rlogan

hi Sarah. Welcome to IIDB if nobody hasn't already.


Saul was first King of Israel. I think it means "asked for". Paul means "little". Anyway, the imagery of the King becoming the little one after "meeting Jesus" is a little over the top, eh?

GakuseiDon

I don't want to be pedantic, but words by themselves can't be allegorical. "Flesh" is being used in an allegory, but the meaning of the word in context is literal. Allegory means:

a device in art or literature by which abstract moral or spiritual qualities are represented by concrete characters, things, and events.

"Flesh" is the concrete thing here. Paul does draw an abstract meaning from it, but it doesn't make the word itself non-literal.

Paul applies it to Jesus, to Abraham, and to himself. There is absolutely no reason to see it mean anything other than "carnally".

Doherty can find no examples of it being used to mean in "the sphere of the flesh incluing a lower celestial realm" outside Paul, in either Christian writings or pagan writings.

Doherty can find no writings that say there were Christians who believed that Christ was crucified in a lower celestial realm, even as a heresy. (We can see early heresies where Christians believed that Jesus wasn't divine though).

Doherty can find no writings that say that the pagans of the time believed that the gods existed in lower celestial realms either, AFAIK. His only examples are vague references written hundreds of years later.

One part of an allegory is literal, the other part is the applied meaning. "Mother" is metaphorical.

Words by themselves can't be allegorical. "Flesh" is literal. "Spirit" is figurative. Trying to simplify it into an either-or case is specious.

Vork, what about when "kata sarka" is not being used in an allegory? Would it still have a non-literal meaning?

GakuseiDon

Vork, two examples of "kata sarka" in 2 Cor:

2Cr 1:16 And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward Judaea.

2Cr 1:17 When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay?

2Cr 1:18 But [as] God [is] true, our word toward you was not yea and nay.

Also:

2Cr 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

2Cr 5:15 And [that] he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

2Cr 5:16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we [him] no more.

Both examples come from the same epistle. There is nothing there to say that Paul is referring to anything other than carnality.

Amaleq13

Those are precisely my thoughts on your misinterpretations! And your recent additions haven't changed that opinion.

Even though it is clearly a ceremony that is conducted regularly and intended to commemorate the central theme of his theology? And that conducting it improperly warrants being accused of hating the church and risking damnation?

You are confusing "not having to deal with idiots stupid enough to misuse a cherished ceremony" with "a relatively unimportant ceremony".

To believe your interpretation, I have to completely ignore what Paul says. That, amigo, is "absurd".

Why do you keep relying on such a simplistic yet ultimately meaningless counting? It isn't about how many things Paul considers to warrant damnation, it is the fact that he considers the improper use of "the Lord's Supper" to qualify! That clearly speaks to the importance of the ceremony. Your refusal to accept this can only be willful ignorance because you have clearly demonstrated sufficient brain power to understand such a simple concept.

"why, have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or the assembly of God do ye despise, and shame those not having? what may I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I do not praise!" (1 Cor 11:22, YLT, emphasis mine)

He is quite clearly connecting misuse of the ceremony with despising the church.

I use it because it is the most commonly known. I tend to consider multiple interpretations from The Bible Gateway

It is entirely possible that Paul's communities considered this ceremony purely symbolic but it is also entirely possible that they took it as literally as modern day Catholics. Paul's revealed information does not have Jesus identify the bread and wine as "symbolic", however. Jesus shows the bread and says "this is my body". That they are engaging in the activity as a remembrance of Jesus does not require that the act be assumed entirely symbolic.

Whether they took the bread/wine to be literally changed into flesh/blood is ultimately irrelevant to the current issues. Even a symbolic commemoration of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ would obviously and undeniably be considered central to the activities of any of Paul's communities. Do you really think Paul would have put up with one of his churches neglecting this practice?

I'm going to have to repeat my recommendation that you read Crossan. He provides a very detailed examination into the central importance of the communal meal in early Christianity.

Prove it.

Can you honestly say that you would not consider Paul's "Lord's Supper" revelation to be a pagan ceremony if it occurred in a different context?

You stopped too soon. If you had read John 6:60-66, you would have realized that you have no case:

"From this [time] many of his disciples went away backward, and were no more walking with him" (Jn 6:66, YLT)

Also, note that Jesus never attempts to explain to either "the Jews" or his own disciples that he was only speaking symbolicly.

Gentiles are "assumed present" in Q. You seemed familiar with this so I didn't think specific passages were necessary. Q 13:28-29 has "many" coming from "east and west" to join Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets at the table in the Kingdom of God while "you" (fellow Jews) will be denied.

As Kloppenborg observes:

"What is striking is the structure of the saying, which claims that the addressees--clearly Israelites--will be disestablished (Greek provided), while others will enjoy the company of the Patriarchs. These others can only be Gentiles." (Excavating Q, p.192)

The story with the Syrophenician woman is a counter-example to your claim that gentiles are portrayed negatively in the Gospels.

So we have clear inclusion of Gentiles in Q and at least one example of Gentile inclusion in the Gospels. This is not consistent with the notion, inconsistently depicted in the Gospel stories, that the "historical Jesus ministry" originally excluded Gentiles.

Yet the woman is portrayed as clever enough to obtain healing for her daughter from Jesus. The ending of the story ends with Gentile inclusion.

You can try to play games with the chronology but that doesn't change the fact that Paul explicitly denies he was known "by face" in the churches of Judaea. He goes on to say that they certainly knew of his reputation as a persecutor.

There is only one rational conclusion that fits everything Paul tells us: He never persecuted any of the churches in Judaea.

This is meaningless rhetoric without a specific theory provided as a counter-example. The "observed divergence" exists given the consensus view of the origins of the canonical gospels and Q. According to that view, Paul's letters and the initial layer of Q are at least roughly contemporary with the complete Q being closer to the appearance of the first Gospel story. Mark was written first around 70CE with Mt and Lk rewriting it a couple decades later followed by Jn's differing version coming toward the end of the century.

What theory do you prefer?

Magdlyn

Just read through the thead. Some detailed renderings on some complicated texts! :notworthy

Allow me to make some simple comments.


In reference to obvious anti-gnostic literature being deemed neccessary in later years, but not obvious in the gospels, I agree with amaleq, the gospels assume an HJ, so no there is no need to speak of any other kind of J. That would be counter-productive. I suggest, a century or so later, there were that many more Xtians. Some must have been in line with the assumed HJ of the 4 gospels. But that many more were neo-Paulinists, and needed to be put down in specific ways.

Disagree. If Paul was a Jew, and saw the Tanakh as allegory, could he have been the only one?

Do you really think all the Jews believed Ezekiel ate a honey flavored scroll? Read he saw a 4 headed beast covered in eyes and didn't interrept those eyes as God's omniscience? Etc. Perhaps tthen as now, the simple believers did, but the "mature" intellectuals dug deeper.

Must just be one of those "vague parallels." That's his story and he's stickin to it.

Magdlyn

Meant to add a comment on the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Xtian mission.

Were not the Persian Magi meant to represent how "every knee" of all the Nations, "should bow" to Jesus? These guys were not seen as dogs.

Or does the nativity story not count in this discussion?

ichabod crane

But it's not even mentioned anywhere else, so how can it commemorate the central theme of his theology? If it did, why wouldn't he discuss it elsewhere, saying something like, "as we commemorate in the communal meal, so Christ died" or something like that? After all, he does that for baptism. You're entitled to your opinion, but I continue to hold that it is obviously absurd. Especially since your whole argument is based on the absence of the historical Jesus from Paul's writing.

Why?

Wow. Well at the risk of continuing in "willful ignorance", I agree that he considers it important. He also considers not being drunk, not sleeping with prostitutes, not being an idolater, etc. etc. etc. important. So what? You haven't demonstrated that he considers it any more important than those things. You haven't shown any references to it elsewhere in his theology.
Yes, but he uses the verb kataphroneo (despise), not the verb miseo (to hate). That's the only point I was making.

So there you go.

No, but neither would he put up with them visiting prostitutes or being drunk.

Hey, it's not up to me to prove it, it's up to you to prove it. You have to show me a text from the ancient mystery religions where they speak of remembering a past event through the ceremony.

No, I wouldn't consider it pagan if I read the text carefully.

Now come on, Amaleq13. I said that "the Jews" took him literally when that's not what he intended. You took me to task and said it wasn't the Jews, it was his disciples. But I never said it wasn't his disciples, I said it was the Jews, AND THAT IS HOW THE TEXT EXPLICITLY DESCRIBES THEM. It says hoi ioudaioi, which translates as "the Jews". So I was absolutely right. They are portrayed as "the Jews" who believed on him but then left him. And as verse 52 makes clear, the reason that these Jews no longer followed him, is because they misunderstood him and took him literally, just as you do. The consistent message of John is that Jesus spoke figuratively, "the Jews" misunderstood him by taking him literally, and they therefore didn't believe him, or abandoned faith in him. This fits the picture perfectly.

No, but that's the consistent pattern of the narrative. He never explains to them that he's speaking figuratively except on occasions where they come to him sincerely and ask him to explain it to them. He deliberately speaks in parables in order that they won't understand him. He doesn't explain the meaning of the parables, except in some cases to his own 12 disciples.

Which statement is clearly eschatological, not referring to current events. The quote from Kloppenborg doesn't prove your point. I agree that the people in question are gentiles; but Jesus is speaking of a future event, not current events.

No, it's not, it proves my point. Jesus says he is only come to the people of Israel. He calls the woman a dog. But because she persists, he grants her her request. But that doesn't show a positive view of gentiles. It's just contrasting lowly gentile belief with Jewish unbelief.

I don't have much problem with this chronology, except to point out that the "late John" theory has come under sustained attack in recent scholarship; see for instance J.A.T. Robinson, "The priority of John", a landmark work where he claims that the gospel of John was actually the first gospel written. So your summary of scholarship is somewhat out-of-date.

But doesn't all this go against the "late gospel" theory of Doherty and company? As I understand it, they wouldn't tolerate a date of 70CE for Mark. And this just proves my point about the lack of anti-gnostic references in the gospels: if Mark and Q were around by 70CE, that explains why there aren't anti-gnostic references in them, since gnosticism developed later, around the time the pseudo-Pauline epistles were written.

But that's a straw man. I'm not suggesting that the gospels need to reference another kind of Jesus. I'm saying that they could quite easily incorporate anti-gnostic rhetoric, like the pseudo-Pauline epistles do. Jesus could say, "I say unto you, avoid what is falsely called gnosis". How would that compromise the presentation of the human Jesus?

I agree with what you're saying about the neo-Paulinists, but surely that's best explained as follows. A human Jesus starts a human Jesus tradition. That tradition leads especially to the synoptic gospels. Paul comes along and starts the Pauline tradition. As time go on, some try to synthesize the traditions and the Old Testament, leading to "orthodoxy". Others continue more on the Pauline (and, in some cases, Johannine) trajectory, leading to Marcion, docetism, and gnosticism. How does any of this imply that there was no human Jesus?

The problem is that you're confusing apples and oranges. The Tanakh consists of numerous different genres of literature written over hundreds of years by different authors. Ezekiel is a completely different genre of writing to the Patriarchal narratives. All the evidence is that orthodox 1st-century Palestinian Jews saw the patriarchal narratives as literal, although they certainly sometimes interpreted them *additionally* in an allegorical manner (allegory and literal interpretation are not necessarily mutually exclusive). This is seen, for instance, by the constant use of genealogies commencing from Adam and going down through Abraham, etc., with which orthodox Jews were obsessed.

OK, Magdlyn, let me continue down that track. Who else was it that came to see the newly born Jesus? Shepherds. Who were considered as among the lowest of the low by orthodox Jewry at the time? Answer: Shepherds. They were considered ritually unclean and sinners. You may have noticed that sheep know nothing about the Sabbath, and therefore tend to wander irrespective of the day of the week. Shepherds have to chase them, and were therefore condemned by the Pharisees. Now why would the narrative suggest that the people who came to see Jesus were the lowest Jews (shepherds) and gentiles? To contrast with the unbelief of the Pharisees and the so-called righteous Jews. Implicit is the idea that gentiles have a low status. They perform the same function as the Ninevites do in the book of Jonah. They serve as a "kick in the pants" for the Jews (like, hey, these gentiles repented and believed, and they're only lowly gentiles; how bad is it that the much better Jews haven't repented and believed).

Well said, GakuseiDon. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Some of his believers

Or there are two separate laws and he is using both in different respects. But I take your point. Paul holds a dual meaning to "death" and "resurrection" throughout Romans 6 and 7; we have died and been resurrected with Christ through our faith and baptism, and we will die and be resurrected with Christ at the eschaton. So the word "death" does not necessarily denote literal death. Paul argues that death severs the marriage as far as both parties are concerned; the one who died as well as the one who is still living. When Paul speaks about us as being resurrected, he does not mean that what died is raised is resurrected, but rather a new nature comes to life while the old remains dead. For example, in chapter 6 verse 5, gegonamen is perfect active indicative, indicating a present state resulting from a past action. This indicates that the likeness of death in which we are united with Christ is a continuing, permanent state. To Paul, resurrection is not simply resurrection of exactly the same thing that was alive before (e.g. verse 10). There is a transformation. We died to sin, but we are resurrected, not to sin, but to newness of life. We are dead to sin and remain forever dead to sin. So the argument relating to marriage can be summarised as follows:

(a) We have died to the law and remain dead to it. Therefore we are freed from our marriage to it.

(b) We have a new resurrected nature, which is married to Christ.

Paul's arguments in chapter 6 and 7 are complex, but that doesn't mean they're not coherent.

rlogan

OK, I see that you have looked at this more closely now and I appreciate that.

We reach different conclusions, but so be it.


otherwise...

Primacy of John?!



Good golly, someone call the IIDB Sanhedrin

GakuseiDon

I think spin is away at this time!

Magdlyn

This, to me, is evidence of a hint of gnosticism itself (not anti-gnostic rhetoric) in a gospel narrative. The idea that there is one teaching for the masses of psychic believers, and a deeper meaning for the initiated pneumatic seekers (the 12, the constellations revolving around Jesus, the central star) is wholly gnostic. Assuming gnosticism did not get going until about 100 CE is erroneous. Paul is already at least proto-gnostic. He speaks of Archons. He speaks of gnosis and mysteries.

Again, this can be interpreted exoterically (the physical end of the cosmos and a new one born), or esoterically--ID with the spirit (as in Paul) and the kingdom is here now, as a new way of life. Dead to the flesh, alive in the spirit, born from above, yada yada.

The battle lines had not been drawn yet. Catholicizing was not yet neccessary. Jesus rasing Lazurus, and Thomas wishing to go to the ceremony, so he and his friends can "die" with Lazurus, is a rare written description of a gnostic initiatory rite, which would be for the fully mature. The baptism was for everyone, the dying and rising ritual for those seeking gnosis. The "meat," following the "milk."

It is written as an actual raising of a dead person, so the psychic can interpret it this way. The initiated will see it differently. It is obvious it is merely a foreshadowing of Jesus' later symbolic death, as Stephen's death later, is a sequel. Death to the flesh, life in the spirit, in the kingdom.

My understanding is, these kinds of rites were rarely written about, either in Xtian lit, or earlier in gnostic paganism, or mystery religions, because they were esoteric! A secret for the few. Paul himself admits to this. Some of the Xtian teachings he can write about, some he can only convey orally, (or as a rite, as a mystagogue?) in person. He certainly speaks of a mystery.

Then why did Paul write first, with a consistent philosophy, and the synoptics cobble themselves confusingly and contradictorily together, with multiple unattributed authorship, much later? We need to apply some common sense.

See above.

This does not matter. I was only using one of the most far out prophetic visions as an example. I could have mentioned Exodus from Torah.

If you have seen all the evidence, I bow to your greater gnosis.

Please define "orthodox 1st century Jewry." I know many Torah observant Jews today who object to the term orthodox.

Do you mean to lump the Pharisees and the Saducees together as "orthodox?" Why do you discount the breakaway sects such as the Essenes and Therapeutae? Do you wholly discount the great influence of Hellenism?

The conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees in the gospel narratives is fictional. Jesus' teachings match those of Hillel, I understand. Hillel's successor, Gamaliel, in AofA, is shown to defend the apostles. The Pharisees and the Saducees are seen as united against Jesus. This again, would be fiction. Those two groups were enemies with different goals.

The Pharisees were influenced by the Persian exile. Pharisee may mean Parsi. They obviously brought back Zoroastrian beliefs (dualism) with them. Is this orthodox by your definition? Wouldn't orthodox mean traditional Temple sacrifice? But then, those doing the sacrifices were quislings of the Roman gov't. It was a mess in Jerusalem and all over the region in the 1st century. Orthodoxy is perhaps, your hope but not a reality. The "mess" allowed the idea of a spiritual Messiah to germinate and evolve. IMO.


The Persian Magi seem to be depicted with the greatest respect (see above comparison between Persians and Pharisees, between Pharisees and Jesus, anyway). Nothing doglike in their dignity, wealth, gnosis, and even the respect accorded them by Herod the king (not that his respect is worth a hill of beans! ).

BTW, the shepherds were from one narrative tradition, the Magi from another. Attempts to cobble them together is dishonest, IMO.