Regarding Wolfgang Kirchbach’s book, “What Did Jesus Teach”
Albert Schweitzer
Kirchbach succeeds in spiritualizing John Chapter 6.
Steefen
A little taste of the sixth chapter of John
Jesus says I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my FLESH for the life of the world [not just Jerusalem, not just Israel].
No, no, quiet down, Jesus said. Unless you eat the FLESH of the Son of Man and DRINK HIS BLOOD, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day.
Albert Schweitzer
It is NOT THE BODY OF JESUS the long departed thinker who apparently attached no importance whatever to the question of personal survival that we who understand Him in the right Greek sense (not Aramaic, not Hebrew, not his literal words but a Greek sensibility, referring to whom/what?) “eat”–in the sense which He intended: we eat and drink, and absorb into ourselves His teaching, His spirit, His sublime conception of life, by constantly recalling them in connection with the symbol of bread and flesh, the symbol of blood [and wine]/water.
Steefen
There in a synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus saw that people were listening to his words without the appropriate Greek sensibility.
Jesus: Does this shock you? The flesh is of no avail: go on, eat me.
As a result, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
The Disciples Who Left Jesus: All he had to say was, Hold on to my teachings, my concept of life, your memories of me as often as meals for they are as important as the meals you partake. But he insisted in going against holy scriptures and putting himself forefront in our minds than the sacrifices at the Temple, huh. He wants to be too important. Okay, you made your point but too strongly. We’re out of here.
Albert Schweitzer
Worthless as Kirchach’s Life of Jesus is from an historical point of view, it is quite comprehensible as a phase in the struggle between the modern view of the world and Jesus. The aim is to retain Jesus’s significance in a non-ascetic way (and a non-ascetic Jesus is not a historical Jesus). It is not possible to present a non-ascetic Jesus who is a historical Jesus. The author denise Jesus’s historical existence in favor of a metaphysical and apocryphal Jesus.
pages 323-324
= = =
Shall we accept the hyperbole explanation?
I say no. Bringing up eating flesh and drinking blood is more tribulation foreshadowing by Jesus. Eating flesh and drinking blood in the holy scriptures refers to God’s people being defeated. That is the tribulation.
Jesus takes his defeat, his tribulation and asks his disciples to follow him in defeat. You will not have mortal eternal life (eternal life of a mortal body) because there is no such thing. Instead of dying after death, you will have eternal non-physical life after death of the physical. And I will raise you on the last day. This is the eschatology of Jesus. Go down in defeat with him and there is eternal spiritual life (giving him the benefit of the doubt that the spirit is not eternal and reincarnation is mortal–you get a few do-overs but there is a mortality to that also).
But Paul comes along and preaches resurrection as if Judgement Day is before AD70. Well, the world continued after the destruction of the Temple and now we just have to wait until Earth is destroyed or humans go extinct.
Steefen
There in a synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus saw that people were listening to his words without the appropriate Greek sensibility.
Jesus: Does this shock you? The flesh is of no avail: go on, eat me.
As a result, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
What puckish wit lies behind the stoic mask of Steefen?
godspell, the English writer/Oxford prof C S Lewis once commented about the work of his friend Charles Williams, that he “included things in his theology that he should have left in his fiction and included things in his fiction that should have been left in his theology”. I always thought this was an astute observation. But then Prof Lewis was always a better literary critic than Christian apologist.
So we’ve been through all this for you to say “You’re not entirely offbase, but I don’t like the way you phrased it.” I don’t either, but I think some of my subsequent phrasings were not entirely without merit. When I’m interested in a subject, I do tend to get into arguments about it, because that’s part of my process for figuring out what I really think. And isn’t that what a space like this is for? If not, I can’t see that it serves any useful purpose. And what I think matters just as much to me as what you think means to you. Blindly kowtowing to someone with more specialized knowledge than you isn’t thought. All the more since there are almost always others who will know even more, and they all argue with each other.
Paul did have to create a new space for gentile converts to pursue his self-appointed apostolic mission, which as you’ve conceded, could be considered a prototype for a new religion. A new religion in beta. And this is really how most new things begin. Nobody ever said “I’m creating a new religion.” (Okay, L. Ron Hubbard, but that was to make money, doesn’t count.) Martin Luther just wanted to fix what he didn’t like about Catholicism, and it turned into something else. And eventually, he saw that. Did Paul, before he died? I don’t know, but I’d say he was brighter than Luther. (Honestly, much as I disagree with him on many things, I think he was a fair sight brighter than anyone on this thread, myself included.)
It was not an entirely unproductive discussion, but the proprietary attitude should perhaps not be exercised when one is not the actual proprietor in a space meant for free discussion.
Can we stop now? I’ve done you the compliment of responding, because I felt your response was a response. And you didn’t overuse the quote function–well done!
🙂
Paul sought to graft the gentile communities of believers onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism.
Steefen
The tree is God’s interaction with humankind which has a cultivating effect. Temple Judaism, for Paul, is a natural growth of a branch from that tree.
Paul considers Gentiles wild, in need of cultivating by faith in Jewish notion of a henotheistic or monotheistic God. Paul acknowledges that Temple Judaism was cultivated by his notion of God but that natural branch of Temple Judaism has been broken off the tree of God’s interaction with humankind.
Paul sought to graft the gentile communities of believers onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism.
Steefen
You are in error. And your own words illustrate your error:
Robert
Paul seems to be pretty adamant that the gentile ‘Christians’ were not Jews [No Grafting unto Judaism] and he definitely opposes that they should seek to become Jews [Do not try to be grafted unto Judaism].
Steefen
With the Gentiles not being Jews and directing Gentiles from becoming Jews not just with circumcision but in reference to Mosaic Law, there is no grafting Gentiles onto the branch of Judaism that was broken off the tree.
“Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is so. They [the Jews] were broken off because of unbelief…”
And they were broken off for the reasons given in the Parable of the Tenants.
Robert
I tried to help Steefen understand how he might best insert the language of Jewish identity and circumcision into Paul’s cultured olive tree parable in Romans 11 by quoting the fluid and spiritual sense in which Paul speaks of Jewish identity in Romans 2. We can always imagine that Paul (or Steefen) might elsewhere approach this parable or circumcision in a more literal fashion in a different context or we can first look to the actual context of this letter and see if that might provide insight into Paul’s intended meaning here.
Steefen
Insert the language of Jewish identity and circumcision from Romans 2 into Romans 11.
ROMANS 2
All who sin outside the law [Gentiles] will also perish without reference to it and all who sin under the law [Jews] will be judged in accordance with it.
For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves [this is still segregation, Robert. You are in error. Final judgment. I am trying to help Steefen. PRESUMPTION: you do not have quality reading comprehension to help anyone because you do not have mastery of the subject matter.] even though they do not have the law.
[The law was given to the tribes of Israel, not to Gentiles. Even if a Gentile happens to observe a law (from the demands of their heart), that would be a Gentile law in common with a Jewish law which does not graft them into Judaism.]
Circumcision has value if you observe the law [Jews]; but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If an uncircumcised man keeps the precepts of the law, will he not be considered circumcised? [No, from the demands of his heart, he has something in common with the Jew but he is not a Jew; and, by description he is uncircumsized. You may appreciate his behavior and ignore his uncircumcision and say it is not important as Paul does, but he is not a Jew.]
Those who are physically uncircumcised but carry out the law will pass judgment on you with your written law (vs. his law of the heart) and circumcision who break the law.
A Jew is not just a Jew outwardly. A true circumcised Jewish man is not just a Jew by cut off flesh or by our public/outward law but Jews are Jews inwardly.
DECISION:
Paul did not seek to graft the gentile communities of believers onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism.
DECISION ON APPEAL BASED ON ROMANS CHAPTER 2
Uncircumcised men are not Jews even if there behavior is in common with behavior instructions from Jewish law. They may have common standing but their cultural identity is different because they are not descendants of Israel who were given the law by Moses.
It sounds like you’re speaking of something nobody but (very) early Christians would have recognized as Judaism. In which case, one is at a loss to say whether it was in fact something other than Judaism (ie, a new religion) or a new form of Judaism–in which case it could still be called a new religion, as there are many distinct and often deeply opposed religions under the general umbrella of Christianity. (Terminology can be a bitch sometimes.)
Jews belonging to the various factions of that era all recognized each other as Jews, despite their numerous differences. They did not so recognize pagan converts to this new sect who didn’t follow their laws and had been inducted by people they regarded as dangerous heretics (and who Paul himself had persecuted as rogue blasphemers before his own conversion).
Keep digging. 🙂
What do you mean by ‘early Jews’? Judaism’s roots were already ancient when Paul was born. Samaritans of that era, could, by some standards, be considered early Jews. They believed they were practicing the earlier (and correct) form of what Paul’s people practiced. But they were not recognized as Jews by Paul’s people, which is why Jesus reportedly aroused controversy by associating with them.
We’re talking about early Christianity. I skirted over your earlier (and over-lengthy) response in my haste to extract myself from this morass, but I’m still finding this a puzzlement.
You really should read Bart’s work not only for content but for style. You are not always good at making your meaning clear.
And I suppose I should have asked earlier, but what precise academic credentials do you have?
Yes, I know it’s not Rabbinic Judaism (though that’s not very far off from Paul’s time, making the distinction a touch academic, all the more since it was the Pharisee sect Paul was raised in that served as the foundation for Rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the temple), but the fact remains, all Jews in that era regarded each other as Jews, even if they belonged to different groups within the larger faith. None of them recognized gentile converts to a heretical sect who were not required to follow even the rudiments of Jewish law as Jews, anymore than they recognized Samaritans (who were in some respects closer to the Judaism of that time) as Jews.
Nomenclature changes, but what doesn’t is the basic understanding that this was something new.
This is awkward, but I do not consider ‘doctorate’ an answer. I studied for a doctorate in history myself. I didn’t complete it. If I had, that still wouldn’t make me any kind of authority.
And I am once more forced to ask myself why a serious scholar would be spending so much time here, responding to the crazed ramblings of non-scholars (a category from which I do not exclude myself). I’m just a guy who works in a library, and has a general interest in the subject. No credentials.
“Princeton”–what’s that doing there? It’s the name of a rather well-known university in my home state. Also a town. You got a doctorate from Princeton?
Robert said
Steefen said DECISION ON APPEAL BASED ON ROMANS CHAPTER 2
Uncircumcised men are not Jews even if there behavior is in common with behavior instructions from Jewish law. They may have common standing but their cultural identity is different because they are not descendants of Israel who were given the law by Moses.Robert
Paul sought to graft the gentile communities of believers onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism.
Steefen
The tree is God’s interaction with humankind which has a cultivating effect. Temple Judaism, for Paul, is a natural growth of a branch from that tree.
Paul considers Gentiles wild, in need of cultivating by faith in Jewish notion of a henotheistic or monotheistic God. Paul acknowledges that Temple Judaism was cultivated by his notion of God but that natural branch of Temple Judaism has been broken off the tree of God’s interaction with humankind.Robert
Paul sought to graft the gentile communities of believers onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism.
Steefen
You are in error. And your own words illustrate your error:
Robert
Paul seems to be pretty adamant that the gentile ‘Christians’ were not Jews [No Grafting unto Judaism] and he definitely opposes that they should seek to become Jews [Do not try to be grafted unto Judaism].
Steefen
With the Gentiles not being Jews and directing Gentiles from becoming Jews not just with circumcision but in reference to Mosaic Law, there is no grafting Gentiles onto the branch of Judaism that was broken off the tree.
“Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is so. They [the Jews] were broken off because of unbelief…”
And they were broken off for the reasons given in the Parable of the Tenants.Robert
I tried to help Steefen understand how he might best insert the language of Jewish identity and circumcision into Paul’s cultured olive tree parable in Romans 11 by quoting the fluid and spiritual sense in which Paul speaks of Jewish identity in Romans 2. We can always imagine that Paul (or Steefen) might elsewhere approach this parable or circumcision in a more literal fashion in a different context or we can first look to the actual context of this letter and see if that might provide insight into Paul’s intended meaning here.
Steefen
Insert the language of Jewish identity and circumcision from Romans 2 into Romans 11.
ROMANS 2
All who sin outside the law [Gentiles] will also perish without reference to it and all who sin under the law [Jews] will be judged in accordance with it.
For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves [this is still segregation, Robert. You are in error. Final judgment. I am trying to help Steefen. PRESUMPTION: you do not have quality reading comprehension to help anyone because you do not have mastery of the subject matter.] even though they do not have the law.
[The law was given to the tribes of Israel, not to Gentiles. Even if a Gentile happens to observe a law (from the demands of their heart), that would be a Gentile law in common with a Jewish law which does not graft them into Judaism.]
Circumcision has value if you observe the law [Jews]; but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If an uncircumcised man keeps the precepts of the law, will he not be considered circumcised? [No, from the demands of his heart, he has something in common with the Jew but he is not a Jew; and, by description he is uncircumsized. You may appreciate his behavior and ignore his uncircumcision and say it is not important as Paul does, but he is not a Jew.]
Those who are physically uncircumcised but carry out the law will pass judgment on you with your written law (vs. his law of the heart) and circumcision who break the law.
A Jew is not just a Jew outwardly. A true circumcised Jewish man is not just a Jew by cut off flesh or by our public/outward law but Jews are Jews inwardly.
DECISION:
Paul did not seek to graft the gentile communities of believers onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism.
DECISION ON APPEAL BASED ON ROMANS CHAPTER 2
Uncircumcised men are not Jews even if there behavior is in common with behavior instructions from Jewish law. They may have common standing but their cultural identity is different because they are not descendants of Israel who were given the law by Moses.If you imagine I am speaking of Jewish cultural identity or parental heritage here, you have not understood.
First, the case and the appeal are closed: you lost the case and the appeal. You have added no value to the discussion with your inability to communicate ideas capable of being understood. The problem is with you.
Second, it is not what you are speaking of, it is what is in the text.
Third, godspell said you may be speaking of something nobody but (very) early Christians would have recognized as Judaism; and, you did not establish that. Furthermore, what Christians recognize as Judaism is irrelevant because they do not decide what Judaism is.
Whether you admit you are wrong or not, your case and your appeal is closed with you being in the wrong. You have been given ample opportunity to communicate. Type on all you want. Nonsense is not worth my valuable time.
Okay, we needn’t discuss your credentials any further. Or ‘Princeton’. I will say, as someone with no academic credentials (Bachelor’s?), I don’t consider them in the least irrelevant. Not the last word, by any means, but very very important. Particularly when one is writing in a somewhat persnickety (I won’t say snobbish) style that seems to imply said credentials exist (unintentionally, I’m sure). No more about it. Though ‘again’ is puzzling, since we’ve never discussed this before. Perhaps in some post before I got here a short while back (it’s Bren’s fault).
(Editing–as I left work, I remembered you telling me how you came to learn Greek via PM, but I didn’t follow up with more questions, and made some assumptions–and you know what happens when we assume. I certainly consider knowledge of biblical languages a valid qualification, but of course it’s equally so for Reverend Firth. In any event, it’s pretty cool. I used to know a guy who had some knowledge of sixty languages, was fluent in maybe twenty–and zero academic credentials–but he was a genuine expert on Celtic Languages and Mythology, as well as Celtic Christianity. Whether he was an authority on any subject would have been hotly debated in some circles, since he only ever published one book, and I wouldn’t call it scholarly.)
Paul and his converts lived in a time after he was actively and successfully having Christians (as we now call them) persecuted in various ways by the Jewish authorities in various places. He was himself later severely persecuted on the same grounds. This would seem to indicate there was not widespread agreement that Paul and his converts were not considered heretical.
What works by actual authorities do your views on this subject derive from? A few titles, please. I work in a library, might want to do some reading.
I live in New York City. I didn’t see any purpose to people knowing that before they read my posts. Sorry if I violated protocol or whatever. G’night.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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