waterboy,
Your last post was obviously addressed to Polycarp (perhaps you were a little bleary eyed from end of year celebrations) – so I’ll leave Poly to respond.

Just a comment on objectivity, historical or otherwise, Immanuel Kant used the expression “Ding an sich” (the “thing-in-itself”) to designate pure objectivity. The Ding an sich is the object as it is in itself, independent of the features of any subjective perception of it. Beyond the ‘object’ we have subjectivity (or our perception of the object) – Plato asserted roughly that the greatest reality was not in the ordinary physical objects we sense around us, but in what he calls Forms, or Ideas. Our senses give us an experience of an ordinary reality but, according to Plato, Forms are a “higher reality”. Having the greatest reality, they are therefore the only truly objective reality, we could say.

Immanuel Kant’s “Ding an sich” (the “thing-in-itself”) designates pure objectivity but without our perception there can be no expressed reality. Our ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ rests only on our immediate knowledge and is therefore self-limiting. How we might relate to Paul’s ‘reality’ is certainly in need our own interpretation on as to what ‘really happened’ – I try not to be too limiting in my own apprehension of this.

Relda

Im not entirely sure that Plato is relevant here unless Pauls meeting with Jesus was 'accidental' and took the 'form' of an interview. At any rate it doesnt help us to confirm or deny the 'ding an sich' of Paul and Jesus chatting by the roadside although it may point to other ways of apprehending the 'reality' of that event without necessarily giving intellectual assent to the proposition that a dead person, Jesus, actually spoke with Paul in the usual 'concrete' sense of the notion of two embodied persons conversing.

Whatever 'really' happened on the road to Damascus, the story as Paul told it is real and has had far-reaching historical implications. It DID establish his apostolic credentials to enough people to form the foundation of a religious culture (the Western Christian Church) that has lasted, so far, 2 millenia. It has taken on a reality that transcends mere corporality.

Sells laments the fact that post-enlightenment historical thinking has led to our materialistic obsession with the facts of the historical Jesus. He seems particularly perturbed that this obsession has infected the faithful and become a distraction from the Gospel imperatives which include personal faith, proclamation of the Word, social justice and so on. I guess that's adding a bit of my own spin to Sells words.

Thanks for the provocative post!

George, Relda and Waterboy:

Thank you for some very thoughtful and stimulating posts.

I think Peter Sellick is calling for higher status for what Carl Jung called “intuition” and a diminished concern with “sensation”. The former approaches reality through symbols (often ambiguous, even mysterious), the latter through objects (or facts). While each is valid in itself, intuition has been greatly under-valued since the Enlightenment began.

The relationship of yin and yang is dynamic and non-linear. The traditional symbol, as George has pointed out, is very subtle in its refusal to depict a stark opposition.

Mary is the potential within each person to receive, to conceive, to nurture, to contemplate and to embrace. Thus she could be said to symbolise the feminine or yin principle. Mary’s receptivity represents the human potential to hear, rather than to see. In this sense she is darkness, rather than light.

In those cultures derived from Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian roots, the act of seeing is (usually unconsciously) considered to be an act of emission: the eye beams its linear ray and hits or penetrates a target. To see = to seize. This function could be described as masculine or yang, in contrast with Mary’s hearing.

I can only agree with Sells that the Protestant churches have, to varying extents, eschewed real reverence towards Mary to their detriment. The triumph of light (especially during the “En-light-enment”), reading (seizing) the scriptural word and fixation on linear direction (“progress”) have marked much of their doctrine, worship and behaviour in the world. Hence we have the aggressive evangelism and arrogant literalism which has brought so much misery to the world.

This is not to say of course that non-Protestant churches are without fault, nor is it to say that there have not been wise and compassionate individuals in the Protestant churches.

waterboy,
Plato is relevant only in terms of creating a foundational idea or 'Form', the basis he provides is important. The dialectic of the Fourth gospel, where the narrative recalls the Platonic method, has a prologue recalling the Platonist spirit. We also find the naïve dramatisation of a belief in an anecdote, the symbolic story, or the passage of a parable into a miracle. The developing theology of the gospels deepens an appreciation and removal of that ignorance of the world which haunts men with a variety of superstition and fear. No longer, as Paul preached, do we need worship in devout ignorance at the alter of 'an unknown god'.

I enjoyed your post crasby. It has been said, we need to cross the Biblical sea from our literal or material side to God's essential side. It is far more important to understand a single verse properly (i.e. allegorically or symbolically) than to know the whole Bible improperly ( i.e. literally or historically). "A scholar devours too much. A wise man eats little but tastefully. Scholarship and uncontrollable eating are the same. But wisdom and taste are also the same. Health differs from gluttony as wisdom differs from scholarship." - Skovoroda

George,
Carl Jung concluded that the“Self” is a coincidentia oppositorum, and that each individual must strive to integrate opposing tendencies (anima and animus, persona and shadow) within his or her own psyche. 'Heaven' and 'hell' can thus take on an essential significance or reality.

Postmodern thinkers such as Derrida make negative use of the coincidentia oppositorum idea to overcome the privileging of particular poles of the classic binary oppositions in western thought, thereby deconstructing the foundational ideas of western metaphysics. The use of coincidentia oppositorum in Jewish mysticism and its singular significance for the theology of one prominent Jewish mystical school, Chabad (or Lubavitch) Chasidism, is important. The Kabbalistic/Chasidic view that language (or representation in general) sunders a primordial divine unity and is thus the origin of finitude and difference. Skovoroda offered the opinion that, "to read the Bible and to judge it a lie are the same."

Dear Waterboy...ummm I think your last post was directed at me not Relda ? (u mentioned circumcision party)

You said:

iii) They had authority within the Jerusalem and the wider Church

Nowww...this is a very important point.. Did they? or.. did they just CLAIM authority?

If they had genuine widespread authority, then it would have been clearly evident in the Jerusalem Church.

What WAS evident...was a 'faction'...

Acts 15:5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses."

"SOME"...of the believers...who belonged to the Pharisees.
Clearly they were not the central leadership which was Apostolic -James...who is mentioned as a separate identity from the 'some'.

I absolutely believe that the case for this 'conflict' between the Jerusalam Church as a whole is not proven, in fact it is disproven.
Those who were giving the believers a hard time came from 'Judea'.... they may not have even been significant in the Jerusalem cogregation..hence the reference to 'some'.....

Some of you seem to be reflecting sentimental pseudo catholicism in your comments about Mary. I don't find any more to be said of her than Scripture..and 'revering' comes too close to 'worship' for me.

I cannot for the life of me see what possible reason there could be for special reverence for any other than God the Son..... in this matter.
Mary is gone... dead.... with Christ... just like Joseph.. king David, Daniel and all the prophets.

I save my reverence for He who said "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last"

I’ve not contributed since my earlier post as the discussion has wound its way – as all good discussion does – into different streams.

However, the direction of more recent posts brings me back to my original thesis: - the impossibility of anchoring Marion theology to Christian thought without reference to women per se and, specifically, early Church doctrine.

Thus I disagree with Waterboy’s statement that Plato is not relevant because: one of the reasons for the acceptance of Paul’s reputation as anti-female is because he is known as a Platonian scholar. The belief in his strictures against women – in particular the controversial 1.Cor.14:34-35 – was earlier made more plausible because of his Platonian roots.

The vast body of work which now queries the attribution to Paul of such “misogynist” strictures however, (Hays, Barton, Muddiman, Borg, the editors of The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Conzelman et.al) unanimously cite deliberate interpolation by the early church for the seeming contradictions to be found in Paul’s writings.

Paul’s enormous influence being seen to include strictures regarding women’s role in the early church therefore caused later translator’s changes (e.g. feminine suffixes to masculine ones) to be seen as corrections rather than misinterpretations.

So thoroughly did this expunging of women from the NT work, however, that the Marian insertions became necessary if women were to consider themselves relevant in any way to early Christianity.

Pagan religions, with their belief in the importance of the female principle, ( yin and yang?) as well as those which saw women as theotokos – such as the Mithraen cult – were much more attractive to women than the Christian church.

Those who assert that Constantine never abandoned his involvement with Mithras, of course, see the growth of Marian ideology as springing from the conflation of his beliefs. Even if one accepts his complete conversion, however, the parallels between Mary and the original Asherah of the OT, Isis, Diana, Zisa or any other goddesses is inescapable.