EarlDoherty

You haven't answered the question. Whether the early Christians believed it was historical (the Gethesemane scene) even if it wasn't, do you think that the writer of Hebrews is referring to Gethsemane in this passage?

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

Sorry, yes, the answer is yes, the writer was referring to the episode in Gethsemane.

aa5874

What you say is certainly no so at all. You have written a Gospel with your imaginary historical Jesus PRECISELY because the NT is about the Jesus of FAITH.

You know the NT is about the Jesus of Faith long ago so please do not give the impression that the NT contains the historical Jesus.

The historical Jesus was NOT the one who was born of the Holy Ghost and a virgin, the Word that was God and the Creator who was Raised from the dead on the third day and by whose resurrection we have the Christian Faith and Remission of Sins.

Please see Matthew 1.18, Luke 1.35, John 1 and Galatians 1.

In order to argue for the historical Jesus you MUST first find external credible sources of antiquity and there is none.

The NT is about the Jesus of FAITH (Myth Jesus).

EarlDoherty

Well, one of the extra advantages of reading my book is that you also get a lot of information on how traditional and critical scholarship interprets certain passages. As far as Hebrews 5:7 is concerned, here is what I have to say in JNGNM (free of charge!):

In chapter 13, this verse (5:7) was analyzed in terms of possible applications of the word “flesh” to heavenly settings. Here we can note that, once again, elements relating to an earthly incarnation are missing. For what is it that Christ did in those “days of his flesh”? The context of this passage is a continuation of the theme of obedience, which is being urged on the readers, that they not abandon the faith in the face of adversity. The actions of Jesus are thus related to his testing and passing that test of obedience:

"(Christ) offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One able to deliver him out of death, and he was heard because of his piety."

Even the Son of God felt apprehension and prayed for deliverance, and because of his faith in God was indeed delivered—that is, he was resurrected, not spared his suffering and death. This example the writer wishes his readers to follow (not that they must suffer death, only that they be willing to face it), so that they too will be delivered and enter upon God’s “rest.” But from what source has the writer drawn these examples of Christ’s behavior? For something so important, to impress upon his readers the image of Christ apprehensive but obedient in the face of martyrdom, where does he go? Amazingly, not to history, but to scripture. “Offering up prayers and supplications” is drawn from Psalm 116:1, which uses the same words (in the LXX version), while “loud cries and tears” is an enlargement on Psalm 22:24, “when I cried to him, he heard me” (again in the LXX wording).

Indeed, it is almost unthinkable that the author in this situation would not have appealed to some tradition attached to the historical Jesus, his behavior under duress at his trial and scourging, his willing sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. Now, it is certainly the case that the passage suggests the Gospel scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, and probably most modern readers will take it that way. But scholars have recognized the problems in such an interpretation. Here in Hebrews, Jesus is not pleading that he be spared his upcoming ordeal. In Gethsemane, on the other hand, Jesus of Nazareth is portrayed as experiencing fear and apprehension at the prospect of what he is facing, but his plea that he might be spared the cup of suffering he must drink was not heeded by God. This is something that would have contradicted one of the points the writer of Hebrews wishes to make, which is that God answers the prayers of the heavenly High Priest (one of his tasks being, like the earthly high priest, to petition God on the people’s behalf). On the other hand, if he was pleading for a conquest of death, then that prayer was indeed answered.

Scholars who squarely face this discrepancy usually downplay any link to Gethsemane. Ellingworth (op.cit., p.285) allows that it does not refer to Gethsemane, though he considers that it must refer to some historical event. He notes that 5:7 represents “a generalized use of the language and pattern of Old Testament intercession.” Dependence on Gethsemane is also dubious since the Gospel scene is almost certainly Mark’s literary invention, and the writer of Hebrews shows no sign of being familiar with any written Gospel. The chances of such a scene forming in oral tradition are next to impossible, since it involves words and actions ascribed to Jesus which were not heard or witnessed by anyone. Moreover, the feature of the sleeping disciples would surely have appealed to the writer of Hebrews, perhaps to represent those members of the community who were in danger of falling asleep and missing the true rest which God was promising.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

Thanks, Earl Doherty, I appreciate that thorough analysis. I have a few thoughts I would like to present in response.

• The meaning of "In the days of his flesh" is extremely plain, and, regardless of whether or not any scholar speculates that maybe it is not referring to the Agony in the Garden, it is a very straightforward prima facie reading that "In the days of his flesh" refers to a time when Jesus was a human being on the Earth. It is not found in the same relevant passage of the LXX. I don't doubt that there are some divisions in the scholarship concerning the connection between Hebrews 5:7 and Gethsemane, but it would hardly matter since your biggest challenge seems to be that preceding phrase. To seemingly magnify the problem, it implies that this time when Jesus was "of his flesh" is in the past, and he has a new existence--as a divine being in heaven. I know that your theory involves a certain separate realm of heaven where inhabitants were described as "in the flesh," but that solution seems to approach the highest climax of ad hoc exegesis.
• You wrote, "Here in Hebrews, Jesus is not pleading that he be spared his upcoming ordeal. In Gethsemane, on the other hand, Jesus of Nazareth is portrayed as experiencing fear and apprehension at the prospect of what he is facing, but his plea that he might be spared the cup of suffering he must drink was not heeded by God." I think you have a good point, and it could be successfully argued that the cup represents the covenant of sacrifice and salvation and/or the suffering of Jesus, and it follows that God failed to fulfill the supplication of Jesus. However, since God did apparently raise Jesus from the dead, this would most certainly count as God hearing (εἰσακούω) the supplication of Jesus and giving Jesus something almost as good for his obedience, if not better, in response to his supplication. The word may have been chosen with intentional ambiguity for that purpose.
• Further, granting that God did not fulfill the supplication of Jesus upon the fairest analysis of the gospel accounts of the Agony in the Garden, it does not follow that this problem posed a much too serious problem for the author of Hebrews, that he would have abandoned or overlooked the argument. He needed to make a point that God rewards those who are obedient by fulfilling their supplications, and God heard the supplications of Jesus and brought him back from the dead, though God didn't fulfill the supplication exactly as Jesus intended, but it was good enough. Would we expect either the author of Hebrews or his Christian audience to find anything significantly wrong with that? For a religious preacher, the argument is more than sufficient.
• Finally, the parallels between Hebrews 5:7 and the Agony in the Garden are too powerful to be so easily dismissed. In both passages, Jesus is praying to God, and there are supplications, there is distress, and there is explicit humility.

If these arguments don't quite establish the very certain conclusion that Hebrews 5:7 really is referring to the Agony in the Garden, then such a deficiency is not so relevant since all that is needed is the mere probability that Hebrews 5:7 refers to the historical Jesus, let alone the Agony in the Garden. Given that probability, then the proposed problem--that early Christian authors including the author of Hebrews were silent on the historical Jesus--looks to be a problem that requires merely the solution of a little more hospitality with interpretation, not a revolutionary and bizarre new theory of Christianity's origins.

EarlDoherty

Well, Abe, your claim that “in the days of his flesh” can only mean one thing is not much different from similar claims by others (and presumably yourself) that “of the seed of David kata sarka” can only mean one thing, or “born of woman” (if authentic, and even though the “born” is a verb which is not the most straightforward way to render the idea of “born”) can only mean one thing, and so on. But this handful of phrases throughout the epistles for which mythicism can supply other meanings are not being given “ad hoc” explanations, since they all fit into one mutually supporting and coherent pattern (the opposite of being ad hoc) if one simply applies the principles of mythicism to them. But I don’t suppose you will get that.

You haven’t answered one particular objection in my posting which foils your desperate attempt to retain Gethsemane in 5:7. You have said that you regard the Gethsemane scene as non-historical. So where did it come from for the writer of Hebrews to allegedly draw on it? That sort of scene is not one that will spring spontaneously into being in oral tradition, and in any case Mark’s scene bears all the marks of his own literary invention. The latter is almost the only feasible explanation for it. But one can hardly credit the writer of Hebrews with drawing it from Mark because his work shows absolutely no sign of anything else of Markan origin or motif. (And because most scholars—myself included—would date Hebrews prior to the Jewish War.)

Logic would compel us to judge that Hebrews draws it from some other source. What else but the same source as so much else in that epistle, the Jewish scriptures, whether it be the invention of the author himself or some kind of collective development within the community by other scriptural exegetes. They have created an entire soteriological scenario from nothing but scripture, this is clear from the work as a whole.

The bottom line is that it is not representative of the Gethsemane scene. And despite Ellingworth’s fallback offering, there is no evidence that it is based on any perceived historical event. In fact, the phrases used in your “only one meaning” 5:7 are entirely identifiable as taken from scripture. If “in the days of his flesh” automatically refers to Jesus’ life on earth and if Gethsemane has to be set aside as Mark’s invention unknown to Hebrews, why didn’t 5:7 take the opportunity to mention something about that alleged life on earth? The author was keen to make the point that their High Priest Jesus could intercede with God and have his prayers answered, yet no tradition illustrating such a natural thing—the Son on earth praying to the Father—had developed in the early Christian movement? All he could do was search for a text in the sacred writings to illustrate this? On the other hand, of course, this is precisely right up mythicism’s alley, since a Son of God who is known only through scripture and God’s Spirit sees scripture (as I’ve put it) as the embodiment of the Christ event. Read Hebrews again from outside your tight little box and you’ll find that principle shining out at every turn in this work. (But I know it’s too much to ask that you would open your mind to such a thing, let alone recognize it.)

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

I am comfortable with letting that be the last word, Earl Doherty, so thank you for the discussion.

radius

It is very notable that the passage refers to temporal location (sēmeron, tais hēmerais tēs sarkos) in entirely generic terms - and to physical location not at all. Indeed, the only sense of 'place' is general location in scripture (5.6: en heterō). When the author of Hebrews then refers to 'the days of his flesh' can we tell if s/he is extrapolating further from scripture, or shifting to the normal meaning that sarx has in the LXX?

The author does not even use the most basic physical location phrase used at 8:4 (epi gēs), but is it possible that s/he did believe the Christ presented these entreaties in his days of flesh on earth at some indefinite time and place? That the author did not know where or when (that was left to later writers), but just believed that it had happened?

ApostateAbe

So, the problem proposed by Kapyong and Earl Doherty is silence of the historical Jesus by early Christian authors including the author of Hebrews. In Kapyong's words:

"All these writers FAILED to mention a historical Jesus..."

Turns out that isn't actually the case. What Kapyong should have said was:

"All these writers seemingly mentioned a historical Jesus according to an ignorant layperson, but we are not quite sure, because those writers were not SPECIFIC enough."

As Earl Doherty has mentioned, there are other phrases much like this to describe Jesus in the epistles: "of the seed of David" and "born of woman." Again, those phrases are just not specific enough.

And the solution proposed by Earl Doherty et al. is that the early Christian authors did not believe in a historical Jesus, and there is a separate realm of heaven where inhabitants are born of women and are in the flesh, the gospel authors wrote as though the story happened on Earth, and there was a very big misunderstanding of the orthodoxy.

My solution to the whole problem is to be take an ignorant layperson's interpretation. When they seem to be referring to the historical Jesus, they really are referring to the historical Jesus, and many Christians thought that they did not need to give unnecessary specifics.

That's it.

The reason I called Earl Doherty's model the climax of ad hoc exegesis is because he has a set of explanations for passages that would not occur to anyone if it were not for a mythicist conclusion. Literally, nobody believes that "in the days of his flesh" refers to anything but the historical Jesus, except for mythicists, who have a lot of explanations, but Earl Doherty believes that it refers to the time the heavenly Christ was in that heavenly sublunar realm with flesh in it.

EarlDoherty

Gee, Abe, I thought you were letting me have the last word?

Your most recent posting is one gigantic howl at the moon, a howl of ‘personal incredulity.’ You have no way of deflecting or rebutting the mythicist exegeses of the texts themselves, so you are reduced to crying about how impossible it is to believe them and how self-evidently sensible are the tired old defences and interpretations of historicism. Throw in some insult and ridicule of charlatans like Earl Doherty and you’ve got the standard recipe whipped up by historicists for more than a century.

“It doesn’t occur to anyone that such-and-such a passage means anything but what we’ve always believed it means.” That’s pretty bankrupt, Abe. Hmmm, it didn’t occur to anyone for thousands of years that the earth might be moving around the sun, until certain innovative people started rechecking astronomical observations and coming up with a better explanation, one not so mired in mindless acceptance of traditional dogma.

Human progress isn’t impelled by your kind of thinking, Abe.

When Paul tells us he found out from the Gospel of God in the prophets, and gentiles can be “of the seed of Abraham,” and Paul has to use a laughable exegesis from scripture to ‘prove’ that Christ is of Abraham’s seed rather than historical tradition, then yes, Romans 1:3 is definitely not specific enough.

When we can see that Galatians 4:4 was a favorite passage for doctoring once we have manuscripts of it, and Paul doesn't say "born" with the usual verb used everywhere else, and a good case can even be made for interpolation, then yes, “born of woman” is definitely not specific enough.

When “brother of the Lord” possesses the ambiguity it obviously does, then yes, Gal. 1:19 is definitely not specific enough.

Actually, the epistle (and related) writers’ handful of alleged seeming mentions of an historical Jesus are far outweighed in number and specificity by their mentions of a non-historical Jesus. Hebrews is full of them (8:4 is a prime smoking gun, but only one of many); 1 Cor. 15:35-49 is another. Titus 1:2-3, and several other passages in the Pauline corpus like it, are others. Yes, even Romans 1:1-4 in an important respect constitutes such a passage. All of these and many more have been presented here, but I guess they’re not SPECIFIC enough for you.

But at least you got the “ignorant layperson” right.

Earl Doherty