Freethought & Rationalism Archive

judge · 08-30-2011, 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Yet he was born. An abortion is not a birth spin.

I pointed this out to Spin earlier. I'm not sure what Spin is thinking. He hasn't really explained himself too well in this instance.

dog-on · 08-31-2011, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Yet he was born. An abortion is not a birth spin.

I pointed this out to Spin earlier. I'm not sure what Spin is thinking. He hasn't really explained himself too well in this instance.

I tend to believe that the reference to ektroma is actually a slight referring to the "birth" of Paul being from the womb of the heretic, in this instance, possibly Marcion.

spin · 08-31-2011, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

3.You still will not or cannot even say what the metaphor "aborted" even means. Until you do you can't use it.

I have already done so.

You've done nothing of the sort.

Quote:

It is a self-put down

Possibly

Quote:

whinging about the fact that Paul's birth was all wrong and out of place

Its nothing to do with pauls birth.

Quote:

and the result is ugly and it would have been better had he been born earlier.

Still thinking the metaphor is literal

Quote:

The image is deliberately ugly. This is a conflict with the notion of something god ordained. Get over it.

Youre trying to compare a literal birth with a metaphor which just happens to use an image related to birth.
Metaphors aren't literal. Thats the problem you have

OK, you have got the idea that the word is a metaphor. Now you need to accept that I know what a metaphor is. And you need to understand the collocations of the metaphor, which I have attempted to deal with and you have presented yourself as being oblivious of.

spin · 08-31-2011, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by judge

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Yet he was born. An abortion is not a birth spin.

I pointed this out to Spin earlier. I'm not sure what Spin is thinking. He hasn't really explained himself too well in this instance.

I understand you are not sure. I don't think you have done too well trying to understand what I have been saying. Instead of saying that Paul wasn't born at a time to be able to see Jesus it says he was the result of an ugly birth, the abortion metaphor, which is sometimes still used today to insult people. Jesus if you can't see what's going on in calling someone an abortion, there is no hope for your reading skills. You've crapped on about this too long judge, refusing to see the obvious, so say what you must now for I see no point in responding.

Further for the reading challenged (hoping you've already looked at Job 3:16),

LXX Numbers 12

9 So the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed. 10 But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. 11 Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. 12 “Oh, do not let her be like one stillborn [εκτρωμα], whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!”

(This is a simile, but it shows how the term is used for effect.)

archibald · 08-31-2011, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

In The New Oxford Annotated Bible, the so called ‘interpolation’ is treated as an skilful technique to create rapport with the crowd ready to show dissent.

Paul proceeds in clear steps in a slow introduction to his main argument. He will confront the problem once the conditions for success have been created by his “interpolation”. Here Paul is shown as a skilful speaker and not the clumsy one the defenders of interpolation expect .

Quote:

15. 1-58
Arguments for resurrection
The issue is not identified until v.12: Some of the Corinthians are denying the resurrection of the dead. Paul’s own term for the deceased is “ those who have fallen sleep” in 7.39,11.30,15.6,18.20;1 Thess4.13. The recurrence of the dead along with the prominence of the antitheses “mortal-immortal” and “perishable-imperishable” in Paul’s arguments here suggests that, as people embedded in Hellenistic culture and influenced by the Alexandrian-Jewish teacher Apollos, the sceptical Corinthians view their souls as separable from their bodies. Indeed, because they possessed wisdom their souls were immortal, so the resurrection of their “perishable” body, once it was “dead” made no sense. Paul proceeds in clear steps.
15.1-11
The proclamation of Christ’s death and resurrection
Paul reminds the Corinthians of the movement’s early creed,vv.3-5, to establish common ground and he expands the list of witnesses to the resurrection, including himself, to increase its credibility.

Seems at least as plausible to me as any other alternative. It's not as if Paul doesn't digress as a writer. It's not as if he's the most coherent and easily interpreted writer ever.

Toto · 08-31-2011, 01:33 AM

The word ektrwma or abortion seems to have had a technical meaning for gnostics:

Quote:

Now "the abortion" is a technical and oft-repeated term of one of the great systems of the Gnosis, a term which enters into the main fabric of the Sophia-mythus.

In the mystic cosmogony of these Gnostic circles, "the abortion" was the crude matter cast out of the Pleroma or world of perfection. This crude and chaotic matter was in the cosmogonical process shaped into a perfect "aeon'' by the World-Christ; that is to say, was made into a world-system by the ordering or cosmic power of the Logos. "The abortion" was the unshaped and unordered chaotic matter which had to be separated out, ordered and perfected, in the macrocosmic task of the "enformation according to substance," while this again was to be completed on the soteriological side by the microcosmic process of the "enformation according to gnosis" or spiritual consciousness. As the world-soul was perfected by the World-Christ, so was the individual soul to be perfected and redeemed by the individual Christ.

From Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (an early 20th c. Theosophist and associate of Madame Blavatsky FWIW.)

This was discussed in this archived thread

archibald · 08-31-2011, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Quote:

Originally Posted by archibald

Thank you Stephen. I will do my best to keep an open mind throughout this new thread. Can you elaborate on what the key differences are, or provide a link?

Toto, if you have additional perspective, this is hopefully the thread to spit it out.

I guess Stephan left his hand scanner at home when he was reading Epiphanius on some of his many plane trips.

This is what Epiphanius (Panarion 42:11.8) says was included in Marcion's version of 1 Cor 15, which undermined his own positions about the nature of Christ (that he was on earth in appearance only):

About the resurrection of the dead: [15:1] "I remind you, brothers, of the gospel which I preached to you."

And: [15:17] "If Christ has not been raised, then vain" and so forth.

[15:11] "Thus we preach and thus you have believed"

[15:3ff] "that Christ died and was buried and was raised on the third day."

[15:54] "But when this mortal nature has put on immortality, then will occur what has been written: death has been swallowed up in victory."

[From The Panerion of St. Epiphanius Bishop of Salamis, translated by Philip R Amidon S.J., 1990]

If these passages are bolded in chapter 15 of the received text, we get:

15:1 Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, 2 by which you are saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in vain.

17 If Christ has not been raised, futile is your faith and you are still in your sins.

3-4 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,

11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."

You can see that these passages are cited in a different order than we have them in the received text. It seems that Stephan is suggesting that this was the order of the original, i.e., that it was much different than the 1 Corinthians we know.

DCH

Thanks DCH. That is interesting.

On the whole though, it does not indicate that the supposed interpolations have MJer implications. Or am I missing something?

This may obviously be considered a slightly separate issue.

archibald · 08-31-2011, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

The word ektrwma or abortion seems to have had a technical meaning for gnostics:

Quote:

Now "the abortion" is a technical and oft-repeated term of one of the great systems of the Gnosis, a term which enters into the main fabric of the Sophia-mythus.

In the mystic cosmogony of these Gnostic circles, "the abortion" was the crude matter cast out of the Pleroma or world of perfection. This crude and chaotic matter was in the cosmogonical process shaped into a perfect "aeon'' by the World-Christ; that is to say, was made into a world-system by the ordering or cosmic power of the Logos. "The abortion" was the unshaped and unordered chaotic matter which had to be separated out, ordered and perfected, in the macrocosmic task of the "enformation according to substance," while this again was to be completed on the soteriological side by the microcosmic process of the "enformation according to gnosis" or spiritual consciousness. As the world-soul was perfected by the World-Christ, so was the individual soul to be perfected and redeemed by the individual Christ.

From Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? by G. R. S. Mead (an early 20th c. Theosophist and associate of Madame Blavatsky FWIW.)

This was discussed in this archived thread

Pardon me for going off at a tangent (there are so many avenues worth exploring) but briefly, does it not seem odd that someone who lived 100 years ago should make eschatological predictions about something which was going to be imminent, but 100 years later?

archibald · 08-31-2011, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

I think there is also a general tendency to talk through one's hat: I wonder if you found a letter signed by Copernicus that deplored heliocentrism, or one by Freud admitting he sucked Oedipus out of his thumb, whether you would just as quickly arrive at the conclusion that one cannot expect them to spout the same nonsense all the time.

But Jiri, the whole point is that the 'contradictions' are not as clear cut as that. That is why all the arguments go around in circles, and why the suggestion of interpolation must remain speculation.

archibald · 08-31-2011, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Thanks for sharing that. However, I come from a country in which smart peasants observed long ago that in a liar's world even saints and fools are competitors. So this type of argument does not impress me much.

Best,
Jiri

I take it you have not yet noticed the difference between an argument and an observation. :]

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