Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Why do you consult a derived - i.e. kabbalistic - interpretation when we are talking about a Hebrew word. The Queen is called Hod ha-Malka “Her Majesty the Queen” or Hod Malchutah “Her Majesty”. Do you get it now? Finally? No ... then why not.

Secret Alias wrote:.. you consult a derived - i.e. kabbalistic - interpretation when we are talking about a Hebrew word. The Queen is called Hod ha-Malka “Her Majesty the Queen” or Hod Malchutah “Her Majesty”. Do you get it now? Finally? No ... then why not?

ok. I now understand I've consulted a derived interpretation. But how different are the root concepts that Philo et al would have been consulting?

Why do you recognize that your grasping to anything which will confirm what you want to be true a priori? Zechariah is not talking about vesting the high priest with majesty, with royalty, when the king is standing there beside him. Do you understand this now? It makes no sense.

It's like having a beautiful young woman and an ugly grandmother standing side by side one another and a young suitor singing a love song and then french kissing with the old grandmother at the end of the song. It doesn't make sense. It can't be the original meaning.

Once you eliminate the possibility that Joshua is meant - or better yet - that only a pre-existent 'Jesus interest' (i.e. after the establishment of Christianity) could lead to this misinterpretation of the text, then you see how impossible Carrier's arguments are. Such an interpretation couldn't have happened before or independent of a pre-existent Jesus-cult.

Stephan's Aliass wrote:Why do you recognize that your grasping to anything which will confirm what you want to be true a priori? Zechariah is not talking about vesting the high priest with majesty, with royalty, when the king is standing there beside him. Do you understand this now? It makes no sense.

I'm not so much interested in what Zechariah is talking about: I'm interested in what Philo might have been talking about, and if that could have been further used by early Christian writers ... I'm interested in phases of evolution of the theologies

I don't follow what you mean by

... only a pre-existent 'Jesus interest' (i.e. after the establishment of Christianity) could lead to this misinterpretation of the text ...

I'm not so much interested in what Zechariah is talking about

Ah, finally at last.

I'm interested in what Philo might have been talking about,

And please explain why these are independent of one another. How do we determine that?

and if that could have been further used by early Christian writers ...

Of course once the Jesus cult was established any mention of 'Jesus,' 'wood' or any other concept that could be adapted for association with the gospel was likely used. But there is no reason to think that Philo would have lost his ability to read and interpret texts.

I'm interested in phases of evolution of the theologies

No you're interested in bolstering and making stronger unworkable theories that have no support in antiquity. If you cared about being fair to the evidence you'd find some example where Philo speaks of 'Jesus' as an angel.

The bottom line is that it is not enough to wish that Philo did what we want him to do. You have to show he did it.

I don't follow what you mean by

Either you show us that Philo did interpret the text this way or why we should believe he likely interpreted this text in this way or shut up. The point of analyzing the Greek or Hebrew text is to help us determine what is possible. It is impossible that anyone would have naturally read the passage to apply to Joshua the high priest. That someone could make the text be interpreted in a particular way because he was rabidly fixated on a particular dogma or idea - sure anything is possible. But you have to establish how Philo - without knowing anything about a 'heavenly Jesus' - would have read the text in an unnatural way. You simply have to tell us why this is likely to be true. How do we know that Philo wanted to read the text is such a way that the high priest was being clothed with royal majesty with the king looking on? Why did he want to rape the text and make it say things it couldn't naturally be interpreted as saying? You can't just side-step this question and march on to other issues or ideas. How do we know Philo liked to eat pizza? Just saying so isn't an argument.