spin

That's certainly not as transparent as you present it. As we have no historical sources that allow us to see earlier, Paul may be the earliest believer (and perhaps founder) of the religion based on the sacrifice of Jesus, but who of those he indicates as believers in his religion besides Barnabas were Jews?

Doug Shaver

We don't know that.

All of the earliest Christians whose names we know seem to have been Jews. If we can disregard orthodox dogma, as we should, that tells us nothing about any of the other early Christians.

No Robots

Like the dog in the fable, who, seeing his own picture reflected in the water, casts off the piece of meat in his mouth in order to seize upon that held by his supposed rival in the water, so do all these famous scholars cast away whatever is Jewish in Jesus and the New Testament, in order to make the Christ of their own fancy rise who has nothing in him of the Jew. They see not that Apollo and the Muses, whose kinship they claim rather than that of Sinai's God and the Hebrew covenant people, have nothing in common with the man of Golgotha.--"The Attitude of Christian scholars toward Jewish literature" / Kaufmann Kohler. In Studies, addresses, and personal papers, p. 417.

spin

As usual, No Robots would rather hide behind the handy-dandy quote than justify his claims.

Of the numerous people mentioned by Paul in his letters, only he and one other can certainly be identified as Jews. Paul's works are the earliest literature of christianity.

No Robots claimed: "All the earliest Christians, including Paul, were Jews." When called out to provide some supporting evidence he can muster nothing.

No Robots

The point is that earliest Christianity is wholly Jewish, and, ergo, the earliest Christians were wholly Jewish:

[T]he Gospel, which was originally something Jewish, becomes a book—and certainly not a minor work—within Jewish literature. This is not because, or not only because, it contains sentences which also appear in the same or a similar form in the Jewish works of that time. Nor is it such—in fact, it is even less so—because the Hebrew or Aramaic breaks again and again through the word forms and sentence formations of the Greek translation. Rather it is a Jewish book because—by all means and entirely because—the pure air of which it is full and which it breathes is that of the Holy Scriptures; because a Jewish spirit, and none other, lives in it; because Jewish faith and Jewish hope, Jewish suffering and Jewish distress, Jewish knowledge and Jewish expectations, and these alone, resound through it—a Jewish book in the midst of Jewish books. Judaism may not pass it by, nor mistake it, nor wish to give up all claims here. Here, too, Judaism should comprehend and take note of what is its own.--"The Gospel as a document of history". In Judaism and Christianity / Leo Baeck, p. 101-102.

They are the earliest written literature. The Gospels as we have them are based on oral antecedents which predate Paul's works.

spin

You're free to believe whatever you want, but there is no evidence in what you've presented. Try again.

No Robots

For it must not be forgotten that the materials of the Synoptic Gospels were in existence before they assumed a written form. Literary analysis is apt to forget this obvious fact, and to proceed by literary comparison alone.--"The Synoptic Gospels". In International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

spin

Proxy beliefs are still nothing more than beliefs.

No Robots

New Testament exegesis will never attain a truly scientific character unless Rabbinical literature is thoroughly studied and consulted as to the meaning and purpose of the various sayings and teachings of Jesus and the apostles, and as to the historical perspective from which alone the work of the nascent Christian sect can be understood.--"The Attitude of Christian scholars toward Jewish literature" / Kaufmann Kohler. In Studies, addresses, and personal papers, p. 424.

aa5874

That is ONLY mere speculation by people who BELIEVE there was an ORAL tradition.

The LOGICAL process is to FIRST PROVE or demonstrate that there was INDEED an ORAL tradition and that it was NOT likely that the Jesus story was DERIVED from Hebrew Scripture which appears to be EXACTLY what the authors admitted.

The birth narrative of Jesus was based on ISAIAH 7.14, his crucifixion on PSALMS 22, and his resurrection was based on the story of Jonah in a book of Jonah.

Please SHOW that the authors of the Synoptics used some other material than the very Scriptures that they actually USED.