LoungeHead

It recently occurred to me that the New Testament was attempt by the Messianic Jewish movement to rewrite Jewish history under Roman occupation.

Prior to Roman occuaption, the Hasmonean Dynasty disintegrated in a civil war (67 B.C.E) over the issue of governance by king vs. theocratic clergy, in which the Pharisees political faction sought Roman support that lead to annexation (63 B.C.E) of the divided and politically weak state. And the Pharisees became the political victors of this outcome. It seems to me that opponents to the Pharisees wanted to see the return of a messiah (traditional meaning: anointed king), which later developed into a spiritual movement that intergrated Jewish prophecy and elevated the returning (or arriving) king to divinely appointed authority. Which of course is where authority to rule came from in the ancient world, so of course they need a story to justify the rise of a Jewish leader.

Thus in order to promote and encourage the Jewish Messianic movement they needed a history that supported the claims, which resulted directly or indirectly with the Gospels. And the mythical character Jesus as the God-King became written into history as an expression of those political-religious ideals. And subsequently took on a life of its own through Paul of Taurus in the form of Christianity.

I'm not well read in Biblical history or scholarship, so I accept some of what I say may be inaccurate. But it does seem a plausible argument for the origins of the New Testament, and explains the disparity from all other historical documents during the period. And why the Pharisees were villains in the Gospels.

Is Christianity really a religion derived from an ancient political stratagem?

avi

summarizing:
1. "Messianic movement" needed documents (why ???);
2. led to creation of Gospels;
3. "subsequently" ...--> Paul, i.e. Mark first, then Paul....

I may be completely wrong here, but it is my (mis)understanding that Paul came first, then Mark-->Matthew-->Luke...John.

It is further my understanding, perhaps (also) wrong, that the oldest extant copy of a letter attributed to Paul, is found in P46. Have you some evidence to the contrary, in support of the hypothesis that Mark came first, and then Paul? Does one of Paul's letters reference Mark or describe something found in Mark, or one of the other three gospels?

obviously, this remark applies to me as well...

avi

LoungeHead

It's not that they needed documents, but they needed a history that would legitimise the movements claims for a divinely appointed king. And you can't get anymore divine than a God-king. The political desire and history may have been largely oral initially, as such talk would have been seditious. But in 66 C.E. the First Jewish Rebellion would have inspired more open dissent and expression of the Messianic ideals, such as Mark's gospel which written around this time.

From 63 B.C.E - 4 C.E. Rome appointed the Jewish leadership of Iudaea. Sometimes a king; at other times a tetrach. And from 4 C.E. to 48 C.E. it was under direct Roman rule. The lack of strong Jewish leadership up till 4 C.E. and the complete absence of leadership till 48 C.E. would be strong motivation and desire for Jews wanting to select their own leader.

By 135 C.E, following the suppression of the Third Rebellion, Iudaea had dissolved as an independent region and had been incorporated into Syria Palaestina. The political movement may have had lost its perogative as a nationalist movement and gained more potency as a spiritual movement.
You are correct. And I am proposing a tenuous thesis, and developing it on the fly as I learn more about the period. It is likely my thesis has historical inaccuracies.

So I ask that you consider the sociological dynamics of the ancient world, in terms of how leadership was appointed and where legitimacy of leadership comes from. Does the history of the gospels and political context of the time fit that dynamic? OR is there some undenial evidence that shows the Jewish people would not have desired or needed their own appointed political leader.
Historical chronology isn't as important as the sociological dynamic I'm trying to draw out. As long at the chronology does not undermine the thesis in any major way. Who did what and when within the Messianic movement is kind of irrelevant if we accept that the movement existed and had that motivation.

Clivedurdle

There might be something to this - the gospels definitely propagandise the Pharisees, who actually were pragmatic, into the spirit of the law, and anti slavery.

Caesar's Messiah proposes the gospels are actually Roman propaganda.

I think Jesus is portrayed as an amalgam - fire and brimstone, peacenluv, cynic, etc - maybe it is an attempt at brokering a peace deal between different factions.

A missing one is a modern (for then) partly secular Greek Jew who would have known how to build an Ankylethera Mechanism.

Clivedurdle

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=205276

avi

Thanks for the link Clive. very interesting.

spamandham

On the surface, this seems implausible to me, since one thrust of the NT is that the Jews killed their own messiah without even recognizing him....and thus relinquished their inheritance to the Christians.

neilgodfrey

The major hurdle to this sort of hypothesis is its testability.

One also has to weigh the unlikelihood of dissident political (even if clothed in religiosity) groups being allowed to form anyway. Roman rules were strict regarding what sized meetings were allowed, and what kinds.

As for the Paul-Gospels relative chronology, we have no external attestation for Paul's letters till the second century. They appear at a time when there is a flourish of interest in Paul from a number of quarters, and a number of related bogus works about the apostle -- acts of paul and thecla, the pastoral letters, book of acts (following knox et al and the mid-second century dating of the acts).

As for coincidences between metaphors and religious trappings attached to Roman emperors and Jesus Christ, one may need to go no further than metaphorical or other literary-cultural connections. Was the authors simply applying images common to any Mediterranean-Mid Eastern saviour king idea, or was the evangelist attempting to emulate the earthly rulers?

As for the problem of a Jewish group imagining Jews killing their messiah and cutting themselves off from salvation, this is not really a problem in the broader context of the biblical literature. At least not if we follow the reading of it as promoted by ("minimalist") Thomas L. Thompson. He sees a common thread throughout the biblical books -- they are all written for a new set of Jewish/Israelite contemporaries exhorting them not to be like their forefathers who started out well but lost out in the end through hard-heartedness, faithlessness, lack of faith, etc. The biblical literature is consistently a collation of works about a "New Israel" (the contemporary audiences) who are exhorted to learn from their "Old Israel" ancestors. Israel is a religious concept above all else.

Enough of my miscellaneous thoughts.

Neil

LoungeHead

Jews killing their own messiah denotes the shift from a Jewish political stratagem to a pan-Mediterranean spiritual movement. Mark's gospel was written primarily for an audience of gentile Greek-speaking people, which by that time a shift could have occured in the wake of the First Rebellion.

Also, open dissent by Jews through rebellion would no longer require a political motivated messiah story to prepare and encourage war among the Jewish people. So around 60 C.E. a split between the spiritual motivation and political motivation for the Messiah movement could have occurred once open rebellion began. With war-gearing achieved the motivating reason for war becomes irrelevant, and spiritual followers of the political movement are free to take on an independent spiritual development culminating in Christianity.

LoungeHead

That's not a problem (its not a scientific experiment). But you are correct if you mean the thesis needs to be supported by historical documents and records.
I think groups would be small, covert and largely powerless (think Monty Pythonesque ) This would also allow for the spread of misinformation and wild rumour about the coming political leadership, because plausible and implausible plans for dissent would be spread word of mouth; resulting in exaggerated claims, beliefs and wishful ideas.
Disparity between Paul the person and Paul the author allows for greater license within the spiritual movement, even if its not the same person. Also, the social dynamics of movement would not be linear, so I don't see chronology as a problem, unless it clearly contradicts the notions of dissent, rebellion, and spiritual movement.
Possibly, but there must be a motivation for such applications. And the lack of consistency among contemporary writings and gospels shows people applied the Messianic idea as it suited them or their targeted audience.

The real test of the thesis is documents to support the political component, and demonstrate a shift in the ideas of the movement. A modern example of such shifts in ideas of dissidents, is the shift in modern Arab terrorism from anti-Jewish and anti-Western regional campaign in the 20th century, to global terror campaign of the 21st century.

What do Roman records say about the beliefs and political aims of Jewish dissidents throughout the period? Does it support the thesis' shift from political-spiritual movement to solely spiritual movement?