Carrier versus Hurtado about what there was in the mind of Philo

[GakuseiDon]

.. Hurtado's point is that Philo's Logos is not an archangel, in the sense of being a separate ontological being, like the archangels Michael and Gabriel.

Whether that impacts on Dr Carrier's point is a separate matter.

Hurtado (and anyone else's) comparison of Philo's unnamed angel in 'On the confusion of tongues XXVIII, (146) to Michael or Gabriel is disingenuous.

That's my comparison, so it is me being disingenuous, just to be clear. Dr Hurtado's view is that "[Philo's] Logos is not really a separate ontological being, not really an “archangel.”"

Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names", which Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel". Can we at least agree on that much? I just want to keep clear what is actually being argued by Hurtado and Dr Carrier.

[MrMacSon]

... Dr Hurtado's view is that "[Philo's] Logos is not really a separate ontological being, not really an “archangel”."

Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names", which Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel". Can we at least agree on that much? I just want to keep clear what is actually being argued by Hurtado and Dr Carrier.

As you have said -

Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names"
.

so, if

Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel"

He had better have a good explanation why he ignores the fact that

.
Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names"
.

And, as I have been at pains to point out, twice, it this thread, there are other contexts around that.

Philo clearly is referring to a heirarchy (I just noticed the irony of arch in heirarchy). Philo is clearly not prepared for this entity to be called "a son of God", but he is setting it/Him up to 'labour earnestly to be adorned' -

let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names;

... for he is called, 'the authority', and 'the name of God', and 'the Word'

[GakuseiDon]

He had better have a good explanation why he ignores the fact that "Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names"

In your view he doesn't have a good explanation. Fair enough. Still: Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names", which Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel". Can we at least agree on that much? I just want to keep clear what is actually being argued by Hurtado and Dr Carrier.

[MrMacSon]

... Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names", which Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel". Can we at least agree on that much? I just want to keep clear what is actually being argued by Hurtado and Dr Carrier.

On 2 Dec Hurtado wrote -

I cite from one of [Carrier's] blog-postings in which he states concisely his claims:

“that Christianity may have been started by a revealed [i.e., 'mythical'] Jesus rather than a historical Jesus is corroborated by at least three things: the sequence of evidence shows precisely that development (from celestial, revealed Jesus in the Epistles, to a historical ministry in the Gospels decades later), all similar savior cults from the period have the same backstory (a cosmic savior, later historicized), and the original Christian Jesus (in the Epistles of Paul) sounds exactly like the Jewish archangel Jesus, who certainly did not exist. So when it comes to a historical Jesus, maybe we no longer need that hypothesis.” - http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... otnote1sym [at end]

Carrier’s three claims actually illustrate his lack of expertise in the relevant field, and show why his “mythical Jesus” doesn’t get much traction among scholars. Let’s start with the third claim. There is no evidence whatsoever of a “Jewish archangel Jesus” in any of the second-temple Jewish evidence^a. We have references to archangels, to be sure, and with various names such as Michael, Raphael, Yahoel, and Ouriel. We have references to other heavenly beings too, such as the mysterious Melchizedek in the Qumran texts. Indeed, in second-temple Jewish texts and (later) rabbinic texts there is a whole galaxy of named angels and angel ranks.[iv] But, I repeat, there is no such being named “Jesus.” Instead, all second-temple instances of the name are for historical figures.[v] So, the supposed “background” figure for Carrier’s “mythical” Jesus is a chimaera, an illusion in Carrier’s mind based on a lack of first-hand familiarity with the ancient Jewish evidence.[vi]

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017 ... -scholars/

a. No, there's not. But Carrier's argument is an induction; Hurtado doesn't get that.


Later, Hurtado says -

.. Paul never refers to Jesus as an angel or archangel.[xvii] Indeed, a text such as Romans 8:38-39 seems to make a sharp distinction between angelic powers and the exalted Kyrios Jesus ... Jesus had a heavenly back-story or divine “pre-existence” (e.g., Philippians 2:6-8), this in 'no way' 'worked against' 'Paul’s view of Jesus' as also 'a real, historical human being' [lol].

---

In his next post on 4 Dec, Hurtado said

I focused on three claims that Richard Carrier posits as corroborating his hypothesis that “Jesus” was originally a “celestial being” or “archangel,” not a historical figure, and that this archangel got transformed into a fictional human figure across several decades of the first century CE. I showed that the three claims are all false, which means that his hypothesis has no corroboration.

1. There is no evidence of “a Jewish archangel Jesus”. All known figures bearing the name are portrayed as human and historical figures. Furthermore, contra Carrier, Paul never treats Jesus as an archangel, but instead emphasizes his mortal death and resurrection, and mentions his birth, Davidic descent, and Jewishness, cites teachings of Jesus, and refers to his personal acquaintance with Jesus’ siblings.

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017 ... tal-flaws/

Julian wrote

• Prof. Hurtado,
  I just read Neil Godfrey’s reply. He mentions Richard Carrier’s discussion of Philo’s reference to an archangel Jesus. I haven’t read Carrier’s book, so I can’t evaluate his discussion. I’m curious if you have read it. If so, what is your opinion of it?

• larryhurtado -
  I don’t need to read Carrier. I’ve read Philo. He doesn’t mention an archangel Jesus^x.

x It seems that Hurtado has not read the relevant passage - De Confusione Linguarum, 145-6

See below (tl;dr, the last section) ....

---

Not much in Hurtado's next post Dec 6, titled "Focus, Focus, Focus", though he gets challenged in the comments, but not about archangels per se.

Paxton Marshall
“The Pauline question is whether His letters treat Jesus as a real historical figure”.

Just because Paul believed Jesus was a real historical figure doesn’t mean it’s true. Besides asking if his letters treat Jesus as a real historical figure, shouldn’t we go beyond that and look for evidence that his belief is true? Or at least look to see what evidence he presents that his belief is true. I’m not saying there is none. He claims to have met Jesus’ brother and some disciples. But does he mention any conversation with them or information from them about this man/God he worships? Wouldn’t that have been useful information for the Christians he was writing too. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that for Paul, Jesus was a savior god, not a man. And if he had to die and be resurrected in order to fill that role, it was still his death and resurrection Paul was interested in, not his life.

I’m not saying that Paul’s indifference or ignorance of Jesus’ life means that Jesus didn’t exist. I’m just saying that the evidence of Paul is not sufficient to conclude that he did.

larryhurtado
Paxton; Again, please focus! The claim that I addressed in my posting was that for Paul Jesus was simply a “celestial being” with no historical/earthly existence. That’s blatantly incorrect. So, our earliest witness who takes us back to within 1-3 years after Jesus’ execution identifies Jesus’ siblings, and knows Jesus to have been born, and crucified. The Pauline evidence is sufficient to show that Carrier’s portrayal of Paul is false. That will do for now.


Paxton Marshall
“The earliest circles of the Jesus movement ransacked their scriptures to try to understand the events of Jesus”.

But isn’t it just as possible that some of these early Christians imagined a character who fulfilled the prophecies of scripture? Was it Jesus first, scripture second; or scripture first, Jesus second, as with the Book of Mormon.

larryhurtado
Paxton: First, I don’t get the reference to the book of Mormon. In it the angel Moroni is never posited as an earthly figure, whereas the NT consistently makes this claim. Here’s a better analogy: In the Qumran texts the “teacher of righteousness” is portrayed via various OT texts. He was, it appears, an important figure in the early (foundational) period of the Qumran sect, and the sect applied various OT texts to him. This is pretty much what happened with Jesus.


Paxton Marshall
“The question is whether the gospels are best accounted for as literary productions that incorporate a body of prior traditions about Jesus of Nazareth. ”

But doesn’t this just push the question back a generation. A body of prior traditions does not mean the subject of those traditions actually existed. We have a body of prior traditions about Santa Claus , Robin Hood, and King Arthur. There is no good evidence any of them existed.

larryhurtado
Paston: Once again, focus on the issue. The claim I addressed in my posting was whether the Gospels represent some radical “historicization” of a previously “mythical/fictional” figure. My point was that scholarly analysis agrees that the Gospels instead draw upon a prior body of traditions about Jesus that go back decades earlier. Of course, these traditions include legendary embroiderment. But that’s what happens to historical figures of importance.

---

On a second Dec 6 blog-post, Hurtado posted a link to an essay Does Philo Help Explain Early Christianity? in which his conclusion said

For New Testament scholars, Philo is a resource of unsurpassed value, especially for developing a sense of what Diaspora Judaism represented. In Philo’s voluminous body of extant works, we have a major reservoir of material that is probably not yet studied adequately.

and there is this exchange (an aside) -

Donald Jacobs
I’m a bit disappointed you never discuss where Philo talks about Jesus as a celestial being before he was characterised as a human being on earth. Which is discussed in the book by Carrier that you recently reviewed without reading.

larryhurtado
No, Donald. Philo doesn’t “talk about Jesus as a celestial being”. Philo refers to the figure in Zechariah 6 (the priest Joshua, Greek: Jesus), but cites his name as “anatole” (Greek: “rising”), and then, using his allegorical approach free-associates this term with other texts. I’ve read Carrier’s discussion and it’s muddled.

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017 ... istianity/

---

On 7 Dec, Hurtado wrote -

I have read those pages of his book (200-205) where he discusses the relevant passage in Philo (De Confusione Linguarum, 62-63; Philo citing and allegorizing a passage in the OT book, Zechariah 6:11-12).

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017 ... lly-upset/

Note that Hurtado does not refer to De Confusione Linguarum, 145-6.


Later, in his Dec 7 post, Hurtado says

In short, in De Confusione, Philo wasn’t positing or developing any “archangel named Jesus.” Philo wasn’t talking about archangels at all there¹, and neither he nor the Zechariah text calls the anatole figure “Jesus”.²
.

Of course Hurtado says that, because

1. Hurtado has not read the relevant passage, and
   .
2. he has not realised there is an induction/inference in Carrier's argument.

---

[GakuseiDon]

Thanks for your long response MrMacSon, but I'm a bit confused by it. Perhaps a simple 'yes' or 'no' might be clearer, if it is possible? Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names", which Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel". Can we at least agree on that much? I just want to keep clear what is actually being argued by Hurtado and Dr Carrier.

[Giuseppe]

The Logos is "the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel". I think that is what Dr Hurtado is getting at. The Logos is not an archangel as such. Hurtado is right in that. Whether that actually rebuts Dr Carrier's point or not is a separate question.

Hurtado isn't even getting that. He has denied explicitly that the Philo's Logos is an archangel (not even if it is allegorized by Melkizedek for Philo, and Melkizedek was notoriously an archangel for the essenes).

Yes, and in my view Dr Hurtado is correct. "Florence Nightingale is an angel of mercy". Is that calling her an angel, in the sense of her being a heavenly creature? No. Similarly, Hurtado's point is that Philo's Logos is not an archangel, in the sense of being a separate ontological being, like the archangels Michael and Gabriel. Whether that impacts on Dr Carrier's point is a separate matter.

I'm happy to agree to disagree, but lets be accurate about reporting the arguments.

I have thought that Hurtado is saying (I hope) something of different:

the Logos (for Philo) is x [=put here the Hurtado's definition of someone more great than an archangel] therefore the Logos is also an archangel (even if the his being archangel is only an effect of the his truer original essence).

While Carrier is saying that:

the Logos (for Philo) is both x [=put here the Hurtado's definition of someone more great than an archangel] and an archangel.

GDon is saying something of still more different:

the Logos (for Philo) is x [=put here the Hurtado's definition of someone more great than an archangel] and not, never!, an archangel.


If really the Hurtado's view coincides with the GDon's view, then, put bluntly, that view is against the evidence in Philo:

nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel.

Philo allegorizes the Garden of Eden: for him, the Eden was not a real earthly garden. Therefore he doesn't like the literalist interpretation of Eden as an earthly garden.

But Hurtado can't say that Philo allegorizes the Logos as an archangel, meaning that the Logos was not really an archangel. Since Philo, in the quote above reported, wants explicitly that the Logos is called archangel.

P. S. In other points, Philo identifies the Logos with Melkizedek (a real archangel for the essenes).

[Peter Kirby]

Thanks for your long response MrMacSon, but I'm a bit confused by it. Perhaps a simple 'yes' or 'no' might be clearer, if it is possible? Philo calls the Logos "the great archangel of many names", which Hurtado seems to suggest means something other than "the Logos is an actual archangel". Can we at least agree on that much? I just want to keep clear what is actually being argued by Hurtado and Dr Carrier.

This thread has left me unconvinced of the points you've made to interpret Hurtado. You have suggested that Hurtado was fully aware that Philo explicitly referred to the Logos as an "archangel" when he wrote his blog post. It's possible -- communication is hard -- but I'm not convinced.

Suppose you're right there. I don't think this would be very flattering to Hurtado. If you're right, Hurtado is being sly. If you're right, he knows full well that the Logos is called an archangel in Philo, but he chooses to obfuscate his discussion of the issue in order to make it sound like a much more impressive takedown of Carrier than it actually is. The implication of your view is that Hurtado is, in a way, intentionally malicious.

This is possible, but I think there is a better explanation. Hurtado assumes that Carrier is a crank. Hurtado assumes that cranks are likely to have crackpot ideas. When Hurtado is talking about Carrier, he doesn't put as much effort into fact-checking that he might otherwise do. So, if Hurtado were correcting someone else -- Bart Ehrman, for example -- you can be darn well sure Hurtado would be busy crossing all his Ts and dotting all his Is so that there would be no unforced errors. Hurtado would assume that Ehrman's positions had at least a good chance of being well-researched and would take care to do impeccable study before contradicting him. Hurtado doesn't have that same assumption in the case of Carrier, which in a sort of irony makes Hurtado himself relatively unreliable -- at least when trying to do a rhetorical slam dunk on someone that he despises and thinks little of.

And the better explanation has better evidence in the text:

Now in Philo’s thought (which, it appears, Carrier hasn’t researched adequately in the six years he devoted to his project), the Logos is not really a separate ontological being, not really an “archangel.” ...

In short, in De Confusione, Philo wasn’t positing or developing any “archangel named Jesus.” Philo wasn’t talking about archangels at all there,

Let's repeat that: In the De Confusione, Philo wasn’t talking about archangels at all there.

This is the kind of thing that makes "amateurs" have no doubt that we're every bit as good as the so-called "professionals." They have devoted 5 years to grad school and can claim a mastery of Greek, but dammit if they don't have a lot riding on the outcome. What could be said to be true for the investing world, is also true for this field -- you can have all the brains in the world, but if you don't have simple basic character traits, you will fail. If you are lazy, you will fail. If you are inflexibly minded, you will fail. In this field, of course, your failures become books, and you have tenure.

Anybody -- absolutely anybody with an internet connection and the ability to read English -- can find the text here:

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... ook15.html

Then they can do the scholarly trick of using CTRL-F and looking for 'archangel', finding it here:

And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel.

Marvel in the fact that Hurtado was wrong and that Hurtado's arrogance, prejudice, and laziness rendered all his credentials and all his years of study to a big fat nothing when he sat down trying to explain once and for all, to the world, why his little guild is the way it is.

[Giuseppe]

In an Italian (scholarly) translation of the passage, I see that it is even more evident the fact that Philo wants that the Logos is called Archangel:

I translate in English:

And even if there was someone who is not even worthy of being called "Son of God", hasten to get in tune with His eldest son, the Logos, the most venerable of the angels, we could say the Archangel.

(28:146-148)

[Giuseppe]

Said this, and closing the off topic raised by GDon, I suggest that a better way to choose the winner among Hurtado and Carrier is to do the following experiment:

Assume, pace Hurtado, that there are not two figures in the Philo's interpretation of the passage.

Assume freely that in Zechariah the guy who is hailed as Anatole is not named ''Joshua'' but, for example, ''John''.

What Carrier is saying is that Philo was interested in the passage basically because his goal, from the start, was to call the his arcangelic Logos as ''John'', via Anatole.

Alternatively, for Hurtado, Philo would be interested to quote implicitly Zechariah only in order to call his Logos as ''anatole''. And only as collateral effect, the his archangelic Logos would take the name of ''John'', since ''John'' appears in Zechariah as the guy hailed as ''ANATOLE''.

From this POV, I think that Hurtado is right. What galvanizes Philo is basically and principally the being who is named ANATOLE (for the importance received by him), totally teyond if in Zechariah he is the same guy being called ''John'' or ''Joshua'' or ''Louis''.

At any case, pace Carrier and twice pace Hurtado, I think that the best evidence of a pre-christian archangel Joshua is the ''Angel of God'' with ''the name of God in him'' who not-coincidentially was predicted to do the same things that in the real History the hero Joshua did: to conquer the Promised Land.

[Kapyong]

Here is the Loeb original:

κἂν μηδέπω μέντοι τυγχάνῃ τις ἀξιόχρεως ὢν υἱὸς θεοῦ προσαγορεύεσθαι, σπουδαζέτω κοσμεῖσθαι κατὰ τὸν πρωτόγονον αὐτοῦ λόγον, τὸν ἀγγέλων πρεσβύτατον, ὡς ἂν ἀρχάγγελον, πολυώνυμον ὑπάρχοντα

Their translation :

But if there be any as yet unfit to be called a Son of God, let him press to take his place under God’s First-born, the Word, who holds the eldership among the angels, their ruler as it were.