Chris Weimer

Paul did distinguish himself from Jews in two ways. 1. his theological arguements of preaching to the gentiles (against the beliefs of Peter and James) along with adopting their customs (Piggies food!) and 2. When arrested, he claimed he wasa Roman citizen, in Acts. Give me time and I'll find the verse.

Rick Sumner

But he defended that with scriptural parallel, in purest Pharisaic fashion--citing David.

Were there no Jews who were Roman citizens? Flavius Josephus would disagree.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Chris Weimer

Well, citizenship wasn't necessarily granted to everyone in the empire. Saul's family had to have ties to Rome somehow, I believe, since it was this early in the empire. I could be wrong on that last one, but surely ALL Roman citizens had to pay proper respects to Jupiter, so it would negate the first commandment, thus furthering himself from Judaism.

Clivedurdle

The thread about Nazareth led me to do some googling, and this appeared.

If the term "Nazareth" can be mangled, what else can be?



An example of doubt if original in Greek or Latin

Eudaimonist

Does anyone happen to know if there is a book published containing the "Gospel According to Seneca" hypothesis? Or perhaps another similar website?

Lucretius

As someone who has studied Latin to degree level I was intrigued to see the statement that there was a "lost play" by Seneca as I had not previously heard of ANY missing plays of Seneca
Having checked my notes and done some further research, I think I can explain how this story has come about.
Seneca has 9 plays attributed to him and the 9th of these is entitled "Thyestes" ,there used to be a 10th play attributed to him entitled "Octavia" but this is now considered to be a later play by another unknown author merely in the style of Seneca,not necessarilly by the Lucilius as mentioned on nazarenus.com.
I believe the confusion has arisen because there is in fact a "missing " play entitled "Thyestes" not by Seneca but by an early writer called Varius which was originally performed in 29 A.D. in front of the Emperor Augustus,for which he was awarded a prize .
I think that someone may have confused Varius' lost " Thyestes " with the existing play of the same name by Seneca and therefore assumed there is a "lost Seneca play" .
I would like to add here that all the Latin tragedies we have are based on Greek mythological tales, with which their educated audience would be familiar, and do not show any for want of a better word originality in terms of characters .
In fact it is even debatable that Seneca's plays were actually meant to be performed in the sense of actors on a stage, rather they would be recited to a select audience, the website nazarenus.com only quotes a single 1941 source that the plays may have actually been performed on stage .
I must point out however that there is a tenuous connection between Seneca and Christianity as the website nazarenus.com states.
Seneca's older brother M.Annaeus Novatus Gallio ,he took the name Gallio when he was adopted by another prominent family , was Proconsul of Achaea when St Paul was tried there and in mentioned in Acts as the judge in that trial,which I believe has confused the issue a little further .
I have to say I find this contention that Seneca effectively wrote the "Jesus Myth" extremely unlikely.

newtype_alpha

I couldn't disagree more. I think that makes perfect sense, and in modern times we have had very good example of how fiction can be perceived as reality if it is convincing enough to the audience.

Case in point: in 1938, Orseon Wells broadcast a radio-show adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds." The broadcast was designed to resemble a news report--it was so convincing that untold thousands of people all over America were driven to panic, many of them fully convinced that the world really was being invaded by Martians. Some comitted suicides, some fled to the mountains and hid there for weeks before anyone found them. And this is in modern times when we can usually distinguish between fantasy and fiction.

Now imagine two scenarios:
Scenario 1: in 1938, shortly after Orson Wells' fateful show, a meteorite eight miles in diameter falls to Earth in Houston Texas--an extinction level event. Most of the population is wiped out, chaos ensues.... many of the survivors have not yet been informed that Orson's radio show was fictional. In the aftermath they therefore conclude that Martians have bombed the Earth back into the stoneage. 300 years later, their descendents have finally rebuilt society--and have written into the history books that three centuries prior, Earth was invaded by Martians and bombed heavily. Then 2000 years later, an Earth warship lands on Mars (as prophecied ) intent on kicking some Martian ass. But they don't find any Martians, furthermore they find no evidnece that there ever were little green men from outer space. Then what? Speculative apology: "Orson Wells didn't really mean "Martians," actually he meant "Neptunians," But another group will declare, "Mars is the red planet, so when he said Martians he meant Russians." The speculation continues, and suddenly there are thousands of denominations, each with a different interpretation of what actually happened on October 30, 1938. :thumbs:

Scenario 2: The "Matrix" trillogy is a box-office hit, same with the Terminator trillogy. Fifty years after the movies come out, some hapless scientist creates an A.I. computer that, for whatever reason, goes on a rampage and destroys much of humanity. Society as we know it is shaken to its core, and mass communication is cut off. Humans now live under the tyranny of a race of machines; in the ruins of a video store, they find a copy of the Terminator movies. Not knowing anything about hollywood or filmmaking, they conclude that these movies are historical records of how their world came to be the way it is. "Terminator" is now written into the history books. Then they find "Matrix," and notice other paralells to the world they live in. "Matrix" is now a prophecy (book of revelations, perhaps?) 300 years later, the humans finally overthrown the evil robots and take back control of their society.... but based on the Matrix Prophecy, they now form a religion around the Messiah "Neo" and await the resurgence of the machines that will eventually enslave humanity, and in doing so herald the Second Coming of the One. And now for the kicker: in order to make the two of them add up, theology finds new and creative ways to "prove" that Neo is actually the second coming of John Conner. :thumbs:

Do either of these seem likely? If I went and looked I bet I could find other examples where works of fiction were recieved as factual events. This happens with urban legends often enough, after all.

[In case any of you are wondering at parallels, remember the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 AD and by the romans and the complete upheaval of Jewish society that followed--a catastrophe that shook their entire world to its timbers. Christianity, though, survived the aftermath, and those who continued to believe in the gospels, for whatever reason, kept it alive and growing until eventually they wound up in control of the Roman Empire.]

PhilosopherJay

Hi Clivedurdle,

I hope to be publishing a book in a few months in which I will also propose that a great deal of the source material for the gospels came from a play. I find significant evidence for this, but I do not find any significant evidence that Seneca was the author or that it was written in Latin.

What details in the crowd in John in the arrest scene do you find theatrical?

Incidentally, does anyone know if "before the cock crows" means before "Sunrise" in Aramaic or Greek?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Clivedurdle

My comments reflect the web site Nazarenus - it's easier to read that directly to see if the theatrical ideas add up or not. I'm not aware of any discussion by playwrites of these ideas. The various links and points in this thread are a good summary.

easychair

Now I know where Mel Gibson got his idea. The first Jesus movie to deal strictly with the Passion....It worked in Seneca's time and clearly works today. Hmmm.