Clivedurdle

Jesus Project

What if the beginnings are elsewhere?

I see a Greek - Judaeo - "oriental cult" with clear neo pythagorean and gnostic roots, probably "made in Egypt" (Alexandria) probably predating Augustus by a 150 years, so in line with the writing of Daniel and Maccabees.

I understand "Paul" as the real reassembler of these pre existing ideas and beliefs into a theogeometry that explains the structure of the universe with a Yahweh Saviour Annointer (Lord Jesus Christ) as a pre runner of Flash Gordon who is so powerful that death is conquered.

Later on, these very powerful ideas get merged through changes and mixing of theological fashion - much like wearing Victorian whalebone corsets with miniskirts - with other ideas - the pacifist love thy neighbour pragmatic Essene Pharisee streak, the not one jot or tittle rule following streak, the Greek geometric ideas of a cross as the centre of the circle - and are transmitted through plays like Mark which because of the switch to the theatrical genre from the written genre of Paul requires the development of a central character and the writing of an obvious story board.

Then for various historically accidental reasons this cult merges with mithraic ideas and gets believed by an emperor's mum who then causes her son to get an arian theological fashion that is later beaten by another lot with illogical arguments about relationships of sons and fathers.

And everyone continues to create their own Jesi, to such an extent that experiments now show our brains reacting to imaginary friends as though they were real!

And Radio 4 has a play on yesterday alleging it is all true when there is far less to this than to Robin Hood, Arthur and William Tell! And men dress up in funny clothes and burn fires to make black or white smoke and think they can tell billions about contraception. Surreal or what?

(BTW does Paul talk of turning the other cheek etc?)

Clivedurdle

Are the Pauline scriptures and the gospels actually related at all? Might they be completely separate traditions with a coincidence of a common name - Joshua?

References to the church may be later additions when there were real concerns about unity, for example in the 500's the Roman Pope got an excommunication note pinned to the Archbishop of Constantinople - the true head of the Church.

Paul does read as if he is propounding an abracadabra solution to life the universe and everything - you too can live for ever if you believe on a new god that was revealed to me - Yahweh Saviour Annointer!

Acts may be an invention to join two unrelated cults.

aa5874

Reconstructing christianity is difficult when the term christian appears to be ambiguous.

Justin Martyr claimed he was a Christian because he believed in Jesus Christ, but on the other hand, another writer, Theophilus of Antioch, who does not mention Jesus at all claimed he was a Christian because he was anointed with the oil of God.

Justin Martyr First Apology

Theophilus to Autolycus 12

And even when Against Heresies by Irenaeus is read, it will noticed that there are many versions of Christ or Jesus Christ. Marcion was a Christian whose Christ was a phantom.

It is evident that it is very difficult to re-assemble the history of Christianity.

But perhaps we can re-construct the history of the Roman Church as found in "Church History" by Eusebius.

To make it simple and to the point, Eusebius proposed that Jesus was god and man born of a virgin,in Judaea, who had thousands of followers, did many miracles, was eventually crucified, died, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

There is no historical evidence or information to support such a character, his followers, teachings or any event in the 1st century or upto 92 CE, based on the writings of Philo and Josephus.

The history of the Roman Church upto or around the end of the 1st century can be disdarded, that is, the chronology as found in the NT can be ignored.

Another writer which mentioned Jesus believers is Justin Martyr, unlike Eusebius, although his Jesus appears to be similar to Eusebius, acknowledges Jesus believers, not immediately after the ascension, but almost 100 years later at around the time of Simon Barcocheba, 133 CE.

Justin Martyr in First Apology 31 So, based on Justin the real history of the Roman Church began possibly sometime early 2nd century.

Now, there is a common theme in much of the second and early third century writers, that Jesus believers and Christians in general were being unfairly treated and persecuted. But it is not the persecution that presents a problem for history, it is that it seems Jesus believers had to function in secrecy. This secrecy would really prevent or limit the true picture of the history of Jesus believers.

Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Athenagors, Tertullian, Origen and other writers imply that Jesus believers were not operating publicly or that many believers did even disclose that they were Jesus believers.

Now, here lies the major problem with respect to the history of the Church. Many of the writers put forward by Eusebius are not credible and these include Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Papias, Polycarp, Aristides Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and others.

All those writers mentioned or wrote about events that could not have been true. In many of these writings the writers claimed or implied that Acts of the Apostles and all the writings of the writer Paul are authentic. However, upon examination, it is almost certain that Jesus did not exist as described in the Gospels, yet the author of Acts and the Pauline letters wrote as though Jesus did exist and had disciples.

The history of Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline letters are bogus.

So, all that may be credible is that Jesus believers were a very diversified scattered group with numerous beliefs and sects operating in secrecy until it was taken over by the Roman Church who re-wrote the doctrine and history of the Church.

Clivedurdle

I am reading the Ruin of Rome currently and this proposes a series of xianities probably as you state variations on an annointing theme that were basically indistinguishable from Judaism, that for various reasons caught the attention of emperors and in fact suffered very minor controls compared with the normal law enforcement and war mongering efforts of the empire.

But the xians are infamous for a huge amount of persecution themselves - orders of magnitude greater than anything they allegedly suffered for their treasonous behaviour of not sacrificing to the emperor god - (in fact many did being pragmatic and live and let live) - the complete destruction of the true gods and the completely interrelated social and educational systems.

The equivalent of a cultural revolution that also persecuted allegedly their own, dependent on whether one took a coptic, Calcedonian or nestorian perspective on what were only theological fashions.

Interestingly this didn't really happen until the 380's and on to the 500's, well past Constantine. Even in Julian's time, his issues were local to Greece and the near areas.

Clivedurdle

Maybe the concept of xianity is a later imposed idea, requiring a central figure, when the reality is a myriad annointing Judaisms evolving in the Greek world.

mountainman

Strange question. Normalluy we are instructed by tradition to use the new testament canon as a means to bootstrap the theory of the history of the new testament canon and its characters.

Why do we question the beginnings? Surely the beginnings alluded to in the NT canon could not be fabricated? When was the canon "officially published far and wide" and who stood to make the most out of the publication rights at that epoch?


Later?. Who is not using the canon?
Why do you not obey the authority of the canon?
Who on earth could that central imposing figure be?

The relative reality is replete with many many multiple myriads of annointing Hellenisms from which the relatively fewer Judaisms borrowed, at least from the time of Alexander the Great.

Gymnasia were often associated with Asclepian temples.

mountainman

The most expedient method of reconstructing the history of christianity
is to firstly reconstruct the history of the new testament apocrypha.

The apocrypha are confusing the entire issue of christianity.
Check the spawning of legends from both bodies of literature.

It is important to simply unravel the two strands: canon and non canon.
When this is done the history of christianity will have been simplified.

IMO we will find this non canonical literature to be post Nicaean,
and a gnostic Hellenistic reaction to the appearance of the canon
in downtown Alexandria as the "Holy Writ" of c.324 CE.

One simplification after another.
One step at a time.

aa5874

So, how would you take a person like Marcion and his doctrine of the phantom Jesus Christ who was the son of another God greater than the God of the Jews?

If it is established that Marcion did exist in the second century, then it can be said that Marcion had established "christianity" before Eusebius.

Marcion, in effect, is an independent source of "christianity".

Justin Martyr in "First Apology" 26
So, Marcion did not need the Eusebian Jesus Christ or God. Whatever Eusebius did in the 4th century with his own Jesus Christ has no bearing on Marcion's Jesus Christ in the second century.

Eusebius, for argument sake, may have been the first to write that Jesus was from Nazareth, born of a virgin, whose mother was Mary, and it was only after Eusebius that christians believed Isaiah 7.14 was a prediction of Jesus, but regardless, Marcion's 2nd century phantom would have been developped without the need for any Eusebian input.

Excerpts from "First Apology"
Marcion and his followers are called Christians, the version of Jesus Christ is of no consequence. They are all called Christians before Eusebius.

mountainman

Marcion is not a source for the NT apocryphal literature.

Eusebian references to the growing number of NT apocryphal texts in our possession is miniscule --- there are less than dozen, and none of them involve Marcion.

The origins of the canon is separate from the origins of the apocrypha. My idea is that we have failed to find a satisfactory history of the canon, and that we should instead examine the reconstruction of the history of the NT apocryphal.

Marcion is not independent of Eusebius.
Marcion tells us nothing about the apocrypha.
Eusebius, of all people since the year dot, tells us the most.
The heretical tractates are named by Eusebius in great numbers
compared to all the preceeding centuries of commentators.

Clivedurdle

I am finding it more and more helpful to think in terms of xianities and Judaisms. The singular concept is an enforced one by one of the groups.

We definitely have early on various gnostic ones - the existence of against heresies proves this!

The arguments about the nature of god and jesus give us a whole series of xianities - arian, coptic, eastern orthodox, nestorian, roman.

Geography gives us more - Celtic and Chinese - both seventh century.

And Judaism similarly had a myriad varieties.

In many ways these religions have been reinvented everytime someone else comments on them - Gregory for example is very much actually a proto rational atheist in the deist tradition.