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  • From: "Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: C-P: Who wrote Hebrews?
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 17:11:32 -0400


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Myers [mailto:mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, June 03, 1999 4:17 PM

>
> Liz,
>
> There are many layers to your objection, which have to be dealt with
> one by one and probably in detail. This is of course a standard type
> of objection. I'm fairly certain that most of its substance results
> from an understandable misreading of this book,

You'll have to explain to me how I'm misreading the book, perhaps I am.

and of Paul,
Do you assume that Paul wrote Hebrews? I don't assume that.
I don't think Paul woud have described the death of Jesus in this way.


maybe
> due to modern preconceptions about the level of sophistication we
> can expect in 1CE authors. It is of course the case that Paul
> expresses related ideas, and tries to synthesize the "cross" with
> the (to us pre-exilic) cult and find meaning in it. Paul is regarded
> by most as a (former) Jew -- he certainly regarded himself as one.
> So there is one Jew for sure who entertained such notions and built
> a theology out of them.

Can you please show me where Paul describes Jesus as a bloody cultic
sacrifice in this way?


>
> {You wrote:
>
> "I think in Greek religious thought it is not unusual to have human
> sacrifice. This you would not find in Jewish or Mesopotamian
> religion. You do have human sacrifice in Carthage and Phoenicia. Was
> this from Greek influence? I don't know if they viewed the god as
> eating the sacrifice or not. Perhaps some of you know. It seems
> unlikely to me."
>
> You seem to be forgetting about the Molech cult, and the primordial
> offering of the firstborn.
As I have said, there is no archaeolgical evidence for this.

These are certainly Levantine.
It is in the North African cult at Carthage, but it was a certainly a
Phoenician colony.
Can't
> blame this on the "Greeks". Where do you come up with idea that in
> Greek religious thought it's not unusual to have human sacrifice,
> btw...?}
In their stories is all.

>
> As I understand the thinking of the early community that can be
> gleaned from the NT texts, ancient notions of sacrifice seem to be
> deconstructed consistently and boldly. The elements appear to
> undergo demolition and restructuring into something else entirely,
> and the sacrifice concept is attended by a very different teleology.
> That's a long story and would take a lot of demonstration, but I
> only want to point out that in regard to your point below, it's very
> hard to see any grounds, in the NT texts anyway, for the archaic
> ideas of the purpose of sacrifice you adduce -- to feed the god. I
> must say that I find it hard to believe that many 1CE Jews
> consciously understood the sacrificial cult as stocking the
> cafeteria for YHWH. I try to keep an open mind tho. Are you
> suggesting that? Or are you alluding to a sort of commensality
> between the god and the worshippers lying behind sacrifice? (Altho
> that would seem unduly generalized in the face of all the types and
> motives of sacrifice, i.e free will offerings vs. expiatory
> sacrifices.) I guess a starting point of discussion would be how
> much latitude you are willing to allow 1CE writers in terms of
> intellectual sophistication. I have noticed how often fear of
> anachronism and eisegesis can inhibit a genuinely open-minded
> inquiry into the ideology of an ancient culture.

I didn't understand very much of what you said. (My own lack of
sophistication.) I don't think I'm being anachronistic. The sacroficial
cult continued in Babylonia at least through Hellenistic times. It was
viewed as feeding the gods. The priests throughout ate the leftovers of the
gods, that which the gods didn't eat.

People in India hold this view today. Statues of Hindu gods are washed and
fed daily. I had a Hindu student in one of my classes. She stated that the
description of the attitude toward the gods in the Atrahasis and Gilgamesh
myths was exactly her own feeling toward the gods, and the feeling of
everyone she knew.

Perhaps people think the author was a Jew since he appears to speak about
the sacrificial system from the inside. In my opinion, the author of
Hebrews did not understand the purpose of the atoning sacrifice. The purpose
of the blood of the atoning sacrifice is so that it can be daubed on the
altar. The altar must be purified so the god is willing to continue living
in the temple. Jesus' blood was not daubed on the altar. Nor would it work,
as I said, not being kosher. Second, once the temple is destroyed, there is
no altar. Since there is no altar to atone for, the question of a permanent
atoning sacrifice is non necessary. Of course this point is only valid as a
criticism if it was written after the destruction of the temple.

Jesus told the cured leper to go to the priest and do what the priest tells
him. The leper had to atone for his leprosy. This is because the leprosy
defiles the altar. When blood from a kosher animal is daubed on the altar,
the altar is cleansed, purified. It is not the *person* who sinned who is
atoned for, kippered, it is the altar.

all best,
Liz
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Michael D. A. Myers
> University of California, Irvine
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> <mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
> 06/03/1999
> 12:17:14
>
Lisbeth S. Fried
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Sq. S.
New York, NY 10012
lqf9256 AT is3.nyu.edu
lizfried AT umich.edu





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