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Old 06-13-2013, 11:43 PM   #101
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Obviously, it started as a vision of a Savior figure, growing out of the context of earlier Jewish beliefs about two powers in heaven, god, and an intermediary figure. I suspect that it started in the Diaspora among the God-fearers and not among Jews proper, though perhaps that is only where it found a hearing, and of course, among the Gentiles. As Earl argues, the early prophets were those who had been vouchsafed a vision of Jesus, a bit of a problem if you wanted to sustain an orthodoxy. When the Church began developiing its current Leninist structure in the 2-3rd centuries, it eliminated the whole idea of direct contact with Jesus as a legitimizing experience.
Obviously?

Methinks the JC historicists, and NT scholars, are not buying this vision idea as the root of early christianity. Visions don't take either the one claiming a vision, or those who buy into that vision, very far at all - just until the next big vision comes along. A Battle of the Visions - such a simplistic view of what started early christianity - a view that will continue to keep the ahistoricist JC position on the back foot in any debate over the gospel JC story.

The gospel JC story, a story set within Jewish history, is, like the stories of the OT, a story about Jewish history. A story about Jewish history retold, interpreted, through a prophetic lens. It is a very Jewish story - and it's roots are entangled within Jewish history. While that story, via it's resurrection element, has reached for the sky, it's roots are securely based on terra firm. Without that base, visions have no 'legs' by which to run very far at all. Visions, however imagined, might be, for some people, the cherry on the cake - but it's the 'cake' that holds and sustains that cherry.

'Visions', without relevance for living on terra firma are visions of the night; visions with no more value than the entertainment value of science fiction.
The 'visions' that are important, that have relevance for living on terra firma - are the 'visions' of the day. Day dreams about the reality that is - and the reality that could be.

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All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

T. E. Lawrence
So, what did start the story?
History, Jewish history. Someone, or some people, Jewish people, interpreted their history through a prophetic lens. Yes, of course, the original source of the gospel story, who created that story, what people were involved in spreading that story, is interesting........But, from our perspective today, a perspective that is seeking early christian roots, it's the JC story itself that needs, first, to be acknowledged for what it is: A prophetic rewriting, retelling, of Jewish history. From that position i.e. putting Jewish history on the table - one can then, perhaps, be able to take that further step back - naming those who would have had an interest in specific elements of that Jewish history - and might have had a hand in the creation and spreading of that JC story.
Well, that's the question, isn't it? what started Christianity? and if the answer to that is, the story started Christianity, then the obvious next question is, what started the story? although of course there's another obvious question, namely, how did the story start Christianity?
Well, stories have a habit of doing the rounds.....but that's the second leg is it not i.e. how the story gained ground. The fundamental question regarding the story is not how that story gained acceptance - all sorts of stories have their adherents. The fundamental question is: What is the gospel JC story about? The root of early christianity is not the spread of the gospel story - the root is the story itself - what is that story about?

1) the JC historicists claim it's about a flesh and blood JC (of whatever variant - i.e. cherry picking the gospel story).

2) mythicists of the Earl Doherty camp who claim christianity began via a vision.

3) my position, an ahistorical JC position - the gospel story is a prophetic interpretation, retelling, of Jewish history. Jewish history is fundamental, basic, the core, the root, of that gospel story.
The question with which this thread started was 'what started Christianity?' The answer has been given that a story started Christianity, which is why I'm asking what started the story (stories don't tell themselves, after all) and also how a story started Christianity? It's true that stories have a habit of going around, but they don't have a habit of starting religions.
What started the story that led to Christianity? An interpretation, a prophetic interpretation of Jewish history. Jewish history plus a prophetic interpretation on that history led to the creation of the gospel JC story.

Someone created a pseudo historical story, a prophetic story.

Why did the story start a religion? Because it was based upon a religion. It was an offshoot from a religion. A religion with a long history of interpreting history as salvation history. The OT god saves his people from Egypt and Babylon...in the NT god offers salvation to all people. National salvation, group salvation, needed to move forward to incorporate individual salvation, personal salvation. A theological democracy where individual salvation, individual growth or development, was a necessary value within a rational society. People are to be valued for their humanity not their ethnicity.
Even the restricted category of stories based on religions don't have a habit of starting new religions.
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Old 06-14-2013, 12:13 AM   #102
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Where does Paul say that many Jews converted? Does Paul say that the hub of "Christianity" was in Jerusalem? I don't think so - just that there was a Jerusalem Church of some sort that he had some major disagreements with.

What exactly does Acts say? Acts 2 talks about tongues of fire and charismatic preaching, after which some (but not all Jews) were converted by Peter - but after that we don't hear about Jews being converted.

So we don't actually have firm evidence of Jews becoming "Christians." And the only evidence we have is that conversion works more or less as it does now - people are swept up in the emotion of a preacher's message, think they see miracles, or think they want to join in a movement that might be going someplace.
So who was that preacher, and what was that preacher's message?
Who is not important. It wasn't a specific preacher, but "a" preacher. Does it matter if it was a Paul or an Apollos or a Cephas or any of the unnamed itinerant preachers the Didache cautions believers about? The message was the same, salvation, but the packaging was probably different, depending on the preacher and the moment in time.
I don't understand whether you're suggesting it was just one preacher or more than one preacher.
I was trying to clarify what Toto said, yet it would seem you still haven't actually taken in what was said. Toto was not talking about a founder, but about the conversion process. I guess that you are asking about how it all started, which was not Toto's intent, so I can't clarify that.

I'll try to respond with a functional possibility that seems to explain the little evidence there is for me.

What we face is a tradition that existed before the gospels were written. They tell a roughly similar story. How that story relates to reality is not adduceable from the texts. That would simply be accepting stories at face value and there are no external supports for the story, which would suggest that we cannot reclaim any satisfying account of what reality lies behind the gospels.

I personally have pointed to the possibility that the christian religion may have started with Paul. Working from a tentative reading of Paul's literature, especially Galatians, that Paul did not get his knowledge of the Jesus messiah from other people, claiming his gospel came from revelation. If we take him at his word, it would mean that there is no reason to believe that there was a messianic tradition specifically regarding Jesus, though there were messianic traditions in existence at the time, including a somewhat developed Johannine tradition that seems to be behind the story of Apollos and perhaps behind other non-christian baptist movements. Even the gospels indicate that the followers of John didn't just shrivel up after his death.

If we work with Paul providing us our earliest information about the religion, we find that he had been a conservative Jew hassling messianic groups until he had his revelation concerning his savior. He then contacts the Jewish messianists in Jerusalem (James, Cephas & John) to present them with his revelation, but they didn't seem interested enough for Paul. Paul split with them, though kept in contact with Cephas and ridiculed him for not adhering to his Jewish practices (Gal 2:11-14). From Paul we see that the Jerusalem messianists had no knowledge of Jesus having brought a new dispensation, putting aside circumcision and Jewish torah observance.

The Jesus religion that became christianity though definitely present with Paul isn't seen in those before him. If we start with Paul and his christ crucified, we may have the beginning of christianity.

However, people so frequently want to know more about what they are dealing with, as you are trying to understand more of the views you are dealing with here. Once a tradition exists, be it one based on a real person or not, if it is active, it will be expanded upon in the telling of the stories. We have stories for Alexander and for Arthur, the former was definitely real, the second who knows, but the round table was not part of the earliest surviving traditions. Where did Little John, Will Scarlett and Friar Tuck come from, when we look at the earliest indications of Robin Hood? Where did the Talmud get the five diciples of Yeshu ha-Notzri? Traditions develop with the telling. It doesn't matter if somewhere in there was a seed of real events or not. As long as a tradition is maintained through the telling it will evolve.
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Old 06-14-2013, 01:15 AM   #103
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I can't help but wonder why Greeks or Romans would invent a religion in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th century that would be centered around a 1st century Jew.
The Greek new testament was designed to be a continuation from the Greek LXX (not as a continuation of the Hebrew Bible) and shares a "nomina sacra" codification in the earliest Greek mss. It would be logical that a continuation of the LXX claimed to have been authored before Masada deals in Hebrew motifs (rendered to Greek). Everyone knew Masada as a boundary event in the 1st century.

Looking back from the 2nd, 3rd or 4th century, the authors of the Greek NT knew they did not have to contend with the lack of living eyewitnesses. The codex technology demanded a story of god in a codex associated with antiquity.

The Hebrew sages were greater than the Greek philosophers and their knowledge had greater antiquity, according to the Christian experts. Plato essentially learnt everything he knew from Moses. It's a bullshit claim, but many people still think its valid.






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia
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Old 06-14-2013, 01:57 AM   #104
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I can't help but wonder why Greeks or Romans would invent a religion in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th century that would be centered around a 1st century Jew.
The answer to your question could simply be that someone/s began to study the Hebrew texts (seemingly in Greek translation) and came to believe that they had discovered a hidden meaning/message within said texts.
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Old 06-14-2013, 04:40 AM   #105
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the main 1 or 2 reasons that Christianity took hold among early JEWS. What did the Jews respond to, and why?
Thank you Ted for posing such a good question. My opinion is that the main reasons are found in politics and cosmology.

Christianity emerged among the Jews as a means of subverting Roman imperialism, in the wake of the catastrophic destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. In the construction of a Common Era, the Pax Romana provided a military rule grounded in the suppression of cultural diversity, despite Rome’s specious claims to allow freedom of worship. The Jews sought means to destroy the moral legitimacy of Rome in ways that would not bring a repeat of the wrath of the legions. A group of Jews found a way to assert their cultural dignity in alliance with Hellenistic religious groups with the construction of the myth of Jesus Christ, the one for all who represented the suffering of the entire Jewish people under the Roman conquest, making peace by the blood of his cross.

In asserting that Christ was Lord, Christians rejected the temporal Lordship of Caesar, but in such a way as to maintain an impression of loyalty, through texts such as ‘render unto Caesar’ and ‘be subject to the governing authorities’. This imperial loyalty was initially a veneer, concealing a cold spiritual fury at Roman moral degeneracy, violence, stupidity and desecration of the holy places.

The construction of the Christ story drew from several wells. Firstly, midrash took the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament as the template. Within this Jewish frame of historic prophecy of Jesse’s branch, old saviour ideas from other cultures were incorporated, such as from Horus, Krishna and Dionysus, with the ancient archetype of resurrection of the saviour from the dead symbolising the annual cycle of spring replacing winter. The context for this construction of the Christ Myth was the high wisdom of the secret societies of mystery worship, notably the Jewish Nazarenes and the Jewish-Buddhist Therapeuts, articulated through Platonic idealism from Greece.

The timing of the Christ story was determined on the basis of a core religious mystery heuristic, that God’s will should be done on earth as it is in heaven, in the line from the Lord’s Prayer drawn from the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, ‘as above so below’. This timing of the appearance of Christ in the heavens was determined by a simple scientific observation from ancient astronomy, that the sun’s position at the beginning of spring precessed from its traditional place in Aries into Pisces, from first to last, in 21 AD, during the rule of Pilate. Cosmology drove the imagination of history.

Hence we see the cosmic basis for core Christian ideas including the alpha and omega, the word made flesh, the eternal logos or cosmic reason, and numerous other Biblical tropes including the loaves and fishes, the covenant of grace replacing law, the holy city, the tree of life, the moon at the woman’s feet, the dragon in heaven, and the 7000 year eschatology. All these ideas are purely natural scientific cosmic symbols, requiring no miraculous or supernatural explanation.

The cosmic basis for the Christ myth was so successfully suppressed, ignored, forgotten and denied by the triumphant later orthodox Roman supernatural co-option that we have almost lost all memory of the real natural origins, apart from the abundant fugitive traces in ancient texts and symbols. Reconstructing these forensic fragments requires a defiance of the unrepentant evil alienated psychology of anti-heresy, so we can recognise that the story of Jesus Christ remains central to human politics as the explanation of our fall from grace and our potential for redemption, divinising nature in the building of a new heaven on earth.
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Old 06-14-2013, 06:03 AM   #106
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Well, what really is your objective? You knew in advance that your claims are not in keeping with the purpose of the thread.
Nothing sinister. I have a hard time seeing how it could have started and taken hold among Jews if it wasn't based on some real events about one real Jewish person, but I am interested to know what those who don't agree have to say.
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Old 06-14-2013, 07:40 AM   #107
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Even the restricted category of stories based on religions don't have a habit of starting new religions.

Correct, fire is needed to start a new religion. Ask Billy Graham, he knows, while his own son let it all go to the dogs.
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Old 06-14-2013, 10:09 AM   #108
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I was trying to clarify what Toto said, yet it would seem you still haven't actually taken in what was said. Toto was not talking about a founder, but about the conversion process. I guess that you are asking about how it all started, which was not Toto's intent, so I can't clarify that.

I'll try to respond with a functional possibility that seems to explain the little evidence there is for me.

What we face is a tradition that existed before the gospels were written. They tell a roughly similar story. How that story relates to reality is not adduceable from the texts. That would simply be accepting stories at face value and there are no external supports for the story, which would suggest that we cannot reclaim any satisfying account of what reality lies behind the gospels....
You will now immediately exhibit most blatant double standards by accepting the Pauline writings at face value, and even the very Gospels, while simultaneously ridiculing others for accepting the stories of Jesus as earlier than the Pauline Corpus.

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....I personally have pointed to the possibility that the christian religion may have started with Paul. Working from a tentative reading of Paul's literature, especially Galatians, that Paul did not get his knowledge of the Jesus messiah from other people, claiming his gospel came from revelation.

If we take him at his word, it would mean that there is no reason to believe that there was a messianic tradition specifically regarding Jesus, though there were messianic traditions in existence at the time, including a somewhat developed Johannine tradition that seems to be behind the story of Apollos and perhaps behind other non-christian baptist movements. Even the gospels indicate that the followers of John didn't just shrivel up after his death.

If we work with Paul providing us our earliest information about the religion, we find that he had been a conservative Jew hassling messianic groups until he had his revelation concerning his savior. He then contacts the Jewish messianists in Jerusalem (James, Cephas & John) to present them with his revelation, but they didn't seem interested enough for Paul. Paul split with them, though kept in contact with Cephas and ridiculed him for not adhering to his Jewish practices (Gal 2:11-14). From Paul we see that the Jerusalem messianists had no knowledge of Jesus having brought a new dispensation, putting aside circumcision and Jewish torah observance.

The Jesus religion that became christianity though definitely present with Paul isn't seen in those before him. If we start with Paul and his christ crucified, we may have the beginning of christianity....
We cannot start with Paul even if we take him at face value because Paul claim he PERSECUTED the Church of Christ in the very same Galatians.

1. Galatians 1:13 KJV
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For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it
2. Galatians 1:23 KJV
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But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed .
3. 1 Corinthians 15:9 KJV
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For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
4.1 Tessalonoians 2.15-15 KJV
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14For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus : for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men.
5. Romans 16:7 KJV
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Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.
6. [u]1 Cor.15.3-4 KJV[u]
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For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received , how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures 4And that he was buried , and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
7. 1 Cor.15.8 KJV
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And last of all he was seen of me also...

The PAULINE writer was LAST if "take him at his word".

The Pauline writer did NOT start the Jesus cult of Christians.

Galatians 1.20-21 KJV
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Now the things which I write unto you, behold , before God , I lie not

.21Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ...
If the Pauline writer did NOT lie the Churches in Christ in Judea were started without him and he persecuted them.

We cannot start with the Pauline writer--Paul was the LAST to be seen of the resurrected Jesus.

The Jesus cult and story was well developed before Pauline letters were composed and BEFORE the Pauline writer preached the Faith that he once destroyed.
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Old 06-14-2013, 11:03 AM   #109
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I was trying to clarify what Toto said, yet it would seem you still haven't actually taken in what was said. Toto was not talking about a founder, but about the conversion process. I guess that you are asking about how it all started, which was not Toto's intent, so I can't clarify that.

I'll try to respond with a functional possibility that seems to explain the little evidence there is for me.

What we face is a tradition that existed before the gospels were written. They tell a roughly similar story. How that story relates to reality is not adduceable from the texts. That would simply be accepting stories at face value and there are no external supports for the story, which would suggest that we cannot reclaim any satisfying account of what reality lies behind the gospels....
You will now immediately exhibit most blatant double standards by accepting the Pauline writings at face value, and even the very Gospels, while simultaneously ridiculing others for accepting the stories of Jesus as earlier than the Pauline Corpus.



We cannot start with Paul even if we take him at face value because Paul claim he PERSECUTED the Church of Christ in the very same Galatians.

1. Galatians 1:13 KJV

2. Galatians 1:23 KJV

3. 1 Corinthians 15:9 KJV

4.1 Tessalonoians 2.15-15 KJV

5. Romans 16:7 KJV

6. [u]1 Cor.15.3-4 KJV[u]

7. 1 Cor.15.8 KJV


The PAULINE writer was LAST if "take him at his word".

The Pauline writer did NOT start the Jesus cult of Christians.

Galatians 1.20-21 KJV
Quote:
Now the things which I write unto you, behold , before God , I lie not

.21Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ...
If the Pauline writer did NOT lie the Churches in Christ in Judea were started without him and he persecuted them.

We cannot start with the Pauline writer--Paul was the LAST to be seen of the resurrected Jesus.

The Jesus cult and story was well developed before Pauline letters were composed and BEFORE the Pauline writer preached the Faith that he once destroyed.
Your argument makes no sense. Paul persecuted the church of God and the churches in Christ not the followers of the Jesus cult
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Old 06-14-2013, 11:27 AM   #110
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The PAULINE writer was LAST if "take him at his word".

The Pauline writer did NOT start the Jesus cult of Christians.

Galatians 1.20-21 KJV
Quote:
Now the things which I write unto you, behold , before God , I lie not

.21Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ...
If the Pauline writer did NOT lie the Churches in Christ in Judea were started without him and he persecuted them.

We cannot start with the Pauline writer--Paul was the LAST to be seen of the resurrected Jesus.

The Jesus cult and story was well developed before Pauline letters were composed and BEFORE the Pauline writer preached the Faith that he once destroyed.
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Your argument makes no sense. Paul persecuted the church of God and the churches in Christ not the followers of the Jesus cult
Your statement is probably the most absurd that I have seen. Please, first read the Pauline Corpus.

You seem to have no idea that the Churches of Christ in the Pauline letters refer to the Churches of the Jesus cult.

Are you not aware that Jesus is Christ in the Pauline writings and that Jesus Christ is named over 100 times in the Pauline Corpus??

Again, if we take Paul at his word, as suggested by spin, then Paul did NOT start the Jesus cult.

The Galatians writer claimed he even knew the Lord's brother.

Jesus Christ is called the Lord Jesus Christ in the Pauline Corpus.

If Jesus did exist and was Christ in Judea then it would be far more likely that Christ himself started the Churches in Christ in Judea--NOT Paul.

Paul PERSECUTED the Churches in Christ of Judea.

Paul could NOT have been both a Persecutor and the originator of the Churches in Christ of Judea.
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