luvluv

That's not true, there is a lot in the Old Testament about God using the Jewish people to redeem all of mankind. I'll dig this up for you if somebody doesn't beat me to it...

Greg2003

Not at all. I'm just asking that you show me a verse in Hebrews that clearly points out HJ. Then we'll see whose interpretation of the verse is more forced and distorted.

Greg2003

I'm very interested to see this.

Clarice O'C

Hello luvluv,

I'll steal your thunder.

The first place that it appears is in Genesis 12:1-3:

" ... and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves," or "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." RSV

See also Genesis 18:18; 22:17 & 18; 26:4; 28:14 and in some of the prophets.

Best,
Clarice

Clarice O'C

Hi,

Nope, nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures can Jesus the Christ be found. Perhaps Israel considered their destiny to be to reveal their *one* God, YHWH. Period.

Best,
Clarice

Vinnie

If someone is keeping score I pointed out one in Corinthians

Paul's reference to the twelve which arguably goes back to the ministry of Jesus given the widespread (and early!) tradition on this. That Jesus symbolicaly called Twelve disciples representing the twelve tribes of Israel is attested to by Paul, Mark, Q et al, and is considered historical by most scholars.

To cite Meier (ibid, p 147) again on this (emphsis mine):

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you, whose interpretation is more forced and distorted here?

Vinnie

Gregg

Vinnie seems to want to make an issue out of the following few paragraphs from a previous post of mine in this thread. Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to air things out.

Vinnie's legitimate response was that Paul's letters were written to people who were already Christians. Fair enough, and I need to retract a previous response I made to Vinnie in which I said In re-reading these paragraphs, it seems to me that I was probably thinking about Paul's ministry in general (surely he preached to and debated non-Christians, even if Acts is regarded as a fanciful depiction of the early history of the Church), not just his letters, and should have made this clear.

But this faux pas is hardly fatal to my argument. I still find the assumption that all the churches Paul wrote to already knew everything there was to know about the historical Jesus, and therefore Paul had no reason to say anything about him or his earthly ministry, untenable. Apparently they did NOT know about everything Jesus said and did, or there would not be so much evidence of debates and misunderstandings over fundamental points of doctrine (whether Christ was raised, whether the Jewish dietary laws still had to be followed). Paul passes up numerous opportunities to reinforce his points with quotes from Jesus or anecdotes from Jesus' life ("Well, I could take this opportunity to remind them of this or that thing Jesus said or did, but no, they already know about that, so I won't waste their time"). Further, Paul had been to Jerusalem, met some of the original disciples in person, and been in the same places Jesus walked, yet he has very little to say about his visit. He never saw any reason to share more details with people who hadn't had the same opportunity? You're trying to encourage and inspire little communities trying to hold on to their faith, and you never say anything about the special glow you saw in the eyes of those who walked and talked with the Lord, or of having visited the sites of his sermons, his miracles, his crucifixion, resurrection, and appearances? Paul uses every other trick in the book to inspire and exhort, but passes on this one. OK.

Another important point: If Christianity, at this point, had been preaching that a crucified human being was raised from the dead and that he was the Word incarnate, the churches Paul wrote to would have been dealing with criticisms of this belief, and Paul (not to mention the other epistle writers) would have had to help them defend it. Jews and Greek Platonists, who drew a sharp separation between the one pure, holy God and the corrupt world of matter, would have regarded this central Christian teaching as pure blasphemy (it seems odd that the Jews would permit a Christian church or community with such a teaching to even exist in Jerusalem, much less permit it to proselytize). With the Christian churches competing with Judaism for converts, how could this issue have failed to come up in all of Paul's extant correspondence or those of other epistle writers?

Gregg

Gregg

Galations 3:13:

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, 'Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.'" (A reference to Deuteronomy 21:23)

Apparently, someone besides me associated this passage with the Messiah.

I repeat, luvluv, you need to become familiar with the practice of midrash. This is how midrash worked. A passage did not have to have "obvious" messianic connotations for a Christian writer to interpret it that way. Check out this link:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode.../psychics.html

Apostles like Paul believed that God was opening their eyes to messages about the Son "hidden" in scripture. These messages didn't have to be obviously messianic on their face--that isn't the way midrashic interpretation necessarily works. Also, apostles didn't all read the same things. Paul taught "Christ crucified" and we know that he complained about other apostles who didn't. If an earthly crucifixion had actually taken place, why would this even have been in question? Why would there have been any Christian apostles out there saying that Christ WASN'T crucified?

Again, luvluv, you're not seeing the forest for the trees. You come up with an explanation for a given Bible passage that seems to make "much, much more sense" than Doherty's, but it only makes more sense if you put a little box around the issue in question and ignore everything surrounding it...the practice of midrashic interpretation, the cosmology, philosophy, and religious beliefs and practices

of the age, etc.

And your attempt to limit the number of people who would be familiar with these "obscure" passages from Genesis and Deuteronomy doesn't make much sense. Clearly there were more than enough people with knowledge, education, motivation, and time to pore over the Jewish scriptures and come up with just about anything. And if the epistle writers were concerned about people not understanding them or making connections, why DOES the writer of Galatians refer to this obscure Levitical law?

Not everyone in a given church had to be able to read or understand the letters the church received. Probably only the community leaders, who were most likely literate and intimately familiar with scripture, read them, and verbally communicated to their communities only the content they felt they needed to know.

Plus, you need to keep in mind that the letters were not the only form of communication. Apostles were going about visiting these churches and expounding the doctrine of Christ to them, most likely along with scriptural justification. Those apostles that preached the doctrine of Christ crucified would have to explain why they believed the suffering of Christ involved crucifixion or "hanging on a tree."

Gregg

Vinnie

Unfortunattely for you, I nor anyone else in here actually argued that.

I think you need to read Paul in the context of an urgent eschatology. You know, the world is ending soon so who cares about whether Jesus preferred Coke a Cola over Pepsi. And I never conceded that Paul does not make reference to any HJ material. In fact, up above, I provided a few citations which show that "the Twelve" clearly goes back to the historical Jesus. Thus far, neither you or any other mythicist has provided a substantial response.

And what are the examples of these? I already asked you for the examples which you have failed to produce thus far. Your few examples about Paul not talking about this or that are easily shot down. Do you have anything of substance?

And don't forget to point out what the actual authentic sayings of Jesus are before complaining that Paul never made an appeal to them and don't forget to point out which sayings Paul was likely to know as well.

How many times must I repeat this? Paul may have written letters that talked about this and he may not have. Paul may have been an apostle for almost 30 years. You seem to be guided by the ridiculous assumption that all Paul said or did is found in these aceepted epistles in the NT

When did Paul go to Jerusalem and meat the original disciples? When did Paul write his letters? Who were they written to? For what reason?

Evidence that the communities were little? Evidence they were trying to hold on to their faith? Who said there was a special glow in the eyes of those who walked and talked with the Lord? As a Meier cite of mine from last night says, many of the names of the Twelve are just that-- names and nothing more. It seems clear that the role of the Twelve diminished. Care to address that?

But anyways, let me see if I have your argument right:

Paul doesn't talk about his visit to Jerusalem in enough detail in his surviving letters. Paul doesn't ever talk about visiting the place where Jesus was allegedly crucified nor visiting the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus allegedly poured out his soul in his surviving epistles and Paul doen't talk enough about Peter, John and a few others in his surviving works that we have and this means that Jesus didn't exist? Do I have your argument right now? Because if I do I think its even more ridiculous then before.

Vinnie

Layman

I take it this means you have no intention of responding to my last post -- directly responding to your initial arguments -- on Hebrews?