Vorkosigan

Don, don't use the NIV. It deliberately mistranlsates those passages to conform to its doctrines. Look them up in a less doctrinally-influenced translation. There it will simply have "through the flesh" or "according to the flesh." You can't make the problem of Paul's metaphorical and figurative use of "flesh" disappear by citing the NIV.

For instance, the YLT says
1 Truth I say in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing testimony with me in the Holy Spirit,
2 that I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart --
3 for I was wishing, I myself, to be anathema from the Christ -- for my brethren, my kindred, according to the flesh,
4 who are Israelites, whose [is] the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises,
5 whose [are] the fathers, and of whom [is] the Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed to the ages. Amen.

In other words, the NIV tries to foreclose the debate by forcing the translation. Not very ethical. That's why I've been working with the YLT and Darby in this thread.

Further, in line 8, Paul again -- for the fourth or fifth time in his letters -- explains that FLESH refers to a relationship between a people and their God, a covenant.

8. that is, the children of the flesh -- these [are] not children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for seed;

In other words, FLESH refers to a covenant. It doesn't refer to a historical context. The NIV not only mistranslates the passage, but alters its meaning, surely a translational no-no.

Vorkosigan

GakuseiDon

Well, yes. Ichabod made the same criticism when you used it. I used it because you were using it for support. So let's use a more respectable translation.

OK, let's agree that Paul is using 'kata sarka' figurative. I think trying to work out whether 'sarx' is used figuratively or not is irrelevent.

OK.

I wasn't the one who brought the NIV into this, Vork. So let's agree not to use it.

Does 2 Cor:17 refer to a covenant?

2Cr 1:16 And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward Judaea.
2Cr 1:17 When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay?

"Flesh" doesn't refer to "covenant" in Romans either. Paul is saying that the original covenant is with Israel. Paul is their kinsman "according to the flesh" - by blood only. Paul states straight afterwards that Christ is their descendent "according to the flesh". Then he says that Christ is the seed of Abraham. "Children of the promise" refers to the promise by God to Abraham to be the father of many nations (Romans 4).

The whole passage unambiguously states Christ's pedigree. Everything from Romans 4 is leading up to Paul's point that Gentiles share in the promises made to Israel. Here it is in NKJV:

I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,
2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my *countrymen according to the flesh,
4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises;
5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

6 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel,
7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac your seed shall be called."*
8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
9 For this is the word of promise: "At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son."*

Paul is introducing the idea that the Gentiles are "the children of the promise" to Abraham, of whom Christ is the seed. Paul isn't using "flesh" to a covenant. It is used to show how Christ, as a descendent of Abraham and the Jews, is the fulfilment of the promise made by God, and is the setting for Paul to claim that the promises made to the Israelites can be shared by Gentiles as well, as he goes on to explain:

Romans 11:1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew...

11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.

A look at the that whole part of Romans shows that the whole thing hangs together. But Doherty doesn't tend to interrogate passages, he only tortures the words, one-by-one. I can't prove that Paul doesn't refer to some lower celestial realm where Jesus can be a descendent of Abraham, but the plain reading of the text simply doesn't support it.

GakuseiDon

Bingo! So the Greeks regarded it as real. And there is no evidence that they thought it happened in a lower celestial realm.

They did indeed. And they thought that the events that happened in the world occured in the world, not in a lower celestial realm. That's the crux here.

Neither does Doherty. It doesn't stop him.

Agreed. The important thing is where Paul believed the action took place.

Yep. You're on a roll!

We don't have to, as you've already shown.

Gregg

Gak, you're not scoring any points with these simplistic arguments.

You seem to think of antiquity as some static, monolithic, unchanging era, where all Greeks believed the same thing, and all Jews believed the same thing, and all Romans believed the same thing, and where beliefs stayed the same for decades or centuries. This just doesn't take into account the realities of the situation during the first century A.D. It was a fluid religious and philosophical environment. There were all kinds of movements and sects and schools of philosophical thought. Ancient beliefs were intermingling with each other and with newer philosophical concepts and producing strange hybrids.

No, popular Greek belief probably didn't consign the events of The Iliad to a "lower celestial realm." But it's quite possible that Greek (and possibly Hellenized Jewish) neo-Platonist philosophers (who, keep in mind, were not Christians, as we understand the term, themselves) DID regard those events as earthly manifestations of upper-world spiritual processes.

And before you go, "bingo!" it's not a simple matter of transferring this to Jesus and arguing that Jesus therefore had an earthly ministry that was a manifestation of a heavenly ministry. That's not the way the salvation process worked. The "earthly manifestation" of Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection was the Christian initiate's partaking of the benefits of the heavenly act. The initiate "died" with Jesus and was "resurrected" with him into eternal life.

Hebrews plainly states that if Jesus had been on earth, his sacrifice would not have had any permanent effect. It would have been no different from the temple sacrifices of animals. I don't know how it can be made any clearer than that.

BTW, I can find no evidence that Paul believed the crucifixion took place on earth.

GakuseiDon

It's a fair point. But shouldn't we go with what the evidence says? That's what we are arguing about in Paul.

Yes, it is possible. Doherty is claiming this, and he may even be right. But surely if he can't find evidence for this position, it is valid for me to point that out?

Does this require a non-earthly ministry?

Could you show this please?

OK.

Magdlyn

Sigh.

All religions are mythological. Christianity does not hold some sort of special place wherein God suddenly took on flesh.

This is just a story. Why would God do this? Does God think this way?

Every religion has a sector which takes its' sacred scriptures literally. A certain sort of person just needs this perspective. Krishna, Osiris, Demeter, you name it, some of his or her devotees think s/he walked the earth in the flesh.

If your evidence was more concrete, we would all have been convinced by pg 1 of this thread Paul's pagan godman was a real boy.

rlogan

I don't understand the argument. It has not been carried through to a logical conclusion.

therefore what?

Again, confused with your argument.

There are three separate issues, and they lead to six permutations:

Myth vs Historic - the category of story.

Fleshy vs spiritual - the feature of the desires being spoken of.

Believe or not believe - obvious, but a red herring.


Myths with fleshy desires about which we may believe or not believe

Myths with spiritual desires ditto

Historic person with fleshy desires ditto

Historic person with spiritual desires ditto

The category of story is independent of the belief.

Paul may believe in his hallucinations. So? "Christ" is a fictional concoction, no matter what the alleged manifestation.


I still need you to carry through the logical framework here for me.

I'm guessing that what you really want is to put the burden of proof on us to demonstrate Kata Sarka necessarily means "fleshy myth" as applied to Jesus-speak.

Quite true that you can't prove Jesus never existed with kata Sarka.

You do that with the ridiculous miracles, the voluminous contradictions, and etc.


This is a case where the argument has been turned around then. As I understand it, "Kata Sarka" was offered as evidence that we are talking about a historic Jesus. That claim has been defeated, although the vanquished are contending otherwise.

So I guess the game is to switch the burden of proof.

But nobody here has contended the presence of the term "kata sarka" proves jesus is a myth.

GakuseiDon

Doherty has claimed that some Greeks believed that 'earthly' events happened in a non-earthly sphere. There is no evidence for that. So when Paul says that Jesus was born of a woman, crucified, buried, etc, there is no reason to believe that these things happened in a non-earthly sphere.

[QUOTEI'm guessing that what you really want is to put the burden of proof on us to demonstrate Kata Sarka necessarily means "fleshy myth" as applied to Jesus-speak.[/QUOTE]
Depends on what you are claiming.

Fair enough, but a different argument.

OK, that's good.

Amaleq13

I've been rereading the thread and, before ichabod returns, I thought I would clean up some of the confusion of our discussion.

My claims:
1) The eucharist was an important and central practice in the Pauline communities.

a) It is alleged to have been directly revealed by the risen Christ

b) It commemorates the central belief of Paul's theology

c) Paul condemns those who misuse the ceremony as despising the
church and risking damnation

2) The Assembly of God that Paul persecuted has its origins in a Jewish-Hellenist synthesis not from within one or the other.

a) They accepted and engaged in the eucharist practice Paul provided
despite the fact that it is clearly more consistent with pagan beliefs
than Judaism

b) Jews and certain disciples are portrayed in the Fourth Gospel as
reacting consistently with the above

c) Q depicts gentile inclusion from the very beginning as well as
"orthodox" Jewish opposition

I think our exchange on this latter point got slightly derailed into a debate about initial ministry as though that was necessarily relevant to the theological origin of the beliefs. In my view, an initial respose to Jewish opposition cannot be distinguished from an initial ministry to Jews. The Q prophets were opposed by the existing Jewish power structure whether you want to call them "orthodox" or simply "rigid adherents". I don't see how one can distinguish between trying to convince one's opponents of one's beliefs and a ministry.

With regard to the more recent "myth vs history" exchange, I think GakuseiDon is arguing against Doherty's specific claims about where Paul believed Jesus incarnated rather than arguing against the more general claim that Paul's beliefs about the incarnated Jesus are best understood as mythical. I have said many times that I agree with Carrier that this is the aspect of Doherty's thesis that requires the most additional support. It is obviously an arguable position absent that support. The more general claim, however, is much more difficult to dismiss because I can easily imagine Paul believing his Christ/Son had literally incarnated but not caring when or where this alleged event took place. In other words, belief in a literal incarnation does not equate with belief in a historical figure if that figure is not given a historical context.

Paul could very well have held the exact beliefs Doherty claims but my point is that this is not a necessary claim to establish that his incarnated Jesus was ultimately mythical.

Gregg

The problem is, Paul might not have cared, but his audience probably would have. Paul was not always "preaching to the choir," he was competing with other preachers who were speaking to the same congregations and he was hard-pressed to keep "his" flock adhering to "correct" doctrine.

Some of these rival preachers claimed that Jesus had not "come in the flesh" and was not crucified. Since Paul taught otherwise, if by "in the flesh" he meant a real, physical body, you'd think that his audience would ask him for more evidence that Jesus had in fact incarnated in flesh--when and where was he born, where did he live, who were his parents, when was he crucified, who ordered him crucified, and so on. And you'd think Paul himself would be forced to confront this issue more directly and explicitly, whether he wanted to or not.