did Jesus go to Jerusalem intending to die?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm an Adoptionist myself, so I don't think that Jesus was Christ from birth. It would have been impossible for him to be a fully human child and have consciously partaken of the Godhead. I also hold that he gradually gained the attributes of the Godhead and did not have omniscience before the resurrection as it would have made the crucifixion into a farce. That said, it's fairly clear that in the gospels Jesus knew that he was to die.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why would anybody want to die?
Why would anybody want to kill someone else?

Neither of those seem prudent, wise, logical or very nice.

If the death of one would save more than one?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Some believe Jesus the body was created by the demiurge because the demiurge became aware of the Father's intention to send spiritual Christ to redeem mankind.

Ugh. Gnosticism. One of the most depressing and illogical philosophies ever thought of.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Some believe Jesus the body was created by the demiurge because the demiurge became aware of the Father's intention to send spiritual Christ to redeem mankind.

Ugh. Gnosticism. One of the most depressing and illogical philosophies ever thought of.

Why? Because it takes mind/body dualism to its logical conclusion? In that case, Gnostic Christianity is more logical than Pauline Christianity, not less.

Because the idea that creation is inherently flawed is depressing and the idea that a supreme goodness would not have been able to undo the demiurge's creation before it even got a chance to cause trouble is illogical.,  Nor is the idea that the body is inherently flawed what I would call a logical conclusion.  And last but not least, Pauline Christianity gets a bad rap thanks to the Deutero-Pauline epistles rather than anything Paul himself had a hand in writing or causing to be written.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

True Federalist,

Do you believe in universal salvation?

Tell me what you mean, and I'll tell you. (I'm not being facetious, there are several different, tho related, meanings to that term.) Certainly, access to salvation is universal, even for those who never had access to Christian teachings while alive, or adopted them while living. At a minimum, they hear them after their life when Jesus descended to the dead. I view God, and by extension both Heaven and Sheol, as existing outside the linear time we humans experience.

Also, I think that those who hold to Christian exclusivism have missed the mark by being too literal. When Christ spoke of not getting to the Father except thru him, he spoke metaphorically (there's probably some better literary term than metaphor, but I can't think of it right now) referring to the Way he exemplifies. Yet while few will find the Way on their own, necessitating guides such as Jesus, he doesn't say he's the only one to find the Way. (As you might have guessed by the way I capitalize Way, I also include Daoism in my worldview.)

(I'll reply to Mopsus later when I have time.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And last but not least, Pauline Christianity gets a bad rap thanks to the Deutero-Pauline epistles rather than anything Paul himself had a hand in writing or causing to be written.

Which of Paul's epistles do you consider questionable? Because the flesh is condemned in Romans and Galatians, too.

I take it you refer to Romans 6:12 among other passages.  That passage often gets over translated with the translator choosing a narrower meaning than was originally the case so as to serve a particular viewpoint. The NIV (among other translations) is especially bad in that regard, translating ἐπιθυμία as "evil desires" when it should be translated as simply "desires".  It is not as as if one would translate Luke 22:15 as "And He said to them, “I have evilly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" despite using the same Greek word to express the concept of desire.  Romans 1:28 makes it clear that Paul thinks that the mind can be evil and the list of sins given in Romans 1:29-30 includes both sins of the mind and of the body.  In Romans 12:5, Paul speaks of Christians as being the body of Christ. Did he mean that Christians are evil?

While Paul does make use of the metaphorical spirit/flesh = good/evil theme elsewhere in Romans, the entirety of Romans indicates that its author was using because of the limitations of human language and thus resorted to what would have been a commonly understood metaphor to whose who heard the epistle at that time.

As for Galatians, I presume you are referring to Galatians 4:21-31.  Yet there it is fairly clear that flesh is being used as a metaphor for Man in contrast to spirit for God, just as in those same verses, maidservants are metaphorically identified with Man and freewomen with God, yet I doubt anyone would argues that slaves are all evil or that freemen are all good.

As for the authorship of the Pauline Epistles, I accept the core seven that most critical scholars think Paul wrote as definitely Paul's: Romans, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon. Colossians and Ephesians are probably Pauline, tho possibly with interpolations, especially Ephesians which was almost certainly an encyclical letter. That they were written at the behest of Paul rather than by Paul himself is also possible. 2 Thessalonians I'm unsure of and the Pastoral epistles I think are pretty clearly Deutero-Pauline.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Although the term "universalism" has numerous meanings I am aware of only one definition
of universal salvation, and that is that everyone will eventually go to heaven.

Even those who would rather not be there? An eternity in heaven would be hell for a Buddhist. Forcing everyone to go to heaven is a violation of free will and my beliefs include that the Divine places a high value on free will.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I reviewed those verses, and I still think you are taking them too literally and ignoring the metaphorical meaning that becomes clear if you take a look at the whole of those epistles rather than selected passages in isolation

Also, it is made quite clear in the gospels that Jesus' resurrection was physical, otherwise why the need to have his apostles touch him and eat with him? (Thomas gets unfairly singled out as a doubter, as they all doubted until they beheld the resurrected Christ.)

Rather than transcendence to a purely spiritual being, I view the resurrection was the final step in the unification of the Human and Divine natures in Jesus Christ which opened the Way to our own individual theosis. I can see why some would have a problem with that view as it is fairly dependent upon Adoptionism to make sense.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You could argue that references to "the flesh" and "the spirit" are metaphorical, but it seems to me that the only reason that you would is if you were attempting to reconcile an attachment to mainstream Christianity with an aversion to dualism.

Adoptionism is hardly mainstream Christianity.  Nor do I see "death" as something that happens only to the flesh.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The impression I get from reading Paul is that he uses pneuma-sarx to frame his argument in a form easily digestible by his Greek speaking audience. Had he been writing in Chinese instead I think he'd have used yin-yang for the same purposes, tho it would be just as wrong to overidentify his views as aligning with a strict interpretation of Daoist philosophy. Paul is not Mani, nor is he a Gnostic. I'll grant that many Christians do take a strongly dualistic view of Paul's writings, but I don't agree. It's a mistake to read into Paul concepts that weren't fully developed until after him.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No. I said fully developed. My point is not that Paul wasn't making use of spirit-flesh imagery, for he clearly was, but that he wasn't using the Gnostic correspondence of spirit-flesh to good-evil. Rather, he was corresponding spirit-flesh to divine-human. I suppose that if you hold to "total depravity" it might seem like a distinction without a difference. Reading Gnostic ideals into Paul makes about as much sense as reading Methodist theology into the writings of Luther, even tho both Luther and Wesley share Protestant views.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I think an honest Gnostic would think that Paul was on the right track but that he hadn't gone far enough. A mistaken Gnostic might interpret Paul as being in full agreement with emself. As for abandonment of the Mosaic Law, I suggest you reread Romans 7, especially verses 7 and 14. What Paul rejected was not the Law itself, but seeking after the Law as an end unto itself rather than as a tool given to Israel as a help unto finding the Way. Incidentally, I think that in much the same way as the Law had become a stumbling block for many to the Way in Paul's time, and the Nehushtan had in the time of Hezekiah, the person of Jesus has become a stumbling block to many today. Many praise Jesus as "Lord, Lord" even as they refuse to travel the Way he came here to help us all tread.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Is the Law truly outmoded, or does it retain usefulness to those who have not yet obtained faith? Paul never does squarely address that point as his epistles are all addressed to those who already have faith.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

How does that quote point to "no"? The question posed in this thread is did Jesus intend to die, not whether he wanted to die.