outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Giuseppe wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 10:18 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 8:25 am
Arnoldo, you know better than to interrupt Giuseppe while he has this thinking cap on.

Image
what is disturbing, Ben, is that you are doing so caustic irony not against me (I can always forgive you) but against Couchoud (and Doherty for that matter).
It doesn't seem that you have a better solution, if you really think that the "outside the city gate" that is meant is... ...the Golgotha (sic).

...or the Gethsemani (double sic). :facepalm:
I argue against "outside the gate" meaning Golgotha, or outside any city's gate (heaven's or Jerusalem's or any other city's), here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1484.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Giuseppe »

I read:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:31 am Hebrews 13.11-13 reads:

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest, as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp [εξω της παρεμβολης]. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate [εξω της πυλης]. Hence, let us go out to him outside the camp [εξω της παρεμβολης], bearing his reproach.

In doing some studying of the conception of Jesus in this epistle, and in the course of that searching out old threads on this board having to do with the epistle, I found the following statements:
It even says specifically his blood was shed outside the city gate, a place where slaughtered animal carcasses were dumped.

Later on in Hebrews it says he suffered outside the city gate (13:11-12).
I think the intention here is to find a detail from the passion of Jesus in Hebrews, since the gospels report that Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem. But, while I think it is certainly possible that the author of Hebrews knew that Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem and therefore included this detail, I do not think that we are entitled to assume without argument that a city gate is what is in mind in this passage. It may seem weird to us, but the Pentateuch describes the Israelite camp in the wilderness as having gates. Exodus 32.26-27 (the Greek words are from the LXX):

...then Moses stood at the gate [επι της πυλης] of the camp [της παρεμβολης], and said: Whoever is for the Lord, come to me! And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him. And he said to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.'

The camp appears to be fortified; it has gates. The detail in Hebrews 13.11 about animal carcasses being burned outside the camp comes from passages such as Exodus 29.14:

But the flesh of the bull and its hide and its refuse you shall burn with fire outside the camp [εξω της παρεμβολης]; it is a sin offering.

Refer also to Leviticus 4.12, 21; 9.11; 16.27; Numbers 19.3.

Why, therefore, must the reference to Jesus suffering outside the gate in Hebrews 13.12 be taken any more literally than the injunction to go suffer with Jesus outside the camp in Hebrews 13.13?

Ben.
In particular, I disagree with:
I do not think that we are entitled to assume without argument that a city gate is what is in mind in this passage.
A city is not a camp. It is not even a fortified camp.

And the "camp" is used clearly as an allegory for "here", this earth, in the verse 13:
Hence, let us go out to him outside the camp
So "outside the camp" means "outside here".
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Giuseppe »

But I see that about a point I and Ben can agree: he doesn't see a real city, and I don't see it also. The enduring city is an allegory of the higher heavens (paradise). The city that is not enduring is therefore the earth. Therefore Jesus suffered outside the city that allegorizes this our earth, because that is the same allegorical "city" that the readers have to abandon.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Sounds like you agree with me that "gate" does not imply "city" here.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Posts crossed.
ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Giuseppe »

It is interesting also how this theory may explain that curious particular of the sufferings carried by the believers "outside the camp":
11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore

The believers have to bear the same sufferings of Jesus and where, precisely? Outside the camp, i.e. outside the "city". Outside this earth. In the heaven.

But then this assumes that also the Christians will suffer in heaven. Only, given the fact that this future celestial suffering is seen with hope, then this is not really a future defeat, but a future victory: the believers will ascend up in the lower heavens, when Jesus will descend in the glory.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: outside the city = in the heaven: Why even Richard Carrier is wrong!

Post by Giuseppe »

So Couchoud (note the difference from Carrier/Doherty even sharing the same general conclusion about where Jesus was crucified):

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews considers the Crucifixion, which is at the same time the priestly sacrifice, as taking place in heaven. Since expiatory victims had to be burned without the camp (Heb. xiii. 11), Jesus suffered without the gate—i.e., not in this world. “Let us go forth unto him without the camp . . . for here we have no continuing city” (xiii. 13-14). Here is the earth. Jesus suffered in the flesh, but not on earth.

(Creation of Christ, p. 122)

Really, if the sufferings of Christ are the sufferings of all the Christians ("the body of Christ") then the Christians themselves "suffered" magically in heaven insofar Jesus suffered "really" in heaven. This explains why the believers have to bear "outside the camp" (i.e. in heaven) "the same disgrace he bore".

By joining the body of Christ, they bear their flesh there where Jesus suffered "in the flesh": in heaven.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply