Chris Weimer

Amaleq13 - excellent point. I think that we all should refrain from redefining wholly Jewish to suit our theories.

freigester - If there is traces of Hellenism in the gospels, than they're not wholly Jewish, so you're contradicting yourself already.

Dharma

You tell me if the Jews IN PARTICULAR worshipped ONLY on Sundays above all other days?


Oh, mighty scholar needs to make people read other people's interpretations...I can read the Torah and read the historical data available to me of that region within the time frame, thank you and come to my own conclusions...


Wow, why am I not surprised at someone who is ignorant calling someone else ignorant ...CJD, I might be a monkey's aunty, but I'm certainly not a horses ass if you think I'm stupid enough to believe riding "chariots" of fire into the heavens (Ezekiel) and riding white horses and fighting dragons(Revelation) is a part of UNINFLUENCED Jewish tradition...

The concepts of heaven and hell and life after death were very undeveloped in Judaism, but very developed in non-Jewish traditions and becomes fully developed in Christianity.
The concepts of the SUN KING and SON OF GOD (Alexander the Great called himself a "son of God") were developed in most civilizations surrounding Judaism, and in particular Greek society, whereas Jews were up in arms at this concept (i.e. this conceptualization is new) . King David had NO solar association.

Chris Weimer

Everyone - chill out. We don't need name calling in this thread again.

Wallener

I fully accept that, from the universe of all inputs that helped create Christianity, you can draw a line around a subset of them that are entirely Jewish. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of the the assertion that launched this thread, as it contradicts it.

Sheshbazzar

Lev 23:15-16 "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete:....Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall you number fifty days;" (Lev23:15-16)
The Law being a shadow of things yet to come, set forth a pattern, clearly setting forth A certain "morrow after the Sabbath" that was to be held in greater in honor and glory than all of the Sabbaths preceding, for these were only markers upon the way leading to The Day which is the greater.
The primacy of The Morrow after the Sabbath, arose not in any pagan tradition but is integral with the Law of the Jews;
For unto what cause should any man ever have numbered "from the Morrow after the Sabbath,... even seven Sabbaths unto the Morrow after the Seventh Sabbath," and account The Day whereon to he so numbers under the commandment, as being of lesser honor and glory than the forty and nine days in which he so expectantly awaited the arrival of that Fiftieth Day?
One man esteemeth One Day above another; another esteemeth every day. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regards The Day, regards It unto Him who commanded It, and he that regards not The Day, to Him who commanded The Day, he regards It not.
He that brings a forth a New Offering on The Morrow after the Sabbath, regards the command of Him who required it, and he that brings forth no new offering, it is unto Him that he brings it not, nor gives any regard.

CJD

Wallener, Weimer, and others: That's how I read "wholly Jewish" — i.e., Christianity is a manifestation that grew out of 2nd Temple Judaism(s). Unless Freigeister meant "wholly Jewish" as if it were some monolithic religion (though there is no doubt it was largely, if not strictly, monotheistic at that time), I am in tentative agreement.

Amaleq13: The issues re: Cynic influence are of course debatable. But my interest lies here: "Are Paul's letters "wholly Jewish"? Not if he spends a considerable amount of time arguing against adherence to Jewish Law and trying to get non-Jews to qualify for divine promises made to the Jewish people."

Arguably Paul thought it was precisely because Christianity is the continuation of Judaism that he taught some of the things he did — though I am not conceding he taught the things he did in the way you describe it above.

Consider that Paul understood the new age (brought in by the messiah) to be one of inclusion, where peoples from every tribe, tongue, and nation were subject to the divine promises. This case can easily be made from TNK, by the way. Moreover, the very dilemma he faced in many of his letters was precisely this: his "brethren" (the Jews) were using Torah to keep people away from the promises, when in fact they were to be drawing all people unto themselves and thus unto YHWH. Food laws, circumcision, etc., were not to be boundary markers in the new covenant. Those things could be done of course (by Israelites), but Gentiles need not start up, for it was neither here nor there. In fact, it was beguiling for the Gentile to do so, because it would be seen as an attempt to add something she has already received by grace. The only thing that mattered in the end was pistis, and pistis, ironically, enabled people to actually become 'doers of Torah', summed up in the 'two greatest commandments'.

"Is Paul trying to Hellenize a Jewish belief or is he trying to Judaize a Hellenistic belief? Or is he trying to maintain a belief system that originated from within a Hellenistic-Jewish milieu?"

I think this depends on his audience, though I would in no way put in the terms you have described it. To his fellow Israelite (including 'God-fearers'), he would have tried to show that the messiah has come, the new age has dawned, the verdict of the future ("Day of the LORD") broken into the present. It was a matter of christology.

To the (pagan) Gentile, the message was simple: Stop worshiping idols. The CreatorGod (through Messiah Jesus) calls you to him. Note that his entire Gentilic enterprise received its impetus from the fact that along with the dawn of the new covenant, the messianic age, came the in-grafting of the 'nations'. Thus he took it upon himself, to be his vocation, to make this so.

Best,

CJD

Amaleq13

Influence might be debatable but the similarity in thought is pretty self-evident based on the examples Mack has provided. It is a fact that sayings are attributed to Jesus in the Gospel stories which are quite similar to Cynic sayings and that, alone, seems sufficient to dismiss any notion that the NT is "wholly Jewish".

It is also arguable that he thought Christianity was what Judaism should become which, it seems to me, suggests it was something other than "wholly Jewish".

This is probably enough of a subject to require a separate thread but I would be interested in how else you would characterize his arguments against Christians being required to adhere to the food and circumcision rules or his arguments that Christians qualified for the divine promise despite not being born Jews. The latter seems to me to be rather explicitly and obviously true of Paul while the former seems to be accurately described as an argument against adherence to the Law. Perhaps the addition of "strict" to the latter would suffice?

Including converts not being required to adhere to the food laws or to be circumcised?

How much can you change Judaism yet still be considered "wholly Jewish"? Certainly the Jerusalem Jews who persecuted the early Christians felt their beliefs were not "wholly Jewish", correct?

Yes but a christology that was significantly different from that of traditional Judaism (ie "wholly Jewish" Judaism - Why else would the Jews stumble over the cross?) and seems to have had much in common with Hellenistic beliefs. Hence my suggestion that we are dealing with something that was, from the very beginning, a mixture of Judaism and Hellenism.

I think my last question is critical to the OP so I'll ask it again:

Why would Jerusalem Jews persecute the earliest Christians if their beliefs were "wholly Jewish"?

CJD

Mack and Crossan hardly provide a 'self-evident' open-and-shut case. See Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 146f.

It is one thing to suggest that Jesus or those in his messianic sect came across someone like Sepphoris (the major Cynic in those parts during the 2nd century), but it is quite another to suggest that he or they adopted Cynic teachings. If all we're saying is that there was a presence of Cynic teaching latent within the socio-cultural milieu of the Palestinian Levant, then so what? It still comes down to our definition of 'wholly Jewish', of which you and others seem to want to mean some kind of static monolith derived from 'Jerusalem Jews'.

As whole, however, the Cynic hypothesis will not do (see Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 68f.): 1) What evidence to we have that Cynics and/or Cynic influence were wide-spread in the Levant during the first century? Hardly any. 2) Cynics apparently stuck to the town. Where did Jesus and his followers go? They wandered around the countryside. 3) The 'standard' dress between the two (Cynic and Christian missionary) was different. 4) the theory relies on a reconstructed Q (a point which is all too often forgotten). 5) The parallels are arguably only apparent. 6) The sources from which the parallels are derived are often not so much Cynic as just general Stoic philosophy.

The main problem as I see it is that Mack, Crossan, Dowing and others want the scenario to be Cynic first, with a smattering of Jewishness in there. But it is quite the other way around. Christianity, being first and foremost committed to the lordship of YHWH and his Christ, was essentially or 'wholly' Jewish (understanding that by 'wholly' we mean something real and dynamic, not a static monolith). At the very least, any parallels we may find between the two could more easily be attributed to a latent folk-wisdom underneath the surface of the ANE mind. Even if Cynic echoes were evoked (by say, Paul), must this mean adoption of a Cynic worldview? Not at all. The use of such thought is incidental at best, for in the end, the fundamental nature of Christianity (being Jewish) flies in the face of Cynicism. For the Christian, YHWH, Israel's covenant Lord, had come in the person of Jesus, and their allegiance was to him alone, thus giving them the quality of the non-conformist (a Cynic's trait).

I'll try to be a bit more brief. In sum, I think that the notion that one was not a subject to the divine promises 'despite not being born a Jew', was precisely the problem that Paul deals with most of the time. This does not mean that it was the valid Jewish position. Note his basic argument against it: the promise made to Abe was that through him a worldwide family would be created. And guess what? The promise came before Torah. So Torah is not the boundary. Rather, faith is: "And Abe believed God, and God reckoned him faithful to the covenant."

Secondly, Paul's arguments against Gentiles 'starting up' Torah (as it were) must be understood in this context. He is not 'against Torah' (antinomian); he is against adhering to Torah as a means to define who is or who is not in covenant with God. From a culturally relative perspective, Paul argues that Jews can keep on keeping food laws, etc., but they must not impose such things upon the Gentiles, for Torah was not given to them.


There is no doubt that Torah played a central role in the minds of the Israelites. But in light of the promise of the new covenant (Jer. 31), as well as the inclusive promises and portions of text that speaks of YHWH's desire for repentance over against sacrifices, I think the point still stands. According to at least Jeremiah, when Torah is 'written on the heart', Torah is fulfilled.

This I fundamentally, if not forcefully, disagree with. Jesus' vocation was wholly Jewish (read that Bauckham article to get a feel for what I mean when I say this). The Jews stumbled over the cross because it was scandalous to propose that the messiah would be killed by the very enemy he was supposed to redeem them from.

Because they deemed them unfaithful to the covenant, followers of a false messiah, rebels, those who were holding up the return of YHWH (remember that they were in exile — under Rome's oppression — and that YHWH would not return until repentance was made, which repentance was proved [so they thought] by their persecution of the unfaithful).

Best,

CJD

Amaleq13

That is my impression of what was originally intended by freigeister when he introduced the term. If he actually meant the more reasonable proposition suggested by your first question, I agree that it requires no argument.

"Hardly any" suggests there is some evidence for an influence.

The stories of Jesus wandering the countryside were written in towns likely far from the actual countryside depicted.

Dress is irrelevant to any potential appeal of the philosophy expressed.

I think I indicated that dependency when I initially suggested the influence.

Coinicidence seems to me less likely given a more urban and more Hellenistic setting for the writing of the stories.

Given an intended "monolithic Judaism", Stoic works just as well as Cynic to deny the assertion.

I think I agree with you though I would use "primarily" Jewish rather than "first". It seems to me that it makes no sense to talk of anything but a mixture and to speculate about the ration of the ingredients.

I agree that "adoption" is too strong a word. That's why I've used "influence".

I'm going to have to go against you and with the Jews who insist Jesus does not qualify as the messiah on this one.

Scandalous and contrary to (ie significantly different from) the expectations of traditional Judaism.

CJD

I think we've hammered most of this out, then. But you skipped my whole bit about Paul and the Law. What do you make of it?

CJD