Iasion

Greetings luvluv and others,

It has been argued that Paul's (and others') references to the crucifixion must mean a literal, physical crucifixion by the Romans, that its meaning was "specific" and clearly about the physical crucifixion of Jesus.


I disagree,
many of Paul's usages CANNOT be so meant, they can only be allegorical or spiritual references -

This passage cannot possibly be seen as a reference to a physical historical crucifixion - "our old man" was NOT literally crucified with Jesus.

Note also the phrase "united with him in the likeness of his death" - suggesting they have experienced the same "death" of some sort. It cannot mean a physical death, so it must mean a non-physical death, and allegorical or spiritual or mystic "death".

If they all have all experienced a mystic death in common with Jesus, that argues for Jesus' death being not a physical event, but a spiritual one.

He says further "we will also be part of his resurrection", making the ressurection a future event they will take part in - that CANNOT refer to a past physical resurrection of Jesus.


This cannot refer to a physical crucifixion - Paul was NOT crucified with Jesus - this must be a spiritual conception of some sort.


This CANNOT be a literal physical crucifixion - it is some sort of spiritual allegory.


There is one Christian author who gives a clear clue as to what was meant by "crucify" - Clement of Alexandria
Here is SPECIFIC use of the word "crucify" in an allegorical sense by an early Christian - it means something like "to deaden".

Note well the allegory of the SOUL being NAILED to the BODY by the passions and lusts of the earth.


Clement even goes so far as to SPECIFICALLY say the "cross" is an allegorical term for separating from the lower passions :



Here is a clear example of Paul using "crucified" in this allegorical sense :


Paul's writing about the crucifixion is the very OPPOSITE of concrete and specific - he gives no dates, no times, no places, no names to set any of his comments.

But he DOES clearly often use allegory and/or spiritual meaning for earthly concepts - as religious writers have always done.



The idea that a crucifixion in the spiritual realms makes "no sense" shows ignorance of the ancient world view.


The higher planes were succesively close to god, more "real", more pure, more potent - this progression can be seen in books like Enoch and Ascension of Isaiah.

More importantly, actions on the higher places cast their shadow on the planes below - "as above, so below".



The big new idea of the day was that God had a "son" - an intermediary, thru which the perfect and uneffable god-head could be approached or mediated.

This new idea can be seen to arrive in 1 John - Earl's analysis of this letter is an important part of the puzzle.


I think Paul wove many of the spiritual threads of his day into a grand vision which resonated with other seekers and inspired many followers.

I think Paul's allegory went something like this :

(The Logos is the first emanation from the Godhead.)
An image of this, called Iesous Christos forms the soul of all humans (Christ in you, the Hope of Glory).
This soul Iesous Christos descends from the higher planes to be "crucified" by being incarnated in a body of matter - the "cross".

Much of Paul reads fairly naturally with this basic vocabulary :

"Iesous Christos" - our immortal soul, the spark of God
"crucified" - to be deadened, (or to be limited to matter)
"the cross" - the body, (or the material world)


But I don't see any sense of a concrete, physical, historical crucifixion in Paul.


Quentin

Greg2003

I have been reading Gnosis by Kurt Rudolf. He is an expert on Gnosticism and particularly the Mandians, the only surviving group of gnosticism left, centered mainly in Iraq.

He points out that gnosticism became christianized and christianity became gnosticized, and that this is apparent in Paul's authentic and inauthentic epistles. Paul's authentic epistles tend to use a lot of language that is gnostic, like death of the old man, body of christ, head of the body, impurity of the flesh, and alive in the spirit. While the inauthentic epistles rail against certain gnostic beliefs and practices. But in any event, the epistles reveal the significant influence of gnosticism on christianity and vice versa.

I would be interested in knowing if anybody here knows much about gnosticism and its evolution along side christianity. Once you understand gnostic cosmology and eschatology you realize that this is the framework in which Paul is talking about Christ's crucifixion and redemption and the believer's journey of faith and sharing in the crucifiction and resurrection.

Any experts on gnosticism out there?

CX

I'd recommend reading the landmark work on Gnosticism by Hans Jonas "The Gnostic Religon", from Beacon Press.

Amos

The gnostic mind is the end of religion and cannot be an -ism as a means to the end if the end must also be the means to the end. This same is true with pantheism. I mean, you can say "I am God" a million times but that will not make you God nor will it help you much "to see God in nature" if you must remain outside of nature to see God in nature.

Greg2003

WTF!? You write the weirdest posts, man. I'm just looking for feedback on the relationship between gnosticism and christianity. I certainly think anyone is capable of taking a critical look at that relationship and the nature of the two belief systems. I certainly don't think that any religion from 2000 years ago is the end of religion given what we see around us today.

Amos

Gnosticism cannot be a belief system but is the end of belief because only knowledge frees. The gnostic knows and if you doubt that which you know you are not a gnostic but just a believer.

The end of religion takes place in the mind of the believer now become gnostic. Christians, as I know them, have the mind of God and are gnostic.

luvluv

Yes, after Christ was crucified people made symbolic, theological statments using crucifixion as a metaphor. However, Paul makes several explicit references to Jesus being crucified, or hanging on a cross, which were not symbolic at all. You are being ABSURDLY literalist on those quotations.


Crucifixion did not take on the connotation of being a metaphorical reference for redemptive suffering UNTIL AFTER JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED. Find me some non-Christian references which PREDATE Jesus's supposed crucifixion which use crucifixion thusly as a metaphor and you might have the beginings of a very unconvincing argument. As it stands, the fact that after Christ was crucified that Paul used this act metaphorically to expound upon contemporary theological doctrines is hardly surprising.

But the fact is that the converts Paul was talking about would have had no recognition of crucifixion as a metaphor for atonment or redemptive suffering outside of the actual death of Christ on the cross. If someone just came up to you and said "Hey, we were electrocuted in the chair with Zeus for our sins", no one would know what the heck you were talking about. This is analagous to what would have happend if Paul would have started talking about the crucifixion of Jesus as a metaphor with no antecedent. It would have been incredibly confusing and Paul would have needed to have supplied explanatory information UNLESS the convertants understood that a literal Jesus had been literally crucified.

The crucifix was a symbol which was purposely used by the Romans to spread fear and obedience, particularly among the Jewish people who were the original converts to Christianity. If there was no crucified Christ, the cross could have no other meaning to them other than that of government oppression.

Your interpretation of the ad hoc use of the cross as a metaphor makes no sense within the historical context of Paul's letters UNLESS the crucifixion story is true.

Greg2003

Luvluv,

Freke and Gandy have a picture of a carving of the death of Dionysis which has him hanging on a cross. The belief in Dionysis predates the emergence of christianity by at least a couple hundred years.

Also, anything that can happen to a human can happen to a god or angel or demon in the higher realms. They have sex, give birth, fight, kill each other, rise from the dead, fight whole wars, create golden apples (an apple is a real specific thing, so there must have been a real golden apple?), reach down to earth and impregnate virgins (they seemed to like doing that a lot), etc.

So Christ lowered himself a little lower than the angels, made himself like flesh and blood, subjected himself to the archons who crucified him, then resurrected and returned to the highest realm where he is seated at the right hand of god. He could do all of that without actually being on earth. And he can later appear on earth to tell people about what he had done, as he did with Paul.

There is nothing fanciful about this interpretation of the new testament. And it is not a new revolutionary interpretation. Rudulf Bultmann was a famous German theologian who did a lot of work on the gnostic ideas in the new testament. Martin Heidegger also researched gnostic ideas in christianity. Albert Swietzer wrote a book a hundred years ago about the HJ and concluded that he didn't exist. If Swietzer, who is almost universally admired, could write a book saying Jesus wasn't a historical character, and a hundred years later it has no impact on popular religious thought, that says something about the disconnect between popular religious thought and where scholarship on this issue has really been over the last hundred years.

Bobzammel

However in the very same epistles Paul states that the Human body is not evil. It is possible that "Flesh" refers more to human weakness, not necesarilly physical flesh in a literal sense; take for example the lists of "works of the flesh" in Galatians(I think) and you'll find sins which do not arise from being horny, hungry, or greedy.
Hard to say really. The theme of Flesh vs. Spirit is pretty much completely absent from the Old Testament, except maybe for a slight note in the early part of Genesis. The common Rabbinic view is that passions are a normal part of life; but the Law keeps them from going overboard.
Anyway, I've yet to see any Christians outside the Monks, Nuns and some nutsos really practice aschetism. When I was a practicing Christian I also struggled with this contradiction/dualism.

Regarding the cross, some of the epistles also refer to Jesus being "Hung on the Tree". Would this be a valid mention of the cross, or perhaps a whole other method of execution? It's been mentioned that perhaps Jesus simply had a plank where his wrists were pierced, which was in turn set up against a tree(This is mentioned in some History or Discovery channel thingy)...

Also, what are some of the notes on that Orpheus/Dionysus artifact? Does it in fact predate the first century CE? And when did Crucifixion technically begin?

Iasion

Greetinsg all,

luvluv wrote:

There is no evidence of that - all the early references are symbolic, all clear literal references are mucb later.


That is your opinion, your assertion, but you provide nothing to back up your claim.


I beg your pardon?
I showed Paul using the "crucifixion" in a clearly non-physical sense - you IGNORED this, and totally failed to respond to any of the specific points I raised.


This i merely your opinion, not supported by any evidence - Paul goes on about this well before any belief in a literal crucifixion is seen.


This is not a fact at all - this is merely your opinion - repeated ad nauseum without any evidence or argument.


Gregg and Layman and I and others have pointed out the relevance of the various pagan and neo-platonic and/or Gnostic world views - the multiple planes of existence.

You ignored all of our comments, and just repeated the same unfounded assertions.


Rubbish - your opinion only.
c.f. -
Where did Attis cut himself?
Literally on Earth? or on some spiritual plane?
Even the ancients realised this - that the actions of Attis took place on a higher plane, but had an effect on the lower (Sallust).


The Christians did not even use the crucifix as a symbol for Christ for many centuries - not till the 8th C. IIRC was the cross used as the symbol for Christ - up till then it was the Lamb - not a very important symbol then was it luvluv?

I see little respect in your posts - you couldn't even be bothered to read Earl's work before attacking it, and you insult those you disagree with.



Indeed, Paul was full of metaphors - you have not been able to produce a single reference that is clearly historical - all you have is vague references which YOU claim must be historical, but which could just as easily be metaphorical or spiritual uses.

I showed several examples where Paul must have been refering to the "crucifixion" in a non-physical way - you ignored all of that.


And finally, you think I do not "truly believe" what I typed? In other words you call me a liar? How incredibly rude and insulting.


Your posts have shown :

• unwillingness to read the actual arguments
• ignorance of the background
• repeated assertions with no evidence
• failure to address any of the issues raised
• personal insults

I'm sure the group will understand if I waste no more time on these apologetics.


Quentin