me to pursue.

However, I do know that Jesus never was human and stated that here at this FRDB often enough, or he would be a sinner like the rest of us too.

I never read anything by you or just not any theology by anyone except for the mandatory courses I took to get my BA, and there even wrote essays without reading the books I was suppose to read. Theology just isn't my thing, but I do like the controversy that I encounter here.

Good points you make, and I am sure that we would get along.

sotto voce

Obviously you have special qualities unavailable to the rest of us.

He had flesh, he had blood. He was tempted in every way as we are. How many of him would fit on the point of a needle, Earl?

EarlDoherty

This is fine, as far as it goes. You haven't brought in the even stronger comparison I made between chapter 12 and chapter 2. In the later passage, it is abundantly clear that the message spoken of in the earlier chapter was delivered by the voice of God (through scripture and revelation). So it would seem that there is no voice of Jesus present in the chapter 2 scene. There, "the Lord", ought to be taken as referring to God. It certainly cannot refer to a human Jesus on earth, though there may be a bit of wiggle room for seeing it as a reference to the spiritual Son as an intermediary relay force. For that, we might draw on Philo's philosophy about the Logos, or even the Odes of Solomon in its own poetic way.

Nothing in Hebrews presents Christ as a prophet, let alone conducting such a ministry on earth. There is no justification for you adding that element. I like your word "conduit" and could have used it above, but in the sense of a spiritual force in the sense of Philo, for which it is admirably suited.

As I argued at length in my earlier long posting, there is not a word provided in this epistle that is spoken by a Son on earth; everything comes from scripture. One can't get around that brick wall. And when the writer speaks of what has happened in the present period, it is styled as a time of revelation. IOW, the Son has revealed himself through scripture, through a new inspired reading of scripture (you'll find that discussed at length in JNGNM). THAT is how God has spoken in the last days. The prophets long ago spoke the same way, through scripture. (The writer is hardly referring to the few people who heard the prophets themselves, speaking in the flesh.) The "long ago by the prophets" is a reference to scripture. To judge by Hebrews itself, the speaking by the Son in the last days is also scripture, a new 'revealed' reading of it.

See the passage leading up to 9:10, which has the Holy Spirit, in the structure of the Sinai tent-temple, looking ahead to a disclosure at the time of the writer, the time of the 'reformation' into God's new covenant. No mention of Jesus here, no looking ahead to his life and death, only to the revelation of those acts and their consequences. Then look at verse 11f. The Greek has Christ "appearing" as high priest (of course, translators like to render that "when Christ came", implying coming to earth). But what does he do when he 'appears'? He performs his sacrifice in the offering of his blood in the heavenly sanctuary. No mention of doing anything on earth. So where is your Hebrews presenting Christ as an earthly prophet if it can't even bring up such an idea in a passage like this?

By "normally understood" you obviously mean the way scholars prefer to take it because they cannot envision that this writer knows no earthly Jesus. And I have just pretty well discredited your "Given this Christology..." There is no such christology present in Hebrews. And assigning "the oracles of God" to an earthly Christ is you reading it into the text. There is not a word in that text which supports such a claim. And if Hebrews were dedicated to presenting Christ the prophet on earth, why would they avoid alotting any of the teachings to him, but style them by a step removed as coming from God? Why would the writer be led to shut out any attribution to the new prophet? Why is not a single saying identified as from his ministry given to the reader through 13 chapters? Do you really think that makes sense?

You appeal to 1 Peter 4:11. How does this support your contention? The writer urges "If anyone speaks, let him do so as if it is the oracles of God." IOW, when you speak under inspiration, treat what you say as the oracles of God. Where does Jesus figure into this? Just because this situation involves someone who speaks God's oracles does not mean that in some other reference to God's oracles, a prophet is involved and he is automatically Jesus. In fact, I could better use 1 Peter as support for my own stance, since in a revelatory scene such as Heb. 2:1 describes, some inspired believer would indeed have acted as a conduit to give voice to what God was revealing to them. (They didn't hear the actual voice of God out of the heavens.) In this sense, both 1 Peter and Heb. 2 are fully "in step." But to label that conduit in Hebrews as necessarily the voice of an HJ is totally without foundation.

This, of course, is one of the problems inherent in this field, and especially in an internet setting among those who usually frequent such DBs. Many people simply don't have the attention span, the mental stamina, the dedication, to give the whole issue the work it needs. This is a complex discipline. Each individual document has its complexities, but if one doesn't know all the material from all the documents inside and out, one cannot hope to get an overall picture that makes sense. One can't grasp the larger threads and their intricate relationships. Far easier just to appeal to authority, to make simplistic appeals to this word or that phrase or that prejudiced and erroneous translation. I've spent almost 30 years at it, and I don't know or remember everything that I'd like to know. But what I do know is that the old adage is right: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Earl Doherty

Chili

Be careful as he was a 'person' without being with a mandate entrusted to him. He so was a role-play in the life of Joseph wherein he was the 'second Adam' to undo the human condition of Joseph and as such can he not, and never be human . . . lest he be a sinner and die like is too.

To this you can say that in Matthew he was human, and sinner, you win, but that is the reason he went back to Galilee for another 40 years and died nonetheless. Now let me add here that the suffering in Galilee was upon Joseph and he was just the look-alike there as imposter and not the real Jesus we want to know.

So that difference is what the four Gospels are all about, and that may make him historical but not in the the way that we are as flash and bone sinners, saved or not saved.

ApostateAbe

These two paragraphs are in response to my point that there needs to be no contradiction between Hebrews 2:3 ("how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him") and Hebrews 5:12 ("the basic elements of the oracles of God") given an interpretation that Hebrews 2:3 refers to a message from an earthly Christ, since Christ is a conduit for God's message according to the Christology of Hebrews, per Hebrews 1:1-2 ("in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son"). And you seem to be conceding that point, because you have written nothing to address it, but you instead seem to be changing the subject. Maybe I have misunderstood and you would like to address it more clearly?

EarlDoherty

But Stephan, the early Christians were brought near to Christ, by him coming to them in spirit. Galatians 4:6 "God sent the Spirit of the Son to dwell in our hearts." 1 John 5:20 "We know that the Son of God is come [present tense, not past] and given us understanding". Paul tells his converts that they are part of "the body of Christ", he the head they the limbs. This is not a physical body, but a spiritual one. The epistles are full of sentiments about Christ being present right now, with no indication that he had once been among them physically. For Paul, the contact is through "Christ in you" (Col. 1:26), the believer is "in Christ", with no reference to any other type of contact, now or in the past.

Look at 2 Cor. 2:4-6:

Where is any sense here of a past Christ on earth, revealing himself to the light? Rather, it is God who imparts that light by revealing Christ, the face of himself. Where is the face of the Jesus of history? It isn't there, just as it isn't there in any of the epistles. Compare Romans 3:21-16, where everything is a setting forth by God about Jesus. There is no location of Jesus "sacrificial death" as an event of the present time, it is the requirement to have faith in that revealed sacrificial death that characterizes the beginning of the movement, never the life of Jesus.

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

I cannot address it more clearly if I don't know why you think I have written nothing to address your contention. As far as I'm concerned, I have. I very much addressed it.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

As far as I'm concerned, you didn't. And I am comfortable with ending the discussion on that point.