There is a phrase God uses a lot: Foundation of the World. It his dividing line so to speak, like bc/ad is for us on earth - before Christ, after Christ. Foundation of the World literally means "overthrow of the cosmos (Kosmos in greek). It is his dividing line for things that happened before, and things that happened later.
Sunesis... I don't think it was just a candle you lit with pointing out the "overthrow of the cosmos." I think it was a stick of dyno-mite! But I can't explain it right now. I have to go up to the University library and do some more research, but I have homework that will keep me busy until Tuesday. Here I am at 60, finishing a degree I started forty-three years ago.
I've got some things to say about Paul, but that'll have to wait too. This is one of the most interesting threads I've read in years. I'm glad I get to interact with each and every one of you who have posted here!
Sunesis... I don't think it was just a candle you lit with pointing out the "overthrow of the cosmos." I think it was a stick of dyno-mite! But I can't explain it right now. I have to go up to the University library and do some more research, but I have homework that will keep me busy until Tuesday. Here I am at 60, finishing a degree I started forty-three years ago.
I've got some things to say about Paul, but that'll have to wait too. This is one of the most interesting threads I've read in years. I'm glad I get to interact with each and every one of you who have posted here!
Love,
Steve
I know both Bullinger and chris geer (who got it from Bullinger) put forth that "katabole"
meant "overthrow" and not "foundation".
However, having done a study on it (Raf did much of the work), I do not believe either was
correct in doing so. Bullinger even noted there was a verse that made no sense if "katabole"
was translated that way, yet he persisted. "Katabole" is typically translated "foundation."
After having looked at the evidence, I have concluded that this translation is correct.
Neither Paul, nor any other of the first century writers wrote in a vacuum. The things they wrote were part of a conversation that began hundreds of years before their time, and continues to this very day, even as I type. For their readers in the first century (as well as us), that conversation included everything they had ever heard or read.
The best current New Testament scholarship I've found is from James D. G. Dunn, not because he declares "This is what it means!" He doesn't. But because he has spent his adult live reconstructing, as well as a 20th-21st century scholar could, the conversation that occurred in the first century. He has written a number of profoundly questioning books, most scandalously, one called Christology in the Making. He isn't anti-trinitarian. He just seriously considers who and what Paul and the others actually said Jesus was, and that's enough to raise the ire of some trinitarians.
One of Dunn's books that I value highly is The Theology of Paul the Apostle (1998). Here is a quote from it that I find interesting in regard to the idea that there are no contradictions in the Bible,
"...what can we say about the conception of Christ which Paul held in his theology? The range of imagery is remarkable. The most straightforward image is that of the individual seated on God's right, sharing God's kingly rule. It is not difficult to integrate with this the complementary imagery of heavenly intercession, subjection (or destruction?) of enemies (defeat of death, that is, by resurrection), royal parousia to earth (before or after? and where?), judgment ("the day of the Lord"), and finally submission to God. But Paul also envisages the exalted Christ in the image of the last Adam, the prototype of resurrected human beings, the elder brother of the new family, the firstborn from the dead. As we shall see later, the Adam aspect of this latter imagery correlates with the "in Christ" "mysticism" of paul's soteriology, where Christ is envisaged as a corporate person "in" whom believers can find themselves. More difficult to integrate is the Wisdom strand of Paul's christology. For preexistant Wisdom is less a person and more a way of speaking of God's universal self-expression, and if the exalted Christ is to be thought of in an analogous way, the problems of integrated conceptuality become still more difficult. The same applies to the seeming equation of the last Adam with life-giving spirit (I Cor. 15.45) and to the thought of Christ indwelling his own.
"The obvious conclusion to draw from all this is that the different imagery is not in fact mutually consistent, and any attempt to integrate it in a single portrayal would be conceptually confusing to say the least. We would be better advised to recognize it all as imagery and not to overemphasize or concentrate exclusively on one or another metaphor. The common theme to all the imagery--God's purpose for salvation, now and in the future, as focused in and explicated by Christ--is what matters." (pages 314 and 315)
Steve, I ran across the Overthrow of the Foundation idea from two books I read a few years ago: The Earth's Earliest Ages, by Pember, and The Invisible War by Donald Barnhouse. I've always liked that concept. Both available from Amazon. Both excellent books. It took a while to meander over there in my walk. I believe God gives us ideas, thought, musings, that if we follow up on, we are pleasantly surprised.
Interesting writing on Paul. I look at the word "Logos" as an idea that has been given form. Like, the invisible man, you can't see him until he drapes himself with a blanket or something - then he is manifest - you can see him, his form. Christ was the "Logos" given form - the idea (the mind of God - his purposes and desires), made manifest - in the flesh. The flesh was the blanket, so to speak, giving shape to the Logos.
Steve, I ran across the Overthrow of the Foundation idea from two books I read a few years ago: The Earth's Earliest Ages, by Pember, and The Invisible War by Donald Barnhouse. I've always liked that concept. Both available from Amazon. Both excellent books. It took a while to meander over there in my walk. I believe God gives us ideas, thought, musings, that if we follow up on, we are pleasantly surprised.
Interesting writing on Paul. I look at the word "Logos" as an idea that has been given form. Like, the invisible man, you can't see him until he drapes himself with a blanket or something - then he is manifest - you can see him, his form. Christ was the "Logos" given form - the idea (the mind of God - his purposes and desires), made manifest - in the flesh. The flesh was the blanket, so to speak, giving shape to the Logos.
Thanks for the info on the books, Sunesis. I'll probably order them in a day or two. The thing that sparked my imagination about "pro kataboles cosmou" is that it may not be a phrase from 2nd Temple Judaism at all, but rather a reference to "the conflagration" of Stoic cosmology. Stoic cosmology was the default cosmology from about 300 BC to 200 AD. It was the cosmology that Paul's 1st century gentile converts took for granted. However, the default cosmology had changed to neo-platonism by the time Augustine wrote in the 5th century and church doctrine became set in stone.
The question before me is, did the words "body," "soul" and "spirit" have radically different meanings when Paul used them from the meanings they had when Augustine used them? The implications are HUGE! I'm no where near to being able to resolve this question, but I think I know what I'll be researching for awhile. Thanks!
I think quite a few of VPW's oneliners were pretty good. The only question is whether they were really his oneliners or someone else's.
All of VPs one liners, that I can think of at the moment, were from AA literature. Ever wonder where his definition of humility comes from? I searched high and low in residence and couldn't find that in any dictionary anywhere. It comes directly from The Big Book. Let me know if you want the page number. When studying AA/Al Anon literature, I am constantly running into things we learned in "the ministry."
Now, back to the regularly scheduled program...(I have not read this thread to the end yet. It is not my intention to derail, merely to respond to Tazia's comment).
I've been in the Gulf of Mexico for a week and was surprised to find this thread still alive. Perhaps this will add to somebody's understanding? It sure helped me as far as "free will."
How many times have you heard "it was God's will" that such and such happened? Well, there's this little book called The Will of God by Leslie Weatherhead (there's a good German name for ya) which claims that there are actually three (3) wills of God:
"1) The intentional will of God: Was it God's intention from the beginning that Jesus should go to the Cross? I think the answer to that question must be No. I don't think Jesus thought that at the beginning of his ministry. He came with the intention that men should follow him, not kill him. The discipleship of men, not the death of Christ, was the intentional will of God, or, if you like, God's ideal purpose.
2) The circumstantial will of God: When circumstances wrought by men's evil set up such a dilemma that Christ was compelled either to die or to run away, then in those circumstances the Cross was the will of God, but only in those circumstances which were themselves the fruit of evil.
3) The ultimate will of God: God's ultimate goal--the purposefulness of God which, in spite of evil and, even through evil, arrives, with nothing of value lost.. The same goal as would have been reached if the intentional will of God could have been carried through without frustration. In other words, God cannot be finally defeated. That's the definition of His omnipotence--not that everything that happens is His will, but that nothing can happen which FINALLY defeats His will. So, in regard to the cross, God achieved His final goal not simply in spite of the Cross but through it."
I think our free will causes one of these wills of God to operate. Surely Jesus didn't want to die, but "not my will, but yours be done."
Just one other thought. Paul claims that he was blameless in the law. (!) I didn't know someone could be such. However, he says it in the same way he uses his sufferings. He makes quite a list of both: accomplishments and sufferings. Anyway, I think his point with both is that it's not by works, not by good works or by bad works--it's by grace. Is that not the lesson? If God can have three wills, can't we too? I have often felt pressured or cornered to do something I really don't want to. Or life just changes on me. I gotta change with it or I'm eating dust. I guess I'm just thinking that our free will changes as we do (or not).
I know both Bullinger and chris geer (who got it from Bullinger) put forth that "katabole"
meant "overthrow" and not "foundation".
However, having done a study on it (Raf did much of the work), I do not believe either was
correct in doing so. Bullinger even noted there was a verse that made no sense if "katabole"
was translated that way, yet he persisted. "Katabole" is typically translated "foundation."
After having looked at the evidence, I have concluded that this translation is correct.
In either case, the point about God using it as a division in times, eons, ages ... holds. And the division is similar in either case the end of the last world (if it means Overthrow) or the beginning of this one (if it means Foundation). But Katabole - thrown down as a literal term would indicate what is physically thrown down or against - as you throw down the foundation of a building, upon which to build. To use the word to describe "Lucifer's Overthrow" is to use it figuratively, where it's an idea of a rebellion that failed, and reaped consequences for the Physical creation.
The point is that - translating katabole as Overthrow is a figurative, not a literal translation. It is used that way concerning breaking a city down to it's foundations in a third century document i read once. but,.... that could have been influenced by a change in usage of the word over time and i can't say it meant overthrow over two-hundred years earlier when Paul wrote But it was doubly used, which caught my attention to the katabole to the katabole or the idea of taking down the city to it's foundations (concerning a military conquest). So this word was use in more than one way in the past.
That shouldn't be a cause for concern, as we ascribe more than one meaning to a great many words today. It also doesn't mean I sat down with Paul to write His Letters and have the be all and end all view on what he meant when he wrote, or know with certainty who the author was, but Paul was the writer.
You could take something as simple as this katabole and invent a religion but in other plaves it uses the word kataklysmos. Katabole and kataklysmos are not the same and kataklysmos is more along the lines of cataclysm eh? Does that matter?
In terms of understanding the plan of salvation, and getting saved, no I don't think it matters.
In terms of what's true and what's false, then, yes, I think it matters.
(I won't stay up nights worried about it, but I prefer to be correct when I can manage it.)
I think God's plan of salvation is this, whoever confesses with his (or her) mouth the Lord Jesus, and believes in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead will be saved.
That is the substance. All the other jots and tittles are icing on the cake... very delicious icing, but it can make a person sick if he eats too much of it too fast because he mistakes the icing for the substance. I do that sometimes.
Having written what I just did in my last post, anybody wanna taste some of the icing I've been thinking about?
What if the word "body" didn't mean "carcass" to Paul, like it does to us, but rather "the whole of that by which one thing moves another", sort of like our word "interface"? What if the word "soul" didn't mean "the immaterial component that houses identity" but rather "the whole of the self"? What if "spirit" didn't mean "the substance of a parallel cosmos inaccessible to the senses" but rather "the whole of a person's life as evidenced by that person's power to move"?
That would change our understanding of I Thessalonians 5:23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (I left out the words added by the English translators.) Are these a listing of the components of a three-part being? Or are they three different ways to view the wholeness of a person... the wholeness of interaction, the wholeness of self and the wholeness of life?
Coupled with a careful reading of Genesis 2:7, these meanings could raise some serious questions about the assumptions regarding salvation held by the church since the fourth century, and those assumptions were only modified by Wierwille in his interpretations.
The thing is, these WERE the meanings attached to the words "spirit" and "soul" and "body" according to the world-view of the Stoics, the world-view that was dominant at the time Paul wrote, the world-view most of Paul's readers took for granted in the first century.
Were these the meanings Paul intended when he wrote? I don't know. If, when Paul wrote the phrase "from the foundation/down-throwing/over-throw of the cosmos", he was referring to "the conflagration" of Stoic cosmology, then it would reinforce the idea that the words "spirit", "soul" and "body" were also meant to carry meanings that were Stoic instead of neo-Platonic.
I rummaged around at the university library for awhile, and couldn't find the phrase pro kataboles cosmou in any of the reference books on Stoicism. I've got a book on order called Paul and the Stoics by Troels Engberg-Pederson. Maybe I'll learn more in it.
For several decades, whenever I want to take my mind off things, I play with toy soldiers. I think I will go play with toy soldiers, before I make myself sick by eating too much icing too fast!
Thanks, waysider. The copy I ordered of Paul and the Stoics came in the mail today, and it looks like it's going to be a looooooooooooooong read. It's 304 pages of dense text with 73 pages of notes. I read the preface, and scanned the table of contents and the index without finding any immediate references to the conflagration, but who knows what might turn up in my reading of the book? The nugget I'm looking for, if there is one at all, might just be buried in one of the notes.
In the preface, Engberg-Pederson describes the position of his book within a discussion regarding Paul that has been going on for about 100 years now in the scholarly community. Engberg-Pederson mentioned the work of James Dunn, which I am passingly familiar with, so that upped E-P's "street-cred" a bit in my eyes.
The scholarly discussion that has been going on this past century is like the topic of this thread, only writ large! It has been an effort to understand Paul's writings in light of the first century dialogue, rather than Reformation caricatures of that dialogue. Before E-P's book, most of the work had been done to understand Paul's dialogue with Second Temple Jadaism. Paul and the Stoics is the first extensive, detailed examination of Paul's dialogue with the dominant gentile system of his day, and as one might imagine, Engberg-Pederson concentrates on Stoic ethics, hopefully not to the exclusion of Stoic cosmology.
Books like this make me shudder at how shallow, biased and self-serving the research efforts of TWI and the off-shoots are, and how arrogant our former leaders were and are to even call what they do "research."
I will be reading for awhile, but I'll also be clearing off the tabletop to fight a battle between my orcs and my Roman legionnaires from time to time.
Books like this make me shudder at how shallow, biased and self-serving the research efforts of TWI and the off-shoots are, and how arrogant our former leaders were and are to even call what they do "research."
Well, it looks like this is not going to be a brief quest. I'm about 70 pages into Paul and the Stoics by Engberg-Pederson. It looks like he's building a model of the thought that Paul and the Stoics had in common, and then he will look at the writings of each in light of that model. I'm going to continue to plow through it in hopes of odd pieces (odd to E-P, not to me) that might help me understand.
I've also decided to go straight to the horse's mouth (or as close as I can get, being igerrant of Latin), and I bought a Penguin Classics edition of Seneca's Dialogues and Letters.
I briefly looked at a couple of translations of The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca on the internet. It's too shallow to be informative about the issues I'm interested in.
"...John XXIII called the Council of Constance in 1414, which deposed all three popes and elected a new one, Martin V. The new pope pronounced Constance a valid ecumenical council, thereby approving its aims and decrees."
On ‎2‎/‎5‎/‎2010 at 10:35 AM, Tzaia said:
It has come to Paul's word being as good as Jesus' when there is no evidence to suggest that he ever had any real authority other than what he bestowed on himself.
Seems it does indeed come to that. Furthermore, there is a difference in the message (the gospel) that each spoke. Why the difference?
In short, because "things changed."
Before his death, Jesus Christ was a minister unto the circumcision. As were the 12 apostles. Period.
(If anyone can plainly show from scripture where this directive for the 12 ever changed, please do so... because I don't think it exists.)
Whereas Paul very openly declares himself to be "the apostle" (not "an apostle") to the Gentiles.
Why take Paul's word to be (as Jesus Christ's was during his ministry) "the word of God"?
It's not the only one, but maybe one of the best reason is rather succinctly stated in 1Thess.2:13. Because it "effectually worketh also in you that believe."
In other words, it just plain works.
So, I take issue (and exception) with your statement that "there is no evidence to suggest that he ever had any real authority other than what he bestowed upon himself." However, the evidence (or proof, if you prefer) is something that each of us must garner for ourselves. What I have and hold won't suffice for you, nor anyone else. Just like no one else's would for me. We each must "prove it" for ourselves, even as we can (and should) prove for ourselves what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. (see Rom. 12:2; Eph.5:10; 1Thes.5:21.)
Wow. TLC your thread necromancy has pulled up a doozie. Some gems from the late Steve Lortz. A great discussion of many things going on currently in doctrinal. A good read.
Wow. TLC your thread necromancy has pulled up a doozie. Some gems from the late Steve Lortz. A great discussion of many things going on currently in doctrinal. A good read.
I'd never seen or read it prior to Waysider's link to it. That said, maybe it's worth putting a copy my previous post over in the doctrinal thread (if I can figure how to do it easily enough...)
On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2010 at 6:58 AM, WordWolf said:
I know both Bullinger and chris geer (who got it from Bullinger) put forth that "katabole"
meant "overthrow" and not "foundation".
However, having done a study on it (Raf did much of the work), I do not believe either was
correct in doing so. Bullinger even noted there was a verse that made no sense if "katabole"
was translated that way, yet he persisted. "Katabole" is typically translated "foundation."
After having looked at the evidence, I have concluded that this translation is correct.
If whatever was (in Gen.1:1) was overthrown, then a new foundation became necessary. In light of that, I really don't see that it makes much (if any) difference if both are thought to be referring to something occurring between Gen,1:1 and 2:4.
On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2010 at 8:29 PM, Steve Lortz said:
One of Dunn's books that I value highly is The Theology of Paul the Apostle (1998). Here is a quote from it that I find interesting in regard to the idea that there are no contradictions in the Bible,
"...what can we say about the conception of Christ which Paul held in his theology? The range of imagery is remarkable. The most straightforward image is that of the individual seated on God's right, sharing God's kingly rule. It is not difficult to integrate with this the complementary imagery of heavenly intercession, subjection (or destruction?) of enemies (defeat of death, that is, by resurrection), royal parousia to earth (before or after? and where?), judgment ("the day of the Lord"), and finally submission to God. But Paul also envisages the exalted Christ in the image of the last Adam, the prototype of resurrected human beings, the elder brother of the new family, the firstborn from the dead. As we shall see later, the Adam aspect of this latter imagery correlates with the "in Christ" "mysticism" of paul's soteriology, where Christ is envisaged as a corporate person "in" whom believers can find themselves. More difficult to integrate is the Wisdom strand of Paul's christology. For preexistant Wisdom is less a person and more a way of speaking of God's universal self-expression, and if the exalted Christ is to be thought of in an analogous way, the problems of integrated conceptuality become still more difficult. The same applies to the seeming equation of the last Adam with life-giving spirit (I Cor. 15.45) and to the thought of Christ indwelling his own.
"The obvious conclusion to draw from all this is that the different imagery is not in fact mutually consistent, and any attempt to integrate it in a single portrayal would be conceptually confusing to say the least. We would be better advised to recognize it all as imagery and not to overemphasize or concentrate exclusively on one or another metaphor. The common theme to all the imagery--God's purpose for salvation, now and in the future, as focused in and explicated by Christ--is what matters." (pages 314 and 315)
Writing a book and calling it The Theology of Paul the Apostle is, in and of itself, rather ballsy. Of course, not having read it, there isn't much to critique about it beyond what wee bit Steve has quoted from it. However, that said, I'm not of the opinion that his perception and usage of this phrase "the last Adam" necessarily matches or aligns well with that of Paul's... namely because I see it differently. Of course, maybe it's my view of it that's wacky. But in my mind, Adam (by nature of his very name) was made of the dust of the ground. As the first was, so also was "the last." Until changed. Changed?
What changed? mmmmmm... yeah. really good question. but, not so easy to answer.
To get any kind of handle on that, it only makes sense to me to grasp what the similarities were between these two. What did they start life with. What path do they take? How and/or where does it end? Well, to summarize it, the first man Adam turned away and looked at life in the flesh and became what he saw (and hence, is said to have been made "a living soul.") The last Adam, looked away from life in the flesh and became what he saw (and hence, was made a quickening spirit.)  In other words, I think they both changed from the vantage point they started with. The first Adam is known to us (more or less) as, the man of dust. The last Adam (who like the first, was made of dust) is past, and at his resurrection became "the second man" (aka, the Lord from heaven.)Â
Consequently, I simply do not see "the exalted Christ in the image of the last Adam." Rather, he is "the second man." Very distinct and very different from Adam (first or last), which were made of dust. Likewise, I do not equate the last Adam with life-giving spirit. That is reserved in its entirety for the second man, the Lord from heaven. But, blend them together if you must. Just don't ask or expect anyone else to be able to understand it or make good sense out of it. Without a clear demarcation of the change that occurred with his resurrection, it will undoubtedly remain a fuzzy (and at times, quite confusing) portrayal of what I evidently think Paul's thoughts might have been on it. But, whom am I, or what do I know?  Ain't no PhD or any such branding behind my name. Might be just some loose screws rattlin' 'round inside my head.
Edited by TLC added some clarification in the last paragraph.
If whatever was (in Gen.1:1) was overthrown, then a new foundation became necessary. In light of that, I really don't see that it makes much (if any) difference if both are thought to be referring to something occurring between Gen,1:1 and 2:4.
The entire purpose of rendering it "overthrow" rather than "foundation" (BTW, the Aramaic usages of the corresponding word match "foundation" but not "overthrow") was to support Geer's decision to declare God was not All-Knowing. He moved God's choosing us in Him "before the foundation of the world" as in Genesis 1:1 or thereabouts, to "before the overthrow of the world" which is supposedly Genesis 3:15 and preceded Genesis 3:17.  This introduces several problems. One, if we were actually chosen in Genesis 3:!5, we would have been chosen after the ground was cursed (Genesis 3:6-7) but before God announced "the ground is cursed because of what you did (Genesis 3:17.) Two, Geer blamed God for the ground being cursed, when God was only announcing the results of what they did (Genesis 3:6-7, Luke 4:6). as well as the one who did curse it. Three, it isolated off everything else, and assumed God Almighty was asking questions in Genesis 3:9-11 because He actually didn't know the answers, and not like a parent who already knows everything, but is getting specific to a disobedient child as to why there's trouble. This assumes God Almighty was in complete ignorance of the voluntary fall of man in Genesis 3 with 3 participants in the picture, but that the verses saying He's watching over us (all of us) are reliable. This doesn't even make sense on paper.Â
So, it was an elaborate structure that went completely away from the subject at hand. All of it was to support Geer's failure to be able to account for an Almighty God who is Love and yet also allows for human suffering and the existence of evil. Smarter men than him have crashed against that particular reef, but Geer really built up an elaborate house of cards to support where he limited God (he rejected "God is All-Powerful" by limiting God's Knowledge, and that allows God to be Love but also Oblivious.)  Â
So, to Geer, that's the difference it made. Bullinger claimed it but didn't say it made any difference that I recall offhand.
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Sunesis
Well, we do have over 30,000 Christian denominations, so I don't think you're going to see all Christians agreeing. I imagine that's why it is more important to God that we keep the unity of the Spir
Broken Arrow
I think I get what you're trying to do here as far as getting people to think through something that may have simply been accepted blindly. I'm not going to offer a lengthy defense as to the authenti
Raf
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Steve Lortz
Sunesis... I don't think it was just a candle you lit with pointing out the "overthrow of the cosmos." I think it was a stick of dyno-mite! But I can't explain it right now. I have to go up to the University library and do some more research, but I have homework that will keep me busy until Tuesday. Here I am at 60, finishing a degree I started forty-three years ago.
I've got some things to say about Paul, but that'll have to wait too. This is one of the most interesting threads I've read in years. I'm glad I get to interact with each and every one of you who have posted here!
Love,
Steve
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WordWolf
I know both Bullinger and chris geer (who got it from Bullinger) put forth that "katabole"
meant "overthrow" and not "foundation".
However, having done a study on it (Raf did much of the work), I do not believe either was
correct in doing so. Bullinger even noted there was a verse that made no sense if "katabole"
was translated that way, yet he persisted. "Katabole" is typically translated "foundation."
After having looked at the evidence, I have concluded that this translation is correct.
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Steve Lortz
Neither Paul, nor any other of the first century writers wrote in a vacuum. The things they wrote were part of a conversation that began hundreds of years before their time, and continues to this very day, even as I type. For their readers in the first century (as well as us), that conversation included everything they had ever heard or read.
The best current New Testament scholarship I've found is from James D. G. Dunn, not because he declares "This is what it means!" He doesn't. But because he has spent his adult live reconstructing, as well as a 20th-21st century scholar could, the conversation that occurred in the first century. He has written a number of profoundly questioning books, most scandalously, one called Christology in the Making. He isn't anti-trinitarian. He just seriously considers who and what Paul and the others actually said Jesus was, and that's enough to raise the ire of some trinitarians.
One of Dunn's books that I value highly is The Theology of Paul the Apostle (1998). Here is a quote from it that I find interesting in regard to the idea that there are no contradictions in the Bible,
"...what can we say about the conception of Christ which Paul held in his theology? The range of imagery is remarkable. The most straightforward image is that of the individual seated on God's right, sharing God's kingly rule. It is not difficult to integrate with this the complementary imagery of heavenly intercession, subjection (or destruction?) of enemies (defeat of death, that is, by resurrection), royal parousia to earth (before or after? and where?), judgment ("the day of the Lord"), and finally submission to God. But Paul also envisages the exalted Christ in the image of the last Adam, the prototype of resurrected human beings, the elder brother of the new family, the firstborn from the dead. As we shall see later, the Adam aspect of this latter imagery correlates with the "in Christ" "mysticism" of paul's soteriology, where Christ is envisaged as a corporate person "in" whom believers can find themselves. More difficult to integrate is the Wisdom strand of Paul's christology. For preexistant Wisdom is less a person and more a way of speaking of God's universal self-expression, and if the exalted Christ is to be thought of in an analogous way, the problems of integrated conceptuality become still more difficult. The same applies to the seeming equation of the last Adam with life-giving spirit (I Cor. 15.45) and to the thought of Christ indwelling his own.
"The obvious conclusion to draw from all this is that the different imagery is not in fact mutually consistent, and any attempt to integrate it in a single portrayal would be conceptually confusing to say the least. We would be better advised to recognize it all as imagery and not to overemphasize or concentrate exclusively on one or another metaphor. The common theme to all the imagery--God's purpose for salvation, now and in the future, as focused in and explicated by Christ--is what matters." (pages 314 and 315)
Love,
Steve
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Sunesis
Steve, I ran across the Overthrow of the Foundation idea from two books I read a few years ago: The Earth's Earliest Ages, by Pember, and The Invisible War by Donald Barnhouse. I've always liked that concept. Both available from Amazon. Both excellent books. It took a while to meander over there in my walk. I believe God gives us ideas, thought, musings, that if we follow up on, we are pleasantly surprised.
Interesting writing on Paul. I look at the word "Logos" as an idea that has been given form. Like, the invisible man, you can't see him until he drapes himself with a blanket or something - then he is manifest - you can see him, his form. Christ was the "Logos" given form - the idea (the mind of God - his purposes and desires), made manifest - in the flesh. The flesh was the blanket, so to speak, giving shape to the Logos.
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Steve Lortz
Thanks for the info on the books, Sunesis. I'll probably order them in a day or two. The thing that sparked my imagination about "pro kataboles cosmou" is that it may not be a phrase from 2nd Temple Judaism at all, but rather a reference to "the conflagration" of Stoic cosmology. Stoic cosmology was the default cosmology from about 300 BC to 200 AD. It was the cosmology that Paul's 1st century gentile converts took for granted. However, the default cosmology had changed to neo-platonism by the time Augustine wrote in the 5th century and church doctrine became set in stone.
The question before me is, did the words "body," "soul" and "spirit" have radically different meanings when Paul used them from the meanings they had when Augustine used them? The implications are HUGE! I'm no where near to being able to resolve this question, but I think I know what I'll be researching for awhile. Thanks!
Love!
Steve
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waterbuffalo
All of VPs one liners, that I can think of at the moment, were from AA literature. Ever wonder where his definition of humility comes from? I searched high and low in residence and couldn't find that in any dictionary anywhere. It comes directly from The Big Book. Let me know if you want the page number. When studying AA/Al Anon literature, I am constantly running into things we learned in "the ministry."
Now, back to the regularly scheduled program...(I have not read this thread to the end yet. It is not my intention to derail, merely to respond to Tazia's comment).
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irisheyes
I've been in the Gulf of Mexico for a week and was surprised to find this thread still alive. Perhaps this will add to somebody's understanding? It sure helped me as far as "free will."
How many times have you heard "it was God's will" that such and such happened? Well, there's this little book called The Will of God by Leslie Weatherhead (there's a good German name for ya) which claims that there are actually three (3) wills of God:
"1) The intentional will of God: Was it God's intention from the beginning that Jesus should go to the Cross? I think the answer to that question must be No. I don't think Jesus thought that at the beginning of his ministry. He came with the intention that men should follow him, not kill him. The discipleship of men, not the death of Christ, was the intentional will of God, or, if you like, God's ideal purpose.
2) The circumstantial will of God: When circumstances wrought by men's evil set up such a dilemma that Christ was compelled either to die or to run away, then in those circumstances the Cross was the will of God, but only in those circumstances which were themselves the fruit of evil.
3) The ultimate will of God: God's ultimate goal--the purposefulness of God which, in spite of evil and, even through evil, arrives, with nothing of value lost.. The same goal as would have been reached if the intentional will of God could have been carried through without frustration. In other words, God cannot be finally defeated. That's the definition of His omnipotence--not that everything that happens is His will, but that nothing can happen which FINALLY defeats His will. So, in regard to the cross, God achieved His final goal not simply in spite of the Cross but through it."
I think our free will causes one of these wills of God to operate. Surely Jesus didn't want to die, but "not my will, but yours be done."
Just one other thought. Paul claims that he was blameless in the law. (!) I didn't know someone could be such. However, he says it in the same way he uses his sufferings. He makes quite a list of both: accomplishments and sufferings. Anyway, I think his point with both is that it's not by works, not by good works or by bad works--it's by grace. Is that not the lesson? If God can have three wills, can't we too? I have often felt pressured or cornered to do something I really don't want to. Or life just changes on me. I gotta change with it or I'm eating dust. I guess I'm just thinking that our free will changes as we do (or not).
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soul searcher
irisheyes, great post. thanks for sharing.
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Gen-2
In either case, the point about God using it as a division in times, eons, ages ... holds. And the division is similar in either case the end of the last world (if it means Overthrow) or the beginning of this one (if it means Foundation). But Katabole - thrown down as a literal term would indicate what is physically thrown down or against - as you throw down the foundation of a building, upon which to build. To use the word to describe "Lucifer's Overthrow" is to use it figuratively, where it's an idea of a rebellion that failed, and reaped consequences for the Physical creation.
The point is that - translating katabole as Overthrow is a figurative, not a literal translation. It is used that way concerning breaking a city down to it's foundations in a third century document i read once. but,.... that could have been influenced by a change in usage of the word over time and i can't say it meant overthrow over two-hundred years earlier when Paul wrote But it was doubly used, which caught my attention to the katabole to the katabole or the idea of taking down the city to it's foundations (concerning a military conquest). So this word was use in more than one way in the past.
That shouldn't be a cause for concern, as we ascribe more than one meaning to a great many words today. It also doesn't mean I sat down with Paul to write His Letters and have the be all and end all view on what he meant when he wrote, or know with certainty who the author was, but Paul was the writer.
You could take something as simple as this katabole and invent a religion but in other plaves it uses the word kataklysmos. Katabole and kataklysmos are not the same and kataklysmos is more along the lines of cataclysm eh? Does that matter?
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WordWolf
In terms of understanding the plan of salvation, and getting saved, no I don't think it matters.
In terms of what's true and what's false, then, yes, I think it matters.
(I won't stay up nights worried about it, but I prefer to be correct when I can manage it.)
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Steve Lortz
I think God's plan of salvation is this, whoever confesses with his (or her) mouth the Lord Jesus, and believes in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead will be saved.
That is the substance. All the other jots and tittles are icing on the cake... very delicious icing, but it can make a person sick if he eats too much of it too fast because he mistakes the icing for the substance. I do that sometimes.
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
Having written what I just did in my last post, anybody wanna taste some of the icing I've been thinking about?
What if the word "body" didn't mean "carcass" to Paul, like it does to us, but rather "the whole of that by which one thing moves another", sort of like our word "interface"? What if the word "soul" didn't mean "the immaterial component that houses identity" but rather "the whole of the self"? What if "spirit" didn't mean "the substance of a parallel cosmos inaccessible to the senses" but rather "the whole of a person's life as evidenced by that person's power to move"?
That would change our understanding of I Thessalonians 5:23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (I left out the words added by the English translators.) Are these a listing of the components of a three-part being? Or are they three different ways to view the wholeness of a person... the wholeness of interaction, the wholeness of self and the wholeness of life?
Coupled with a careful reading of Genesis 2:7, these meanings could raise some serious questions about the assumptions regarding salvation held by the church since the fourth century, and those assumptions were only modified by Wierwille in his interpretations.
The thing is, these WERE the meanings attached to the words "spirit" and "soul" and "body" according to the world-view of the Stoics, the world-view that was dominant at the time Paul wrote, the world-view most of Paul's readers took for granted in the first century.
Were these the meanings Paul intended when he wrote? I don't know. If, when Paul wrote the phrase "from the foundation/down-throwing/over-throw of the cosmos", he was referring to "the conflagration" of Stoic cosmology, then it would reinforce the idea that the words "spirit", "soul" and "body" were also meant to carry meanings that were Stoic instead of neo-Platonic.
I rummaged around at the university library for awhile, and couldn't find the phrase pro kataboles cosmou in any of the reference books on Stoicism. I've got a book on order called Paul and the Stoics by Troels Engberg-Pederson. Maybe I'll learn more in it.
For several decades, whenever I want to take my mind off things, I play with toy soldiers. I think I will go play with toy soldiers, before I make myself sick by eating too much icing too fast!
Love,
Steve
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waysider
Bon appetit
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Steve Lortz
Thanks, waysider. The copy I ordered of Paul and the Stoics came in the mail today, and it looks like it's going to be a looooooooooooooong read. It's 304 pages of dense text with 73 pages of notes. I read the preface, and scanned the table of contents and the index without finding any immediate references to the conflagration, but who knows what might turn up in my reading of the book? The nugget I'm looking for, if there is one at all, might just be buried in one of the notes.
In the preface, Engberg-Pederson describes the position of his book within a discussion regarding Paul that has been going on for about 100 years now in the scholarly community. Engberg-Pederson mentioned the work of James Dunn, which I am passingly familiar with, so that upped E-P's "street-cred" a bit in my eyes.
The scholarly discussion that has been going on this past century is like the topic of this thread, only writ large! It has been an effort to understand Paul's writings in light of the first century dialogue, rather than Reformation caricatures of that dialogue. Before E-P's book, most of the work had been done to understand Paul's dialogue with Second Temple Jadaism. Paul and the Stoics is the first extensive, detailed examination of Paul's dialogue with the dominant gentile system of his day, and as one might imagine, Engberg-Pederson concentrates on Stoic ethics, hopefully not to the exclusion of Stoic cosmology.
Books like this make me shudder at how shallow, biased and self-serving the research efforts of TWI and the off-shoots are, and how arrogant our former leaders were and are to even call what they do "research."
I will be reading for awhile, but I'll also be clearing off the tabletop to fight a battle between my orcs and my Roman legionnaires from time to time.
Love,
Steve
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Tzaia
For them, denial is a river in Egypt.
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Steve Lortz
Well, it looks like this is not going to be a brief quest. I'm about 70 pages into Paul and the Stoics by Engberg-Pederson. It looks like he's building a model of the thought that Paul and the Stoics had in common, and then he will look at the writings of each in light of that model. I'm going to continue to plow through it in hopes of odd pieces (odd to E-P, not to me) that might help me understand.
I've also decided to go straight to the horse's mouth (or as close as I can get, being igerrant of Latin), and I bought a Penguin Classics edition of Seneca's Dialogues and Letters.
I briefly looked at a couple of translations of The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca on the internet. It's too shallow to be informative about the issues I'm interested in.
Love,
Steve
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waysider
Self-validation
"...John XXIII called the Council of Constance in 1414, which deposed all three popes and elected a new one, Martin V. The new pope pronounced Constance a valid ecumenical council, thereby approving its aims and decrees."
Source:
Introduction to Christianity....Mary Jo Weaver, David Brakke
page 85
-----------------------------------------------------------
Joe: "My Grandad was the most honest man to ever walk these streets."
Moe: "How do you know?"
Joe: "He told me."
Moe: "How do you know he was telling you the truth?"
Joe: He wouldn't lie."
Moe; "How can you be sure?"
Joe: "Simple. He was the most honest man to ever walk these streets."
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geisha779
OMG I just reread this thread and I have SUCH a big mouth. LOL :) but, it was fun to discuss this..... for me, it was a real faith builder.
I will truly miss this site.
Thanks for the topic Waysider.
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TLC
Seems it does indeed come to that. Furthermore, there is a difference in the message (the gospel) that each spoke. Why the difference?
In short, because "things changed."
Before his death, Jesus Christ was a minister unto the circumcision. As were the 12 apostles. Period.
(If anyone can plainly show from scripture where this directive for the 12 ever changed, please do so... because I don't think it exists.)
Whereas Paul very openly declares himself to be "the apostle" (not "an apostle") to the Gentiles.
Why take Paul's word to be (as Jesus Christ's was during his ministry) "the word of God"?
It's not the only one, but maybe one of the best reason is rather succinctly stated in 1Thess.2:13. Because it "effectually worketh also in you that believe."
In other words, it just plain works.
So, I take issue (and exception) with your statement that "there is no evidence to suggest that he ever had any real authority other than what he bestowed upon himself." However, the evidence (or proof, if you prefer) is something that each of us must garner for ourselves. What I have and hold won't suffice for you, nor anyone else. Just like no one else's would for me. We each must "prove it" for ourselves, even as we can (and should) prove for ourselves what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. (see Rom. 12:2; Eph.5:10; 1Thes.5:21.)
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chockfull
Wow. TLC your thread necromancy has pulled up a doozie. Some gems from the late Steve Lortz. A great discussion of many things going on currently in doctrinal. A good read.
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TLC
I'd never seen or read it prior to Waysider's link to it. That said, maybe it's worth putting a copy my previous post over in the doctrinal thread (if I can figure how to do it easily enough...)
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TLC
If whatever was (in Gen.1:1) was overthrown, then a new foundation became necessary. In light of that, I really don't see that it makes much (if any) difference if both are thought to be referring to something occurring between Gen,1:1 and 2:4.
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TLC
Â
Writing a book and calling it The Theology of Paul the Apostle is, in and of itself, rather ballsy. Of course, not having read it, there isn't much to critique about it beyond what wee bit Steve has quoted from it. However, that said, I'm not of the opinion that his perception and usage of this phrase "the last Adam" necessarily matches or aligns well with that of Paul's... namely because I see it differently. Of course, maybe it's my view of it that's wacky. But in my mind, Adam (by nature of his very name) was made of the dust of the ground. As the first was, so also was "the last." Until changed. Changed?
What changed? mmmmmm... yeah. really good question. but, not so easy to answer.
To get any kind of handle on that, it only makes sense to me to grasp what the similarities were between these two. What did they start life with. What path do they take? How and/or where does it end? Well, to summarize it, the first man Adam turned away and looked at life in the flesh and became what he saw (and hence, is said to have been made "a living soul.") The last Adam, looked away from life in the flesh and became what he saw (and hence, was made a quickening spirit.)  In other words, I think they both changed from the vantage point they started with. The first Adam is known to us (more or less) as, the man of dust. The last Adam (who like the first, was made of dust) is past, and at his resurrection became "the second man" (aka, the Lord from heaven.)Â
Consequently, I simply do not see "the exalted Christ in the image of the last Adam." Rather, he is "the second man." Very distinct and very different from Adam (first or last), which were made of dust. Likewise, I do not equate the last Adam with life-giving spirit. That is reserved in its entirety for the second man, the Lord from heaven. But, blend them together if you must. Just don't ask or expect anyone else to be able to understand it or make good sense out of it. Without a clear demarcation of the change that occurred with his resurrection, it will undoubtedly remain a fuzzy (and at times, quite confusing) portrayal of what I evidently think Paul's thoughts might have been on it. But, whom am I, or what do I know?  Ain't no PhD or any such branding behind my name. Might be just some loose screws rattlin' 'round inside my head.
Edited by TLCadded some clarification in the last paragraph.
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WordWolf
The entire purpose of rendering it "overthrow" rather than "foundation" (BTW, the Aramaic usages of the corresponding word match "foundation" but not "overthrow") was to support Geer's decision to declare God was not All-Knowing. He moved God's choosing us in Him "before the foundation of the world" as in Genesis 1:1 or thereabouts, to "before the overthrow of the world" which is supposedly Genesis 3:15 and preceded Genesis 3:17.  This introduces several problems. One, if we were actually chosen in Genesis 3:!5, we would have been chosen after the ground was cursed (Genesis 3:6-7) but before God announced "the ground is cursed because of what you did (Genesis 3:17.) Two, Geer blamed God for the ground being cursed, when God was only announcing the results of what they did (Genesis 3:6-7, Luke 4:6). as well as the one who did curse it. Three, it isolated off everything else, and assumed God Almighty was asking questions in Genesis 3:9-11 because He actually didn't know the answers, and not like a parent who already knows everything, but is getting specific to a disobedient child as to why there's trouble. This assumes God Almighty was in complete ignorance of the voluntary fall of man in Genesis 3 with 3 participants in the picture, but that the verses saying He's watching over us (all of us) are reliable. This doesn't even make sense on paper.Â
So, it was an elaborate structure that went completely away from the subject at hand. All of it was to support Geer's failure to be able to account for an Almighty God who is Love and yet also allows for human suffering and the existence of evil. Smarter men than him have crashed against that particular reef, but Geer really built up an elaborate house of cards to support where he limited God (he rejected "God is All-Powerful" by limiting God's Knowledge, and that allows God to be Love but also Oblivious.)  Â
So, to Geer, that's the difference it made. Bullinger claimed it but didn't say it made any difference that I recall offhand.
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