mountainman

The Jews were a minority whom the Romans dealt with in the first century. The emperor Trajan used mass crucifixion as anti-Jewish propaganda at Emmaus in the early second century. The NT propaganda has a Jewish setting, but it was written by Romans in the greek language in order to educate Greeks. It was time for the greeks to read some decent Roman literature. Thus is the NT also anti-Hellenistic propaganda intended to subvert the greeks from their cults and temple worship. Military backing assisted the decision making processes in the fourth century. Conversions to the new state religion rose dramatically.

mountainman

Yes, it's as if the fabrication of the "Historical Jesus" already included provision for a top-level heresy -- that of the disbelief of the "Historical Jesus". Anyone who disbelieves in the "historical Jesus" - after being told the good message from the new testament - is suffering from anti-christian belief. Notably, manifest references appear in the literature of the fourth century correlating the "anti-christ" to Arius of Alexandria.

Switch89

Mainly the fact that the Pauline letters and Gospels reference the OT but never reference any pagan works, or even allude to them (as far as I know).

Clivedurdle

How did the idea of Ahura Mazda and the demi urge evolve into the idea of Christ and anti Christ?

Is it correct the NT does not reference the literature of the true gods? Why might that be? Is that evidence they are much later, from a time and places where the gods had been repressed and forgotten?

mountainman

Via Mani and the anti Mani politics of the third century.

JohnB

Well, Christianity - according to Hadrian - was the worship of Serapis and that wasn't Roman.

But taking the work literally, christianity was merely the belief in a messiah and that belief was Jewish. Belief in the coming messiah was the prominent belief of Jews rebelling against Rome. I therefore read the term in that manner for 1st century sources.

I would therefore ask: at what point (and for what purpose) did this Jewish faith become perverted, to incorporate Jesus, a clearly anti-Jewish (i.e. anti-Jewish insurgency) device?

mountainman

Chrysostom found himself living at a time when the Roman State Political Laws included such things as:

Religious privileges are reserved for Christians

However the laws also provided some measure of latitude for Jews, and some of the Hellenistic pagans who dominated the demographics, thought about their options long and hard, and selected to integrate with the jews instead instead of embracing the state religion. As a pagan, it was the only loophole where they did not have to deal with the new state religion.

Examine the laws of the land: they deal with "christians" and "jews".
Someone wanted to get rid of the Hellenes.
The Hellenes options were limited and falling by the decade.

During the fourth century the narrow-mindedness of the brand new state monotheistic incumbents increased along with their level of persecution and intolerance of all other religions. At the end all non-christians were put to the sword by the christian emperors and their minions. Nice religion eh?

"The Big Boys Club" which had been inaugurated at Nicaea rapidly filled when it was understood Constantine was leaving them no other options. When Constantine was poisoned 337 CE, his son Constantius Obscured the plain [16] and simple religion of the Christians by a dotard's superstition..

mountainman

Dear JohnB,

Your Hadrian reference comes from the fourth century and from one of the four unknown scriptores of that classical historiographical mystery the Historia Augusta. As such it is very late, too late to matter.


To answer this question we need to look at the chronology associated with the source documents, and anything else that can provide a guide to the chronology, such as the C14 citations. The purpose was political. Monotheism had made the Persians very strong and vigorous. In the 3rd century Roman Emperors and entire Roman legions had been captured and put to work behind the Persian lines building Roman aquaducts in Persia. Sassanid Persia was united and marched to the "One True Song" of the "Divine Fire", and their square domed "fire-temples" were very conspicuous all over Sassanid Persia, throughout the provinces and in the major cities.

Obviously one Roman emperor decided it was time for the Roman empire to change its religious face for political expedience, and for the security of the Roman nation, which in religious terms was a collegiate mix of cults, based out of the network of temples and shrines which existed and operated continuously from before the first century until a very bad day a few centuries later, when the process of their decommissioning was commenced.

JohnB

Thanks, mountainman, for the very decent reply.

Though you may be right about the Historia Augusta, little is certain for the letters and that includes authorship and date.

I would not assume that fourth century is too late to matter. Much of the 'history' we have for that period is not history, but Tradition. The exercise of cross-referencing to external sources is made very difficult and almost useless, because of the uncertainty for many of the people.

I commend your mentioning c14 as a dating method, for this would appear to be a more scientific process, which is exactly what is needed. However, (a) as Eisenman demonstrated with the DSS, even c14 has a tendency to work for the client and (b) if that was the answer, why are we still discussing this? All early texts should have been dated reliably by now.

One reason I have kept clear of public debate of these matters is because from about 50 onwards, into at least the fourth and maybe the fifth century, so much is unreliable and based on Tradition, that cogent discussion is almost impossible. Discussion involves using people as references who may not have existed.

Thank you also for your possible explanation of how Jesus appeared. It is a possible scenario. I agree that the scenario has to be primarily political. Personally, although I think the Persia-Rome conflict may well be at the core, there are other possibilities just as likely.

Can anyone provide a reliable date for the first appearance of Jesus in history?

mountainman

From first principles we can grant that the presence of Jesus was "felt" on the planet at least as early as the "Councils" of Antioch and Nicaea, c.324/325 CE, and possible as early as Constantine's Religious Experience c.311/312 CE when he liberated Rome from its previous "Pontifex Maximus".

Most scholars assess that Eusebius drafted his Historia Ecclesiastica and the other series In Preparation for, etc, between these years of 312 and 324 CE. In this literature, assertions are made as to the chronology of "christian origins from the rule of Augustus in the first century, through to just before the Council of Nicaea. The problem is that the archaeologists and field traditions, aside from "paleographic assessment", have not yet been able to corroborate the history of the appearance of Jesus, or his followers, the "christians" prior to the fourth century, at which time the evidence explodes, and we can be sure Jesus had finally appeared. The earliest codices are fourth century.

In the traditional chronology of the appearance of Jesus and the "christians" a great deal of reliance is being placed in two things:

1) The history of Eusebius.
2) The greek papyi fragments from Oxyrynchus and other sites.

The importance of the C14 cannot be understated. It is a new and independent technology being applied to an ancient question: what is our oldest "christian relic"? It was not around a few decades ago. It is suggesting a very late date -- at least with respect to the non-canonical tractates so tested (1) Nag Hammadi, gThomas = 348 CE and (2) gJudas, 290 CE (both +/- 60 years). These to my knowledge are the only C14 citations concerning the entire new testament corpus (the canon and the apocrypha). Has anyone discovered a third C14 citation yet?

Large numbers of Syriac and Coptic tractates started appearing over the last few centuries, which had not seen the light of day in well over a thousand years. Yet the earliest chronology for thee document traditions are in almost all cases this side of the Nicaean "boundary event".