Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Sheshbazzar wrote:
I am not at all denying what the reading of our 'received' texts indicate, that being that all these persons did with their eyes actually see a visible apparition 'figure' of the resurrected Christus Iesus. That is what the text now states. No argument there.

Hello Sheshbazzar, since I think we're in agreement about what the received text states, I venture as a point of interest to throw in the reference to LSJ s.v. ὁράω IV. They give as one of the senses of this verb "to see visions" and cite LXX Numbers 24:3 and 24:15, ὁ ἀληθινῶς ὁρῶν. Then they cite for the passive, "appear in a vision" and cite LXX. Judges 13:3, ὤφθη ἄγγελος πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα.

I abbreviate yours in what follows:

My argument as I have previously explained is centered upon Paul's repeated "according to THE Scriptures:" in which Paul's point of reference is NOT that of himself or the others mentioned being literal 'eye witnesses' present to behold a man 'Christ dying for our sins', 'buried', rising again on 'the third day', or of himself or these others reporting having viewed an after death visible magical apparition of a living dead person.

Paul's actual point of reference in these texts is that these things are "according to THE Scriptures" and are the fulfilling of things which are "according to THE Scriptures".
Paul's arguments here and elsewhere does not at all center upon testimony of any (alleged) eyewitnesses to appearances of post-mortem apparitions, a twist upon his words that was introduced latter.

I understand your position. I'm not convinced, because, as I said before, in I Cor. 15:3-8, "according to the scriptures" is a qualifier only of "died for our sins" and "has been raised on the third day." As you point out, this phrase is not attached to any of the instances of "was seen/appeard", ὤφθη. We agree that Paul appeals to the scriptures. I do not agree with the further conclusion that Paul does not also appeal to what he says he and others saw. First, the text does not signal that "was seen" must mean "was understood" or the like. Second, I think you're introducing a limitation that isn't stated in the text. There's no requirement that all actions described in vv. 3-8 have to be foretold in the scriptures because two of them are said to have been foretold there.

I am aware that there is controversy over what Paul means by "I received/took over", παρέλαβον. The most straightforward way to construe it is as reciprocal to παρέδωκα, i.e. "I handed over to you" what someone else handed over to me. Paul effaces the identity of this someone else by putting παρέλαβον in first person singular, so as to put his action, not some reporter's action, at center stage. If Paul had "taken over" all this info only from the LXX, why say Jesus ὤφθη ἐπάνω πεντακοσκίοις ἀδελφοῖς ἐφάπαξ - "was seen by/appeared to over five hundred brethren at one time"? It's weird to say that over 500 people "at one time" came to a conclusion from their study of the scriptures.

Anyway, that's all I can add. I don't share your confidence in branding these verses as "theologically doctored" because they appeal to a source of information other than the scriptures. That move seems circular to me.

Sheshbazzar wrote:In sum, my position firmly remains that Paul's words and arguments were early on wrested, distorted, altered, and 'theologically doctored' so as to conform to the evolving superstitious and ignorant interpretations of a gentile death-cults insane zombie god form of religion.

What Christianity has thus created, is not what Paul taught, and is not at all a religion that is "according to THE Scriptures", in accord with The (Hebrew) Scriptures, nor supportable by The Scriptures of Israel.

Orthodox Christianity as it is taught, is a massive monstrous perversion of Paul's Epistles.

And it's not as if the set of all Pauline "Correspondence" was not originally massively and monstrously perverted.

The Petrine Epistles as well as the Christian Gospels and Book of Acts are all non-authentic, non-historical, pseudographical fabrications.

Where's all this leading LOL? Maybe Papias was the fabricator? We don't know.



LC

ficino wrote: It's weird to say that over 500 people "at one time" came to a conclusion from their study of the scriptures.

It may be weird, but really not all that unusual in the history of religion, for a crowd of hundreds, even thousands, to hear a well delivered and persuasive Scripture citing sermon, and to in a single day, come to a common understanding and conclusion regarding its correct interpretation and application; To 'see' by Scripture that Christ suffered, died, resurrected and was so 'seen' by others, both those now asleep, and those that yet abide, but none need ever have 'seen' an apparition of a living dead Jewish zombie.

Seriously, I believe that Paul, even holding his vision of a cosmic redeeming Christos, still held to the common hope of his nation for the birth of a normal, fully human Jewish Messiah warlord that in a time of severe troubles, would arise from among his people (the Jews and religion of the Jews) and restore the fortunes and pride of the Jewish people, and institute universal observance of the 'Jewish' Sabbaths and religious Feasts by ALL nations, and here on earth, as is taught by the Jewish Prophets.

Take hold of the skirt of any Scripture learned Jew, and he will be able to show verse by verse of Scripture, why 'according to The Scriptures' that mythical creature/person presented within the NT cannot be that human Jewish Messiah King taught of by the Prophets.

James D.G. Dunn writes that, whereas the apostle Paul's resurrection experience was "visionary in character" and "non-physical, non-material," the accounts in the Gospels are very different. He contends that the "massive realism'...of the [Gospel] appearances themselves can only be described as visionary with great difficulty.

But they're easily explained as fiction. God, I hate this kind of apologist anti-logic. You can say the same thing about Godzilla.

NT Wright is just lying when he says Paul believed in a physical resurrection and Ehrman has changed his view and no longer believes the empty tomb is historical.

The empty tomb has no attestation before Mark's Gospel and no corroboration independent of it. It's unknown by Paul, Q or Thomas. It's historically implausible. It's a made up story.

If there was a Jesus, he was either left on the cross to rot or dumped in a criminals' pit.

And in point of fact, there is no reason the body couldn't have been stolen or misplaced, or (more plausible yet) only put into a tomb temporarily to keep it from cursing the land underneath it, then disposed of it immediately after sundown on Saturday (the end of the Sabbath).

Any tomb at all is unlikely, though. The fact that it took at least 40 years for anybody to mention it convinces me of that.

ficino wrote: I am aware that there is controversy over what Paul means by "I received/took over", παρέλαβον. The most straightforward way to construe it is as reciprocal to παρέδωκα, i.e. "I handed over to you" what someone else handed over to me. Paul effaces the identity of this someone else by putting παρέλαβον in first person singular, so as to put his action, not some reporter's action, at center stage. If Paul had "taken over" all this info only from the LXX, why say Jesus ὤφθη ἐπάνω πεντακοσκίοις ἀδελφοῖς ἐφάπαξ - "was seen by/appeared to over five hundred brethren at one time"? It's weird to say that over 500 people "at one time" came to a conclusion from their study of the scriptures.

I should have noted Paul's use of the same conjunction of verbs at I Cor. 11:23, "For I received/took over, παρέλαβον, from the Lord what I also handed over to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night..." etc. On the one hand, Paul is not crediting info about the bread and cup to any other apostle. On the other hand, he claims that he's "taking over" info, not from the LXX, but "from the Lord."

Sheshbazzar wrote: The root word translated a 'seen' here is ὁράω 'horaō' which does not necessarily mean to 'see' with the eyes, but to 'perceive', 'to become acquainted with by experience', 'to look to', 'to pay heed to'; Acts 8:23 'perceive', Heb 2:8 'But now we see not yet all things put under him.' Heb 11:27 'he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.' (see NIV & NLT), James 2:24 'You see then that a man is justified by works', and many more such.

Probably someone has done a study of uses of ὁράω. Sheshbazzar, from what I've seen in various authors, when that verb is used of intellectual perception, usually some predicate is attributed to something. The commonly-used constructions are:
A I see X as being F, with participle
B I see that, ὅτι, X is F.

In your instructive examples, Acts 8:23 and Heb. 2:8 are instances of A, with participles (σε ὄντα, πάντα ... ὑποτεταγμένα). James 2:24 is an instance of B (ὅτι ... δικαιοῦται). Heb. 11:27 just gives us an implied direct object, but ὡς ὁρῶν is a simile. So the comparison seems to be made with physical sight.

In the I Cor 15 passage we were talking about, Paul doesn't say that Jesus "was seen" to have some predicate. We don't have "Christ was seen as F by Cephas," or "it was seen by Cephas that Christ was F," but just, "Christ.... was seen by Cephas/appeared to Cephas," in the way that the angel appeared to/was seen by the woman in Judges 13:3 in the LXX.

So I'm not finding compelling reason to deny that in vv. 3-8, Paul claims that appearances of Christ to certain people occurred.

I note that the apparatus criticus in my NT text says that ὁ καὶ παρέλαβον does not appear in various early writers: Marcion, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Hilary. Maybe that phrase is interpolated.

The context of applying ὁράω matters, too. In "I see the tree," the D.O. is a sensible. So we assume that sight has its primary meaning, physical perception. In "I see that you're describing a tree," or "I see no reason to suppose this is a tree," the D.O's are a proposition and a reason, not sensibles. We assume there that sight has its secondary meaning of intellectual perception through some process of reasoning. Since Paul can speak of the Lord Jesus Christ's glorious body, to likeness to which our mortal bodies aspire (Phil. 3:21), I would think that the primary meaning of "see" is in play in sentences like "Christ... was seen" - whatever Paul may think about the optics of seeing a glorious body.

ficino wrote:It's weird to say that over 500 people "at one time" came to a conclusion from their study of the scriptures.

Perhaps a little odd. But not as weird as the other options. It would be weirder yet for 500 people to all have the very same hallucination or very same religious vision all “at one time". Or for 500 people to witness an executed criminal --- 3 days dead --- risen from the dead and walking among them.

500 people gaining knowledge from the Jewish scriptures (LXX) is something that could have occurred in the natural world and is, IMO, by far the least weird option ---- especially compared to the supernatural options. And one must give allowance for so many events described in this fashion, in such a short, poetic, formulaic passage --- events that Paul had had previously described to the Corinthians, likely with more elaboration.

For a more detailed interpretation of the entire kerygma passage see here ---

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=674



In relation to Paul’s belief in a physical resurrection (from another thread I think) --- Paul’s early beliefs are not entirely clear. But in response to skepticism on the part of some among his sophisticated Corinthian congregation --- Paul clearly walks back the idea of a physical resurrection and clearly states several times that the resurrection will take place in a “spiritual body”. And since Christ was the “firstfruits” of the resurrection, one could assume the resurrection of Jesus Christ (according to Paul) was also in the form of a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:12-57).

Perhaps Paul was facing skepticism in relation to what may have been common knowledge among many Greeks that the body was a prison of sorts, and only upon death was the spirit or soul set free from the prison of the physical body.

robert j wrote:

ficino wrote:It's weird to say that over 500 people "at one time" came to a conclusion from their study of the scriptures.

Perhaps a little odd. But not as weird as the other options. It would be weirder yet for 500 people to all have the very same hallucination or very same religious vision all “at one time". Or for 500 people to witness an executed criminal --- 3 days dead --- risen from the dead and walking among them.

500 people gaining knowledge from the Jewish scriptures (LXX) is something that could have occurred in the natural world and is, IMO, by far the least weird option ---- especially compared to the supernatural options. And one must give allowance for so many events described in this fashion, in such a short, poetic, formulaic passage --- events that Paul had had previously described to the Corinthians, likely with more elaboration.

I like your suggestion in your post from June, which you linked, robert, that 500 is not meant literally. In Latin, one often finds 600 used just of a large number - sort of the way we say "millions" and the like in English. Although here we have "above 500" - not sure what the qualifier does to your suggestion.

I was not suggesting, though, that we should believe that lots of people saw Jesus walking around, or that they actually experienced the same hallucination at once. I was only talking about how Paul represents the matter.

I have read, though, that there are cases where large numbers of people claim to have seen something at the same time. In some cases, it turns out they could not have seen it. Dale C. Allison describes the affair of the alleged St. George miracle of Mons in 1914. Hundreds of British soldiers claimed they saw archers in the sky, arrayed like Henry's men at Agincourt, defending their retreat from the Germans. It seems the whole story started with a piece of fiction in the newspaper, the author of which later could not convince people that the story began as fiction. Similarly with reports of visions of Mary at Fatima and elsewhere. So I can't exclude Paul's having heard about people who swore, yes, we all saw Him, and I was wearing a pink boa and gold sandals...

I still think it's weird for him to mean to tell the Corinthians, lots of people heard a sermon and all agreed with its interpretation, and though some of them are dead now, you can go to Palestine and interview the survivors. ?

matthew wrote that the romans put a sign above jesus' head which read

"this is jesus the king of the jews" (matthew 27:37)

why would you want people to see a sign with no body attached to the cross?
doesn't this mean that body was left to rot on the cross?

robert j wrote:

ficino wrote:It's weird to say that over 500 people "at one time" came to a conclusion from their study of the scriptures.

Perhaps a little odd. But not as weird as the other options. It would be weirder yet for 500 people to all have the very same hallucination or very same religious vision all “at one time". Or for 500 people to witness an executed criminal --- 3 days dead --- risen from the dead and walking among them.

500 people gaining knowledge from the Jewish scriptures (LXX) is something that could have occurred in the natural world and is, IMO, by far the least weird option ---- especially compared to the supernatural options. And one must give allowance for so many events described in this fashion, in such a short, poetic, formulaic passage --- events that Paul had had previously described to the Corinthians, likely with more elaboration.

For a more detailed interpretation of the entire kerygma passage see here ---

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=674



In relation to Paul’s belief in a physical resurrection (from another thread I think) --- Paul’s early beliefs are not entirely clear. But in response to skepticism on the part of some among his sophisticated Corinthian congregation --- Paul clearly walks back the idea of a physical resurrection and clearly states several times that the resurrection will take place in a “spiritual body”. And since Christ was the “firstfruits” of the resurrection, one could assume the resurrection of Jesus Christ (according to Paul) was also in the form of a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:12-57).

Perhaps Paul was facing skepticism in relation to what may have been common knowledge among many Greeks that the body was a prison of sorts, and only upon death was the spirit or soul set free from the prison of the physical body.

Robert J stated: Paul clearly walks back the idea of a physical resurrection and clearly states several times that the resurrection will take place in a “spiritual body”.

*************

Granted, Paul makes it clear flesh and blood [humans in current form] cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor 15:50. However, how do you account for: For this perishable body must put on imperishably, and this mortal body must put on immortality."...1 Cor 15:53

Clearly Paul is talking about a physical resurrection but not the reanimation of the corrupt physical body. Paul is speculating that it will be a physical form and the soul will be reunited with the body but purified and reshaped to its original intended form. Perhaps a bit too much of gnostic ideology but Paul is clearly stating that the essence of the human design, i.e. body and soul will remain.

John T