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Old 06-20-2013, 05:58 PM   #331
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...Christianity is essentially an off-shoot of Judaism, and Catholicism & Protestantism are versions of Christianity. Many variations & versions of Protestantism now exist, too: some starting in continental Europe, some starting in the UK.
All religion is an offshoot of some prior religion or amorphous superstition. It's just that new rules are promulgated, new doctrine announced, new visions appealed to. It's fascinating to speculate about what gives rise to the new belief, why sometimes it thrives and sometimes doesn't.

I'm sure there must be some scholarly work on this topic, but I so far haven't been able to run down anything meaningful.
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Old 06-20-2013, 06:10 PM   #332
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The marginal slip was an example of how interpolations happen without either an intent to deceive or to imitate someone else. Richard Carrier has shown that this is the most likely explanation of "called Christ".
It could not be a marginal slip because there was no Jesus of Nazareth who was a Messianic ruler of the Jews. Even in the stories of Jesus, he demanded that his disciples tell NO one he was Christ.

The Jews rejected Jesus as a Messianic ruler and had him crucified after he was claimed to be a Blasphemer in the very Gospels.

Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius had already stated and it was known in the Roman Empire that Vespasian was the Prophesied Messianic ruler, Savior and Healer.

The forger of Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 contradicted the story of Jesus in gMark.

Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 is essentially a pack of lies or a pack of fction based on the the earliest story of Jesus in gMark.

It was the Promised Holy Ghost that started the Jesus cult--Not Jesus.

1. in gMark Jesus deliberatedly spoke in parables so that the populace would NOT understand him and remain in sin. See Mark 4

2. On the day Jesus was Executed--Jesus was REJECTED by the Jews and Betrayed, Abandoned or Denied by his disciple.

3. All the disciples DID FORSAKE Jesus in gMark. Peter claimed he did NOT even know Jesus and was NOT with him--the others Fled--Judas betrayed Jesus.

The visitors to the Empty Tomb FLED in fear from the burial site and told NO-ONE Jesus was resurreted.

4. Jesus could have done a "Billion" Miracles in the Gospels but he had to FIRST send the Promised Ghost to give the disciples Power. Jesus was POWERLESS to start the Christian cult. See Acts 2


Examine the forgery. It is clearly incompatible with gMark and was unknown for hundreds of years by apologetics.

And in any event, the forgers' Jesus was a MYTH-a resurrected creature.

[u]Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3
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3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
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Old 06-20-2013, 06:37 PM   #333
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The Jews rejected Jesus as a Messianic ruler and had him crucified after he was claimed to be a Blasphemer in the very Gospels.
James Bond killed Blofeld in You Only Live Twice.
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Old 06-20-2013, 06:47 PM   #334
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I would go one step further and say that among the fictions of Eusebius were the alleged Ebionites or other "Jewish Christian" sects. There is no proof that there were any Ebionites or such anywhere.
I wouldn't go that far. The Ebionites were first mentioned by Irenaeus, not Eusebius.

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Against Heresies I.26.2

Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law. As to the prophetical writings, they endeavour to expound them in a somewhat singular manner: they practise circumcision, persevere in the observance of those customs which are enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God.
The Ebionites here are not ethnic Jews. They are Gentiles who undoubtedly considered themselves "the true Christians" because they tried to be as close to Judaism as possible while still being separate.

However...

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Contra Celsum 2.1

This claimant to universal knowledge (Celsus) does not know what is appropriate in the matter of such representations (of Judaism); and therefore let us proceed to consider what he has to say to the converts from Judaism. He asserts that they have forsaken the law of their fathers, in consequence of their minds being led captive by Jesus; that they have been most ridiculously deceived, and that they have become deserters to another name and to another mode of life. Here he has not observed that the Jewish converts have not deserted the law of their fathers, inasmuch as they live according to its prescriptions, receiving their very name from the poverty of the law, according to the literal acceptation of the word; for Ebion signifies poor among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites.
Origen believes that Ebionites are ex-Jewish Christian converts. It is from this citation that modern scholars imagine that the Ebionites were "Jewish Christians," i.e. ethnic Jews who went back to the original movement in Judea. I'd say a better guess is that Origen has read Irenaeus and assumed that they were ethnic Jews because Irenaeus stresses their adherence to Judaic customs. Both believe such Jews are "heretics." And of course, Origen saying they were "Jews" says nothing about their ethnicity.

This is what Eusebius writes about the Ebionites, who were long gone by the time he wrote in the fourth century:

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EH 27. The Heresy of the Ebionites.

1. The evil demon, however, being unable to tear certain others from their allegiance to the Christ of God, yet found them susceptible in a different direction, and so brought them over to his own purposes. The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ.

2. For they considered him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.

3. There were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name, but avoided the strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed, being God, Word, and Wisdom, they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law.

4. These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law; and they used only the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews and made small account of the rest.

5. The Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews they observed just like them, but at the same time, like us, they celebrated the Lord's days as a memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour.

6. Wherefore, in consequence of such a course they received the name of Ebionites, which signified the poverty of their understanding. For this is the name by which a poor man is called among the Hebrews.
Clearly, he's just copying Irenaeus, but note that they observed the Sabbath and the rest of Judaic ceremonies "just like them" -- they weren't Jews, they just tried to be as much like them as possible.

I think the Ebionites were a real Christian sect. They weren't ethnic Jews. They were Gentiles that rejected the cocky Paulinist/Catholic sect and stuck to the old-time religion. They did not go back to a supposedly historic Jesus movement in Judea.
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Old 06-20-2013, 07:48 PM   #335
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NT Christianity as expressed in the Gospels was Pharisaical. Jesus was a Pharisee, if his teachings are any indication. This is actually another bit of evidence for Christianity emerging in the post-Diaspora period, when Pharisaical Judaism was the only Judaism left standing.
If NT Christianity was Pharisaical, and Jesus was a Pharisee, then can you explain why the NT writers make the Pharisees the arch-villians of Jesus (and therefore Christianity)?
They don't. Jesus' relation to the Pharisees in the Gospels is one of a prophet chastising the people for not living up to their beliefs. Implicit in the chastisement is the message that those beliefs are the correct ones. You don't chastise heretics for failing to live up to heretical beliefs, you chastise True Believers for failing to live up to their True Belief.
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Old 06-20-2013, 08:13 PM   #336
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NT Christianity as expressed in the Gospels was Pharisaical. Jesus was a Pharisee, if his teachings are any indication. This is actually another bit of evidence for Christianity emerging in the post-Diaspora period, when Pharisaical Judaism was the only Judaism left standing.
If NT Christianity was Pharisaical, and Jesus was a Pharisee, then can you explain why the NT writers make the Pharisees the arch-villians of Jesus (and therefore Christianity)?
They don't. Jesus' relation to the Pharisees in the Gospels is one of a prophet chastising the people for not living up to their beliefs. Implicit in the chastisement is the message that those beliefs are the correct ones. You don't chastise heretics for failing to live up to heretical beliefs, you chastise True Believers for failing to live up to their True Belief.
So, according to you, Christianity started as a reform movement within Pharisaic Judaism post-70. One would expect from such a model to find, say, Christian bishops referring to themselves as "Christian Pharisees," texts with themes of "The Acts of the Christian Pharisees," and works like "The Apologia of Christian Phariseeism." Nothing of this kind survives, or is hinted at in any ancient work; instead, Christian writers define themselves as quite distinct from the devilish Pharisees, and Jews generally, "who killed our Lord."

This is not to say that, at a time much earlier than 70, that certain people who later became Christians were somehow involved with Pharisaic Judaism. But that was long past when Euagellion Kata Markus was published.
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Old 06-20-2013, 08:30 PM   #337
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If NT Christianity was Pharisaical, and Jesus was a Pharisee, then can you explain why the NT writers make the Pharisees the arch-villians of Jesus (and therefore Christianity)?
They don't. Jesus' relation to the Pharisees in the Gospels is one of a prophet chastising the people for not living up to their beliefs. Implicit in the chastisement is the message that those beliefs are the correct ones. You don't chastise heretics for failing to live up to heretical beliefs, you chastise True Believers for failing to live up to their True Belief.


I have my doubts about Jesus being anything but opposed to the Pharisees.


Crossan and Reed place the Pharisees as crooks who were using Roman muscle to rape tithes, combined with the "woes of the Pharisees" also as a party divided a long Hellenistic lines.


I guess a lot depends on how you define Jesus. Mine is as a Zealot opposed to oppression and taxation, with a hatred for Hellenism. Based on how bad Antipas made life for the peasant Jews where he grew up.
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Old 06-20-2013, 09:41 PM   #338
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True. I guess all you really can to argue against what I said is to claim that either Eusebius was really stupid if the was trying to be a clever forgerer (not a good argument) or that he accidently allowed Josephan phrases to slip into what he had wished Josephus said in his history. The latter to me isn't something that happens 'accidentally', which takes us back to the 'stupid' argument. Neither seem likely to me, but I take it that you are ok with the latter one.
I don't think Eusebius was stupid. I do not think that he intended to actually deceive anyone, so he did not try to make his interpolation look like Josephus wrote it. But he was writing in Koine Greek, after having read through Josephus. It would be unlikely if there were no words in common between what he wrote and what he read in Josephus.
A few, perhaps, maybe even probably. Agree on that. Too tired to dig further on the detail..





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I don't seem to be able to get you off the idea that you know the interpolator's intent, and that you can actually divine that intent and make it the crux of your argument. That's why I don't see the point of dragging this point out any further.
I suppose. I think the intent is found in the words -- whoever wrote wants the reader to believe it is true in most cases, and how they are written. I think they MAY be telling and useful in conjunction with comparisons of various texts and versions.
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Old 06-21-2013, 12:01 AM   #339
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.....I guess a lot depends on how you define Jesus. Mine is as a Zealot opposed to oppression and taxation, with a hatred for Hellenism. Based on how bad Antipas made life for the peasant Jews where he grew up.
Your story is basically imaginative fiction without a shred of corroboration. The sources that mentioned Jesus did not claim he was a Zealot with a hatred for Hellenism.

In fact, it is documented in the Canon that Jesus, the Logos and God the Creator claimed the Jews were of their Father the Devil.

John 8
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42Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do . He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
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Old 06-21-2013, 01:46 AM   #340
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Interesting that the same writer suggesting Jews were of the devil also said that salvation was of the Jews......
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