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  • From: Mike Myers <mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: C-P: Who wrote Hebrews?
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 14:44:22 -0800



"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."
***************************************************************
Hebrews definitely doesn't strike me Pauline but I'm no expert.



"Can you please show me where Paul describes Jesus as a bloody
cultic sacrifice in this way?"
***************************************************************
Paul throughout interprets Jesus' DEATH as a (voluntary) offering
for sin, and his blood as an atoning covering. But with a twist I
think, and this is where all the complication arises. There is a lot
of type, allegory hermeneutic in Paul. We are getting into complex
issues that don't lend themselves to glib soundbite descriptions.


> 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."
****************************************************************
I can't follow you here without some cites.

>
> 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."
****************************************************************
I think we've wandered into a complicated subject. I'll try to be
more concrete and specific.

Liz wrote:

"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."
****************************************************************

In the early movement the believer was a living stone in the temple
of the Holy Spirit, of the god, if you will (1Peter 2:4-9). Paul
called the believer's body the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor
6:19-20). Jesus (according to John 2:19-21) refered to his own body
as a (the) temple. Paul refered to believers as the body of Chist,
members of Christ. There is a tendency to conflate temple, altar and
sacrifices into the person and lifestyle of the believer. As I said,
the temple had been reinterpreted. The whole cultus had been
transformed, what came before was viewed as a type of the New Age in
Christ. There is much to say about all this.

Mike


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael D. A. Myers
University of California, Irvine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<mmyers AT helium.biomol.uci.edu>
06/03/1999
14:44:22





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