Koyaanisqatsi

I'm a little confused here. How is hearing a voice but seeing no one evidence of a bodily resurrection, again?

Oh, that's right, Atticus has cleverly twisted the argument to "evidence of a physical experience," instead of what is actually in question, which would be "evidence of a bodily resurrection" or, more appropriately, "evidence of a spiritual resurrection."

Evidence, like, I don't know...hearing a voice but seeing no body? Would that be the kind of evidence one would expect for a spiritual event; hearing a disembodied voice and seeing no physical body generating it, perhaps?

Oh, right, my mistake. Black is white to a christian.

So, I suppose this means that God was also physically the burning bush in order for it to speak to Moses and was also physically present in Paradise when it spoke to Adam and Eve eventhough no man has seen his face and angels all have to take on physical bodies in order for them to be seen and heard, like some sort of rule of ethereal existence, right?

"Ya' wanna' talk to the monkies? Ya' gotta' put on the monkey suit..."

Of course, it would never dawn on anyone that the author was lying about an event that never happened, as evidenced by this obvious, incongruous attempt to legitimize his claims, right, because we all know that would be absurd!

Whatever you do, don't look at the obvious errors and incongruities and downright superstitious nonsense as evidence against the veracity of the scriptures, please!

After all, we're all intelligent, critically thinking adults who just tacitly accept moronic, supernatural claims of total strangers from ancient Middle Eastern mythology all because it was written in a book!

Right...?



Isn't that what we're supposed to do?

(edited for incredulity - Koy)

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

FunkyRes

Koyaanisqatsi -

What's being argued is wether or not Paul believed Jesus physically rose from the Dead, or just believed it was a "spiritual" resurrection.

He says Jesus appeared to him- and he uses the same word for appear that he uses when he describes Jesus appearing to others after his resurrection.

Thus, the skeptics assume that appear MUST be (unlike our English equivalent) spiritual only or physical only- which doesn't make sense, but anyway- that's what they are saying.

Vorkosigan

Funk, the skeptics must not assume anything. There are many possibilities.

FunkyRes

Good!
So, um, what then is your arguement that Paul did not believe in bodily resurrection of Christ?

Vorkosigan

Pretty much the same as Earl Doherty's, although I follow Ellegaard in dating certain writings (Barnabas, RevJohn, Hermas, Didache, Hebrews and 1 Clem). Remember, it is not just Paul, but all of the early writings, that use similar language and have a similar POV to Paul's letters, fail to mention much detail about Jesus that later shows up in the gospels.

We might flip the question over -- where in Paul's authentic letters does he unambiguously refer to a physical resurrection?

V

BTW, did you see my post on 1 Clement? You might enjoy hacking on me for a change.

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

And what I presented proves rather conclusively that this is precisely what he believed. What is a voice that manifests without a body if not evidence of a spiritual (aka, disembodied) resurrection?

And...?

Please address my arguments about angels appearing and the fact that God's voice is heard but no man has seen his face.

What if you touched an Angel? Does that mean that they are physical beings?

You're talking about a group of people who see "visions" of God and God's angels and Moses and Lazarus, etc., etc., on a regular and therefore unmiraculous basis.

The fact that the author goes to great lengths to point out that everyone heard a voice but saw no one there is conclusive proof to support, quite literally, a disembodied (aka, spiritual) event.

Yes, again, I know what other people are saying, thank you.

The question is, do you know what I am saying?

If we want to know how an author or character in a work of fiction like this regards another character, then we analyze how the author describes the interactions between the characters, yes?

Basic literary deconstruction 101.

So, the author here details and specifies that a disembodied voice is heard, not just by one lone person, but those standing with him. Why? To establish (a) that the lone person isn't hallucinating and (b) that the event is unmistakeably a spiritual one, confirmed by the presence of others who see no man speaking.

Get it? This section is positive proof that Paul (or rather, the author) considers Jesus to be disembodied.

(edited for formatting - Koy)

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

lugotorix

So, to get back to the question in the original post, yes, I have read it. I really enjoyed the book. I was raised in a Pentecostal family and but deconverted in my mid-teens, mainly because of the vast differences between Church dogma and the words of Jesus. So the main premise in the book, that what we know as Christianity had little or nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, made perfect sense to me. It was a relevation to see something that I had suspected since my departure from Christianity fleshed out so well.

Some of the threads of his argument are fairly controversial, namely that Paul was not a Jew by birth but was the son of Gentiles who converted, and that a sect known as the Ebionites ("The Poor Ones") followed Jesus' teaching most closely. He supports these assertions with reasonable arguments, however. For instance, he refers to one of Paul's epistles where he calls the Torah a burden that thanks to Jesus could be put down. But no Jew of that time would have considered the Torah a burden; it was their covenant with God, the thing that gave them a cultural and national identity.

He is a rabbinical scholar and historian, so he has quite a bit of knowledge pertaining to the time in which Jesus and Paul lived. A side-effect of reading the book was that I got to see a different viewpoint on historical Judaism that I hadn't before.

It's definitely worth the read. If you're interested, there is a review of it online at the <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/maccoby.html" target="_blank"> Higher Critical Review</a>.

lugotorix