Clivedurdle

Is the xian view of history pulling together at least three disconnected things that actually have no relationship at all to each other except a later politically constructed one?

A Greek Asia Minor Diaspora Jewish sect allegedly led by a "Paul".

A Jewish Messianic sect.

A much later Roman idea - Constantine - that was about the move from the old Rome to the new Rome - the creation of a new religion for the new empire?

Being a good ecologist and understanding the difference between superstitio and religio, stuff was recycled.

ApostateAbe

I am thinking that we need only to think of Christianity as a Jewish Messianic sect that evolved and variously split, the same way normal religions do. Its origin is singular. Is there really a need to think of it as the merging of three distinct systems? There are some examples of merging religious traditions. I saw it among the natives of Mexico--they would substitute catholic saints for their gods. Do you really think it is a better fit to Christianity?

yalla

Gidday Clive,
I read too much of this christian stuff.

I was at a family do recently, about 40-50 rellies standing and sitting around in pairs and small groups yakking about whatever and lubricating their conversations with various forms of alcohol.
So I joined my son and 2 of his cousins, they're mechanic types, and they were talking about something to do with centifugal force, not sure what exactly cos I came in at the middle of the conversation.
So I listened for a while and muttered a few comments and was actually thinking that maybe that was what happened in the case of the formative years [whenever] of christianity.
Some force, social impetus, was going on and ideas and people were flung away from the conventional centre and hey bingo there is a new religion based on the old forces but going in a different path.
Ive gotta get a life I thought so I moved on and joined a couple of my nephews and a niece-in -law.
Biologist types.
They were talking about isolated animal populations who because their environment was undergoing dramatic new change found themselves on the edge of their ecological niche and were propelled away [see the tie in with centrifugal force?] from the stability of the existing gene pool and developed a new subspecies of the old as a response to the new natural selection forces and eventually became a separate species.
Hey, I thought, they are talking about christianity when the Roman Jewish War dramatically changed the social conditions for orthodox Judaism.

So I wandered off and ended up talking football, real football not the other kinds, with 2 of my cousins.
Much better.


Am I on your wave length or not in the same room?

mountainman

Spot on Clivedurdle. The relationship does exists between the three elements of the "New Story of God" but only at the time of retrojection. Everything connects to the political context of Nicaea which has not yet been understood by ancient historical analysts. Nicaea is not to be considered to be a tea party for the "Dear Bishops" but a boundary event for the "Dear Rich Eastern Greeks". Constantine and his barbarian driven army constituted a large and irreversibly destructive incoming impactor.



The retrojection of a Pythagorean Jewish Essenic link enacted via interpolations into the literature of Josephus and Pliny, presumed to have existed until only recently questioned because of zero archaeology.

Retrojections into history became the hallmark of all subsequent christian literary genres, starting with the first non Eusebian retrojection by Athanasius regarding the "Life of Anthony", fraudulently presented as a history of this fictitious "Christian Hermit". In the later 4th and 5th centuries Christian hagiography exploded about the past lives of Saints with a capital S and Martyrs with a capital M. If the first part of the 4th century saw basilcas erected in the names of the apostles, the second part saw basilicas going up in the names of Saints and Martyrs.


Who were so Jewish that they dispensed with Hebrew and Aramaic and recorded their memoirs in Greek while re-deifying the Logos.

One hundred years earlier Ardashir had created a new centralised monotheistic state religion for HIS new Persian empire. To do this he instructed a chief cleric to gather together ancient writings, and then with his absolute power based upon his military supremacy, he had these ancient writings "canonized". The Persians had been marching very vigorously to their very own ONE TRUE SONG for a century.

Constantine simply did an Ardashir on the Greek civilisation, and instructed a chief cleric to gather together ancient writings, and then with his absolute power based upon his military supremacy, he attempted to have these ancient writings "canonized". Obviously he did not live to see the closure of the "canonization process" on his New Story of God. But what he had started was a new and lucrative business that had an imperial monopoly directly related to his systematic destruction and prohibition of the earlier Graeco-Roman religions. The systematic destruction of all things non christian was continued after his death until the empire was cleansed from its previous iniquities.



The City of Alexander was physically and literally recycled to the City of Constantine commencing c.324 CE. The ancient hub of the Greek civilisation was transplanted by Christian soldiers, and the ancient Greek literature available in the libraries of Rome c.312 to 324 CE was recycled into the new testament, and into a very legalised non Greek god of the Greeks within whom all the citizens of the Graeco-Roman empire now legally moved and breathed and had their being, whether they wanted to or not. The rule of Constantine was a very disconnected epoch. Just how disconnected his Neronian rule was has yet to be perceived.

spamandham

This is definitely a more historically plausible idea than the "swoon theory", so that aught to entitle you to an honorary BA in early Christian history.

spamandham

There is another active thread in this subforum discussing a mosaic that looks exactly like depictions of Constantine and includes his particular conquest Chi Rho symbol. This image is thought to represent Jesus.

I've argued in that thread that it is not Jesus in any sense, but merely Constantine, but for those who think it is related to early Christianity, Clive's idea should have merit.