Re: Orthodoxy (was Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered)

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:35:56 -0500 George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
writes:
> Dr. Blake Nelson wrote:
> >
> > --- "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
>
> > > Where Jesus' Y chromosome (or whatever may
> > > substitute for it) came from
> > > is relevant.
> >
> > To which question?

To his manhood. It could not come from Mary, for a misplaced part of the
Y on a somatic chromosome, sufficient to produce a male, sometimes found,
is incompatible with her being female. This is not addressed in the
gospels with good reason. The most sophisticated theory at the time was
that the male provided the form or soul, the vital portion; the female,
only matter to be formed.

> >
> > > 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.
> >
First assumption is that God does not violate the freedom he has given to
human beings. Possession is such a violation. The closest to divine
"possession" that comes to mind is Elijah and Elisha. But they are
clearly not divine, let alone deity. Also, they were led rather than
driven.

Second, briefly, is that there is more than being a son of God. Hebrew
has this idiom, along with son of man. However, Jesus also declared
himself to be one with the Father. I am, by grace, a son of God, but I
cannot claim identity. Even glorification will leave me a creature. (I
can't buy the notion some have produced that they will become atemporally
eternal, one with God.)

> > > 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.
> >
Here you seem to expect a "mechanical" or biological explanation. I do
not claim to explain a miracle. What I note are requirements or
consequences on the basis of philosophical or scientific understandings.
As to the basis of the kerygma, I read your statement as saying that
/only/ the resurrection was its basis. But one cannot have the
resurrection without the crucifixion, the crucifixion without the life,
etc. It's a package deal with inseparable parts.

> > > 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.
>
I see this as silly, for there was, and is, no DNA test available. That
is why I wrote of a Y chromosome or whatever substituted for it. What I
am saying is that Jesus was not a Jewish bastard for, if you have any
respect for scripture, Joseph was not his father.

Could a Y chromosome like Joseph's, or taken from him, have been
miraculously transferred? Of course. So? My point is simply that for Mary
to be /Theotokos/, there had to be an unprecedented miracle.

> On balance I have to agree with Blake here. The hypostatic
> union means that
> divine and human are united in a single person, which is the Second
> Person of the
> Trinity. That does not entail any particular belief about how such
> a union was
> accomplished, whether or not it came about by a direct, rather than
> mediated, act of God
> or, in particular, whether or not Jesus had a human father. It's
> true that it seems
> easiest to picture (which, N.B., is not the same as "explain") how
> this might have taken
> place in terms of virginal conception, but that is far from a proof
> that it did take
> place in that way.

I recognize that there has been, and continues to be, multiple views on
every theological point. Such was the crux of all the ecumenical
councils. It is my firm belief that most of these modern alternatives are
products of a kind of tunnel vision. Let me try an illustration of what I
mean from the discussion of oil supply and a hydrogen energy economy,
especially considering Glenn's information. Here are some solutions.
Extract all the oil from the known pools. Get the fuel from oil shale
deposits. Make all cars, trucks, trains and boats hydrogen powered. Use
coal, but capture all the carbon and sulfur compounds produced by
combustion. There are all kinds of straightforward solutions until
everything they ignore comes up. Then they are seen to be silly.

Theologians similarly produce solutions that only work if the
consequences are ignored. For example, your question about Paul and John
may be turned on its head: why should they mention something that
everyone at the time knew? When did someone feel he had to explain to you
that all mammals breathe air?

As a quibble on your language, there are those who acknowledge the
divinity of Jesus without recognizing his deity. I was told of a very
liberal churchman who remarked that he and his colleagues used the
traditional language, but with different meanings. In addition to such
deliberate misrepresentations, there is the general problem of ambiguity.
Clarity sometimes requires such complicated specification that it becomes
unclear.

> It seems significant that the 2 NT writers for whom belief
> in the divine
> pre-existence of Christ seems clearest, Paul and John, don't give
> any indication that
> they knew about Jesus being conceived of a virgin. (Gal.4:4 &
> Jn.8:41 might be hints in
> that direction but that's highly debatable.) That raises serious
> questions about any
> claim that virginal conception is necessary for belief in the
> divinity of Christ.
> (BTW, I don't cross my fingers when I say "born of the
> Virgin Mary" in the
> creeds.)
>
> Shalom,
> George
>
I recognize that my remarks do not cover all the complications, but I'm
not about to present a monograph on the topic. I'm simply trying to be
true to Jesus as fully human, with what we know scientifically, and as
God, which gets into theology and philosophy. I want to do it
comprehensively and without fudging.
Dave
Received on Wed Dec 31 15:03:41 2003