Quote:
Originally Posted by Timotheist
Nope.
With the Hellenized gospel, unbelievers laugh at us.
With the gospel of John, and the theology of Paul, there is a better chance for the gospel to spread.
That the "outcome" of Jesus is the same in either case does not matter.
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Two substantial passages in which Paul commented on who Jesus was are Romans 1: 1–6 and Philippians 2: 5–11. In the first passage he states that Jesus was ‘descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead’. Paul says Jesus was ‘designated’ Son of God only at the time of the resurrection. Like the baptismal hypothesis, this is ‘adoptionist’ Christology. Paul seems to be saying that Jesus was adopted by God as Son, not born that way.
The second passage appears to go to the other extreme. According to Philippians 2: 5–11, Jesus was ‘in the form of God’ before he was born, but then he took on ‘the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men’. Paul continues, ‘and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death’. God ‘highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name’, that is, Lord. Paul doesn't use the word ‘Son’ here. Instead we have the word ‘form’: Jesus was in the form of God, then he was in the form of a slave, i.e., in human form.
Is Paul saying that Jesus was neither truly divine nor truly human, that he was only in the form of each successively? In any case, the passage asserts that Jesus was pre-existent and in some sense divine, but that he became human before being exalted even higher than he had originally been, to the status ‘Lord’.
How do you reconcile the two passages? And, how can they be reconciled with the virgin birth hypothesis? If they can't be reconciled to the latter accounts, what do you recommend, removing the virgin conception accounts from the Bible?
Whatever you make of those stories they are an important part of the Christian tradition. Perhaps we should think about how these stories can be "recovered" so that they speak to people with 21st century sensibilities.