Corpus-Paul

["John Brand" <jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca>]

 > John Brand wrote:
 > > 'Christos,' of course, is Greek for the Hebrew mashiach. The Aryan
 > > cognate would be 'atman' which is understood to be the higher self or
 > > spirit.

 Jeffrey Gibson writes:
 > Cognates are words which linguistically share a common root.  I'd be
 > grateful if you'd show how "atman" and "mashiach" are related
 > linguistically.

 John responds:
 I stand corrected. 'Atman’ is not a cognate for ‘mashiach.’ ‘Atman’
as a ‘life principle’ would have semantic fields which overlap with
the Greek  ‘logos’ and ‘mashiach’ would be closer to ho logos, would
it not? Thus, Christ is the incarnation of logos. Heraclietus used
logos as the life principle of which we are all manifestations.

 There is a closer relationship between the Aramaic ‘meshia’ and the Aryan
 Maitreya. And this is where there is overlap between Isaiah’s ‘anointed’
 and the Zoroastrian Maitreya. Maitreya means ‘friendly, loving’ and is
 derived from maitri which is the Sanskrit form of Mithras. Arnold Toynbee
 posits Mithras  as one of the competitors for Lord of the Roman cult along
 with Jesus (“Mankind and Mother Earth”). Which brings me back to the
 original question that Jim and Tim were discussing

> Tim Gallant wrote:
 > 4. What would Christos mean to a Gentile? Frankly, I doubt it would have
 meant much apart from explanation. Soter would have meant more, and
that  puts us in the "political" realm. But Paul could scarcely have
got very far in his message without identifying this soter who
rivalled Caesar as  in fact a Jew, and his political significance as
rooted in Israelite  history. If that is anywhere close to the mark,
we are already getting into "Messiah territory."

 John continues:
 The Greek criw (‘to smear or rub’) is the root of cristos and crisma.
 Christ is an office but He is also regarded as the manifestation of logos
 and the dispenser of the anointing of the Holy Spirit of which all those
 ‘in Christ’ are partakers. This would not be ‘news’ to the Gentile. The
 gods are manifestations of the ground of being and a number of them were
 anointed as saviors. Caesar is one such ‘god’ and hailed as a savior.

 John wrote:
 > > > Ahura Mazda (the creator) has a corresponding atman which
 > > permeates his creation. There were numerous ideas of who was the
 > > 'incarnate' atman (Persian) or the incarnate soter (Greek).

 Jeffrey Gibson writes:
 > So when Isaiah speaks of Cyrus being Yahweh's anointed he is saying that
 > Cyrus is the incarnate atman?

 John responds:
 Cyrus is called YHWH’s ‘anointed’ or mashiach. There are many who lay
 claim to that title in Persian and Greco-Roman thought. This is where I
 was heading in my quote:

 >". In the far East the Persian Mazda worshippers looked for the birth
 of a Saviour from a virgin mother. In the sacred books of Zoroaster
 we read: "We worship the guardian spirit of the holy maid Esetât-
 Jedhri, who is called the all-conquering, for she will bring him
 forth who will destroy the malice of the demons and of men." [Dr. L.
 H. Mills, "Zoroaster and the Bible," in Nineteenth Century, Jan.
 1894, p. 51]. It was this firm belief which brought the Magi, many
 long centuries after the above was written, from the land of
 Zoroaster to worship Him whom they had heard of, as born of a virgin
 to be the King of the Jews." [Frederick Thomas Elworthy, "The Evil
 Eye" (Julian Press, 1986), 194]

What we are seeing in the multi-faceted Greco-Roman world is a development
 of the same ideas that we see in the Jewish world. It is not as though the
 Jew only was expecting a savior. For example, in Aeschylus “Prometheus
 Bound” Zeus fears the ancient prophecy that he will be undone by one of
 his progeny just as he had murdered his own father Kronos and as Kronos
 had done to his own father Heaven. Prometheus tells Io that the prophecy
 will be fulfilled in Achilles (whom we know for his ‘weak’ heel as in the
 ancient promise that the serpent will ‘strike his heel’): “A son shall she
 bear stronger than his sire” (Prometheus Bound.33). This appears to be an
 outworking of the ancient promise in Genesis ‘your seed shall bruise the
 serpents head.’

 Jeffrey Gibson writes:
 > And when the author of the Ps. of
 > Solomon speaks of God raising up his anointed, he's really just
 > speaking of something that permeates creation?

 John responds:
 It would be better to go to Proverbs, Jeffrey, to see the correspondence
 between the logos that permeates creation and Lady Wisdom.

 In Proverbs we see the contrast of Lady Wisdom (9:1-12) and Dame Folly
 (9:13-18).  Lady Wisdom symbolizes purity and embracing her brings
 prosperity and life.  Tracing back to 8:12 we see Wisdom personified as a
 woman.  She is immanent (8:1ff); the source of all just law (v15) [Natural
 Law in Aristotle and Cicero et al]; coeval with God (v22 cf. Cicero’s
 ‘Laws’ ‘[Law] is coeval with that god who watches over and rules heaven
 and earth’ II.10]; and she is source of justification (v35b) as well as
 happiness (35a).

There is a transformation in Greco-Roman thought of the mythic symbols
 into philosophical discourse.  Athene and Prometheus are the sources of
 wisdom and prudence.  But they are transformed into the philosophical
 discourse as Wisdom (called ‘logos’) and as the image of the just sufferer
 who approaches the Mashiach idea of the Isaiah 53.

 In Plato’s ‘Republic,’ for example, we find the following reference to the
 story of Prometheus:‘... the just man who is thought unjust will be
 scourged, racked, bound  will have his eyes burst out; and, at last,
 after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled’  There he will
 understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be, just.”  Adeimantus
 in this section refers to Aeschylus, the poet who creates this image.
 Prometheus is for the Greeks, the archetypal sufferer similar to Isaiah’s
 ‘suffering servant’ (Isaiah 53).  .

 Heraclietus transformed the mythic figures into what he called Logos.
 This is the universal behind all law that we see in Cicero. And this idea
 of the gods as manifestations of wisdom goes back to Ancient Mesopotamia:
 Shamash is ‘not the originator but the divine Custodian of justice … the
 magistrates of gods and men, whose lot is justice and to whom truths have
 been granted for dispensation’ (Moshe Greenberg, ‘Some Postulates of
 Biblical Criminal Law’ The Jewish Expression, ed. Judah Goldin, 1976, 21).
 For the Greeks this is Athene.  Adherence to the divine justice brings
 happiness and justification (see Republic.x for the afterlife story). For
 the Jews, Moses is the mediator of Torah, their covenant with the God of
 creation. Their righteousness is to be found in Torah as guide. For the
 Christian, the Torah is Christ. For the Greek, Athene or Mithras would be
 the guide into all truth.

 IMO both Tim and Jim are short of the mark of understanding the
 Greco-Roman world when such statements as the following are made: “I doubt
 [Christos] would have meant much apart from explanation. Soter would have
 meant more, and that puts us in the "political" realm.” Christos would be
 recognized by those initiated in the mysteries as a Mithras or a Dionysos
 or an Athene. All of these are fulfillments of ancient expectations for
 the Greco-Roman just as Christ was the fulfillment of the ancient hope of
 Judaism.

 John wrote:
 > > Hopefully, this helps to bring out the identifier 'Christos' as it
 > > relates to your discussion.
 >
 Jeffrey wrote:
 > No, it doesn't --  because it's not grounded in anything  that bears
 > even the slightest resemblance to the real framework of thought in which
 > the terms  Mashiach/Christos gained their meaning: Yahweh's
 > righteousness, his election of Israel as the instrument by which
 > "blessing" would be brought to all nations, and his faithfulness to the
 > promises of protection that he made to Israel.

 John responds:
 Perhaps the picture is a little clearer for you now, Jeffrey. Taken the
 writings of Proverbs into account, would you still contend that Maitreya
 and Logos do not bear ‘even the slightest resemblance to the real
 framework of thought in which the terms Mashiach/Christos gained their
 meaning’?

 The election of Israel as an instrument of blessing fulfills the promise
 to Abraham that ‘in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed’
 (Genesis 12:3). The Hebrew niphal stem for barak indicates either a
 passive sense where the subject is acted upon or a middle or reflexive
 sense where the subject acts upon himself. If we take the sense that the
 subject acts upon himself, we would say that the families of the earth
 ‘bless themselves’ through Abraham. Which is better to build on the ideas
 already common between a culture that one seeks to influence or to posit a
 contrast between the two cultures that can only be bridged by adherence to
 ‘ritual’ (halakah) from the advancing culture? Maybe the Jewish
 perspective is a better aid to us than our own:

 Mark Nanos wrote:
 I hope that this at least helps to explain how one can differently read
 these texts often cited at one as if self-evidently meaning that Torah in
 a comprehensive sense (and thus Judaism) has been erased (finished, ended,
 completed, rendered irrelevant, adiaphora, whatever) with the coming of
 Christ according to Paul, and thus, according to the one doing the arguing
 (so often "shouting" citations, it seems)--as if they were not involved in
 making interpretive choices that are not effected by their own identity
 and interests and training, and in a policy statement the effects of
 which, for Jewish people, who still populate their world, have often been
 deleterious, to put it nicely. What would you lose by recognizing there
 might be some who do not agree with Paul's proposition because of
 Christ-faith of this altered role for defining who are the righteous ones,
 but who remain "also" but not "only" the righteous ones? After all, it is
 this proposition of "also" for which Paul struggled, in the opposite
 direction. Is it not making the same category mistake (according to Paul,
 that is being made by some Jews) from the non-Jewish side when you insist
 on "only" and find no place for "also"?

 and, Mark Nanos wrote:
 In conclusion, it seems to me, this "also" but not "only" concern (by not
 excluding the one when the other gets control of interpretation) is a
 fitting way to approach each other especially on this day, which in
 America, is set aside to honor the memory of Martin Luther King. Did he
 mean to argue that America was to offer equal opportunity for "only" the
 minority people who were not experiencing it, or for that freedom for them
 "also"?

 John Brand adds:
 What I am arguing, Jeffrey, moves in the direction of the Gentile in the
 same manner as what Mark is arguing for the Jew: That it is more
 respectful of another culture to give equal opportunity for enjoyment of
 blessing to that culture as for the culture which is the source of the
 blessing. This should start by legitimating the quest of the culture. And
 this seems to be precisely what Paul was seeking to do.

 I find helpful Lloyd Gaston’s discussion of “Israel’s Misstep in the Eyes
 of Paul” [“The Romans Debate,” ed. Karl P. Donfried (Massachusetts:
 Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2001), 309-326] although he is focusing more
 on some Jews response to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.

 “It is important that the Roman Christians understand that God’s election
 of Israel, which is not based on works or faith, still stands, and that
 the Gentiles who were not chosen in the past had no valid ground for
 complaint. It is however also important that they understand that God, in
 a new act of righteousness, has now called also a new people, the Gentiles
 [Romans 9:25-26], who share the same advantages of election [Romans
 8:28-39].” (page 315).

 I am simply arguing for a better understanding of Greco-Roman thought
 beyond what Jim West advocates in this comment:

 I’m not sure if the average greek on the street would have given a
 thought to the salvation of Israel.  Would they have really cared all that
 much?  I dont think so.  I think, in fact, that any language Paul used
 would have resonated from their own upbringing in the Mysteries.  Blood,
 washing, salvation, all that stuff wouldn't have been heard by greeks the
 same way it was by jews.  When Paul spoke to greeks did they hear what he
 meant or what they understood?

 Language that Paul used would have resonated from a well developed culture
 that included the mystery religions and a finely tuned philosophical
 system that branched out into four discernable streams developing from
 Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurius. IMO Paul took advantage of these
 systems in his mission to the Gentile.

 Regards,

John Brand

B.A. (Providence College, 1980)
M.Min. (Providence Seminary, 1990)