All of that is dealt with. On just Gal 4:4
Yes, Galatians 4 Is Allegorical • Richard Carrier
"Contrary to what is often asserted, Paul never says Jesus had an actual “woman as a mother.” He says Jesus came “from a woman” but then says we are all born of the same woman. This “woman,” Paul says in Galatians 4, is an allegory for the physical world of flesh, not a person. He thus appears only to mean Jesus was given a human body of flesh to die in, a body subject to the physical world order. He does not say where this happened. Nor that it involved a birth. Or an actual woman."
Galatians 4:4 uses the phrase
γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον
becoming out of-woman becoming under law
Becoming
out of a woman sounds pretty explicit to me. It certainly would be taken by Paul’s readers as being born physically out of a woman’s body.
Becoming – being born physically out of a woman’s body – under the law certainly implies being born of a Jewish woman. Paul uses the word ‘law’ (νόμος) 24 other times in Galatians as clearly meaning Jewish Law. As can be seen by the discussion of physical circumcision in Galatians 5, this is unmistakable. How does law suddenly become ‘world order’?
The messiah was expected to be a human born from the House of David. Born out of a woman under the law fits that description and Paul’s readers would immediately see the connection. No allegory here and there is no way Paul’s readers would see it as an allegory. It is clearly Paul describing Jesus as the expected messiah yet one more time. Paul uses the word Christ (= messiah) 33 times in Galatians alone and hundreds of times throughout his letters.
"The phrase “born of a woman, born under the law” in
Galatians 4:4 is an allegory for world order. As Paul explicitly says, the “mothers” he is talking about in his argument in Galatians 4 are not people but worlds (
Galatians 4:24). In both cases Paul does not use the word he uses for human birth, but the word he uses for divine manufacture (“was created/made”), the same word he uses of God making Adam and our future resurrection bodies (
1 Corinthians 15:37 and
15:45), neither of which are “born” to actual human mothers (or fathers).
Paul uses the story in scriptures about
real women really giving birth to real children as an allegory, which he explicitly states he is going to use as an allegory to support his point that Gentiles should not be forced to follow Jewish Law.
As we have seen, the Greek language in Galatians 4:4 is very physical in tone ‘out of a woman’. This is a human birth. Likewise, in Galatians 4:22, where Paul refers to the children of Hagar and Sarah, he says:
ἕνα ἐκ τῆς παιδίσκης καὶ ἕνα ἐκ τῆς ἐλευθέρα
One out of-the female-slave and one out of-the free-woman
Again ‘out of’. Real normal physical birth from a woman’s body.
Only then does Paul say he is using this as an allegory.
Ishmael was born of Hagar, Sarah’s slave, because Sarah could not conceive. Isaac was later born of Sarah after God made that promise. Hagar and Sarah are not themselves allegorical. In the scriptures they are real mothers. Paul the explicitly says he is now using this as an allegory, (‘allegorizing’ ἀλληγορούμενα) which he never says anywhere else. Applying 4:24 to 4:4 is not at all justified.
Paul’s figures of speech about ‘prison’ and such are not allegories as Carrier claims. They are dramatic hyperbole to make his point. They are not allegories, they are metaphors. An allegory involves a detailed story that would require explanation to understand. These metaphors have emotional impact and require no explanation.
The word γίνομαι (be, become) that appears in Romans 1:3 does not appear in Galatians 4:24. Neither does the word mean ‘divine manufacture’. Carrier’s misrepresentation is based on poor translations of the Greek word into the English ‘made’. This strongly suggests that Carrier has never investigated the Greek itself, only the English translations that he can manipulate to mean other than what the Greek or the context indicate.
The word γίνομαι (be, become) appears in 1 Corinthians 37 as γενησόμενον (shall be coming to be) in reference to plants growing from planted seeds. Paul is not talking about resurrected human bodies here. The plants grow naturally from seeds. If this is not understood, then Paul’s image of the dead rising in bodies will fail.
In 1 Corinthians 15:45, the same word (become) is used with respect to Adam and to Jesus, exactly as in Romans 1:3. This refers to Adam and Jesus coming into the world as living beings. Paul is not talking about resurrected spiritual bodies here either.
In Greek 1 Corinthians 15 does not use any word corresponding to make or manufacture. That appears only in improper English translations, which apparently is all Carrier is able to use.
"Later Christians knew this and tried to change the words to what they needed to be there (and what Evans needs to be there), altering them both (simultaneously here and in
Romans 1:3) to Paul’s preferred word for “born” rather than “made,” but we caught them at it, and those doctored variants are excluded from the received text. Experts now know that what Paul actually originally wrote in both passages was his preferred word for “made.” So we can’t tell if Paul means God manufactured Jesus a body out of
Davidic seed, or if Jesus was born to some human father descended from David; nor can we tell if Paul thought Jesus was born of a real mother or only an allegorical one. So there is no usable evidence here. At all. Certainly not substantial evidence"
What evidence does Carrier provide that the words were changed? Paul’s letters were widely disseminated as we can see from references in other early literature. All copies got changed or tracked down and destroyed? Are there any manuscripts that say what Carrier claims they originally said?If not how does he know they were changed? A conspiracy theory? Really?
The words as we see in all manuscripts fit perfectly with the expectations of the audience that the messiah was going to be born as a human from the house of David. Paul's audience would take what he said literally and not as any kind of allegory which would simply go over their heads. It would also defeat Paul’s purpose in writing his letters, that a real Jesus died to redeem the sin of Adam and was resurrected as a promise of the universal resurrection then in the popular imagination as seen in the various apocryphal works of the era. It is very clear in context what Paul meant and Galatians 4:4 being an allegory was not it.
"Right. But your asessment of Carrier is wrong. He does count Gal 4:4 as weak evidence for historicity, he doesn't say Jesus is mythical but says the odds are likely 1 in 3 in favor of mythicism and is using Greek sources.
What Greek sources does Carrier claim were used?
