aa5874

That is NOT true at all based on the evidence from antiquity. In the NT, Jesus was NOT KNOWN as Christ and was DEEMED to be a Blasphemer the day he died.

In the NT, after Jesus was arrested and crucified the disciples RAN AWAY and WENT into hiding.

How could Christianity start in Judea when it was a CAPITAL crime for Jews to claim a man was a God and could REMIT SINS of Jews?

It must be OBVIOUS that the Jesus story and cult STARTED OUTSIDE Judea and was NOT Jewish at all.

The NT CANON is BLASPHEMY to 1st century Jews.

There is NO time in the 1st century where it is recorded that the Jews worshiped a Man as a God, not even the DEIFIED EMPERORS of Rome were worshiped as Gods by the Jews.

In the NT, Jesus claimed he was the Son of God and in LESS that 24 hours he was DEAD.

In the NT, Stephen claimed Jesus was on the right hand of God and in LESS than 24 hours he was dead.

"Paul" claimed he was STONED to the POINT of death.

IT would have been SUICIDAL to start a religion with BLASPHEMY in Judea.

The Gospels are stories that were INVENTED most likely in the 2nd century and are NOT historical at all.

Based on even Church writers there is virtually NO actual Jew outside of the disciples who was known to be a Christian in the 1st century. Neither Philo or Josephus wrote about a single Jew who BELIEVED Jesus was the Son of God, was the END of the LAW and could REMIT the Sins of Mankind.

The evidence shows that Christianity or the Jesus cult was NOT AT ALL Jewish and was NOT KNOWN to 1st century Jewish writers.

davidstarlingm

Hey guys, I'm new here. What's the policy on feeding ****REDACTED****?:constern01:

Toto

The rules do not allow you to call someone else a troll.

I don't think aa5874 is a troll in any case, just a very annoying poster with a lack of communication skills, who does on occasion come up with a intelligent point but at times seems to have problems with English.

Sheshbazzar

And LOVES TO SHOUT out his OWN views and opinions.

We all get used to it after a while, it doesn't make what he has to say any more or less persuasive, but no one has ever yet been able to persuade him of that.

avi

Hi David,
Welcome to the forum. Some of us "ignore" those whose work we dislike. I personally am very fond of aa5874's thinking, analyses, and expression, though, I agree, as Sheshbazzar has noted, that his capital red letters do not influence the positive predictive value of his very useful references to the patristic evidence as well as the Gospels.

The forum does have its share of eccentrics. You will soon learn, that some of the members have such disdain for other forum members, that they physically prevent those folks from reading what they have written, a fact which amuses me greatly.

aa5874 is a very serious minded, analytical, precise, and honest member, in my opinion. Others do not share my enthusiasm for his posts. To each his/her own....

Now let us examine what you have written:

I disagree, most emphatically.

a. show me the wound: where's your evidence of this supposed "fact"? Please don't bother citing n quantity of "scholars" ' opinions on the subject. I have no interest in their opinions, unless they post here on the forum.

b. Marcionists: clearly Paulist in orientation, hostile to ancient Hebrew beliefs.

c. Ebionists: there's a Jewish sect, with quasi "christian" influences. show me a Christian today, who accepts the Ebionists as bona fide Christians....

d. Valentinians: gnostic standard bearers, typical Greek pagans. Nothing to do with Hebrew legends.....

avi

Sheshbazzar

A good word for aa5874, although as I indicated I am somewhat put off by his posting 'style' there have been many times when he has provided valuable information and incisive insights, and most often we are arguing on the same side, each from our unique perspective.
I most certainly DO account aa's input as a very valued asset to these forums.

Sheshbazzar

mountainman

I also disagree on the basis that the manuscript tradition of the New Testament exhibits Greek as the earliest language, and not Hebrew or Aramaic. If we had evidence for a Hebrew manuscript underlying the NT then the OP may have a point, but we dont. We only have Greek new testaments.

This indicates to me at least that the new testament was authored and published for the purposes of the conversion of Greek speaking Roman citizens of the Roman empire. It is a book specifically designed for for the Greek gentiles, in the greek language, and which has many many direct links to the Greek LXX (not the Hebrew Bible).


The OP statement might be rendered by its converse:

Regardless of what it eventually became, Christianity was designed to make it appear to the uneducated people that it was first and most importantly a sect of Judaism, but the evidence indicates it was some Greek literate sect who worshipped the Greek LXX (with Christian nomina sacra) and the Greek new testament (with the same series of noina sacra).

Was "The Song of Hiawatha" ever worshipped by the Ojibway people in the Ojibway language? No it was not. It is an epic poem about the native American indian Hiawatha, written in English for an Engish audience.

aa5874

What you say seems very significant in order to trace the origin of the Jesus story.

If we look at Isaiah 7.14 which was used as so-called prophecy about the conception and birth of Jesus it would appear that it was the Septuagint that was used and NOT the Hebrew Scripture which would indicate or suggest that the origin of the Jesus story was a NON-JEWISH source and fabricated by one who was NOT familiar with the fact that HEBREW Scripture did NOT have the word "VIRGIN" but "WOMAN".

"First Apology" LXVII This passage from Justin Martyr suggest that the Jesus conception story was not based on Jewish interpretation but from Greek interpretation of the Septuagint.

mountainman

If you accept this argument, that we are dealing with authorship of Greek literature specifically designed for a Greek audience, given the manifold Greek textual mappings between the Greek LXX and the earliest Greek new testaments, then we might also comment that the Greek LXX was used in order to provide the Jesus story with an antiquity. The antiquity of the Hebrews (in Greek of course), was being compared to the antiquity of the Greeks. Eusebius is very concerned with this antiquity, and in establishing that the antiquity of the Hebrews exceeds the antiquity of the Greeks.

It's a sort of status symbol -- who had a greater antiquity? The Greeks, for who the new testament was written, or the Hebrews?



The Greek nomina sacra in the Greek LXX and the earliest Greek new testaments confirm this reliance in the Greek language as the language of choice for those who first authored and/or edited the Greek new testament.

It is not insignificant that the Jesus story in Greek does not mention "Jesus" in the new testament or "Joshua" in the Greek LXX. Instead they both employ the one common nomina sacra "J_S".

mountainman

Was "The Song of Hiawatha" ever worshipped by the Ojibway people in the Ojibway language? No it was not. It is an epic poem about the native American indian Hiawatha, written in English for an Engish audience.

That of course did not prevent the christian missionaries converting the native peoples of the planet to the Christian religion, as modern history reveals happened. Retrospectively, we might even say that the first indigenous peoples to have been converted to christianity must have been Greek literate Panhellenics (or "pagans"). According to Stark 90% of the Roman Empire's population was "pagan" at the commencement of the 4th century, and then had dropped to about 50% around the middle of the century. Stark is a socialogist of some variety, who obtained the source data by extrapolating figures which he happened to find in "Acts". This is stark raving madness. The classic exemplar of GIGO in the field of ancient history.

Deep underground, Green? and archaeologically footprintless, Christianity only had to survive apocalypic failure for a few centuries. The Christians of the 4th century were well aware that Constantine was bringing Christ's kingdom to planet Earth in the Roman Empire by a very powerful sword dripping pagan blood. We of the 21st century have become unaware and uncaring of the fascist beginnings of the centralised monotheistic state religions - Christianity and Islam - by supreme military oppressors. The evidence is abundant and in-your-face, but not too many people want to re-examine the history of Christianity as it emerged from the Council of Nicaea. Before the end of the century, the following ( 7 out of 80 !!!) were deemed heretical ideologies - (1) Barbarism, (2) Scythianism, (3) Hellenism, (4) Judaism, (5) Stoicism, (6) Platonism, and (7) Pythagoreanism.