maryhelena

And the rabbinic literature is just as pure as a virgin?

stephan huller

No but that's my point. They're all whores. The basis to Islam was restoring the true religion. It's a problem that anyone who isn't a believer has to confront.

You even see Samaritan sectarian references to the Torahs of other traditions as prostitutes. It's also certainly in early Christianity.

The point is that when using Josephus wear a condom. With a name like Mary I don't know if the analogy fits but I think you get the idea.

And when we get back to the rabbinic tradition, yes it's corrupt and many of the errors and historical inaccuracies develop from self-serving understandings. But 'one Agrippa'? Nero was a proselyte? Monobaz was the son of Agrippa?

These can't be explained away as DELIBERATE misrepresentations of historical facts.

They are at best likened to the Three Stooges being hired to fix the plumbing in someone's house.

The rabbinic tradition has no reason to for (a) assuming the existence of only one Agrippa and (b) identifying him as the messiah of Daniel other than the fact that it was considered orthodox at some early period. Nachmanides says as much.

The testimony of the Christianized manuscripts of Josephus arguing for the existence of two Agrippa follows a pattern of corruption related to Agrippa. Josephus hated Agrippa but the surviving manuscripts pretend they loved one another and make the war with Justus a personal thing rather than a continuation of the politics behind the Jewish War (i.e. anti-Agrippa).

They also survive through Christian editing. Josephus secretly confesses he is a believer in the European Christ. This can explain the effort to diminish the significance of Agrippa by later editors rather than the historical reality - viz. he was a Jewish heretic against the prevailing orthodoxy of the period.

maryhelena

OK - I'll let you off the hook.....

maryhelena

Yes, interesting point re Josephus "secretly confession he is a believer in the European Christ". Not so much the European Christ idea - but that Josephus, whoever he was, was the 'historical' backup for the gospel storyline. A storyline that has a figure, Jesus of Nazareth, deemed to be a messiah figure.

I'm a mythicist so don't view any historicity related to that gospel figure. However, I do think that a historical figure was relevant to early christian ideas - a messiah figure, if you will. A historical figure that was viewed in the messianic mold. Christianity, being a 'branch' of Judaism, was not going to be turning this historical figure into some god type figure. Someone came up with the idea of a spiritual, a mythological or symbolic 'messiah' concept. In order for this spiritual messiah concept to take off, the historical figure that provided the inspiration, the impetus, for such a transformation of the literal messiah concept, would need to be sidelined, put on the back-burner so as not to distract from the new spiritual focus.

I think that historical figure was Philip the Tetrarch. And that is why, in Josephus, one can find indications that an attempt has been made to make this figure a 'problem'. The question is Why? Bad historian - or Josephus has his own game plan....

The gospel Jesus is not married and has no children. Philip is depicted as marrying very late in life a very young girl - and the inference is that he had no children. The gospel birth narratives of Mary and Joseph re a child born that is not the child of Joseph has echoes of Mariamne and Herod the Great ie that she had a child prior to her marriage, a Hasmonean child. The gospel of Mark has Jesus adopted at his baptism. Mariamne' Hasmonean son would need to be adopted by Herod in order to inherit under his will. Early disciples came from Bethsaida. Philip renames Bethsaida to Bethsaida Julius in 29/30 ce - the very year the disciples come from that place. The disciples ask the gospel Jesus who he is - in the villages of Casearea Philippi.

Now, if the historical figure that inspired the gospel storyline re a transformation of a literal messiah concept into a spiritual messiah concept - is Philip the Tetrarch - then, in line with that intention - the historical figure of Philip the Tetrarach would have to become a 'mystery' figure. A figure that would be difficult to find, difficult to link to the new spiritual messiah concept.

Josephus provided the 'historical' means to do just that. Christianity is going nowhere if all it is is following a man, turning a man into a 'god'. Thus the historical roots of early christian origins had to be cut - cut in order for the new spiritual messiah concept to become the primarily focus.

So, yes, Josephus has muddied the waters with his Agrippa I and Agrippa II. And yes, rabbinic literature with its only one King Agrippa as King of the Jews, King of Judea, is correct. The issue is which one of the two Agrippas in Josephus is that Agrippa of the rabbinic literature. I believe it is Agrippa I, Agrippa the Great - who is Philip the Tetrarch. His son, Agrippa II did not rule Judea - he ruled Philip' territory, his father's primary territory. King Agrippa' rule over Judea was short - 41 to 44 ce. In all Philip ruled for 48 years - and probably around 80 years old when he died. (being born to Mariamne prior to the 37 bc siege of Jerusalem). And if, as I think, the re-naming of Bethsaida Julius in 29/30 ce was neither for the daughter or the wife of the emperor but after his own son - that it was that year that Philip 'founded' a dynasty - his son would only be 14 years old when his father died - thus would not inherit at that time. (yes it makes Philip about 67 when his son was born - but that is quite possible - the father of my late husband was 72 years old when he was born....and this of course has echoes of the Abraham and Sarah story....).

stephan huller

The idea that a meek, pacifist Jew WHO WASN'T a secular ruler could have been the Christ is so stupid it can only be thought to have emerged as disinformation from European sources.

That doesn't mean that Jesus wasn't originally conceived as God. The idea of God descending to the world appears in the Qumran literature. It is viable theological idea and I think this was the original Alexandrian formulation and - let's face it - God is better than the messiah. No insult here intended for Christian readers of this discussion. God is better than his anointed.

Isaiah 45:1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus." Was God better than Cyrus? Yes most certainly

Psalm 20:6 "Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed." Is the one who saves better than the one saved? I would certainly think so.

The list goes on and on and only escapes Europeans because they are SFS!

maryhelena

Well, Stephen - we agree on something - 100%

pity about the god bit - minus 100% for that I'm afraid...

stephan huller

If Jesus wasn't God and wasn't the messiah, how did the first Christians envision him? What role did he play in their religion?

maryhelena

Stephen - it was all in the mind - ie an intellectual/spiritual/theological - whatever - exercise, concept. There is nothing on the ground, so to speak - except way back and under covers - that Jewish historical messiah figure that has been the catalysis for the transformation of the Jewish, literal, messiah concept into the christian spiritual messiah concept.

stephan huller

Its not that easy to screw around with Jewish messianic concepts. It's like trying to fake mathematics or calculus. With Christianity and its 'Holy Spirit' anything is possible by contrast. But we aren't talking about late second century religious heresies for the moment ...

maryhelena

Well, 'screw around' with them the early christians did - the evidence is all around us...:grin: