spin

Hi Sarai. Welcome to BC&H.

I see no reason why christianity didn't start in the diaspora as Jewish thought in a world teeming with religions, mainly mystery religions. The earliest gospel was certainly written in the diaspora, perhaps in Rome as seen by the Latin influence it shows. (Even the name "christian" shows a Latin influence with the suffix.) Luke makes a less Jewish gospel, John a more Jewish one.

The same Jewish hopes and distresses existed in the diaspora and we can see in those Jewish texts written in the diaspora a tendency to assume Greek religious and philosophical ideas. Just think of Philo's "logos".


spin

Toto

Welcome to the boards. :wave:

Have you read Rodney Stark's Rise of Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk)? He theorizes that Christianity in the Roman Empire got most of its converts from the Jewish diaspora (presumably Hellenistic Jews), and the god-fearers. This makes sense - the gospels are written in Greek and have numerous Hellenistic references, but also incorporate Jewish themes.

No Robots

In the same passage, Baeck writes:

This man could have developed as he came to be only on the soil of Judaism; and only on this soil, too, could he find his disciples and followers as they were. Here alone, in this Jewish sphere, in this Jewish atmosphere of trust and longing, could this man live his life and meet his death—a Jew among Jews. Jewish history and Jewish reflection may not pass him by nor ignore him. Since he was, no time has been without him; nor has there been a time which was not challenged by the epoch that would consider him its starting point.

Clivedurdle

Do we not have with Paul - if the biographical details we have of him are in any way correct, more than enough evidence of the conjoining of Judaic and (not yet! )"pagan" ideas?

Paul is allegedly from Tarsus, a major centre of the worship of the gods, he seems to be well educated, a Roman citizen. He may have more than "unconsciously" imported different ideas - he may have seen Plato as prophesying the Christ he met in a vision.

If Xianity is anything it is eclectic - logos is an obvious import.

spin

I love the way opinions are used as something meaningful. The first people who wrote about Jesus were Paul and then the writer of Mark. Paul was from Tarsus in Cilicia, the homeland of the new mysteries of Mithra, as well as other mysteries.

Paul doesn't present a Jewish Jesus at all. He knows next to nothing about his Jesus other than as indicated in his theology. Where is the Jew among Jews here? Naturally nowhere.

After the religion seems to have collected Jesus traditions, Mark presents the traditions, somewhat like other holy men, such as Apollonius of Tyana, were presented. He walked around performing magic, healing people and presenting his teachings. Where specifically is the Jew amongst Jews? Well, it's set in Palestine, but the writer doesn't know much about this Palestine, making errors of geography, feeling he needs to explain Jewish traditions to his audience, throwing in snippets of useless Aramaic for the abracadabra effect. Hey, but it's more Jew among Jews than Paul. It then gains more diaspora Jewishness as we go.


spin

spin

And there seems to be some evidence for Paul knowing if not the writings of Philo at least his thoughts on the logos -- a good Jewish idea that, coming from the Platonic school to Alexandria and absorbed by the good diaspora Jew, Philo.


spin

No Robots

This very Paul who, like no one else, flung down the pagan gods from their altars, is supposed to show signs of a heathen God! Paul is supposed to smack of polytheism and syncretism! It is quite true that Christ's divinity is Christianity's egg, laid by Paul, though this is no reason to overestimate the importance of Paul over against Christ. Paul was nothing without Christ, but this Christ was Christ quite apart from Paul, and Paul's Christ is almost nothing in comparison with the Christ of the Gospels. Without the latter, Paul's Christ would have attained no significance in the world. There would have been no Christianity without Christ, neither through the efforts of Paul nor through those of Augustine, that magnificent brother of Paul's, so intimately related to him by nature. It is beyond question that the idea of Christ's divinity comes from Paul, was derived from Paul; this is how Church orthodoxy understood Paul. But, for the more orthodox Paul, the right thinking Paul who understood himself, this divinity of Christ is the mystical divinity of the man Christ, "born of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3, εκ σπερματοζ Δαυιδ), whom he greets as the restorer of mankind, in opposition to Adam and sinful humanity in the image of Adam. It is of this man Christ that I Cor. 3:23 speaks: "Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."—Brunner, Our Christ.

Precisely, an import:

John does not dare to put the worst of his religious philosophy, "the Word," into the mouth of Christ himself; he uses it only in his prologue, and never again over the course of his entire Gospel; or rather, this prologue is a later Alexandrian addition.—Brunner, Our Christ, p. 147.

Clouseau

Why would John be ashamed to mention Christ as 'the Word'?

Sarai

Hi No Robots--Perhaps I didn't make myself clear--I wasn't speaking about the literary form now known as a "gospel". I was talking about the specific gospels and their authors found in the NT. I say this because by and large the authors of those gospels don't seem to have a very good understanding of Judaism. Nor does it make sense that they would need to attempt to explain Jewish holidays, traditions, etc., to a Jewish audience. And if the intention of the authors was to convert Jews, it doesn't seem that the Jew-bashing in the gospels would be a very good way to accomplish that.

Spin, I could see this to some extent if the authors were essentially Hellenized apostate Jews in the Diaspora, but I can't see it from devout Jews simply due to the extreme hostility directed toward Jews in the writings. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for the welcome, Toto! I haven't read the book you mentioned--I'll put it on my to-do list! As I mentioned to Spin, I could see this with apostate Jews, and certainly the god-fearers, since what usually held back the god-fearers from conversion to Judaism was the idea of circumcision and, to a lesser extent, the dietary restrictions.

One of the things that I think complicates the whole "Messiahship" issue is that one tends to think of Jews and Judaism at the time as one homogenous group, when in fact, Jews were anything but that. (Still aren't!) The different factions were so different from one another that it's impossible to speak of a group as "Jews" and actually mean anything by it. There were groups that wanted to do away with the Temple cult, groups that didn't recognize the oral law only the written, groups that emphasized the oral over the written, groups that wanted to (and did) take up arms against the Romans, groups that propounded daily immersion in the mikvah. Some factions believed in resurrection, some didn't; some wanted to include gentiles, some wanted to exclude them. Some thought the Last Days were upon them, some didn't. Some were hoping for an imminent Messiah; some weren't. I don't know that it's possible to construct a picture of what THE Jewish Messiah was at the time, because there was just no agreement amongst the groups.

Sarai

P.S. Wow--you guys were busy while I wrote this--The last 4 or 5 posts weren't there! I'll think a bit more on this and come back!

No Robots

Well, that's what Baeck was talking about, too; and his take is opposite to yours. Now, there certainly are interpolations and mistakes in the gospels as we have them; but their essential Jewishness is unmistakeable.