DCHindley

It has.

Did it not generate the "Hate all Muslims and blame them for not being happy about centuries of economic exploitation of traditionally Muslim countries by the West and the collusion of their own leaders with this exploitation" faction of the so-called "Religious Right" here is the United States of (North) America?

"How DARE some of them raise their hand against us, who brought them WESTERN CIVILIZATION, which is God's very gift to mankind? They must ALL pay the price for not controlling their fringe members." Oh please, and THIS is supposed to be their Christian witness?

Gawd ...

DCH

outhouse

It is my opinion there had already been a socioeconomic division between the poor oppressed traditional Jews so to speak, and that of the Hellenistic Jews living in opulence.

Sepphoris verses Nazareth, or Capernaum. Or the Saducees hated for their corruption and wealth working hand in hand with the Romans.


I do think your correct that the fall of the temple excellerated the division.


All evidence points to the movement already being in existance before the fall of the temple, do you think the movement started after 70 CE?

DCHindley

It is surprising to me how few scholars of the Christian West are willing to entertain speculation about the effect that the first Jewish rebellion (or following two, one in Egypt-Cyrene-Cyprus and the last in Judea under Bar Kosiba, both in the 1st half of the 2nd century CE) had on the development of Christianity.

They might look at how it affected the development of Modern Rabbinic Judaism (where it forced a paradigm shift regarding how the individual "Judean" related to the traditional God. A 19th century German critic, Moritz Friedlander, had proposed that the first rebellion in 66+ CE directly prompted the development of Jewish Gnostics. The academic push-back was pretty fierce and he abandoned the idea as first proposed.

More recently, several decades after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, Birger Pearson has revived the idea. As he sees it, certain well represented strains of Gnosticism (specifically "Sethian") are complete re-writes of traditional Jewish beliefs about their ancestral God. Instead of the supreme God of righteousness, he became an inferior God ignorant of his origins as the unfortunate product of an aborted attempt to create an image of the perfect universe (the fullness) of the universal first principals in matter.

He explains this development as the product of great disappointment over the broken expectations of devout Judeans when the rebellion did not institute the blessed righteous age they believe their holy books had pointed to.

That these Sethian Gnostic texts are full of allusions to Hebrew scriptures and Aramiac technical terms indicates that this form of gnosticism was developed among "intellectuals" (I think this is supposed to mean Jewish elites, including sophists from Judea like Judah the Galilean and Jewish Hellenists such as Philo of Alexandria).

Of course, Jewish Gnosticism is not identical to Chrisianity, so it really does not address Ted's opening post directly, but I think that early Christianity is a SISTER development among God-fearing gentiles, some of whom may already have taken the big step of accepting full circumcision. Assuming some of these had associated themselves with the Judean God because they WANTED to participate in the blessed just age to come, they TOO can become disappointed by broken expectations and radically redefine their belief systems.

Alas, a lawn mower beckons to me ...

DCH

*

aa5874

The earliest Jesus story was a reaction to the Fall of the Jewish Temple and the Coming of One like the Son of Man which was believed to have been predicted by Daniel .

Examine the earliest story in gMark.

Mark 13Daniel 9 After the Fall of the Temple and the Desolation of Jerusalem---the gospel that the Kingdom of God was imminent was preached which is compatible with the book of Daniel.

Mark 1.14-15Daniel 7.

gurugeorge

Huh? You're seriously misunderstanding something here, I'm completely baffled as to how I could put it any clearer though. One last try:-

OK, the following grants roughly the orthodox scholarly datings of the documents, and tries to let them speak for themselves in the order that dating presumes they were written, without retrofitting later ideas to earlier texts.

1) 41 CE. Caligula dies, having threatened to set up his image in the Jewish temple.

2) Josephus tells us (somewhere, can't remember the reference) that this was an occasion for some triumphalism and cheer among the Jews at the time.

3) Hypothesis based on the Credo in Corinthians, reading "opthe" as divine revelation, and on some other bits of Paul:- a sect of Messianists in Jerusalem at that time, gets the idea that Caligula's death is the first sign of big changes ahead. They think it's the result of the Messiah having already been on Earth, but secretly, obscurely, and in a humble form, to fool the Archons (who were prepared for a military conquerer).

4) Looking back on the LXV, they think this was actually prophesied (the "according to scripture" of the Credo), but nobody had read the prophecy correctly. So far as these people are concerned, the Messiah is a divine entity who secretly came to earth for a while in fleshy form, and has been and gone, some indeterminate time prior to Caligula's death, been crucified and resurrected (that's ALL the content of the story at this point), thereby performing a sort of magical operation (as below, so above) that sets heavenly wheels in motion. This Messiah will come again, a second coming in his full-blown, Rome-destroying military conqueror form. But Caligula's death is like the first sign of things changing as a result of the secret first coming. This small group of Messianists are so charged with this idea, which is partly derived from scripture, but partly also derived from mystical experiences of the divine aspect of the Messiah in visions, that they proclaim it (become "apostles" of what they see as this "good news"). The Jewish original of the Apocalypse of John (itself a vision) may be the product of this school.

5) Someone else, maybe called Paul, maybe called something else (perhaps Simon Magus), maybe a Jew, maybe not (it's hard to tell whether those parts are additions or not) either independently has a similar idea, or hears of this idea (and perhaps doesn't like it and persecutes those who have this idea at first - but I really doubt this part of the text, simply because I think it more likely to have been interpolated back into whatever this Paul character genuinely wrote, on the basis of the much later Acts fabrication). At any rate, it's a side issue for us. The main point is, one way or another, he eventually believes something similar to the original Jewish Messianists who had the idea, himself has mystical experiences of direct contact with the divine Messiah entity, and becomes a fellow "apostle" of the "good news" - only he adds the wrinkle that it's not just good news for the Jews, but because it's a divine intervention, and the Messiah figure thus conceived is a spiritual entity who took on flesh for a while, it's good news for all mankind, and the significance of the heavenly wheel turning was that death is defeated (for those who believe). Something of that nature, anyway. He writes some stuff for his students, but what we have of his writings is bloated with interpolation from a much later point of view.

6) None of these people, neither the original Jerusalem Messianists, nor Paul, cause all that big of a stir, but a few study-groups are seeded here and there, especially in the gentile world by Paul. The "movement", such as it is, pootles on for a bit, some of the study groups splitting and mutating somewhat. At this stage, none of the surviving "churches" (really just a mixture of greek style symposia, small study groups and something like spiritualist churches are today) have a developed biography of the Messiah while he was on earth, mostly because the simple sketch (as it is in the Corinthians credo) is good enough. They are looking forward to a second coming, but as time goes on they rationalize its non-happening in various ways, leading to mutation and variation - some stick to the Jewish original idea, some develop more into philosophy, some are more mystical. Any "sayings" attributed to the Messiah are the result of mystical experiences, and these inspirations form some of the seeds of the later story (perhaps one might call them the equivalent of the "oral tradition" in HJ reconstructions).

7) 70 CE happens (and much later, 130 CE). Some of this actual origin is lost, forgotten, or confused in the ensuing diaspora and turbulence. But Paul is distantly remembered, and revered as their founder, by some "churches" (not all, since other apostles must have seeded a few of the others), and fragments of his writing are preserved.

8) Some time shortly after 70 CE, a text is written by an unknown author which uses some aspects of the early Christian myth. It preserves a) the secretive nature of the first coming, and it preserves b) the divine nature of the Messiah. The main purpose of the text is to lambast the Jews for their stupidity in not recognising the Messiah when he was on earth, and the text concocts a story for what the Messiah did while he was on earth. This is GMark, or it may be the Marcionite gospel, or ur-Luke as some hypothesize.

9) This text introduces a new idea: that the original "apostles" (the Jerusalem people) actually personally knew the Messiah while he was on earth, and weren't just apostles of his message, but actual personal disciples of his. (Only for "Mark", they were a bit dim and didn't spread the word properly - otherwise things would have gone differently.)

The rest of my reconstruction flows logically, but isn't quite relevant at this point.

So given the above timeline, I don't understand what you're talking about when you say I claim "people thought Jesus was on earth AFTER the visions". It's scripture-poring and visions that led to the "revised" idea of a Messiah who'd been and gone, yes, if that's what you mean, but the relative (imagined) time placement of the Messiah's first coming on earth was at the very least before Caligula's death.

gurugeorge

Addendum to the above:- because it's sort of in a separate compartment in my mind and I'm still working on it, I didn't quite make clear in the above reconstruction the nature of the "magical operation" that the original Jerusalem people and "Paul" thought the Messiah had made in his first, secret coming.

It is "redemption" - quite literally, paying the Archons a blood price (the crucifixion) to set us slaves free from them, our hitherto-masters. (For the Jerusalem people "us" meant Jews, for "Paul", "us" meant all mankind. At any rate, all who confess God as their Father.)

To check this, check Galatians. It's actually particularly clear in the "Marcionite" reconstruction of Galatians, with this (to my mind) heartbreakingly beautiful passage:-

Grog

Yes, to me this makes sense. Jesus came to earth, unknown, secretly, in a possibly primordial past. His sacrifice is only made known through revelation from the spirit and study of sacred writings. Paul says these things directly. That helps explain why the later gMark has his character keep the mission of Jesus secret.

aa5874

Your story gets worse the more you post. You have now admitted that you can't remember vital data to support your hypothesis and appear confused with your chronology.

The start of the Jesus cult is an extremely simple matter to resolve if you had only used or remembered the evidence from antiquity.

There is an abundance of evidence from antiquity that support the argument that there was NO Messianic ruler [spiritual or not] called Jesus of Nazareth up to at least c 110 CE.

We have the Dead Sea Scrolls, writings attributed to Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius covering the period of the entire 1st century.

We also have the short gMark.

In the short gMark, it is claimed that the Jesus character did NOT want the Populace to be converted, did NOT want the Populace to know he was the Anointed One and was REJECTED as a blasphemer by the Sanhedrin and later demanded to be crucified by the Jews under Pilate.

The story of the Jesus character in the short gMark fundamentally contradicts the Pauline Corpus.

When gMark was composed there was NO known heavenly, spiritual, phantom or earthly Messianic ruler believed to be Jesus of Nazareth. There was NO claim by Jews or people of the Roman Empire that Jesus of Nazareth was the Savior of all mankind and was the creator of heaven and earth.

Contrary to the Pauline Corpus, there was No Jesus cult assemblies in the Roman Empire.

We know that there was no Messianic ruler, real or imagined,spiritual or physical, in Galilee and Jerusalem called Jesus of Nazareth by the very Jesus cult when their own writers admitted up to at least the 4th century that the Jews had not acknowledged the Advent of the Christ. See writings attributed to Justin, Tertullian, Hippolytus and Eusebius.

In fact,in the short gMark, the earliest Gospel, the earliest Good News, was that the Kingdom of God was imminent--NOT that Jesus would be sacrificed.

In the short gMark, there was NO requirement for Jesus to abolish the Laws of the Jews for the atonement of sins. The Jesus character deliberately spoke in Parables so that the Populace did NOT understand him.

The Jesus cult started when people in the Roman Empire BELIEVED the Good News that the Kingdom of God was coming very soon and REPENTED of their Sins.

Mark 1 KJV The later authors of the Jesus story and the Pauline Corpus CHANGED the Good News of gMark.

gurugeorge

Yes, which means that IF there was a human Christ, or a Christian movement at the time (and the chronology suggests there was) either of them MUST have been too small to get on the radar of those authors.

It doesn't necessarily mean there was NO Christian movement, and no belief in a Messiah of the type I'm talking about. (For that matter, it doesn't even mean there was no HJ, just that it's less likely that there was.)

But in my reconstruction, there is no "Pauline Corpus" such as we have it now, at the time of writing of GMark. What's at least likely is that there were some "churches" (i.e. symposia at peoples' flats) who revered some writings, possibly letters, possibly not, by someone who may or may not have been called "Paul"; writings upon which the "Pauline Corpus" may have been based, but heavily interpolated in the process.

I believe the "Pauline Corpus" as we know it came into being after 130 CE, and was a heavily interpolated version of the fragments of writing by the real person who is the basis of "Paul"; they were gathered (and probably somewhat interpolated, although in a manner somewhat harmonious with their original intent) first by "Marcion", and secondly, as a "me too" response by the growing orthodox sub-sect, by the same person who wrote GLuke and Acts - this may have been Polycarp.) I don't think the evidence (remember: granting the orthodox chronology) warrants any more certainty than this.

Again, we don't know the provenance of GMark, we don't know how much the author knew about the Christian cult at the time (he might have known only those two aspects: the secretive nature of the first coming, and the putative divine nature of the entity). It might not even have been written by a Christian at all (it might have been a satire), it might have been written by someone who was a Christian, but of a lineage that had no connection with the "Paul" lineage. Without knowing who the author was, his milieu, etc., we can't be certain how the text fits into whatever religious movement was actually going on at the time (i.e. the fact that it was later put in the NT canon by Catholics might have several possible causes).

That said, there is no essential contradiction between GMark and Paul. Many authors have pointed out that the scornful view of the "disciples" is Pauline. The secretive aspect is also Pauline. (But remember, in the Paul writings, there is no "discipleship", only "apostles" - another possible "tell".)

Bearing in mind the above comments about the "Corpus", while there is references to "churches", there is no requirement for us to import into that mention a later understanding of "churches" as large assemblies.

In fact it's likely they were just symposia at peoples' homes, with a few dozen people in each "church", if that. Probably not more than a few thousand people all over the Empire, all told. Tiny. Those were Pauls' "churches".

Also, it's pretty common for cult leaders to exaggerate the numbers of their adherents.

As I say, that's an interesting reversal. But I suspect the reason you haven't managed to convince many people here, is because all you use to support it is an internal consistency check (which is admirably coherent, but unfortunately not done in the original languages) and a historical check. You forget that there is also a philological check required, which is part of the reason for the orthodox datings.

The reason I mention "original languages" is because your burden of proof is heavier than mine. My position doesn't require a huge investment in original languages, because I'm not quibbling too much with orthodox scholarship re. dates, in fact I'm utilizing those dates and basing my internal consistency check on them.

You, however, are making a huge challenge to the dating, so you'd need bigger philological guns than you've got, to go alongside your internal consistency check (which would also have to be in the original languages, since you're upping the ante so much) and your historical check.

Given that, you could go the route of relying on the scholarship of the Dutch school, etc., whose position is similar to yours, but you don't seem to do that.

gurugeorge

Exactamundo.

And note how much of a problem the "secretive" nature of GMark (the "Messianic Secret") is for orthodox scholarship, and how many explanations have been profferred, from Wrede on.

With my view, it slots in naturally. Christ's obscure first coming was an explanation for something, a revaluation of the Messiah idea, based on scripture study and mystical experience, meant to explain the positive turn of events around 41 CE. In order for the hypothetical explanation to work, the whole point of it was that the first coming had to have been secret and obscure. (And being something dug up from scripture, this explains the sketchy nature of the Corinthians Credo, it didn't have much detail because there wasn't that much detail in the scriptural prophesy, just a plain fact of obscure first coming, obcure crucifixion, obscure resurrection.) Far from the obscurity being a quirk of "Mark"'s, it's an essential part of the oldest Christian myth that he's utilizing. The real quirk in GMark is his introduction of the idea that the early "apostles" were also personal disciples of the cult deity, and this is what forces GMark's dating of the advent of Christ to around 0 CE.

i.e. the impetus (I claim) for the re-reading of the LXV to have it appear to prophesy an obscure first coming, was a search in scripture to understand why things had suddenly taken such a good turn for the Jews (i.e. Caligula's death before being able to set up the "Abomination of Desolation").

This is what gives the early idea something of the air of "good news" - it's not just some airy-fairy imagined good stuff, it's something tangible and historical that the early Christians were inspired by. The excitment came first, and that triggered the birth of the idea.