outhouse

You know I dont buy a bit of the eyewitness authors. So lets not debate something you know I dont follow at all.


You also understand my main point. If a martyred man was placed on a cross who was standing up for the common oppressed Jew, and was the talk of the event. He would have been on a cross long enough many of those who were there would have seen him.


In general, all of the gospels really deal with his last week of life and death.


Had this movement stayed in Judaism or even been partially successful we would have a different telling of this event.


The "Good news" is a Hellenistic add on. Originally he would have been a messiah figure whos good deeds in real life were going to save the jews from Roman oppression, but he failed. Lucky for this legend there was already a split in Judaism with growing tensions over generations of God-Fearers and Gate-Proselytes that generated most of the mythology.

EarlDoherty

I'm not sure that I can agree with you, because I'm not sure I'm understanding everything here. First of all, Psalm 8 is not about Christ's victory over the angels. It is about God giving mankind mastery over the earth. Later interpretation may have been messianic, and certainly Christians could regard it as referring to Christ. But as I've said before, scripture can be used freely by later exegetes. The Psalms themselves, of course, do not imply an earthly appearance of Jesus. The question is, is there any reason to think that the earliest Christians, like Paul, had to have made use of the Psalms' imagined meaning only in regard to an earthly Jesus? The answer is, none whatsoever. They could as easily have imagined them as applying to a heavenly Son whom God had given mastery over everything.

And where is the "victory"? Psalm 8 is not portraying a "victory" of mankind over "the sheep and oxen, the birds in the air, etc." So it is not envisioning any victory over the demons (which the period of the Psalms probably had as yet very little concept of). It is quite possible that Christians of the first century envisioned that dimension and a "victory" over the demons. In fact, this is a pervasive motif throughout the earliest record, including in Paul and the pseudo-Paulines. But nowhere in that record does it imply that this victory takes place on earth. In fact, the Phil. hymn has it occurring in heaven, after the Son's (now to be called Jesus, which rules out a previous "Jesus" on earth) exaltation. The Ascension of Isaiah has it occurring in Sheol, with the Father (ch.9 & 10) directing the Son to descend to Sheol (not earth) and plunder the angels of Sheol. Col. 2:15 has Christ from his cross leading the demons in a triumphal procession, which hardly takes place on earth.

Your final sentence is particularly unclear: "You have already acknowledged the difficulties in applying this material for your argument." What is "this material"? The Psalms? The Pauline epistles? The Hebrews chapter 2 passage? I don't remember acknowledging that anything was difficult to apply to my argument. In fact, I've said that at the very least it can be interpreted as perfectly compatible with my heavenly Christ.

And if anything, Hebrews is the most un-composite text of the NT, except for uncertainties surrounding the final verses. This is a carefully crafted treatise that hangs together from start to almost finish. I see no seams and no contradictions between different passages. The references to flesh and blood and body (all of them in "likeness" only of humanity) are all compatible within the heavenly setting and the 'paradigmatic parallel' principle.

Earl Doherty

Sheshbazzar

Ah John, you know its just that '400,000 witnesses' refrain that triggers me.

And the only witness to any of this is those far removed authors (and even they don't go claiming there was any 400,000 witnesses.)

outhouse

There are claims the temple and city was full up. 37 acres full of Jews and Gentiles plus those in the city, and the surrounding tent camps. Modern day rock concert in a wonder of the world. And this would have been the buzz for the event.


But your correct, I usually add "possible" before the word witness, HEY! wait I did

aa5874

I don't hear any sound from you. What has happened to you?? It sounds like your argument is "dead".

stephan huller

Okay. Step by Step:

A: the pre-Christian messianic hymn

1. Early Christian sources cite the second half of Psalm 101:1 with the second half of Psalm 8:6 (πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ)
2. the fusion of these two psalms is clearly attested in 1 Corinthians 15:25 - 27, Ephesians 1:20 - 22, 1 Pet 3:22, and the Letter of Polycarp to the Ephesians and probably Mark 12:36.
3. it was Hengel who first noted this phenomenon and it is very early and probably pre-Christian

B: the citation of Psalm 8

1. Psalm 8 is one of the most important scriptural sources in the New Testament
2. it is explicitly quoted three times (1 Cor 15:27, Heb 2:6-8, Matt 21:16)
3. clearly alluded to three times (Phil 3:21, Eph 1:22, 1 Pet 3:22)
4. and echoed in many Pauline texts (Rom 8:20-21, Phil 2:6-11, Mark 12:36). Ps 8:7b ("You have placed all things under his feet")

What does this 'literary architecture' mean? There was a pre-Christian understanding of cosmic Adam who triumphs and subjugates the angels. The Son of Man is a secondary figure - i.e. not Jesus - who carries out the triumph on behalf of Jesus, but is established by Jesus (the new Adam) here on earth. This tradition manifests itself in many different forms.

C: the secondary figure

1. the two advent tradition in the Church (Jesus is the ugly, suffering servant 'in weakness' who is followed by the royal messiah in the second advent)
2. the Paraclete tradition - where Paul is understood to be the one announced in the gospel (John 14:16)
3. the Son of Man references in the third person

stephan huller

So now back to the main point. Psalm 8 - which is a central text to the New Testament - is unmistakably set on the earth not in the third heaven or any heaven for that matter.

Vorkosigan

Thank god you said that. Let's read what the material says.

""This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.""

There are no references to the gospel tale in here. It was GOD not Jesus who testified by signs and wonders. The text is quite clear. In the first sentence it says "the Lord" while in the second it begins "God also...." clearly indicating that the latter's performance of miracles confirmed the former's status as Lord. That is nothing like the gospel story. Indeed, rather than refer to the gospel tales, the texts cited in Heb 2 are all OT proof-texts.

Doherty asks the reader to do something most cannot: to stop back-reading the gospel story into the epistles and simply listen to what the epistles say and through that discover the world they describe. Clearly the world in Heb 2 is closer to the world Doherty postulates, in which Jesus is created from OT proof-texts. The citation of Heb 2 you have here appears to add the word "him" to the end of the first sentence, many translations simply have "those who heard." Alas, the translators also operate by back-reading the Gospel fantasies into the Epistles.

Vorkosigna

Clivedurdle

To confuse matters further, I have just read in James Hider The Spiders of Allah, this Times reporter quoting an ordinary Muslim to the effect that when Adam and Eve sinned they fell to Earth from the Garden of Eden......

I was brought up Pentecostal. Family members were preachers, and I still have a Dake's Annotated Reference Bible.

Hebrews is a core part of pentecostal teaching and is continually referenced. It is a very different experience to other xian churches - Bible studies go on for hours, they hold week long conferences with three hour sermons discussing things like Hebrews.

The TV evangelists are very poor in comparison.

Earl is reading things correctly.

Pentecostals do something very interesting. They deliberately seek out all the Hebrew Bible proof texts to back up the Gospel stories and epistles. They do not realise that that shows the gospels as unnecessary add ons!

aa5874

Your claims about Epistle to Hebrews are completely unsubstantiated because you refuse to demonstrate that it was composed in the 1st century and before the Jesus story was known.

You cannot read the Epistle to Hebrews in isolation and out of context. You have NO actual evidence to corroborate early Hebrews.

You fail to understand that the NT Canon is about a character who was called the First Begotten son of God that was supposedly on earth up to c 27-37 CE.

The foundation of Christianity is the Gospels--the Jesus stories--Not the Epistle to the Hebrews.

A careful examination of virtually all Apologetic sources of the 2nd century will show that Christians of the Jesus cult did NOT even mention the Epistle to Hebrews, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the contents of the Epistle.

However, ALL Apologetics of the Jesus cult mentioned stories about Jesus found in the Gospels. The short gMark is the Foundation of Christianity--Three authors of the Canon have the short gMark story word for word at times.

Now, it is Doherty who read things into the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Nowhere is it claimed in the Epistle that it was composed in the 1st century.

Doherty MUST, MUST, MUST read things into the Epistle to the Hebrews because it is already known that NOT even the Church knew or admitted who wrote or when the Epistle was composed, no manuscript of Hebrews have been found and dated before c 70 CE and Apologetics who used the Epistle did NOT ever claim it was composed before the Jesus story was known.