Solo

Titus was Vespasian's son.

Jiri

Chris Weimer

Yep. That doesn't change anything I said.

Clivedurdle

See...standing...sounds like a statue!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba's_revolt

I think we must be very careful with the dating of these documents. The above link notes Hadrian wanted to wipe out Judaism. Might part of his strategy have been to encourage an alternative to Judaism? Was xianity bolstered with some gospels and a new testament by Hadrian's bureaucracy, using a pre existing superstitio?

the_cave

I don't think we need to agree with most of Humphrey's claims to agree with him that the Fall of Jerusalem, and the search for its reasons, had an important influence on the development of Christianity. We know that this sort of talk was in the air--Josephus, for example, stated that the reason for the siege was that God had abandoned the temple (according to him, he said so in the speech he gave to the defenders of the city, which he describes in The War of the Jews). We also have the example of the various omens which Josephus and the Talmud report--some of which likewise suggest that God had abandoned the temple.

Clivedurdle

But I think we are focussing on the wrong event! Look carefully at Hadrian!

judge

We do?

What reason or reasons are these?

rlogan

It is attractive to fall into the Christian trap of glomming on to a phony Jewish heritage for the rise of Christianity.

"Dispirited" Jews, seeking a "new covenant" amongst the rubble of their discredited Yaweh utilize midrash to conceive of Jesus, the "anti-Jew" as fulfilling the law by disavowing it.

I am still looking for the candidate Jewish sect that makes up the fabled "Jerusalem group" in the writings of Josephus. Some have speculated essenes - but the most critical feature (Jesus) is completely absent in Josephus' writings about the Essenes. And you would think that by 90 CE Josephus would have a clue about this. (The TF is an obvious forgery, and there is a huge section on the Essenes).

The ghost writer for the legendary "Paul" does retroject an early Christianity for the purpose of giving a historical pedigree to the movement - and this seems of grave import to those who defended Christianity.

In my nearly infinite wisdom (!) I would say there is another way to look at the destruction of Israel, and there is a modern equivalent.

Look how successful the Nation of Islam was at exploiting total ignorance of Islam in establishing a completely new and stupid religion. Only when Malcom X went to his pilgrimage did he realize what a fraud the "prohpet" murderer and sexual predator Elijah Mohammed was. So he was killed.

The destruction of the Jewish state certainly makes it easier to claim a fraudulent heritage. I suppose it is like looking amongst the graveyard for a dead person to steal an identity from.

There can be no powerful, organized, or official response to the fraudulent claim. The adherents are not recruited from Jewish stock to begin with, just like Elijah Mohammed, the used clothing salesman, recruited from poor U.S. blacks and not middle east citizens.

So you pretend to be delivering a pre-existing religion to a completely different group. How wonderful that they can now be included. Best of all, they don't have to mutilate their dicks or follow any of the other laws.


In short, at the institute here we prefer to think of the Destruction of Israel in the 70-135 CE period as enabling a convenient phony historical pedigree to the new Christian religion.

Draconis

As I understand it, the survivors of the sack of Jerusalem tended to disperse, I believe to places like Asia minor and Egypt, so that when the first "missionaries" came from what remained, they found a few willing ears (instead of none whatsoever, which may well have been the case otherwise) and started seed churches. So, Christianity went from being confined to Judea to several eastern Roman provinces.

Chris Weimer

I guess the earliest Christians must have thought so too.

I think that's a bit of a stretch...

1) Who says they were Essenes?

2) Who says they had to be mentioned by Josephus?

3) (serious question) What's wrong with the James reference in Josephus?

What ghost writer? What evidence do you have for any of this?

jgibson000

Sigh. Another one who does his exegesis of the Greek text of Mark and goes on to make claims about what the text actually says not on the basis of the Greek text and its peculiar gramattical, syntiactical, and lexical features, but by appealing to what appears in an English translation of it.

I wonder, Clive, if you'd be kind enough to parse the Greek word that is translated as "standing" and then tell me whether the sound you then hear is the same one you now hear while "listening to", and using as your authority for what the Greek says, an English translation of the Greek text of this Markan passage.


JG