show_no_mercy

The Eucharist ceremony was probably coopted by Christians from Mithraism. Maybe a former Mithraist became a leading Christian and brought that ceremony with him:

If Christians could steal virgin births, resurrections, ascentions into heaven, the Logos, and a myriad of other traditions from neighboring religions, I don't see why the Eucharist couldn't be one more thing on the list.

bacht

re alcohol: Luke implies that John the Baptist was a Nazirite from birth, and all the gospels portray Jesus and his followers as "normal" drinkers rather than abstainers.

The claim that Paul took a Nazirite vow is probably about as reliable as the claim that Paul was a Pharisee or that he was a full Roman citizen ie. Luke attempting to clean up Paul's image and make him a good Jewish boy and loyal subject of the empire

[but then we have the story about Simon Magus trying to buy apostolic power from Peter, maybe a veiled comment on Paul's status compared to the Judean "pillars"]

andrewcriddle

It is entirely plausible that Paul and the Jerusalem apostles differed about the meaning and significance of what Jesus (supposedly) said when blessing the bread and wine at the last supper.

The problem is that you seem to be arguing that Paul's position on the Eucharist was entirely unrelated to that of the Jerusalem apostles, which is IMO much less plausible.

Andrew Criddle

Russellonius

Yeah, I didn't buy much of his theorizing in that book either. The first half was about a possible romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Coming on the heels of Da Vinci Code the movie, I thought that was just a ploy intended to sell copies. I wondered if Tabor himself believed it. Sometimes I think book publishers just want to make money. :thinking: Tabor was a negotiator with the Branch Davidians at Waco. Quite a credential!

Not unrelated to, but in opposition to. Paul's position seems to be diametrically opposed to the position held by the Pillars.

Blood is unclean. Pork is unclean. I draw a parallel between the (symbolic) drinking of blood and the pig that was sacrificed on the altar at Jerusalem ~200 years before that helped to precipitate the Maccabean rebellion. Both aliments were offered to Jews who were willing to publicly violate the ancestral customs.

Strangled things, one of the four elements of the Jerusalem Decree, are not prohibited by the Noahide Covenant (unless its a reiteration of the prohibition of blood, not having been drained during slaughter). However, a crucified man dies of asphyxiation just as a strangled thing does. Its appearance in the decree suggests possible opposition to the other element of the Pauline Eucharist, the body/bread. Also the Pauline Eucharist contains the very two elements prohibited to one under a nazirite vow - wine and touching a corpse, especially that of a family member. (Assuming that Jesus was a real person, that James was his brother and that his successor Cleopas was a cousin, this would have hit close to home.)

The Christian salvific mechanism then would be: the resurrection is upon us (so say survivors of the dead covenant-preserving martyrs), thus the fruit of the tree of life becomes available to us, therefore the reason blood is prohibited - because the life is in the blood - is null and void.

This reasoning would allow Hellenized Jews to justify relaxation of legal requirements in a way that was fully supported by exegetical reasoning from tradition. A much better marketing approach than that used by Menelaus ~200 years before - cramming modernization down the throats of the conservative majority which backfired big time. It helped the marketing dept in the first century that the Temple was destroyed. James did not seem to connect any dots that drew a picture of the Temple becoming irrelevant.

I see no reason Jews would have borrowed something they could mine from their own tradition. Lots of scripture mining was done! Greek Mithraism started about the same time as Christianity, limiting the borrowing possibilities. But of course there is a similarity there. Also with the Johannine-only 'washing in the blood' imagery.

Thanks all for responding.