I'm re-posting this here because it appears my posts on McGrath's site may be being blocked now:
James F. McGrath:
Resurrection is certainly something eschatological (from Paul's perspective) and non-historical (from a historian's perspective). But being dead does happen in real life, whereas it is not common for entities that dwell exclusively in the celestial realm. And saying that virtually all Paul's references to crucifixion are "metaphorical" is mere assertion, as well as seeming to acknowledge that not all his statements on this subject fit your Procrustean paradigm
Me:
The issue is not “what Paul said”, the issue is Paul’s sources. What are the sources of these claims? The sources are scriptures and revelation. Certainly being dead only happens to people that are alive, but there are literally thousands of stories from antiquity about people doing all kinds of things that only living people do, about fighting, dying, and dying and coming back to life, etc., and it is widely accepted today that the vast majority of those stories are about people who never existed.
The story of Orpheus is that he was a prophet who foretold all manner of things, but the people of his village grew angry at him and killed him. Sound familiar? During the first century it was universally believed that Orpheus was a real person. But today historians conclude that there was no Orpheus at all, he never existed. Why? Not because Orpheus was never described as a real person. In fact Orpheus was always described as a real person. Indeed there are even dozens of documents attributed to Orpheus that were widely believed during the early Christian era to have actually been written by Orpheus. A mystery cult existed in the first century that revolved around supposedly prophetic Orphic Hymns, that we now conclude were likely 1st century BCE forgeries.
The issue is not whether or not Paul or anyone else described Jesus as “being flesh”, the issue is whether those descriptions come from reasonable sources, i.e. from sources that trace back to real world observations.
What we find when we investigate the sources for all accounts of Jesus, whether they be from Paul or the Gospels or any other materials, is that every single account or description of Jesus originates purely from three sources: scripture, prophecy, revelation. There is no account that appears to have come from any real observation.
That’s largely what my book Deciphering the Gospels is about – showing that the sources that underlie the Gospels are really just the Jewish scriptures and the letters of Paul. These ideas about Q or oral traditions,etc, are all bunk, because we can actually determine the sources for all of these narratives and statements about Jesus, and all of the sources trace back to scripture, prophecy, revelation… every… single… time…
I'm re-posting this here because it appears my posts on McGrath's site may be being blocked now:
James F. McGrath:
Resurrection is certainly something eschatological (from Paul's perspective) and non-historical (from a historian's perspective). But being dead does happen in real life, whereas it is not common for entities that dwell exclusively in the celestial realm. And saying that virtually all Paul's references to crucifixion are "metaphorical" is mere assertion, as well as seeming to acknowledge that not all his statements on this subject fit your Procrustean paradigm
Me:
The issue is not “what Paul said”, the issue is Paul’s sources. What are the sources of these claims? The sources are scriptures and revelation. Certainly being dead only happens to people that are alive, but there are literally thousands of stories from antiquity about people doing all kinds of things that only living people do, about fighting, dying, and dying and coming back to life, etc., and it is widely accepted today that the vast majority of those stories are about people who never existed.
The story of Orpheus is that he was a prophet who foretold all manner of things, but the people of his village grew angry at him and killed him. Sound familiar? During the first century it was universally believed that Orpheus was a real person. But today historians conclude that there was no Orpheus at all, he never existed. Why? Not because Orpheus was never described as a real person. In fact Orpheus was always described as a real person. Indeed there are even dozens of documents attributed to Orpheus that were widely believed during the early Christian era to have actually been written by Orpheus. A mystery cult existed in the first century that revolved around supposedly prophetic Orphic Hymns, that we now conclude were likely 1st century BCE forgeries.
The issue is not whether or not Paul or anyone else described Jesus as “being flesh”, the issue is whether those descriptions come from reasonable sources, i.e. from sources that trace back to real world observations.
What we find when we investigate the sources for all accounts of Jesus, whether they be from Paul or the Gospels or any other materials, is that every single account or description of Jesus originates purely from three sources: scripture, prophecy, revelation. There is no account that appears to have come from any real observation.
That’s largely what my book Deciphering the Gospels is about – showing that the sources that underlie the Gospels are really just the Jewish scriptures and the letters of Paul. These ideas about Q or oral traditions,etc, are all bunk, because we can actually determine the sources for all of these narratives and statements about Jesus, and all of the sources trace back to scripture, prophecy, revelation… every… single… time…