Sheshbazzar

That is why I seperated the "christ" believing Jewish/Gentile anticedents, from what came latter.
Yes, it would have been easy for the Romans to build on the "Christ" (Messianic) beliefs and movement that was already well in place.

So the principal question comes down to whether the stories of "Christ's" -coming, birth, death and resurrection- were first spread by the disciples and Apostles from Jerusalem, (as The NT texts claim) or whether the stories were latter wholly created by Rome and anachronistically presented as being actual 1st century historical events.

My personal view is more the twain, I tend to believe that the Jerusalem Hebrew/ Jewish/Gentile, Messianic -"christ"-ers engaged in midrashing, developed orally recited ethical "sayings", and apocalyptic stories in response to the stress of the political events of the 1st century.

In the 2nd and 3 rd century, the gentile element came to the fore as The "Christian church" which used certain "Pauline letters", and these earlier oral sayings and stories and then combined them, adding in the "missing" details, "correcting", "supplementing" and redacting them into a more or less cohesive textual form.
The steadily diminishing "Jewish" elements of the old-time "christ" faith (The Nazerenes, Ebionites etc.) were increasingly marginalized and scorned as being "Judaizers", "apostates" and "heretics" of one sort or another.

By the time Constantine and Eusebius got involved little was left but to stamp out all the "heretics" and rewrite Christian "history" in a favorable light.

spamandham

Why would non-Jews who did not even wish to appeal to Jews create a religion with such strong Jewish overtones?

mountainman

One answer could be a Roman mockery of the old Greek traditions. In mockery of the Hellenistic religious authority of the "gnostics", and their ancient architecture, which had suppressed christianity underground for centuries. The old Graeco-Roman networks of cults and religions, including a quasi state religion status (See "flamens"), were to be replaced by a purely Roman state monotheistic religion.

Are the Hellenes referred to as "heathens"? The New Testament was after all written, preserved and published, in order that it be preached at greek speaking academic citizens of the future Roman empire.

rlogan

Already answered. It is phony credentialling, and it is an interesting problem. The early Church fathers struck back against the argument that Christianity was just an upstart superstition by referrring to this phony Jewish pedigree. But on the other hand you can't actually embrace Judaism sincerely because Christian doctrine is in opposition to basic Judaism.

I don't see there was anything other than phony linking of Christianity to Judaism as a pre-history because christ is decidedly not the Jewish Messiah. Oh yea, he came to fulfill the law by changing it completely.

Likewise Non-Islamic founders of the "Nation of Islam" (initially a door-to-door salesman followed by the "prophet" Elijah) pretended they were bringing a religion with ancient credentials to ignorant people. Nobody is actually checking. Even when they CAN check we see people just don't.

It is easy to see this strategy (Phony Jewish Heritage) deployed on gentiles ignorant of Judaism. You have a harder sell with Jews themselves. Although the destruction of the Temple in CE 70 would shake faith in the religious establishment and provide a ripe audience for midrash peddlers.

Joseph Smith tried to forge a tighter Christian pre-history to his Mormon hoax and recruit Christians. Look how they were hounded by militias, murdered and fleeing from one place to the next. It is a difficult task to start what is too great an innovation and graft it onto an existing faith as a means of recruiting from that base.


Religion to common folk is more about whether it speaks to their fears, hopes, and dreams - not whether it accurately reflects history. It is obviously important that you credential a new faith with a prehistory. It is a marketing principle. I'm not theorizing - I am just observing.

From front to back, bible books are hoaxes alleging an ancient heritage to acquire legitimacy.

That is why non-Jews creating a religion to appeal to non-Jews would make this association with the Hebrew scriptures.

This hoax characterization could be termed a little more charitably with a different term perhaps so as to allow for misguided sincerity. But I do not feel so inclined.

spamandham

If they simply wished to add a false history for the purpose of authoritative claims, why make that history Jewish rather than pagan?

The "Nation of Islam" guys weren't Christians who randomly picked Islam as their phony heritage...Islam actually was the heritage of the founding member.

mountainman

They had control of the Jewish literature (LXX, Josephus) and the Hebrew State at Masada.
They did not have control of the pagan literature (Pythagoras, Hermes)
They used the former as a basis to destroy the integrity of the latter.

gentleexit

You really think all those Septuagint echo's and footprints that superficial? Just window dressing for those who never read it, knew it? Not for the Jews, the Greek-speaking Jews but resonant for the mass of men, the partisans of Sol et al? Really?

dog-on

But doesn't God 2.0 seem more like, perhaps, Sol and less like the mountain king?

Why the sudden make-over?

gentleexit

"Light from light" etc you mean? Light, King etc., just the metaphors of any god or most anyway. It's not telling. The initial build, the "bible-build", took Jewish parts in a broad sense including Philo's brand.

Later explanations, celebrations drew on Sol et al (think Christmas) but the bible-build was Jewish, not Roman. Roman arrives when Jesus takes the best seat at the top of the grand basilica, no earlier.

dog-on

Indeed, though I am more interested in who the impostor is, being attended to by angels, etc...