Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 03-22-2008, 02:52 PM

Another take on the Historical Jesus:

How Jesus Became Christian (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Barrie Wilson, professor of religious studies at Toronto's York University.

Quote:

Taking up where Robert Eisenman left off in James, the Brother of Jesus, Wilson calls his argument the Jesus Cover-Up Thesis and claims that the religion of Paul displaced the teachings of Jesus so that Paul's preaching about a divine gentile Christ covered up the human Jewish Jesus. Wilson helpfully surveys the political, social and religious contexts of ancient Palestine, demonstrating that the religion of James, the brother of Jesus, was much closer to the religious practice of Jesus himself, but that the followers of Paul suppressed Jesus' teachings in favor of their own leader. Wilson challenges the veracity of the book of Acts, arguing that the followers of Paul created these tales to support the heroic character of their founder in his quest to establish a new religion.

Quote:

How did a young, well-respected rabbi become the head of a cult that bears his name, espouses a philosophy that he wouldn't wholly understand and possesses a clear streak of anti-Semitism that has sparked hatred against the generations of Jews who followed him? Colorfully recreating the Hellenistic world into which Jesus was born – a theologically cacophonous world filled with a panoply of Greek philosophies, oriental religions such as Mithraism and the Egyptian cults of Isis and Osiris -- Wilson brings the answer to life by looking at the rivalry between the "Jesus movement" led by James, informed by the teachings of Matthew and adhering to Torah worship, and the "Christ movement," headed by Paul which shunned Torah.

From an interview with Wilson in the article pointedly titled It's Easter, time to rev up the revisionism:

Quote:

Wilson, a religious studies professor at York University, says the discovery last century of lost gospels such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which scholars are only now beginning to understand, have led to a flourish of books on the origins of Christianity.

"We now know more about early Christianity than we did even 15 years ago," Wilson says in an interview.

Wilson takes readers to the first centuries BC and AD to help them understand the context in which Jesus lived and preached. It was a time of great religious upheaval, with new ideas challenging old beliefs and Roman domination threatening the future of Judaism.

. . .

A close reading of the story of Jesus – some drawing on lost gospels not included in modern Bibles – reveals that he was not trying to establish a new religion in his name, Wilson says, but to show his followers how to resist Roman domination and remain Jewish. That, Jesus taught, could only be done through strict adherence to the Torah, known to most Christians as the Old Testament, according to Wilson.

I am puzzled. What do we know about early Christianity that we did not know in 1994? What is he referring to?

Toto · 03-22-2008, 03:18 PM

Also mentioned in the Star article: The Jesus Sayings: A Quest for the Authentic Teachings (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Rex Weyler.

Quote:

Book Description

Not all of the words attributed to Jesus were actually spoken by him, nor did he teach all of the doctrines taught as part of the Christian tradition. The canonical gospels mix fact and fiction, and many of Jesus' sayings were lost for 2,000 years. So what did Jesus, or Yeshua, as he was known to his followers, really teach? Recent archaeological work has uncovered ancient texts that shed astonishing new light on the teachings of Jesus; moreover, modern scholarship has revealed the source material for the New Testament gospels.

Archeological?

Rex Weyler's book site

Quote:

The gospels of Thomas, Mary, Philip, the Ebionites and others – banished and long hidden from human history – rose from their desert graves during the last century and now provide astonishing revelations about Jesus and his followers:

The first Jesus followers weren’t “Christians.” Like Jesus, they were peasant Jews with naturalist beliefs and pagan traditions.
Jesus borrowed freely from worldly wisdom (Taoism, Buddhism, Cynic philosophers)
Titles such as “the Nazorean” and “the Magdalene” likely have nothing to do with towns.

The Gospel of Mary – found in Akhmim, Egypt in 1896 and first published in 1955 – merits particular focus due to the purging of the feminine voice in the historical record. This voice may be needed more than ever in the twenty-first century.

...

The Jesus Sayings also follows the sometimes tragic, occasionally comic history of what happened to the message after Jesus, Mary, and their circle of friends were no longer around to care take the movement. It’s a complex story that involves some eighty factions of Jesus followers, homicidal emperor Constantine, his well-travelled mother, and one dubious historian. A hot-blooded Berber intellectual, Augustine, who served as the public voice for the Bishop of Milan, sums up the Roman establishment’s approach:

“There are many true things that are not useful for the vulgar crowd to know; and certain things, which although they are false it is expedient for the people to believe otherwise.”
– Augustine of Hippo, City of God

...

Fortunately, history is not on autopilot. History emerges as the summation of choices and actions performed by the living. Jesus encouraged his audience to wakeup. Witness yourself. Witness what is before your eyes. Be as a child, alive with wonder and natural generosity. We honour Jesus when we distinguish his teachings from the proclamations of later writers. There is no cultural value in pretending that the mythic constructions of Roman sycophants or clever rationalizations of Augustine are a substitute for Jesus.

“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon.”
Ferdinand Magellan, c. 1516

OK - I happen to have researched this, and this is a bogus quote. It was invented by Robert Ingersoll, and if you read it in the original, he was obviously not serious.

Quote:

“Rex Weyler is a master journalist and storyteller, who brings us face to face with the Jesus who walked the earth, changed western civilization, and remains relevant to modern readers.”

John Izzo is the author of The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die (Barret-Koehler, 2008) and Second Innocence (Barret-Koehler, 2004).

Is master story teller a recommendation?

There are excerpts on the site. There is probably some useful material there, or maybe some entertainment.

eheffa · 03-22-2008, 04:06 PM

Hi Toto,

I am gradually forming the opinion that much of what we understand as orthodox Christianity was a derivative of the second century and that there is little in the way of Christian writings or even hostile third party evidence for a Christian movement which can be reliably dated to the first century.

Does this book provide any credible sources or insights into this early first century church which would undermine this embryonic opinion?

Thanks.

-evan

GenesisNemesis · 03-22-2008, 04:32 PM

Jesus was a Christian?

Clivedurdle · 03-22-2008, 04:39 PM

Quote:

That, Jesus taught, could only be done through strict adherence to the Torah, known to most Christians as the Old Testament, according to Wilson.

Not a radical pharisee then, who were adapting the Torah...like eating grains of corn on the sabbath, and saying things like the sabbath is made for man..

More confusion about who he was! This Jesus is very orthodox!

How many have we got now?

Minimalist · 03-22-2008, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenesisNemesis

Jesus was a Christian?

"Only on his father's side."

Acetylhexene · 03-22-2008, 06:55 PM

Good thing Judaism is Matrilineal, then.

Toto · 03-22-2008, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eheffa

Hi Toto,

I am gradually forming the opinion that much of what we understand as orthodox Christianity was a derivative of the second century and that there is little in the way of Christian writings or even hostile third party evidence for a Christian movement which can be reliably dated to the first century.

Does this book provide any credible sources or insights into this early first century church which would undermine this embryonic opinion?

Thanks.

-evan

I haven't read the book, only the excerpts on the website. But I don't think so. Anything that is claimed about first century Christianity comes from viewing the NT as history and accepting the Christian dating.

eheffa · 03-22-2008, 10:38 PM

Thank you Toto.

I will try and keep an open mind on this but it seems to be quite a surprising and almost dirty secret amongst so many so called scholars...

-evan

Doug Shaver · 03-23-2008, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Another take on the Historical Jesus:

Quote:

Wilson calls his argument the Jesus Cover-Up Thesis and claims that the religion of Paul displaced the teachings of Jesus so that Paul's preaching about a divine gentile Christ covered up the human Jewish Jesus.

If I get a chance to read the book, I'll try to keep an open mind, but it sounds very much like just one more fruitless effort to explain how Paul could have been talking about the same Jesus that the gospel authors talked about.

03-22-2008, 04:06 PM	#3
eheffa Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Victoria, BC, Canada Posts: 84	What real data do we have from the first Century? Hi Toto, I am gradually forming the opinion that much of what we understand as orthodox Christianity was a derivative of the second century and that there is little in the way of Christian writings or even hostile third party evidence for a Christian movement which can be reliably dated to the first century. Does this book provide any credible sources or insights into this early first century church which would undermine this embryonic opinion? Thanks. -evan

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03-22-2008, 04:32 PM	#4
GenesisNemesis Contributor Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: A pale blue oblate spheroid. Posts: 20,351	Jesus was a Christian?

03-22-2008, 06:55 PM	#7
Acetylhexene Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Wellington, New Zealand Posts: 481	Good thing Judaism is Matrilineal, then.

03-22-2008, 10:38 PM	#9
eheffa Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Victoria, BC, Canada Posts: 84	Thank you Toto. I will try and keep an open mind on this but it seems to be quite a surprising and almost dirty secret amongst so many so called scholars... -evan

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