spin

How would you substantiate this assertion, especially when they are so dissimilar?

"Cyrenian" is actually kyrhnaios -- note that nice long vowel in the second syllable? kranion just has three consonants in the right order. Not much of a pun. I'd put it on the backburner.


spin

neilgodfrey

It's not till the second century that we find attestation to a flourish of documents claiming to be about or by Paul: two lots of Acts, the pastorals, Marcion's collection, the other collection, and those interminable debates about him. There's no external evidence that Paul is anything other than a second century phenomenon.

I can't respond to the second question until I understand why someone would want to add a reference (in Paul's letters?) to Jesus predicting the fall of the Temple.

(Btw, external attestation is not the only criteria for establishing Paul in second century. The issues raised in them are of second century relevance too. Witness Justin.)

Amaleq13

And the absence to place any prediction about the fall of the Temple in the mouth of Jesus would be consistent with that.

They wouldn't unless they wanted to create the appearance that Paul wrote prior and that Jesus existed prior to that event. Given your clarification above, my question is answered.

Toto

A digression into standards of historicity has been split off here

neilgodfrey

If ad hoc speculation is accepted as substantiation I'd offer:

• the proximity of the consonants leading to initially an eye-pun,
• with the reader being free to make of it what he wills in reading aloud to his audience,
• the way the author forced the proximity of the words by bringing out one of them as a translation of a Hebrew place-name,
• by comparing the "strength" and nature of the pun if that's what it is, circular I know, but..., with other similar instances -- e.g. eloi, eloi and elijah, elijah . . . -- where we know the author did intend such a similarity to be noticed (c.f. the other inclusio motifs between chapter 1 and 15);
• and noticing how often this pattern is found throughout the gospel (okay, I'm making that one up -- I have no idea how often similar "eye-puns" might be found throughout the gospel)

but then I'd no longer be able to toss it in as the one-liner aside as per the original reference and it would never have been raised at all and I'd have been most happy to have left it on the backburner.

But tell me, how do the Eloi/Elijah letters and sounds look in the Greek in comparison? I'd look it up but it sounds like you can toss it out off the top of your head.

neilgodfrey

If Christianity did in some sense grow out of the trauma of 70 and/or the 130's c.e., does the widespread pride in a crucified messiah find some external explanation such an this event; and does such a spring-board help explain the "riotous diversities" of christianities from the earliest documentations?

Thinking -- in abbreviated note form and in more or less random order -- as follows:

1. demolished or polluted/raped symbols and cults of identity demand some form of cultural-psychological reconstitution/mutation-rebirth;
   
   
2. messiah in early Christian narrative is identified with temple, and in earliest narrative his tomb likewise identified with ruined temple;
   
   
3. more than identified with the temple, the messiah is identified with the destroyed temple and the rebuilding of a better/higher temple;
   
   
4. the earliest gospel narrative very likely depicts the Passion Narrative as a reversal of a Roman Triumph;
   
   
5. synoptics also directly link Jesus' death with fall of temple and Jerusalem in the Olivet prophecy -- such a prophecy before a descent into hell being a standard trope in epic and other narratives;
   
   
6. complete absence of any embarrassment or shame over earliest proclamation of crucified messiah in Paul, gospels and noncanonical tracts etc -- rather, a boasting exaltation/pride is expressed;
   
7. reconstituting an identity out of a demolished moses symbol and cult calls for some dramatic reversal, an obsession with paradoxes beloved by "gnostic" type literature -- and earliest gospel narrative, Mark;
   
   
8. an example is "pride" in "humiliation"; life in death; etc,;
   
   
9. the ultimate humiliations associated with Roman conquest are crucifixion and being among victims in the Roman Triumphal procession? Recall initial narrative modeling crucifixion on Roman Triumph;
   
   
10. the idea of God having to come down to his people and pull them out or draw them back up to a new status seems easy to imagine, but rescued from circularity by a biblical literature replete with themes of messianic/davidic/israelite humiliation, disgrace, death and rebirth and reestablishment and re-enthronement;
    
    
11. one can imagine such core motifs branching out into a variety of adaptations -- gnostic paradoxes and descent-ascent journeys; total rejection and dissociation from the old Mosaic/Judaic economy; strong preference for a transformed continuity with the old; view of a messianic figure who was spiritual and apart from the physical, or one who was a transformed blend of both; etc etc
    
    
12. one can also imagine such core motifs being thus applied spawning such a wide variety of "christianities" right from the beginnings of our earliest surviving documentation of christianity;
    
    
13. identity with a messianic figure who symbolized a rebirth cum higher replacement of mosaic cult and symbols would be a matter of pride -- pride in association with one trampled and humiliated by Rome given that same figure drew up the identified believer into the mirror-image but higher glory and status.

spamandham

...such is the fodder of grand speculation...and so I shall! ...yes, what follows is pretty much purely speculative pulled out of my backside...

It seems to me, that the simplest explanation of the facts, is that the crucified messiah was constructed in response to the destruction of the temple. The crucifixion was designed to mirror Isaiah 53 in a way pungent to late 1st century Jews. The purpose of the crucifixion is multi faceted. Firstly, it was designed to match the described humiliations of Isaiah 53.

Second, it was designed as a kind of replacement theology to hand wave away the significance of the fall of the temple by implying that the temple was no longer part of God's plan since the Messiah had already come (...and thus by further implication, could be destroyed). His short duration on earth before being killed was designed to diminish falsifiability. (of course your grandma didn't know about it, ...he was only here a short time!)

Thirdly, Jesus represents the Jewish people as a whole, who were 'crucified' through the destruction of the temple (in the general sense meaning humiliation as used by Paul, rather than the specific sense of Roman crucifixion), yet rose to fight again.

(a fourth reason related to the dawn of the age of Pisces that no-one ever seems to get, so I won't bother)

....reiterate...pure speculation

neilgodfrey

Your 4th spec relating to Ulansey?

Of course its spec and I had mixed feelings about listing mine as I did.

But I think there is some significance in the fact that such a dating makes so much of spec of this kind of consistently related nature possible. The 30's date requires miracles to make it work. Or socio-economic studies of peasant life in Galilee (what the !#$ do they have to do with the sermon on the mount!). Or a heap of missing (read "oral tradition") and in-between links. There are missing links in the 70/130 dating too -- but if they can be found to all focus in the same areas then that seems to suggest something more substantial than the free-for-all possibilities we have with the 30's date.

aa5874

So who do you think constructed this crucified messiah?

neilgodfrey

spamandham, your list as I understand it matches mine but with neater and more developed concepts and phrasing:

As I see it, the 70/130 date makes possible spec about a direct link between specific external events on the one hand and major Pauline and gospel narrative concepts on the other:

• the concept of and focus on a crucified messiah;
• boasting in a crucified messiah;
• new identity in a crucified and resurrected messiah (your replacement theology and Jesus representing Israel etc)
• the mystery of a crucified messiah (including the short and incognito time he was here);

as well as offering an explanation for both the diversity and the specific types of diverse Christianities that appear from the very beginning of the surviving documentation.

Maybe I'm dreaming but this late date and the above possible spinoffs suggest to me something that has the potential to suggest explanatory powers without any parallel in the external events and situations surrounding the 30's date.

Amaleq13 et any al: If this is an illogical and foolish proposition say so directly.