Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:34 amThese "garments" are of celestial origin:
But the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are (now) stored up on high in the seventh heaven:
The garments are celestial. But the ones who will wear them are the ones who will come from "that world" — read the verse: "These garments
many from that world will receive." Where do humans come from?
Besides, in 10.8, what do you think "that world" is referring to? It is below the firmament and above sheol. What is it, in your view?
the "world" is precisely the archontic realm, while the Sheol is the his lower part, still guarded by archontes.
The "archontic realm" — what is that? What is it called in the text?
Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:34 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:23 am
I indeed say unto thee, Isaiah; No man about to return into a body of that world has ascended or seen what thou seest or perceived what thou hast perceived and what thou wilt see. [The world in which Isaiah lives.]
But here the dualism is between "that world" (archontic realm + earth, or everywhere that kind of "body" is necessary) and the celestial upper realms.
What? Isaiah is going to return to a body "of that world" — this is obviously his own human body. "That world," then,
does not exclude the realm of humans. Your "archontic realm" sounds, to be honest, like a parallel dimension or alternate reality from science fiction.
Giuseppe wrote:Ben C. Smith wrote:It is the worst.
I don't understand why it is the "worst", for you. Ben. Can you specify your pov?
The above is why. These texts are hard enough to understand without taking the easier parts and literally making them harder for no other reason than to support one's theory.
Take those celestial garments intended for humans, for example. The text is so, so clear that "the world" in question ("that world") is the world from which
those who will wear the garments are going to come. Yet you read the text as if the garments themselves come from "that world" — and the garments are celestial, therefore "that world" is celestial. It is a bizarre, inexcusable misreading of the text; and that is just the sort of thing that is required in order to sustain the idea of a Christian crucifixion in the... in the what? The firmament? The air? The "archontic realm," whatever that is?