Gregg

We can't know with absolute certainty why Paul chose to equate "hanging on a tree" with crucifixion, when other Christian writers apparently didn't. However, the power, meaning, and significance of the image is pretty obvious. As the secular authorities crucify people here on Earth, Jesus was crucified by the heavenly powers and authorities. Drawing that connection paints an undeniably powerful picture, and Paul undoubtedly knew it. He was a very good, effective, persuasive writer (and probably a good speaker as well). That's why we know a little more about him, and have more examples of his writings, than his contemporaries.You are really convinced that the "orthodox" Christianity you practice today, an orthodox theology that was arrived at only after three or four centuries, many councils, many angry discussions, and many imprisonments and executions, is the same Christianity Paul believed in. And you derisively dismiss all attempts to explain Paul's first-century worldview--in fact, you seem to regard Paul's worldview itself (which he did hold, and which was as real to him as your worldview is to you, whether you like it or not) as some sort of silly Platonic fantasy. You do not understand Paul, you apparently do not wish to, yet you think you know what his intentions were! Amazing.

I wonder why Paul repeated that Christological hymn in Philippians if he thought Jesus had recently lived on Earth. After all, it says Jesus didn't get the name Jesus until after God raised him.OK, let's allow the idea that Paul wouldn't need to mention Roman participation in Jesus' crucifixion, because everyone would know the Roman's crucified him--they were the only ones with the authority to crucify people. This doesn't change the fact that the rulers Paul refers to are not the Romans. Not only does Paul's use of the phrase "rulers of this 'age'" give away his meaning (not that he was hiding it in any way--since this was a common way of referring to the demonic powers and authorities in the heavens, he might as well have been shouting it from the rooftops), but once again, you are putting a little box around this passage and refusing to look at in the context of all the other things Paul wrote.

Would a man who holds Rome complicit in the murder of Jesus write, (Romans 13:3-4, in a general defense of the secular authority): "Rulers hold no terrors for them who do right . . . (the ruler) is the minister of God for your own good." ?

But even more importantly, why does Paul write (CORRECTION. My mistake. Paul probably didn't write Ephesians. However, this point is still valid because in order to get the most complete and accurate picture possible of the beliefs of Paul and his contemporaries, we have to consider all the letters.) in Ephesians 3:9-10, ". . . the application of this mystery which has been hidden for long ages in God the creator of the universe, so that through the church the wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavens, in accordance with his eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord."

No question what he's talking about here, is there? But of course, he must be talking about something else in Corinthians."Doherty 'admits'." Are you referring to this:

"A great amount of scholarly ink has been spilled over the meaning of "the rulers of this age" (ton archonton tou aionos toutou, verses 6 and 8). In both pagan and Jewish parlance, the word archontes could be used to refer to earthly rulers and those in authority (as in Romans 13:3). But it is also, along with several others like it, a technical term for the spirit forces, the "powers and authorities" who rule the lowest level of the heavenly world and who exercise authority over the events and fate (usually cruel) of the earth, its nations and individuals."

This qualifies as an "admission" that "a conception of earthly powers is totally legitimate" ? No, it qualifies as an admission that the word archontes could be used to refer to earthly rulers and those in authority. In no way whatsoever does Doherty suggest that this is what the word could mean in THIS particular context.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in your second sentence. In the mythicist conception, God does offer Jesus up himself. This is no different than the historicist conception. Hebrews, interestingly, doesn't even make any mention of a "cross" or "crucifixion" or "tree," but has Jesus entering a heavenly sanctuary and being slaughtered like a lamb.You know, luvluv, no matter how much you ridicule and dismiss Greek Platonism, it won't go away. It won't change the fact that this is the cosmology (or something very similar) in which Paul and the early Christians, not to mention other mystery cultists of the time, firmly believed. It won't change the fact that their heavenly levels and their spirit-world sacrificial acts of cosmic redemptive deities were as real to them as your beliefs are to you.

There was nothing strange or far-out to these people in believing that things that happened to folks on earth could happen to a divine being in a spiritual realm. All the Greek/Roman mystery cults believed similar things. There was no "confusion" involved either. You seem to forget that Paul had VISITED these churches personally and expounded his doctrine of "Christ crucified" to them already, and it makes perfect sense that he, an exceptionally persuasive writer (and probably speaker as well) would use the cross and crucifixion to impart vividness and immediacy to the notion of Christ "hanging on a tree," even if the idea didn't occur to other Christian writers.

Also, you have forgotten that the Christians did indeed "know" a great deal about Christ beyond his life, death, and resurrection. He had been revealed to them through the Scriptures, which apostles like Paul had been given the ability to interpret.

By the way, I checked Hebrews and can't find any reference to Jesus dying on a cross. Plus, Paul didn't write Hebrews. Did you mean to refer to some other letter?It is hard to imagine a person whipping off a short personal letter which mentions Jesus' sacrifice in an oblique, cryptic manner instead of just saying something like "when they put him on the cross" or "when they crucified him" or "when they beat and whipped and tortured him" instead of going into this "hanging on a tree" business and referencing Scripture.

And of course, everyone knew that detail, that the Romans were short a cross that day so they had to chop down a tree and make do. (I bet they knew it was a dogwood tree too. ) Everyone remembers or knows this tiny, unimportant detail, and a couple of Christian writers go out of their way to refer to it in their letters by saying Jesus was "hanged on a tree," but nobody bothers to mention other neat little details, like, um, Mary, Joseph, Judas, Pilate, sponges soaked in vinegar, crowns of thorns, spears poking in sides, lots cast for garments, earthquakes, eclipses, veils ripping in the Temple, dead people rising from their graves, etc., etc., etc.It was hardly "common." Other Christian writers of the period refer to Jesus' sacrifice without ever mentioning a cross or crucifixion. 1 Peter refers to "hanging on a tree." Hebrews talks as if Jesus entered a sanctuary, a heavenly counterpart of the sanctuary in the Temple, and was slaughtered like a lamb on the altar.I don't know where you get "under your (Iason's) view, a cross is a totally alien concept to Christianity" from his comment, but never mind. Let me put the comment differently. The idea that God would have contact with corrupt human flesh, or actually BECOME human, would have been vilest blasphemy to Jews, and would have required a defense from Paul and other Christian writers. It was no problem for the Logos to descend to the lower parts of heaven and take on the LIKENESS of flesh, however.JEWS. DID. NOT. DRINK. BLOOD. God commanded them that they should not eat flesh of animals with the blood still in it. Iason's comment had absolutely nothing to do with spilling animal blood on the altar. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of somone who had been an actual human being--even if he was now spiritual--would have been unthinkable.Again you totally miss Quentin's point. If Jesus' crucifixion, on a cross, by the Romans, had been one of the central teachings of earliest Christianity, then it should have become one of their most important symbols much earlier.

luvluv, I think you've amply demonstrated that you're not really interested in learning more about the mythicist case. If you refuse to learn about and understand Paul's cosmology (and take it seriously), then there is no way you can claim to understand what he wrote.

Gregg

Gregg

Christians believed in Jesus' "shameful" suffering and sacrifice because that's exactly what Scripture said had happened to the spiritual Christ in the spiritual realm. This was the mystery hidden for ages with God in heaven. The idea of a king undergoing ritual humiliation, even a symbolic redemptive sacrifice, is an ancient one.

See http://ww.infidels.org/library/moder.../psychics.html for the full article.

Gregg

Bobzammel

<same way that lambs were the sacrifice for the sins of the ancient Hebrews>

The Passover lamb was never intended to be a sacrifice for sin, but was actually a rememberance of the deliverance from Egypt. The Day Of Atonement--in which Goats and Bulls were sacrificed or led into the Wilderness--was "For sins". Please carefully read LEVITICUS.