ChristMyth

If someone holds to the JM position, why is it that it is more plausible for the Jesus story to be of Jewish origin that was influenced by pagan religions and not the other way around? Is it possible for the story to be of pagan origin but was later influenced by Judaism?

Just curious.

Christmyth

GakuseiDon

I suppose it is possible, but it would seem unlikely. Paul says that the Deliverer is from Jerusalem; he talks about a Jesus (presumably from Jewish name "Joshua") Christ (presumably from Jewish title meaning "Anointed"); and refers to "pillars" James and Peter in Jerusalem.

If it was of pagan origin, then it would have undergone so much change by the time it hit Paul and James that it would have been affectively a different religion anyway.

Besides, there is no evidence that pagans believed in a non-earthly fleshly sublunar realm.

Toto

The deep origins of the story are lost to history. All we have is what looks like a Jewish-pagan hybrid. But we do have a lot of evidence that Jews adopted Roman culture and customs, and no evidence that pagan culture adopted Jewish customs or religious elements.

Pagans who were attracted to Jewish culture and religion tended to convert, or became what is known as "God fearers." So the most reasonable source for Christianity seems to be the Hellenized Jews of the Roman Empire, or the God fearers who were close to converting.

Doug Shaver

Which Jesus story are you referring to? Paul's story or the canonical gospel story?

Whichever, I don't see it as having either a purely Jewish or a purely pagan origin. According to Doherty, Paul's Jesus originated in a mix of traditional Judaism and Greek philosophy, usually called Hellenistic Judaism. The gospel stories, which came later, are of mainly gentile origin but with some Jewish ideas, leading to the myth that the first Christians were strictly traditional Jews.

Bright Life

GRD to BC&H

Magdlyn

Yes, it is obvious the gospel writers were largely unfamiliar with actual Jewish practices and with the geography of Galilee and Judaea.

And Iesous comes from "Galilee of the Gentiles." Who knows what kind of "Judaism" they were practicing up there, so far from Jerusalem and the temple? The evangelists imagine there were synagogues there at the time, which seems to be not the case, for example. They also imagine that Paul's "Jesus the Nazarene" means he was from (the non-existent) Nazareth, instead of understanding the true root of the appellation.

Amedeo

This is not a stupid question at all. However, we must speak of many 'Jesus stories' rather than one:

-- The Jesus of the Apostles after his disappearence from Palestine [whether by an ascension into heaven, or by a migration after his temporary "death" on the cross] has to be figured out mostly indirectly, since "The Acts of the Apostles" do not supply a biography of Jesus in any sufficient way.

In the Acts, we learn that the Christians [the Israelites who followed Jesus or belonged to the sect of Jesus] practiced communism in the manner of the Essenes (and one who did not give up his goods for everyone to share was quickly punished by God!) This and other data indicate that Jesus was a Purist (an Essene or an Essene-like Israelite). This implies something that coherehers with accounts in the Gospels: Jesus was an apocalyptic. In fact, he preached the imminent end of the world, and m his mission (or messiaship) was to gather the strayed sheep [of Israel] and to prepare Israel to be in the kingdom of God, after the catacyism, rather than in hell. Thus he came to be the savior [soter] of Israel (not of mankind, as Paul and others surmises and believed].

Finally [for the moment], the Acts clearly show that the Apostles had the project of recruting Gentiles into Judaism [not in the "Christian religion" which Jesus never founded]. From the Gospels, we know that Jesus' god was El, for he explicitly appealed to him, "Eli, Eli, why....?, who was the God of the Galileans. In fact, Jesus is known as "Jesus of Nazareth" (that is, from Galilee).

To avoid massive confusions, rephrase your question thus, "Is the Jesus story of Israelitic origin? And the answer is, ONE Jesus story -- a story about Jesus -- is definitely of Israelitic origin; that is, the Apostolic Jesus is an Israelite in his words and beliefs and aims.

-- The Jesus of the Gospels -- about whom I have written a lot -- is not ONE Jesus.

There is Jesus the king, son of Joseph, in the lineage of King David; persecuted after his birth, and eventually crucified as 'The king of the Judeans'. This is an Israelitic Jesus, expounded mainly by Matthew.

There is Jesus the Messiah or Christ [so named from Scriptural inferences], who is theoretically an Israelite, since the event of his life (biography) are constructed out of alleged predictions in the Bible, but immediately we learn that he was fathered by God [rather than by Joseph]. This mode of reproduction is typical of ancient Gentile myths, even though the Gospels do not speak of a carnal union of a god and a human. [In the story of Noah, you learned that God was angry because the sons of gods consorted with human women.... just as they used to do in Gentile myths. And notice incidentally the the creators in the Book of Genesis never created other gods, or angels, or talking serpents! The stories about these beings are from pagan sources.]

There is the Greek Jesus, who, in the last supper acts like Dionysus: eat my body and drink my blood.... The ancient homophagia is back. He who assimilates Dionysys becomes like Dionysus -- immortal. Dionysus, Kore, and others were ancient saviors, saviors from perennial death [not saviors from hell].
That Jesus established a new Covenant -- which coheres with other passages in the Gospels which say that Jesus founded a new Church, a new People. This amounts to saying that Jesus gave up the covenant Abraham had made with God and thus he gave up his membership in Israel!

-- The Pauline Jesus is pagan, despite the fact that Paul called himself a Jew of Jews. To be brief: Paul invented the idea that Jesus was the messiah of mankind. (His Stoic and Roman cosmopolitanism shows. Thus Paul became the pre-founder of the Catholic or all-embracing Church in contradistinction to Israel [the Church constituted by the Chosen People].) This rested on the invention that Jesus died on the cross in order to atone for the sins of mankind. Atoning
by sacrifice is an ancient pagan idea, which was no longer practiced by either Israelites or Gentiles.

-- The Joannine Jesus is a variation of the god-begotten Jesus: God did not actually procreate Jesus through Mary; rather, the personified Word of God, called LOGOS [after Heraclitus' notion of Cosmic Reason] went into the body of Jesus [obviously begotten by Mary and who knows who else]. So, Jesus is actually both a god and a man. This theory of incarnation comes from pagan traditions.

That just about covers the various sources of the character called Jesus. Was there a historical Jesus? Very probably: The royal Jesus, son of Joseph, and preacher of the kingdom of God.

Clivedurdle

I had not realised that it is valid to argue the new testament is non jewish - the result of outsiders who had read a bit and probably been to Palestine.

If anything is originally Jewish I would argue it is Revelation - that with minor editing was xianised.

Xianity feels like a cuckoo religion.

Clivedurdle

Why?

You have just listed a whole series of variants of god or logos sons. The earliest representations we have of Jesus are what - a fish?

Why do we assume the "facts" of a real Jesus, of xianity being an offshoot of Judaism?

We actually have compelling evidence of the alien nature of this religion to Judaism, of the popularity of gnostic mystic stuff, of gospels as novels, and yet we are still stuck repeating the xian view of history?

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1137605908173

Chris Weimer

That's blatantly not true. See Ross S. Kraemer's "On the Meaning of the Term "Jew" in Greco-Roman Inscriptions," HTR 82.1 (1989): 35-53.

Again, see above.