David Mo
Philosopher
Then you can close the discussion and stop to repeat the same comment.
It was a pleasure discussing wiith you Mr. Kapyong.
For Kapyong: Defending a historical Jesus
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Then you can close the discussion and stop to repeat the same comment.
It was a pleasure discussing wiith you Mr. Kapyong.
David Mo
Philosopher
I thought that the mythicist theory (some mythicists at least) claims that Paul didn't believe in Jesus Christ as an earthly man. Kapyong is maintaining here that birth, seed, man, crucifixion, etc. were "heavenly" events. If everybody agree that Jesus Christ previously existed "in the form of God" in the heaven and then adopted "the appearance of a man" in the earth, according to Paul (Philippians 2:6-9), I don't know what we are debating now. (Whatever "form" and "likeness" can mean).
Of course, Paul doesn't give any support to the gospels narrative -if this is what means "historicity". This is a disturbing fact to the proponents of the "historicity" (wrongly labelled as "historicists" that is a word with other meaning in philosophy of the history) if historicist (sic) is somebody that defends a reasonable amount of the gospel narrative as true. Some alternative answers to this problem can be raised:
(a) Paul didn't know this narrative.
(b) Paul rejected this narrative.
(c) Paul was not interested in this narrative.
Maybe some others can be added.
I think the best solution is between b and c, but I am not strictly sure.
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David Mo
Philosopher
I don't know what the purpose of this quote is but Paul is not considered the author of this epistle. I am speaking of Paul.
In any case the author says that Jesus was made "fully human".
David Mo
Philosopher
Moses et alia were humans raised to the heaven. Not only "heavenly men" not "angel men" as a distinct category among other heavenly entities. Paul says that when the Lord was in the heaven was not a man; he have "the form of God". Only after he accept to become a servant he adopts the human "likeness".
What Kapyong is claiming is that Jesus Christ was in all circumstances a "heavenly man". This is not a Pauline concept. (I think it is not even a Jewish concept but I cannot strictly affirm this because of the confuse "as a Son of Man" of Daniel).
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Hebrews 2
17 "For this reason he had to be made, like them, 'fully human in every way', in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people."
It is clearly a construction of a literary character to appear 'human'.
This is what Irenaeus discusses in Adv Haers. - He had to be described as human to provide future atonement to real humans.
They are clearly fleshing out the theological character ie. Jesus Christ.
He had to be portrayed in the flesh to die in the flesh, and to give hope beyond the flesh -
Romans 8:13 ESV
For if you live according to the flesh you will die
He had to be portrayed in the flesh to die in the flesh, and to give hope beyond the flesh -
Romans 8:13 ESV
For if you live according to the flesh you will die
Because you said
You are dismissing one of the options provided by the sources you have consulted in order to confirm the option you prefer.
David Mo
Philosopher
"Made fully human" like the other men is not to be a "heavenly/angel man" only.
"Literary character"? I don't understand your logic. Did Paul think that Jesus was a literary character? What are we discussing?
David Mo
Philosopher
(1) Didn't Jesus die?
(2) In Romans 8 Paul is contraposing to ways of life: according to the "spirit" or the "flesh". This is a different use of "flesh".
(3) I am discussing Paul, not Iraneus nor the Epistle to the Hebrews.
You could argue for ever about what was really meant in Paul's letters with words like "born of a woman" (and all the possible different translations to give variations such as "born of" or "made from" etc.). But attempting to argue back & forth microscopically (or even myopically) like that is a rather pointless when the letters themselves are not reliable in the first place.
And the letters certainly are highly historically/factually unreliable as has been pointed out here many times already -
1. Out of 13 or 14 letters, about half of them have now been admitted as forgeries.
2. Even the supposed 6 or 7 "genuine" letters are not known to have been written by "Paul".
3. Whoever the writer "Paul" was, he certainly had never known anyone called "Jesus"
4. Neither does "Paul" ever give any account of any factual normal life of Jesus as if that were told to him by any disciple, brother or witness to Jesus.
5. Throughout various letters Paul often makes clear that his knowledge of Jesus is "according to scripture"
6,7,8 ... we could continue with many points like that about Paul's letters.
But not only does Paul say that he has understood his belief in the messiah from scripture (by which he means the OT), it is of course very easy to find that belief stated explicitly from 500 to 800 years BC in the book of Isaiah, where it says -
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+7:14
Isaiah 7:14New International Version (NIV)
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign:The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel.[d]
Footnotes:
a 1 Isaiah 7:14 The Hebrew is plural.
b 2 Isaiah 7:14 Or young woman
c 3 Isaiah 7:14 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls son, and he or son, and they
d 4 Isaiah 7:14 Immanuel means God with us.
So there is a perfectly obvious source in "scripture" from which Paul decided that the messiah must be "born of a woman". You can argue about why in scripture the name was prophesied as Immanuel vs. why Paul calls him "Yehoshua" in Hebrew or Iesous in Greek (i.e. "Jesus", only as the English translation), but that again is to get bogged down in myopic microscopic debates from very unreliable letters. Though briefly on that issue - that line in Isaiah says that it is the mother who will name her child Immanuel, which apparently means God-with-us. But perhaps it's the case that later preachers after 500 BC through the centuries leading up to the time of Paul, gradually decided that the verbalised or spoken name of this messianic child should be a more explicit cry to God with the name "Yehoshua"/Iesous, which is also a very similar sort of Theophoric-type word or utterance unto God, meaning "to deliver" or "he saves" and where according to Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua ) it is "often translated" as -
- "He saves," to conform with Matthew 1:21: "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (NASB).[9]"
In respect of which; that reference to Matthew 1:21, is the following, from which you can see that translations of g-Matthew appear to show that by that time (i.e. by the time g-Matthew was written), the name from Isaiah 7:14 had become "Jesus", which in Matthews earliest writing or verbal preaching (since all of this, inc. Paul, would presumably have been at first just preached orally) is then translated as the following -
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1:21&version=NASB
Matthew 1:21New American Standard Bible (NASB)
21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for [a]He will save His people from their sins.”
Footnotes:
1. Matthew 1:21 Lit He Himself
So that, whereas in Isaiah it is prophesised that the mother will name the child Immanuel to mean "God with us", by the time of g-Mathew (ie 500 to 800 years later), g-Matthew says that "you", ie the faithful followers will call him by the name "Yehoshua/Iesous" because he will be the one who "saves his people", and where that name "Yehoshua/Iesous" actually is just the verbal cry "he saves".
Finally on that point about "born of a woman" - there a well known film on YouTube (link below), where Richard Dawkins is interviewing a US bible studies professor named John Huddlestun, and where Huddlestun himself emphasises that in biblical times (1000 BC all through the NT period) it was the case that any important figure (real or mythical) was always automatically said to be born of a woman but with a god as the father.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NoQuKTB8Q
On a separate note - I pointed out way back on page 2, that in Paul's letter to the Phillipians, Paul makes very clear that he thought Jesus was a spiritual God anyway. Here is that same passage again -
Philipians 2; 5-11 (quoted from Carrier on-the-H-of-J, page 533)
Have this in mind (of humble love) in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not decide to seize equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and being discovered as a man in outward form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, a death of a cross.
Apparently Christians (and others?) have since tried to argue that this passage may be either an interpolation or that it is in any case some sort of hymn or such-like. However, that paragraph does come from one of the supposedly "genuine" letters, and it is presented there as the belief and preaching of Paul. So if people want to chuck that out as not being something which Paul actually believed, wrote & preached, then on that same basis you really have to chuck out all of Paul's letters as similarly not believable as anything he ever wrote and personally believed about "the Christ".
And the letters certainly are highly historically/factually unreliable as has been pointed out here many times already -
1. Out of 13 or 14 letters, about half of them have now been admitted as forgeries.
2. Even the supposed 6 or 7 "genuine" letters are not known to have been written by "Paul".
3. Whoever the writer "Paul" was, he certainly had never known anyone called "Jesus"
4. Neither does "Paul" ever give any account of any factual normal life of Jesus as if that were told to him by any disciple, brother or witness to Jesus.
5. Throughout various letters Paul often makes clear that his knowledge of Jesus is "according to scripture"
6,7,8 ... we could continue with many points like that about Paul's letters.
But not only does Paul say that he has understood his belief in the messiah from scripture (by which he means the OT), it is of course very easy to find that belief stated explicitly from 500 to 800 years BC in the book of Isaiah, where it says -
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+7:14
Isaiah 7:14New International Version (NIV)
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign:The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel.[d]
Footnotes:
a 1 Isaiah 7:14 The Hebrew is plural.
b 2 Isaiah 7:14 Or young woman
c 3 Isaiah 7:14 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls son, and he or son, and they
d 4 Isaiah 7:14 Immanuel means God with us.
So there is a perfectly obvious source in "scripture" from which Paul decided that the messiah must be "born of a woman". You can argue about why in scripture the name was prophesied as Immanuel vs. why Paul calls him "Yehoshua" in Hebrew or Iesous in Greek (i.e. "Jesus", only as the English translation), but that again is to get bogged down in myopic microscopic debates from very unreliable letters. Though briefly on that issue - that line in Isaiah says that it is the mother who will name her child Immanuel, which apparently means God-with-us. But perhaps it's the case that later preachers after 500 BC through the centuries leading up to the time of Paul, gradually decided that the verbalised or spoken name of this messianic child should be a more explicit cry to God with the name "Yehoshua"/Iesous, which is also a very similar sort of Theophoric-type word or utterance unto God, meaning "to deliver" or "he saves" and where according to Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua ) it is "often translated" as -
- "He saves," to conform with Matthew 1:21: "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (NASB).[9]"
In respect of which; that reference to Matthew 1:21, is the following, from which you can see that translations of g-Matthew appear to show that by that time (i.e. by the time g-Matthew was written), the name from Isaiah 7:14 had become "Jesus", which in Matthews earliest writing or verbal preaching (since all of this, inc. Paul, would presumably have been at first just preached orally) is then translated as the following -
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1:21&version=NASB
Matthew 1:21New American Standard Bible (NASB)
21 She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for [a]He will save His people from their sins.”
Footnotes:
1. Matthew 1:21 Lit He Himself
So that, whereas in Isaiah it is prophesised that the mother will name the child Immanuel to mean "God with us", by the time of g-Mathew (ie 500 to 800 years later), g-Matthew says that "you", ie the faithful followers will call him by the name "Yehoshua/Iesous" because he will be the one who "saves his people", and where that name "Yehoshua/Iesous" actually is just the verbal cry "he saves".
Finally on that point about "born of a woman" - there a well known film on YouTube (link below), where Richard Dawkins is interviewing a US bible studies professor named John Huddlestun, and where Huddlestun himself emphasises that in biblical times (1000 BC all through the NT period) it was the case that any important figure (real or mythical) was always automatically said to be born of a woman but with a god as the father.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NoQuKTB8Q
On a separate note - I pointed out way back on page 2, that in Paul's letter to the Phillipians, Paul makes very clear that he thought Jesus was a spiritual God anyway. Here is that same passage again -
Philipians 2; 5-11 (quoted from Carrier on-the-H-of-J, page 533)
Have this in mind (of humble love) in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not decide to seize equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and being discovered as a man in outward form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, a death of a cross.
Apparently Christians (and others?) have since tried to argue that this passage may be either an interpolation or that it is in any case some sort of hymn or such-like. However, that paragraph does come from one of the supposedly "genuine" letters, and it is presented there as the belief and preaching of Paul. So if people want to chuck that out as not being something which Paul actually believed, wrote & preached, then on that same basis you really have to chuck out all of Paul's letters as similarly not believable as anything he ever wrote and personally believed about "the Christ".
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That is confused and ambiguous. Are you saying: that is a prophecy of the messiah generally recognised as such by Jewish readers of Isaiah, and that Paul knew it and also took it to be a messianic prophecy?
If you are saying that, can you give us evidence to that effect from such of Paul's work as you think authentically attributed to him?
But if you're not saying Paul took that view of it, why have you cited it here?
David Mo
Philosopher
What is relevant of "born of a woman" in Paul is not the "divine nature" of Jesus Christ but the fact that, according Paul, he was not a simple divine creature like those not born of a woman (God, the angels, etc.). He was a heavenly creature that takes the human form in being born of a woman. If he takes the form or the appearance of a man this implies (as the hymn of Philippians affirms) that Jesus had a human life but not equal of the other men (only in appearance) but as a heavenly messenger of God.
I don't know what Christians you are speaking of. Only the Christians that don't like the word "appearance" because they prefer the double nature, are disturbed by this text. They are the strict Catholics and others. I have read and discussed with a lot of Pauline Christians that were delighted with this hymn (Larry Hurtado, for example). However this is a tehological discussion and not a historical problem.
NOTE: I have not seen in any translation the highlighted sentence of Carrier. It sounds strange to the greek text. See here: http://biblehub.com/interlinear/philippians/2-8.htm
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David Mo
Philosopher
And about interpolations. The main reason to consider a text as an interpolation is that it clashes with other texts.
However, if an elected President of the USA can change his mind on the minimum wage five times in one minute why not Paul about the nature of Jesus Christ and other subjects?
:
Donald Trump and minimal wages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGdIeZpwZwE
Oh my God!
However, if an elected President of the USA can change his mind on the minimum wage five times in one minute why not Paul about the nature of Jesus Christ and other subjects?
:Donald Trump and minimal wages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGdIeZpwZwE
Oh my God!
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The use of the letters under the name of Paul as evidence of an historical Jesus is hopelessly flawed.
There is no historical or corroborative evidence at all that any letter under the name of Paul was composed or known before the fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.
The contents of letters under the name of Paul show that they were all invented after stories of Jesus were already known.
The letters under the name of Paul are fundamentally based on the later fictional embellishment that Jesus appeared to hundreds of people after the non-historical resurrection.
The writers under the name of Paul even admitted or claimed they persecuted those who believed the Jesus stories [that he was the son of god, the lord from heaven, born of a spirit,crucified, resurrected, appeared to people and ascended].
In a letter under the name of Paul it is claimed he was the LAST to be seen by the non-historical resurrected Jesus after over 500 persons.
The letters under the name of Paul do not reqiore an actual historical Jesus---they only require belief.
The claim that Jesus resurrected and was seen by over 500 persons is obvious fiction and could not have happened.
The claims about the resurrection and post resurrection appearances in the Pauline Corpus are not only bogus but they were unknown by all the authors of the Synoptics and Johanine writers.
If accounts of the supposed Jesus in the Pauline Corpus and the Gospels are examined it is found that the accounts in the Pauline Corpus will always be a LATER version than found in the Synoptics.
For example, there is no post resurrection visit by the supposed Jesus in the short gMark however in the Pauline Corpus over 500 persons was seen by Jesus.
Another example of the lateness of the Pauline Corpus---The Great Commission to preach the Gospel is unknown by the author of the short gMark yet writers under the name of Paul claimed they were commissioned to preach the Gospel by the resurrected Jesus.
The most significant evidence that the Pauline Corpus are non-contemporary fabrications is the fact that the earliest christian writers showed zero influence by the so-called Pauline letters, teachings and did not even acknowledge any person called Paul who started Churches in the Roman Empire.
Christian writers like Aristides, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Municius Felix and the non-apologetic skeptic Celsus wrote nothing of Paul, Pauline Churches, Pauline letters or teachings.
The entire Pauline Corpus are all non-contemporary writings invented no earlier than after "True Discourse" attributed to Celsus or no earlier than c 175-180.
The character called Jesus in the Pauline Corpus never ever existed.
There is no historical or corroborative evidence at all that any letter under the name of Paul was composed or known before the fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.
The contents of letters under the name of Paul show that they were all invented after stories of Jesus were already known.
The letters under the name of Paul are fundamentally based on the later fictional embellishment that Jesus appeared to hundreds of people after the non-historical resurrection.
The writers under the name of Paul even admitted or claimed they persecuted those who believed the Jesus stories [that he was the son of god, the lord from heaven, born of a spirit,crucified, resurrected, appeared to people and ascended].
In a letter under the name of Paul it is claimed he was the LAST to be seen by the non-historical resurrected Jesus after over 500 persons.
The letters under the name of Paul do not reqiore an actual historical Jesus---they only require belief.
The claim that Jesus resurrected and was seen by over 500 persons is obvious fiction and could not have happened.
The claims about the resurrection and post resurrection appearances in the Pauline Corpus are not only bogus but they were unknown by all the authors of the Synoptics and Johanine writers.
If accounts of the supposed Jesus in the Pauline Corpus and the Gospels are examined it is found that the accounts in the Pauline Corpus will always be a LATER version than found in the Synoptics.
For example, there is no post resurrection visit by the supposed Jesus in the short gMark however in the Pauline Corpus over 500 persons was seen by Jesus.
Another example of the lateness of the Pauline Corpus---The Great Commission to preach the Gospel is unknown by the author of the short gMark yet writers under the name of Paul claimed they were commissioned to preach the Gospel by the resurrected Jesus.
The most significant evidence that the Pauline Corpus are non-contemporary fabrications is the fact that the earliest christian writers showed zero influence by the so-called Pauline letters, teachings and did not even acknowledge any person called Paul who started Churches in the Roman Empire.
Christian writers like Aristides, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Municius Felix and the non-apologetic skeptic Celsus wrote nothing of Paul, Pauline Churches, Pauline letters or teachings.
The entire Pauline Corpus are all non-contemporary writings invented no earlier than after "True Discourse" attributed to Celsus or no earlier than c 175-180.
The character called Jesus in the Pauline Corpus never ever existed.
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But you're telling us that Paul never existed and his "corpus" is a third century invention. In these circumstances it is of no importance what words are found in any part of that corpus.
It's like the words "I promise to pay the bearer Twenty Pounds Sterling" on a forged banknote, isn't it?
Not so. I gave the evidence in another thread but I'll repeat it here:
On divine heavenly pre-existent patriarchs:
The Prayer of Joseph (1st or 2nd C CE):
Evidence that Moses was believed to be a heavenly, pre-existent being among Hellenistic Jews:
Burton Mack . . . reads Philo's discussion of Moses as indicating that Moses did indeed descend from heaven to take on a fleshly existence before returning to his divine status once again.
I quote from "Imitatio Mosis: Patterns of Cosmology and Soteriology in the Hellenistic Synagogue" (Studia Philonica, 1972, 27-55)
Endnote #81 -- unfortunately the Greek text did not copy and I have only approximated it in square brackets:
The idea that Jesus remained entirely in a heavenly sphere even for his crucifixion is only one mythicist hypothesis. The majority of Christ Myth hypotheses have argued that Jesus was believed to have descended to the earth to be crucified.
Paul speaks of man and the appearance of man, but we cannot in our minds quietly add "on earth" given the ambiguities involved. That is what much of the debate is about. The "on earth" claim is what some say needs to be demonstrated, not assumed.
It is imperative that the chronological order of writings in the NT be understood.
The Gospels or stories of Jesus, especially the Synoptics, predated all the letters in the Pauline Corpus.
If the writers called Paul actually preached and wrote letters directly to Churches before the Jesus stories called Gospels were known then it would be expected that the authors of the Gospels would have used or would be influenced by claims in the supposed letters.
There is simply no historical evidence that any of the NT Gospel writers were aware of or influenced by the teachings or preaching of the supposed Paul or attended any Church supposedly started by Pauline characters.
Now, in "Against Celsus" attributed to Origen it is claimed Celsus wrote against Christians and the stories of Jesus in "True Discourse" C 175-180 CE.
The story in the Pauline Corpus that over 500 persons were seen of the resurrected Jesus should have been known and circulated in the Roman Empire for at least one hundred and twenty years by 175-180 CE but was STILL unknown by Celsus.
Origen supposedly quotes Celsus
http://newadvent.org/fathers/04162.htm
"Against Celsus" 2.70.
Celsus' post resurrection story is similar to the short gMark where only ONE person claimed Jesus was resurrected.
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/m...chapter=16&lid=en&side=r&verse=3&zoomSlider=0
Sinaiticus gMark 16.5-6
The so-called Pauline Corpus played no role in the early development of the Jesus story and was unknown up to the time of the writing of "True Discourse" attributed to Celsus c175-180 CE.
The Gospels or stories of Jesus, especially the Synoptics, predated all the letters in the Pauline Corpus.
If the writers called Paul actually preached and wrote letters directly to Churches before the Jesus stories called Gospels were known then it would be expected that the authors of the Gospels would have used or would be influenced by claims in the supposed letters.
There is simply no historical evidence that any of the NT Gospel writers were aware of or influenced by the teachings or preaching of the supposed Paul or attended any Church supposedly started by Pauline characters.
Now, in "Against Celsus" attributed to Origen it is claimed Celsus wrote against Christians and the stories of Jesus in "True Discourse" C 175-180 CE.
The story in the Pauline Corpus that over 500 persons were seen of the resurrected Jesus should have been known and circulated in the Roman Empire for at least one hundred and twenty years by 175-180 CE but was STILL unknown by Celsus.
Origen supposedly quotes Celsus
http://newadvent.org/fathers/04162.htm
"Against Celsus" 2.70.
Celsus' post resurrection story is similar to the short gMark where only ONE person claimed Jesus was resurrected.
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/m...chapter=16&lid=en&side=r&verse=3&zoomSlider=0
Sinaiticus gMark 16.5-6
The so-called Pauline Corpus played no role in the early development of the Jesus story and was unknown up to the time of the writing of "True Discourse" attributed to Celsus c175-180 CE.
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So there! What have you Third Heaven dudes got to say about that?
I agree with dejudge in the sense that I think the Pauline theology & its texts were about a celestial Christ, or some such entity, and references to Jesus were added to the Pauline narratives after they were merged with primarily the Jesus texts (the Synoptics +/- others).
I think lots of Gnostic or Gnostic/Docetic theologies were dealing with Third Heaven (and other Heaven) dudes/Demurges/Angels/Christs/Satans/.