capnkirk

I mean that their authenticity isn't germane to my point, only their chronology...because it means that Paul couldn't have used any of the gospels for anything he wrote, because they didn't yet exist, but that just the opposite is true for the gospel writers/editors (redactors); they would have had access to ALL his epistles (and believed them, authenticity notwithstanding).

That is why stratigraphy is so important when trying to segregate what 'could' have happened from what 'couldn't'. The stratigraphy for GJohn places it after 100 CE; Using GJohn to demonstrate that the Didache quote reflected an interpretation held prior to Paul's elucidation in I Chron (c. 55 CE) just isn't possible. Au contraire, the stratigraphy indicates that the Didache quote reflects a post-Paul, post Synoptic gospels interpretation.

Nom

I see my reading list isn't getting any shorter...
That's true, he doesn't. On the other hand, when he does point out editing on the part of the eventual winners, he does so without making excuses or appeals like "well, since they won God must have wanted this change made."
Actually, he does point that out...but again, it's buried in the footnotes (see note 2 to chapter 11).
I agree, but as you pointed out much earlier in this thread, anyone who glances over Ehrman's bio should expect that going in. Speaking for myself, the mindset I adopted (and which I believe is reflected in the text) is that it doesn't matter whether there really was a JC or what he said, because: 1. the records Ehrman looks at show that, if he didn't exist they were going to create him; 2. if he didn't say it, and they needed him to, they'd make it up; and 3. if he did say it, and it didn't fit their needs, they'd delete it.

godfry n. glad

_Mein Kampf_.

_Dianetics_.

_Book of Mormon_.

_Little Red Book_.

Literacy of the target audience also needs to be taken into consideration.


godfry

godfry n. glad

Nicely put.

This is why we cannot trust any of the scriptures as reliable historical chronicles.

This is exactly what I took away from Ehrman.

And, keep in mind, his historical Jesus is a failed apocalyptic prophet, hardly the usual fare for the HJs.


godfry

capnkirk

My primary reason for that initial post was to alert other IIDB members who had not yet read LOST CHRISTIANITIES to do just that. Hence the latin phrase at the close: caveat lector -- reader beware.

The balance of the post was to demonstrate to CX (threadstarter) and others who HAD read the book just why I felt this caveat was necessary and appropriate. The most glaring example of the kind of subtle bias that I found was his treatment of the Ebionites (i.e. his acceptance at face value their absurd characterization by their enemy, the heresy hunter.). IMHO, they simply could not have held their emphatically stated belief that they were observant Jews and that Jesus was a Jewish messiah while at the same time embracing the (heretical to Judaism) 'christ according to Paul', as claimed by the Xtian heresiologist seeking to paint them as Xtian heretics (I had already independently dismissed their characterization as "reJudaizers" as a straw dog for their Paulinist Xtian opponents to knock down partly because Luke in Acts attempts to paint TJC the same way as a means of demonstrating continuity between Judaism and Xtianity.) and that is what started the whole subtopic that ensued.

Nom

Well, Erhman does stress, at the start of his discussion of the Ebionites, that we don't have any Ebionite writings, all we have are the works of their detractors, and those opinions ought to be taken with a "pound of salt," so I don't think your characterization of Ehrman accepting the enemy's word "at face value" is quite fair. As to your italicized objection, Erhman says precisely the opposite, that they didn't accept Christ according to Paul, but rather regarded him as public enemy No. 1.

I understood your original objection to be that the Jews wouldn't have accepted the idea of Jesus as a sacrifice, and that to describe a group that rejects such an integral piece of Christianity as "Christian" is wrong. And I think you have a point. Would it be more accurate to describe them as messianic Jews who didn't believe that Jesus was God or sacrifice, but a soon-to-return resurrected (Jewish) Messiah who would lead them to victory over the Romans?

A thought: obviously, I don't have copies of the heresy-hunters' writings on hand, but perhaps in those wrintings they claim the Ebionites didn't accept the Jesus-as-sacrifice-for-the-world's-sins bit? And perhaps Erhman decided that was a claim that needed to be taken with "a pound of salt"? If so, you make a good case that he shouldn't have.

capnkirk

Let's go back and take a look at Ehrman's perspective of the Ebionites, beginning at the bold subtitle: Christians who would be Jews: The Early Christian Ebionites.

He spends the first two paragraphs illustrating some of the more laughable errors that Tertullian, Origen, et al, made with the group's name. In the following paragraph he notes that since no Ebionite writings survive, we have to rely on the writings of their detractors, "sometimes taking their claims with a pound of salt".

Then he begins the third paragraph afresh with "Proto-orthodox authors clearly agree that the Ebionites were and understood themselves to be Jewish followere of Jesus (ed: in a book that uses Jesus and Christ interchangeably, this offers no hint that perhaps the Ebionites didn't consider the terms interchangeable.), thus rehabilitating the viewpoint to follow. He DOES tell us that of all the "Jewish Christian groups, THEY generated some of the greatest opposition. He then tells that they believed "that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people infulfillment of Jewish Scriptures" followed up with a list of Jewish practices that they also believed were necessary to be kept (in other words, Jesus in the orthodox Jewish sense of messiah), then noting that these were very much like the position taken by Paul's opponents in Galatia, even speculating that the Ebionites might have been their descendants. The nature of the opposition of Paul in Galatia, which was about whether gentiles had to submit to the Torah to accept Christ. By making such comparison, Ehrman reinforces the proto-orthodox Xtians' contention that the Ebionites were 'reJudaizers' rather than simply Jewish followers of Jesus the Nazarene. This presupposition is reasonable only if one disregards the implications of the Ebionites' staunchly orthodox Jewish understanding of a non-deific, political messiah). He then closes the paragraph by explaining how their insistence on staying (or becoming) Jewish shouldn't seem especially peculiar (ed: though it should have)...

Finally he outlines how the Ebionite "Christians" held beliefs about who Jesus was, how they did not subscribe to the notion of Jesus' virgin birth...but fails to mention in his description of GMatt as their prime scriptural source, that the Ebionites' version of GMatt didn't include the first two chapters (containing the nativity). Then he iterates at least twice that the Ebionites believed that "What set Jesus apart from all other people was that...and God chose him to be his son and assigned him a special mission...to sacrifice him for the sake of others...not as punishment for his own sins, but for the sins of the world, a perfect sacrifice..." Ehrman postulates without qualification that the Ebionites believed this. Then he points out that to the Ebionites, Paul was the archenemy, the heretic because he didn't consider "keeping the Law" as a requirement for a "right relationship with God" (a purely secondary issue compared to Paul's deification of Jesus.).

Ehrman has long since left the "pound of salt" reference behind (which I took to refer to the rather shallow 'cheap shots' he had just described, rather than to the description that followed) by 'rehabilitating' his ensuing description with the announcement that 'Proto-orthodox authors clearly agree...' thus separating the mass of proto-orthodox authors from the previously 'salted' (marginalized) detractors like Terullian and Origen. All the while he turns a blind eye to the huge incompatibilities contained in his rehabilitated description (i.e. that observant Jews could reconcile a sacrificial deific savior with the Jewish messiah.), much less to (or perhaps because of) the implications that facing such incompatibilities casts on the split between Judaism and Xtianity and to the nature of Jesus. That was clearly too dangerous a ground to even hint at the possibility of.

So, the outline version of his treatment appeared to me to be:

1). Pick some of the weakest arguments and epithets used against the Ebionites. Imply that these were representative of the Ebionites' opponents.

2). Marginalize them.

3). Rehabilitate the rest of the assumptions segregating the former from the body of proto-orthodox authors.

4). Present the opponents portrayal of the Ebionites as coming from the rehabilited authors, so as to offer readers their opponents' arguments as fact without seeming to do so, thus obscuring the implicit tendentiousness of the portrayal.

Quote:

I understood your original objection to be that the Jews wouldn't have accepted the idea of Jesus as a sacrifice, and that to describe a group that rejects such an integral piece of Christianity as "Christian" is wrong. And I think you have a point. Would it be more accurate to describe them as messianic Jews who didn't believe that Jesus was God or sacrifice, but a soon-to-return resurrected (Jewish) Messiah who would lead them to victory over the Romans?

THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT I AM CONTENDING. Further, I also contend that the members of TJC also fit this description.

Quote:

A thought: obviously, I don't have copies of the heresy-hunters' writings on hand, but perhaps in those wrintings they claim the Ebionites didn't accept the Jesus-as-sacrifice-for-the-world's-sins bit?

No, I can confirm that he quoted the heresiologist correctly. My quarrel with Ehrman is that he didn't look at the excerpt critically, that his own confidence in the ultimate validity of Xtianity blinded him to considering what WAS written objectively.

Toto

Captain - I think you are too set on the idea that anything "Jewish" must conform to more current ideas of what Judaism is. This is reading current rabbinic Judaism back into history.

The Ebionites might have well believed in that sacrificial deific savior and also in keeping the law - think of them as cafeteria Jews, picking and choosing what they considered important.

capnkirk

I'm not sure which one of us is reading back into history, so why don't you provide some support for your contention that 1st century Jews who thought of Jesus as a Jewish messiah AND who thought Paul's teachings heretical might just agree with his most central teaching of a resurrected deity who sacrificed himself for the sins of others. Until then, it's just too much of a stretch for me, because:

First, deification of Jesus violates the 1st commandment. Thou shalt have NO OTHER GODS before me. (It took the Xtian church 300 years to finally get that conflict straight...with the doctrine of the Trinity, so there is no reason to think that a group of messianic Jews resolved the conflict all by themselves, and within the boundaries of Judaism.)

Second, the Jewish messianic figure was a human who would establish an earthly kingdom.

Third, the idea that someone can absolve the sins of another has never had a place in Judaism.

IMHO, PAUL's epiphany represents the TRUE birth of Xtianity (and reveals the invented nature of its namesake), and its disconnect from Judaism. The two concepts are incompatible, and no amount of Xtian philosophic apologetic cross-pollination can fix it, though Xtians have been trying since Paul's day to do so.

godfry n. glad

One quibble here.

You force the reading of above....

Try it as:

Thou shalt have no other gods BEFORE me.

With this, you get a completely different reading, which allows the presence of all sorts of gods, demi-gods, angelic beings...etc., etc., etc..... which _were_ there, as Margaret Barker in The Great Angel has so aptly demostrated.

There was no problem with subordinate gods, or "sons of god". The ongoing struggle amongst Judaic believers was one temple or many; physical temple or spiritual. As long as Yahweh was foremost amongst the gods...hence the "Lord of Hosts"....with his chosen people, then his people were true to him. Other gods could and did flourish amongst the peoples of Judea and Israel.

I think the "cafeteria Jew" is an apt phrase.

godfry