You seem to be posing an opposition between a true embodying and enfleshing and dualism, but I don’t see the problem.
It just may be that we’re running up against the limitations of how we can express what for us are strange concepts.
Paul’s view, evidenced in 1Cor, is distinct from the platonic view which came to dominate later thinking. For Paul the body consisted of aspects in a continuum each more and more refined. There is sarx, “flesh”, then nous, “mind” and then pneuma, spirit. Unfortunately none of these terms mean precisely what they’ve come to mean for us. For example, for Paul even the sarx has a metaphysical aspect. At the resurrection the sarx and the nous wither away and the pneuma is transformed into the resurrection body. Sooo…crudely put, how did a pre-existent divine being with his pneuma-ish body get the sarx and the nous of Jesus? And even more baffling, what is the relationship between the pneuma of the pre-existent divine being and the pneuma Jesus would have had simply as a result of being born in the normal biological process?
Well, I do enjoy entertaining the idea of wisdom and righteousness embodied in human form.
For us a metaphor. For the ancients an aspect of reality.
Stephen said
Sooo…crudely put, how did a pre-existent divine being with his pneuma-ish body get the sarx and the nous of Jesus?
Does Paul ever say (or imply) the preexistent being had a body, pneuma-ish or otherwise?
I admit I don’t know what to make of that tri-partite division.
Porphyry said
Stephen said
Sooo…crudely put, how did a pre-existent divine being with his pneuma-ish body get the sarx and the nous of Jesus?
Does Paul ever say (or imply) the preexistent being had a body, pneuma-ish or otherwise?
I admit I don’t know what to make of that tri-partite division.
I guess I was like most people and I always thought the ancient greek view was of the duality of material flesh vs immaterial spirit. This view entered the wider west through middle-platonism and was absorbed into Medieval scholasticism becoming the foundation for so-called “classical theism” (the “omni” god). A conception we have been taught to read back into the Bible. In which it is nowhere to be found by the by.
In the ancient view the divine was embodied. ** you do not have permission to see this link ** made out of this finer stuff. (Hence the frequent prohibitions against astral worship.) We know of Christian monks in Egypt as late as the end of the fourth century who still held on to the conception of an embodied god and who were taught to visualize him bodily as they prayed.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that Paul did not believe in a bodily resurrection because of the line about “flesh and blood” not being able to inherit the kingdom. But that’s to read the later conception back into the text. Paul just had the view of the body common to his day.
Robert is right, Martin’s book is terrific. But if you want a deeper dive, Pauline cosmology and heavy greek philosopy, go ** you do not have permission to see this link **. But for god’s sake don’t pay the ridiculous Amazon prices even if you can afford it. Shop around.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Link to a book written by Gitte Buch-Hansen, It is the Spirit that Gives Life: A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in Johns Gospel. The author has been a student of Troels Engberg-Pederson. I’ve been browsing a preview on the google books. Might be of some interest to you Stephen and others. $$$$ though.
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