andrewcriddle

Yes; the present Jerusalem, (which IMO means more the worship centered at the temple in Jerusalem than the physical city), is 'from' Mount Sinai.

NB There is a serious textual problem with the reference to Hagar in verse 26 (though not in verse 25) but I don't think it affects Paul's claim that Jerusalem is 'from' Mount Sinai.


I think Paul regards both Jerusalems as currently at least partly on Earth. The Jerusalem from Mount Sinai is found in the temple worship in the physical city of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem (from) above is present among the followers of Christ. (To say that the Jerusalem above = the Christian church is maybe to use post-Pauline ideas but IMO Paul means something similar.)

Yes; the author of Hebrews believed in a temple or tabernacle in heaven.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

The Samaritans have a similar concept. The present 'mount Gerizim' is little more than a hill (much like 'mount' Zion). But there is a tradition that 'the top' of the mountain is missing and is heaven and will return at some point in the future.

maryhelena

In other words; Paul is not referencing a Jerusalem above that is somehow out there in space - but a dualism, of sorts, here below on terra-firma.

The Jerusalem 'below' being the physical temple and the Jerusalem 'above' being the spiritual temple of each christian believer. And what is that but a scenario of two very different Jerusalem ideas. Reality and spirituality, flesh and spirit, body and intellect. In other words - a dualistic view of human nature.

No out there in some cosmic heavens but in here, within the mind, the intellect, the spirituality, of our nature - that is where the idea of 'christ crucified' is played out. Intellectual sacrifice, sacrifice of outdated mental images, is where the idea of sacrifice has value. It is this Jerusalem 'above' wherein 'salvation' lies; wherein human progress is generated. Our intellect is the 'dying and rising god' - intellectual evolution our 'salvation'.

Paul did not relocate the dying and rising god idea to an outer space heavenly context - he relocated it inwards. To the only place where the idea has value - our intellectual evolution.

With Paul, pagan mythology was not relocated to a heaven in outer space - pagan mythology was relocated inwards in each and every Christ believer. Pagan mythology became christianized not by relocating it to some cosmic outer space dimension with no connection to physical reality - it became christianized when the Christ believer accepted the 'dying and rising god' as being part of his human nature.

aa5874

The Epistle to the Hebrews is really irrelevant to "early Christianity". Up to the end of the 2nd century Apologetic sources wrote Nothing of Hebrews.

In Against Heresies attributed to the supposed Irenaeus, the author appears to be completely unaware of Hebrews and did NOT even refer to a single verse.

Steven Carr

It seems very strange to me to say that the Christian church is the Jerusalem from above, when nobody believed there was a Jerusalem above.

Roo Bookaroo

I am surprised at some of the vocabulary used by Doherty: "bullshit!" "bleats", "wet", "braying".

All this vocabulary seems a bit unusual for a calm and staid scholar, and would seem more appropriate to some kind of blue collar mindset, someone who had done real jobs, who had learnt Greek all by himself, had taught himself to write and done his homework when it comes to mastering biblical studies, and who might be resentful of all those academic nudnicks who quibble about minutiae.

With its free-for-all style, this discussion seemed to wander all over the place, but finally firmly set its focus on the examination of the "World of Myth" concept used by Doherty.
With apparently only two critics, ApostateAbe and GakuseiDon, and a systematic refutation presented by GakuseiDon, underlining the uncertainties in Doherty’s concept by means of choice quotations:

“because of our understanding of the thought of the time, we can assume these specifics”
“A failure of nuance”: A blunt statement of fact is turned into an ASSUMPTION!
There are “many indicators in the record...to suggest…”
The “relocation to the upper word” is “deducible from the evidence, even if not firmly demonstrated”
“justify the postulation... the myths were indeed thought of as transpiring in a heavenly dimension”
Note the redundancy: “in the minds of the priests and philosophers... were indeed thought of as…”. Where else could they be “thought of” than “in their minds”?
“while we have no direct, unmistakeable statements in the literature... there are a host of indicators... relocation to the heavenly realm was, or could have been, made…”
So, yes, we have to “...accept the evidence I present in offering my argued corroboration in…[whatever]” !


What makes Doherty such an expert in ancient mythology?
As an autodidact, when he started educating himself on mythology, one guess is that he must have come across such high-school and college primers as “The World of Myth” by David A. Leeming (1992).

Yes, how easy and tempting it is to assume that Doherty was impressed by this famous book, and seduced by the idea of using the phrase "World of Myth" for his own elaboration.

And, after trying his hand at fiction, he realized, like Murdock in the mid-90s, that the field of mythology and christianity criticism was wide-open for presenting new vistas and building new authorial competence.

Inheriting basic ideas from Arthur Drew and G.A. Wells, developing his unique writing style, what was needed was adding a little twist (the “world of myth”, the sublunar domain) for differentiation.

Doherty imagines cosmic dramas as taking place in the “Platonic world of myth and higher reality". But this new celestial sphere of action is in fact a neat, modern concept, that Doherty is forcefully retrofitting onto the ancient culture.

He seems to imagine a giant TV screen in the sky where all the stories are spun out as special videos. But in fact, myths were only stories, stories communicated through language about events in the only world known to writers, the earthly world. The big skywide videos didn’t exist.

In Antiquity, the plots of myths were simply imagined, like any other stories. Myth were essentially stories, narratives communicated by language. Religion and faith were first propagated by language, which was also the instrument of magic, and the tool for exploiting gullibility, fomenting credulity and inspiring faith. Signs and wonders needed language as well.
"Is she dead? You're sure, not sleeping? Yes, she is really dead. Look, now, she's getting up, see, she is no longer dead."
"Are you a spirit? Yes? What's your name? Then get the hell out of here!"

Art did play a modest role, but architecture followed to give presence and consistence to mythical beliefs once they had gained substantial following.
But there was no conception of videos or movies played out in a celestial sphere.


Doherty sounds annoyed when somebody like GakuseiDon starts criticizing his lack of expertise. If you visit GakuseiDon's site, you may be tempted to believe his claims that he has read the literature of Antiquity much more extensively than most of us, and appreciate why GakuseiDon doesn’t buy Doherty’s explanations.

Doherty gets annoyed that GakuseiDon is referring to the Jesus Puzzle book. But many people who have read both books do prefer the older version.
And it is the one where Doherty presented his ideas in their full freshness, before he started taking all the criticisms into account and massaging and polishing his text anew.

Now Doherty sounds as if he might be disavowing segments of his first text, "nuances" he modestly calls them. This is similar to what Murdock is doing with her planned 2d edition of the Christ Conspiracy, where she will want to get rid of a lot of the initial New Age incongruities of the 1st edition (1999, same year as the Jesus Puzzle. 
But the Jesus Puzzle stays on the record, and is a good base to try to grasp Doherty’s "puzzle".

Doherty’s preferred method of answering critics is to drown them in his usual deluge of inflated prose, claiming that his opponents refuse to deal with the immensely bloated paragraphs of the “evidence he presents in offering his argued corroboration in….” whatever is at issue.

Doherty likes to present himself as the expert on “the way true scholarly discussion operates”. Where did he gain such expertise on scholarship methods? GakuseiDon has pushed him with his back to the wall: "Why don't you try to publish on peer-reviewed journals, and get real exposure to the scholarly world?"

No, Doherty remains insulated by self-publishing, and simply battles it out with critics on the Internet: his own site, FRDB, JesusMysteries, Vridar. He likes to erect himself as the final judge of the discussion and can’t tolerate being criticized. This is when his tone starts getting rougher.

I feel Maryhelena is on the right track. The real origin of the supernatural was not in the fictitious creation of a celestial universe, which was only a linguistic interpretation by writers, but in a dualistic conception of human nature, reality versus spirituality.
Crucifixion and resurrection were played out as “ideas”, as mental images fuelled not by the cosmic video screen à la Doherty, but in the imagination of the faithful.

When Arthur Drews spotlighted the influence of the figure of Hebrew Wisdom in the formation of the figure of Christ, he emphasized that the resulting figure was an ideal Christ. Same conclusion with G.A. Wells.

It is probably a result of our scientific age and education to envision the natural world and the supernatural as two distinct domains, with the resulting Doherty temptation to imagine a "World of Myth" as a cosmic world for staging myths and religious dramas.

But in Antiquity the supernatural was commonplace, part of the natural world, or at least tightly, intimately connected to it.
The two classes of phenomena did not exist in two separate compartments. Miracles were such only if they were in sharp contrast with common knowledge of terra-firma events. It was only a matter of empirical statistics and ordinary expectations. The supernatural revealed itself as an unexpected and surprising event.

Walter R. Cassels's book, Supernatural Religion (1874-77), does describe an ancient Greco-Roman culture in which supernatural events were accepted and expected, and that did not take place in a separate environment.

This connection is still true for all believers, their supernatural is for them part of the natural world. As long as you believe, the supernatural comes smoothly into play.
Look at Paul, and his encounters with Jesus. All on earth.
And when Mark puts his story on papyrus, miracles abound at every corner, and are accepted by all without questioning. Magicians played their tricks everywhere.

Look at the power of relics, starting with the true cross found by Helena, and the beneficial effects of garments or bones of saints.
The immense racket of relics in medieval times, which was sustained by the sheer belief of devotees.
It is amazing that in the middle of the 18th century, when the scientific age was breaking through, Casanova was able to finance his travels through Europe by playing magical tricks on rich artistocratic ladies who swallowed his most abstruse inventions. Probably paying for the charm of being part of a supernatural act.

At the end of the 19th century, spiritualism conquered some of the best brains of Europe and the US. The key condition to play that game was to believe in spirits and in their power.
Modern apparitions of the Virgin are still celebrated in many parts of the world, and the healing power of her holy sites, Lourdes for instance, has enormous mass appeal. Saints are still selected by the Vatican on the condition of having worked some proved "real" miracle, as a sign of the "finger of God."
All this supernatural is firmly anchored in the natural world of "terra-firma", as long as you believe.

There is no need to invent a "World of Myth" for the ancients. This is a modern vision, not applicable. Their myths were great stories, and they were real as long as they were believed.

Paul’s mission was to spread the belief and nourish it with his activism. The “world of myth” was unnecessary, it is a modern construct. The mystery cults, and Christianity along, found their foundation and reality in cultivating an attitude of faith in believers.

G.A. Wells wrote two interesting books on the subject:
Belief and Make-Believe: Critical Reflections on the Sources of Credulity (Open Court, 1991)
What's in a Name? Reflections on Language, Magic and Religion (Open Court, 1993)

Steven Carr

I think what Roo Buckaroo was saying can be summarised in this quote from Hebrews 8 'They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. '

And Hebrews 9 ' But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation.'

If I may paraphrase Roo Buckaroo here, the Biblical authors believed there was a world above us, which contained things of which their physical earthly counterparts were a mere 'shadow and copy'.

Toto

Platonic is a modern concept????

G'Don keeps trying to maintain that the ancients were rational and materialistic, with just a few quirks that we reject. He thinks that the idea of an alternative reality or other dimension is the result of modern TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire killer. I tend to doubt this.

This seems at odds with the ancient view of astrology, where the actions in the heavens reflected the actions on earth.

:huh:

I never know how far to trust G'Don's statements about his own motives. He has contributed a chapter to an anti-mythicist screed published by the notorious JP Holding. He sometimes calls himself a Christian but usually refuses to discuss what he really believes. He claims to be interested in how the ancients thought, but my impression is that he has not immersed himself in ancient thought process enough, or learned ancient languages. He just wants to translate ancient thinking into a neat analog to modern thinking.

The main thing I know about ancient thinking from this era is that it was wrong, not productive. The scientific revolution and the enlightenment freed our minds. It's hard to put the shackles back on.

Yes, if Doherty only had a PhD, he could persuade people that his prose is profound, and his conclusions should be treated with respect.

I don't know if that is what Maryhelena is saying, but the dualistic conception of human nature sounds more like Doherty's theory.

I think that Doherty's "world of myth" was more of a metaphor for neo-Platonic thinking.

But thanks for a somewhat different perspective on this matter.

GakuseiDon

I've never criticized Doherty for his lack of expertise. From what I understand, he is more academically qualified than I am to discuss the subject matter. He has studied the applicable ancient languages; I have not. I am an amateur, a hobbyist in this area, so no-one should take my word for anything.

I'm not pushing him back into a wall, I'm trying to push him forward out into the open! I genuinely would like to see him publish some of his ideas in peer-reviewed journals. Things like:
1. The mystery religions thought in terms of his "World of Myth" for their saviour gods
2. Tatian and other Second Century apologists did not believe in a historical Jesus
3. “Flesh” (sarx) and “according to the flesh” (kata sarka) were concepts that could be applied to beings existing above the earth
4. Q had no "Jesus" in its earliest layer

What's the worst that could happen? People might start investigating his theories?

That's right. I call it his "exit strategy": he gradually starts to insert more and more little prickly comments, degrading the tone, until he leaves in a puff of indignation. Though to be fair, nowadays Doherty starts those comments about me before I even enter the thread!

GakuseiDon

I have never ever maintained such an idea. The ancients were as they were. I have no rosy-glass view of them.

Simplest solution: DON'T trust my statements about my motives. And take it from there.