THE JESUS PUZZLE
Was There No Historical Jesus?
Earl Doherty
Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case
One:
Bernard Muller
(with contributions from Richard
Carrier)
PART TWO
The Ascension of Isaiah, The
Epistle to the Hebrews
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In Part Two of this response to Bernard Muller's critique of The Jesus Puzzle, the
material to be covered will include a lengthy discussion of the
Ascension of Isaiah, as well as the Epistle to the Hebrews. As in Part
One, I am incorporating remarks by Richard Carrier, whose commentary on
Muller's critique of The Jesus Puzzle
was circulated about a year ago by e-mail.
Bernard Muller's critique of The
Jesus Puzzle can be found, in two parts, at: http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp1.html
and http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/djp2.html
Again, I
will
be quoting much of Muller's and Carrier's texts, but I will mark
hiatuses, and the odd
insertion of my own will be in italics in square brackets. (Muller's
text, with color scheme
preserved, will
be indented, while quotes from Carrier will be in
red, also indented.)
The
Ascension of Isaiah
Carrier's comments on Muller's treatment
of The Ascension of Isaiah were extensive, and I have a fair amount to
say on my own behalf.
Carrier also quoted whole passages of the Ascension, which will serve
as reproductions of the text, parts of which I will occasionally
repeat. Muller begins:
For
Doherty, the main evidence about a
descending Son/god is "in
a Jewish/Christian piece of writing called the Ascension
of
Isaiah". He asserts "here we can find
corroboration for
this picture of a divine Son who descends into the lower reaches of
the
heavens to be crucified by the demon spirits."
This text appears to be
composite,
originally Jewish parts recycled with Christian insertions &
additions.
Here is Doherty's own appraisal: "... the several surviving
manuscripts differ considerably in
wording, phrases and even whole sections. It has been subjected to much editing in a complicated and uncertain
pattern of
revision." But later Earl will
"guess" which parts are reliable and early! (which
happen to be the ones fitting his agenda!!!)
2.5.1 Dating of 'the
Ascension of Isaiah':
It is normally dated 150-200 in its final (Christian) edition; that's
some
three to four generations after Paul's times, and well after the
writing of
gospels, and during the Gnostic era!
2.5.1.1. This dating is somewhat justified by
strong Docetist
innuendoes in the Christian parts (except 3:13-4:22). Let's review them:
a) 9:13 "...
He has descended and been made in your form [Isaiah], and they will think
that He is flesh and is a man."
b) 10:17 to 10:30: the Son keeps changing his physical appearance in
order not
to be detected when he goes down through the lower heavens and below.
c) Mary gives birth without experiencing labour
pain
(11:14).
d) 11:17
"And I saw: In
Nazareth
He sucked the breast as a babe and as is customary in order that He
might not
be recognized." (Jesus does
not
require food: typical 2nd century Docetism)
[Where in this verse does it say that
Jesus did not require food? Isn't breast milk food?]
Note:
the Christian
interpolations look very much dependant on the gospels, more so
Matthew's (and
very likely Peter's, written in the 2nd century):
a) 3:13 "He should before
the sabbath be crucified"
b) 3:14: the sepulchre
is watched.
c) 3:16: the sepulchre
is open by angels "on
the third day".
d)
11:2-5,15 "And
they took Him, and went to Nazareth in Galilee."
f) 11:19-20 "... they delivered Him to
the king,
and crucified Him ... In Jerusalem indeed I was Him being
crucified
on a tree" (in true Docetist fashion, Isaiah is substituted to Jesus
on the
cross! For Gnostic Basilides (120-140), it
is Simon
of Cyrene --Irenaeus,
AH,
I, 24, 4)
[This is absurd. The text does not
say this, especially in the midst of an historicist insertion about a
Jesus born and died on earth, with no docetic features. The verse in
question is translated: "In Jerusalem, indeed, I saw how they crucified
him on a tree..." Where Muller gets the idea—or the wording—that Isaiah himself is crucified as a
substitute for Jesus is beyond comprehension. I am tempted to compare
him with Don Quixote (or is it Connecticut Yankee?), who "dashes madly
off in all directions."]
Muller makes a number of basic mistakes here. First, he treats all
parts of the composite Ascension of Isaiah as if the document were a
unity from the beginning. In fact, they began life as two separate
pieces: chapters 1 to 5, known as The Martyrdom of Isaiah, and chapters
6 to 11, known as the Vision of Isaiah. And within the former,
3:13-4:22 is generally regarded as a Christian interpolation. Thus,
arguments made in regard to the first portion of the Ascension cannot
be applied to the second, and are quite immaterial.
Second, the dating of the document is far more complex than Muller lets
on. Again, dating the final composite version (coming at the end of a
long and complex history of redaction and additions, with multiple
manuscript lines, etc.) to the latter part of the second century, even
if it were accurate, is of
no value in determining what any given passage might have meant to the
original writer or earlier editors. Besides, such a dating is not
universal. Michael Knibb, translator and commentator on the Ascension
of Isaiah in The Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha (vol.2, p.143-176) dates the Martyrdom around the
end of the first century CE, while the Vision, its date being "more
difficult to determine," he places in "the second century" [p.149-150].
The joining of the two parts may not have occurred, he suggests, until
the third or even the fourth century.
Third, it is by no means necessary to interpret the passages and
references Muller highlights as having a docetic significance. In fact,
there is a notable lack of any attention to docetism in this entire
document. If the descending Son in chapter 9 taking on a human "form"
is docetic, then so is the pre-Pauline hymn in Philippians 2:6-11.
Moreover, some of the 'forms' taken on by the Son as he passes through
the levels of heaven are angelic,
which hardly relates to docetism. The principle of a divine being
taking on the 'forms' of the spheres he is traversing is an aspect of
the descent mythology under discussion. It was a concept that existed
quite independently of principles of docetism, and really has nothing
to do with it. When the demons of the firmament who hang the Son on a
tree "think that he is flesh and a man" (9:13) the issue is his identity, the Son disguising
himself so that his true identity is not recognized, not the issue
inherent in docetism, that Christ was of phantom flesh rather than
genuine flesh, so that he did not really suffer or take on the
weaknesses of matter.
Fourth, Muller fails to take into account that 11:2-22 is almost
certainly a later interpolation, based on Gospel-like
traditions—though at a primitive
level. (Carrier concurs, and even
Muller at one point identifies the passage as an interpolation, so it's
all very confusing.) I argue this in Appendix 4 of
my book [p.308f], which Muller seems to ignore. (He may not
agree with it, but he at least has to take it into account. To make the
sort of snide remark—found
throughout his critique—he does in
accusing me
of "guessing" about the reliability of various parts of the Ascension
according to my own "agenda" is not only gratuitously insulting, it's
unbecoming of anyone claiming to be a serious scholar.) Thus, pointing
to Gospel features in those interpolations within both portions of the
Ascension is irrelevant to the arguments I make in regard to other
chapters of the Vision.
2.5.1.3. Here is a clear expression of the Trinity,
which, outside pertaining
to baptism(s), became documented only in the latter part of the second
century:
8:18 "And there they [angels of the 6th heaven]: all named the primal Father
and His
Beloved, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, all with one voice."
Let's note this "Beloved" one is later identified as "the Lord Christ, who will be
called
"Jesus" in the world"
(9:5) (as in 10:7 "...
my Lord Christ who will be called Jesus") and also "the
Son" (8:25,9:14).
So every occurrence in Christian writings of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit within hailing distance of each other is "a clear expression of
the Trinity"? Also, I don't know what Muller's latter observation above
is supposed to signify. As it is, and as I mention in The Jesus Puzzle [p.107], Knibb
voices the opinion that it is possible all entries of the names Jesus
and Christ in the Vision are later additions [op.cit. p.170, n.'g']. But even if
this were not the case, I fail to see how Muller's "note" affects the
issue.
2.5.1.4. In his vision, when in the 7th heaven,
Isaiah sees "holy
Abel", Adam and Seth (chapter
9). This is very much
Gnostic, more so for Seth, a minor figure in the OT, but most important
in
second century Christian Gnosticism, as evidenced in the Apocryphon
of John (120-180). Also in the aforementioned work are the "seven
heavens", a belief shared by the many Gnostic followers of Valentinus (120-160). Furthermore, none of the
named "righteous" alive in the highest heaven are
Jews and the God there has no "Jewish" hints (Isaiah is not even
presented to him!). He is like the universal God of the main Gnostics (Basilides, Valentinus,
Marcion, etc.). And according to Irenaeus,
the doctrine of the Gnostic Ophites & Sethians incorporated a descent through the
seven heavens
(to earth!) by Christ taking different forms along the way ('Against
Heresies',
I, XXX, 12).
There
are exactly four figures named in two places of chapter 9 referring to
"righteous in heaven": Adam, Abel, Enoch, Seth. In what way are these
not "Jews" or of no interest to Jewish sectarian writers? The idea of
seven heavens is not restricted to gnosticism. As for the treatment of
God in the Ascension, it is not unlike the presentation of God in
Jewish sectarian and apocalyptic writing generally, such as Daniel and
1 Enoch.
The Ascension (10:7) even uses the term "Most High" for God, which is
typical of those writings, as in Daniel 7. Sectarian circles, being on
the fringes of 'mainstream' Judaism, might also have a certain general
commonality of atmosphere with gnostic expressions, given the latter's
Jewish component, although I think it dubious that the god of the
gnostics
is best characterized as a "universal God."
But do the
Christian additions confirm that
the Son gets crucified "into
the lower reaches of the heavens",
as Earl contends? Let's look at the evidence.
At this point, Muller launches through a disjointed and very confused
survey of various passages (including the clearly Christian insertion
in the Martyrdom, and the interpolation of chapter 11) to 'disprove'
the Son's killing in the spiritual
heavens. I will cut through all of this and let Carrier take over with
his own survey of these parts of the document. His quotes from the
Ascension of Isaiah are placed in italics. I should clarify for the
reader who is unfamiliar with the Ascension and has no handy copy, that
chapters 7 to 9 cover Isaiah's ascent, led by his angel guide, through
the spirit layers, from the firmament to the highest (7th) heaven. In
the midst of what he sees in the latter, the angel predicts the descent
of the
Son to rescue the spirits of the righteous in Sheol, and within that
prediction is a description of how in his descent he will be killed by
Satan and his demons (I will be quoting these key verses later). Then
in chapter 10, Isaiah witnesses the commissioning of this task,
the Father speaking to the Son and directing him how to go about it.
(This section is fully quoted by Carrier.) This is followed by Isaiah
having a vision of the Son descending through the various heavenly
layers; and then, after fulfilling his mission in Sheol, the Son
reascending. Between these two parts is the interpolation of 11:2-22,
placing the Son on earth. These latter parts will be discussed in some
detail, with quotations from the relevant passages.
Neither
Muller nor Doherty has a slam dunk case with the Ascension of Isaiah. I
will explain in detail. On the one hand, Muller would do well to
actually read it:
7.9. And we ascended to the firmament, I and
he, and there I saw Sammael and his hosts, and there was great fighting
therein and the angels of Satan were envying one another. 10. And as above so on the earth
also; for the likeness of that which is in the firmament is here on the
earth. ... 6.13. And the
angel who was sent to make him see was not of this firmament, nor was
he of the angels of glory of this world, but he had come from the
seventh heaven. ... 7.13. And
afterwards he caused me to ascend above the firmament, to heaven (i.e.
the first heaven).
So
Doherty is right: the "firmament" is the aer, the space between earth and
heaven, and in the firmament there is a parallel for everything on
earth (Isaiah ascends from earth to the firmament and sees Satan and
his demons fighting there, and Isaiah is told everything on earth has
its parallel in the firmament and there are angels of the firmament,
etc., and angels are by definition intermediary deities, etc.). To be
precise, other texts show that holy things actually have their higher
parallels in the levels of heaven (e.g. the Garden of Eden and the New
Jerusalem have their parallels in the 3rd heaven, as attested in the
Talmud and various Christian texts, while the Throne and Tabernacle of
the
Temple has its parallel in the 7th heaven—being the most holy thing on
earth naturally its parallel has the highest and thus purest place in
the cosmos).
This is well known to scholars of
Jewish Second-Temple theology. Genesis 1:6-9 says "And God said, Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the
waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above
the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven..."
Thus, the "firmament" is what
divides the waters below (the sea) from the waters above (the higher
levels of heaven). So when Isaiah ascends to the firmament, there can
be no doubt this is where he is going, and that Doherty's point about
parallels between things on earth and in the heavens is explicitly
stated here (and is pretty evident from Hebrews as well).
Then:
10:7.
And I heard the voice of the Most
High, the Father of my Lord, saying to my Lord Christ who will be
called Jesus: 8. "Go forth
and descend through all the heavens, and thou wilt descend to the
firmament and that world: to the angel in Sheol thou wilt descend, but
to Haguel [Knibb: "perdition/destruction"
- probably intended here as the name of the final place of punishment
for the wicked] thou
wilt not go."
So
again Doherty is right: Jesus was to descend to the *firmament*, then
Sheol, *not* earth. Earth is never mentioned here (the phrase [that
world] refers to Sheol, or at most the whole sphere below the moon, not
earth specifically—see
below). One might say that "technically" Jesus
had to pass earth to get to Sheol, but that does not mean he stopped on
earth, and it is certainly not said here that he did or was even
supposed to; he is told to go to the firmament and then Sheol. Period.
Inanna descends from heaven to the underworld, skipping earth right by.
She is incarnated in hell, killed, crucified, raised from the dead (in
hell) with the water and food of life after three days, then ascends
back to heaven, again skipping earth. This is pretty standard stuff in
ancient cosmology and theology.
It
continues:
10.9. "And thou wilt become like unto the
likeness of all who are in the five heavens. 10. And thou wilt be careful to become like
the form of the angels of the firmament. 11. And none of the angels of that world shall
know that Thou art with Me of the seven heavens and of their angels. 12.
And they shall not know that Thou art
with Me, till with a loud voice I have called the heavens, and their
angels and their lights, unto the sixth heaven, in order that you
mayest judge and destroy the princes and angels and gods of that world,
and the world that is dominated by them: 13. For they have denied Me and said: 'We
alone are and there is none beside us.' 14. And afterwards from the angels of death
Thou wilt ascend to Thy place. And Thou wilt not be transformed in each
heaven, but in glory wilt Thou ascend and sit on My right hand. 15.
And thereupon the princes and powers
of that world will worship Thee." 16. These commands I heard the Great Glory
giving to my Lord.
This is unmistakable: Jesus only
arrives in disguise among the demons of the firmament, and they are the
"princes" he will judge and destroy and who deny God, and from *there*
Jesus ascends. The text goes on to describe how Jesus follows his
orders and then descends through each level of heaven in turn,
transforming himself at each lower stage to take the relevant form
there (vv.10.17-28). This is where Doherty gets his thesis, and he is
right—about what this text is saying, at any
rate. Whether this text
was a development upon an original creed that had once been mapped onto
a real man, or whether this represents the original creed which was
then euhemerized into a real man, is another issue altogether, and one
I have not yet seen resolved. As far as I can see, all are viable
interpretations of all the evidence we have. [Here, of course,
Carrier and I do not entirely agree.]
Then,
finally:
10.29. And again He descended into the firmament
where dwelleth the ruler of this world, and He gave the password to
those on the left, and His form was like theirs, and they did not
praise Him there; but they were envying one another and fighting: for
here there is a power of evil and envying about trifles. 30. And I saw when He descended and made
Himself like unto the angels of the air, and He was like one of them. 31.
And He gave no password; for one was
plundering and doing violence to another.
Remember: Isaiah saw this fighting
earlier, and was told it had parallels on earth. And he explicitly
calls the firmament the aer,
and says that is where Jesus ended up (here he says, point blank, he is
like angels of the aer—not
like men on earth.) Now, the following section is widely recognized to
be a later Christian interpolation. Doherty is not making that up: most
scholars are in agreement about this, and it is pretty clear they are
right. As Muller rightly puts it, there is "an interruption in the flow
of the narrative, at 11.2-22, which again proves to be an
interpolation; it reports on Mary and Joseph, the birth of the Saviour
and his crucifixion" (New Testament
Apocrypha, vol. 2, pp. 604-605). If you read it, it is clearly
not in the same style or flow of the narrative, and adds what is not
mentioned in the orders given to Jesus earlier. Moreover, the narrative
flow is restored by skipping the interpolation. To wit, 11.1 + 11.23-24:
11.1. After this I saw, and the angel who spoke
with me, who conducted me, said unto me: "Understand, Isaiah son of
Amoz; for this purpose have I been sent from God." ...
[?excised text?] ... 23. And I saw
Him, and He was in the firmament, but He had not changed Himself into
their form, and all the angels of the firmament and the Satans saw Him
and they worshipped. 24. And
there was much sorrow there, while they said: "How did our Lord descend
in our midst, and we perceived not the glory, which we see has been
upon Him from the sixth heaven?"
Then
he reascends, repeating the narrative flow of the earlier section. It
is clear from these passages that the original text did not have a
section where Jesus went *past* the firmament and incarnated on earth
(rather than the aer)—the
surprise of the demons makes less sense otherwise (because they don't
mention him passing them, and the earlier orders said he was to judge
and overcome *them*, not any powers on earth, etc.).
I am quite certain Doherty is right
here—he has the majority of scholars behind
him, including the top
experts on this very text. [Knibb
himself, though, hedges here, and suggests that the 11:2-22 passage was
part of the original text, for reasons which don't make much sense—see
my Appendix 4 in The Jesus Puzzle.]
But Muller is right when he
suggests the possibility that the pre-interpolation text might be a
later celestialization of an originally terrestrial Jesus, or might
have been a pre-Christian Type that was then mapped onto a real Jesus
who died under Pilate, etc. The case can't really be decided, in my
opinion. Both views are plausible. Doherty does have the edge in that
his thesis is a simpler explanation of various bizarre silences in
Paul, but the simpler hypothesis is not always true. So if Doherty has
anything over the alternative, it is a small lead, as I have said,
which is not enough to settle the matter in his favor, in my opinion.
It only produces agnosticism. Doherty and I disagree about this, but I
can only tell you the way things seem to me.
The degree of hair-splitting here on Carrier's part (and he does this
frequently in his review of my book) I have always found curious. I
have the edge, but it's only by the smallest of margins, it seems. In
this and in other aspects of my case, my "win" has to be acknowledged,
but only by the fewest number of points. Moreover, in regard to this
particular document, I question whether agnosticism is a viable vantage
point, that it is at all conceivable that such a picture as we find
here could have been mapped onto a real Jesus who died under Pilate.
Carrier has admitted that the only passage suggesting a life on earth
for a real man and a crucifixion by Pilate is a later interpolation.
Can
anyone possibly understand how such a creation as the Vision of Isaiah
without that passage could have been composed by a writer who (a) knew
of a human Jesus on earth, or (b) was consciously "mapping" his story
of the Son operating entirely within the spheres of
heaven onto a human Jesus who had recently lived on earth and enacted
his redemptive role there? It is all well and good—and
I
sympathize—to be faithful to
the principles of one's discipline and not make commitments to theses
that are theoretically lacking in all the proper and sufficient
evidence or degree of evidence; but that should not preclude bringing
in common-sense approaches to help decide which alternatives are more
probable or even certain. It is simply not feasible that the "pre-interpolation text might be a later
celestialization of an originally terrestrial Jesus."
It may be slightly more feasible that the original "Vision" was taken
from a 'non-Christian' source (though one that would clearly be of a
'proto-Christian' nature, illustrating lines of development) and
applied to an existing terrestrial Jesus figure (whether authentic or
only imagined). In that case, the
interpolation and possibly the insertions of the name Jesus—and
perhaps Christ—could have taken place at that point. But
I similarly
question whether such an editor taking over an external document would
not have reworked key passages
such as those under discussion here, to reflect his awareness of Jesus'
life on earth. On the other hand, my judgment has been that
when a community already possesses a document which is its own product,
and
its ideas toward some of the subject matter in it evolve, insertions
tend to be made but not wholesale revision of all the earlier material;
the latter is simply reinterpreted.
(I have argued this in regard to the evolving stages of Q, and in the
case of the Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers. For the latter, see my
Supplementary Article
No. 5: Tracing the Christian Lineage in Alexandria.)
Incidentally, that interpolation is certainly of a primitive nature,
and must reflect very early views of an historical Jesus. It would be
interesting to speculate whether it is based on some Ur-Gospel piece of
writing which the later canonical Gospels have left behind. The
"nativity" scene in 11:2-15 cannot be dependent upon those of Matthew
or Luke. The infant is born in Mary and Joseph's house in
Bethlehem, it arrives unexpectedly (the birth causes "astonishment" to
Mary), and there are none of the details we find in Matthew and Luke's
renditions. The rest of the interpolation is very brief, making cursory
reference to the performance of "signs and miracles in the land of
Israel and Jerusalem," and to the crucifixion and resurrection in this
way:
11.19. And after this the adversary [Satan]
envied him and roused the children of
Israel, who did not know who he was, against him. And they handed him
to the ruler, and crucified him, and he descended to the angel who (is)
in Sheol. 20. In Jerusalem,
indeed, I saw how they crucified him on a tree, 21. and likewise (how) after the third day he
rose and remained (many) days... 22.
And I saw when he sent out the twelve
disciples and ascended.
The identity of the "ruler" in verse 19 is not specified, though Knibb
opines: "a word normally translated 'king,' but it is presumably Pilate
who is meant (cf. Mt 27:2)." It certainly is a presumption on Knibb's
part, but it's quite possible this interpolation comes from a time when
the earthly crucifier of Jesus was not necessarily regarded by all as
having
been Pontius Pilate. Certainly, the rest of the material here is
decidedly uninformative and very primitive in detail. Indeed, some of
its features are barely a step above the pre-interpolation stage, and
there are signs of those features simply growing out of features of the
latter, as though the latter are being reworked to provide material for
the new picture being formulated. We have the "envy" of the children of
Israel (compare the envy of the demons), the
descent to Sheol immediately after death (fulfilling God's directions
for the Son's sojourn to the lower heavens), the crucifixion "on
a tree" by the ruler (compare the hanging "upon a tree" by the evil
angels of the
firmament in 9:14), the motif of "not knowing who he is" now
transferred to the children of Israel. There is also a
notable disruption of sequence between verse 20 and 21. After
crucifixion he descends to Sheol; then the interpolator (or later
editor) backs up
and speaks further of his crucifixion and gives him a resurrection
after three days and a period on earth (which period varies between
manuscripts); finally (v. 22) the
appointment of apostles and an ascension is added. Curiously,
throughout this
entire passage, the name Jesus is not used once. Speculation on this
would be just that, but one wonders if this is a good indicator that
Knibb is right in suggesting that the names "Jesus" and "Christ" were
added to the entire document only later, and that this interpolation
comes quite early (barely before the mental ink was dry on the idea of
an historical incarnation of the "Son"), continuing in the thought
patterns of the earlier stage of the Vision of Isaiah. Although it is
difficult to postulate what sort of relationship the ideas of the
interpolation might have had with the creation of the Gospel of Mark,
there
is one other connection that could be put forward. I have suggested
that there is no way to tell what name the later stages of Q used for
the founder figure it introduced into the sayings collection. It may
not have been "Jesus" and another name may only have been converted to
Jesus when the synoptic Gospels incorporated the Q traditions. Did the
earliest ideas of an historical figure not entail the name "Jesus" as
the Ascension of Isaiah might suggest?
To return to Muller:
But
there is
still more evidence against Doherty's assertions. Let's reveal them by
answering these questions:
a) In 'the Ascension of Isaiah', is
the Son arrested in the firmament?
b) If Satan and his evil angels are
involved in the crucifixion, does that mean
it was not on earth?
2.5.3. The
Son goes
through the firmament to earth:
This is according to these verses:
10:29-31 "And
again [from 1st heaven] He descended into the
firmament
where dwelleth
the ruler of this world, and He gave the password to those on the left,
and His
form was like theirs, and they did not praise Him there; but they were
envying
one another and fighting; for here there is a power of evil and envying
about
trifles. And I saw when He descended [below
the firmament!]
and made
Himself like unto the angels of the air...."
[Carrier:] Notice that every time
before, he identifies the destination, but here he does not—except
when he names only one location: the aer. Earth is nowhere mentioned. The aer corresponds to the lower level of the
firmament (it is the last stop above the "lower waters" that God has
separated out from the firmament). Still, one can imagine that this was
at some point mapped onto an angel who went all the way down to earth
(through Docetism).
10:8 "Go forth and
descent through all the heavens [that
would include the air between earth and moon!], and you will descent to the
firmament and that world
[earth: see note a) below]: to the angel in Sheol
you will descend [after death]...."
[Carrier:]
Wrong again. "That world" refers to the whole region (see below) and in
particular Sheol (standard forward pronoun). Earth specifically is
never mentioned, so it cannot possibly be the object of any pronoun
here. Likewise, the descent to Sheol is not "after" death but rather
*is* death—it indicates that Jesus is to die,
which *entails*
descending to Sheol.
Notes:
a) In the two closest previous
occurrences of "that world", at 9:20 & 9:26,
the expression means "earth" only.
- 9:20-23 "Show
me how
everything which is done in that world [earth, confirmation
later] is here
[7th
heaven] made
known." And whilst I [Isaiah] was still speaking with him,
behold one of the angels who stood nigh, ...
who had raised me up from the world [earth:
ch.7:2-3].
Showed
me a book,
and he opened it, and the book was written, but not as a book of
this world [not written on earth]. And he gave (it) to me and
I read it,
and lo! the deeds of the children of Israel were written therein, and
the deeds of
those whom I know (not), my son Josab.
And I
said: "In truth, there is nothing hidden in the seventh heaven, which
is done
in this world [earth again].""
- 9:24-26 "And I [Isaiah] saw there many
garments laid up [in the
highest heaven],
and many thrones and many crowns. And I said to the
angel: "Whose are these garments and thrones and crowns?" And he said
unto me: "These garments many from that world [Christians] will receive [in
the
future!] believing in the words of That One,
... and they will
observe those things, and believe in them, and believe in His cross:
for
them are these laid up.""
All
occurrences of "world" from 9:20
to 10:7 are for (only) the earth. Why would the next "world" (at 10:8) mean the
firmament or the air below it? More so when, in the 'Ascension of
Isaiah', the firmament (or the air below) is never considered a world
on its own!
[Carrier:] First, words must be
read in context: a pronoun takes the meaning of the nearest available
object. Muller's argument here is like saying every time I say "that
man" I mean the same man I referred to in a previous chapter, instead
of the man I just mentioned, or will then mention. That is just silly.
No language on earth functions that way. Second, 9:20 does not refer to
earth per se. Instead, the firmament is alluded to. See 9:14: "the god
of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son..." Where is
the "god"? In the firmament, in the aer
(this is explicitly stated at 10.29 and 10.10-12, where "that world" is
unmistakably the firmament). It certainly does not say it is on earth.
Muller
is probably confused by the fact that "this world" is everything below
the orb of the moon, i.e. everything under the first heaven. Thus, its
contents include the firmament, the aer,
and the earth and even Sheol (everything subject to decay—and
hence
Satan rules over all of these as one unit—at
least until Jesus
triumphs over him). That is why one can certainly see ambiguity
here—to be
in "that world" can mean being in the aer,
the firmament or on earth. In
that one respect Muller is right, since Doherty's thesis is not
entirely proved here. It could be consistent with it, yes, but the text
is also consistent with the notion of mapping this celestial story onto
a real man (whether the celestial Type pre-existed a real Jesus or
not)....
And yet, chapter 9 (which I will
discuss in greater detail shortly) does not leave room for the
hanging by Satan and his demons to take place on earth.
I
am surprised, though, that Muller appears so confused about this, since
he seems to understand it. He himself says: "the firmament is never
considered a world on its own, but sometimes (only) a part of the one
including earth (and the air above)." That isn't exactly true (the
firmament was always distinguished from the earth—cf. Genesis, and the
earlier part of the Ascension of Isaiah), but the phrase "this world"
does indeed include all these things as one unit. Why Muller doesn't
realize how this undermines his own argument I can't explain....
2.5.4.
Satan can kill
people on earth also (from heaven!):
The OT book of Job
demonstrates the
belief that Satan could inflict havoc on earth and have a long reach,
with or
without leaving heaven....
[Carrier:] Correct. Satan
rules over the whole region below the orb of the moon—and that
includes the firmament, the aer,
the earth, and Sheol (which is why we need Jesus to escape Sheol). See
1 Cor. 15: only at the second coming [Paul
never states, here or anywhere else, that Jesus' future coming will be
a "second coming"—Carrier,
like so many others, has read this into the
epistles] will this reign of Satan be destroyed. That is
why
Paul talks about death being an enemy to be completely defeated. He
means decay: i.e. the fact that everything below the orb of the moon is
subject to decay, which is due to Satan (or allegorically equated as
Satan). That very fact will be abolished, because everything in that
realm will be destroyed—and so Satan will no longer have anything
over
which to rule. Satan himself will then be subjugated (or destroyed—it
is not clear). But the fact that Satan rules over this entire region
below the heavens does not mean he does not conduct his business from
his throne in the firmament, just as God conducts his from his throne
in the seventh heaven. Thus, to defeat Satan you have to go to his
throne, which the text says is in the firmament, not on earth. So
obviously that is where Jesus has to go....
But again, Muller is certainly right that Jesus could be "killed" on
earth by a Satan in the firmament. And since everything on earth is
paralleled in the firmament, I can certainly see how a Christian could
map this celestial battle with Satan onto a historical Jesus—both
happening at once. Therefore, Doherty's thesis fits and explains the
evidence (contra Muller), but is not thereby proved (pro Muller).
And yet, the document itself virtually
rules this out, and Carrier has already presented his analysis of the
text in such a way as to indicate this. He says: "So again Doherty is right: Jesus was to
descend to the *firmament*, then Sheol, *not* earth. Earth is never
mentioned here." This was in reference to chapter 10, in which
God gives instructions to the Son as to what he is to do and where he
is to go in his descent to the lower world. In 10:12 (quoted by
Carrier), the Son's instructions are to "destroy the princes and angels
and gods of that world, and the world that is dominated by them."
This
is hardly a directive to destroy the human rulers on the earth. Verse
13 makes that clear: "For they have
denied Me and said: 'We alone are
and there is none beside us.' This refers to the evil angels of
the firmament who
claim
that they are supreme and that there are no higher gods than themselves.
Chapter 9 is virtually as clear, and this would be the time to look at
some of it in detail. From verse 13 to 17 it reads (taken from the
translation by M. Knibb in the Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha):
9.13: The Lord will indeed descend
into the world in the last days, (he) who is to be called Christ after
he has descended and become like you in form, and they will think that
he is
flesh and a man. 14. And the
god of that world will stretch out his hand against the Son, and they
will lay their hands upon him and hang him upon a tree, not knowing who
he is. 15. And thus his
descent, as you will see, will be concealed even from the heavens so
that it will not be known who he is. 16. And when he has plundered the angel of
death, he will rise [lit., "ascend" notes Knibb] on the third day and will remain in that
world for five hundred and forty-five days. 17. And then many of the righteous will ascend
with him, whose spirits do not receive (their) robes until the Lord
Christ ascends and they ascend with him.
The flow of this passage is somewhat uneven, suggesting redaction
somewhere along the line. Knibb is of the opinion that the reference to
remaining in the world for 545 days "may be an addition to the text."
Both of the other manuscript lines do not have it, and it may have been
inserted by a later editor influenced by gnostic sources since, as
Knibb
notes, the time period fits Valentinian and Ophite beliefs. As in
chapter 10, there is no specific mention of earth in these verses. It
is the "god of that world" (Satan) and his minions who do the hanging;
it is
they who do not know who he is. His identity is concealed
from "the heavens," no inclusion of earth being specified. The point I
made earlier about bringing common sense to one's interpretation of a
document applies again here: If the writer of this passage knew of a
life on earth for the Son, he could hardly have failed to indicate it
in some way. If he knew or believed that human rulers had actually
performed the physical crucifixion, in history, it is not feasible that
he would confine himself to describing it solely in heavenly terms, at
the hands of a heavenly agency, within a context of descent and ascent
which never includes earth. The phrase "they will think that he is flesh and
a man," if not docetic (and I have argued against that above),
indicates that he was not a
man in the mind of this writer, relegating the idea to the context of
descending deities taking on the forms of each "world," each sphere
through which they pass. Even the reference to the 545 days is not
specified as on earth, but only "in that world," betraying again
that lack of focus on earth itself. Considering that the Valentinians
(at least at the time of their Gospel of Truth) seem to have had no
sense of an
historical Jesus—not even a docetic one—the possible borrowing of
this idea from them does not of itself necessarily indicate the concept
of a human man.
It might be asked: if this is the firmament, encompassing the first
spirit level of the aer, as
well as the earth, why did
the Son adopt the "form" of a human man and not one of the angels of
the firmament, since in all the other spheres he simply assumes the
form of an angel of that level? In fact, in 10:30, upon the Son
entering the firmament, Isaiah says that "I saw when he descended and
made himself like the angels of the air, that he was like one of them."
They failed even to notice him, being too busy with their own warring.
At
some point subsequent to this, the Son adopts the form of a human, and
that is when they perceive him and proceed to dispatch him on the tree.
Thus, the human form was necessary; Satan would hardly be moved to hang
up what he thought was one of his own angels. But there is another
necessity involved. The paradigm principle, the homologic parallel I
discussed in Part One, reflected in early Christian writings like the
hymn of Philippians 2:6-11, required the god not only to descend to the
'fleshly' territory but to assume the form of those linked to him, of
those he would "save" (in this case, of the revived spirits in Sheol
who would ascend with the Son). Thus the Son's assumption of human form
does not require that he actually descended to earth itself. Again, if
that was the writer's thought, some indication of that life on earth
would have emerged in the text. We can see that it emerged in no
uncertain terms when a later editor added twenty verses to chapter 11
to reflect that very idea of an earthly life. These considerations
cannot simply be ignored or dismissed in order to hold onto a
theoretical principle that the whole thing, with all its focus on the
heavens and silence about earth, could still be "mapped" onto a human
man. Not only does my thesis explain the evidence, the evidence
supports the thesis, and I think Carrier's distinction between the two—while
it does exist—is a little too adamantly pressed at times.
Again I will
say, we
cannot bring in the word "proof" with its connotations and demands in
other contexts and hold out for agnosticism while ignoring the balance
of probability. And where this document is concerned, I
maintain that we are in a position of virtual certainty.
One might press the questions associated with this picture of ancient
soteriology even further, and ask, what would a being disguised as a
human man be thought to be doing in the firmament, and why would Satan
attack him for no good reason? Of course, that's the way those
miserable
demons are, and the overriding requirement would be that the Son had to
be killed while in the form of his believers, and anyway not much in
ancient philosophy really makes a lot of sense to our modern minds. I
have
no idea how any rational person even at that stage could have believed
that any of this bore a relation to reality (other than allegorical, as
the more sophisticated philosophers tended to view things). No writer
ever tries to explain how the homologic parallel principle
works—certainly not Paul in Romans 6. But then,
we face a similar
situation in regard to atonement sacrifice and the forgiveness of sin
effected by the shedding of blood, principles at the heart of Christian
soteriology, then and now.
Does anyone understand how the slaughter of animals and the burning of
their blood on the altar served intercessionary purposes for a
sanguinary Yahweh, or why the slaughter of the Son of God on Calvary
was needed to redeem the world's sins? No writer, Old Testament or New,
ever attempts an explanation. It is simply part of the philosophical
and ritual landscape, going back to primitive beginnings in the mists
of
prehistoric times. Too many in our society even in the 21st century are
still tied to those primitive beginnings.
Both Muller and Carrier are being picayune over a little detail in 9.14:
Note: in his meandering fuzzy discussion in
order to
suggest Jesus is crucified on the firmament (despite the clear-cut
evidence
against it!) Doherty lacks accuracy (purposely?):
a)
Earl writes on page 107: "this
hanging is something performed by "the god of this world," meaning
Satan." But the hanging in
question
is never said to be done by Satan / the_god_of_this_world,
neither in Paul's epistles, nor 'Ascension of Isaiah'. Doherty is
therefore
misleading here.
This is desperation. And yet Carrier can say:
Muller is right that Doherty is misleading
here. It is not literally true that Satan does the hanging (any more
than Pilate or Herod or Caiaphas did), but his agents. Muller is at
least right that this can mean people on earth. But it can also mean
demons. So Doherty is not thereby refuted. Both are possible, and I
don't see adequate evidence to decide between them.
So if I say that "Pilate crucified Jesus," I "lack accuracy
(purposely?)." I'm sure that this "misleading" statement has been made
millions of times over the centuries. Muller invites scorn by reaching
for such a petty criticism. And let's consider how Muller thinks to use
it by looking again at the sentence in
question: "And the god of that world
will stretch out his hand against the Son, and they will lay their
hands upon him and hang him upon a tree, not knowing who he is."
Is this change of pronouns intended to convey a sudden switch from
firmament to earth, the latter referring to the Romans, whom Muller
claims "could
qualify for the 'they' "? This from a writer who never refers to the
earth's surface, let alone any "they's" upon it? The change is hardly
so dramatic. It simply reflects the change of perspective from one
thought to the other: Satan initiates the assault on the Son, his evil
angels perform the deed itself. Muller claims:
Note:
here, Satan will
eventually identify the Son and take action against him; but the
"they", who are the ones actually doing the "hanging", do
not know him! It does not look Satan and the others belong to the same
clique!
There is nothing in the passage that even implies that Satan identifies
the Son before the hanging takes place. In fact, in the following verse
15, it is stated that the Son's identify is concealed "from the
heavens" which would include Satan himself. And when we get to the
other side of the interpolation in chapter 11, when the Son leaves
Sheol to ascend the heavens on his return trip, Isaiah says: "And I saw him, and he was in the
firmament, but was not transformed into their form. And all the angels
of the firmament, and Satan, saw him and worshiped. And there was much
sorrow there as they said, 'How did our Lord descend upon us, and we
did not notice the glory which was upon him, which we (now) see was
upon him from the sixth heaven?" Clearly, there was no
identifying of the Son on the way down, including by Satan, before
performing the hanging. Now that they know who he is, they "worship"
him, not hang him again. This obvious ignorance at the point of killing
the
"Lord" of "glory" is the exact parallel to what Paul says in 1
Corinthians 2:8, "None of the rulers of this age (which a
"majority"—so Paul
Ellingworth—of
scholars take as the demon spirits)
understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory."
Apparently it is not only the demons who have failed to understand. On
the basis of misread and misinterpreted trifles like these, Muller
thinks to hang me on some
tree (even if I don't claim the title of Lord of glory):
So all the main
arguments
of Doherty for a crucifixion in some demonic lower heaven, as appearing
in his
section "the descent of the Son" in chapter 10, are unfounded. And that goes against the evidence from
the ancient
text of Earl's own choosing!
I would also question Carrier's concurring
judgment in regard to verse 14. Does he, too, think that the change of
pronoun is so significant that it could
entail a shift of the writer's meaning from the firmament to earth,
from Satan to Pilate? I would point out the same considerations that
make this highly unlikely. Thus I cannot agree that "both [meanings] are possible," or that there is
no "adequate evidence to decide
between them."
Muller, from 9:14, suddenly jumps without warning (and without clarity)
to chapter 10:
And as we
saw, no hanging occurs when the Son is going down
through the firmament.
Carrier detects the jump and deals with it:
Probably
because the relevant passage was excised when the interpolation was
inserted in its place. Unless 9:14 is also an interpolation, we should
expect the hanging to take place between 10:31 and 11:23, but all we
have is the Christian forgery there now. So we can't say what had been
there originally.
In fact, let's take a look again at how the two parts join together
when the
interpolation is removed. Following on the end of chapter 10 and the
first verse of chapter 11, we will
jump to the other side of the interpolation, to 11:23...
10.30. And I saw when he descended [into
the firmament] and made himself like
the angels of the air, that he was like one of them. And he did not
give the password, for they were plundering and doing violence to one
another. 11.1. And after
this I looked, and the angel who spoke to me and led me said to me,
"Understand, Isaiah son of Amoz, because for this purpose I was sent
from the Lord".... 11.23. And
I saw him, and he was in the firmament but was not transformed into
their form. And all the angels of the firmament, and Satan, saw him and
worshiped.
Clearly, there is something missing between 11.l and 11.23. (The space
is taken up now with the interpolation.) The original text breaks off
when the Son has just entered the firmament during his descent, and
picks up again when he is reentering the firmament (from Sheol) for his
ascent back
to heaven. For Muller to point to the missing hanging by Satan in this
situation, as though this somehow eradicates it from chapter 9 (by
homologic parallel perhaps), where there is no interpolation, is
crudely
disingenuous. In chapter 9, all that takes place between the hanging in
the firmament and the rising after three days is the 'plundering of the
angel/prince of death,' a reference to the descent into Sheol to claim
the spirits of the righteous who ascend with him back to heaven. Since
chapter 10-11 is an enlargement on the whole descent and ascent
process, we may
assume that in the missing portion above, there was a fuller account of
the hanging in the firmament and the descent into Sheol to rescue the
dead. Accordingly, this is the point where the editor decided to place
his interpolation of a life for the Son on earth, and the original
material had to be jettisoned.
Incidentally, what do we find at this point in the two other manuscript
lines? I'd better mention here that there are three classes of
surviving
manuscripts of the Ascension: Ethiopic, second Latin, and Slavonic. The
first is thought to be based on one Greek text, the other two on a
different Greek text. (Note that there are no extant mss. of any
earlier Greek versions.) There are notable differences between the
Ethiopic on the one hand, and the second Latin and Slavonic on the
other. One of the reasons why most scholars on the Ascension (but not
Knibb) regard the interpolation as just that, is because it is missing
in the Slavonic and second Latin manuscripts. They would hardly have
removed this passage if it had been there in the original. However,
there is a brief verse in the gap in both the Latin and Slavonic, and
it is the same. It runs like this (following on 11:1): "...to show you all things. For no one
before you has seen, nor after you will be able to see, what you have
seen and heard. And I saw one like a son of man, and he dwelt with men
in the world, and they did not recognize him." Now, neither the
Latin nor the Slavonic is considered dependent on the other, so this
passage must be taken from an earlier version on which they both
depended, but on which the Ethiopic did not. It is interesting that the
second sentence of that 'filler' has the look of an insertion itself,
but an extremely primitive one. It states nothing more than the basic
idea that the Son become "one like a son of man," that is, human, and
dwelt in the world. First of all, that this sparse statement was ever
substituted for the longer Ethiopic interpolation—which would seem to be
required by Knibb's position—is simply not feasible.
What it seems to be is an interpolation somewhere back along the line
out of which the Latin and Slavonic grew, even earlier than the
Ethiopic which represents a more detailed development of the idea that
the Son had been to earth. So we actually have two reflections of the
evolution of the thought of this document, and both of them involve the
insertion of the idea of an earthly incarnation for the Son. This is
the evolution of the historical Jesus before our very eyes, and cannot
fit into Carrier's option of the whole thing being mapped onto a figure
who was regarded as historical from the very beginning.
But to go on. Muller's confusion and misrepresentation reaches a peak
here:
On page 96, Earl places Sheol below earth (as
believed in antiquity):
"Near the bottom ... lay
humanity's sphere, the material earth; only Sheol
or Hades, the underworld, was lower."
But on
page 108, when the Sheol of 'Ascension of
Isaiah' needs to be above earth (so the Son does not go too far
down!),
we have:
"Outside of this one
passage,
[reference
to part of "Chapter
11", according to Doherty.
However,
relating to earthly surroundings, there is a second one: 3:13-4:22]
the Son's activities seem
to relate entirely to the spirit realm,
layers of heaven extending through the firmament and including
Sheol."
If the
location becomes against your theory, change it!
The statement Muller quotes above, coming as a summary at the end of my
chapter in The Jesus Puzzle
on the crucifixion of the divine Christ and the discussion of
the Ascension of Isaiah, hardly implies that I have shifted the
location of Sheol from the underworld to the bottom of the firmament.
(Which would place it right above the ground, resting on the heads of
humans
themselves!) No reasonable person would attribute that to me,
especially as I had already indicated on an earlier page (as Muller
points out) that Sheol lay under
the earth. While there may be a technical ambiguity on how I have
phrased that sentence (Sheol, being in essence a spirit layer—even
though below the earth—is
"included" within "the spirit realm" for the
purposes of what I am saying), only the most obtuse interpreter and
dishonorable critic would
take such an ambiguity and run with it to the point of insult. Carrier
agrees:
This I think is unfair to Doherty, who I do
not think was doing what
Muller alleges. But Doherty is vague enough here to confuse the likes
of Muller, so I would certainly recommend clarity in future editions. I
am sure Doherty means just what the ancients imagined of Inanna: that
she descends past earth. It does not mean she ever stopped there. And
this is entailed by ancient theology: if Jesus went to the firmament
and died there, he would *have* to descend to Sheol. For that is what
death *means*.... Thus, Muller's critique of Doherty here seems
terribly misinformed and confused. Doherty is not saying anything
implausible here—indeed, what he is saying follows
necessarily from
what we know about ancient cosmology. *If* Jesus died in the firmament
than he *had* to descend past earth into Sheol....
Before going on, there was an interesting exchange between Muller and
Carrier centered on the book of Job:
2.5.5.
Satan and his evil
angels can also be on earth:
Let's
go back to the book of Job:
Job1:7 NKJV "And the
LORD said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan answered the
LORD and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from
walking back and forth on it.""....
[Carrier:]
Ironically, Muller didn't notice
that this refutes his earlier contention that there was no evidence of
descending & ascending deities. He is correct here: Satan, before
his Fall, was indeed a mediary deity who routinely descended from
heaven to earth and ascended back again. The book of Job proves it. The
Book of Job, of course, refers to pre-fall Satan. After the Fall (which
took place before Christianity but after Job's day), Satan refused to
reascend to the hall of the Lord and instead decided to do things for
himself below the moon and thus rule there. In ancient Jewish
Angelology this is intelligible, since the angels were granted godlike
powers and sent below to do God's bidding (since it was vulgar to even
imagine God himself taking on a body or mingling with corrupt matter,
hence he had to carry out his will through intermediaries—indeed, some
Jewish sects took the logical step of believing that creation was
accomplished by such a mediary). Thus, once an angel decided not to
obey God anymore, he could indeed set up rule down here, thus
necessitating God's plan of sending another mediary to depose the
rebel. it should be clear how the Fall of Satan, a pre-Christian idea,
*requires* a descending savior myth. Thus, it is hardly any surprise
that several such myths would be formulated. This is a fact routinely
overlooked by Evangelicals who think Christianity just came out of the
blue and was completely novel and unexpected. To the contrary, it was
inevitable. Still, one could map such a celestial event onto a
historical man—though one didn't have to. So either is
possible.
Not only was it natural and inevitable that the descending savior myth
would develop in the context of ancient views of the universe, we would
expect it to be natural (and inevitable) that the Christian version of
this widespread type of mythology would begin precisely as a reflection
of all
the others, namely as the descent of a spiritual figure working in the
spiritual parts of the world with beneficial affects on humans in the
material ("fleshly") realm. And lo and behold, that is exactly the
focus we find in the early Christian epistles and the pre-interpolation
Ascension of Isaiah, while the concept of actual incarnation
into a human, earthly man is missing. If the latter were in the background, such a
dramatic departure from the
norm would require
addressing. A mapping onto an historical man would be so out of
character, would raise so many questions, silence and ambiguity could
not be
allowed to stand. Nor would the human mind function that way.
This exclusive focus on the heavenly realm, with Christ as a heavenly
agent and mediary, is especially evident in the Pauline corpus and in
Hebrews. The Son is described exclusively in terms of his Platonic
character as creator and sustainer of the universe (1 Cor. 8:6, Col.
1:15-20, Heb. 1:1-3), with no identification with an historical man.
The Son's prominent role in salvation is through the process of
defeating the demon spirits (as in Col. 2:15 and the Ascension of
Isaiah) and restoring the unity of the two parts of the universe, which
Satan and his evil angels had sundered in this present "age" of the
world (Eph. 1:10). One of the major motifs in the epistle to the
Hebrews is the superiority of the Son to the angels. The angels were
God's intermediaries in the past, the Son is the new intermediary; God
spoke formerly through the prophets, now he speaks through the Son. But
that superiority is demonstrated solely through scripture; there is no
mention of the Son's incarnation to earth or his powerful deeds there.
The "voice" of the Son in his earthly ministry is never sounded, only
the voice in scripture, which is to say, in the new interpretation of
scripture. Revelation and the power of the Holy Spirit, operating
largely through scripture, is the sole driving force of the Christian
version of the savior myth. Over the context of its time, Christianity
with a mythical Christ fits like a glove. Agnosticism—at least
where
the cultic stream represented by Paul is concerned—is not
justified.
And Muller doesn't let off beating a dead horse:
...and the
'Ascension of Isaiah':
4:2 "... Beliar [Satan] the great ruler, the king of
this world,
will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being; yea, he will
descent from his firmament [to
earth] ..."
[Carrier:] Another universally recognized
Christian interpolation (3:13-4:22 certainly did not exist in the
Maccabeean original!), and thus useless for making Muller's point.
Indeed, chs. 1-5 actually come from a completely different text—only
later merged with 6-11. Had Muller actually conducted himself like a
scholar, he would know this. It is stated even in standard references!
Can't Muller at least consult Eerdman's or the Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church or something, anything, before writing his uninformed
opinions? I chastise for a reason: Doherty's thesis deserves better
scholarship from its critics.
Amen, brother.
The Crucifixion in
Paul
Following the lengthy discussion of the Ascension of Isaiah, Muller
asks the question,
2.6. Is
there evidence in Paul's
epistles about the crucifixion on earth?
Yes, there is (twice!). It may not
be very direct,
but this evidence is much more Doherty can offer in favor of his own
demonic
world!
What
follows is an overlong, confused and confusing argument examining
Romans 9:31-33 and 11:26-27 which I am going to largely pass over. If
this is the extent of the "evidence" in Paul that he envisioned an
earthly crucifixion, then the mythicist case will win hands down.
First, I'll let Carrier make a few comments about it.
I
can't follow Muller's argument here at all. I see no way to get from
Romans 9:31-33 that Jesus was crucified on earth. The passage is fully
consistent with only the Gospel [Paul's preaching message, which I usually
spell with a small 'g'] being on
earth, not the crucifixion itself. Muller seems not to understand the
difference. The Gospel is a stumbling block, not the literal,
historical crucifixion of Jesus. After all, the latter no longer
exists—it is in the past—so you can't trip over it....You can
only
trip over the story, the message, about this crucifixion and what it
means. Thus, the subject is the Gospel, not the crucifixion itself.
Obviously the Gospel was placed in Zion. That does not mean Jesus was.
Sure, it is consistent with both possibilities. But that gets us
nowhere.
Muller in his argument throws in a reference to the "stumbling block"
found in 1 Corinthians 1. Here is its context:
For
Paul, the "stone
of
stumbling" and the "rock of offence" for the Jews is Christ ("For Christ is [the] end of law
for righteousness to every one that believes." Ro10:4 Darby)
by his sacrifice on the cross....
This is confirmed by:
- 1Co1:23 YLT
"... Christ
crucified, to Jews, indeed, a stumbling-block ['skandalon',
also
translated as "offenc(s)e" or "scandal"]
..."
- Gal5:11 NKJV "...
the offense ['skandalon'] of the cross ..."
As I argue at length in my Supplementary Article No. 1, Apollos and the Early Christian Apostolate, the
scandal, the stumbling-block, is the fact of "Christ crucified," not
simply some interpretation of it, and certainly not the significance or
divine identity of the man who had supposedly undergone this
crucifixion in Jerusalem. What of the even greater scandal that Paul
never mentions, either in 1 Corinthians 1 or anywhere else: that a man
had been turned into God, that a crucified criminal had been elevated
to the status of Savior of the world? That would have been a stumbling
block of immensely greater proportions than the idea of a crucified
Messiah. The latter idea, which is all that Paul mentions, would have
been entirely at home in a mythical setting, like those of the mystery
deities or the descending-ascending savior mythology discussed above.
Indeed, since this is the only issue Paul addresses in contrasting the
wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God (meaning his own message),
we can safely say that the spirit-world nature of his Christ is the
only one in view. I have argued that a careful interpretation of 1
Corinthians, chapters 1 and 3, with all that Paul says about Apollos in
Corinth, makes it clear that Apollos is among those rivals whom Paul
associates with the "wisdom of the world" and with the rejection of the
fact of "Christ crucified." The only setting in which a Christian
missionary could be guilty of such a rejection, and in which Christian
converts of Paul could have gone along with it, would be if all
concepts of Christ, including the fact of his crucifixion, were derived
from scripture and revelation, and thus all such doctrines were
competing on a level playing-field. That view is fully consistent with
Paul's declarations (as in Romans 1:2 and Galatians 1:11-12) that his
gospel is something he has derived from scripture and revelation, not
from historical tradition, and that is the way we must interpret the
source of his
gospel as stated in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. When we add to this picture
the several statements he makes that the resurrection of Christ (and
even the death of Christ) are
articles of faith (as in 1
Thessalonians 4:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:12f), something revealed by
God, we have no grounds for agnosticism where the early epistle writers
are concerned.
Finally, Muller addresses the significance of the term "Zion" as used
by Paul in Romans:
"And so all Israel will be saved, as it is
written:
"the Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away
ungodliness from Jacob
[Israel (Ge32:28)]; for this is My covenant with them [Jews],
when I take away their sins."".....
'Zion' in the OT
All over the OT, 'Zion' is referred
many times, as indicating an earthly place,
either the heartland of the Jews (including or excluding Jerusalem), or
the
holy city itself, or part of the later: that is the temple mount, also
called
mount Zion, or the "city of David", on the ridge southwards. Here are
some examples (all quotes from the NKJV): [Muller lists close to a
dozen examples]....
Note: in the OT, Zion is never described as a (mythical)
heavenly place.
So ideas never change, even over centuries. Old scriptural passages are
never reinterpreted by new thinkers and sects. When Paul says he got
his gospel from the scriptures (kata
tas graphas) he only drew conclusions from them which everyone
else had.... (Sigh).
[Carrier:] First, Zion has a heavenly counterpart
(Heb. 12:22) and in fact Zion was a common name for the Heavenly
Jerusalem, meaning the New City that would descend from the heavens and
replace the earth[ly one?] when earth (including the Old
Jerusalem) is consumed
by fire. Second, Zion is also a racial term. To come "out of Zion"
means to come from the race of the Jews. It does not always mean coming
from any literal physical place....
Enough of this. Let's go on to Hebrews, since that document is my
personal favorite after the Odes of Solomon, and I consider it possibly
the single most important non-Gospel document in support of the
mythicist theory....(unless it be all the others).
The
Epistle to the Hebrews
Muller begins:
2.7. 'Hebrews' and the sacrifice
in heaven:
On
page 120, Doherty valiantly declares: "No
other New Testament document so
clearly illustrates the higher and lower world thinking of Platonic
philosophy as the epistle to the Hebrews." Then he continues: "The
writer places the sacrifice in heaven itself,
in "the real sanctuary, the tent pitched by the Lord and not by man"
(8:2)".
Let's observe the whole
aforementioned verse (with the preceding one):
Heb8:1-2 YLT "And the
sum concerning the things spoken of [is]: we have such a chief priest [Jesus], who
did sit down at the right hand of the throne of the
greatness in the heavens, of the holy places ['Hagion'] a
servant, and of the true tabernacle
[tent,
shelter], which
the Lord did set up, and not
man,"
I do not see here
(or in the whole of 'Hebrews'!) a
"sacrifice" occurring in heaven (at the right hand of God!). And
there is no mention of execution, cross or altar in these two verses.
Just that
Jesus, as the Lord in heaven, is a servant/minister of the holy places
&
"true" tabernacle.
And from which translation does "the real sanctuary" come from? "real" is not in the Greek!
Apparently, Muller's proficiency in Greek
is as deficient as his understanding of ancient cosmology. Carrier says
(and I will dispute his comment that it is my "translation" that has
"confused Muller" rather than his own deficiency in Greek, especially
since it is not my
translation):
Yes it is. Doherty's translation has
confused Muller again. The word is alēthinēs ("real, true, genuine"). It is
certainly in that verse—though,
as Muller later rightly notes, it
modifies tabernacle, not holy places. This still supports Doherty's
lesser point that Jesus is the Heavenly Priest in the "True" Tabernacle
(i.e. the real Jerusalem Temple in Heaven), but Doherty's translation
is misleading, at least in that it has confused his own critics, and is
not relevant to where the sacrifice takes place. On the one hand,
Muller is clearly out of his element here. But Doherty, too, needs to
be more rigorous....[And] Muller is correct that
Doherty is citing the
wrong verse in support of his argument as to where the sacrifice takes
place.
First, Carrier's final comment (which actually came earlier): I'm not
sure of the need for this criticism here. The sentence Muller quotes,
8:2, comes at the very beginning of the discussion (spread over
chapters
8 and 9) of the heavenly sacrifice and is introductory in nature. While
verse 2 does not yet mention the sacrifice itself, it states the
location of the "real sanctuary" (namely, in heaven) and if Muller had
fully understood what follows, he would realize that this location will
be identified by the writer as the scene of the sacrifice—as he
describes that sacrifice.
Muller is guilty (as so many are) of bringing Gospel preconceptions
into the text, when he notes: "I do not see any mention of execution,
cross or altar in these two verses." If he has not understood that
the "sacrifice" for this writer is not
related to execution and cross, but is the act of Christ bringing his
blood into the inner sanctuary and offering it to God, he will never
understand what Hebrews is all about. He will also fail to understand
the Platonic parallel explicit in these two chapters, in that a
comparison is being set up between heaven and earth, between
the heavenly ("real" in a Platonic sense) sanctuary and the earthly
one, between the actions of Jesus the High Priest in heaven and the
actions of the High Priest on
earth. If the sacrifice by Jesus were in terms of execution and cross
(whether located on earth or in heaven), there would be no basis for
comparison. It is the parallel actions of the two High Priests that are
being
compared, not in terms of execution or killing, but in the ritual
procedure of bringing the blood of the sacrifice into the inner
tabernacle for offering to God. Jesus does this in the heavenly
sanctuary, the Jewish High Priest does it in the earthly one. There may
be other elements to the whole process taking place prior to
this dual central act, such as Jesus' death/execution and the actual
slaughter of the animal in the outer part of the Temple, but they are
not introduced by the writer in these chapters. His focus is entirely
on the action of bringing the blood into the sanctuary and offering it
to God; indeed his language renders this act alone as his definition of
Christ's "sacrifice."
With this proper understanding (and I will illustrate it further by
appeal to other verses as we go along), one can see that the
"sacrifice" which this writer envisions cannot take place anywhere but
in heaven. He is hardly saying that Christ brought his own blood into
the sanctuary of the temple on earth. Throughout chapters 8 and 9 he is
comparing the two acts in the two sanctuaries by the two High Priests,
heavenly and earthly.
His whole point is that the heavenly one is superior, and that it
supplants the earthly one. The "old covenant" is being replaced by a
new one (8:7-13). In this, Hebrews shares a general motif found in
many Christian expressions of the early period, that Christ's
sacrifice, wherever it might be located, has introduced a new era in
which old practices are made obsolete and need to be set aside, such as
the Temple cult and even the very Law itself. But this particular
writer (and he is part of a community which has already adopted such an
outlook) has his own special 'take' on the supplanting process; no
other surviving document makes such a comparison between the heavenly
and earthly Temples or places such exclusive focus on Christ's
sacrifice as his act of bringing the blood into the heavenly sanctuary.
Commentators often express surprise at this unique approach to
christology, wondering "where it could have come from," but they fail
to see that this is simply another indicator of the variety of
independent development on the Christ-belief scene of the first
century, none of it derived from a single point and doctrine of origin
(no Big Bang), nothing to constitute a strange "deviation" from an
established norm. That the source of this particular interpretation is
entirely from scripture, the author makes abundantly clear throughout
the whole document.
Because the two "sacrifices" by the two High Priests are located in two
different realms, one in heaven the other on earth, we can now see the
full import of the verse that comes up almost immediately, 8:4, that
"smoking gun" I have often called attention to and which commentators
regularly pussyfoot around: "Now if
he had been on earth, he would not even have been a priest, since there
are already priests who offer the gifts which the Law prescribes,
[adding the first part of verse 5:] though
they minister in a sanctuary which is only a copy and shadow of the
heavenly." [NEB translation] Verse 5 is another indicator of the
Platonic viewpoint which saturates Hebrews. Why would the writer say
this unless he is locating the sacrifice of the heavenly
High Priest (Christ) in the heavenly
temple, indicating its
superior status—which is
the whole point of the epistle? To go back to
verse 4 itself, the dichotomy has to be seen as consistent, that is,
that the temple High Priest exists and acts on earth, while the
heavenly High Priest exists and acts in heaven. (The issue of the exact
translation of 8:4 I cover in my book and in my website article on
Hebrews—see link
below—and will
not repeat here.) Here we
can see that if this writer's Christ had
been on earth at all, this would have presented a big difficulty for
his Platonic picture of the parallel between the two High Priests. If
any of Christ's redeeming act had taken place on earth (and how could
Calvary not be introduced
into the picture?), the purity and 'lesson' of his whole exercise would
have been compromised, and at the very least would have required
clarification. As it is, the writer betrays no hint that anything
disturbs his finely drawn contrast between earth and heaven.
As for alēthinēs, Carrier is of course
correct that it can equally be translated as "true" or "real." My
translation, "in the real sanctuary, the tent pitched by the Lord and
not by man," was taken from the NEB, which is a translation I
consistently gravitate to, as it attempts to convey the inherent,
common
sense meaning of a passage rather than simply adhering to the
literal—although I
sometimes find it guilty of reading Gospel
associations into certain texts. Here, it is not off the mark (and it
illustrates my point about the NEB), since there is hardly a
distinction required in this verse between "sanctuary" and "tent,"
("holy places" and "tabernacle" are the words used by Muller and
Carrier), and thus "real" can, and should, be applied equally to
the word sanctuary. "Tent," grammatically speaking, is simply
in apposition to "sanctuary." Essentially, the writer is using both
words to refer to the same thing. The only other
translation I have seen which uses the word "real" instead of "true" is
the
Canadian Bible Society's Good News
for Modern Man, though I doubt
that they have done so with Platonic implications in mind. On the other
hand, Spiros Zodhiates, in his The
Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament, (p.122) does
recognize the Platonic implications: "skēnē
alēthinē (tabernacle) means the heavenly temple, after the model
of which the Jews regarded the temple of Jerusalem as built (Heb.
8:2)." Other commentators (whom I will have occasion to mention
later), have fully recognized
Hebrews' Platonic basis.
Thus, contrary to Carrier, this translation is not misleading, and it is relevant to the location of the
sacrifice. Both terms refer to the heavenly temple, and that is where
the writer will go on to locate Christ's own sacrifice as
heavenly High Priest. (Note that the NEB's "tent" as translating skēnēs—which is
its basic,
original meaning since the primitive Hebrew sanctuary for the Ark of
the Covenant was a portable
tent—is right
on the money. The earthly side of the comparison
between the two sanctuaries is not in terms of the Temple in Jerusalem,
but rather the "tent" version supposedly set up in Sinai during the
Exodus, another indicator that the writer is thoroughly immersed in
scripture rather than history or current reality.)
Let's also note 'Hagion'
does not necessarily mean "sanctuary" (which can be understood as
"temple"!).
But the
context is undeniable. Hebrews engages lengthy comparisons between
Jesus and the earthly High Priest—there can
therefore be no doubt that
the Temple is meant here (the use of tabernacle confirms the point).
See also below.
Furthermore,
sacrifices in the old Jewish system took
place always outside any tabernacle.
No, they took place inside it: Hebrews
9:6-8. There is an outer and an inner tabernacle. The sacrifice takes
place in the outer and the blood is taken to the inner, where it must
be poured on the altar. Only the High Priest can enter the inner
tabernacle. See 9:11-21 for how this relates not only to 8:1-2 but to
Doherty's entire thesis of parallels in heaven for earthly things, and,
incidentally, for the fact that the sacrifice takes place there.
The NEB also helps the clarity in another verse which clearly
illustrates that the sanctuary is a heavenly one, 9:11: "But now Christ has come, high priest of
good things already in being. The tent of his priesthood is a greater
and more perfect one, not made by men's hands, that is, not belonging
to this created world." What more could anyone want to
demonstrate the location of the sacrifice? Christ as High Priest
performing his sacrifice—the duties
of his "priesthood" in "greater and more perfect" parallel (and
contrast) to the earthly duties of the earthly High Priest—does so in
the tent that does not belong to this created world. What more could
anyone need to demonstrate the Platonic nature of the thought of this
writer?
I do not
see here (or in the whole of 'Hebrews'!) a
"sacrifice" occurring in heaven (at the right hand of God!). And
there is no mention of execution, cross or altar in these two verses.
The blood of the Lamb must be sprinkled on
the altar. All readers would have *known* that—they didn't need to be
told. Hebrews 9 definitely says Christ's blood was sprinkled on the
Heavenly Altar. That certainly implies he was sacrificed in the
Heavenly Outer Tabernacle. See Hebrews 9:23-24 - Christ is the "better
sacrifice" who cleanses the "copy" in heaven of the altar on earth [Carrier's phrasing here is misleading:
the heavenly altar is not the copy of the one on earth, but vice-versa],
who did not enter the
earthly tabernacle but the heavenly one. Indeed, Hebrews 10 struggles
to argue from chapter 9 that this is the very reason why Christ only
had to be sacrificed once: because, being heavenly, and performed on
the *true* altar, it is permanent, unlike the earthly sacrifices. After
all, the "better versions" of things are always in Heaven. That is made
clear throughout Hebrews, and of course by 8:1-2, which is why Doherty
cites it (but also see 9:11).
Again, Muller is wrong. But Doherty can't
prove that this was not mapped onto an earthly counterpart. Yes, there
is a heavenly sacrifice, but maybe that only paralleled a real one on
earth. I don't see any way to decide one way or the other....
The way to decide is not to bring preconceptions from other circles and
documents into one's analysis of this one, especially when this one
evinces christology and soteriology which is clearly quite different
from those other circles and documents. Besides, in this case,
that "mapping" would not work at all. A "real (sacrifice) on earth"
would
hardly be envisioned in terms of the entry into the sanctuary. First of
all, 8:4 rejects that: Jesus would not "even have been a priest if he
were/had been on earth." Second, any sacrifice on earth would have to
be seen
as involving the crucifixion itself, and so the elaborate Platonic
parallel with the earthly High Priest's actions would not be
applicable.
A bloody death on Calvary would not cleanse the heavenly sanctuary
(9:23),
since the act of cleansing is in the application of the blood to the
premises itself. If the writer were
trying to make such a connection, or to somehow parallel the historical
event on Calvary with an entry into the tabernacle (earth or heaven),
he would be required to explain
it. He would have a complicating second 'parallel' to deal with, not
just the one between the entries into the two tabernacles. No,
Carrier's studied neutrality is unworkable here. He goes on:
I also have some problem with the fact that
Jesus is supposedly killed in the firmament, yet the tabernacles should
be in the 7th heaven. So there seems to be different conceptions of
what happened to Jesus between Hebrews and the Ascension of Isaiah, and
it might be a strain to combine them. That does not mean Doherty's
thesis is fundamentally wrong—after all, Doherty argues that there
were many different Heavenly Jesus movements, so we should not be
surprised to find them developing different doctrines. But it does show
what I have said all along: we are much more ignorant than either
Doherty or Muller let on. We don't really know all we need to know to
decide the question of whether there was a historical Jesus....
There is nothing in Hebrews to indicate what this author's
particular view of the layers of heaven was, or of where precisely
Jesus underwent
death—although
he does mention Jesus' passage "through the heavens." There is no
specific mention of the firmament (though there is of a
"cross" which I will touch on later). Carrier has answered his own
query. In the mythicist viewpoint, there is no need to see a
commonality of concept across the entire Christian (or
'proto-Christian') movement of the first century. It would be
interesting to know something about the points of contact between the
Hebrews community and any other ones, but that doesn't mean we don't
know enough to make a deductive decision—if only on
a
balance of probability—about the
question of Jesus'
existence, at least where the Hebrews community is concerned.
But the (bringing of) "blood" is a sign the
sacrifice happens before
the Son enters the "true" holy places, which, according to the
following verse, is heaven itself:
Heb9:24 YLT "for not
into holy places made with hands did the Christ enter
-- figures
of the true -- but into the heaven itself, ..."
Therefore Christ would have brought his
"blood" (figuratively) from
outside the heavens:
"... who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, ..."
(Heb4:14 Darby).
On the other hand, I think Muller could be
right that Jesus carries his blood up through all the heavens, and
therefore Doherty should say that the sacrifice takes place in the
firmament here, rather than in the outer tabernacle. But without the
ability to interrogate the author of Hebrews, who can say?
I agree, who can say? In any case, I don't claim that the death takes
place
in the outer tabernacle. The author doesn't tell us, and while the 4:14
reference to a "Christ who has passed through the heavens" is not
itself conclusive, it may indeed suggest a death in the firmament,
especially since in 12:2 he says in passing that Christ "endured the
cross," and I don't think even a celestial crucifixion, with its
suffering by a deity, could be regarded as taking place in the 7th
heaven. But again, I have to stress that the author does not fail to
tell us where the "sacrifice" takes place. It takes place upon the
entry with the blood into the inner tabernacle. That is his definition of the sacrifice.
(Whether he would hedge and widen his net if we could actually confront
him for clarification, who knows?) Thus Muller's statement immediately
above, that the bringing of blood is a sign that the sacrifice happens before the Son enters the
sanctuary, is to ignore that definition. At least he seems to recognize
that a
key element of the process involves the entry into the heavenly sanctuary, but I wonder
how "figurative" blood would cleanse those "real" premises.
According to the above, "...
passed through the heavens ..."
(Heb4:14) would require earth as the starting point!...the counterpart of Doherty's "higher world" (the heavens) is earth itself. No other
"world" is mentioned (1:10,
12:26).
Muller should certainly know better. As he
himself suggests, the firmament, air, earth, and Sheol are all one
world (this world) and Hebrews uses the plural "heavens" for a reason
(there are many, and they are indeed distinct from "this world")....
I'm not sure what point Muller thinks he is making. Quite apart from
Carrier's observation, the counterpart of
the "higher world" is indeed earth itself. This is the Platonic
dichotomy the writer is presenting in regard to the parallel
sacrifices the two High Priests are making, Jesus in the heavenly
sanctuary, the earthly High Priest in the earthly one.
c) right after
12:2, where Jesus endured the
cross, the next verse exhorts: "For
consider well him who endured so great contradiction from
sinners
against himself ..." (12:3
Darby). Where were these "sinners" opposing Jesus? Considering
Heb7:25-26 NASB, "...
He
[Jesus] always lives to make
intercession for them [Christians],
...
a high
priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners ...", the sinners are not in the highest heaven!
And sins are never suggested to be
committed by demonic powers, those later
ones not even acknowledged in the epistle, except for one reference to
the
devil (singular!): Heb2:14. Instead, sins concern earthly humans.
....The
sinners can be the demons or their counterparts and agents on earth.
In fact, there is a third alternative: that the passage is
traditionally mistranslated. Usually it is rendered something like:
"Consider him who has endured hostility against himself from
sinners..." From my "Sound of Silence" feature, I'll reproduce a couple
of paragraphs on this verse:
Here, more than one
scholar has pointed out the similarity
of language and thought to the episode in Numbers 16:38 (LXX). There,
Core,
Dathan and Abiron have rebelled against Moses and his claim to speak
for
the Lord, with the result that they all perish in the abyss that opens
up beneath their feet. The Lord then directs Moses to sanctify the
censers
of "these sinners against their own souls" (tôn
hamartôlôn
toutôn en tais psuchais autôn). The point is, they are
sinners 'against themselves.' When we turn to the Hebrews passage, we
find
a similar phrase, now in the form of "sinners against himself," the
latter
referring to Christ. But this final word shows variants between
manuscripts.
Does the parallel in Numbers indicate that the original reading was
"sinners
against themselves"? Hugh Montefiore (Hebrews, p.216) accepts
such
a reading. Does the meaning entail the idea that Jesus is enduring
hostility
for
sinners in general, that is, for their sake, not that the sinners are
the
ones being hostile to him, as in the Gospel portrayal? (This is Jean
Héring's
translation, Hebrews, p.109.) Jesus 'enduring hostility' may
encompass
no more than the (mythological) concept that he suffered and died.
Alternatively, if Jesus
is said to have endured hostility—or
rebellion, if the thought is a conscious parallel to the use of the
word
in Numbers—on the part of sinners, meaning that he suffered in order to
redeem rebellious sinners (whether sinners against himself or against
themselves),
the whole idea may have been introduced in order to make a comparison
to
the believers in what the writer now urges upon them. Verse 4 goes on
to
say: "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the
point
of shedding your blood." Just as Jesus suffered on account of sin, this
too is the experience of believers, though their sufferings have not
gone
as far as his. But they too should endure, just like Jesus. The
writer
rounds out his little homily by offering words of encouragement. Where
are they taken from? Not from any voice of Jesus on earth, but once
more
from scripture, in Proverbs 3:11-12, a reference to God disciplining
his
sons.
Muller
calls attention to the reference to "sinners" in 7:26: "For it was fitting that we should have
such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners
and exalted above the heavens." This statement seems to imply
quite the opposite of what Muller would have: that Jesus was never in
contact with sinners, being someone who is exalted in the heavens. The
sinners were indeed "separated" from him.
Further on, Doherty declares "He [the author of 'Hebrews'] has said that Christ's
sacrifice is "spiritual,
eternal and unblemished" (9:14)". If the sacrifice is
spiritual & eternal, it has to be mythical, isn't it? But first,
let's
check the verse:
Heb9:14 Darby "how much
rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal
Spirit
offered himself spotless to God, purify your conscience from dead works
to
worship [the] living God?"
Where is the spiritual & eternal
sacrifice?...
Again, I think Muller misunderstands
Doherty, though Doherty is certainly confusing here. I believe Doherty
is not saying the sacrifice is cyclicly repeated like other myths (e.g.
Osiris) but that its effect lasts forever....
And further to this exchange:
The spirit
is eternal, not the
sacrifice. And the later is not qualified as spiritual. And no
translation can
possibly have the sacrifice as "spiritual,
eternal, ...",
according to the Greek. If there is no evidence supporting your case,
that's
not a reason to create some!
I agree.
This is not the only place where Doherty is a little muddled. Though
his point has merit, he does not always make the best argument for his
own case—or perhaps
sometimes misuses evidence. This is a good example of that. The context
does support Doherty, not Muller. But Doherty is wrong to claim that
Heb. 9:14 literally says what Doherty claims.
Well, I hope to demonstrate that I am neither muddled nor misusing
evidence, much less "creating" it. Once again, my "spiritual and
eternal sacrifice" is a drawing on of an actual translation, namely the
NEB (and I should have noted the source in my text). By the time I
decided to quote that one, I had read a lot of
commentaries on Hebrews, and I came to the conclusion that the NEB had
cut to the heart of the meaning, even if it was not a literal
translation (much like the example I dealt with above).
The NEB says:
9:14. How much greater [than the
blood of goats and bulls] is the power of the blood of Christ; he
offered himself without blemish to God, a spiritual and eternal
sacrifice....
Some of the older commentators on Hebrews (before more recent scholars
began to shy away from such insights, perhaps realizing their danger)
fully recognized the Platonic nature of the epistle writer's thought.
James Moffat, in the International
Critical Commentary (1924) says (p.xliii, and I'll quote him at
some length as there are several features here pertinent to our
discussion):
"When the author writes that Christ 'in the spirit of the eternal'
(9:14) offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, he has in
mind the contrast between the annual sacrifice on the day of atonement
and the sacrifice of Christ which never needed to be repeated, because
it had been offered in the spirit and—as we
might say—in the eternal order of things [my
emphasis]. It was a sacrifice bound up with his death in history, but
it belonged essentially to the
higher order of absolute reality. The writer breathed the
Philonic atmosphere in which the eternal Now over-shadowed the things
of space and time, but he knew this sacrifice had taken place on the
cross, and his problem was one which never confronted Philo, the
problem which we moderns have to face in the question: How can a single
historical fact possess a timeless significance?"
The first thing one notices, of course, is that Moffat takes a Platonic
meaning from the text itself but imposes the historical dimension which
is not taken from the text,
but is rather read into it. Of course, every commentator does this. It
is amusing that Moffat, here and further on in his Introduction, has to
admit that the "problems" inherent in the text relate to issues
surrounding the incarnation and presumed historical event: "[H]ow is
the Sonship compatible with the earthly life?—these are
problems which remain unsolved" (p.xlix); and: "he [the author of the
epistle] does not succeed in harmonizing its implications about the
incarnate life with his gnōsis
of the eternal Son within the higher sphere of divine realities" (p.l).
No wonder the author fails to solve these "problems"! He never
addresses them. He never shows a sign that they exist for him. They are
problems created by the imposition of the Gospel Jesus on documents
which don't know of any such figure. In that last phrase just quoted,
"his gnōsis of the eternal Son within
the higher sphere of divine realities," Moffat inadvertently
demonstrates the sum total of the writer's knowledge, the sole basis of
his faith and christology: it is the product of revealed gnōsis about a Son who existed in
that higher realm of "reality." Once we see and admit that, the entire
epistle and all its elements fall into place.
Moffat has also touched (in the long quote above) on the point of the
"once" of Jesus' sacrifice, as does Carrier:
... There is no doubt that Hebrews said it
only happened once, and that it happened in history, a good long time
after the first covenant was established, and prior to our own time in
history, and that its effect is eternal. If Doherty thinks otherwise, I
don't see why he needs to. His thesis is perfectly compatible with a
once and past event. After all, Satan's fall was a once and past event,
yet clearly not something that happened on earth. And Jesus' sacrifice
is precisely what was necessitated by Satan's fall, so we should expect
standard notions of sympathetic magic here: the cure must resemble the
disease (a common notion in ancient medicine). Thus, if Satan fell only
to the aer, not to become
anyone on earth, you would expect that is where Jesus must go, too.
That, again, does not prove this was so, but it shows the plausibility
inherent in Doherty's thesis.
I suppose I must thank Carrier for regularly providing indications that
my view is the correct or logical one, even though he regularly takes a
cautionary step back to agnosticism. Carrier claims that there is no
doubt Hebrews says that the sacrifice "happened in history." This, of
course, is the crux of the matter, and I will devote some space to
demonstrating why this is wrong, and how the document tells us so.
First, the simple answer is that the sacrifice is "once" because its
perfect, eternal nature requires only a single performance (and because
it was performed 'in the spirit,' as Moffat puts it); but this eternal
sacrifice was not performed in
history, rather it was revealed
in
history, in the present time. The latter point is a motif we find
throughout the other New Testament epistles. Paul, pseudo-Paul, 1
Peter, 1 John: they all say that Christ has been "manifested/revealed"
in the present time, after a long period of being hidden, that the
present time is a time of "the arrival of faith," that apostles have
been inspired by "the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven," that
the Son of God "is come and given us understanding," that the Son
speaks to us through holy scripture, and so on.
Before looking at the key passage (9:24-26), let's glance back to an
earlier one which introduces the idea of "once": (7:27) "He has no need, like those high priests,
to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of
the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself."
(RSV). If the reader will recall the argument earlier, this act of
"offering" is not the death on a cross (wherever it might have taken
place), but the entry of Jesus into the heavenly sanctuary and the offering of his blood on the altar
to God. This must be, since (as we see here in 7:27) it constitutes the
parallel comparison between the action of the high priest on earth and
that of Jesus. The only point
of comparison presented is the entry into the tabernacle. Therefore,
the offering is the act in
the heavenly sanctuary. This is the key to the understanding of this
epistle, and if one insists on bringing Gospel preconceptions to the
document, one will forever miss it.
That this "offering" takes place in heaven is demonstrated in a further
passage, 10:11-12: "And every priest
stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices,
which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all
time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God"
(RSV). There can be little doubt that the writer's horizon here is
entirely confined to heaven. Immediately after Christ makes his
offering, he sits at God's side. There is no intervening resurrection,
no ascension through the heavens (even from the firmament). At the very
least, even if such elements cannot be necessarily ruled out as prior
happenings, the definition of the offering
itself must be confined to a heavenly event, the entry into the
heavenly sanctuary. The "offering" is the same thing as the
"sacrifice." Understanding what the author has in mind by the act of
offering, where it is located, is part of the key, as we shall see.
The main reason why the author has styled the 'event' of Christ's
sacrifice as "once for all" is not because it happened in history, but
because he is contrasting it with the performance of the high priest's
duties on earth. Here and in several other passages (e.g. 9:12, 9:25)
he makes a point of noting that the temple priests perform their
sacrifices repeatedly; however, Christ has to do this but "once" only,
because his blood, his sacrifice, is superior, perfect; his blood has
"greater power" (9:14) than the blood of goats and bulls. His
sacrifice need be performed only once, and it has eternal efficacy.
That translation Muller disputed, "a spiritual and eternal sacrifice,"
comes immediately after this thought in 9:14, and thus the NEB's
attachment of "eternal" to "sacrifice" is justified: it is fully in
keeping with the writers "once for all" declaration, because the
sacrifice itself is eternal, both in its Platonic performance and in
its effects. As at other points and in other contexts in the epistle,
the writer is at pains to demonstrate how Christ as High Priest is the
superior element, thus supplanting the old systems and readings of
scripture. All sects believe they have uncovered the correct, newly
inspired interpretation of the truth.
Now we can go on to the key passage, 9:24-26, and again I'll use the
RSV: "24. For Christ has entered, not into a
sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven
itself, now to appear [the verb emphanidzō)
in the presence of God on our behalf.
25. Nor was it to offer
himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly
with blood not his own; 26. for
then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the
world. But as it is, he has appeared [the verb phaneroō] once for all at the completion of the ages
to abolish sin by his sacrifice.
With the proper understanding of the writer's concept of sacrifice and
offering and where it is located, we can see all the elements of this
epistle's thought in the above three verses. There can be no doubt that
Christ "enters" a heavenly sanctuary, of which the one on earth is a
Platonic copy, and the "appearing before God" is this heavenly entry to
offer his blood ("on our behalf"). Most important is what this does for
verse 26, that central verse which Carrier and others use to interpret
an historical venue for Jesus' sacrifice, taking "appeared...at the
completion of the ages" as a reference to Jesus' incarnation in recent
history. But it is
not. The act of "appearing" throughout these verses relates to one
thing: Jesus' sacrifice, which is synonymous with his entry into the
heavenly sanctuary to make his offering to God. The "appearing" in
verse 26b is not some sudden shift to a general reference to Christ's
birth or life on earth, something which is never touched on when
discussing the sacrifice (or indeed at any other point in the epistle).
The "appearing to abolish sin" of the latter verse is in the same
category as the "appearing
before God" of the earlier verse 24 (the two verses use verbs that have
similar meanings). All of it takes place in heaven.
And the verb "appeared" in verse 26: "Phaneroō"
is strictly a 'revelation' word, in keeping with the standard sort of
expression found throughout the epistles when they speak of Christ in
the present time: not coming to earth or living a life, but being
revealed. To this idea he has attached his phrase "once," which here
may not be the same prime fit as in all the other cases, in that
elsewhere it is the sacrifice which is performed "once for all," while
here it is the revelation. But that this is an anomaly must be accepted
in any case, since its application is not to the sacrifice, no matter
how one might interpret phaneroō. Perhaps
he was led to apply "once" to the present-day revelation because of its
singular and unprecedented nature. Few writers are always perfectly
consistent in their use of language.
Let's also look at the first part of verse 26, whose significance is
usually overlooked in discussing the passage: "for then he would have had to suffer
repeatedly since the foundation of the world." That this thought
could only be applied to heaven should be evident. The concept of dying
repeatedly on earth throughout history would have been nonsensical, and
he would hardly have introduced it. To style it as repeating "since the foundation of the world"
places it in a mythological setting. What he is saying is that Christ
would not have to undergo his redeeming act on a regular basis in the spiritual realm. Perhaps he
is consciously repudiating the more pagan concept of a savior god's
"repetition" of his act of dying and rising—the
"always is so," something timeless and constant (à la Plutarch's
interpretation of the Osiris myth and Sallustius' similar reading of
savior god mythology, all of it ultimately based on the agricultural /
astronomical cycle). But the
inclusion of the word "suffer" in this sentence indicates that for this
writer the entire scope of Christ's actions, the entire redeeming
process which has abolished sin, has taken place in the heavenly world—even the
death itself (the "on the cross" of 12:2).
And we can go further. That the writer does not have any earthly event
in mind in this entire passage is indicated by the verse coming shortly
after. 28a says: "So Christ was offered
once to remove men's sins..." We have identified the idea of "offering"
as attached to the entry of Christ into the heavenly sanctuary to offer
his blood to God. The "once" is back where it belongs. But 28a is also
a virtual restatement of 26b: "he has appeared once
for all at the completion of the ages to abolish sin by his sacrifice."
The removal or abolition of sin is tied in the latter to the act of
sacrifice and in the former to the act of offering. But these are
synonymous, for the act of offering is
the act of sacrifice. Thus the reference to "appearing" (being
revealed) at the completion of the ages is further demonstrated to be a
reference to the heavenly event.
Nowhere is anything earthly in view.
This passage happens to lead into the one reference (verse 28b) in all
the epistles which many claim implies that Christ is "returning" to
earth, that he will be coming a "second time" to bring salvation
(referring to the Parousia). But the "second time" word can also mean
"next," removing any thought of a return. I discuss this in the
Epilogue of my article on the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and I recommend that the reader investigate the whole of
this article for a fuller discussion of the arguments made here, and
other aspects of the epistle which demonstrate a lack of knowledge of
an historical Jesus or an event of salvation on earth.
Muller and Carrier conclude their attention to Hebrews:
In conclusion, there is no evidence
in
'Hebrews' the "sacrifice" happened in the heavens, despite Doherty's
best imaginative effort & rhetoric. But there are significant clues
pointing
to earth....
Neither is
true. There is *some* evidence for heaven, but it is vague. And the
clues that point to "earth" actually only point to the whole sublunar
realm. Thus, the case remains undecided. Doherty's thesis is neither
challenged nor proved by Hebrews, taken in isolation.
I hope that the above discussion has demonstrated that both Muller and
Carrier are wrong. A proper examination of Hebrews (one without the
Gospel-colored glasses) amply demonstrates that the sacrifice—as the author sees and defines it—takes place in heaven. It is anything but
"vague." Nor do I think that shifting the "clues that point to earth"
to the sublunar realm is all that applicable here. Those earthly
"clues" are largely part of the earthly dimension that forms one half
of the author's Platonic parallel, although we certainly can conclude,
if we read the implications behind the writer's cosmology, that the
death of Jesus on the cross would indeed be relegated to the sublunar
realm. This, however, is not where the writer places his focus, and it
even seems to be an element which is unimportant to him.
The Epistle to the Hebrews demonstrates, perhaps more than any other
document, the necessity to remove Gospel preconceptions from one's mind
before approaching it. Muller has
shown that trying to impose historical paradigms on it leads to a host
of difficulties and contradictions, whereas a mythicist viewpoint
imposes only unity and consistency. That this writer and his community
could create such a majestic soteriological structure, such a fantastic
view of spiritual reality, entirely out of scripture and philosophical
concepts, demonstrates the extent such forces and sheer imagination
could play in the religious inventions of the era. (We need to carry
this realization with us when we go to Paul; it will make it easier to
see and accept that he, too, is presenting his view of spiritual
reality, from a Son who is "of the seed of David" because scripture
tells him so, to a crucifixion in the heavens at the hands of demon
spirits, "the rulers of this age.") Once
the picture the author of Hebrews is presenting is clearly seen, not
only does
everything fit into a largely Platonic conception within the religious
philosophy of the time, one can see the
great void that exists about anything concerning a Jesus on earth. And
that void extends throughout the epistle. I'll be delving into the
latter area in Part Three.
* * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Muller included in his critique of
The
Jesus Puzzle some rebuttal to certain points made by Carrier in his
review of The Jesus Puzzle for the Internet Infidels, and Carrier
responded. I will be commenting on some of that material in Part Three.
When
Muller returns to The Jesus Puzzle in Part 2 of his critique, he
revisits topics such as Romans 1:3, higher and lower worlds, and
Hebrews in regard to my claims about the silence on an historical Jesus
in that document. He
also addresses "born of woman" in Galatians 4, "brother of the Lord"
and Josephus. It is in Part Three that I will be bringing in
'fourth-party' comments from posters on the Internet Infidels.
To Part Three
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