Carrier and Couchoud about Revelation 13:8
Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:46 am
So Richard Carrier:
But I find that Couchoud knew well that kind of criticism and he replied to it in the following way:
According to Couchoud, the names of evil people were written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world as effect of the sacrifice of the Lamb.
If the Book is “of the Lamb sacrificed” (genitive possessive), then the existence of the Book assumes already the existence of a Lamb sacrificed, hence these names were written in that Book AFTER the death of Jesus.
Couchoud — Carrier: 2 - 1 ?
It seems that Carrier's criticism is the same criticism made by Loisy against the Couchoud's idea that Rev 13:8 is evidence of a crucifixion before time.Hm. I don’t think Revelation deep time’s the crucifixion. Did you have passages in mind? Because if it’s Rev. 12:8 [correction, 13:8], for example, that doesn’t say the lamb was slain at the foundation of the world, but that the names of those he would save were written in a celestial book at that time (theistic determinism, a la Calvinism). Just as Paul says in Galatians that scripture forewrote the crucifixion (meaning the scriptures were written before the atonement sacrifice happened). The idea of a crucifixion before time is something Robert Price has proposed; I don’t know where he gets the idea. It’s not in the NT.
But I find that Couchoud knew well that kind of criticism and he replied to it in the following way:
(Creation of Christ, p. 441, my bold)When is the sacrifice of the Lamb supposed to have taken place? A single text gives the answer: the passage where the visionary damns the idolators “whose names are not written in the book of the Lamb sacrificed from the foundation of the world” (xiii. 18). M. Loisy introduces a comma after “sacrificed,” thereby making the text to mean “whose names are not written, since the foundation of the world, in the book of the sacrificed Lamb.” The comma is not in the text and nothing compels us to place it there. It is true enough that the inscription or non-inscription in the Book of Life was determined at “the foundation of the world” (xvii. 8). All the more reason for affirming that the sacrifice of the Lamb, the cause of which inscription in the Book is effect, also took place at “the foundation of the world.” When Jesus is named “the first born of the dead” (i. 5), when he says “I hold the keys of death and Hades” (i. 18), these words are to be taken in their plain sense. He is the first Being who has both known and conquered death. The Lamb sacrificed from the world's foundation is of the same order as the Bull of Mithraism from whose sacrifice, at the beginning of time, issued the fountain of universal life. They are both mystery-images with a sacred repast as the link between them. In both cases a primeval sacrifice is the condition of salvation for the believer.
According to Couchoud, the names of evil people were written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world as effect of the sacrifice of the Lamb.
If the Book is “of the Lamb sacrificed” (genitive possessive), then the existence of the Book assumes already the existence of a Lamb sacrificed, hence these names were written in that Book AFTER the death of Jesus.
Couchoud — Carrier: 2 - 1 ?