TedM

Some, like Mary, have expressed disgust in the idea that Jews found salvation value in a human sacrifice. So much so, that she claims the Jews would never have done so--ie Christianity could not have begun with a human founder crucified.

On the contrary, I see this as a highly reasonable idea given the context the Jews found themselves living in 2000 years ago. So, I've opened this up for comments.

Here's the Jewish context:

1. Belief that sin results in man's death. Since Genesis 1.
2. Animal sacrifices for sins for many centuries.
3. Sacrifices during Passover. Since Moses.
4. OT prophecies of a Messiah who would save Israel from their sins. Throughout OT.
5. Desperate for the kingdom of God to arrive


*The Jews expected a Messiah from God, who had godly characteristics. Any man who they thought may have been the Messiah was also considered to be the man who would save the Jews from their sins.

*If such a man was killed, then it is only logical for those who followed him to consider whether the death was that of a martyr -- and whether it was related to his ability to save the Jews from their sins.

*The obvious similarity between animal sacrifices for sins during Passover and a Messiah death during passover, would lead to speculation that his death had been a sacrifice for sins. This would lead to belief in his resurrection -- with possible support from alleged resurrection accounts. The resurrection accounts would be seen as confirmation of the accuracy of the theology: If sins are forgiven there is no lasting death, so a resurrection confirms the salvation value of the sacrifice.

*The desperation of the people which resulted from their political situation would have added creativity to their thinking with regard to the Messiah. Serious consideration would have been given to any hint of a way out of their predicament -- politically or spiritually -- so as to retain and confirm their status as God's Chosen People.

These are all logical inferences that the Jewish man or woman would have easily understood, and would have been the impetus for a fast-growing Christian religion.


As I see it, there is no need to consider the origins or Christianity to be a major mystery, that requires piecing together many parts of a puzzle to explain what 'really' happened. The most significant prerequisite pieces were already in place 2000 years ago.

All it took was a Passover crucifixion of a godly man some thought may have been the Messiah.

Comments?

PhilosopherJay

Hi TedM,

Philo, in his Embassy to Gaius, tells us how much Jews hated the idea of worshipping a man as a God:
For Jews to accept a man as a God would be like the National Rifle Association accepting that the Government has a right to ban the sale of private guns. The deification of Jesus would have been as big an affront to Jews as the deification of Caligula was.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

TedM

I don't agree. Your NRA analogy IS appropriate for Gaius, since he was, as Roman leader, the enemy of the Jews, who were desperate to have their own country.

Gaius was not a good fit to be considered to be the Jewish Messiah. Gaius was not Jewish. Moreover, in your own passage is says Gaius "regarded the Jews with most especial suspicion".

Nor was Gaius crucified. Nor was he crucified during Passover.

Context matters. The context Philo is writing about is so far different than that context of a crucified Messiah claimant during Passover, as to render your passage to be nearly entirely irrelevant.

There is no valid comparison to be made here.

spin

"Since Genesis 1" seems to imply some notion of "early". In fact we don't know when Genesis was written. The earliest traces we have come from around Qumran. Among the same documents are the books of Enoch in which there is the notion that sin was introduced into the world through the intervention of the watchers, angels who decided they had a will of their own. This is in conflict with the notion of sin from Adam and its resultant implication of death. We see here two concurrent streams of Judaism.

This last is mainly christian dogma, rejected by the Jews, who themselves had indications about the messiah through the HB, such as the sceptre and the star (Num 24:17).

Daniel, one of the last books of the HB written uses the term messiah only for high priests, so we need to look later for clear signs of the Hebrew messianic figure who with come in the end times and lead the people of god to victory against the nations, texts such as the Psalms of Solomon.

The Jewish messiah is the representative of god who will bring about the apocalypse by leading the forces of god on earth. One has to be careful when reading messianic passages not to confuse poetry with literal description. The messiah is to be a man, not a being of godly characteristics.

In the DSS there were actually two messiahs, the messiah of Aaron and the messiah of Judah. High priest and (I'll call the other) "war lord". The high priest was concerned with right practice, while the war lord was dedicated to victory.

If the man was killed then to the Jews he couldn't have been the messiah. It's that simple.

You can see how mystery religions have influenced christianity in these thoughts. Jesus was obviously not a Jewish messiah, not destined to lead the Jews to the eschaton. He was presented as a savior though, the central figure of a mystery cult.

Well, so christian apologetic tells it. Christianity has simply never understood the notion of messiah and has used the term more as a magical title than for any Jewish idea.

You're right that it isn't a mystery, as it seems to be a synthesis of various Jewish ideas including personified wisdom, Philo's logos, the suffering servant, and all rolled under the empty title of messiah. It also seems to have a strong mystery cult element, which Jews in the diaspora would have come into contact with. If Acts is correct that Paul was from Tarsus, he was close to the center of Mithraic mystery practices. There were mystery cults from Syria to Phrygia. It's easy enough to see the christian trajectory here.

Mystery cults were often centered around a figure whose sacrifice led to salvation. Bringing such an idea into a Jewish context the most sacred sacrifice was the passover.

TedM

All that was needed was the one that supports the idea that death resulted from man's sin.


Isaiah passages, such as the entire chapter of 53 strongly suggest otherwise. Israel's sufferings were believed to come from sin. The Messiah was to save them from their sufferings, so he was presented often as a warrior-king, but there are plenty of passages that link his Salvation to their sins. It isn't 'mainly christian dogma' at all. And, you need to provide evidence that the Jews of the day rejected the idea that the Messiah would save Israel from their sins for it to be taken seriously.



The accolades given are so grand as to make a 'jump' to a divine being not difficult:

I don't have the reference in front of me, but apparently there were hundreds if not thousands of verses considered to be either about the Messiah or the Messianic Age by Jews at the time of Jesus. This set the stage for all kinds of interpretations, including the idea that someone killed COULD be the Messiah under the right circumstances. The thinking was RIPE for applying such concepts to a real world situation.




The more 'godly' he appeared, the less simple that would be. And, if the crucifixion was on Passover, the less simple it would be. And, if he himself talked about his impending death or resurrection, the less simple it would be. All of those are within the realm of reason.



None of these thoughts require outside influence of mystery religions, spin. The stage was already set within Jewish religious culture. That's the point of my post. As long as he was considered a possible Messiah prior to his crucifixion, if he was killed during Passover the stage was set for Jewish acceptance. That's not to say the outside influences didn't help it along--they may well have, but it certainly could have all started and quickly flourished among the Jews with his death during Passover.

I have to do other things..will check back another time.

Chili

Slow down Ted, you have that just backwards here.

Gen. 1 only says that whatever God created was good.

Then in Gen. 2 Lord God put the plan in place to enable Gen. 1 become the reality for us to be.

Then in Gen. 3 'like god' was created so man could see for himself and add color to his life. The flip-side of is that he will die, which only means that he consciously know that he will die.

So now our sonciousness is to blame for that, and so only 'it' must die to get back to Eden before we die, and so never die because 'it' already did.

Now the 'it' is called Adam here who is the only one who knows we will and therefore we should just get rid of him, and to get this done the concept sin becomes the instrument to get this done.

spin

You're merely talking about the winning sect.

The suffering servant has nothing to do with the messiah.

Not messiah. Perhaps you should find out about the Jewish messiah.

Quite possible, but don't assume they were the same ones that the christians adduced.

Your hat seems to be blocking your communication.

Still shaping your data from a purely christian perspective.

Except the part that we are dealing not with a Jewish messiah but a mystery savior.

This is just the usual christian attempt to control the discourse. It has nothing to do with Jewish thought per se.

You still haven't got the notion that a dead messiah was a false messiah. Sheesh, this is not rocket science. It's just not christian dogmatic bullshit.

It's a mystery to me... ... ... tying in the savior's death with the passover. Remember Jews understood that a messianic claimant who died without fulfilling the emancipation of the Jews from the nations was a false messiah.

TedM

The problem with this thinking is that it only works if none of the Jews claimed Jesus was the Messiah after he had died. The very fact that they did means that your notions about how dogmatic the Jews were regarding their messiah are not right. Sure, some, maybe the majority were unbending, but no-one is claiming that ALL of the Jews converted, right?

REGARDING MESSIANIC PASSAGES SEE BELOW:

I"m not sure what you are saying here. What about tying it in with the passover is confusing to you?


This source strongly indicates otherwise, which would seem to support the Jewish context I am talking about in favor of applying Messianic concepts to a crucified Messiah-claimant during Passover:

http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/appen09.htm

spin

There is no analysis here. You are simply rehashing christian dogma. The notion of messiah is simple enough even for you, TedM. You can't evade the issue with this sort of crab maneuver.

The notion of the messiah is your albatross. The story of Jesus doesn't involve the notion. He did not gain victory at the eschaton. He died not having fulfilled the task of the messiah. From there you simply get centuries of apologetic and dogma to hide the fact.

It is confusing you. The obvious time for Paul's savior to perform his salvific act is the passover, for in his savior's act god passes over his proselytes. There is no messianism in the death of the would-be messiah.

A Jewish convert to christianity has to justify his turning his back on Judaism somehow. The usual Jewish understanding of the suffering servant is that it is Israel.

TedM

And I've shown that your ideas are too simplistic by giving you evidences from a source that finds the very passages you say aren't Messianic WERE seen as Messianic in ancient Jewish writings.

I don't see any good way for you to get around the evidence, spin. Assertions to the contrary aren't good enough. Neither is your appeal to the 'usual Jewish understanding'. It is obvious that there wasn't 100% agreement on what was and wasn't Messianic..the passages themselves don't lend them to agreement as they portray sometimes conflicting views, and of course will be subject to interpretation.

I think I'll go with the evidence.

The fact is that my OP has outlined the context of the times which is supportive of Christianity arising from a crucified Messiah claimant during Passover. No arguments provided so far have shown my outline to be incorrect or unlikely.