Sparrow

Thanks all. I've got some more reading material. No Robots, I couldn't quite figure out how the link you offered addressed additional anti-doherty arguments, but thanks for trying.

It seems that everywhere I see someone address Doherty's argument as incorrect, it always ends up in an enormous debate over kata sarka. Thanks for the additional info.

jgibson000

Yes, I know that it is hardly new. But the fact that it is old does not mean that it has any merit. And the validity of this view is not helped by the fact that there is no agreement -- and often great disagreement -- among those who claim interpolation with regard to just where these occur, let alone by how our increase in knowledge of in the past 50 years or so of first century Judaism and its beliefs and exegetical practices, and the language and imagery used to express those beliefs, have shown how subjective and apriori grounded the criterion used --especially by the radical critics-- for determining what could (or could not) be something that Paul would have said, actually is.

Yes, but so what? The issue isn't whether Paul's epistles contain interpolations It's whether this particular phrase in this particular place is an interpolation.

Can you point to any scholar who is not already, and prior to an examination of Rom. 1:3-4, committed to the idea of an MJ who argues that KATA SARKA in Rom. 1:3-4 is an interpolation?

"
"Could be Gnostic", even if plausible (and even assuming that the term Gnostic has an unequivocal meaning meaning, let alone that there the movement existed in Pau's time [on this, see the indespensible study by Carl B. Smith entitled No Longer Jews: The Search for Gnostic Origins (Hendrickson)]), is not good enough given the argument that you want to make.

But this is sheer petitio principii. You are assuming as true what needs to be proved.

Why does it seem "out of place"?

What?? Are you saying there was no Christian community in Rome before Paul wrote Romans? And are you saying that the belief that Jesus was from the line of David is something that was late and was only accepted within Pauline Christianity?

I take it then, despite the apodictic nature of the claims you make about Rom 1:3-4, and the air of authority with which you make them, that you haven't actually looked at many (if any) of the standard critical commentaries on Romans such as that of Cranfield or Dunn or Fitzmyer or Kasemann or of Sandy and Headlam, let alone the works on Christology and on ancient Christan confessions by Cullmann, or Dunn's Christolgy in the Making or Hunter's work on Paul and his Predecessors or the section on Davidic descent in Bultmann's Theology of the NT, or the discussions of this passage by M.-E. Boismard, N. Dahl, R. Fuller, F. Hahn, W. Kraemer, E. Linnemann, R. Longenecker, E. Schweizer, D.M. Stanley, P. Stuhlmacher, PK. Wegenast, and H. Zimmerman (to mention just a few of the authors who have given reasons for thinking Rom 1:3-4 contains a Pre-Pauline confession)?

Or am I wrong here?

Jeffrey Gibson

jjramsey

As far as I can tell, that is because Doherty uses his rendition of kata sarka as a link between Paul and Doherty's rendition of Middle Platonism and the whole "crucifixion in the heavens" scheme.

No Robots

Doherty's case postulates a non-Jewish origin for the conceptual matrix underlying the NT. This position is unanimously rejected by all historians. Even if we assume that Christ is mythical, the NT is itself wholly and solely of Jewish origin. There is simply no trace of a non-Jewish component in the origin of the NT. That certain elements of the NT show some traces of Hellenistic thought, ie. in the theological speculation found in some epistles and in the prologue of John, does not compromise at all the thoroughly Jewish nature of the entire corpus.

Clivedurdle

Being a bear of little brain (Pooh), would someone kindly point out what is wrong with my comments that according to, in the sphere of spirit and flesh is an early form of set language, a way to group and categorise.

The point is not to focus on the groups or the sets but what is being demarcated - here flesh and spirit.

I do not see the demarcations in the Bible people believe are there - I see God walking in the cool of the evening, sons of gods having intercourse with women, angels talking to Lot and a myriad examples of no real differentiation in material spiritual terms but distinctions in terms of holiness and sin and eternal and mortal.

Is everyone assuming "God walked in the garden" is metaphor? It was not. They bgelieved it was a real God in a real garden talking to a real Adam!

People have been burnt at the stake for saying things different to that.

Because we no longer have a world filled with gods and demons we find it very difficult to get inside their heads, and realise there was not a modern material concept of flesh. Flesh is earth breathed on by God's spirit. According to flesh and according to spirit are ideas within a framework of the time. Do not import modern definitions.

Roger Pearse

Who is 'they'? Eusebius of Caesarea in the first book of his Chronicle considers the whole thing an allegory for unfallen mankind. Alexandrian exegesis of the OT leaned heavily toward allegory on this.

May I ask who?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

"They" are the people who wrote the old and new testaments. Later commentators should not be assumed to have a correct interpretation.

Who was martyred and why is off topic.

Clivedurdle

Really? An early mythicist then!

(And why no comment on my main point about ritual myth and drama?)

dog-on

You know, Clive, the more I read the early writings and the more I follow some of the HJ/MJ threads on this forum, I get the distinct impression that some people just really don't want to see their silk purses turn into sow's ears. Maybe too much vested interest of some sort. Maybe you could provide me with some clarity.

What is the single best argument contra Doherty? (Maybe a new thread?)

As far as your assertions are concerned, you do raise some valid points and I agree that the Eucharist and gospels could easily be regarded as regarding ritual myth and drama, respectively.

Clivedurdle

If Romans 1 3-4 is a pre Pauline confession, that is a further nail in the HJ fantasy!

As a confession it is clearly part of a ritual. Rituals are parts of religions, are about gods...

Rituals, drama and myth are inseperable! Why would xianity be an exception? Maybe it isn't. A Jewish diaspora mystery cult?