Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Immediacy "right now ... not yet (οὔπω)" as reflected in other writers for instance Hesiod - https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt2VB ... ow&f=false

Secret Alias wrote:

I also quoted it carefully on the other thread.

Yes you quoted things from the passage and cited a Catholic article. But there is nothing in any of the things you said or cited that have any relevance to the topic. The issue comes down to Greek terminology and the natural use of οὔπω. It is hard to believe that anyone would have written you are not fully 50 years of age. Look at John 6:17 for example:

where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet (οὔπω) joined them.

Clearly the idea here is that Jesus was just about to join the group but hadn't yet. It can't be used to refer to something that might have been far off in the event horizon.

Check what I added above in my last message. In fact, a close careful reading of Irenaeus' logic requires that we see Jesus as under 40 years old in Irenaeus' mind in John 8.

I do understand where you are coming from, because of the implicit question: "Why would Ireneaus say 'not yet 50' if 40 was the closest age decade?"
What I added above explains this.
Yes I do understand that it sounds weird for me to assert this. i am stuck going by the definite logic nonetheless.

I guess you do need some openmindedness to see it though, because when people get brainlocked they just automatically ignore the opposite (in this case correct) reading, instead of very carefully considering the logic.

Remember Rakov there is a difference between 'no,' 'not' and 'not yet' or:

you can't have that cookie

and

you can't have that cookie now.

Now is an important distinction because 'now' generally is a fleeting terminology. When is now? Well it's now and then it isn't now.

In fact, a close careful reading of Irenaeus' logic requires that we see Jesus as under 40 years old in Irenaeus' mind in John 8.

I read your post and you didn't address language issues and in specific the Greek terminology and its usage elsewhere. This is the key.

Secret Alias wrote:Immediacy "right now ... not yet (οὔπω)" as reflected in other writers for instance Hesiod - https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt2VB ... ow&f=false

Sure, "right now" in John 8, Jesus was "not yet 50."
Ireneaus' logic though is that this means he was specifically 30-40 years old.
I know how weird and stupid that normally sounds.

Ireneaus

An obvious sign that someone doesn't have a clue what an ancient author thinks is when that modern writer consistently MISSPELLS his name. Shows unfamiliarity.

I know you know nothing about ancient languages and consider knowledge of ancient language immaterial or inferior to what is possible with the human imagination (maybe you think your imagination is divine I don't know) but οὔπω is a compound of οὐ + πω and πω acts like the Latin -dum where there clearly a sense of "immediate succession, so that with the commencement of one action the other ceases." The sense is that Jesus is clearly 'in his forties' and close to fifty. There is no possible argument here on your part. I don't have time for more of your bullshit. Why not see if you can perform miracles or levitate for awhile. You can't get out of this box.

John 8:57 is trivial verse. It means that Jesus is too young to be credited with wisdom. It is nothing at all

Secret Alias wrote:Remember Rakov there is a difference between 'no,' 'not' and 'not yet' or:

you can't have that cookie

and

you can't have that cookie now.

Now is an important distinction because 'now' generally is a fleeting terminology. When is now? Well it's now and then it isn't now.

Sure.
John and Irenaeus say that Jesus was not yet 50 now in John 8 but later on he would get to be over 50.
In Revelation, Jesus is seen by the old man John (once young man John) to be white in hair, decades after the Last Supper and Resurrection. He was over 50 and the Ancient of Days.

The Greek terminology translates easily enough into English in this case to get the basic idea.
I am not debating your translation either.

I am just saying that Irenaeus has this weird discussion that made me assume pretty strongly that he meant Jesus was almost 50 in John 8. Then it was only after using super close and supercritical reading that I was forced to do a 180.

Irenaeus knew the four gospels and Luke 3 says:
"Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,"

1. Irenaeus knew when this was, he knew Jesus died under Pilate, he didn't think Jesus died in 49 AD after Pilate.
2. He got into this weird passage that makes a lot of people think he meant Jesus was about 47 in John's gospel. Yes I am totally aware of how stupid this sounds.
3. He said Jesus lived into old age (past 50 or 60 or whatever), because Jesus resurrected and kept on living and went to heaven and kept living there.

A lot of the Church writers in the early period were writing to audiences then alive. They figured that if someone had a question of something they wrote that they could just ask them or some bishop what Irenaeus meant. They thought Jesus was probably coming back in their own generation. Sometimes things that were clear and known to them, say like what the appearance to the 500 referred to in 1 Cor 15, would not be clear to people centuries later. Maybe this is even more true if we are talking about the Old Testament.

But these sorts of arguments are unconvincing. Ancient texts are unstable and texts get written and rewritten over and over again. Irenaeus quotes the same passage in Mark 1:1 two different ways which accord with the two different surviving recensions. We can't use 'he must known or believed X' when the text says something else. He clearly believed something that is now at odds with Luke. In the process of arguing against the heretics who say that Jesus only lived/ministered 360 days (Clement, Origen) he argues for something like an 18 year ministry of Jesus. I don't make the texts I just fairly report what they say.