Rogers, Justin M. (2014). “The Philonic and the Pauline: Hagar and Sarah in the Exegesis of Didymus the Blind”. In Runia, David T.; Sterling, Gregory E. (ed.). Studia Philonica Annual. 26. SBL Press. pp. 57–77. ISBN 978-1-62837-019-5. “Philo’s influence on Didymus served as the basis of my doctoral dissertation”

In the early church, there are two primary strands of symbolic interpretation applied to Hagar and Sarah. The first is located initially in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in which Hagar and Sarah are allegorized as two covenants, the Jewish and the Christian (Gal 4:21–31).
[…]
The second interpretation seems to have been limited to Alexandrian interpreters of the Bible. Philo is the first to understand Hagar as preliminary studies (the ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) and Sarah as virtue (ἀρετή) or wisdom (σοφία). —(p. 57)

It actually does mean he became human. That’s the whole point.

The question is not whether it means that. But how he became human: by actually having a mother (“born”), or being manufactured by god (“made”).

We can’t tell from the data available. Even if Paul thought Jesus became human by being born of a human woman, literally, he is not talking about that here; he is here saying Jesus was born to Hagar as we all are. He is stating it in an allegorical framework. Whether he means that is true because Jesus had a human mother like we did, or because God produced a body of flesh for Jesus in some other way, is not here being stated. So neither can be affirmed from this passage.

I must say that this interpretation strikes me as at least a little bit more plausible than your allegorical reading of that phrase. If I am to adduce some extra evidence for it (besides its simply being a rather plain and straightforward reading) it would be Crook’s point that the obviously allegorical women are not introduced until “twenty verses later”. You brush that off as irrelevant. But surely, you may think, if Paul does not want to confuse his readers, he should not introduce something that is meant to be an allegory at a point in the argument were it is likely to be read literally, as the obviously allegorical women have not yet been introduced. (Now, certainly Paul oftentimes is confusing, which I grant lessens the strength of this point somewhat.)

Actually, no. That’s “Chapter 4.” And is correct. The annotation style I was borrowing leaves off the 1 on first verses of a chapter. But I see this can be confusing when out of context so I have put in a 4:1 to match the rest of the style.

As I explain in my book, I find it’s at best 1 in 3 chance Paul believed his Jesus was crucified by the earthly authorities and that Peter personally knew him and so on. Which isn’t really that low a probability. But it’s lower than 50/50.

But Paul certainly believed Jesus “existed” in the same sense he was certain Satan existed and so on: as celestial beings operating in hidden spheres, which Paul even had conversations with (in his head). That’s true whether Jesus existed or not.

Thank you dr. Carrier for the clarification. But do you mean that Paul DIDN’T believe Jesus actually existed ? Or to put it in better words : ultimately, it didn’t matter to Paul that Jesus did or did not exist ?

“Maybe Paul wanted to counter their beliefs by emphasizing that Jesus, being born from a woman, was human.” There isn’t any reason for him to argue that here though; if it were something he felt he needed to argue, then he would have written a full argument for it. But he doesn’t. So he clearly doesn’t have any awareness of such a challenge needing argument. He just makes this statement in the context of an extended allegory. He does not “use” it in any particular way such as you suggest. And that’s not how ancient rhetoric worked. If Paul meant to use this in the way you suggest, he would have used it that way, as in, it would be part of a whole argument to that effect. But no such argument to that effect appears here.

And no. There is nowhere in Paul’s 20,000 words any attack on any other salvation cult or its concepts. He attacks pagan votive cult, but that’s earthly not celestial. He attacks Christian sects who preach a different Jesus; but he doesn’t specify what they were teaching that differed from him. And he attacks celestial Judaism, as here, but only by calling it demonic, i.e. he is claiming elemental powers control the earthly rituals the Galatians are falling back on. And his only response to it is to turn to a celestial savior.

Maybe Paul wanted to counter their beliefs by emphasizing that Jesus, being born from a woman, was human.

That of course means that Paul believed Jesus once existed. It does not mean that this is actually true.

And of course I am asserting this without the slightest information or education of what I’m talking about 🙂 !

But are there any examples of Paul attacking those “Pie In The Sky” cults ?

We already know which letters were and were not written by Paul (I discuss this briefly in Ch. 7 of OHJ; but I recommend Ehrman’s treatment summarized in Forged).

The problem with the remaining letters is not so much the concern of additions (there are some, but it does not appear many), but of deletions. For example, something has been removed between 1 Corinthians 8 and 9. Romans is clearly a smash-up of several letters, and some seem to be missing parts. And so on.

We don’t really have much evidence of larger scale meddling than that.