Amaleq13

That isn't progress unless you refer to your own understanding of my position since I have never said otherwise.

I've been explicit on that point so there should be no doubt.

Where does 1:6 say God brought his "firstbegotten"?

Yes, the author is clearly placing his emphasis on what Christ did in Heaven. Funny how he never says that one of those things was getting executed.

Not "had to be on earth" but "the most obvious and appropriate location is on earth" given no evidence of any other location for the activity.

It is more than just "it can". It is the most obvious possibility and, absent assumptions of Doherty's thesis, no other possibility suggests itself from the text.

For no other reason than because you have already accepted Doherty's thesis.

Do you take into consideration the fact that the author never actually describes the crucifixion? Is it reasonable to expect an explicit location to be given for a scene that is never described?

Have you actually read the epistle? I mean the entire epistle all the way through and not just the bits and pieces Doherty references.

I ask because you don't have to go very far to find an explicit reference to earth as a location:
"And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." (1:6, KJV, emphasis mine)

"the word" = oikoumenē: 1) the inhabited earth

See what you miss when you stop reading too soon?

Get back to me when you rethink your position given this step was clearly faulty.

You are clearly still interpreting the text while assuming your conclusion. It will require effort on your part to read it differently. You have to choose to make that effort or you will never see how the evidence appears without the tint of your glasses.

Amaleq13

The moneychangers were certainly not set up in the Holy Place of the Temple, Clive. Only the priest could enter and, according to the text, only with sacrificed blood.

Christ never enters "the holy places" in any of the Gospels.

Clivedurdle

Why does that sound like apologetics?

Will Paul do - glass darkly?

And now I have completely misunderstood the cave have I?

But Hebrews explicitly puts him in heaven as the creator of the worlds!

Please everyone, look carefully at the time line here. Hebrews and revelation might be the earliest documents

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

Jeffrey Gibson

It does no such thing. Please show me through an analysis of the grammar of διʼοὗ καὶ ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας how one can get the Son to be the subject of ἐποίησεν and therefore, as you claim, the one who created τοὺς αἰῶνας, let alone from "heaven".

Jeffrey

Ben C Smith

Doherty once wrote of a different verse in Hebrews:

This sounded as if all one had to do was to find some place in the epistles that used one of those perfectly good words available for earth and applied it to the location of Jesus.

The term oikoumene in Hebrews 1.6 is one of those perfectly good words available for earth, and it locates Jesus. When I pointed this out, Earl accused me of ignoring the context.

It seemed to me that the goalposts had moved a bit.

He also said that 1 Clement 60.1...:

You through your operations made manifest the everlasting fabric of the world. You, Lord, created the earth [συ, κυριε, την οικουμενην εκτισας]. You who are faithful throughout all generations, righteous in your judgments, marvelous in strength and excellence, you who are wise in creating and prudent in establishing that which you have made, who are good in the things which are seen and faithful with those who trust on you, pitiful and compassionate, forgive us our iniquities and our unrighteousnesses and our transgressions and shortcomings.

...proved that oikoumene could include the spirit realm and thus could encompass heaven. I asked him to explain this for me, but he maintained radio silence on the issue.

Finally, he also pointed to Hebrews 2.5 (the inhabited earth to come). Yet it is clear that many Jews expected the world to come to be exactly this present earth recast so as to kick out the Romans, establish the kingdom, and so forth. I think Hebrews 2.5 means exactly what it says: The inhabited earth as it will be once the eschatological calendar has run its course.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

All contrary ideas sound like apologetics to those who are deaf to reason.

Ben.

gstafleu

God, an angel, a cherubim, God's first begotten, ...
Nothing, but that is completely irrelevant to the argument. Neither is there something in these verses that says that this sitting was "temporally preceded by -- and a result of -- something the Son did on earth." My point is that both the creation activity and the sitting occur in heaven. These heavenly scenes surround the bit about the purification of sins. Since no relocation is indicated with regard to the purification, it is reasonable to assume that it occurred in heaven as well. Certainly it is unreasonable to assume it occurred somewhere else without some evidence for that assumption.

I've mentioned a couple of times now that the placing of Christ in the heavens is explicit on a number of occasions (4:14, 7:26, 8:1), with the word heavens in plain view. Nowhere is the word "earth" in plain view. Without that I'd say that the heavenly hypothesis has some priority over the earthly one. Unless you can show me a place in Hebrews where Christ is placed on earth as clearly as he is placed in heavens.

Gerard Stafleu

gstafleu

Into the oikumene. Earl has a passage about that in his article, part 1:
So, apparently it is not just Doherty who thinks the meaning of oikumene cane be wider than just terra firma.
Yes, funny. And he does say that Christ got executed on earth where...?

Gerard Stafleu

Clivedurdle

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

?

gstafleu

Yes, it makes sense in an earthly setting, but equally so in a heavenly one. To quote from Earl's article (pt 1):
(my bold)
So that phrase is neutral and doesn't help us one way or another.
It suggests he went from a place A to a place B, and may return to B. What are A and B? To quote Earl:
So apparently even Attridge thinks Christ is moving between heavens. So both A and B can be in the heavens. Again, the problem is that while the heavenly location is always made explicit, the presumed earthly one never is, we always have to somehow deduce it. So it is here. It is explicitly stated that he has entered "into heaven itself," but it is not stated that he did so from earth, that we have to deduce. Similarly "He will appear a second time," but from where (presumably heaven, at least that is explicitly stated as his current location) and to where is not stated. Yes, he will appear "[t]o those who eagerly wait for Him." Will he do that in the flesh? Or in one of these Paulinesque visions? We don't know. There really is not a lot we can get from this in the way of location on terra firma.

Gerard Stafleu