Toto

Jesus did say that he would make Mary into a man.

Clivedurdle

The snag, 300 years after Alexander and after civil wars, it is not obvious what Judaism is!

There are many many different Judaisms, including very Greek influenced ones and taliban like ones.

The gospels in fact are an amazing amalgam of these different Judaisms.

Because Judaism at base has not had a problem with sex, ascetic tendencies do look like imports.

stephan huller

Clive, I can't agree with that. Almost 2500 years after the Samaritan-Jewish split the traditions still bare an uncanny resemblance one another. Yes there are differing interpretations. Yes they chose to emphasize different things but I always find that people who aren't Jewish or essentially don't like the unshakable and consistent logic of the Mosaic paradigm try to find ways to allow to allow for their own wild interpretations to work.

The problem is that they don't.

Judaism was ALWAYS recognizable despite the apparent sectarian differences. I even think that this original rationality can be found in the gospel and even Marcionitism.

It's the 'holy spirit' argument that is utterly incompatible with the original paradigm. That's the problem. Non-Jews always want to imagine that 'anything is possible in Judaism' because they have WRONGLY learned to accept that with Christianity.

Judaism is like mathematics or science. There are answers that work and there are answers that don't work based on the 'rules' laid out in the Torah.

There is no room for the Gentile Christian 'we don't understand but it is still true because God works in mysterious ways' argument. As such Alexandrian Judaism, Palestinian Judaism (and all its sects) and Samaritanism are ALWAYS depicted as arguing with one another, pointing out their weaknesses etc. in the rabbinic literature.

Everyone knew the basic rules that each sect had to work with. There may have been different interpretations of those rules and different approaches owing to grey areas in the original paradigm but the idea that you could have one set of Jews saying things that were unrecognizable to or from another set of Jews is just ridiculous.

And the fact that Jewish sects were screaming at each other accusing one another of abandoning core principles is hardly surprising given the passionate nature of the people. It's like living in a Jewish family. Just because everyone is screaming at one another doesn't mean that there isn't some underlying bond that times them all together.

Clivedurdle

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...54643/Hanukkah

I thought whole chunks of Judaism were successfully hellenized - isn't the Septaguint an example?

mountainman

The Common Cuckoo

It might be Clive. The New Testament looks to have been hatched in the nest of the Greek LXX.

The "Canonical Gospels and Acts, etc" appears to be some common Greek bird raised in a Jewish nest. But if they are, then when and where was this common Greek bird raised, and where and when did the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc" get hatched and raised? For surely, it must have been in another nest entirely -- perhaps even underground and using Syriac and Coptic languages.

Import being the operative word. The new testament canon was imported into the media of Greek literature. We can thank one of the two Origen's in 3rd century history for the Hexapla. It was a message to the Greek speaking Graeco-Romans and the Graeco-Roman ascetic priesthoods - a message to the "gentiles".

stephan huller

It just occurred to me that this might be important to consider for the origins of celibacy/encratite tendencies. The Jewish customs at Yom Kippur. Leviticus 23:27 decrees that Yom Kippur is a strict day of rest. Five additional prohibitions are traditionally observed, as detailed in the Jewish oral tradition (Mishnah tractate Yoma 8:1):

No eating and drinking
No wearing of leather shoes
No bathing or washing
No anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions
No marital relations

This is ground zero of the ascetic ideal. If this is how we are supposed to behalf one day a year to attain holiness, it follows that some who lived like this all year round would be a 'holy man.'

Clivedurdle

Does this not mean that we are forced to the conclusion that xianity is not Judaic? I thought it was a very hellenized Jewish sect but you are arguing cogently it is a separate phenomenon.

Chili

Celibacy is a natural consequence of being called and chosen to serve the royal priesthood in the kingdom of God. It so is a return to our original state of mind as androgyne wherein we were male AND female but then with the potential to become either male or female and here now with the human condition passified. It is why there are no marriages in heaven because the opposites of attraction are no longer there . . . and is actually why there is an ox and a mule in the nativity scene the signify the limp human condition that used to drive our sexuality.