Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

spin wrote:
Ben C. Smith wrote:
spin wrote:This is just the sort of eisegesis I did warn about! You are mindreading here ("something Paul wishes to avoid"). .... There is no sign that Paul wants to disconnect the body/food from body/fornication in his argument.
Either you misunderstood me or I miswrote. I did not (mean to) say that Paul wished to avoid connecting belly/food with body/fornication. What I meant is that he did not wish to connect the body with fornication in the same way as he has already connected the belly with food.
This is transparent in the text. I don't see how it contributes to what you said:

Verse 14 seems necessary to disconnect the body from fornication in verse 13c; otherwise food/belly would logically have to be followed by sex/body, something Paul wishes to avoid.

I guess I just don't understand: food/belly (13a) is followed by sex/body (13c). The existence of v.14 doesn't change that. And v.15 takes up the sex/body discourse further. V.14 interrupts that discourse which began in v.13. What exactly do you think Paul wishes to avoid?

13a Food is for the belly and the belly is for food (b And God will do away with it and them).
c But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body

Paul's discourse is quite clear...
Ben C. Smith wrote:And we do not have to read his mind for that: he tells us this explicitly in verse 13 ("the body is not for fornication," as directly contrasted with "the belly is for food").
That doesn't seem to help whatever the argument was you were positing for the need for v.14.
"The belly is for food." This much is clear.

But, in order to argue against fornication (in a way that he is not arguing against food), Paul has to avoid the logically parallel equivalent: "the body is for fornication." How does he do this? By arguing that "the body is for the Lord." But this is a leap of logic. He bridges this leap by referring to the resurrection of the Lord and believers, which of course is the thematic counterbalance to the destruction of the belly and food:

13a Food is for the belly and the belly is for food [food and belly].
b And God will do away with it and them [destruction (of two entities)].

c But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body [not body and sex but body and Lord].
14 And God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power [resurrection (of two entities)].

You want to see this as a devotional marginal gloss which got slipped into the text, but there is more going on than that. The resurrection in verse 14 is the thematic opposite of the destruction in verse 13; the resurrection is twofold (the Lord and "us"), matching the twofold destruction (the belly and food, "it and them"); the resurrection is the link between our bodies and the Lord (or the Lord's body), thus making the otherwise enigmatic "body for the Lord" and "Lord for the body" lines intelligible; and verse 14 also rounds out the pattern whereby the chiastic AB BA lines ("food for the belly, the belly for food" and "the body for the Lord, the Lord for the body") are each followed by their eschatological justification: the belly is going to perish (therefore eating is not a sin), but the body is going to be raised (therefore sexual immorality is an issue). This would be a pretty sophisticated devotional note. I mean, you do see that parallel structure, right?
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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I can't see much in this, Ben C.

Paul states, food is for the belly and the belly for food (ABBA). This prepares for the later chiastic sentence, the body is... for the Lord and the Lord is for the body (ABBA), but he goes further due to his overarching discourse, inserting "(the body is) not for fornication, but...". Here's the catch: implicit in the text is the fact that unlike the belly (and food) God will not do away with the body. This connects with the problem of fornication, which Paul takes up in the rest of the chapter. Paul's discourse is tightly wound up in the language he uses, but there is no linguistic connection involved with v.14. The idea of Jesus' resurrection is irrelevant to the discourse, despite your valliant efforts. This of course is all far less relevant than the repeated rhetorical structure of the trigger word followed "Do you not know that...". It is extremely hard to justify the disruption of the rhetorical device. You implicitly suggest that Paul was not capable of communicating what you want him to without botching his discourse cradle.

I think you are doing what my partner does when I state a position: I get the inevitable devil's advocacy. I don't think that v.14 contributes to the discourse, which has nothing directly to do with the resurrection or us being raised. All irrelevant and in fact Paul is back to his topic in v.15 as though the previous verse never existed. There is just too much wrong with v.14's presence for you good will to save.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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spin wrote:I can't see much in this, Ben C.

....

I think you are doing what my partner does when I state a position: I get the inevitable devil's advocacy. ....
This is possible. You and I have been debating the Lord/God thing for a few days now, and of course there is no way at this very moment that I am going to be able to claim 100% objectivity on the matter, since it is related to that debate. I will insist that the structure I am seeing is something that came very naturally out of my reading of the passage, without feeling forced, but I can not insist that there is no underlying desire on my part to make the verse work in its context. I am human, and that is the way of things.

But I know myself very well on such points, and I know that time will eventually diminish the fervor, at which stage I will be able to view things without pressure from the desire to win a debate. You have seen this before. You and I vigorously debated the Nazareth issue back on the old FRDB, and now, with time for reflection, I am in basic agreement with your position. You and I also debated Luke and proto-Luke, and on the particular points we were debating, at least, I am now, as with Nazareth, in basic agreement with what I remember to be your position. I cannot guarantee such a turnaround in every case, of course, and there are definitely points on which I still think I was/am right and you were/are wrong. But give me a few months or even years on the Lord/God issue, and who knows? :cheeky:
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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A very interesting debate. We need way more of this.

Really with Iesou = Yeshua = "YHWH is salvation" it seems reasonable to me at least that Paul might indeed be writing about YHWH.

What would be the implications of that I wonder.
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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I just want to know if the fervor has diminished
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

Who disagrees with me on this precise point is by definition an idiot.
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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perseusomega9 wrote: Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:52 am I just want to know if the fervor has diminished
It has diminished, though I cannot guarantee that it has fully subsided.
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:51 pm Margaret Barker spends the last five chapters or so of her book, The Great Angel, arguing that the ancient Israelite belief that Yahweh was one of the sons of El Elyon (= Most High God) survived well into New Testament times and beyond. She argues, among other things, the following about early Christians:
  • They ascribed powers to Jesus (such as walking upon water) which are ascribed to Yahweh.
Ben.
Matthew describes Jesus as the new Moses, couldn't Jesus be walking on the water as a similar action as Moses parted the Red Sea. If Margaret Barker is correct. Shouldn't Matthew depicted Jesus differently than a new Moses?
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Re: Yahweh, El Elyon, Margaret Barker, & the epistles.

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klewis wrote: Tue Apr 30, 2019 1:37 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:51 pm Margaret Barker spends the last five chapters or so of her book, The Great Angel, arguing that the ancient Israelite belief that Yahweh was one of the sons of El Elyon (= Most High God) survived well into New Testament times and beyond. She argues, among other things, the following about early Christians:
  • They ascribed powers to Jesus (such as walking upon water) which are ascribed to Yahweh.
Ben.
Matthew describes Jesus as the new Moses, couldn't Jesus be walking on the water as a similar action as Moses parted the Red Sea.
There are probably allusions to the parting of the Red Sea in this story, but Job 9.8 is the closest parallel, in which Yahweh tramples upon the waves of the sea.
If Margaret Barker is correct. Shouldn't Matthew depicted Jesus differently than a new Moses?
No. That is a separate issue altogether. The issue which Barker addresses is how early Christians treat Jesus as if he were Yahweh; this does not in any way preclude Jesus also being treated as another Moses, as a second Adam, as an Elijah redivivus, or as the heir of David. Early Christians tended to really pile it on when it comes to Jesus.
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