A savior who dies and resurrected is a highly mythical element.
As I have addressed several times at length, there was an earlier Jesus movement that did not believe in the resurrection. Paul was considered to be a johnny come lately upstart trying to introduce strange new ideas by trying to weasel himself in as an Apostle. It sounds like this movement included Peter. Recall that Mark, in possession of some very legitimate sounding early stories about Jesus, and who tradition says got his stories from Peter, ends his Gospel with an empty tomb and no risen Jesus in sight.
Carrier claims that there were lots of savior dying/rising demigods, all of them named Savior (which I have shown is not what Jesus means) yet never names a single one. Paul wanted the death of Jesus and the claim of resurrection to be the guarantee of a future resurrection, a popular notion then going around. He made the story up on that basis. No need for prior myths.
Paul uses the word for birthed bodies - having been born - in Romans9:11.
We cannot know exactly what Paul meant. Carrier was correct in that.
In Romans 9:11, Paul is referring to the story of Jacob and Esau. That story is not about the lineage from which the fraternal twins came. Romans 9:11 is about the actual birth of the twins which is very important to the story.
Genesis 25 (Tanach)
21 And Isaac prayed to the Lord opposite his wife because she was barren, and the Lord accepted his prayer, and Rebecca his wife conceived.
22 And
the children struggled within her, and she said, "If [it be] so, why am I [like] this?" And she went to inquire of the Lord.
23 And the Lord said to her, "
Two nations are in your womb, and two kingdoms will separate from your innards, and one kingdom will become mightier than the other kingdom, and
the elder will serve the younger.
24 And her days to give birth were completed, and behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first one emerged ruddy; he was completely like a coat of hair, and they named him Esau.
26 And afterwards, his brother emerged, and his hand was grasping Esau's heel, and he named him Jacob. Now Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them.
27 And the youths grew up, and Esau was a man who understood hunting, a man of the field, whereas Jacob was an innocent man, dwelling in tents.
28 And
Isaac loved Esau because [his] game was in his mouth, but
Rebecca loved Jacob.
Now let’s see how Paul uses this. Recall that he is speaking to Jewish Christians, arguing that Gentile Christians are not obliged to follow the Law, and in fact that Jewish Christians should abandon it.
Romans 9
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are the
seed of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your
seed be named.” 8 This means that
it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed. 9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11
though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Israel is a name later given to Jacob. But not everyone descended from Jacob is a child of the promise. The two children were born out of order, with Esau first and Jacob second. And although Isaac, the child the promise to Sarah, loved Esau, it would be Jacob who would become Israel. And salvation does not come about through the Law (acts of the Law as Paul says earlier),
The quote - “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” – is from Malachi 1:2. Malachi says that the Jewish people have come to despise the Lord by giving hollow lip service to worship and by neglecting justice and charity. The children of Jacob have screwed up. The Lord will come and straighten everything out.
When Paul is talking about a real instance of physical pregnancy and birth he uses γεννάω (born) but when talking about a line of children in this same passage he uses the word σπέρμα (seed). Everywhere in the NT and the Jewish scriptures when lineage is intended, the word ‘seed’ is used, including in Paul.
But Carrier never wants to understand actual context. He just wants to quote mine individual words to support crazy ideas, which derive from him taking the KJV mistranslation as accurate because he did not know Greek.
The truth is that the messiah being a descendant of David is exactly what the Jews in Rome would expect to hear and definitely how they would understand Paul to be saying. All of Carrier’s arguments fail big time as I have repeatedly shown. It is perfectly clear what Paul meant. But Carrier, not knowing Greek, thought that when the KJV said ‘made’ it was the real meaning. When it was made very clear to him that this was not the case, he jumped over to ‘but when Paul says it, it means manufactured’, which as I have repeatedly shown and continue to show below is simply not the case. But admitting he was wrong would mean not selling his books anymore, so it HAS to mean that.
Carrier.What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3? • Richard Carrier
Carrier makes the logic for people understanding what was meant in the article which you have never read. Jesus would be from the lineage?
Not only have I read it, I have quoted from it and criticized it. But you not only ignored that but you deny that I even did that. After all, how can anyone doubt the Gospel according to St. Carrier?
In Romans 1:3, Paul literally writes “concerning His Son, who came to be from the sperm of David according to the flesh.”
As I have repeatedly shown, every single use of the term ‘the seed of so and so’ in the NT and in the Jewish scriptures very plainly refers to descendants. There are only 8 uses of many hundreds in the Jewish scriptures and none at all in the NT of the word to mean ‘sperm’ and they all refer to ritual purity after ejaculation and to putting your sperm in the wrong person. The Jewish Christians Paul is talking to would know perfectly well that the messiah will be a descendant of David and I have documented that this is definitely the case. There is no way the Jews Paul is writing to would take it any other way.
But Carrier did not know Greek and took the KJV incorrect translation of ‘became’ into ‘made’ and came up with his crazy word game idea for selling books. Notice that in the article you linked, Carrier finally admits that the word does not mean ‘manufactured’ as he originally claimed but ‘became’.
It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies (ginomai, referring to Adam’s body: 1 Corinthians 15:45, in the very context of describing Adam’s body; and our future resurrection bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:37, which, as for Adam, God will manufacture for us).
I have answered this several times but since it contradicts Carrier you have to say I never read it. I will repeat my most recent argument.
1 Corinthians 15:37
καὶ ὃ σπείρεις, οὐ τὸ σῶμα τὸ γενησόμενον σπείρεις ἀλλὰ γυμνὸν κόκκον
and what you-are-sowing not the body the
shall-be-becoming you-are-sowing only bare kernel
Paul is using the image of sowing plant seeds as a metaphor for burying a dead body. He is giving the Corinthians who are doubting the idea of resurrection something familiar to relate to. The kernel will in fact become a plant. The plant will not be manufactured (passive voice). It will grow (active voice). To think Paul meant ‘made’ would turn this familiar image into something odd and unfamiliar and lose the appeal. Paul would lose the doubting Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15:45
οὕτως καὶ γέγραπται, Ἐγένετο ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος Ἀδὰμ εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν: ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν
this and it-has-been-written became the first human Adam into soul living the last Adam into spirit giving-life
The word ψυχὴν (translated ‘soul’) does not refer to the body (which could be dead) but to the breath of life. Adam became alive.
When did Jesus become a spirit that gives life? At his resurrection, which is the guarantee of the promise of resurrection.
It is not manufactured bodies that are being discussed, it is that mortal life is not the only life and Jesus is the way to eternal life.
Paul NEVER used the word for manufactured. But Carrier only quote mines words way out of context and applies his crazy ideas to them to try to wiggle out of getting it totally wrong in the first place because the KJV said ‘made’ and Carrier did not know Greek.
It is an indisputable fact that Paul uses a different word every time he refers to birthed bodies (gennaô, e.g. Romans 9:11, Galatians 4:23 and 4:29).
Paul uses the word for birth when he is talking about specific physical births. But he uses the word for seed when he is talking about lineage
just as he does in Romans 9 when you do not ignore context as Carrier is so fond of doing. In Galatians, Paul is also talking about specific births, not lineage.
Elsewhere Carrier argues that Jesus
was born after all by referring to Matthew and Luke. So which one is it? But when you paint yourself into a corner you are going to get paint on your shoes trying to get out
It is an indisputable fact that subsequent Christian scribes were so bothered by the above two facts that they tried to doctor the manuscripts of Paul to change his word for “made” into his word for “born” (and did this in both places where Paul alludes to Jesus’s origin: Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4).
Carrier first says that modern translators are using the wrong word. Now he tries to claim that Christian scribes tried to change the
manuscripts themselves. There is absolutely no evidence for that anywhere and as I have shown, the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus, the earliest copy of Romans 1 in existence, definitely says ‘become’ not ‘make’. Not does any Greek manuscript I can find use the word for ‘born’. This is just Carrier flimflamming (aka lying).