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Originally Posted by godlovesyou  yes, i know about it. its a heretic , gnostic teaching, which does not find any support in the scriptures. we believe jesus came in flesh, was real men, and god , at the same time. heretic teachings and doctrines have existed all the time, and will find always their followers. however, if it this doctrine would be true, the coming of jesus would not have made any sense. | There have been very many people all the way back to early Christianity who do believe it makes sense. Some scholarship argues that the scriptures weren't originally historical documents. I'll give you some quotes about some scholarship on this matter. I'm sure you have little or no interest in looking into this matter, but I'm hoping you might look into it beyond a cursory glance.
Here is Robert M. Price's translation. He has a book of his translations(Pre-Nicene New Testament). Price is a mainstream scholar who belonged to the Jesus Seminar and now belongs to the Jesus Project. Quote: |
We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the archons of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,” God has revealed to us through the spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:7-9)
| Jesus Myth - The Case Against Historical Christ http://rationalrevolution.net/articl...th_history.htm Quote:
1 Corinthians 2:
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" — 10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?
This is the passage that is pointed to by those who claim that Paul did consider Jesus in a recent historical context and that he described him as a person who had recently been on earth and been executed, but there is more to this passage than first meets the eye, and secondly, this passage still gives us no details about Jesus' crucifixion; for example it does not mention Pilate, the Romans, or even the Jews, just "the rulers". And who are these rulers? The word in Greek that is originally used here is "archons", which simply means "powers", "authorities", "rulers", "princes", etc., but based on the context it can either imply "earthly rulers" or "heavenly rulers". Indeed, archons is used elsewhere in the Pauline letters to mean heavenly rulers. We also know that the word was used in the "Old Testament" to mean both earthly and heavenly rulers. Kittel's Unabridged Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, an authoritative resource on the meanings of words used in the New Testament, notes that archons is used in the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint, in relation to celestial powers whom the Messiah and his followers are in conflict with. Certainly this is the best fit for Paul's usage of the word.
| http://www.infidels.org/infidels/new...999/april.html Quote:
Christ's role at this time is a dual one. He is a present force, serving as a spiritual channel between God and the world, to whom the believer is united in mystical ways. His other role is as Savior. He had undergone sacrifice in the lower celestial realm at the hands of the demon spirits, so Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:8. It was "the rulers of this age who crucified the Lord of glory," and many liberal scholars acknowledge that the phrase refers to the demon spirits, not human authorities.
Bizarre? To our 20th century minds, perhaps. But the ancients, especially under the influence of Platonism, saw the universe as layered, with multiple spiritual levels rising above the earth to the highest heaven where God dwelled. In these spheres resided various spirits, angels, demons; salvific processes went on there. That higher realm was the "genuine reality" of which the material world was only an imperfect copy. Everything on earth had its equivalent, its ideal counterpart, in that upper realm, and thus a god could be spoken of as "man" (the ideal man, the direct copy of God), even as taking on "flesh" and "blood"--or the semblance of them, a concept found throughout early Christian literature--when he descended to the near-earth layers of heaven. Paul speaking of Christ as "of David's seed" and "born of woman" would fall under this concept, impelled by scriptural prophecies whose fulfillment was transferred to the mythical world.
The heavens also had paradigmatic figures who championed groups on earth, who underwent similar experiences to them, thereby guaranteeing benefits and salvation to those who were united with them through faith and initiation, like the Pauline baptism. This was the basis of the Graeco-Roman mystery cults, with their savior gods and goddesses. The latter's activities in the mythical world, sometimes involving suffering and death (like Attis and Dionysus), were not regarded as having taken place on earth or in history. Early Christianity was a Jewish sectarian branch of this common religious expression of the day, having its own Jewish features but with a high Hellenistic content as well. Paul's Christ Jesus was a savior god like all the rest.
This progression from a Christ who lives and operates entirely in the spirit realm, to one who comes to earth to live a life, is the course which Christianity followed over the space of its first hundred years, a process eventually to win over the entire movement, though not in all areas until the latter 2nd century, as witnessed by the many apologists outside Justin who fail to introduce any historical Jesus into their descriptions and defenses of the faith.
Scholars create an artificial picture, based largely on the Gospels, of a gradual process of deification for a human Jesus. But the earliest picture presented by the epistles shows that Christ is at his highest elevation right from the beginning. He is a cosmic saving deity who is the equal of God and bearer of all the divine titles, his throne-partner and agent of creation, the sustaining power of the universe, Lord of the world and the demon spirits, redeemer through a "blood" sacrifice. Such a cosmic deity is never equated with a Jesus of Nazareth, recently on earth. Instead, he is the reflection of the philosophical thinking of the day as expressed in concepts like the Greek Logos and Jewish personified Wisdom, which envisioned a secondary god or divine force acting as an intermediary between God and the world of humans and matter.
That a humble Jewish preacher, especially the one reputed to be found in the primitive layer of Q (which seems originally to have been a Greek Cynic product, much reworked before it reached Matthew and Luke, and pulled into the new historical Jesus orbit), could achieve such cosmic exaltation immediately after his death, and at the hands of Jews no less, is an impossible eventuality. When the Gospels were first penned, they embodied the cultic community's own experiences and doctrines, and were, I maintain, a symbolic translation of the mythical Christ Jesus into an earthly setting, not intended to represent history. Eventually, the spiritual Son and Savior was regarded as having come to earth and the Gospel story was adopted as history, leading to a recasting (as in Acts) of the early, now legendary, period of the Christian faith. A movement that had been a philosophical expression of its time, born in a thousand places with widely divergent beliefs and rituals, was pulled into one great myth of unified origins.
| This next quote is from Earl Doherty's site. His arguments are similar to Price's. http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/parttwo.htm Quote: |
"Born of woman" is a lot like another phrase used almost universally of the activities of Christ: "in flesh" (en sarki, kata sarka). It may actually mean little more than "in the sphere of the flesh" or "in relation to the flesh." In his divine form and habitat a god could not suffer, and so he had to take on some semblance to humanity (eg, Philippians 2:8, Romans 8:3); his saving act had to be a "blood" sacrifice (e.g., Hebrews 9:22) because the ancient world saw this as the basic means of communion between man and Deity; and it all had to be done within humanity's territory. But the latter could still be within those lower spiritual dimensions above the earth which acted upon the material world. And in fact this is precisely what Paul reveals. In 1 Corinthians 2:8 he tells us who crucified Jesus. Is it Pilate, the Romans, the Jews? No, it is "the rulers of this age (who) crucified the Lord of glory." Many scholars agree that he is referring not to temporal rulers but to the spirit and demonic forces—"powers and authorities" was the standard term— which inhabited the lower celestial spheres, part of the territory of "flesh."
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