Miracle-Less Gospels; Jesus the Magician?; Divinization

I finished Howard Clark Kee’s Miracle in the Early Christian World.  I have three items.

1.  On page 292, Kee states that the Bultmann school liked the Gnostic Gospels (including the Gospel of Thomas) and upheld them as the oldest sources for us to access the historical Jesus because these Gospels consist largely of sayings and they lack miracles, which the Bultmann school deemed to be embarrassing.  Rudolph Bultmann himself, after all, asked how we in the modern age can believe in miracles!  I like the concept of a Gospel that relies on teachings and sayings, rather than things that are hard to believe.  At the same time, many of the New Testament scholars whom I have read deem the Gnostic Gospels to be late (in that they appear to assume the synoptic Gospels) and inauthentic in terms of what the historical Jesus was like.  I have to admit, however, that I have not read much Karen King or Elaine Pagels.

2.  On pages 268-271, Kee talks about Celsus’ criticisms of Jesus’ miracles, and Origen’s response to those criticisms.  Celsus essentially states that Jesus was a magician who did his “miracles” in alliance with demons.  Celsus compares Jesus with “sorcerers who profess to do wonderful miracles…who for a few obols make known their sacred lore in the middle of the marketplace and drive demons out of men and blow away diseases and invoke the souls of heroes” (quotation of Celsus on page 268).

Origen responds that this was not so because (1.) a magician would not try to instill in people a teaching about the fear of God, and (2.) Christianity opposed magic.  Origen acknowledged that miracles might occur among the Greeks (Contra Celsum 5.57), but he said that the fact that sorcerers invoke Jesus’ name shows that the name has power (Contra Celsum 2.49).  Origen also affirmed that the resurrection of Jesus surpassed previous miracles, even though the risen Jesus did not appear publicly as Celsus would have liked, but rather he appeared only to the spiritually-worthy who were prepared to see him (Contra Celsum 2.61-63).

On pages 211-212, Kee discusses Morton Smith’s book, Jesus the Magician.  Smith argued that Jesus was a magician who ate flesh, drank blood, and participated in “nocturnal lustrations in the nude with his circle of male followers” (Kee’s summary).  But Smith contends that Jesus’ role as a magician has been obscured under subsequent layers of redaction, as the Christian editor made Jesus into a miracle worker like figures in the Hebrew Bible.

Was Jesus a magician?  At the moment, I am skeptical about Jesus eating flesh, drinking blood, or engaging in those “nocturnal lustrations” that Smith talks about.  But there are occasions when Jesus heals through certain rituals, such as spitting on a blind man’s eyes (Mark 8:23) and anointing a blind man’s eyes with clay he made out of spit and dirt (John 9:6).  Are these acts of magic?  Why perform a ritual, when Jesus can heal by word?

3.  In an excursus, Kee talks about human beings becoming divine.  He quotes Plato’s statement in Republic 6.500.C-D that “the lover of wisdom by keeping company with the divine and orderly becomes himself divine and orderly in so far as it is possible for a human being” (page 298).  Kee also refers to Aristotle’s principle that a man with political insight be followed as a god among men, for whom no law exists.  This interested me because it gave me insight into divinization in the ancient world: that a person in this life can become divine through wisdom.

Harrowing One’s Own Hell: Evagrius on Lazarus and the Rich Man

I finished Frank Schaeffer’s Patience with God last night.  Basically, his argument was that we find God in people’s love for each other, or something like that. 

I was intrigued by pages 216-217, in which Frank quotes Evagrius’ Commentary on the Proverbs.  Evagrius is discussing Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31).  In this parable, the rich man wears fancy clothes and lives sumptuously, whereas the poor man Lazarus sits at the gate, desiring the rich man’s crumbs, as the dogs lick his sores.  The two of them die, and Lazarus is taken to the comforts of Abraham’s bosom, whereas the rich man goes to Hades.  As the rich man experiences torment, he asks Abraham to have mercy on him, and to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and to cool the rich man’s tongue.  Abraham answers “no”, saying that there’s a gulf between Abraham’s bosom and Hades, and no one can pass from one to the other.

The rich man then asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his (the rich man’s) five brothers, so Lazarus can warn them to avoid Hades, a place of torment.  If they see a man risen from the dead, the rich man figures, then they will repent.  Abraham responds that the five brothers have Moses and the prophets to instruct and to warn them.  If these brothers won’t believe Moses and the prophets, then they won’t repent after seeing someone rise from the dead.

Evagrius states the following:

There was a time when evil did not exist, and there will be a time when it no longer exists; but there was never a time when virtue did not exist and there will never be a time when it does not exist.  For the seeds of virtue are indestructible.  And I am convinced by the rich man almost but not completely given over to every evil who was condemned to hell because of his evil, and who felt compassion for his brothers, for to have pity is a very beautiful seed of virtue.

Frank interprets Evagrius to mean the following:

Evagrius discovers a seed of virtue in the rich man’s compassion for his brothers.  According to Evagrius, the rich man’s situation is not as dire as it might seem.  He’s dead; he’s in Hell, but wait, that’s not the end of it.  Evagrius writes a postscript.  Since the rich man showed pity for his brothers—in other words, he felt and expressed love—there is a way out.  Virtue, says Evagrius, will outlast evil.  The Law of Love prevails.

Even the rich man who lived his life mired in injustice will find salvation.  His hell will turn to paradise because there will come a time when evil “no longer exists,” which, given Evagrius’s thinking, means that someday Hell will turn into Heaven for the rich man, because if there is suffering anywhere, then evil will still exist and will have outlasted virtue. 

The rich man’s perception that he is in Hell derives from the gulf between him and God.  This gulf was placed there by the rich man’s lack of charity, which turned him into someone who cut himself off from love.

When he was alive on earth, the rich man was selfish, for he failed to help the poor man Lazarus.  In Hades, however, the rich man begins to care about other people, for he wants to help his brothers avoid the torments of Hades.  For Evagrius, this was a seed of virtue within the rich man, something that could grow and transform his torment in Hades into the paradise of heaven.  Moreover, since God’s plan is to eliminate evil one day, Evagrius believes that the rich man’s suffering will eventually come to an end, for the suffering of any human being is evil. 

Evagrius appears to combine universalism with a notion that C.S. Lewis expressed over a millennium after him: that the door to hell is locked from the inside.  Evagrius may combine the two ideas in that he sees the torments of Hades as God’s way of instilling compassion for others into the rich man, for pain can lead us to sympathize and empathize with other people.

So who was Evagrius?  I assume that the Evagrius Frank is talking about is Evagrius of Pontus, a fourth century Christian monk and ascetic, who influenced such patristic luminaries as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Cassius, and Theophilus of Alexandria (see here).  Evagrius and Origen were condemned in a sixth century church council, yet the influence of their writings was strong.

It’s interesting how there was an openness to universalism in the early centuries of the Christian church.  I’m not suggesting that all (or even most) Christians shared it.  But there were prominent Christian teachers who were universalists.

Origen and Pagan Exegesis

I read my friend’s notes on Origen today.  He said that Origen, in his interpretation of Scripture, followed the techniques of pagan exegesis in six ways: text-criticism, explanation of words, explanation of points or facts, metrical and stylistic criticism, identification of the person speaking in the text, and clarifying the Bible with the Bible (the pagans did this with Homer).

But is this distinctly pagan?  It sounds like the sort of exegesis that many interpreters do.

Unloaded Questions; Outsider’s Test; Thank You; Smart Guy; Reason for Origen’s Universalism; Allowed This Time; Self-Acceptance

1.  Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 136:

Carnegie quotes Dr. Overstreet, who states: “It often seems as if people get a sense of their own importance by antagonizing at the outset.  The radical comes into a conference with his conservative brethren; and immediately he must make them furious!  What, as a matter of fact, is the good of it?  If he simply does it to get some pleasure out of it for himself, he may be pardoned.  But if he expects to achieve something, he is only psychologically stupid.”

This describes me in a nut-shell: I love to challenge the mindset of the status quo.  At DePauw and Harvard, I was a conservative!  In conservative Christian settings, I was a liberal.  But Dale Carnegie exhorts us to find common ground with another person and to ask her questions to which she can answer “yes”, leading her towards our point-of-view.  This is what Socrates did: he didn’t march up to a person and say “This is the way it is.”  Rather, he asked questions.

Many people who try to practice this approach don’t do it all that well, in my opinion, because their questions are loaded and ideologically biased.  “And which political party is more pro-American—the Republicans or the Democrats?”, a person once asked me, expecting me to answer “Republican.”  That’s not an effective use of the Socratic method, unless you know for sure that the person you’re asking the question will answer “Republican”!

But I think that it’s appropriate to ask people about what we consider the weaknesses in their positions, to see how they handle them.  For example: “President Obama, what do you think about all this debt?”  That’s not a loaded question.  His policy was to do deficit spending in order to get our economy out of its economic hole.  What’s his view on the debt that such a policy created?  I’m sure it has crossed his mind!  He’s a smart man!

2.  Robert Heinlein, Sixth Column, page 116:

“…All religions look equally silly from the outside…Sorry!  I don’t mean to tread on anybody’s toes…Take any religious mystery, any theological proposition: expressed in ordinary terms it will read like sheer nonsense to the outsider, from the ritualistic, symbolic eating of human flesh and blood practiced by all the Christian sects to the outright cannibalism practiced by some savages.”

This is the “outsider’s test of faith” that atheists talk about.  See Ken Pulliam’s summary of John Loftus’ discussion of this test here.  The idea is that we’re supposed to step outside of our religion and take a look at it as if we were outsiders, the same way that we would evaluate a religion that is not our own.  The conclusion Loftus wants us to reach is that it’s all nonsense!

I have some sympathy for the “outsider’s test of faith”, for I’m sick of Christians who apply their razor-sharp reasoning to other religions—to show that they’re silly or irrational or immoral in comparison with Christianity—and yet they give a free pass to their own faith.  Either they say “Just have faith, for God knows more than we do” when they’re discussing the problematic aspects of Christianity, or they offer apologetic “answers” that not everyone finds convincing.

 At the same time, I’m open to a degree of mystery, so I don’t automatically blow something off just because it doesn’t make complete sense to me.  Believing in a good God with all of the evil that exists in the world is an example.

Interestingly, the “outsider’s test of Christianity” runs counter to some of the things that I’ve learned about the academic study of religion.  Not completely, mind you, for, when we apply (say) an anthropological analysis to a religion, we are acting as detached outsiders, looking at it from the perspective of a field of study.  But I was also encouraged to try to understand a religion from the perspective of its practitioners—to try to enter into their mindset.  And this would apply to any religion. 

But the “outsider’s test of faith” isn’t really about the study of religion—it’s about the evaluation of a religion to determine whether or not we should accept it.  Personally, I’m not big on getting on any high horse and pronouncing all religions as “wrong”.  Maybe they have something to teach us.  Maybe their practitioners have experienced things that many of us haven’t!  I don’t want to become a complete relativist, however, for cannibalism strikes me as cruel.

3.   Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, page 15:

“I give thee thanks” means exactly “I am handing over to you my thank offering” (see Pss. 52:11…; 57:10-11; 86:12; 118:21; 138:1-2). 

This just stood out to me.  Maybe it’s because the ancient Israelites had a concrete way to say “thank you” to God.  I either forget to say “thank you” in my prayers, or I say it, it feels empty, and I soon forget about it.  But the ancient Israelites offered an animal.  Rituals solidify things, in my opinion.

4.   R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, page 153:

But who is courageous enough to measure himself even as editor against the universality of Eratosthenes, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, chronographer, geographer, grammarian, and poet?

Smart guy!  A jack of all trades! 

You can probably tell that I’m really struggling to find interesting things in this book.  I’m sure there are people who love it.  It just doesn’t interest me! 

5.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 335:

The fact is that universalism in Origen’s thought is a necessary conclusion from his basic premises, and not, as it is in most modern thought, a ‘larger hope’ grounded on a strong belief in God’s love and a kindly feeling toward all humanity, however degraded.  In Origen’s view for God to fail in reconciling into their original state as pure spirits wholly obedient to his will any beings at all, even only one or two, would be for God, the single, simple, primal, unalterable One, to compromise himself with change and becoming and corruption.  This is inconceivable, and therefore all must be saved.

I don’t entirely understand this, but it addresses a question that has come to me.  Why was Origen a universalist?  Was it because he believed in the love of God for all humanity and could not conceive of a good God torturing sinners in hell forever and ever?  That’s a big reason that I’m drawn to universalism, but, in line with what I said in (2), my job in studying the ancients should be to figure out what they think, not project onto them what I think. 

Maybe I can use some of what they think to inform my own thoughts.  For example, I believe that Origen’s view that hell is a place of correction accords with my understanding of the love of God, who prefers not to throw his creation into the garbage, but deeply wants them to become righteous and reconciled with him.  But was that Origen’s reason for seeing hell as a place of correction?

According to Hanson, the answer is “no”.  I don’t entirely understand what Origen’s reason for believing in universalism is.  It has something to do with God being one, so, apparently, in some manner, God’s creation must also be one: united with him.  Origen referred to I Corinthians 15:28, which affirms that, after all things have become subjected to the Son, the Son will subject himself to the Father, making God all in all.  So all will become one, in a manner of speaking. 

Many Christians believe that God will be “all in all” because he will destroy or eternally punish his enemies, so what will be left will be subordinate to God.  And the righteous remnant will be “all” that there is!  Or perhaps the believers in eternal torment hold that the sinners in hell are subordinate to God, so God is all in all that way.  In this view, everyone will be subordinate to God, but some won’t care for their state of subordination.  But Origen held that all will be subordinated to God in reconciliation to him.

6. Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, page 15:

[Mishnah Demai 4] now turns to the case of purchasing produce from someone who is not deemed trustworthy.  In certain well-defined circumstances we may believe his word that the produce has been tithed, and therefore need not tithe it ourselves…The major principles are as follows: We may believe someone not deemed trustworthy (1) in an emergency (as on the Sabbath, 4:1-2), or (2) when we have no sure way to verify his statement (4:5), or (3) when he testifies concerning someone else, and thus has no personal interest to be served by lying (4:6).  But if two men give testimony concerning each other, we suspect collision (4:6-7).

This highlights the issue of Tractate Demai.  We’re supposed to eat food after it has been tithed.  The problem was that not every Jew tithed scrupulously.  So Jews had to be careful about whom they bought their produce from.  What if the Jewish salesman of produce did not tithe mint, dill, and cummin?  You will be eating untithed produce, and God won’t like that very much!

But there are exceptions.  You can eat the possibly untithed produce on the Sabbath, perhaps because you’re not allowed to perform the business of giving it back to the seller on that day, and that may be all the food that you have.  Then, for the rabbis, there are ways to tell if a person is telling the truth, on the basis of his self-interest or the possibility of collusion.  Christian apologists use this approach when they argue that the early Christians were telling the truth about Jesus’ resurrection: they can’t think of any motive for the early Christians to lie, especially when they were suffering persecution for their faith, and so they conclude that they were speaking the truth.

7.  AA Daily Reflection, April 26: Instead of demanding that people, places, and things make me happy, I can ask God for self-acceptance.

The bad part is me to a T.  I get so bent out of shape when people, places, and things are not the way I want.  I even get bent out of shape when I look back and think of times in the past when they were not as I want.  And so I allow the problems of yesterday to spoil my today.  What I need to learn is to accept myself even when things are not as I desire—when people do not accept me, when I feel looked down on, etc.  I wish I had that kind of peace.

Doggy Social Skills; Strong Introvert; Covenants; Ancient Academia; Projecting the Christ of Faith onto the Historical Jesus; Peace through War; Bipartisan Earth Day

1.  Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, pages 57-69:

The lesson for today is that we should be genuinely interested in people.  We should also give the impression that we are happy to see them.  Carnegie refers to dogs as fine examples of this: they’re happy to see you!

That’s the way my Teddy and Penny dogs were with me and the rest of my family.  When I came home for a break from college, they welcomed me, even though they didn’t know me that well.  Mom said it was because I had the family scent.  Every morning that I got out of bed and came to the living room, both of them came up too me and jumped on me, like they were happy to see me.

I think that the rule of being genuinely interested in people is valid.  My therapist says that people like it when we remember something about them, for that conveys to them that they are important enough to remember.  But I think that the rule needs to be nuanced a bit.  It’s possible for me to go up to a person and ask a bunch of questions, coming across as an FBI informant in the process!  Social skills books of today—such as Deb Fine’s The Fine Art of Small Talk and Alan Garner’s Conversationally Speaking—discourage coming across as an FBI informant, and they provide examples of open-ended questions that we can ask people. 

Also, while there’s a place for being thoughtful of others, there should probably be a degree of intimacy before you do certain things.  For example, an acquaintance of mine once told me that she likes Messianic praise music, so I got her a tape with some songs on it.  In retrospect, I don’t think that I knew her well enough to give her a gift.  I would have probably done better to have shown her some of my CDs and tapes, or to tell her where she could buy some.  When it comes to helping people with their schoolwork by referring them to books, however, that’s appropriate when you’re a student, for all of you are in the same boat.  Sometimes, people appreciate my suggestions; sometimes not. 

Dale Carnegie states that an editor told him that, if an author doesn’t like people, then people won’t like his stories.  I don’t know how true this is, for I’ve heard of plenty of writers who were messed-up recluses!  But I wonder how this editor’s principle can relate to my blog.  My readers can probably tell that I dislike certain people.  But there are also people I like, though: family, friends, the characters on Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers and Sisters, etc.  I hope that my readers feel liked here.  One thing I appreciate about Nick Norelli’s blog, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth (www.rdtwot.wordpress.com), is that he takes the time to respond to almost everybody’s comments.  I feel liked whenever I visit there!

2.  My sponsor suggested that I read Robert Heinlein’s Sixth Column, a science fiction work.  So far in the book, a disaster has wiped out much of America.  The line that stuck out to me today is on page 6:

There was Dr. Randall Brooks, biologist and bio-chemist, with a special commission of major.  Ardmore liked his looks; he was quiet and mild, but gave the impression of an untroubled strength of character superior to that of a more extroverted man—he would do, and his advice would be useful.

3.  Rolf Rendtorff, The Covenant Formula, page 59:

[At Sinai,] Israel’s relationship with God as it is defined in the terminology of the covenant formula is related to the covenant in such a way that the requirement to Abraham ‘to keep’ the covenant is now extended to Israel as a whole.  In addition, the ‘keeping of the covenant’ is not now concentrated on one particular point, as it was in the case of Abraham, with the circumcision; it is extended to ‘listening to my voice’.  This formulation proleptically denotes the commandments and precepts which God is going to proclaim in what follows.

Covenants.  I can’t say that the issue ever made a whole lot of sense to me.  There’s God’s covenant with Noah, God’s covenant with Abraham, the Sinai covenant, the Davidic covenant, the everlasting covenant, and the new covenant.  An Armstrongite pastor once said that the Sinai covenant was a sub-section of the Abrahamic one.  That’s pretty much how I see the issue.  God made a promise to Abraham that God would be the God of his offspring, and that Abraham’s offspring would possess the Promised Land.  What were the conditions for Israel’s possession of that land?  They had to keep the law given to them at Sinai.

In Genesis 17, circumcision was the way to become and remain in the covenant people.  Those who were not circumcised were cut off from them.  Eventually, Rendtorff states, the requirement was expanded to encompass the entire Torah.

And so circumcision and the Torah are a sub-section of God’s covenant with Abraham.  And yet Paul acts as if circumcision and the Torah are separate from it.  In Romans 4, Paul makes the point that Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, so right standing with God occurs through faith, not circumcision.  In Galatians 3:17, Paul affirms that the law cannot annul God’s promise to Abraham 430 years earlier. 

In a sense, when one looks at the Hebrew Bible, there does appear to be some truth in what Paul is saying: the Israelite’s failure to obey the Torah did not annul God’s covenant with them.  God forgave them over and over.  When they were exiled, God promised to restore them to their land.  There was an unconditional element to God’s covenant with Israel: God would stick with her, no matter what.

4.  R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, pages 96-97:

On the “men of letters” and scientists at the museum instituted by Ptolemy I (fourth-third centuries B.C.E.) in Egypt, Pfeiffer states: They had a carefree life: free meals, high salaries, no taxes to pay, very pleasant surroundings, good lodgings and servants.  There was plenty of opportunity for quarelling with each other.

Sounds good, but I could do without the quarreling about nothing.

5.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 275-276:

All [Origen] means is that where the evangelists give apparently contradictory accounts of Jesus those details which are inconsistent with the rest of the narrative are not descriptions of the historical Jesus actually teaching or healing in Palestine but are parabolic ways of describing different significances of Jesus, allegories of his ultimate significance for different sorts of human souls…Origen was not devoted to the humanity of Jesus…he was devoted to the Logos whose activity as Logos (not as human individual) was illustrated or enacted in parable or charade by Jesus incarnate as an individual. 

I take this to mean that, according to Origen, the Gospels are not totally about what Jesus did on earth.  They are also about how the risen Christ relates to human beings, and insights about that have been projected onto the historical Jesus in the Gospels.  This helps me to remain a Christian while acknowledging New Testament criticism.  The Gospels convey different facets about what Jesus is like, even if they may differ from one another in their details.  But what happens when the observant Jewish Jesus of Luke and Matthew (sort of) differs from the freer Jesus of Mark and John?  Maybe, at that point, we should learn from both portrayals: Jesus stood in the Jewish tradition and respected it, and yet he chose the well-being of people over the technicalities of the Torah whenever the two came into conflict.  Or perhaps Jesus related to Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians differently, according to their backgrounds.

6.  N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, page 312:

The warrior god in Ex. 15:3 and Is. 42:13…becomes a God who destroys wars…

The Hebrew versions emphasize that God will kick some serious rear-end as a warrior.  In Exodus 15, God does that when God throws the Egyptians’ chariots and horses into the sea.  The LXX points out, however, that God in defeating his enemies is actually putting an end to war.  God is creating peace by getting rid of the war-mongers.  That’s a message that appears throughout Scripture.  The neo-cons support this conception of peace, only they ascribe to the United States the function that the LXX gives to God.  Pacifists, however, define peace as non-resistance to evil, in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount.

7.  Today is Earth Day.  In my public school in Brazil, Indiana, the idea of taking care of our environment was as American as apple pie, and so we celebrated Earth Day.  And this was in an area that was politically and religiously conservative.  Granted, on a field trip, a park ranger (or whatever he was) advocated “conservation” rather than “preservation”, but we were continually told that we should respect our environment.  I tended to rebel against this by ranting against environmentalism, as the right-wing firebrand that I was.  But, nowadays, I find it interesting that—then and now—respect for the environment crosses party lines, at least when it comes to voters.  A liberal professor of mine once said that the National Rifle Association is actually pro-environment.  This one woman I know who criticizes Obama on Facebook once challenged a company that was polluting in her town.  I know a professor who has a “Ron Paul for President” bumper sticker on the back of his truck, and yet he’s written on the need to care for our environment, for, as the Bible says, the very land can vomit us out!

What’s in It For You?; The Essence of Covenant; Proverbs and Myth; One Angel or Two?; Constraining Catenae?

1.  Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, pages 39-55:

Dale Carnegie says that all of us are self-interested: we’re interested in what we want.  But the key to success is for us not to talk to others about what we want, but rather to show others how we can fulfill what they want.  If you’re selling something, for example, your goal should be to show your prospective customer how your product can meet his or her desires.  Your desire is not particularly important to that person (sorry!).

I think that this is an important insight.  My problem is that I’m not always sure what people want, and if I have much to give to them.  Some value what I give.  Some don’t.  But the difficulty of this rule for me shouldn’t excuse me from trying to meet people’s needs, if I at all can, even if those needs are simply wanting someone who will listen to them or show them courtesy.

I wonder how this principle can apply to my blog.  My blog is about my interests, thoughts, gripes, likes, and dislikes.  Whether it’s popular or not, however, will depend on the extent to which it meets other people’s needs.  Does it give people information that they are seeking?  Does it inspire them?  Does it make them laugh?  Is it fun for them to read?  Do they identify with what I’m saying, as they rejoice that someone else feels the way that they do?  Do they receive practical advice that can help them solve their problems (as did my blogs through Zosia Zak’s book on strategies for coping with autism)?

At this moment, I’m just going to be myself and let the chips fall where they may.  I don’t, however, spend as much time anymore whining about my problems on my blog, hoping that people will feel sorry for me.  As Dale Carnegie would probably say, other people are self-interested!  They may not care about my gripes, if my gripes don’t help them somehow to cope with their gripes!  So if I ever decide to gripe, it will be so I can vent.  And, if anyone’s not tired of my griping and wants to offer me some helpful feedback, feel free!

I also enjoyed Dale Carnegie’s comments on how applying his principles is a process.  We won’t apply them successfully all of the time.  But, in a cool hour, maybe we can think about what we did right and what we could have done better.  It’s all about growth!

2.  Rolf Rendtorff, The Covenant Formula:

Rendtorff talks a lot about how the covenant is about the LORD being Israel’s God.  That’s the key.

3.  R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, pages 83-84:

In [Aristotle's] first anti-Platonic dialogue…he regarded proverbs as ‘survivals of a pre-literary philosophy’ and treated them in a survey of early wisdom, together with the ‘Orphics’, the Delphic maxims…and the precepts of the Seven Wise Men.

I don’t know enough about proverbs to judge whether or not they came before literary philosophy.  But I found it interesting that the Delphic Oracle did more than give people confusing oracles that could be interpreted in different ways, for it also spoke proverbs.  It gives me a cozy feeling to think about societies that had wise sayings, from people who were esteemed.  It reminds me of Dale Carnegie, and how he refers to the examples of Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, and other famous people to teach us successful ways to navigate our lives.  Where would we be without our myths?  They encourage us.  But some feel shackled by them, for these myths present an avenue to success, which doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.

4.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event,  page 259:

And in reply to the suggestion of Celsus that the difference on the part of the evangelists about the number of angels appearing at the tomb at the Resurrection impugns the accuracy of their account [Origen] hints that the differences can all be harmonized (as well as allegorized).

Do the Gospels contradict one another in their stories about Jesus’ resurrection?  In Matthew 28, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to Jesus’ tomb and see an angel, who descended from heaven and rolled away the stone that covered the tomb.  In Mark 16, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to the tomb, wondering who will roll away the stone.  They see a young man clothed in white, sitting inside Jesus’ sepulchre. 

In Luke 24, women who followed Jesus from Galilee go to the tomb, see the stone has been rolled away, and enter the sepulchre to find it empty.  Suddenly, there are two men in shining garments standing near them.  In John 20, Mary Magdalene visits the tomb and sees that the stone has been rolled away, and that the tomb is empty.  She runs to Peter and the disciple Jesus loved, saying that she doesn’t know where Jesus’ body has been placed.  The two disciples run to Jesus’ tomb and find that, indeed, it is empty.  Mary stands there weeping, and two angels appear to her.  Then, Jesus comes to her as a gardener.  That’s how she learns of his resurrection.

How many angels appeared at Jesus’ tomb to inform the women (or woman) that Jesus had risen from the dead?  In my first year at DePauw, I took my first New Testament class, and we heard about these differences.  One Christian student suggested that maybe the women were conceptualizing what they saw in different ways: they all beheld something spectacular, but one woman thought she was seeing one angel, whereas another believed that she saw two.  Another Christian I knew took the same class and lost his faith for a season, in part because of the different resurrection accounts.

In a class that I took the next year, ”Images of Jesus”, I said that the accounts were not contradictory, because if there were two angels, then there was one angel: one, two.  For some strange reason that I can’t pinpoint, the class wasn’t receptive to my idea!

Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort offer the following attempt at harmonization: The question has arisen simply because Matthew and Mark mention one angel, whereas Luke and John refer to two. There is no conflict if there were two angels but Matthew and Mark quote the one who was a spokesperson.

Here’s Origen’s attempt at harmonization in Contra Celsum V:56 (see BOOK V): Proceeding immediately after to mix up and compare with one another things that are dissimilar, and incapable of being united, [Celsus] subjoins to his statement regarding the sixty or seventy angels who came down from heaven, and who, according to him, shed fountains of warm water for tears, the following: It is related also that there came to the tomb of Jesus himself, according to some, two angels, according to others, one; having failed to notice, I think, that Matthew and Mark speak of one, and Luke and John of two, which statements are not contradictory. For they who mention one, say that it was he who rolled away the stone from the sepulchre; while they who mention two, refer to those who appeared in shining raiment to the women that repaired to the sepulchre, or who were seen within sitting in white garments.

Origen says that Matthew and Mark refer to the one angel who rolled away the stone, whereas Luke and John are discussing the two angels who appeared to the women and told them of Jesus’ resurrection.  But, in Matthew and Mark, the one who rolls away the stone is the one who tells the women about Jesus’ resurrection (though, actually, Mark doesn’t explicitly say that the young man was the one who rolled away the stone). 

That brings up other questions.  In Mark, the women show up and the young man was sitting inside the tomb.  In Luke, they arrive and see the tomb is empty, with no young man sitting inside of it.  Suddenly, two shining men are standing next to them.  Are these different versions?  Did both somehow happen?  Could both have happened?

I wonder if Origen even thought that this whole issue mattered that much, for he says in V:57:  Moreover, regarding the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we have this remark to make, that it is not at all wonderful if, on such an occasion, either one or two angels should have appeared to announce that Jesus had risen from the dead, and to provide for the safety of those who believed in such an event to the advantage of their souls.

“Either” one or two angels?  Origen seems to be saying (my paraphrase): “Look, it doesn’t matter how many angels appeared to the women.  Maybe it was one.  Maybe it was two.  What’s noteworthy is that the women experienced something supernatural.  The Gospels agree that the women saw something.” 

5.  N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, page 287-288:

According to Marcos, “A catena is a collection of fragments taken from different works (commentaries, homilies, scholia) by ancient writers on texts from Scripture.”  Basically, you open up a Bible, and you see in the margins thoughts about the passage from commentaries and sermons.  Marcos states that catanae “began to be formed at the beginning of the 6th century when original production of patristic literature was in decline.”  But the concept came from before that, dating back to the first century C.E. and earlier.  Scholia had notes on the “more difficult or stranger” passages of Homer, located near the Homeric text.  Certain Hellenistic medical and judicial works had a body of text, with comments in the margins by renowned experts.  There are Jewish texts that are similar: I’ve seen such books in the Rare Book Room of the Hebrew Union College library.  In them, you have Scripture, surrounded by passages from commentaries.  These texts date to medieval times.

I’m not sure if Judaism was imitating Christian catanae, or if the Jews did this sort of thing at the same time that the Christians were beginning to do so.  But it’s cool to open up a passage of Scripture, and to study it with the ancients.  We can read things that did not occur to us when we initially looked at the biblical text.  Yet, it can also be constraining, for here are traditions telling us to see the text in a certain way.  Can we develop fresh insights, or allow the biblical text to speak for itself, when there are so many other interpretations going through our heads?  

“Find a Friend”; God’s Representative Under Limits; Relativism and Education; The New Concealed; Hiding Knowledge

1.  Zosia Zaks, Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults, page 263:

Make a list of Buddies you can trust.  If you don’t really have any friends, you can ask your parents or siblings to help you locate one or two classmates or neighbors who would be willing to do the Buddy System with you.  Carry a list of the phone numbers of your Buddies.  If you are all alone and somebody asks you to do something you aren’t sure about, you can always say, “Let me call my friend Tina and see if she wants to join us!”  Usually if the person has bad intentions, he won’t want Tina to come and that’s a clue to get away.

According to Zosia, people with Asperger’s need some sort of social support network for their safety and growth, and they also should try to stretch their social skills (i.e., they need to learn how to ask for help).  But the problem is that people with Asperger’s have difficulty creating that social support network.  I feel that I don’t always see that understanding in the Aspergian community.  Granted, I also don’t see it in the evangelical community, whose answer nowadays is often, “Consult a friend or accountability partner.”  But I’d expect to see it in the Aspergian community. 

2.  Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, pages 427-428:

It has been suggested that the equation of Israel’s monarchy with the kingship of YHWH must entail the monarch’s deification and apotheosis.  In fact, we see quite clearly that no such development occurs in Chronicles.  The book constantly emphasizes that the king is human: he is mortal, an Israelite bound by the covenant, and one of the people.  In comparison with the Former Prophets, Chronicles limits the monarch’s exclusive representative function and, at the same time, expands the role of the people so that they make an independent, significant contribution to the course of history.

God’s government by the consent of the governed.  Armstrongites should study Chronicles for church government ideas!

3.  R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, page 15:

It was the so-called Sophistic movement which—in Aristophanes’ [(fifth century B.C.E.)] opinion—endangered the whole structure of the traditional Greek education.

The Sophists were relativists.  They didn’t believe in absolute truth, but they tried to teach students how to navigate their way through their culture.  I guess we see this sort of concept today in tendencies to treat education as preparation for a vocation, rather than as a form of character development, or as instruction in truth.  Does relativism undermine education?  Should the purpose of education be to find the truth?  If there is no truth, then what is the purpose of learning?  Is it to understand the world around us, with its different ways of doing things, and to develop tolerance and understanding?  And what happens if we assume that education should instruct students in absolute truth?  Could that lead to indoctrination of controversial ideas, such as socialism, Marxism, etc.?  I’ve had plenty of professors who had their dogmatic view of “the truth.”

4.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 199:

For [Origen], now that Christ has come, all the Scriptures are evangelical: ‘Before Christ’s coming, the law and prophets, since he who elucidates the mysteries they contain had not yet come, did not possess that promise which was contained in our definition of the Gospel.  But when the Saviour came and caused the gospel to become incarnate, by the gospel he made everything, so to speak, a gospel.’

How much did the Old Testament saints understand God’s plan?  There are texts that suggest that they knew God would send Jesus Christ, as well as what specifically God would do through him.  John 8:56 says that Abraham saw Jesus’ day and was glad.  Galatians 3:8 says that Abraham received the Gospel that the Gentiles would be justified by faith.  Hebrews 11 says that Moses suffered for Christ.

Yet, there are also indications that people in the Old Testament did not know God’s plan.  Ephesians 3:3-9 says that the notion that the Gentiles would be fellow-heirs with the Israelites was unknown from the beginning of the world, until it was revealed by the Spirit, perhaps in the time of Paul.  Colossians 1:26-27 refers to another mystery that was previously unknown: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

In my post, Eclectic Exodus 21:22-25, Julian’s Law, Known and Unknown, Mystical Cycle, I refer to Origen’s belief that only a select few in Old Testament times knew about God’s plan, while most of Israel was ignorant of it.

The whole issue of the “mystery” is a subject that’s debated between dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists.  Dispensationalists take seriously Paul’s claim that the Gentiles’ inclusion into the people of God and “Christ in you” were unknown before New Testament times.  But doesn’t James in Acts 15:16-17 quote Amos 9:11-12 to show that God planned for Gentiles to enter God’s church as Gentiles, without becoming Jews?  Doesn’t Paul in Romans 15 quote Old Testament passages to make the same sort of point: that Gentiles will worship the God of Israel?  How do dispensationalists handle that? 

My impression is that they say that Israelites in Old Testament times did not understand how these predictions would play out.  Sure, they may have acknowledged that Gentiles will one day worship the God of Israel, but they did not conceive that Gentiles would be included with Jews as equals in a body of God’s people, the church.  And while they realized that God would put his laws on Israelites’ hearts (Jeremiah 31:33), or imbue them with his Spirit so that they’d obey him (Ezekiel 36:27), they had no idea that the Messiah, the Son of David, would dwell in people’s hearts.  

A point about Origen: Origen believed that the spirit led the creators of the Septuagint to add things that were not in the Hebrew version.  Did he see this as a heads-up to the Jews that their Messiah was about to come, and so God made the hidden a little more explicit?

5.  N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, page 206:

M. Harl has noted how Origen comments on all the difficult passages of the Bible without relinquishing the Greek system and without resorting to all the possible Hebraisms or Aramaisms of translation Greek.  The fact that he does not use Hebrew to explain these passages does not mean that he does not know it, but shows that he respects the obscurity of the text, probably because it favored his tendency for allegorical and not literal explanation.

Hanson also discusses whether or not Origen knew Hebrew.  He concludes that Origen knew some stuff about it, but he was far from being fluent.  But Marcos seems to be saying that Origen knew more that he was letting on, because of how he saw the biblical text!

Pennywise Is Still a Stranger!; Throne of the LORD; The Right Amount of Anger; MT and LXX Working Together for Supersessionism (According to Origen); Codex

1.  Zosia Zaks, Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults, page 247:

Our trusting nature and our autistic way of thinking are some of the reasons why we are at greater risk [of danger].  We don’t see hidden intentions.  We are likely to miss any forewarning of danger expressed nonverbally or via body language.  Clues from tone of voice or posture are likely to go unnoticed.  Generalizing is another problem.  We may understand a large, broad rule  such as, “Don’t go home with a stranger,” but may not be able to apply this to a slightly different situation such as going home with someone you just met.  If you’ve met, then the other person is not a stranger, literally speaking.

Today, I watched Stephen King’s It for the umpteenth time.  Near the beginning of the movie, little Georgie Denbrough encounters Pennywise the homicidal dancing clown, who lives in the sewer.  Pennywise invites Georgie into the sewer, and Georgie replies, “My dad told me not to talk to strangers.”  “Very wise of your dad, Georgie, very wise indeed,” Pennywise says.  “I am Pennywise the dancing clown, and you’re Georgie.  So now we know each other!  We’re not strangers anymore!  Kerrect?”  “I guess so,” Georgie says, laughing.  Soon thereafter, Pennywise rips off Georgie’s arm and kills him.

Zosia’s comments on “Don’t go home with a stranger” reminded me of that scene.  Georgie, like some with Asperger’s, took that instruction a little too literally.  He should have defined “stranger” as someone you don’t know overly well, not as someone you’ve never met.

2.  Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, page 399:

In I Chronicles 29:23, Solomon is said to sit on the throne of the LORD.  For Japhet, that means that he’s God’s representative on earth.  The rabbis had some creative interpretations of this verse, however.  For example:

“…just as God rules from one end of the world to the other and also has dominion over all kings…so did Solomon reign over the whole earth, as it says: ‘And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon’” (Exodus Rabbah 15:26…)

They really struggled with the notion that a man could sit on the throne of the LORD.  I should note, though, that I-II Chronicles is like I-II Kings in its acknowledgment that there are kings over God’s people who do evil in the eyes of the LORD, so sitting on the throne of the LORD doesn’t make them infallible.  But they still have the authority to function as God’s representatives, which means executing justice and defending the poor from oppression.

3.  D.A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity, page 202:

Quintilian lived in the first century C.E.  He writes: Why is it that persons who grieve for a recent sorrow often appear to utter words of the highest eloquence, while anger sometimes makes even the untaught into orators?  It is because of the psychological force and feeling in them.

I’m not sure how true that is in real life, but I can testify by experience that the right amount of anger eliminates my fear and makes me more prone to talk, and to talk well.  If there’s too much anger, however, that’s not as much the case.  But the right amount of anger does this.

4.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, pages 163-164:

Origen creates a Hexapla that set different versions of the Hebrew Bible side by side: the Septuagint, the Hebrew Masoretic Text, Aquila’s literal translation, and others.   Did Origen believe that all of these texts were inspired?  Did he make a theological point that flowed from the existence of different texts?  Here’s a case that’s interesting:

[Origen] acknowledges that the LXX is inspired, inasmuch that he often regards its divergence from the Hebrew text as divinely prompted.  Commenting on the verse ‘A virgin of his own people shall he take to wife’ (Lev. 21.14), Origen remarks that the Jews say that their texts do not have the phrase ‘of his own people’ though it appears in the LXX.  He claims that it is by divine providence that their copies omit this phrase, because they are by their own disobedience no longer the people of Christ.

So, for Origen, the Hebrew text and the Septuagint both have what they have for a reason—in this case, to promote supersessionism (the notion that the church has replaced Israel as God’s people).

5.  N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, pages 192-193:

In the synagogue the scroll continued to be used…The Church, instead, opted for the codex in the 2nd century…

So that’s when Christians started using the codex.

Processing; Where’s Manasseh?; Clarity Produces Force; I Must Be a “Simpler Churchman”; Sexta

1.  Zosia Zaks, Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults, page 222:

Using index cards and magic markers, both partners can make flash cards to address each other’s concerns during regular conversations.  The flash cards explain what is happening for each of you and validate each partner’s needs.  For example, when your partner asks a question and does not receive an immediate answer, she may feel ignored or disrespected.  Similarly, you may feel rushed to answer.  You could flash a card that says, “Processing.”  This indicates to your partner that you have heard her question and that you are paying attention but that you need time to process and gather a response.  Your partner may feel awkward the first time you flash your “Processing” card.  But at least she’ll know that she is not being ignored and that she will receive your answer in due time.

2.  Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, page 375:

Manasseh—1 Chr 7:14ff.: “The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, whom his Aramean concubine bore; she bore Machir the father of Gilead…And Ma’acah the wife of Machir bore a son…”

The text of the verse appears to be corrupt, but, for our purposes, their meaning is clear enough.  Joseph’s son, Manasseh, had an Aramean concubine who bore him a son, Machir…These facts link Manasseh, Joseph’s son, to the Aramean region in which the tribe of Manasseh had its territory—the northern section of the east bank of the Jordan.  Thus, Manasseh’s son, Machir, was born east of the Jordan.  A genealogy of this sort represents a blatant contradiction of the accepted Pentateuchal tradition that Manasseh, Manasseh’s son, Machir, and Manasseh’s grandsons were all born in Egypt…(Gen. 50:23).  According to the standard tradition, Manasseh never left Egypt or lived in the land of Israel.

Japhet’s argument is that, for the Chronicler, the Israelites have had a long connection with the Promised Land.  That’s why the Chronicler tries to minimize any tradition that says the Israelites were in another country (Egypt) for a few centuries.  And the Chronicler also attempts to show that the Assyrians and the Babylonians may have shaken Israel up a little bit, but they did not disrupt Israelite occupancy of the Promised Land.  The connection is that deep!  Manasseh and Machir living in Canaan coincides with this view of the Chronicler that there was a strong tie between the Israelites and their land, even though another tradition states that Manasseh and Machir were born, lived, and died in Egypt.

3.  D.A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity, page 174:

This is from Agatharchides’ (second century B.C.E.) criticism of Hegesias (c. 300 B.C.E.): [Hegesias says] ‘We left a city and took a name.’  Now consider.  This causes no emotional impact; it makes us concentrate on the special emphasis of the words and makes us wonder what he means.  When one produces intellectual uncertainty, one instantly loses emotional force.  Why?  Because sympathy comes from clearly understanding what is said; a writer who fails to achieve clarity also loses vigour…

4.  R.P.C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, page 150:

Origen calls them ‘the simpler type of churchmen’…who in face of Marcionite attacks on the Scriptures refuse to separate the supreme God and the demiurge, but naively attribute cruelty and justice to this supreme God.  When faced with the locus vexatus in Exodus about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, they simply say that many other meanings of the Scripture are hidden from them, and that one of the hidden things is the right explanation about this passage.  But they cling obstinately to the literal meaning when they can.

I have to respect these “simpler churchmen” because at least they acknowledge that they don’t know how to explain biblical passages in which God appears unfair or cruel, but they trust God anyway.  There are many Christians and Jews (maybe even Muslims) who are like that.  Even some theologians in academia embrace uncertainty as opposed to dogmatism.  But I also admire those who, like Origen, search for answers—who toss out ideas for our consideration (though Origen would probably claim he’s doing something deeper and more authoritative than that).  My problem is that I don’t always find their solutions convincing, and so I find myself in Group 1: what Origen terms the “simpler churchmen.”

5.  N.F. Marcos, The Septuagint in Context, pages 155-156:

Eusebius (third-fourth centuries C.E.) says the following about Origen, in Ecclesiastical History 6:16: So meticulous was Origen’s research on the divine Scriptures that he even learned Hebrew and made his own the original Scriptures which the Jews present with their own signs of the Hebrews and studied the editions of other translators of the Sacred Scriptures as well as the LXX; and he found others still which differed, apart from the well-known translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion; he published them tracking them down in I know not which hiding-places, for they had been hidden since ancient times…In the Hexapla of the psalms, after the four known editions, after placing to the side not only the quinta but also the versions sexta and septima, of one it is also indicated that it was found in Jericho in a jar in the time of Antonius, son of Severus.

On page 159, Marcos talks some about the Sexta.  Jerome says it’s Jewish, but its translation of Habakkuk 3:13 as “You went out to save your people by means of Jesus, your Christ” leads some to suspect the Sexta’s Christian origin.

Origen the Arian?—Not This Time!, Origen on Soul Sleep

I completed Henri Crouzel’s biography of Origen yesterday.  As I read, I jotted down page numbers with things I could discuss on this blog.  I have ten of them!  This morning, I’m not in much of a mood to write, so I’ll focus only on two topics that stood out to me:

1.  One of Crouzel’s agendas is to rehabilitate Origen’s reputation, since Christians who came after Origen labelled him a heretic.  According to Crouzen, some accused Origen of being an Arian, one who believed that the Word who became Jesus Christ was a creation of God.  The position that became orthodox, by contrast, holds that the Word has always existed.  Origen used the Greek words ktizein, ktisis, and ktisma for the Word, and these words carry the connotation of creation.  Crouzel argues, however, that their meaning was much more fluid before the Trinitarian controversy, for Pope Dionysius affirmed that “The expression ektisen, as you know, does not have a single sense” (175).  Consequently, ktizein can mean “create,” but it can also refer to the Son’s eternal generation from the Father, in which the Father is eternally the source of the Son.  For Crouzel, Origen meant the latter, so he’s orthodox.

This stood out to me because I’ve been interested in Arianism for the past year or two, as my posts Good Nimrod, Justin the Arian?, Projecting, Tertullian the (Semi-)Arian?, and Eusebius and Arianism indicate.  Proverbs 8:22 was applied in early Christian circles to the Son, who was equated with Wisdom, yet the Septuagint for that passage states that God ektisen (created) Wisdom.  Is that evidence for Arianism from the Septuagint, the Bible of early Christianity?  Crouzel would say, “Not so fast!”, for ektisen could have meant other things besides “create.” 

I wonder how the “orthodox” side in the Nicene controversy handled ektisen in Proverbs 8:22.  Crouzel states that terminology became tighter at that time, but my impression is that the orthodox would have to posit fluidity in the word in order to save it from becoming an indisputable Arian proof-text.

Crouzel’s discussion here also piqued my interest because it reminded me of a thinker I read in a historiography class.  His view was that we interpret history in light of what came after, and that may give us a skewed picture of the past.  That’s what Crouzel says was going on with later critics of Origen: they interpreted his use of ktizein according to their understanding of the word, in their context, shaped by the outcome of the Nicene controversy, when it could have meant something different to Origen.

2.  Under my post, Hit Over the Head with Canon, Origen on the Devil’s Salvation and Soul Sleep, Byker Bob asked me for more information about the Thnetospychites, who believed that the soul died with the body and came back to life at the resurrection.  It’s similar to “soul sleep” or “conditional immorality,” which is held by Armstrongites, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even some mainstream Christians.  Origen opposed this position, however.

There’s more detail on Origen’s position on page 239, and, to be honest, I have to guess what he’s driving at.  The source is ComJn XIII, 61 (59), 247-230.  My impression of Origen’s argument is this: I Corinthians 15 says that the body must “put on” immortality, which implies that immortality is not something that’s inherent to it.  But it doesn’t say that about the soul, so it must be inherently immortal.