Vorkosigan

Argh. Did I say very late second century. I meant very late AND second century.

Vorkosigan

MrMacSon

Judaism & Samaritanism were established long before the 1st century: they weren't evolving then. Maybe they didn't change 70-140CE, thus no new documents.

stephan huller

wrong answer

aa5874

Your statement is erroneous and mis-leading. There is no black hole for the history of the Jews 70-140 CE.

You must have forgotten about artifacts and archaeological findings.

And further, the history of the Jews is attested by many writers of antiquity before c 70 CE.

There is no actual corroborated history of the Jesus cult at all until the 2nd century by non-Apologetic writers.

Justin Martyr merely believed the Memoirs of the Apostles were composed by the Apostles and the disciples of Jesus sometime after the Ascension which itself is a fictitious event--never happened.

Essentially, in reality there is no black hole as the recovered dated evidence show but NO history of the Jesus cult of Christians until the 2nd century.

The first acknowledgment of Christians who worshiped a Crucified man is from the 2nd century--Lucian of Samosata.

Lucian's Death of Peregrine The story of Jesus had no influence on any non-apologetic writers until around the mid 2nd century or later which is compatible with the recovered dated manuscripts.

stephan huller

really. Thumbnail sketch of Judaism in the period.

1. Second Commonwealth period
2. Destruction of the sanctuary
3. lights go out (= 'black hole period')
4. wake up at the second half of the second century with an attempt to gather together the opinions that make up the Mishnah. There are two parallel efforts, Judah ha Nasi and Meir with Meir changing his name and being intimately associated with a form of heresy which used to be authoritative but has now fallen out of favor.

If there are events in between 'point A' (= before the destruction) and 'point B' (= Antoninus's effort to 'encourage' codification the Mishnah) they are semi-mythical and have little to do with what eventually emerges at the end of the second century i.e. a faux neo-conservative movement which somehow (i) didn't know what to do when the Passover fell on a Sabbath, (ii) has given up on establishing the sanctuary and (iii) no longer carries out sacrifices because (presumably) because of the radical re-think embodied in (ii).

I don't think people recognize how radical the Rabbanites are in the history of ideas. How could they give up the hope of establishing the sanctuary when the Pentateuch is all about the establishment of the sanctuary? It's like making fish give up on being in the water.

It's only because this radical revisionism (= the rabbinic tradition) represents 'Judaism' for most of us, there is this sense that it is 'normal' and was always like this. But when you actually start to think about things, the cultic starting point of this tradition is absolutely absurd. THIS CAN'T BE 'JUDAISM' FROM BEFORE THE DESTRUCTION. Not even close. But people just go along with it for many reasons, some political, some based on ignorance.

But thinking about Judaism (and Samaritanism for that matter) provides us with the right paradigm for thinking about the 'sudden' appearance of information about Christianity in the second century. A massive restart was taking place after the bar Kochba revolt - a 'faux' neo-conservativism i.e. instead of what was going on before viz. efforts to 'improve' the primitive superstition of Jews via Platonism and Greek philosophy redefine Judaism as something primitive, backgrounds but stripped of anything that might lead to revolt. Hence the disappearance of the calculation of sabbatical years, references to the expectation of a messiah etc.

stephan huller

For those who care about these sorts of things, the Samaritan tradition speaks about the complete slaughter and replacement of their priestly families by Commodus at the end of the second century. And Origen for his part mentions similar harsh treatment of Samaritans in the period. http://books.google.com/books?id=pzo...ath%22&f=false

The pattern is consistent across traditions. Some sort of massive reset of Palestinian or Israelite religious forms commenced in the Commodian period and continued through the next 'historical black hole' (= CE 235–284) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_..._Third_Century

The reset must be related to political uncertainty in the period and the age of the Golden Age of the Empire.

aa5874

Your argument is hopelessly flawed.

You must have forgotten that it is claimed the Jesus cult of Christians was found all over the Roman Empire in the 1st century.

You must have forgotten that it is claimed that the supposed Twelve disciples and the Apostle went "all over" the world.

Paul was supposedly preaching and teaching in major cities of the Roman Empire and documented his teachings with letters to Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Colosse.

We have Roman History after 70 CE and they do NOT include Jesus, the disciples and Paul.

We have writings from Pliny the Elder, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny the younger, Plutarch, Cassius Dio and none of those writings show any new religion or Jesus cult in Rome or anywhere in the Roman Empire that worshiped a man called Jesus as the Son of God as claimed in the Pauline letters and Acts of the Apostles.

It was in the mid 2nd century or later that we have Lician of Samosata and Celsus who wrote of Christians and that they worshiped a crucified man.

The writings of Pliny the elder, Suetonius, Tacitus, Plutarch, Pliny the younger, Cassius Dio, Lucian and Celsus are compatible with the the recovered dated NT manuscripts.

There was Nothing of Jesus, the disciples and Paul in the Roman Empire up to 1115 CE.

The hole is far blacker that was previously thought--all writers of antiquity wrote nothing about the PAULINE Jesus cult in the 1st century.

andrewcriddle

I noted in that thread

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

Doesn't that line belong to Jack Kilmon?

No one else knows what it means.

DCH

CroMagnon

I think this restart is a big clue. Rabbinic Judaism appears in history at about the same time as Christianity - both tracing their roots to Temple-period Judaism. They are in my opinion (different) REACTIONS to the destruction of the Temple and the end of the whole temple-state system. Most people don't know much if anything about Judaism btw, and simply assume Judaism to be the same thing whether 1000 BC, 30 AD or 2000 AD.

Although I am not certain about the dating we do have some interesting writings from before the Jewish restart. The rabbinical tradition has discarded the Jewish writings in Greek, only regarding Hebrew scripture as canon. Thus the apocalyptic literature like 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch are witnesses of an abandoned Judaism. Abandoned after the disastrous revolts against the Romans.