TedM

I agree, and that's why I didn't use your example.



I explained that I included it because Doherty included it in his argument about Paul's intentions. My case didn't rest on this passage alone though.


If it wasn't, it wasn't. This last point of yours simply cannot be used as an argument against Jesus' existence, because he could have existed and not revealed the 'mystery' Paul preached.

ted

TedM

For some reason I decided to review your article closely, and have responded in a new thread entitled Review of "Was there a real Jesus". I've sent you a pm also, and am posting this here for others in the thread.

ted

Doug Shaver

Thanks. I do want to.
I don't debate to persuade my opponents. I debate to enlighten the audience.

Malachi151

Solo, Philippians 2:5-11 is a hymn.

At best Paul wrote it, which is doubtful, more likely Paul either copied this hymn in from another source himself, or it is a later interpolation.

You can't claim that ideas only found in this hymn represent a "theological development" of Paul.

What is so striking about this hymn is the fact that none of these ideas are reflected in any of the other writings of Paul.

Even assuming Paul wrote it, a hymn isn't the format for developing a theological argument of laying out doctrines.

Gawen

Was there a real John Frum?

John Frum cult:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum

A unique modern day comparison of how a cult forms.

Solo

Thank you very much; I would have never guessed

I did not say that and I did not even speak of Paul's "theological development". Do you know what the word "schema" means ?

Nonsense. Some of the steps in the schema do not touch on the hymn and where they do I provided some parallels to other epistles. The schema is not derived from or dependent on the Carmen in any way (except in the "hyper-exalted" name, which may well be from a later version of the hymn,....but I am not hung up on it since it is not critical step in the setup).

[Christ in the form of God] ->[sent to earth to repudiate sin=flesh]

Rom 8:3 : For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

The formula "sent his own Son" (ton heautou huion pempsas) is dependent on the notion of pre-existence. If you accept that Paul's God was not procreating, 1 Cr 8:6 complements Phl 2:6 as well.

[born of a woman, in flesh]

Gal 4:4......you still owe me evidence that Paul said the woman was "Israel in heaven"

[obediently fulfils his destiny to be God's servant in flesh, is humiliated through weakness of flesh, but faithfully fulfils his earthly mission]

provided 2 Cr 13:4, and further

Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ.....

....read with:

Rom 8:8 .....and those who are in the flesh cannot please God, [which means Jesus too]

and

1 Cr 1:28 ......but God chose what is low and despised in the world [i.e. that which is hanging on the Cross], even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are....

Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree"--

[his flesh is mortified in crucifixion]

as I said, Paul provides this point through imitatio-Christi as in Rom 6:5,

compare with,

Rom 8:13 for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the body you will live.

[is resurrected in an imperishable, glorious body]

1 Cr 15:42-58

->[becomes man of heaven who will meet with followers at the last trumpet]

the "becoming" a man of heaven (or Paul's Christ as the transformee/ transformer of a physical body into the spiritual one) is captured this way:

1 Cr 15:44-46 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.

Jiri