Sheshbazzar

I have posited in several posts this forum that The First Wave of "CHRIST-ians" was that mixed group of Greek speaking Jews and Gentiles who had since the 3rd century BC, been using The LXX, and who were, based upon employing the Greek rendering, expecting and awaiting the coming of "The Christ"
("Ho' Christos" Greek for "The Anointed One" = The Messiah)
These would all have been constantly discussing, talking about, midrashing, and praying for The "Christ (os)" that was to come.
While not officially yet called "Christians" they were none the less the first wave of "Christ-ers".
The terminal "-ers" or "-ians" is simply the common way of indicating a group status, as for example, The Phonecians, The Egyptians, The Italians, the Grecians, The Colossians, etc.

The Second Wave would have been the first of these "CHRIST-ers" who began to preach and to teach that "The CHRIST" ("ho'CHRISTOS" (ha' Mo'shee'ka=The Messiah) had came, been born, and lived. These would have comprised the early, and yet very Jewish Jerusalem church. The only real distinction betwen these and their fellow Jews would be their holding a belief that The Messiah had finally already came.

The Third Wave of "CHRIST-ianity" was the antinomian, anti-Jewish doctrines that developed under Paulinian influence, and that so alienated "CHRIST-ianity" from its earlier Jewish roots, practices, and doctrines.

The Fourth wave would have been the 2nd century Church's theological innovations and "improvements", the redaction of the Pauline Epistles, and the collation and composition of The actual NT written Gospels.

The Fifth wave would be Constantine, and the Latter Church, imposing Orthodoxy, of canon, of text, and of interpretation.

Hope this makes the wave analogy clearer.

figuer

They weren't contemporary: One was already dead. And why do you assume the teachings and deeds were not of interest? Based on the content of some letters? Why do you assume that would be his only writings?

How so?


You make too many assumptions based on the contents of some surviving letters. I'll give you an illustrative example as to why Pauls' omissions are irrelevant. I am writing a book about Frank Lloyd Wright (the architect), but I don't mention any details about him, although I am quite familiar with his life etc.. I concentrate on his methodology of design, which is my main interest. Likewise, Paul could have concentrated on the mechanism of salvation and other theological issues, and not be interested in mentioning details which did not relate to those subjects, even if he knew about the life and teachings of the half-mad wandering teacher Jesus or whatever was his name. Paul was not writing a gospel, he seems rather to be inventing a religious conception, based (in the historicist model), on his ideas pertaining the crucifixion and claimed resurrection.

aa5874

What credible sources of antiquity mentioned the first wave?

What credible sources of antiquity mentioned the second wave?

The writer called Paul is not all credible. He claimed Jesus was on earth but that he rose from the dead and was seen by him.

The writer called Paul may have produced a wave of fiction.

The Gospels do not reflect a fourth wave at all. There is no reference to any one named Paul anywhere in any of the Gospels.

And the church writers and Acts of the Apostles placed "Paul" after the Gospels was already known, that is, that Jesus was on earth, as the offspring of the Holy Ghost, resurrected and ascended to heaven with the power to forgive sins.

Up to the writings of Justin Martyr, Trypho the Jew did not make mention of any wave with respect to any person called Paul or Jesus.

This may have been the first wave of "tsunami" proportions.

show_no_mercy

The resurrection of the dead. If Paul had known anything about his Christ's actions on earth, he wouldn't have gone on his huge tirade in 1 Cor 15 about spiritual vs earthly bodies. Jesus apparently raised Lazarus from the dead; also "saints" apparently were raised from the dead upon Jesus' crucifixion. If these events actually happened, Paul would have refered to them. The Corinthian church would have refered to them. There would have been no questions about what resurrected bodies looked like. They could have just went to Lazarus or checked out one of the zombie saints wandering around Jerusalem.

Granted, this is merely a contradiction with Paul's first letter to Corinth and the gospel accounts of Matthew and John. But here we have one of Jesus' earthly miracles which is of great value to Paul, yet Paul makes no mention of it where it would have helped his argument greatly.

gurugeorge

:notworthy:

No Robots

But most Christians today believe in the the supernatural and in the Trinity. By your definition, these cannot be historicists. In fact, if absolute rationality is your criterion, then, in your view, there are no true historicists. Correct?

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure that the resurrection of Lazarus (or Jairus' daughter or the widow's son) would have helped Paul's case. These are stories about people brought back to normal everyday life, who will eventually grow old and die. This is not the sort of resurrection of which Paul is speaking

I agree that it is unlikely that the account of resurrection in Matthew 27 was part of the Jesus tradition known to Paul.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

Realize that historicist is not a well defined term. It is a reaction to "mythicist."

Most Christians today have accepted scientific explanations of how the world works. They do not resort to exorcism for diseases, or assume that earthquakes are God's punishment for homosexual acts, or that lightning strikes evildoers. They go to doctors, they put up lightening rods, they earthquake proof their homes. Christian women resort to modern medicine instead of suffering pain in childbirth. Modern medicine and science have proven their efficacy.

Some of these Christians also try to save just a little bit of the supernatural aspects of Christianity. They think that Jesus rose from the dead - that God decided to intervene in natural laws just that one time in history. (Some of them don't even go that far.) They recite the Nicene Creed but they're really not sure about the Virgin Birth - it is more religious dogma, or it might have been one of those one-time miracles that can't be reproduced. But their Jesus is the Jesus reconstructed by Deists and Protestant rationalists, at least up until the Resurrection. He was human, he lived and suffered in this dimension.

Most Catholics, like Charlotte Allen, are not really historicists. If you read Catholic teaching and dogma, Jesus is primarily a spiritual entity. He is crucified in our hearts etc. etc. They are sure that he did exist in history, but not that his existence can be recovered through historical method, or that it is important to do so. They are probably close to the early Christians in this regard.

But for modern Protestants and the more secular scholars who dominate the Historical Jesus studies in US universities, Jesus is seen as a historical person. The Protestants may or may not add a miraculous layer over the historical, but still seem to believe that they can recover a historical entity. I would call these people historicists. They probably think they are just scholars.

And then there are the Christian evangelical apologists in the Bill Bright tradition. They start out claiming that Jesus existed because all experts say that he did, and then "prove" that he was resurrected, or at least hold on to the possibility that it might be true, and then tell you that you must accept Jesus or burn in hell. There's probably a different word for these people, but I don't want to drag the discussion down to that level.

No Robots

Isn't it rather the reverse? Isn't it the case that doubt about Christ's historical existence came after the beginning of rational inquiry into Christ as a figure in history?

Sheshbazzar

The "First Wave" would have drawn no particular mention simply because they were the common -Greek speaking- Jews and gentile "strangers" ("GER'eem") who just like virtually all Jews, were hoping for, and awaiting the prophesied Jewish "Messiah", "The Anointed One"(The "Christos") written about in The Scriptures.

Credible or not credible, it is The New Testement itelf, and commentaries upon it, that provides us with our information on the first century "christ" believers.
The internal evidence of The NT indicates that the Jerusalem Apostles such as James, and Peter and their followers, continued in the observance of The Law, and of most common Jewish religious practices and traditions.
We know this because of the conflicts that the texts tell us arose out of the differing positions between "Paul" and these others.
AA, I do not believe "Paul" is credible, but "Paul's" credibility is not the subject here, rather the consideration that it was the teachings and writings of "Paul" in the Church, that prevailed over the earlier views and brought in antinomianism, and a contempt for "Jewish" practices and views on the works of the christ.


Didn't say there was. For The Gospels to be what they are claimed to be, there would not, and there could not be any mentions of "Paul". because according to Church history, "Paul" came latter, after the time of The Gospels.

This was the work of the 2nd century Church in rearranging "history".

Evidence indicates that "Paul's" christological writings actually came FIRST before The Gospels, and were composed without the benefit of the Gospels to draw upon, this is why there is almost nothing of a historical, earthly "Christ" or "Jesus" to be found in the Pauline Epistles.


The point I was making, It was "the church writers and (the writers of) Acts of the Apostles" that rearranged history by placing "Paul" after The Gospels, when in reality, all that "Paul" actually wrote was before The Gospel stories were written. The Church writers interpolated and redacted "Paul's" writings to make "him" appear to have been a follower of The Gospels, rather than the progenitor of them that he actually was.

Exactly, as the Church had not as yet fully collated and written The Gospels, and reworked Pauline letters.

I used the word wave as an analogy to express the successive processes in the development of the "Christ-ian" religion.
My principal points being;
1.It had its beginnings in the Hellenic Judaism circa 300 BC or earlier.

2.It underwent its major transition in the 1st century, when it established a claim that "The CHRIST" -"The Messiah" Had came.
(not at all an unusual thing, there had already been many Jewish "messiahs")

3.The earliest Jerusalem believers in this "christ" or "messiah" were, and remained, devoutly Jewish, in both their beliefs and practices.

4. Antinomianism (freedom from "Jewish" Law) soon followed among the Gentile faction (not surprisingly, because as "GER'toshav" "Strangers of the gate" believers, they never had been compelled to keep all of the Jewish laws as a prequsit to obtaining of "forgiveness of sins" or "salvation".)

5. The Church reworked the Pauline Epistles, and invented and wrote The Christian Gospels in the 2nd century AD, long after the alleged events.

One way of looking at it, however I do not intend to move one iota concerning point 1 above. And from that a logical sequence.
Eusebius wrote, but most certainly did not invent -everything- that came before.
Constantine did not create "CHRIST-ianity" out of nothing, and what I have been writing about here is what "CHRIST-ianity", was by -The Church- fashioned from.