GakuseiDon

OK, fair enough.

From Galatians, where Paul talks about the Judaizers and the Jerusalem Group. That is my 1st century data. They were the Ebionites and Nazarenes of their time. They were concerned with following Mosaic law. But they were still part of the church at that time, and weren't known as Ebionites until the 2nd C. But there is evidence from Julius Africanus writing in the 2nd C, linking TJG to the Ebionites.

As you'd expect, Paul was originally part of that church, and was known himself was a Nazarene (Acts 24:5), except that he ends up rejecting the emphasis on the Mosaic law, and is later called an apostate by the Ebionites in the 2nc C CE.

From Irenaeus, we see the same concerns in the 2nd C. At this time they are referred to as the "Ebionites", and are regarded as heretical:
Then from Julius Africanus (160-240), who connected the Ebionites to the Jerusalem Group and members of Jesus's family fleeing Jerusalem after 70 CE, going to Pella, Cochaba, and other areas where it was known to be Ebionite communities in the 2nd C.

Not a slam-dunk case, but there is evidence tracing back to the 1st C Jerusalem Group and Judaizers. As I said, the circumstantial case is stronger than Doherty's. We can see the split in the church into its Jewish and Gentile components, and the development of both. But all we ever see are HJ streams.

What we can't see is ANY church that was accused of believing that Jesus lived and died on a celestial realm. Are you able to explain that, without going into conspiracy theories???

GakuseiDon

I've been thinking about that comment. I looked at Doherty's articles on the website, and Doherty has nothing to say about that.

Yet, how could Paul's theology have been absorbed by "orthodoxy" under Doherty's thesis? Doherty has Paul developing his theology using common pagan motifs, within pagan-friendly cultures outside Judea. Why would this non-MJ orthodoxy develop in the first place? Even if the gospels were a midrashic development, how could they have been considered as historical?

Both the Jerusalem Group and Paul preached the same gospel, so it's not like it came from TJG. If Doherty is right about how Hellenism viewed gods of the time (as existing in a "fleshy" sublunar plane) the Greeks and Romans wouldn't have forced this change. There would have been no cultural pressure to make a MJ into a HJ. So WHY would it have happened?

I'm not expecting you to answer, just musing at this stage.

Vorkosigan

<Groan> Must....not....post..... <aaaergh>

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GakuseiDon

Hey you, get back to work!!! You know you're only posting to give you an excuse not to work!

Granted, each group would have wanted to be linked back to one or more "original apostles" - but that wouldn't have resulted in a belief in a HJ. Why would, say, Paul's successors start believing in a HJ? Paul wrote to Gentile Christians in a gentile-dominated culture. They would have known that Paul wasn't talking about a HJ, and there would have been no pressure on them to develop a HJ AFAICS - quite the opposite. Pauline Christianity WON!!! Those Gentile churches dominated Christianity from early on. Where would the pressure to develop a HJ have come from?

rlogan

Gak - You keep jumping to the second century. I'm not paying attention to a word of it.

Before I even glance at the second century I just want to focus on the data of the first century.

So we have Galatians. There are people worried about Mosaic law.

Nothing about Jesus. Paul is not saying that some group views Jesus one way whereas he views jesus another way.

I don't care how paul or anyone else views jesus. I am trying to focus on the issue about whether there was any explicit assertion of disagreement whatsoever about the nature of jesus by Paul.

The answer is no. No first century evidence about disagreements over the nature of Jesus - as far as Paul's writing is concerned.



We have no church accused of anything with repsect to Jesus belief.

We have Paul. He makes positive assertions about the nature of Jesus. He does not confirm any particular church's view. He does not condemn any particular church's view.

He gives us Paul's view and nothing more.


I just want to rest there for a moment.

GakuseiDon

OK. Let's look at the 1st C first.

Yes, you understand where I am coming from.

OK, so far we are in sync. What next?

Gregg

There wasn't "pressure." Haven't you read Doherty at all? According to his thesis, the development of the HJ was a gradual, almost unconscious process that began in the second century, after the earlier players were dead. First "Mark" wrote his gospel, possibly as a teaching/liturgical tool for his community. Others liked the concept and wrote their own gospels. Then a couple of decades or more later some Christian groups and individuals started believing that the gospels were biographies. Doherty shows that the non-historical viewpoint persisted for some time after the historical view began to take hold.

The shift of Christian influence to Western Europe could have accelerated the process of historicization, since the Greek and Jewish philosophical aversion to equating man with God and vice versa wouldn't have been as strong there.

I don't know about Pauline Christianity "winning." It seems more like the version of Christianity that eventually won out two and a half centuries or so later--by getting the support of the Roman emperor--had many Pauline elements but was not "purely" Pauline. It seems apparent that strong doctrinal differences continued right up to the point where Constantine forced the Christians to develop an orthodoxy.

I think you have to get over this idea of Christianity of the first two or three centuries being a universal "church" where everyone agreed about everything and where all changes, if any were made, took place at the same time in everyone's mind and heart. It wasn't that until Constantine and brute political force made it so. While many Christians were perfectly happy to continue with their non-historical Christ, a small but gradually increasing number was accepting the historicist viewpoint, which would later become the dominant view. Doherty suggests that making Christ historical could have made it easier to compete with the mystery cults, with the result that Christian rolls swelled. So most new converts would have been converted into the historicist camp.

So why don't we have non-historicists arguing against historicists? Wouldn't such a shift from the prevailing "orthodoxy" have prompted much fulmination on the part of the non-historicists? Not necessarily, if the process was gradual enough (with most of the "old timers" dying off before the new view became really established), and if it was accompanied by a weakening of Greek and Jewish philosophical influence. As the basic aversion to equating a man with God (and vice versa) faded, resistance to making Jesus historical would have faded as well.

BTW, Don, I know you've asked me a few questions earlier in the thread--sorry I haven't had time to research and answer those. I'll try to get to them later.

GakuseiDon

But WHY would they have started to believe that they were biographies of a living Jesus? Did pagans misunderstand Paul's successors? Doherty's point is that Paul was following the cultural views of the day. As he says:
According to Doherty's theory, people understood the concept of a MJ within a pagan context. The pagan context didn't disappear at all. Why did they suddenly start seeing Jesus as a HJ?

The movement of a HJ under Judaism to a divine pagan-like figure makes sense under a HJ thesis. The more Christianity penetrated into the dominant Hellenised world, the more pagan it became. But Doherty has Jesus already a MJ from the start. What process would have driven it towards a HJ? Doherty doesn't really make this clear AFAICS.

True. Perhaps I should say that the Hellenised Logos view of Jesus won. But my point stands. Since a paganised MJ was established from the start, and remained in the pagan society, what would have caused that view to change?

What would have weakened it? I thought that the Hellenised influence actually grew stronger over the years, not weaker. Yet, according to Doherty, while the MJ was a result of Hellenisation, and Hellenised Christians quickly became the majority, somehow people forgot that Jesus was a MJ who lived and died on a sublunar celestial plane. Yet the society didn't change.

Besides, Doherty sees MJers existing up to 180 CE, well after the first heresy lists were drawn up. Yet no mention of MJ heresies at all.

What aversion with equating a man with God? And surely it wouldn't have faded from everyone at the same time?

No problem.

rlogan

What is next is leaving the first century as it lies. Not going back and retrojecting anything onto it.

You disagree with Doherty. Fine.

From this point forward there can be no reconciliation in these positions.

On your side will be early gospels and an assertion of consistency with Paul's earthly Jesus.

On Doherty's side will be later gospels and the development of an HJ tradition that eventually gets state backing.

Gregg

Why not? Why do you imagine that the transfer was uniform and exact? As Christianity was introduced to more and more people without a background in neo-Platonism, you'd see new leaders come to the fore without said background, but claiming with all certainty that their interpretation of the faith was correct and in accordance with the faith of the founders. That's certainly happened enough times throughout history. It's hardly unusual.Just because the context stays exactly the same--and I question that it did (again, that static, monolithic view of antiquity--can't you imagine that the context might have been different depending on where you were, what year it was, what circles you ran in, etc., etc.?)--doesn't mean that interpretations can't change, that new ideas can't enter the mix. Anyway, I keep emphasizing it wasn't sudden, and you keep asking "why was it sudden?" Once again...it wasn't "sudden." It was a gradual process. Various individuals and groups started adding their own interpretations to the faith. You know, this is hardly an unheard of thing, for a faith to get interpreted and reinterpreted over the decades and centuries. Christianity itself was largely a reinterpretation of Judaism. Splinter groups break off, iconoclasts march to the beat of a different drummer. A new manifestation of Christianity gradually became more and more popular and eventually became dominant, and happened to be the one that Constantine endorsed. Why is this so hard to conceive of? I don't understand. It's OK if you don't agree, but I just don't see why this scenario seems so outlandish to you.You're talking like all "pagans" are the same! Why can't you just try to imagine a fluid, dynamic, kaleidoscopic religious/philosophical environment?

It makes more sense to me to imagine "Christianity" first developing in the Hellenistic world, among neo-Platonist philosophers, with their teachings about a Logos/Christ figure. Then, Hellenized Jewish mystics, searching the Jewish scriptures and using the techniques of midrash, find parallels between the Logos/Christ and the figure of personified Wisdom, and also the Son of Man/Suffering Servant figure. With the mystery cult religions and their dying/rising savior gods added to the mix of religious ideas floating about the first-century Empire, the time was ripe for someone to put these various ideas together and develop a new religion. Religious syncretization writ large.

Then the gospels, originally written as allegories, add something new to the mix. A few decades after they're written, a few individuals and groups here and there start viewing them as biographies. Why does this need an explanation? What's so weird about some people getting the idea from the gospels that Jesus was historical? You're talking about many decades after the events supposedly took place, after all. How is any of this any stranger than, say, Joseph Smith inventing a new religion out of thin air and people adopting it and being willing to undergo persecution in order to remain faithful to it?

And anyway, Doherty does talk quite a bit about the forces that might have driven Christianity toward historicizing its "founder figure."Because "pagan" society was not any more monolithic than Christianity. Pagan society was diverse. Pagan society changed over time.No, the MJ wasn't the result of Hellenization per se. It was the result of a specific element within Hellenization, but outside the academic mainstream--neo-Platonism. Here's a good description of neo-Platonism:See? Outside the mainstream. Hellenization itself, of course, was a much, much broader cultural/religious/philosophical phenomenon. Neo-Platonism was a small part of it, and wasn't even a "popular" part of it. Not everyone knew about it or was interested in it. But it certainly would have appealed to mystical thinkers like Paul, who then synthesized it for mass consumption.I don't know anything about the heresy lists, but this does seem way too early for anyone to have taken such lists seriously--after all, what power did anybody have to enforce "orthodoxy?" And perhaps the MJ view wasn't regarded as heretical.Greek neo-Platonists saw God as dwelling in timeless perfection, utterly removed from the corrupt world of matter. Jews of course utterly rejected the god-men of Greek and Roman mythology (not to mention the worship of the Roman emperors as gods), yet they elevated an obscure, crucified rabbi into the godhead? Because there's no sign of a gradual mythologizing process going on here. As the Philippian hymn says, "...at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow...and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..." This is worship, by Jews, of a heavenly entity that shares in God's divine nature. In a very early Christian hymn. Oh, and in it, Jesus gets his name AFTER his exaltation. So we have Jews elevating into the Godhead a man whose given, human name they never bother to mention.

As to the aversion fading from everyone at the same time, I never said it did. A gradual process. Views changing over time. Shift of influence from East to West. People dying off. Fresh blood coming in.