gurugeorge

I reckon this is about right - but there's also some kind of crossover between disappointed apocalypticism and gnosticism. Bart Ehrman has a nice bit about this transition into (or "origin" of) gnosticism in Judaism, but I don't have Lost Christianities with me.

I think it would be a bit more comparable to what happened after the Ghost Dance failed to do its work, or after nuffink came of the hanging out the straw aeroplanes. The revenge fantasies of apocalypticism, in which that which was hidden is revealed to the unbelievers, and how, mutate under pressure of lack of appearance of the expected apocalypse, into the revelation of a hidden spiritual something. ("Hmmm, we must have misinterpreted, we were wrong to expect a material apocalypse, scripture must have meant a spiritual awakening!" )

Ah, just remembered some of what Ehrman was saying - if the expected apocalypse doesn't come, it encourages believers in a somewhat disgruntled view of their God as weak, a bit of a disappointment, and maybe inspires a search for a "God above God" who's a bit more up to the mark.

I think that the origin of the idea of the Messiah as being the agent of a spiritual revelation rather than the theretofor-expected pummelling of the enemies of the Jews might have originated in this proto-Gnostic milieu.

It seems to me that while there's apocalyptic language in Paul, it often carries a more spiritualized meaning.

One might see it like this: disappointed apocalypticists, hitherto extroverted, with disappointment become introverted, and stumble on more intensive mystical practices, which induce non-dual realisation (much the same as Ch'an, Dzogchen, some Daoism, and the like, in Asia). That is then backwards-interpreted as being the "true", hidden revelation that was promised. (Even though, really, apocalypticism really had a more lowly origin, in the ressentiment and revenge of the oppressed.)

Sociopolitically, I'd put the true origin of Christianity in the aftermath of "the 'Crisis under Caligula' (37-41) [which has been] proposed as the first open break between Rome and the Jews (wikipedia)", when the Jews rose in disgust at Caligula's self-appointment as a god. (Which ties in again with the "lesser god", demiurge idea, and again associating Archons and the like with earthly rulers.)

I'd also put some weight on the political union under Roman rule of Judea and Samaria in 6CE. The Samaritan equivalent to the Messiah was already, I gather, somewhat more of a "sage" than the more "kingly" Jewish figure, and might have formed an influence into this stream. And that might tie in with the "Paul" = underneath the interpolation a Samaritan Simon, later called Magus. The whiff of Samaritanism might also might explain some of the friction between him and the Jerusalem people, who were Jews. Maybe he was a bit of a rebel against some aspects of both Samaritanism and Judaism?

aa5874

History will show that Jews expected a Messiah up to or about 135 CE. And Simon bar Kochba was regarded as such.

There is just no credible source external of the Jesus stories that there was ever any Jesus or Paul that had any influence on Judaism in the 1st century.

show_no_mercy

I wonder why Josephus never mentions Paul?

LogicandReason

He never mentions Jesus either...the interpolation placed in is works is definitely written later.

aa5874

And with the writings of Philo, the Jew from Alexandria, we have virtually the entire 1st century with respect to prominent characters and sects of that era.

There is just no hint from these writers that there was a new gospel, good news, where a man crucified for blashphemy was worshipped as the son of the God of Jews.

Even in the writings of Justin Martyr, Trypho the Jew seemed unaware that there was such a man who was crucified and worshipped as the son of the God of the Jews even up to 150 CE.

aa5874

And with Philo the Jew of Alexandria, a contemporary of the supposed Jesus and Paul, we have virtually the entire 1st century with respect to prominent characters and sects, and there is just no hint or indication that there was any new religous movement, or gospel, (good news), where a man crucified for blasphemy was worshipped as the son of the God of the Jews.

Even Trypho the Jew, in the writings of Justin Martyr seemed not to have known that there were Jews who worshipped as a God, the crucified blasphemer, and called it good news.

gurugeorge

it's plausible, but I think it's more likely that there were already religious forms mutating that had the right ingredients before that - as I was saying, apocalypticism, proto-gnosticism, political conditions. Judaism of that period was far from monolithic, or even sometimes monotheistic, a regular ferment. (In fact Robert Price has suggested that the way the Jews are portrayed in the gospels as more "Jewish" than they actually would have been around the right time-frame, gives the game away.)

aa5874

You need to show the evidence to support what you think is likely. It is NOT what you think may have been likely that make the events likely, it is the evidence that make it so.

Just show me some credible information that there were Jews who worshipped a crucified blasphemer as the son of the God of the Jews and called it good news while the Jewish Temple was still standing.

eheffa

You make a good point aa...I continue to be amazed by this apparent "silence". Surely if the Christian movement and its founder JC had had even half the impact that the canonical gospels describe, Josephus, or Philo or some other hostile Jewish opponent would have noticed them & made some reference to their existence. Instead, we have nothing but these evangelistic & midrashic hero stories and a third party silence.

I can't help thinking that Christianity may have been a second century fabrication.

What would one make of 1 Clement then...is it too a forgery or later work? :constern01:

-evan

gurugeorge

Is there any evidence of a crucified blasphemer in Paul?

What the early Christians seem to have worshipped was a personal (as opposed to national) saviour who had already died for their sins (in obscurity and ignominy): that's the good news, because in arriving and doing his work in obscurity while the Archons were looking out for a great military leader, he did an "end run" around them. That seems to be the gist of what Paul is saying.

As to the evidence for it: well, that's what I'm doing, interpreting the early material we have as being evidence for that theory. It's not like this is science where you can have the luxury of several theories and then cook up any number of experiments to decide between them. There's a limited amount of material that counts as evidence, so the job is to "fill in" a plausible background showing how it could have come to be. The only thing this evidence can do is block off certain possibilities; otherwise, the material we have is too ambiguous and self-contradictory to be a sharp decider between theories.