For Kapyong: Defending a historical Jesus

[Craig B]

Clearly Paul can't mean LITERALLY "flesh". If he does, I want to know exactly what weapon made of flesh he has even ever heard of.

It seems to me like his use of "according to the flesh" or "of the flesh" is more like meaning material or physical, as opposed to spiritual.

Granted.

So while he does seem to be talking about a PHYSICAL messiah -- and really, the Carrier/Doherty version of mythicism is about a physical messiah too -- I'm not sure he means flesh as literally as you seem to think.

I don't accept what you say about Carrier. But "seed according to the flesh" must surely represent literal descent.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, then what on Earth is waging a war according to the flesh, or a weapon of the flesh? Is all I'm saying.

 

[IanS]

That said, I should probably repeat that I'm not really in the mythicist camp either. I'm granting it the status of possible, but that's about it.

It's just that some of the cases made pro or against it on the forum seem to be a bit too based on oversimplifications to be really making a case at all. So I'm more like just making sure we're all on the same page when it comes to "seed" or "according to the flesh" or such terms.

It's obvious that bible scholars and others (e.g. HJ posters on forums like this) have made far too much of taking various translated words and phrases literally from Paul's letters, when it should be obvious and unarguable that the letters are often talking in metaphors, often using coded religious language, and even more often talking in what might sound to us today in translations as beliefs concerning real events and real people, but where in fact the writer "Paul" is frequently talking in parables about religious beliefs which people did have in biblical times (e.g. layers of the heavens, angels, spirits, demons and gods acting on Earth etc.), but which we would regard today as just absurd ignorant religious superstition.

Way back on page two I quoted what Carrier gives (OHJ, page 533) as a translation of Philipians 2; 5-11 (or see BibleGateway https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians 2:5-11) -

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.


In response to that a HJ poster here dismissed it quoting what appears to be a religious website and saying that it was known to be from a Hymn and was thought to be some sort of interpolation not written by Paul anyway. However that sort of hand-waving dismissal simply won't wash. Because that quote does come from what is supposed to be one Paul's genuine letters. So whether Paul was quoting a Hymn or not, those words are presented in the letter as something which Paul believes about Jesus and where he is telling his readers to believe that about Jesus.

Similarly - if anyone want's to dismiss it as an interpolation, then that won't stand either. Because if passages in the supposedly "genuine" letters are arbitrarily claimed to be forged (added etc.), then the entirety of the "genuine" letters must be discarded as equally likely to be all forgery.

 

[Craig B]

Well, then what on Earth is waging a war according to the flesh, or a weapon of the flesh? Is all I'm saying.

Your suggestion, which amounts to "waging physical war with material weapons" looks plausible.

 

[Myriad]

The Jewish view of heaven(s) contained all sorts of beings and actions and punishments -
• Satan being thrown out,

a meteor shower

• millstones grind heavenly grain into manna,

thunder

• the Heavenly Jerusalem, Jerusalem above

Fata Morgana; clouds; auroras

• a store of hail and rain

hail and rain

• angels/demons struggle with each other, envying, plundering, violence

lightning and thunder; planets moving through constellations; light and darkness 'warring' at dawn and dusk; the phases of the moon; meteors

• rivers, lakes, palaces, gardens, burials - in heaven

The Milky Way; sunset clouds; rainbows; constellations


All this stuff falls into three basic categories: invisible spirits believed to inhabit heavenly realms (the ones I omitted from the list above); a heavenly "landscape" of palaces and suchlike, inspired by things visible in the sky; and heavenly events that were clearly inspired at least in part by events visible in (or audible from) the sky.

A crucifixion in heaven doesn't fit these patterns at all. What did it look like? What did it sound like? Who witnessed it? Why would any heavenly being choose a manner specifically associated with the Roman occupying government to fecklessly attempt to execute another?

Crucifixion only seems vaguely like a spiritual event (if you don't think about it much) due to its long association with Christian narratives. To Jews and early Christians, it was the most mundane of reality. Heavenly crucifixion makes no more mythic-narrative sense than heavenly leprosy or heavenly tax collectors.* But earthly crucifixion fits right in with the numerous other earthly and earthy details in the Gospels. Carpentry. Fishing. Bread and wine. Parables of trees, seeds, and weeds. Pieces of silver. Swine and donkeys. Palm branches. And yeah, leprosy and taxes.

Is it possible that Paul himself, either disregarding or being unfamiliar with the narratives that became the Gospels, regarded Jesus as a purely heavenly being and the Passion as a drama tanking place in heaven? I suppose. But if so, once the Gospel narratives were established it didn't matter, because no significant subsequent body of Christians would interpret Paul's writings that way.


*The Chinese spiritual realms of the time probably had tax collectors. They took the "as above, so below" concept to extremes. But we're rather far from there.

 

[dejudge]

Paul in that frikken Epistle said "heirs according to the promise" but he says in frikken Romans

3 ... concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4 and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: 5 by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith​

Paul clearly distinguishes physical from spiritual affinity. He is saying, it is of no moment if you are of physical Jewish descent or not, you are "Abraham's seed" spiritually, which is all that matters to Paul. But when he states that Jesus was of the seed of David in the flesh, he means a physical descendant, and one with recognised messianic qualifications.

Your claim about writings under the name of Paul is unsubstantiated--nothing but a recent baseless invention .

The Jesus in the so-called Pauline Corpus is GOD CREATOR--the same substance as the Lord GOD of the Jews.

Christian writers of antiquity used the letters under the name of Paul to argue that the Pauline Jesus was not a man but the Son of God, the Lord from heaven, and God Creator, the firstborn of the dead.

Christian writers who argued against an historical Jesus [only a man] used the letters under the name of Paul to do so.

Colossians 1:16

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him

Please stop wasting time. We can read what is written in letters under the name of Paul.

The Pauline Jesus was a fiction character ---GOD CREATOR.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Your suggestion, which amounts to "waging physical war with material weapons" looks plausible.

Well, then, if that's how Paul uses the "kata sarka" expression in other places, I think it's not that far fetched either to translate the bits in contention as Paul just saying that Jesus took physical form, or that basically he became a successor of David in the physical realm. Which removes a lot of the assumed constraints.

Mind you, he COULD be still meaning a normal human, but it isn't the only possibility.

 

[Craig B]

Well, then, if that's how Paul uses the "kata sarka" expression in other places, I think it's not that far fetched either to translate the bits in contention as Paul just saying that Jesus took physical form, or that basically he became a successor of David in the physical realm. Which removes a lot of the assumed constraints.

Mind you, he COULD be still meaning a normal human, but it isn't the only possibility.

What do you mean? Religious believers attribute a physical and a spiritual existence even to the generality of human beings, whose "soul" is supposed to survive bodily death. To them, that is "normal".

 

[Mcreal]

"seed according to the flesh" must surely represent literal descent.

Religious believers attribute a physical and a spiritual existence even to the generality of human beings, whose "soul" is supposed to survive bodily death. To them, that is "normal".

Flesh - http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/flesh/
"The range of meanings borne by this term in the Bible starts from the literal use denoting the material of which the human body is chiefly constructed, but quickly takes on other senses derived from the writers' understanding of the created order and its relation to God. Careful attention to context is needed to catch the precise nuance in any given case.

"Transferred Senses. It is an easy step from flesh as denoting life viewed externally to life viewed more comprehensively. "Flesh" is thus used interchangeably with "soul" and "body, " and credited with the emotions and responses of the whole person ( Psalm 63:1 ; 84:2 ) ... In the Hebrew understanding of a human being there is nothing that is merely physical. As constituted essentially of flesh the human creature stands over against God. By virtue of being God's creation flesh is good, like all other parts of God's creation ( Job 10:8-12 ; Psalm 119:73 ; Isa 45:12 ). At the same time, flesh as dependent on God, and in particular God's spirit ( Gen 2:7 ; 6:3 ; Isa 31:3 ), is frail and transitory ( Psalm 78:39 ; Isa 40:6 ). While at no time is flesh said to be sinful, it is implied that, by virtue of its frailty, flesh is exposed to the onslaught of sin ( Genesis 6:3 Genesis 6:5 Genesis 6:13 ). It is safe to say that all of the New Testament uses of flesh are made from these Old Testament building blocks.


"The Pauline Writings. The uniqueness of these in this regard is sufficiently indicated in that approximately two-thirds of the New Testament occurrences of flesh are found in them, almost half of these in Romans and Galatians. They may be considered in two broad categories.

"Uses Akin to the Old Testament. Most of the uses found in the Old Testament are also present in the Pauline literature. There flesh can denote the physical flesh ( 1 Cor 15:39 ; 2 Cor 12:7 ) and, by extension, the human body ( Gal 4:13-14 ), humanity as a whole ( Rom 3:20 ; Gal 2:16 ), human descent ( Rom 1:3 ; 9:3 ), and human relationships ( Rom 4:1 ; 9:3-5 )."
________________________________________________________

and see http://biblehub.com/commentaries/romans/1-3.htm

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

@Craig B
I think the operative word in what you wrote there is "even". There are many things that can be material and indeed spiritual too, without being necessarily biological humans. Angels and demons are a trivial example, especially at the time.

What I'm saying is that there's a subtle difference between requiring Jesus to be a physical/material being, and requiring him to be a biological human. If Paul uses "sarka" and more specifically "kata sarka" to mean "physical" or "in the physical realm", rather than referring to biological flesh, things are a lot more relaxed about what can (he imagine his) Jesus be and where can he be.

Basically what I'm getting at here is that basically if you think of a very wide material sphere around Earth, in the cosmology of the time, then the proposal of Jesus being material anywhere in that sphere isn't all THAT ludicrious any more.

And it is, in fact, what Doherty has been going on about, albeit in different words. His talking about a realm or sphere of the flesh is not wrong as such, but I think it's not the best way to get the meaning across. It can give one funny mental images. If you think of it as a material realm, or physical realm, things are IMHO clearer.

And in fact, that's the whole mythicist hypothesis in a nutshell. (As I was saying, I'm not taking it as more than a hypothesis.) You still have a material/physical Jesus, who took the outward appearance of a man, and who became the spiritual successor of David in the material realm. It's just as material as HJ, really. It just isn't exactly on Earth. You can think of it as being on a secret moon base or on Planet X, in modern SF terms, but in middle platonic terms it just was in a higher sphere of the real world.

Edit: and granted, it may still seem crazier to make up an astronaut Jesus than a human Jesus. But they weren't making up either, they were making up a superman Jesus. In which case whether he's from Earth or Krypton is just backstory details. And religions have gone farther off the deep end than that before. Plus, considering that Paul shows textbook syndromes of paranoid schizophrenia, and takes his lore from halucinations... yeah, I don't think something being crazy is much of a counter-argument in Paul's case

 

[Brainache]

@Craig B
I think the operative word in what you wrote there is "even". There are many things that can be material and indeed spiritual too, without being necessarily biological humans. Angels and demons are a trivial example, especially at the time.

What I'm saying is that there's a subtle difference between requiring Jesus to be a physical/material being, and requiring him to be a biological human. If Paul uses "sarka" and more specifically "kata sarka" to mean "physical" or "in the physical realm", rather than referring to biological flesh, things are a lot more relaxed about what can (he imagine his) Jesus be and where can he be.

Basically what I'm getting at here is that basically if you think of a very wide material sphere around Earth, in the cosmology of the time, then the proposal of Jesus being material anywhere in that sphere isn't all THAT ludicrious any more.

And it is, in fact, what Doherty has been going on about, albeit in different words. His talking about a realm or sphere of the flesh is not wrong as such, but I think it's not the best way to get the meaning across. It can give one funny mental images. If you think of it as a material realm, or physical realm, things are IMHO clearer.

And in fact, that's the whole mythicist hypothesis in a nutshell. (As I was saying, I'm not taking it as more than a hypothesis.) You still have a material/physical Jesus, who took the outward appearance of a man, and who became the spiritual successor of David in the material realm. It's just as material as HJ, really. It just isn't exactly on Earth. You can think of it as being on a secret moon base or on Planet X, in modern SF terms, but in middle platonic terms it just was in a higher sphere of the real world.

Edit: and granted, it may still seem crazier to make up an astronaut Jesus than a human Jesus. But they weren't making up either, they were making up a superman Jesus. In which case whether he's from Earth or Krypton is just backstory details. And religions have gone farther off the deep end than that before. Plus, considering that Paul shows textbook syndromes of paranoid schizophrenia, and takes his lore from halucinations... yeah, I don't think something being crazy is much of a counter-argument in Paul's case

OK, but isn't the whole point of Paul's theology that Jesus took on mortal form in order to become a sacrifice? An atonement for the sins of man, like the Temple sacrifices?

If Jesus wasn't on Earth, how does his sacrifice have any connection to the people Paul is preaching to?

A spirit up in heaven was born and died to free you from the sins down here on earth... Probably not the weirdest religion ever, but if there is nothing tying Jesus to Earth, how do you sell the idea that he died for mankind?

 

[Mcreal]

... how do you sell the idea that He died for mankind?

You answered that with your first sentence in that post -

Jesus took on mortal form in order to become a sacrifice. An atonement for the sins of man, like the Temple sacrifices.

It's not just the whole point of Paul's theology, but all NT theology (Mark builds on Paul's Christ).

It's likely that came about by the celestial angel-entity being given fully human characteristics -ie. anthropomorphizing Him.

Irenaeus alludes to the need to do that.

 

[Craig B]

OK, but isn't the whole point of Paul's theology that Jesus took on mortal form in order to become a sacrifice? An atonement for the sins of man, like the Temple sacrifices?

If Jesus wasn't on Earth, how does his sacrifice have any connection to the people Paul is preaching to?

A spirit up in heaven was born and died to free you from the sins down here on earth... Probably not the weirdest religion ever, but if there is nothing tying Jesus to Earth, how do you sell the idea that he died for mankind?

I agree with you, and I don't know how people who take the opposite view address this. Unless they are willing to state that there are sacrifices in the Heavenly Jerusalem too, along with the manna grindstones and the many other curiosities already enumerated in this thread as an inventory of Heaven's contents.

 

[Mcreal]

Unless they are willing to state that there are sacrifices in the Heavenly Jerusalem too ...

There is plenty of commentary on this -eg. -

"There are two Jerusalems in Scripture, as well as two temples. The first is earthly and physical, while the second is heavenly and spiritual. Both cities go by the name “Jerusalem.” Both temples go by the term “Temple.” It is for us to know which one is being discussed in any portion of Scripture."
http://gods-kingdom-ministries.net/...eks/chapter-7-two-jerusalems-and-two-temples/

And plenty of OT passages that related to it -eg. Zechariah 14:2-5 -

For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city (Jerusalem) shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward. And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountains shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD your God will come, and all the holy ones with him.​

Isaiah 2:2 (NIV)
In the last days, the mountain of the LORD's house will be the highest of all--the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.

Isaiah 52:9
Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.


NT passages that refer to Jerusalem in heaven -

Galatians 4:26
But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Hebrews 12:22
Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels

Philippians 3:20
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ



Revelation 3:12
The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will never again leave it. Upon him I will write the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from My God), and My new name.

Revelation 21:2
I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Revelation 21:10
And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God
__________________________________________________________________

More OT prophecy -

Isaiah 62:1
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.

Isaiah speaks of the inhabitants of Jerusalem as being entirely righteous—in contrast to Jeremiah’s prophecy. We read in Isaiah 62:21, “Then all your people will be righteous.” And later, John says in Rev. 21:27,

27 And nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.​

http://gods-kingdom-ministries.net/...eks/chapter-7-two-jerusalems-and-two-temples/

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I agree with you, and I don't know how people who take the opposite view address this. Unless they are willing to state that there are sacrifices in the Heavenly Jerusalem too, along with the manna grindstones and the many other curiosities already enumerated in this thread as an inventory of Heaven's contents.

Well, the answer is that you're still thinking in terms of modern theology, where basically there is Earth, there is Hell, and there is 1 (ONE) Heaven. But again, that wasn't the Judaism doctrine at the time, and that wasn't the dominant doctrine in the Greek world either.

Again: what they actually believed was that there were 7 (SEVEN) heavens, most of which were very physical. And where entities could harm each other, wage wars, and die. And which were full of lost souls. Especially the 2nd heaven, the "cloud" was basically a cloud of lost spirits. All the way between the sky dome and the moon, yep, billions of spirits floating around in darkness. That was kinda the new sheol, moved up instead of being underground.

So in light of that, the short answer is: YES. Now you get it. The whole notion is that there can be a sacrifice up there too. That's EXACTLY the whole claim. Well, not in the heavenly ethereal and spiritual last sphere where God's throne and that heavenly Jerusalem are, but somewhere in between.

And why not? If the whole view is that
- that huge sphere is chock full of the lost souls of everyone who's ever lived, and
- Paul's theology is that without Jesus there is nowhere for those to go (the Law only gives you death)...
doesn't it make sense to have a saviour actually, you know, SAVE them?

I dunno, having a sacrifice up there, where those souls are, to release them and allow them into God's 7'th heaven, doesn't sound all that crazy to me. Well, not crazier than the alternatives. Not any saner either, mind you.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I'd also add for those who are that determined to have a HJ, that the MJ actually isn't mutually exclusive. And basically that you can have the same thinking for both, if you want to arrive at a HJ.

The HJ idea goes kinda like: so there was this dude who thought he was the messiah, and his followers thought he's the messiah. So he gets nailed by the Romans, and his followers start rationalizing that, no, see, he's in heaven now and saved everyone from there.

But here's another possible scenario: so there was this dude who thought he was the messiah, and his followers thought he's the messiah. And more specifically, that he has to be the supreme sacrifice so God gets off his ass and saves the Jews. Except one day he just gets a pneumonia or a stroke and dies without any real way to build much significance around it. Or maybe he was just a con man who never really intended to be sacrificed, and one day he just up and leaves, and nobody knows WTH happened to him.

What's keeping those from folks from rationalizing that, no, see, he went to one of the heavens to be sacrificed there?

 

[IanS]

What is there left to argue about? If the Philipians quote that I gave is correct, then that's the end of the discussion.

Because it shows that "Paul" very clearly believed that Jesus was a form of the heavenly Yahweh, who merely adopted human-like outward form etc. The passage is absolutely clear and unarguable.

Any other disputes about the meaning of ambiguous terms like "of the flesh" or "born of a women" etc., are entirely "trumped" by that passage from Phillipians. Because that passage is not written in ambiguous double-speak ... that passage repeatedly stresses in direct clear language that the writer (who is supposed to be "Paul"), believes that - Jesus existed "in the form of God" .... that he was "made in the likeness of men" ... in order to appear as if "a man in outward form".

According to that (unless we chuck out Phllipians and all the other letters too), Paul very clearly believed that Jesus had once been (at some time in the unknown past), created by Yahweh, as a part of Yahweh himself, such that although actually a heavenly spirit who was NOT human, he miraculously transformed himself look like a human, so as to appear in an outward form or likeness which humans on Earth could experience, visualise, or understand.

That Jesus of Paul's letter is Yahweh in altered and disguised form.

 

[Mcreal]

This is the crux of both the human Jesus and the other alternative -

... followers start rationalizing that, no, see, He's in heaven now and saved everyone from there.

The key aspect is the perception that He will save from the right hand side.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

@Ian
That Jesus is God (well, one aspect of God) and he took human to be sacrificed, is quite mainstream theology eveer since. I don't think anyone contests that paragraph you quoted.

The debate for the last 1800 years or so, though, has been exactly HOW that works. Did he get born? Did he just materialize as an adult-looking human? Did he just basically possess a human body, overriding (or even burning out) the human consciousness of that human? Etc.

People have been flaming each other over that since day 1. And I mean, since the 5'th century or so, they LITERALLY flamed each other over that kinda details. As in, at the stake.

 

[Craig B]

What is there left to argue about? If the Philipians quote that I gave is correct, then that's the end of the discussion.

I don't agree, but even if I did, you seem to have missed the discussion on the authorship and significance of the Kenosis Hymn, which is not thought to be Paul's work. This has been discussed in more than one thread. Have you missed the references? If you reject them, say why. Please don't go back to "that's the end of the discussion". Must we go through the discussion again? If you've forgotten it, which is quite likely, I and I hope others, have not.

ETA Lets go over it again.

This passage in Philippians uses uncommon words, and words used differently to the way Paul generally used them in his epistles. This seems to indicate that Paul was not the original author of this creed-hymn. The fact that there is no mention of salvation or the resurrection in this hymn further suggests that it is not Paul’s composition, as salvation, justification and Christ’s resurrection were subjects of vital importance to Paul (2 Corinthians 15:1ff). However it is important to point out that the purpose of this creed-hymn was not to show what Christ’s work means for us in regards to salvation, but to show what it meant for Christ himself in regards to his ultimate exaltation.​