to Kapyong,
But if Christ was seen as a celestial being then he could have easily, by extension, been seen to be poor in power and humbled by descending the heavens.
Where did you read "poor
in power" in 2 Cor 8:9?
That's a bit unfair - Gospel and Acts are not sent to the trash bin - they are evaluated and then determined useless for historicity of Jesus.
What's the difference? the result is the same: useless for the historicity of Jesus. And the book OHJ is about just that, on the historicity of Jesus. So that's as good as sent to the trash can. Anyway, gospels and Acts go against mythicist theory, so it's no wonder they have to be trashed.
But the Ascension of Isaiah is a crucial text for mythicism - it deserves careful study because it describes exactly what Carrier and Doherty claim - a journey from heaven down almost to the earth.
I know that, that's a crucial text for mythicism a la Doherty & Carrier. And despite all its different versions, many signs of later Christianization through interpolations & additions, with the descent & ascension most likely written after Paul's time, it is kept in high regards because of some of its content is favorable to the theory of some mythicists. BTW, AofI does not say the Beloved does not reach earth or he was crucified by demons anywhere.
Carrier quotes 8:26 as "who shall one day descend in your form" ... But Carrier claims these passages are not present in all versions
"been made in your form" is absent in one of the Ethiopic manuscripts (b) but all others have it.
Also consider: "The ascension of Isaiah is a very corrupted and interpolated text, which is considered to have two major sections. The last one, "the vision of Isaiah", chapters 6 to 11, mainly known to us through three Ethiopic (a, b & c), two Latin (L1 & L2) and six Slavonic manuscripts (including SL2),"
From
http://historical-jesus.sosblogs.com/Hi ... b1-p73.htm
9:14 follows on with
"And the god of this world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will lay hands upon him and crucify him on a tree".
I answer that on the blog post I just indicated under the section: 3) Does Satan or/and his demons kill by himself/themselves the Beloved?
Showing that this fleshly form [Isaiah's] was the form in which he was crucified in the sub-lunar heaven.
After my analysis, I concluded AofI, as a whole, does not suggest that (I mean the sub-lunar heaven). See my indicated blog post.
But yet he actually said he was doing exactly that :
Paul wrote:
"For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one from a slave woman and one from a free woman—but the one from the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the one from the free woman by the promise. Which things are said allegorically. for these [women] are the two testaments, the first being the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to slavery. That's Hagar—Hagar meaning Mount Sinai in Arabia, which corresponds to Jerusalem now, for she is enslaved with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother ... "
No he does not: read the first sentence of the quote
"For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one from a slave woman and one from a free woman". This is not part of the allegory: it comes later. These two women are real for Paul. And even if Hagar is used in the allegory, that does not make her other than earthly human in the past.
The whole passage is allegory, starting with :
"If you are Christ's, then you [like him] are the sperm of Abraham, heirs according to the promise"
I do not read here Paul is talking about allegory. The allegory will start later, at 4:23, as Paul indicated in the following verse (4:24).
I found something strange in Carrier's argument: He acknowledges Jesus being of the seed of David, according to the flesh (which would make him a descendant of Sarah, the free woman) but Carrier has Jesus symbolically descendant of Hagar, the slave woman. Not a good match!
I have read your blogpost - if the future tense can mean Solomon, it can also mean the Messiah to come.
As for building a house - didn't Jesus build up a house that was destroyed in 3 days ?
A few rare examples of ginomai used elsewhere doesn't remove the strangeness of Paul using the word purely for Jesus and gennao elsewhere.
All in all, I don't think you have demolished Carrier's point - you have a reasonable argument, but so does he.
The context in 2 Samuel 7 says Solomon. Even Carrier said you have to pesher the text to think otherwise.
"didn't Jesus build up a house that was destroyed in 3 days". Gosh, do you really think Jesus said that? It is drawn from these gospels, which, BTW, were still not written in Paul's times.
Ginomai is used, as I explained, to take in account, for Paul, Jesus was pre-existent and therefore not born, as starting his life after birth from a woman. Instead "made/become/come from a woman" suggests the mean of incarnation, away from the birthing process.
I think Carrier's argument is fine - in the case of mythicism, something like this makes perfect sense. Carrier's argument is to assume mythicism then see if the evidence supports it, then to assume historicism and see if the evidence supports that. In this case, assuming mythicism produces a result that fits quite well.
Carrier admitted twice the need of imagination in order to arrive to the desired conclusion.
Cordially, Bernard
