Amaleq13

Philippians 2:6-11 is generally considered a pre-Pauline hymn but, as Doherty, Price and Couchard (sp?) note, it certainly appears that Christ was given the name "Jesus" after acting as an atoning sacrifice and being raised.

NOGO

You are reading into it.
The passage does not say that the mystery was revealed by Jesus himself nor his life which Paul knows nothing about.

The passage clearly says that the mystery was revealed through scriptures -
A glaring omission of Jesus of Nazareth.

I do not believe that the bible is a manual for a better life.

NOGO

Mrmoderate,

No sane person would write that a virgin is pregnant.

Technically today this is possible. It is possible to impregnate a virgin without intercourse but back then it was impossible.

That alone should determine the meaning of "almah".

This reminds me of joke I saw in a magazine in the sixties.

Doctor: Mrs Jones I have very good news for you.

Patient: It's Miss Jones, doctor.

Doctor: Miss Jones, I have very bad news for you.


Mote that the doctor did not jump to the concluision that this misses was going yo have a virgin birth.

In a society where a woman was expected to remain virgin till mariage calling someone "miss" automatically created an expectation of virginity.
The same may be true of "almah" in Hebrew.
However, if Miss Jones is pregnant, a normal person would conclude the obvious rather than the impossible.

mrmoderate

Just read the passage with an open mind and the understanding as to who Paul is writing to. I did not state that Jesus revealed anything, I stated that Jesus Himself was the revelation. Prophetic messianic scripture from the Hebrew Bible was not fully understood until Jesus fulfilled those prophecies.

What passage in the bible tells us to do something that is not good for us? The Ten Commandments alone are passages that all civilized cultures are based on. You may not believe the bible to be hole but how can you dispute the good guidance we can recieve from it's writings?

mrmoderate

All of this is true for someone who refuses to see beyond their limited understanding. This same line of thinking is what condemned Galileo. Someday, it will become as clear as it is that the world is not flat.

Dean Anderson

Sorry to jump in like this but...

ASV
GEN 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Bible in Basic English
GEN 1:1 At the first God made the heaven and the earth.

KJV
GEN 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

YLT
GEN 1:1 In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --

Webster's
GEN 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Douay-Rehims
GEN 1:1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.

King James Version #2
GEN 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Jewish Publication Society 1917 OT
GEN 1:1 IN THE beginning God created the heaven and the earth.


How many of the above translations have kept the confusing plurality?

None of them - that's how many!

It looks like these verses haven't "stayed intact over the centuries" after all, but have had the confusing parts "got rid of" by the translators...

...kind of makes you wonder how much else in the Bible has been selectively translated to shoehorn it in to the belief system of the translators - regardless of how this may or may not conflict with the beliefs/intent of the original author(s) - doesn't it?

Amaleq13

This is demonstrably untrue. Only half of the commandments are truly shared by all sustained civilizations and they can all be derived through rational thought with the ultimate goal of maintaining a complex society. Prohibiting murder, theft, false testimony, adultery, and (arguably) respecting one's parents require nothing more than an acknowledgement of the sensibility of the concept of the "golden rule" in sustaining a civilization.

The rest are entirely specific to establishing and maintaining a monotheistic religion, specifically Judaism. They serve no other purpose for a "civilized culture" than to maintain a specific belief system. Worshipping only the "one true god", keeping the sabbath, refraining from making graven images, refraining from taking "the one true god's" name in vain, and refraining from coveting are all religious prohibitions which (except, possibly, for the last) are not essential to sustaining a civilization. The problem with the last, obviously, is that it is entirely impossible to enforce as a law but clearly contains the potential of leading to the first set. It is a good suggestion but utterly worthless as a law of the land. A rational law can only prohibit acting on the covetous thoughts.

yalla

I'm currently reading Geza Vermes' "The Changing Faces of Jesus".In that book he suggests that Paul's presentation of JC was made possible by the "reshaped" version of the suffering of Isaac current among Ist .C Jews.Basically I think he is suggesting that Isaac being portrayed as an adult willing to be sacrificed to god gave Paul a model on which to base his concept of JC.It seems to me that Vermes sees JC as deriving directly from contemporary Jewish literature.He gives examples from Paul where "..it is hard not to see in certain passages of Paul allusions to the reinterpreted Abraham-Isaac narrative of Genesis 22 "p.86 [e.g.Romans 8-31,Gal 3-13 and even 1Cor 15-3.].Later on [p97] he declares that "the Jesus of Paul has no earthly identity...Paul ...could seek only a spiritual-mystical encounter with the death and resurrection of a superterrestrial,meta-historical being".I am not sure exactly where he is going with this but it does appear to me to support the thesis that the source of the myth of JC is not a historical person but a development of existing [primarily Jewish] thought.

NOGO

Nonsense!
I do not need a Christian slant to understand anything.
The text says absolutely nothing of what you state above.
It says that Jesus was revealed through scriptures.

Paul also says that what he knew he did not receive from any human.
He also says that Jesus got the title of Son of God when he entered heaven after his death and resurrection. Evidently Paul knows nothing of a virgin birth.

This and many other things show that Paul is unaware of any Jesus of Nazareth.

Yes I can.

The first of the ten commandments tells is not to pronounce "Yahweh" in vain which to the Jews meant not at all. What does that have to do with our civilization?

The subject of what the bible teaches as far as moral and other elements which fall under "guidance" as you call it, is vast.

Paul for example forebade Christians from seeking justice from non Christians.
Holy people do not need unholy people for justice.
He, himself, however, appealed to Roman law and the emperor when his neck was on the line.

Paul was a Roman citizen and as such he had rights.
In the Israel of the time he would have been stoned to death for blaspheme.

Yahweh and the Bible ruled ancient Israel.
People had no right to change the laws and therefore no right to representation in government.

The idea of rights guarateed in law comes to us from the Greek and Roman cultures. The same is true of representative government and freedom of speech. You don't argue against the law of God.

Paul thaught that all authority came from God.
This is typical bible thinking.


Will continue ....

Amaleq13

I thought Paul asserts belief in a pre-existent Son but, in repeating the apparently pre-Pauline hymn in Philippians 2, suggests the belief that Christ obtained the title "Jesus" upon being resurrected.