The Earl Doherty — James McGrath discussion continued

I am posting this (posts found on Dr McGrath’s ExploringOurMatrix blog) here solely for the sake of having what I consider to be significant blog exchanges involving Earl Doherty in the one place. (If I miss anything that others think should be collated in the one site then do let me know.)

Dr McGrath responded to Earl Doherty (see the post previous to this one) thus:

@Earl Doherty, thank you for your detailed comments, and I am sorry to hear that you had trouble posting them. I am glad that it seems to be working now.

Let me just address two points in is comment. First, with respect to the language you used about heavenly things determining earthly realities, I can certainly see how such a phrase could be used for what we see in Hebrews, with a tabernacle being constructed based on a heavenly archetype. The wording seems to fit equally well, and the concept seems not entirely distinct from, what we find in Daniel and Revelation, which are more apocalyptic than Platonic (although that is not to suggest that the two are mutually exclusive by any means). In one, heavenly princes battle and determine the outcome of competition between earthly princes and empires. In the other, demonic forces are said to be behind the powers of the earthly Roman emperors and empire.

Long before Descartes’ attempt to connect the spirit with the flesh by way of the pineal gland, people long assumed that there was a connection even when they had no rational explanation for how the connection worked. That the question seems obvious to us does not mean that it was obvious to pre-scientific minds, nor does their failure to provide an explanation mean that they didn’t accept that it was happening in some unexplained, or unsatisfactorily explained, manner.

Second, and mainly for the benefit of those who may not have read your book, would you agree that, in general, in an ancient Greco-Roman context, a reference to a figure bleeding and having blood would more naturally be understood to be a reference to an actual terrestrial human being? I think it would be useful for others involved in this discussion to hear a bit more from you about this.

Here is Earl Doherty’s response:

James: In one, heavenly princes battle and determine the outcome of competition between earthly princes and empires. In the other, demonic forces are said to be behind the powers of the earthly Roman emperors and empire.

While I am not sure off the top of my head which verses in Daniel and Revelation you are referring to, just by your description we can see that these two statements are still not the same. In the first, an activity in heaven by warring heavenly princes determines a corresponding competition on earth between earthly princes. That conforms to the archetype-copy pattern, although “determines” does not have to mean conscious and deliberate direction on the part of the heavenly upon the earthly. In the second, demonic powers are acting as ‘puppet masters’ directing the activities of earthly empires. The two are not the same; in the second, the demonic powers are not themselves engaged in a corresponding heavenly activity between themselves, creating an archetype. Also, in the first, there may be no conscious direction between the warring heavenly powers and the warring earthly powers; there is simply a paradigmatic parallel, with spiritual forces (in the sense of natural laws) seen as operating between the two realms which produces the parallel effect. (This may be largely gobbledygook to our modern ears, but the ancients believed in these forces; Paul’s soteriology is built on them, as in Romans 6:1-5. Of course, they still survive in Catholic sacramentalism.)

Second, and mainly for the benefit of those who may not have read your book, would you agree that, in general, in an ancient Greco-Roman context, a reference to a figure bleeding and having blood would more naturally be understood to be a reference to an actual terrestrial human being? I think it would be useful for others involved in this discussion to hear a bit more from you about this.

I could give a simple answer by saying that, taken in isolation, a reference to bleeding and blood would more naturally be understood as involving a human earthly figure. But none of the references in view in our debate is in isolation. Moreover, we moderns don’t have any alternative, because we no longer believe in gods and divine beings who possessed blood and other elements of spiritual substance that are “analogous” (Cicero) to those of humans; it’s fine to specify “in an ancient Greco-Roman context,” but are we immune to bringing our natural modern understandings to bear in that context?

If Paul and the early Christ cultists have a pre-established heavenly understanding of their Christ’s activities and the concept that gods possess forms of blood and flesh/body (in some kind of spiritual material: see my quote from R. Carrier on p.186), we can’t just apply, case closed, my simple answer to your question to our interpretation of their words, since we can’t ignore the context which may be in their minds. And that context, I maintain, has been strongly indicated at many points in the texts as a whole.

Here is another response by Earl Doherty although not to Dr McGrath:

Mike: Doherty understands “rulers of this world” to be demons and not humans. You believe that it could mean, in isolation, demons or humans or both, am I correct? Does Doherty allow that it could also, in isolation (without clues from sources outside this verse) mean humans or demons and humans?

My preceding answer to James clarifies this, though I am not sure if James is quite ready to acknowledge that taken in isolation, “rulers of this age” could mean either demons or humans. And I am hardly the only one to understand the phrase in my way. Note 46 in Jesus: Neither God Nor Man lists a significant number of respected scholars, past and present, who so understand it, and that list is not exhaustive, but only those I have been able to ascertain. One of them, Paul Ellingworth, expresses the opinion (I assume it is not a guess on his part) that “A majority of scholars think that supernatural powers are intended here.” (A Translator’s Handbook for 1 Corinthians, p.46)

//So the question becomes — at least for those who acknowledge that Paul’s “rulers of this age” refers to angelic powers (argued elsewhere) — whether Paul meant to imply that those spirits acted through humans by inspiring them to kill Jesus or whether they themselves crucified Jesus. Either is a quite reasonable and valid explanation within the context of the ancient belief in paradigmatic parallelism between heaven and earth.//

I don’t know whose quote this is (maybe I missed it above or elsewhere), but once again this is not really accurate. The demons ‘puppet-mastering’ the earthly rulers to kill an earthly Jesus is not paradigmatic parallelism. It would only be if the demons killed a heavenly Jesus in the heavens while, copying them, the earthly rulers killed an earthly Jesus on earth. (G. A. Wells once took this meaning from what I was saying, an error and a ridiculous idea to think anyone would advocate.)

Now, I have not seen anyone argue that ‘paradigmatic parallelism’ could take place solely on earth, that the death of Jesus, a divine Son of God, on Calvary could have a parallel effect on earthly believers in the form of guaranteed salvation/resurrection. That sort of parallel effect, of course, is what two millennia of Christian soteriology has amounted to, as in the interpretation of something like Romans 6:5. Jesus resurrected on earth, therefore we are guaranteed our own resurrection (though to heaven). But that concept is not what is labelled in scholarship as “paradigmatic parallelism” or a similar phrase. Such a term is understood in the context of a parallel between heaven and earth, between heavenly paradigms/archetypes/champions, etc. and their earthly counterparts or those joined to them (see my p.98 and 102-3).

The usage in Colossians and Ephesians of similar terms would be only indirect evidence of what Paul meant, if those that dispute the Pauline authorship of these works are correct, since they reflect the usage of the term not by Paul but someone pretending to be Paul; yes?

But one could hardly maintain that between genuine Paul and pseudo-Paul only a decade or two later, the concept had switched from a Jesus crucified by earthly rulers to one crucified by heavenly rulers. That is highly unlikely. Nor that these communities somehow within those couple of decades became obsessed over the activities of and struggles with the demons if there was no such preoccupation in Paul’s lifetime.

I’m not sure though if Daniel’s Son of Man would fit this model, apocalyptic works I would think play by different rules than Platonic philosophy. For instance the beasts in Daniel’s vision aren’t monsters in Heaven or in the satanic realm but simply vision metaphors for the kingdoms of the world, so wouldn’t the son of man be a metaphor for the righteous?

Paradigmatic parallelism was not restricted to Platonism; Jews and other near-easterners had their own, somewhat cruder, versions. And you are missing the distinction in Daniel 7 between visions of the beasts, which are not portrayed as taking place in heaven (they are typical apocalyptic metaphor for historical events on earth), and the vision of the “one like a son of man” coming on the clouds of heaven and being presented to God on his throne. While scholarly interpretations of this whole visions passage can be varied, I think that the verse 7 vision is not simply a metaphor for something taking place, or soon to take place, on earth. (Note that contrast between the historical ‘beasts’ visions and the future ‘one like a son of man’ vision.) It is presented as a heavenly event, forecasting the inheritance of the earth by the righteous Jews. It is similar to the Similitudes vision of the Messiah in heaven and the future inheritance of thrones and crowns by the righteous on earth, to Christ’s entry into the heavenly sanctuary scene in Hebrews and the future entry into God’s rest by believers on earth. Neither of the latter constitute metaphors.

On 1 Corinthians 2:8, since Paul just discussed the teachers of the law and the philosophers of the age who are paralleled with the Jews and the Greeks, and the wisdom of god is contrasted with human wisdom, doesn’t it make sense that 2:6’s wisdom is also human and thus its rulers are human too? And if 2:6’s rulers and wisdom are human, we would expect 2:8’s rulers to be human. I’m not sure why one would switch to thinking demons here unless “ruler” uses a word used exclusively for demons.

You are not sufficiently taking into account the context of this passage (from 1:18 to 2:8). The whole thing arises from Paul reacting to criticism of his gospel: “This doctrine of the cross is sheer folly to those on their way to ruin…” So to begin with, he is speaking of his critics, people in the wider world, who do not see the ‘wisdom’ of God’s salvation system he is preaching. Thus, he is disparaging the “wisdom of the world” as foolish in the light of God’s “wisdom/folly” of the cross. He praises his believers as God’s weak and lowly instrument to overturn the pride of worldly wisdom. (Note that in this passage, there is no reference to “rulers”.

In chapter 2, Paul continues to discuss relative “wisdoms”. He has presented to his converts the “power of the Spirit” as a counter to the “wisdom of men” (v.5) as a basis for their faith. That power of the Spirit has given his faithful (whom he calls the “perfect ones”, probably a borrowing of gnostic terminology) their own form of wisdom. That wisdom, he goes on to say, is not two things:

(1) it is not “the wisdom of this age” (sophian aiōnos)

(2) neither is it the wisdom “of the rulers of this age” (tōn archontōn tou aiōnos toutou) who are being brought to naught.

And it is those same “rulers of this age” who in ignorance of God’s wisdom crucified the Lord of Glory (v.8).

While there is certainly room for ambiguity in this whole passage (otherwise we wouldn’t be here today), we can attempt to extract certain deductions. Note a couple of observations:

Whereas previously Paul speaks of the “wisdom of the world” or “of men”, in 2:6 he switches to the “wisdom of this age,” broadening his scope to a terminology which can encompass the demon spirits, who are looked upon as those who divide heaven from earth and hold sway over the latter. This is immediately followed by two references to “the rulers of this age”–not rulers of this world, and I have to reject Mike’s automatic assumption that the phrase in v.6 refers to human rulers, especially as we are now on somewhat different ground than in ch. 1. If “wisdom of this age” is simply a synonym for “wisdom of this world,” why does he essentially repeat the idea in “(the wisdom) of the rulers of this age” if that phrase simply means earthly rulers? And would the Sanhedrin and Pilate reasonably constitute “the rulers of this age,” the entire period of the world’s history leading up to the Parousia, which is what that term was used for? Have all the rulers of that age been instrumental in crucifying Christ? If only the Jewish elders and Roman governors were guilty of the crime, would Paul bother to say that only they were “coming to nothing”?

Verse 8 is a sweeping statement not so compatible with the historicist Gospel scenario, and yet fully compatible with the idea that Christ’s sacrifice would spell the death knell of the inimical spirits, an idea encountered elsewhere in the non-Gospel literature, such as Colossians 2:15 and the Ascension of Isaiah. 1 Cor. 2:7’s reference to God’s hidden secret wisdom nicely parallels Ephesians 3:10’s “the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities [tais archais (a word variant of archōn) kai tais exousiais] in the realms of heaven.” Here the clear linkage of God’s wisdom (i.e, the mystery of Christ and his redeeming role) being made known to the previously ignorant heavenly “rulers” almost guarantees a similarity of meaning in the association made in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 between God’s hidden wisdom and the ignorant “rulers of this age” who crucified Christ.

For the “ignorance” motif, see also the Gnostic Hypostasis of the Archons which says that the creator “archons” are ignorant in thinking that there is no power above them; Ascension of Isaiah 9:14 also attributes ignorance of Christ’s identity to “the god of that world” who hung him on a tree (location in the firmament, and no involvement of earthly rulers until it was later interpolated into chapter 11). The Apocalypse of Elijah (1:6) also suggests a hiding of identity from the angels and other spirit powers. Similar allusions are found in the Gospel of Truth (18,21), the Apocryphon of John (30,20), the Paraphrase of Shem (36,14) and the Hymn of the Pearl. All tending to support an understanding by Paul of the agency of the crucifixion being the ignorant demon spirits, the “rulers of this age.”

So Mike’s opinion quoted above is quite superficial and based on its own ignorance. Ignatius uses the term “archontes in referring to “rulers visible and invisible” (Sm. 6:1) but offers no opinion on Paul’s 2:8 phrase. Marcion apparently regarded 2:8 as referring to the demon spirits of the Creator god, since Tertullian disputes this by insisting that Paul only meant earthly rulers (though not the demons working through such rulers). As I pointed out, if it was known that Paul meant the demons working through earthly rulers, Tertullian would have argued it this way, which he does not, making it very unlikely that such an interpretation of 2:8 was current. That rationalization began only with Origen, with everyone until today following suit as a convenient ‘out’. Tertullian’s silence on this alleged meaning by Paul pretty well puts the lie to Origen’s and modern scholarship’s appeal to that meaning.

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Neil Godfrey

Neil is the author of this post. To read more about Neil, see our About page.

Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

• Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History - 2024-11-18 01:15:24 GMT+0000
• Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability - 2024-11-16 01:05:37 GMT+0000
• Palestinians, written out of their rights to the land – compared with a new history - 2024-10-15 20:05:41 GMT+0000