Grog

Sure, I can buy that "Bingo" visits the forum every day.

sotto voce

Like the rest of the world.

EarlDoherty

They were not nonsensical to those who pronounced them. And it is valid for us to try to understand what they had in mind by them.

And what about the historicists who try to deconstruct the meaning we can glean from them in order to further their own 'confessional' interests? And what about you yourself contributing some personal argument and logic to our understanding? Or is this just some blithe dismissal of anything mythicists put forward?

Earl Doherty

aa5874

Your post is actually disturbing to me because you seem to think that Doherty should not be opposed BY those who believe they can show the flaws in his argument.

Please, any person can chose to oppose any one at any time once they abide by the rules.

Doherty writes books and should have water-tight arguments for his position.

Please, these threads are NOT to start a cult where everyone must believe Doherty.

We are having open discussions were people can support or argue against any matter under discussion.

EarlDoherty

And just how does this render "the Christ" a name, rather than a role? When Josephus pronounced Vespasian to be the object of Jewish oracles, by which he meant "the messiah" (while avoiding using the term), would this have meant that Vespasian's "name" now became "messiah"?

Earl Doherty

stephan huller

I don't think "the name" here is the Lord. The structure implies it is Jesus and the precedent is the name change with Auses in the LXX.

stephan huller

philo on the change of names

XXI. (121) Thus much we have thought fit to say on this subject. But, moreover, Mouses also changes the name of Auses into that of*Iesous; displaying by his new name the distinctive qualities of his character; (122) for the name Auses is interpreted, "what sort of a person is this?" but*Iesous*means "the salvation of the Lord,"(Iesous soteria kuriou) being the name of the most excellent possible character;

aa5874

Again, may I remind you that if you place the Pauline writings in the wrong "time zone" then you may get a meaning that is of little value, historically and theologically.

Everyone knows that placing the Gospels BEFORE the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE would significantly alter the meaning of the Jesus story.

If people of antiquity Believed the Jesus stories were composed before the Fall of the Temple then then would believe the Jesus character was indeed a Prophet and Son of God.

The very same thing applies to Philippians and all Pauline writings.

Everyone knows that the deduction that the Epistles to Timothy were most likely forgeries and written AFTER the Fall of the Temple changed the significance of the Epistles as an historical source.

People of antiquity may have been duped by believing the Epistles to Timothy were authentic and historically accurate when they were NOT.

People today must guard against accepting Pauline writings as historically accurate without a shred of corroboration.

Philippians 2 composed before or after c 70 CE may have a total different significance and there is NO evidence whatsoever, not even in the Pauline letters, that Philippians was composed before c 70 CE.

Philippians 2 AFTER c 70 CE is rather meaningless, theologically and historically.

stephan huller

As I have noted here before the Marcosians took an interest in numerology and 888 in particular. The Samaritan Memar Marqe notices that the first two words in the Song of the Sea (Ex 15 LXX) = 888. This even though the Mimar survives only in Aramaic and Joshua's name no longer changes (or does not change) in the SP

sotto voce

Not at all. Quite the reverse. 'The Christ,' or 'the Messiah' was to Jews a specific role; the word 'messiah' or 'Messiah' is a descriptive noun, not a proper noun, a name. 'Christ' in 'Jesus Christ' (meaning 'Jesus, the Christ') is capitalised because there is deemed to be only one christ. One could very legitimately write 'Jesus, christ' (meaning 'Jesus, a christ') if one held that there is a possibility that there is more than one christ, though of course neither Jew nor Christian will admit that possibility.

Not at all.

'The high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, Manifestation of the One Adored?"

"I am," said Jesus.'

Mk 14:61-62

'If anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it, because false Christs and false prophets will appear."' Mt 24:23-24

There is no question that the meaning of 'Jesus Christ' was 'Jesus (of Nazareth), the Messiah'. Whoever wrote it, or spoke it, friend or not.

There is sometimes misunderstanding about the word 'name', onoma, which did not mean just 'handle' as it usually means to us. When people were baptised into the name of Jesus, it meant that they identified with everything that Jesus stood for; moral character, teaching, and expiatory death. So when Paul wrote:

'At the name of Jesus every knee should bow,'

he meant that all would accept the whole of what Jesus stood for (willingly or otherwise), not merely an arbitrary name that applied to many more than one person.