Requia

The golden rule thing appears in both. "That which is hateful to thyself, do not do to thy neighbor" in the Jewish one. Though i can't figure out where besides Sunday school the orthodox get their version. (treat others as you want to be treated).

dog-on

To create a historical setting? Information readily available from Josephus, which was accessible to Roman readers?

This in itself does not necessarily argue against a Roman origin. It does seem a bit too convenient.

One would have to assume that these were actually Jews and not simply other groups having themselves read the LXX and decided to add to Paul's gospel, which, of course, Paul has an issue with.

dog-on

I believe that some form of the "golden rule" has appeared in pretty much all societies and is not really just a Jewish/Christian innovation.

Karen Armstrong, in her book 'The Great Transformation', points out that the Chinese got this, legendarily, from Confucius in the 5th or 6th century BC, I believe.

vid

Why would they pick just such barely mentioned minor character that most readers wouldn't even remember, and make him precursor to god? Seems improbable to me.

dog-on

They needed an Elijah, I suppose.

What, specifically about Mark's JtB could not have come from Josephus?

Solo

I have a strong hunch that Mark had a diaspora Jewish background. If nothing else, Jesus' exchange with the Syro-phoenician woman (7:26-29) convinces me. As for the anti-Jewishness of the gospels, I think it has its origin in the classical cultural differences between the diaspora reform-minded cosmopolitan Judaism (wich has been energetic, creative and adaptive to outside influences) and the inward-looking, passive, nominalist and ritualistic proto-orthodox strands, which until the time of the 1st Jewish war were still centered in Jerusalem. The destruction of the second temple (and later Jerusalem) would have been seen by the former as vindication of their beliefs.

It is not by accident that Karl Marx, a Jew, and a grandson of a rabbi, thought it necessary to attack the backwardness, and non-adaptibility of Jews (Zur Judenfrage, 1844) in the launching of the world's first comprehensive atheist philosophy.

Jiri

dog-on

The Greek woman that recognizes and understands Jesus much better than his bumbling disciples seems like part of a larger story within Mark as to why the Jews will lose their opportunity for salvation.

yalla

To be honest I haven't paid a great deal of attention to the Roman origin of Christianity hypothesis.
But one thought I would share relates to the numbers of Christians around at the time of Constantine. Which apparently is claimed to be in the vicinity of 10% of the population of the Empire. I have no idea how accurate that is and would suggest it is largely irrelevant how many Christians there were.
Because once Constantine had decided for geo-political imperial reasons to sponsor and use that religion for his purposes it was going to receive a huge boost in its social and political influence due directly to the benign sponsorship of the Roman authority.
And you don't need a particularly large pre-existing base of Christians to sponsor for the political aims of Constantine to be happy to use Christianity as compared to any other group. In some ways a small group has distinct advantages from an imperial perspective because it is more easily managed and 'guided' to suit the imperial agenda.
In fact you can do it with a handful.
Literally.

Think of South America.
Today, in theory at least and superficially, the entire entire continent is mainly Roman Catholic.
And the base for that was the number of missionaries that the Spanish brought with them during their conquest.
A mere handful. Even including the soldiers themselves, the conquistadores, the numbers are miniscule compared to the population of South America at that time.
The key factor to the spreading of Catholicism to the point where it virtually supplanted all other religions to the point of near total dominance was the imperial power of he colonisers.
The 'native' pre-existing base of Christians, zero in the case of South America, was irrelevant to its spread there.
You could probably extrapolate that to other examples where religion follows an invading imperial army.

So I don't think the success, in terms of numbers, of Christians prior to Constantine is a major factor in it's spread after his sponsorship.

gentleexit

Leaving aside Constantine's motivations and whether he had a grand plan or not, I agree that his adoption and promotion was the main reason for Christianity's rise (ala as you say Spain in the Americas). But ten percent is important, if you are an apologist. Christianity had to have heft before Constantine to belittle his role. For them, an earthly king CANNOT BE ALLOWED to matter and Christianity rose under its own steam. In other words, when you read ten percent, you are reading apology and promotion of a Constantine-free Church. (Per Requia, if not ten percent then what? Well, small, very small. As small as the lack of archeology suggests.)

And the other three? John's bible in the tradition of Philo? Matthew to Antioch (or am getting that wrong?).

Yes I think so too. Christianity is a light and Greek Judaism for the diaspora. The anti-Jewish stuff is the bile of civil-war. Those in the world, assimilating and those keeping the flame. The assimilators made the Greek Judaism called Christianity.

And how "Jewish", how "true" to remain was a question for a long time. Think of the fourth century debate on setting the date of easter. Follow the local Jews as they set passover? Be "a fourteener" or go your own way?

In its early centuries, Christianity refused to drop "the old testament" despite emphases that were clearly different from its own scriptures. They wanted the grounding of Judaism. They were Jews in a broad sense who claimed to be the real Israel, the true successors of the patriarchs. They kept but reworked traditional feasts - passover, pentecost - and remained inside the calendar of their broader community. For me, Constantine raised what was still a "Jewish" sect.

Solo

Matthew I am pretty sure of (over 90% of Mark is in Matthew)...Luke and John could very well be

The early Church needed the Judaic "grounding" of Jesus, if for no other reason than that Mark and after him the other three gospels used the "forward-referencing" of JC by LXX as proof of his messianic status. There were no other authoritative sources foretelling Jesus' coming. It looks like Marcion badly underestimated the importance of the link.
As for the rest, I think the Christianity became gentile in character and the process would have been complete by Constantine's time. You are right in the sense that Christians considered themselves a successor religion to Judaism and the idea of "true" or "real" Israel would become part of the mystique, as well as a weapon in rival proselytizing.

Jiri