dog-on

This is a whole other issue, not directly related to Palestine.

Were these various other cults called Christians before Jesus believers were called Christians?

andrewcriddle

This may be outside of the required time limits, but we do have references in the Tosefta and other Jewish rabbinic sources to disputes in Palestine between rabbis and followers of Jesus b. Pantera in the early 2nd century CE.

Andrew Criddle

dog-on

Were these followers referred to as Christians?

gurugeorge

Yeah, that seems to be Doherty's idea, and it's an idea I've come across in other places too, it's probably the most intriguing idea about Christian origins.

Consider "socialism". When we hear the word "socialism", the first form of it that usually pops into our minds is Marxism; but at the end of the 19th century, Marxism wasn't the most popular form of socialism, there were many forms. It's mainly through Marx's own political in-fighting and a series of historical accidents that Marxism came to almost define socialism (in the eyes of many).

Socialism was a movement of ideas that was "in the air" throughout the 19th century, with antecedents even older.

So the idea here might be that Christianity was more like Socialism than like Buddhism - more a broad, loose movement of ideas than a set of responses to one man (or even a singular imaginary deity); but eventually one form of it became the most famous and sort of "drowned out" the others.

The thing that needs addressing in this context is why the term "Christianity"?

Well, what if it originally meant nothing more than "Anointedism", or (taking the term as it may originally have been for many) "Goodism" (Chrestianity)?

In this context, I've mentioned this before, but I once found in a bookshop (before I became really interested in these matters) a late 19th century monograph that (to my continued chagrin) I later lost in a basement flood - it was most intriguing, because it purported to show evidence of "Christian" on Roman tombs BEFORE 0BCE - the author, IIRC, hypothesised that "Anointed" was a term used in the Mysteries, or something like that. I can't even remember the author - but I guess he must have been one of the old 19th century mythicists. Again, IIRC, he'd scoured archaeological records of the day to find this, and he was presenting it as something nobody had yet noticed.

But anyway, if that were true, it could clinch the deal: if "Christian" wasn't a term specifically associated with a Jewish religion only, but was more broadly a term associated with the Mysteries, the whole problem is solved.

dog-on

It would answer a lot of questions and leave us with a bunch more, I suppose.

What would the Aramaic word for Christian be?

andrewcriddle

No; only as followers of Jesus.

(The word Christian only occurs 3 times in the NT, its use as the standard term for followers of Jesus Christ may be relatively late ie post-Pauline.)

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Well, Justin Martyr has solved all your problems. Justin is probably the first writer in the 2nd century to expose the fact that during the time of Claudius, since between 41-54 CE, almost the whole of Samaria were called Christians by worshiping Simon Magus, a magician.

Justin also mentioned Christians who followed Menander, the doctrine of Valentinus, Basilides, Saturnilus and the Marcians.

There are also persons like Theopohilus of Antioch, Octavius in Minucius Felix, Tatian, and Athenagoras who were called Christians but did not worship any character called Jesus as a God.

From Justin's writings it would appear that Jesus believers were treated with scorn by other Christians and that those who believed in the Jesus God/man story may not have been prominent at all.

Justin Martyr's conversion story exposes the fact that Jesus believers were extremely difficult to find in the 2nd century. It was an old man whom Justin met by accident that told him about Jesus believers.

dog-on

Yes, Justin gives us a rather good clue regarding the usage of the term Christians.

aa5874

But he did mention Samaria which may have been considered a part of Palestine in the 1st century.

Justin Martyr's writing appears to match the theory that there were no Jesus believers in Palestine as early as the time of Claudius, or 41-54 CE, contrary to Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings.

It must be noted that the author of Acts attempted to claim that the apostles out-performed Simon Magus and that he did become a Jesus believer
for a short time.

Of course, Justin wrote nothing about the apostles and any miraculous or magical acts after the ascension of Jesus and that they did convert Simon Magus.

This is Justin Martyr in "First Apology" 26See http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

And it must be noted that there was NO persecution of Simon Magus and his Christian followers. Simon was honoured in Rome.

1. Justin Martyr cannot account the thousands of Jesus believers in Acts.

2. Justin cannot account for persecution by Rome towards Simon Magus.

Jusatin Martyr did not write about any Jesus believers in Palestine except for the disciples found in his "Memoirs of the Apostles". There was no person outside the Memoirs that he wrote about as a Jesus believer during the time of Simon Magus or the Emperor Cladius.

spin

Suckered. In the diaspora the word for messiah was "christ" as the LXX shows. ApostateAbe should know better by now than to give a tendentious translation which uses "church" for a term which at the time simply meant "assembly". What the verse actually says is "the assemblies of Judea that are in the messiah". Bye-bye go the anachronisms. :wave:


spin