show_no_mercy

There's no reason to assume that the Jews closest to Jesus resembled anything like Paul or his Christianity.

Toto

We don't have any record of those closest to Jesus.

The historical event that would have produced this sort of complete and unpredictable rethink was most likely the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, or perhaps losing the later war in 134 CE. The first date would explain the lack of any undisputable historical footprint for Christianity before that time.

aa5874

You can't be seroius! I am not obligated to accept any position and no view of any Scholar is beyond debate.


There is no external source that can show that Jews would have worshiped a Jew and a blasphemer as a God and ask a dead man to forgive their sins while the Jewish Temple was still standing.

What the records show is that there was no radical shift up to 100 years after the supposed Jesus. The Jews still expected a physical Messiah and must have overwhemingly supported Simon Bar Cocheba in order to rout the Romans even if for only a few years.

And when Justin's "Dialogue with Trypho" is examined Trypho the Jew exhibited no radical shift in Judaism with respect to the expectation of a physical Messiah even after the execution of Simon Bar Cocheba.

Jesus of the NT had no influence on Jews based on the extant records up to the middle of the 2nd century.

Julio

But gnosis is "physical" knowledge of things [meat sacrificed to idols, etc.] whereas epignosis is what God wanted us to know in subjective matters of faith.
Am I right?
Therefore, Paul is contradicting the terms by calling the stauncher believers to abstain from that type of meat based on gnosis, which is above faith [in matters the physical eyes can observe].
That is, it is not the subjective [or spiritual] epignosis of blind faith that is going to help them decide to abstain from sacrifice meat [you pray over that meat and it is purified, according to another faction].
This whole debate Paul is attempting to resolve is, he infers, displeasing the Father, which is the God of Jews [here in the context; although Jesus called Father to another type of God - according to Marcion's sect!].
Did I put it right?

Julio

[My underlining] I find that very interesting. I would love to read some good comment on this matter. I believe the scholars could be right, but such things are always disputed here and elsewhere.

Jane H

Oh, I'm making no assumptions beyond that of mainstream scholarship. You won't find me basing an argument on Paul writing Timothy. (Although I won't rule it out either- amanuensis/sample size). (See * below)

Jane H

Actually there is.

1)The collection for the poor in Jerusalem, which seems to have been a big deal for Paul, and demonstrates an ongoing communication between the Diaspora and Jerusalem churches.
2)The meetings between Paul and Peter/other leaders as mentioned in e.g. Galatians (and Acts YMMV). I imagine they got beyond the standard male conversation of Haifa United's chances in the league, and discussed Jesus every now and then.
3)The use of 'maranatha' in worship- it must have originated in Aramaic Christian circles in Judea.
4)The mentioned linkage of the churches (e.g.1 Cor 15:1-11; 1 Thess 2:14-16)
5)We know what the disagreements were about (Torah observance). Although argument from silence isn't the best, on this occasion it works very well in highlighting what wasn't argued about.
6)Paul's constant references to the Jerusalem church as “the saints”


I could go on. And on. But I hate long lists.

Jane H

Paul's ministry, and the Jewish ministry, were up and running with the rethink long before fall of the Temple. In the former case, we have his letters from before*. In the latter case, how likely is it that a group of Jews would create such an extensive myth from a complete unknown who died almost immediately after he started, fifty odd years after his death? And when Paul talks in AD50s about Jesus/Peter/the Jerusalem church, to what is he referring?

The lack of 'indisputable footprint' (not sure where that leaves Paul's letters, then) is not at all explained by an AD70 beginning, but by the normal lack of interest shown by the influential towards new religious groups, and the destructive effects of AD70. Try typing Bahai into the Times search engine- about three references a year, for a religion that has been growing for much longer and has far more adherents than early Christianity had.

See also my comments to “Show no Mercy”

(*With apologies to those on this thread who date the undisputed Pauline letters as after AD70; given that you think all the experts have got it wrong and you are right, I think it unlikely there's anything I could say that would change your mind. Forgive me for going with mainstream scholarship without further ado.)

Toto

Have you actually looked at what you call mainstream scholarship? The dating of Paul's letters is based on connecting the dots between things he describes and events in Acts, which are dated based on the date of one particular Roman official. The idea that Acts is reliable history has been quietly fading, and I don't think you will find any non-evangelical scholar who makes any such claims for Acts these days. This leaves Paul's letters in limbo as far as dating. The mainstream has nothing much to say about this, except to delve further into literary analysis and theology. So there is nothing in mainstream scholarship that you can cite that would change my mind, even though I haven't actually formed an opinion yet.

We don't actually know much about Paul. He might have been a Jewish messianist and a proto-Christian at best. His letters have clearly been interpolated. The Jerusalem Church is unknown - it could have been a Marcionite insertion, or it could have been a Jewish institution.

When I put Bahai into the NY Times search engine for the past year, I get "483 Results."

show_no_mercy

The poor? Maybe Paul is talking about the Ebionites (Ebionim, "the poor" in Hebrew), who seemed to have very little disregard for Paul and don't share his theology.

I don't consider that part in Galatians to be authentic, and Acts doesn't even seem to be a 1st century composition.

Really? So no Messainic Jews other than Christians worshipping a pagan god would be interested in such a phrase? No other Jews other than Christians used the word "Lord" to refer to the god of Israel?

Still doesn't have anything to do with the Jerusalem bunch.

It was more than just observance of the Law. It was about the nature of Jesus (2 Cor 11:4-5) and the nature of the "good news" (Gal 1:6) itself.

Paul uses saints as sort of a term of respect. This isn't limited to the Jerusalem bunch (which is only used in Romans) and could have still been used in the context of an uneasy brotherhood.

We have nothing from the Jerusalem church that actually outlines their beliefs. All we have are Paul's letters. And there's no reason to assume that they are 100% authentic, considering all of the doctrinal wars in the 2nd century.

Surely, there would have been more furor over a group of Jews who lived in Jerusalem who refused to participate in the Sacrificial System because they thought their sins had been forgiven eternally by a god-man Jesus. But this non-issue of participating in the Sacrificial System makes perfect sense for non-Jews (gentiles) or strangers at the gates who are interested in Judaism without having to perform sacrifices... or circumcision. The perfect audience for Paul and his disdain for the Law.