Back Again

Agreed.

Yes, the figure in the gospels would be an anti-messiah. "the anti-Christ" might be anachronistic depending on how you look at it.

Yep.

This is the part I'm trying to clear up. Jesus of the gospels is a literary creation. He may be based all or in part on a historical figure. He may be based all or in part on an ahistorical legend. He may be an amalgam of several real magicians and failed (actual) messianic figures. He might be a completely fictional character created by an earlier gospel writer and enhanced by Mark. Why would the gospels that we have depict an anti-messiah Jesus? The jews in the story treat Jesus exactly as we would expect them to. Who can blame them? Was his portrayal as an anti-messiah deliberate or done in ignorance (or a requirement to be true to an existing character)?

mountainman

The fabricated Jesus was of course fabricated to be "Anti-Jewish" but far more to the point (which is often entirely missed) he was so fashioned in the Greek language for the edification of the Greeks. The Roman empire did not simply consist of the state of Judea. It was a little more than that. The Roman empire housed the entire Greek civilisation. Alexandria was the center of the Greek civilisation within the empire and was reverred as such until the arrival of Constantine's "Christian Revolution".

No self-respecting "Christian" is capable of understanding the fabricated Jesus as the Jewish Anti-Christ or the fabricated Jesus as the Greek Anti-Logos. The term "Anti-Christ" arose with the new testament, but it was never in all the citations in the literature tradition applied as a term directed by a group of Christians against one of their detractors until the appearance of Arius of Alexandria, who is specifically called the "Anti-Christ" by quite a number of commentors.

Arius of course regretably said the wrong thing at the wrong time. The orthodox covered their eyes and ears and mouth at the utter blasphemies of this historical person, and were compelled to play the Anti-Christ card, which is the trump card that Christians are allowed to play when they are faced with an unbeliever. The new testament rule book specifically discloses the availability of this playing card, but as far as my research determines it was never used on a many-to-one basis until the 4th century, when the new testament (fabricated or otherwise legit) was widely published to the Greeks by our gloriously fascist Roman emperor Con.

Bullmoose Too

My Bible cock is limp; isn't the antichrist, in the Bible itself, a term used to mean all people whom are not Christian?

aa5874

The authors of the Gospels are offering an alternate Messiah to the Jews but in order to do so the authors must first establish that their Messiah is the Son of the God of the Jews, from the God of the Jews or from the seed of David.

It must be noted that the expectation of the physical Jewish Messiah by the Jews had caused many hundreds of thousands of Jews to be killed and wounded with the Fall of the Temple in the war with the Romans so it would appear that the early gospel writers invented a SPIRITUAL NON-VIOLENT CHRIST and HEAVENLY kingdom for the Jews which was in complete contrast to the expected Jewish Messiah.

This is an anecdote from Eusebius in Church History 3.19-20 So based on Eusebius, descendants of David were regarded as extremely dangerous to the Romans. The physical earthly Jewish Messiah was expected to be from the seed of David. And Domitian wanted the descendants dead.

But in the Eusebian story, Jude or his relatives escape death by telling Domitian that their Messiah is not physical but Spiritual and that his kingdom is not of this world.

Church History 3.20 This anecdote by Eusebius appears to give an indication of the reason for the invention of the concept of Jesus the Son of God called Christ.

And the Roman Empire did embrace this concept of Jesus called Christ. The Romans did accept the ANTI-JEWISH MESSIAH, THE ANTI-CHRIST.

The Jews did not.

And more thousands of Jews would die and the Temple completely razed with the advent of a Jewish Messiah called Simon Bar Cocheba.

If Simon Bar Cocheba and the Jews had only believed in Jesus Christ they would have been SAVED.

credoconsolans

The History Channel still does this. I watched some program it was 'Walking in Jesus' Footsteps' or something like that and the show was very good. 15 minutes of one biblical tale, 15 minutes of modern believers, the locales and how they celebrate where Jesus 'lived' and then 15 minutes of archaeologists at the very end to wryly shake their heads and completely tear down the story and 'evidence'.

Another OT History Channel special pitted the pseudo minimalists represented by Finkelstein of The Bible Unearthed (or via: amazon.co.uk) fame against a Jewish biblical archaeologist. The dueling banjos of their opinions made for very entertaining and educational TV.

Back Again

Thanks, aa and mountainman

Back Again

Question for aa and others:

The synoptic gospels end with a VERY big apocalyptic prophesy still unfulfilled. Due to the uncertainty of when they were written, there are many possibilities. Even if they were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, they were certainly accepted as canon afterwards (and after the Simon bar Kokhba revolt). There seem to be varying opinions on whether the apocalyptic predictions apply to first and second century events or they apply to events that never happened...or both. I haven't gotten to my question yet, but any answer would certainly depend on opinions of the date of authorship of the synoptics and which apocalypse (via prophecy or fake back-dated prophecy) the authors were talking about and which apocalypse the church fathers thought they were talking about...so a comment on your assumptions would help.

My question relating to this thread is whether the synoptic authors viewed Jesus as being more a traditional Jewish messiah (not an anti-messiah), but one who simply wouldn't "militarily" kick ass until after a second coming. Depending on your view of when they were written, this slightly more traditional messiah could be someone just appearing on the scene or someone predicted to appear on the scene soon. Perhaps a real military leader could claim that he was the resurrected Christ. There are many more possibilities. Speculation is welcome.

show_no_mercy

My view is that Mark/Matt were written to Christians in the 2nd century, with 2nd century Christians expecting Jesus to come back and show Simon Kokhba how its done -- hence the "let the reader understand" in Mark 13:14, Matthew 24:15. This line is absent in later gospels.

Luke and John downplay the imminent doom and instead focus on the spiritual kingdom (Luke 17:21, John 18:26, also Thomas 3). While Mark/Matt might have had a spiritual kingdom in mind, they thought - like Paul - that the spiritual kingdom (or Jerusalem) was going to descend and remove the earthly powers by divine fiat. When this didn't happen, Luke, Thomas, and John downplayed its imminency.

bacht

Interesting. Would you guess that Mark and/or Matthew were written as an immediate response to the failed bar-Kokhba uprising?

Back Again

Didn't Caligula put an image of himself in the Temple all the way back in 40? If we are dealing with a back-dated prophecy, this gets VERY close to the time frame that the story is set in. It makes sense internally but doesn't fit well with your scenario.