show_no_mercy

What methodology are you using to date Paul's letters to the first century? Let me guess... Galatians 1:19? This is contested. Who is the first Christian to point out that Paul met "James the lord's brother"?

Keep in mind that Paul never mentions meeting any students (disciples) of Jesus. The only other Christians that Paul knows about are all apostles. Paul also seems to be antagonistic towards Christians preaching "another Jesus" and "another gospel" (2 Cor 11:4) - who is preaching another Jesus in the first century? This only happens in the 2nd century and beyond... unless Gnosticism is older than the "orthodox" claim it is.

Are there any references to the Jewish temple in Paul's letters? No - Paul claims that the body is the temple of god (1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16), which is exactly what Christians had Jesus say as a reaction to the destruction of the 2nd temple.

ApostateAbe

I am not assuming it. If Paul is talking about "churches of Judea that are in Christ," then he is talking about Christians in Palestine. If that doesn't work for you, then I am not sure exactly what you need, so maybe you can clarify.

dog-on

Yea, I'll give it to you. Though I have other issues with this particular epistle and is why I originally wanted to stay away from them as evidence.

ApostateAbe

I use the methodology of choosing the perspective that best fits the writing. For the epistle to the Galatians, the author Paul before the fall of Jerusalem seems to be the best fit. He gives a perspective on the Council of Jerusalem that is far different from the account given in the book of Acts; therefore, it is more likely to be authentically Pauline.

It would be reasonable to presume that Christianity had divisions ever since Jesus died, much like any other cult. You can see evidence for such a division in Galatians 2. The Judaic Christians were Paul's primary opposition, not the gnostics. They were the ones preaching "another Jesus." Or, rather, they were preaching the original Jesus, and Paul was preaching another Jesus.

The argument about the metaphorical use of "temple" seems to have at least some weight, and I don't want to completely discount it, but there seems to be easily more than one possible explanation for that. The Gentile Christians whom Paul represented were forbidden from the temple.

ApostateAbe

OK, that's cool.

aa5874

Are you now suggesting that your Paul was worshiping Tacitus' Christus as a God or the son of a God very soon after he was executed?

Are you suggesting that Paul was preaching all over the Roman Empire that Tacitus' Christus was the Creator of heaven and earth who had the power to forgive the sins of all mankind, that Jews should abandon the Laws of God including circumcision because Tacitus' Christus was executed?

In the very Canon in which you find the Pauline writings there is the history of your Paul and he vehemently opposed the idea of worship a man as a God.

People even tried to worship your Paul as a God and he sternly asked them to desist from such abhorrent practise.

Your Paul was not the apostles of a man or of men but of Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead.

The Pauline writings have nothing whatsoever about worshiping a man as a God.

Tacitus' Christus and Christians have nothing whatsoever to do with those who believed in an entity called Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead.

This is the Pauline writer in Galatians 1.1 This is the Pauline writer about his Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead in Galatians 1.10-13 This is the Pauline writer about his Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead.

Galatians 1.15-16 And this is the Pauline writer about his Jesus Christ who was the CREATOR of heaven and earth.

Colossians 1.12-17 Certainly, the Pauline Jesus Christ was not a man but the Creator of heaven and earth.

Tacitus' Christus and Christians were not the Pauline Jesus Christ and the Pauline Jesus believers.

Solo

Bad move, dog-on. I have it on the authority of Acts that the disciples were first called 'Christians' (11:26) in Antioch. As the Acts have the twelve apostles stay behind in Jerusalem, they would have been innocent of the new title.

Another indication that the Jacobite church in Jerusalem was not thought of as 'Christian' is the Hegesippus' tale of the end of James the Just. In that tale, it is because of what James himself said that Jesus was believed by some in Jerusalem to be the Christ, but obviously the temple dignitaries have no idea of that, if they ask James, to 'restrain the people...who have gone astray in their opinions of Jesus, as though he was a Christ'. The point of course is that, no-one in their right mind would ask a leader of a church ostensibly founded cca ~30 years before in a miracle at the Pentecost by Jesus Christ and exclusively for Jesus Christ, nota bene by his own brother, to talk people out of believing that Jesus was the Christ. So, there may have been a memory of a Nazarene church prior to the beliefs in Jesus as Christ (as there was one in the Panarion of Epiphanius), which came later, most probably after the Jewish War exile of the Nazarenes. Those beliefs then overwrote the history of the Jerusalem 'poor saints' of James, as their coming together to venerate Jesus as Christ from the very beginning.

What Paul (if it is Paul) likely means by 'churches which are in Christ' is that they potentially - by the dint of being messianic ecstatics - figure within Paul's missionary perimeter, much like the rhetorical figure of the 'Christ party' in the 'Church of God' at Corinth.

Jiri

mountainman

Antiquities of the Jews 18.63-64 - translation of William Whiston

3.3 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, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; 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.

The interpolated Josephus appears to me to suggest to its readers that there were Christians (in fact an entire tribe of them!) in Palestine. The bolded "such men", the "many" and the "many", the "those", and the "them" bolded above reinforce the idea. They are explicitly called "Christians" in Josephus chronologically (assuming the mainstream idea that Acts is 2nd century authorship) before the first "christians" were known as such via Acts in Antioch.

dog-on

I did not want to turn this into a "why we should trust/not trust the Epistles" thread and that is why I asked for evidence apart from them.

dog-on

I suppose he does and as much as it pains me to use this particular reference, that is number two.

So I now have Tacitus and Josephus.

Any others?