That doesn’t answer my question. Are you saying the sources I cited do not reflect mainstream theological scholarship?
No it doesn’t; “mainstream theological scholarship” doesn’t have a Protestant, Catholic, Reformed, or any other kind of “bias to it”. It includes the full range of confessional and critical scholarship.
No, not even tacitly.
Firstly my argument is that actually identifying the “plain sense” requires reading the passage in its socio-historical context, in this case Second Temple Period Judaism. That’s fundamental to the historico-critical method. It has nothing to do with “a distinction between a purely Hebraic thought and a later, Greek-and-pagan-contaminated thought”. Secondly I do not believe the New Testament writers “misconceive the truth” at all, as I have told you before.
I don’t differentiate between “Hebraic doctrines” and “non-Hebraic doctrines”. I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you talking about Jewish doctrines, as opposed to non-Jewish doctrines such as Christian doctrines?
Demons is the one thing that unifies virtually all the Ancient Near East.
Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians… EVERYONE believed there were demons.
Did Jews? I certainly don’t consider the DESTROYER of the Passover to be anything BUT some kind of a demon … under the control of Yahweh… unless Yahweh was Himself the Destroyer.
So it is not shocking that Jesus believed in demons too. Nor is it surprising that Jesus would spit into dirt and apply the magical paste into the eyes of a blind man.
The emergence of Satan/Lucifer metaphysics guaranteed that demon theology would persist forever.
Let’s face it …belief in Demons is pretty easy … easier than believing the stories of Exodus, the Ark or Six Day Creation !
There was plenty of superstitious ideas to go around…
Not before the Babylonian exile. The Law of Moses demythologized the cosmos, and demons were excluded from it. Milgrom has some excellent comments on this topic in his work on Leviticus.
I’ve not looked around to see if the “upcoming tutorial video” was ever produced. It sounds like a great idea and I commend your efforts. (However, I wonder if it is one of those types of time-consuming projects that has been difficult to schedule since its June, 2015 start.)
Of course I am. You’ve even noted this understanding is common to my community. What I don’t understand is your reference to “Hebraic doctrines” and “non-Hebraic doctrines”. Please explain it.
You mean it predominantly quotes Protestants. So what? Unless you can show these quotations are not representative of mainstream theological scholarship, your point isn’t relevant.
Of course I would have the same result; I would still end up with the results I presented. It would simply have become obvious that the Catholic view is now increasingly marginal, and that the Orthodox Church has historically preserved “soul sleep” (psychopannychism), within its range of views on the intermediate state.
Mainstream theological scholarship is as objectively determinable as mainstream scientific scholarship. This is not espistemologically naive, and scholarship actually differentiates itself between mainstream and non-mainstream views. Consequently, regardless of the fact that different people may have different views on what constitutes mainstream theological scholarship, the fact remains that their views can be tested against reality. For example, we can test very easily whether or not the idea that “the Bible teaches reincarnation and the worship of Buddha” is representative of mainstream theological scholarship.
Now back to my question. Are you saying the sources I cited do not reflect mainstream theological scholarship? Or are you saying that I am citing selectively from sources and giving a subjective and inaccurate impression of mainstream theological scholarship?
In passing once again I note you’re attempting to drag the discussion off into a meta-debate over a completely irrelevant side issue.
Oh goodness gracious, @Jonathan_Burke, is that what you really think?!!?!?
You take the role of Moshe quite literally, don’t you … And yet there is every reason to believe the Hebrew entertained Canaanite superstitions just like everyone else in the region !
Why would they have such rules if there was no belief?
Deuteronomy 18:11 - Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
Samuel 28:7-8
“Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, [there is] a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me [him] up, whom I shall name unto thee.”
It’s not just what I think, it’s what Milgrom thinks and what a number of other scholars think.
Er, that’s precisely why they had to be taught that this stuff was wrong. And it worked. Find me all the demons in the Old Testament please, and all the demonic possession, and all the exorcisms. Then note the rejection of satan and demons in some of the Second Temple Period literature.
The answer to your first question is, “probably”. The answer to your second question is “not much”. While I do not doubt that we have souls, I do not think that the bible tells us if our souls are physical or non-physical. If we do have physical (energy?) souls, then it is conceivable that science will be able to measure them someday. If souls are not physical, then science will never be able to measure them. Also, scientists sometimes come up with new ways of measuring things that were previously thought to be unmeasurable. Just ask Schroedinger’s Cat, and then look at the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics. The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics - Press release - NobelPrize.org
When it comes to Christianity, there is ALWAYS some period of time where scholarship is on your side.
If you think there was really a Moses prophet that discouraged belief in Demonology … then what do we make of the New Testament REVIVAL of all this demonology? Who was right? Was Moses wrong? Or was Paul wrong?
Or were they both wrong?
I’m not talking about Christianity. I’m talking about pre-exilic and Second Temple Period Judaism.
The New Testament did not revive demonology. Moses was not wrong, and Paul was not wrong. How about you read my paper on satanology and demonology in the Apostolic Fathers?
No, I said I didn’t know what you meant by “Hebraic doctrines” and “non-Hebraic doctrines”. This term is not used in the scholarship I cited, and seems to be your own coinage. So I asked you what you mean by it.
Thank you.
This might help you.
“It is generally accepted that in biblical thought there is no separation of body and soul and, consequently, the resurrection of the body is central. The idea of an immortal soul is not a Hebrew concept but comes from Platonic philosophy. It is, therefore, considered a severe distortion of the NT to read this foreign idea into its teaching.”
Walter Vogels, “Review of The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality by Barr, James,” Critical Review of Books in Religion (1994): 80.
“That the idea of the soul’s immortality as disembodied state beyond death is not popular amongst Christian theologians or among Christian philosophers today has already been acknowledged.”
Brian Hebblethwaite, Philosophical Theology and Christian Doctrine (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 113.
You haven’t addressed the original topic once. You didn’t answer any of the questions Brad posed.
Well bad luck, it’s a fact.
[quote=“Eddie, post:115, topic:619”]
I would think that a Catholic could say the same thing about many points of Christadelphian[/quote]
Of course, and it would be perfectly valid. I wouldn’t take the least offence.
But it isn’t just me George. Please try reading the relevant scholarly literature.
Nothing. If evangelicals can’t understand that the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas inform our understanding of the beliefs of Christians in the late first century and early second century, that’s not my problem. I’m not here to try and explain “chemtrails” to them either.
You have a pretty complicated ball of wax there, Jon. I don’t really think the scholarly literature is what makes your positions so complicated.
There are many things that you accept and many things you reject - - combined together they don’t really seem to fit the template of “scholarly literature”.
As for demons and possession … Evangelicals would say the New Testament trumps anything you find in the Didache or the Dead Sea scrolls…