Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Giuseppe wrote:
Alas a possible reconstruction:

1) the ''archons of this age'' are, for the historical Paul, demons pure and simple. No Romans around. Mythicist phase.

2) ''Mark'' euhemerized the mythical Christ on earth. The ''archons of this age'' become now virtually the ''Romans''.

3) but the risk for Mark is to make his enemies the same Roman leaders: as ''historical'' killers of Jesus, were they worthy of being considered ''perfects'' or insiders, when the state of spiritual perfection required (per ipsissima scripta Pauli) the impossibility of killing Christ ?

Mark resolves partially the problem by inventing the episode of the conversion of the centurion under the cross (''..this man is the Son of God!'') and by showing Pilate as a right but ignorant person: in this way it is conceded implicitly the possibility that a person who is ignorant about Christ may even so become a perfect Christian insider after the crucifixion.

Giuseppe wrote:
4) More late Christians didn't like just the elitism still found in Mark: the problem is identified in the same division between insiders and outsiders, more than in the status of the Roman leaders in the Christian Mystery.

Therefore more late Gospels resolve entirely the problem by making Pilate ... more good and ''Christian''. And Acts makes the same Paul a civis romanus.

The logic is clearly something as: if even they... ...then all...

There is not more division between insiders and outsiders. Universalism of the faith. Catholicism.

toejam wrote:I asked Ehrman on his blog ages ago whether he interpreted "archons of this age" as demonic or earthly rulers. His response was that he wasn't sure but suspected both - like how some today think the devil influences earthly people, etc. Seems you first premise, where you have Ehrman "strictly" interpreting it as only earthly is wrong.

• "the use of the word 'archons' in Romans 13 clearly means ordinary Roman leaders, not sky demons."

Who Are the Archons of This Aeon?

"... Price correctly mentioned in his opening that [the phrase “Archons of this Aeon” in 1 Corinthians 2:8] is a bizarre and vague phrase to use to describe the killers of Jesus, and that similar terminology was also known to refer to demons in the sky (literally, in the lowest sphere of outer space, the region between the earth and the moon: see OHJ, pp. 184-93, with p. 63). Ehrman tried challenging him on that in cross, by saying the use of the word “archons” in Romans 13 clearly means ordinary Roman leaders, not sky demons. Neither one of them built a clear paradigm to compare with the other’s for explanatory power; nor did either of them make any logically coherent argument for the probability of either conclusion. It was all just a waste of time as far as the audience was concerned.

"Price failed to point out the first problem with this, that Romans 13 never uses the odd phrase “Archons of this Aeon,” an extremely sweeping term that is inclusive of all the powers over the whole of the earth for what was typically a thousand year period or more. That hardly sounds like a good substitute for “Pontius Pilate,” or even “the Romans.” In his letter to the Romans, Paul only uses archon there by itself in the usual manner. He did not tack on the bizarre attribution of those ruling the aeons (or for aeons or this aeon or anything else equally bizarre). Ehrman was hiding this fact in the way he phrased his question. Price failed to call him out on that.

"Price did point out that if “archon” means the same thing in both Romans 13 and 1 Corinthians 2, then Paul was contradicting himself, saying in the one place that these archons never disobey god, and in the other that they always do. Ehrman simply bit the bullet on that one and admitted Paul contradicted himself, claiming it was for political convenience. But that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The disobedience of these archons is fundamental to the gospel. How could Paul persuade his fellow Christians of anything with an argument based on the assertion that these archons always obey God’s will, when the very core of their gospel was based on those same archons being eternally opposed to God’s will? Ehrman’s reply was illogical and unsustainable. It was, in short, paradigmaticaly improbable. Yet Price didn’t challenge him on it.

"And that was where that exchange ended.

"Why wouldn’t Price bring up any more of the above, or the even more deeply problematic fact that in 1 Cor. 2 Paul is literally saying that the archons he is there referring to would have stopped the crucifixion had they known it would defeat the power of death in the world. That does not sound like Pontius Pilate. Or the Jews. Or the Romans. None of them would have any such interest; the Romans wouldn’t have even comprehended it. Why would they have moved to stop an arcane act of blood-magic to keep themselves and everyone else mortal? This is simply not an interest any among the earthly authorities had. But it was precisely the driving interest of Satan, the “Archon of the Air” ruling “this Aeon” (Ephesians 2:2), and his dark angelic and demonic subordinates: to keep sin and death in the world (1 Corinthians 15:26, 54, etc.). Paul is saying that’s why God kept hidden from these “archons” who Jesus was, so they would kill him by mistake, thus triggering the resulting blood magic (Hebrews 9, etc.).

"As I wrote in OHJ (OHJ, pp. 564-66):

• "This cannot mean just Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin. This is everyone in power: they killed Jesus, and did so only because they were kept from knowing their doing so would save the human race. This entails a whole world order whereby if any of ‘the rulers of this age’ had known what would happen, they would have told their peers and stopped the crucifixion, to prevent its supernatural effect. This does not describe any human world order. This describes the Satanic world order, the realm of demons and fallen angelic powers.

…

• [In fact], "this exactly describes what we saw in the earlier redaction of the Ascension of Isaiah: [there,] Satan and his demons kill Jesus only because his identity was kept hidden from them, so they wouldn’t know what his death would accomplish.
  

…

• "It therefore makes more sense to conclude that it is the archons of the sky that Paul is saying God wanted to thwart by keeping all of this hidden, so they would kill Jesus, not knowing it would secure their destruction. For Paul says these archons are ‘being abolished’ (katargoumenôn, a present passive participle). This does not plausibly refer to the Jewish or Roman elite (who were still fully in power, and could still be as saved as anyone by joining Christ). It most plausibly means that those sharing in the sacrifice of Jesus now had power over the demons, to exorcise them and escape their clutches—thereby escaping the power of death. Because it is by his death that Jesus had triumphed over those dark celestial powers (just as Colossians 2:15 would later say). The early Christian scholar Origen agreed: he could only understand Paul here to be saying that unseen powers of darkness were being abolished, not any earthly authorities, and that these demonic powers were the ones who plotted against and crucified Jesus.

"So when we compare paradigms to explain the content of 1 Cor. 2:6-8, the historicity paradigm does not do a good job at all. You have to add multiple epicycles of not very probable assumptions to get it to fit. But the mythicist paradigm matches it exactly. It is, in fact, practically a summary of the Ascension of Isaiah, the one known “gospel” that has Jesus crucified by Satan in outer space. Likewise, what’s more probable, that Paul would say something so multiply inexplicable and thus so improbable about mere Roman government officials, or that he would say this if he was just summarizing a demonic narrative instead, like we find embellished later in the Ascension of Isaiah? The latter, surely. Even at best, it’s 50/50. We can’t tell.

"This is the kind of discussion that never occurred in this debate." -- http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11435

toejam wrote:^So it's clear that Carrier misunderstands Ehrman's view then...

Price did point out that if “archon” means the same thing in both Romans 13 and 1 Corinthians 2, then Paul was contradicting himself, saying in the one place that these archons never disobey god, and in the other that they always do. Ehrman simply bit the bullet on that one and admitted Paul contradicted himself, claiming it was for political convenience.

MrMacSon wrote:

toejam wrote:^So it's clear that Carrier misunderstands Ehrman's view then...

How so?