--- "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 18:11:32 -0800 (PST) "Dr. Blake
> Nelson"
> <bnelson301@yahoo.com> writes:
(SNIP)
> Sorry to be slow here. I have some observations,
> which I hope are not too
> cryptic.
>
> First, there is a difference between "I don't need
> an answer" and "No one
> needs to consider the matter." Further, there is a
> radical difference
> between "The authors of Scripture do not supply an
> answer because they
> did not ask (or record) the question" and "There is
> no possible
> answer"--which is what "category mistake" involves.
Not exactly. A category mistake is asking a question
of a narrative that the narrative does not address.
We may well want to ask that question of Jesus, by say
doing a DNA analysis, but that is a different question
and situation altogether -- and one that we cannot
actually ask since we can't do a DNA analysis on him.
> Also, "There is no
> definitive or absolute answer" is not equivalent to
> "There is no answer."
I never said there was no answer. If DNA testing were
around in the First Century AD and someone did a test
on Jesus, etc., etc. there would be an answer of some
sort. It still would not necessarily answer the
question of whether Jesus was "divine" (however
defined) since I am not sure any particular "Y"
chromosome configuration indicates divinity, if you
understand what I am trying to get at here.
> Where Jesus' Y chromosome (or whatever may
> substitute for it) came from
> is relevant.
To which question?
> If it came from Mary's fornication,
> then Jesus was a
> normally begotten human being, innately endowed with
> all the rights of
> his fellows. If God then took him over, the deity is
> acting as demons do.
Well, this actually bundles a truckload of assumptions
about, among others: 1) how God acts, 2) what it means
for Jesus to be the Son of God, and 3) how Jesus
expressed the will of the Father. Without expressing
your assumptions it is difficult to give a fair
reading, but the conclusion about the deity acting as
demons do is clearly not logically (or theologically)
required by anything you wrote as a preface.
> This is not moral. Only if Jesus unconditionally
> owes his existence to a
> direct divine act may we have the hypostatic union
> morally (and, I would
> think, metaphysically).
Even accepting that, what is the divine act? As I
noted in an earlier post to Michael R. Jesus'
followers do not appear to have proclaimed Him Son of
God due to the circumstances of His birth. They
proclaimed Him Son of God most significantly because
God the Father Resurrected Jesus of Nazareth. Note, I
hold rather orthodox views about the VB, but I think
when one makes statements such as the one above, one
puts at least the cart before the horse in how and why
Jesus was proclaimed the Son of God and why the
kerygma went forth. It did not go forth simply
because of the VB.
> As to the "mechanism" by
> which this took place,
> there are only partial answers to any miracle, and
> an implicit IMO. But
> then we have only partial answers and alternatate
> possibilities to many
> strictly scientific questions.
To go back to my earlier point, if we DNA test Jesus
and Joseph and find out his Y chromosome is the same
as Joseph's -- how does that answer any question about
Jesus' divinity? If the Y chromosome matches that of
someone else, how does that answer any question? If
it doesn't match someone else's (that we know of) do
we DNA test all of 1st century palestine to find if
anyone could be the father of Jesus? This is reductio
ad absurdum. None of these tests answer the question
of whether Jesus is divine -- although one can imagine
the 1st century skeptic saying -- ah hah! Jesus and
Joseph have the same Y chromosome, end of story.
If Jesus is an heir of David in Joseph's genealogy,
well, why wouldn't God give Jesus Joseph's Y
chromosome. God the Father -- as far as I am aware --
is never said to have His own Y chromosome. Again,
there appears to be nothing of theological
significance that is answered by this question or even
a strict, empirical testing to answer that question.
> It is no crime to be curious, to seek answers beyond
> those asked by our
> predecessors of any period. While there are various
> answers given for may
> questions relating to Jesus, one needs to give a
> strightforward
> explanation to some, as for his claim to be one with
> the Father (John
> 10:30; cf. 15:7). False record and insane claim bear
> on our salvation,
> and mesh with matters of chromosomal endowment.
So, what chromosomal endowment would show Jesus to be
the Son of God? I am interested in finding out!
> Dave
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Received on Tue Dec 30 10:54:44 2003
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Dec 30 2003 - 10:54:45 EST