Craig, yes, it's a poem. BUT let's finally address the big fat elephant in the room: so what? What difference does it make?
Common sense says that if Paul didn't believe it to be correct, he wouldn't have included it in a letter to his followers. You don't see him randomly including opinions from James or Peter, that he thought were incorrect. When he even mentions things he disagreed with, he says that he set Peter straight about it. He doesn't just convey the wrong opinions to his follower as something to emulate.
Yet he quotes this poem and transmits the symbolism in it to his followers. So how doesn't it count as some view that Paul had? What sense does it make to pretend that just going "oh, it's a poem" somehow removes it completely from the text?
Hell, it's not even very clear if Paul himself didn't write it. There are no real lexical or stylistic differences. There is some weak argument that Paul's commentary around the poem would have been different, if he could just put it all in the poem, but basically we don't really know what was with that hymn and if he could. If it was some hymn of his church, for example, he couldn't quote it any other way than the actual lyrics it had,
But be that as it may, the fact remains that Paul does quote that hymn, and considers it something that gives SOME message worth giving to his followers. So on what base can one just exclude it from the things Paul believed?
Hans; you and I are really not in disagreement on any of this, and we have been saying almost exactly the same thing in all threads re. the claimed evidence for a HJ etc. However, in your first line of reply to CraigB (highlighted above), where you agree with him that it is a "poem" (CraigB originally claimed it was "a well known hymn") - who has actually shown that passage to be a known poem or a hymn that Paul was quoting?
Here is the reference (the link below) which was CraigB offered earlier to claim that the words in Phillipians 2: 5-11 are well known to be an earlier hymn or "poem" -
http://newlife.id.au/christian-theology/the-creed-of-philippians-2/
Apart from the fact that the link appears to be a religious Christian website (in which case, hardly neutral or unbiased), on that site it seems they are merely suggesting that the words in Phillipians 2: 5-11 could resemble what might be something like the structure of a hymn or poem ... as if to suggest that Paul was merely reciting some earlier author who had written those same words ...
... but afaik, that website/link does not produce any such earlier source showing an earlier supposed writer of any such "poem" or "hymn".
Unless anyone can produce the evidence to show that the words of Phillipians were written long before the time of Paul, then any such attempted excuse like that from a Christian site (?) is quite useless, and is in fact obviously suspicious (i.e., "suspicion" of trying to hand-wave away a paragraph in which Paul makes very clear that he never believed Jesus to be a real human preacher).
And just for the record, when CraigB says that my earlier posts had said this issue was quote "beyond all discussion", (a) he should quote the post so that others can see what was actually said in context, and (b) without that poster providing any link or any quote I can't tell which post of mine he's talking about, but from memory those were probably not quite my words or my sentiments - what I expect I actually said was something more like "if that passage is correct, i.e. actually written by "Paul", then that's an end to any discussion about whether "Paul" thought Jesus was a normal human man". And similarly in a post directly above I just said that passage was a "dead end, or dead stop" to any argument that continued to claim Paul believed Jesus to be a normal human person. That has to be true, because the passage very decisively says that Paul believed Jesus was NOT just a man who was a normal human being.
And just on the question of whether anything is actually "beyond all discussion" ; we are discussing it right now aren't we! And we have been discussing it since I first posted it in a previous thread even before this thread! And where in both threads, CraigB has continued to claim that Paul thought that Jesus was a human man preaching around Judea circa. 20AD-30AD (after which date he was crucified ... in fact in all previous threads CraigB has insisted that Paul actually
knew for a
fact that Jesus was the human brother of James) ) ... he has made those claims repeatedly, disputing that the passage in Phillipians is in any way decisive. But that passage in Phillipians
is decisive; it does put an end to disputes about what Paul thought of Jesus, it very clearly says that Paul thought Jesus was NOT a normal human preacher from Judea. In the passage, Paul is adamant and crystal clear in saying that Jesus was a spiritual figure, a part of God himself in altered form, and certainly not a normal human man.
As written, that passage
is a "dead stop" to any line of "discussion" which continues attempting to claim that Paul believed Jesus to be a human being preaching in Judea circa. 30AD.
But despite all of that, I just said in a previous post that there may be some way around that passage (Phillipians) for people who still want to claim Jesus was a normal non-supernatural man (and believed to be so by Paul). But it is not any kind of credible way around it, simply to hand-wave it away by saying that is sounds like a form of a "poem" or "hymn", as if that meant the actual words were somehow not in the letter at all. If the words are there, and if the letter is one of those supposedly "genuine" to Paul, then that passage is a decisive stop to claims that Paul believed Jesus to just a normal human person.
