Clivedurdle

I think it is more than a legend - the purpose of the Library was to contain all knowledge. They had invented cataloguing.

Many of the Jewish traditions may in fact have been written and invented there as well, riffs on other ideas....

It was not only a passive sucking in of knowledge machine. It was a new form of imperialism - control of the mind.

gentleexit

I agree with you that Alexandrian Jews (biggest diaspora) needed their culture translated into their everyday tongue and that Christianity depended on the Septuagint. But ... Christianity as a retelling of Judaism by Jew-obsessed others? It's too much of a leap from a Hindu-like culture.

You didn't see such spontaneous conversion in India under the british or the muslims and the new agers you mention are fringe today. Hindu to Judeo-Christianity would take state support.

It's much more likely that Christianity (orthodoxish) was a diaspora-suitable Jewish offshoot, at least in Egypt where the majority of Christians appeared to be. One thing we read is that Jews in Alexandria disappeared or were removed etc. but it's likely that they never left (where would they go? Were they all killed in huge numbers?). Isn't it more likely that they just changed their emphasis, became "the Christians". Origen et al at the high end were the successors of Philo, the masses of Greekish Jews found Greekish Judaism more to the their liking? If you look at the Church by 300, Alexandria and its environs supplies the numbers.

Either way, Alexandria had a major impact on Christianity. The question is how much?

Loomis

‘Paul’ didn’t understand Hebrew in the first place. Consider these phrases from Romans 10:13-9

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

For the same Lord is Lord of all.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

‘Paul’ is using Joel 2:32 as a proof text for the divinity of Jesus. His argument only makes sense if Joel 2:32 reads ‘lord’ – as does the LXX.

If ‘Paul’ had rabbinic training (or could read Hebrew) then he would certainly know that Joel was talking about a specific name – and not some prophetic/ messianic unnamed ‘lord’ character.

mountainman

The apocryphal new testament tractates exhibit the genre of popular Hellenistic romance; and may in fact have been published as a collection entitled "The Travels of the Apostles" if we are to concede the account of Photius. Perhaps Leucius Charinus "Homerised" the new testament canon?

jon-eli

You'll forgive my ignorance on the subject, I hope. Just a point of clarification: are you saying that the Hebrew text uses "YHWH" and the LXX uses "kurios"? If that's true, then Paul is certainly not working from the Hebrew...

Loomis

Yep. Bingo. You got it. There is no mention of YHWH in the LXX. Evidently as time went by the Greeks forgot about him and what his name was.

Fyi 'Paul' makes the same blunder in Romans 14:8-11 where he cites Isaiah 45:23.

If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this reason Christ died and returned to life, so that he may be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

… For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God.”

Paul’s claim is that Jesus will exercise a lordship over the "living and dead" and that by “returning to life” he became the Lord to which "every knee will bow" in Isaiah.

But those claims only make sense if Isaiah says “Lord.” They become absurd when you put YHWH back in.

Evidently ‘Paul’ thought that the ‘Lord’ in the OT was some sort of mysterious messianic character – separate from God.

jon-eli

Yahweh raised Yahweh from the dead. LOL. Silly Paul.

gentleexit

Lost in translation ... Septuagint, the key to Christianity, well beyond the "virgin" reference usually trotted out. And Septuagint came from Alexandria. Alexandria ("library" in a broad sense) launched "Christ". Poor forgotten Alexandria. Why doesn't Pat Robertson lead pilgrimages there?

gentleexit

In the fourth century (which you know a lot about Pete), some clever souls (I forget their names) rewrote the gospels as Homeric epics to elevate them, make them worthy of study. And when Julian banned Christians teaching the classics, it meant banning Christian teachers. There was a large gap perceived between the form, plot etc. of the gospels etc. and works worthy of reverence or quotation. Doesn't this say that those who obsessed over Homer et al saw nothing of him in the gospels and surely they are more perceptive than us?

Now romances are different but do you really see them in the gospels either? Thieves, shipwrecks, virgins who finally, worthily give themselves in the end?

Clivedurdle

Not my post originally!

Quote attributions have been corrected.

Amaleq13, BC&H moderator