tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post2207598486890077381..comments2024-03-29T07:36:41.429-04:00Comments on Incinerating Presuppositionalism: The Imaginative Basis of Vytautas' God-Belief, Part 3Bahnsen Burnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11030029491768748360noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-22571555414117097972008-02-21T22:24:00.000-05:002008-02-21T22:24:00.000-05:00Earl Doherty wrote in his supplimentary article No...Earl Doherty wrote in his supplimentary article No.6, "THE SOURCE OF PAUL’S GOSPEL" at <BR/><BR/>http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp06.htm<BR/><BR/>"A second observation needs to be made about the list of appearances. There is nothing to suggest that, in Paul’s mind, they were not all of the same nature. And since neither Paul himself, nor anyone on his behalf down to the present day, has ever claimed that his “seeing” of the Christ was anything but a vision of a spiritual figure, this has to imply that Paul regards the other appearances as being in the same category. In other words, they were all revelatory experiences; none were thought of as encounters with a bodily-risen Jesus of Nazareth. (This has recently been recognized by modern liberal scholars such as the Jesus Seminar and John Shelby Spong.)<BR/><BR/>Indeed, the language Paul uses implies this very meaning. Even the sense of “vision” may be too strong. In a study of the meaning of ophthe here, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (vol. V, p. 358) points out that in this type of context the word is a technical term for being “in the presence of revelation as such, without reference to the nature of its perception.” In other words, the “seeing” may not refer to actual sensory or mental perception. Rather, it may simply be “an encounter with the risen Lord who reveals himself...they experienced his presence.” If what we have here is more an experience of Christ’s “presence” than a full-blown hallucinatory vision, this would make it easier to accept that so many individuals and even large groups could imagine they had undergone such an experience. <BR/><BR/>It is far from clear, therefore, that Paul in 15:5-8 is describing anything more than a series of experiences in which many people, most of them within a group already formed for a religious purpose, felt a conviction of faith in the spiritual Christ, experiences which may well have grown in the telling."Kevin Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04581136429971160522noreply@blogger.com