mountainman

So who among the apostles or the literary minded "Church Fathers" before Eusebius uses the explicit term "the righteous ones" as a reference to the nation of christians? What sources exist? Or is this a late legend for the benefit of the kudos of the 4th century church?

stephan huller

MM

What an idiotic question. The righteous and righteousness is a central concept in the Letter to the Romans. What's the matter with you? James is called 'the righteous.' It's a fundamental concept in Judaism. That's some detective story you're weaving Pete or should I say - Sherlock Holmes. You're sure to leave everyone on the edge of their seats as you conduct your investigation. You remind me of Joey Greco from Cheaters. 'We're standing in front of Eusebius's house, the master forger searching for clues to connect him to the 'strange' concept found in Romans 3:10 - 17 'the righteous.'

mountainman

It is also a fundamental concept in Plato's Republic so your intimation that the intellectual property rights in respect of righteousness are reserved for either the "Early Christians" or the Jews is erroneous as far as I am concerned. Even the Roman Emperors throught of themselves as "righteous" in the sense of the meaning of "pious".


The question was when do we have independent and corroborating evidence from ancient historical sources which equate "the nation of christians" with the "righteous ones", and what are those sources. You've mentioned Paul and James's nickname, but who else in antiquity describes the christians as "the righteous ones" before Eusebius? It certainly was not the Jews.

stephan huller

This is where your nonsense becomes too annoying to bear. Yes, the concept of Dikaiosyne is in Plato but the language of Paul and the apostolic writings has clear contact with Judaism. If Plato is present it is filtererd through Philo and first century Judaism.

The bottom line is that the Sadducees identified themselves as 'the righteous.' I don't know of a pagan Greek equivalent that has any meaningful contact with Christianity. Some sort of contact with Judaism is the logical place to start AS THE FUCKING PASSAGE IS A CITATION OF THE JEWISH PSALMS!!!!

For some context the Karaites continue to understand themselves as heirs to the 'righteous' (viz. the Sadducees) and there is good reason to accept some of their claims. A typical Karaite treatise on the Jewish concept of righteousness (http://www.karaite-korner.org/history.shtml):

At first those who followed YHWH's laws were merely called "Righteous" and it was only in the 9th century CE that they came to be called Karaites. The question of why God's followers are today called Karaites is really a question of the origin of the other sects. At first there was no reason to label the righteous as a separate sect because there was only the one sect which consisted of the whole Jewish people. Throughout history a variety of sects appeared and it was only to distinguish the righteous from these other groups which caused them in different periods to take on such names as Sadducees, Boethusians, Ananites, and Karaites.

Biblical Period- The Righteous

In the Biblical Period people are described as falling into two categories: the sinners and the righteous. Very often the people were led into sin by false prophets who claimed to be relaying the message of God. In some periods the majority of Israel followed the false prophets and those who remained loyal to YHWH were but a small few (e.g. Elijah at Mt. Carmel). God sent his prophets "from morning till evening" calling on the people to repent but all too often it was only by punishing the nation with a great calamity that YHWH could get them to listen. Much of Biblical history is a repeating of the familiar cycle of sin, punishment, repentance and rescue.

Chili

But the righteous have always been the antichrist and still are to this very day in that the sinners get crucified and not the righteous.

avi

It certainly is. Thank you very much for this thread, and for the excellent work associated with production of the OP. Great job, DCH.

My comment is simply this: A few months back, I will look it up, if there is any need, I commented on the apparent contradiction between the Hebrew version and the oldest extant copy of LXX, in Codex Sinaiticus, a discrepancy that seemed to me to represent evidence of serious rewriting of LXX by the folks of the 4th century--> folks who had power to make such changes (i.e. Constantine!) I agree with your surmise, that "Paul" or whoever wrote Romans, may well have had a different version of LXX than we possess today.

You know my weakness, I cannot help myself:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nihilism

The word is nihilist. There is no such word as "nihlist".
Ok, now back to the topic.
(But, my nonsense makes as much (or as little) sense as what sh has written above....)
Hmm. One person's nonsense is another's cup of tea.....
Even we wee nihlists enjoy a bit of controversy, once in a while, oui?

Hmm.
Should we interpret this sentence to mean that if sh doesn't not know xyz, that therefore, xyz doesn't exist?

Thank you Pete. Well written....

avi

mountainman

Has "The Song of Hiawatha" clear contact with Ojibwe?
The New Testament authors wrote in the Greek language.
Perhaps while counting fish.

It looks like you are assuming that whoever it was that authored the books of the NT in the Greek language, had been educated in the Greek language without ever having read Plato's Republic, or a Life of Pythagoras, or anything about the Greek Logos? Or are you saying the authors of the NT purposefully fitered out Plato's concept of "righteousness", and Heraclites's concept of the "logos"? Maybe you prefer a set of Hebrew originals?

Until Masada.


So are you arguing that the small percentage of people in the Roman Empire who were educated enough to write in the Greek language, during years and years of their education in the Greek literature, never encountered and read about Plato's conceptions of "righteousness" as found in the Greek literature of the Republic? Didn't Paul write to the Greeks in Greek about "righteousness" and "goodness"?


On the contrary, contact with Judaism or Ojibwe is not supported by the new testament manuscript evidence, and my argument is that some sort of contact with Graeco-Roman precedents is the logos place to start as the passage is an explicit citation of a very specific GREEK TRANSLATION - itself containing highly distinctive Greek nomina sacra abbreviations - of the Jewish Psalms.