RUmike

Why not for my benefit? I do look forward to seeing your post though.

Didymus

There's a third hypothesis, which I think is pretty well supported by the evidence, that Christianity had its origins entirely in the Diaspora, not in Judea, and not just among Jews, but among both Jews and gentiles, perhaps including many "God Fearers," pagans who had adopted Judaism. So even if Christianity didn't start with gentiles per se, it seems to have started with Greek-speaking Jews who weren't even living in Palestine. If it wasn't actually a gentile religion, its formation took place amongst gentiles and with plenty of internal and external gentile influence. Of course, as I've recently mentioned, residents of Alexandria, Ephesus and Antioch were not in a good position to assess the truth of gospel claims. Jerusalem Jews were, and we all know how that went.

Paul, in the earliest Christian writings that we know of, does eventually go to Jerusalem to visit the Pillars, but specifically says that he met no other "apostles" there. And made no mention of having met any other Christians at that point, and only Peter and James on a later visit. He seems to have visited both synagogues and Christian churches (homes?) on his journeys in the Diaspora; why wouldn't he have met with Jerusalem Christians, many of whom would have been eyewitnesses to Jesus' earthly ministry? Perhaps because the Christian community in Jerusalem consisted only of a few diehards.

That first visit didn't even take place until three years after his conversion; the long delay would seem to suggest that he wasn't aware of anything of interest to be seen or learned there. For a smart man, Paul seems implausibly incurious about his savior's deeds and teachings, and even about the status of his fellow Christians! (Of course, that assumes the existence of both Jesus and a substantial Christian community in Jerusalem, both of which I think are the stuff of legend.)

There's no archeological evidence of Christianity in Jerusalem until the mid-third century, and that is thought by archeologists to be of Byzantine origin. On the other hand, many early (2nd century and later) gospel ms fragments have been found in Egypt. There have been no such finds in Palestine.

Not even conservative Christian scholars insist that the gospels were actually written in Palestine. The gospels' well-known geographical and political mistakes certainly suggest that the authors had little or no direct knowledge of the lay of the land.

All that suggests that Christianity was a religion of the diaspora whose weak claims to Judean/Jerusalem origins were more iconic than historical.

Didymus

oudis

60-70 CE

oudis

I have read many of Bart Ehrman's books and he considers the NT to be a legitimate source for the historical Jesus; I don't know what you are talking about.

oudis

Jerusalem was destroyed not once but twice within 100 years of Jesus' death. Refresh my memory, where exactly were Jesus' original followers based?

Toto

You seem to have missed some irony there.

The date of 70 CE which is the conventional consensus is close to the earliest date that Mark could have been written. But there is nothing forcing the conclusion that it was written that early, and there are no copies or references that can be dated before the mid-2nd century, and there are some arguments that a date of 130 is a better fit.

oudis

Uh-huh. Such as?

Toto

Detering on the Dating of Mark.

Sorry I don't have time for an extended discussion on the dating of Mark, but you will find a fair amount of discussion in this forum on that issue.

The traditional Christian scholarship tries to push the dating of the canonical gospels to as early a date as they can support, and then allege that there were oral traditions behind the gospels, to create a chain of evidence for Jesus' message and/or his existence. You can judge for yourself how logical you find these arguments, but even if you accept the conventional dating, the gospels are fairly late to contain any reliable evidence about Jesus.

oudis

Papias, who lived during the reign of Trajan (98-117 CE), references Mark. That, in and of itself, is fatal to the argument you cited.

I disagree.

Julian

Except the Mark that Papias describes doesn't look much like the Mark we have. Sounds more like the Gospel of Peter.

Julian