DCHindley

I don't think I will have to "prove" it, since we are dealing with incomplete fragmented data the best we can do is present more or less probable explanations for that data.

Now I am not talking about direct references or allusions to events in that war, but to events in that war that might help illuminate the psychology of early Christianity. That is, to illustrate the events that seem to have driven them to remold Jesus into a divine redeemer, and their belief that God shifted his favor from the Jewish people to gentiles who believed in that redeemer.

DCH

DCHindley

maryhelena,

All I will say at this point is that any further discussion of Moll's book should be directed to the new thread created for it.

That thread does contain some interesting reading, with plenty of ancient sources on Marcion, Platonism in general, and Gnostic systems, as the nearest contemporary movements available for comparison.

DCH

stephan huller

Two other things that you might look into DCH to help your thesis:

Abraham is also likened to a divine hypostasis in many traditions it seems. Lazarus's presence in his bosom also seems cultic. These might be avenues to explore to develop your thesis.

stephan huller

In case it wasn't explicit enough “son of Abraham” is the term for proselyte in Judaism

stephan huller

Another thing you might look into is the presence of proselytes in the Jewish War. If it can be argued that many of the soldiers for the revolutionaries were converts to Judaism (cf. Helena, Monobaz and the Osroene contingent which incidentally later become Marcionites) then one could argue that the distinction between Sarah and Hagar represents the difference between a miraculous birth and a physical birth. Perhaps it could even be argued that there was a tradition that she never had sex with Abraham (cf. 'she's my sister' a common complaint among married couples i.e. 'we've become like brother and sister = no sexual relations). If such an interpretation existed with respect to Sarah then she could represent the proselytes insofar as Isaac was a 'son of Abraham' not according to the flesh but according to the promise. I am not saying that such a tradition existed but perhaps it could be argued to have existed at one time - sort of a predecessor for the virgin birth of Jesus (from memory something in Clement Stromata 7:16 is like this)

DCHindley

Yes, but only after his circumcision.

There is an online article from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia which provides some background on Proselytes.

... a new name was given him; either he was named "Abraham the son of Abraham," or the Scriptures were opened at hazard, and the first name that was read was given to him. Thenceforth he had to put behind him all his past; even his marriage ties and those of kinship no longer held good (compare Yebham. 22a; Sanhedrin 58b).

Although he was thus juridically considered a new man, and one whose praises were sung in the Talmudical literature, he was yet on the whole looked down on as inferior to a born Jew (Kidd. 4 7; Shebhu`oth 10 9, et al.).

Rabbi Chelbo said:
"Proselytes are as injurious to Israel as a scab" (Yebham. 47b; Kidd. 70b; compare Philippians 3:5).

The fact that a circumcised proselyte was expected "to put behind him all his past; even his marriage ties and those of kinship no longer held good" does relate to the psychological pressure the strata 2 community of the interpolator experienced as a result of that war and its aftermath.

More on that later.

DCH

stephan huller

Yes of course after circumcision. I thought that was obvious too.

DCHindley

Here are a number of passages from the Gospels that indicate that the authors of those gospels associate following Jesus and family or social strife:

RSV Matthew 10:35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man's foes will be those of his own household. 37 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

RSV Matthew 19:29 And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.

RSV Matthew 24:9 "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. 10 And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another.

RSV Mark 10:29 Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

RSV Mark 13: 12 And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;

RSV Luke 6:22 "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man!

RSV Luke 12:51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; 52 for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

RSV Luke 14:26 "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

RSV Luke 21:16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen and friends, and some of you they will put to death; 17 you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

Similarly, a few passages in the Pauline letters also (all of which I identified as interpolations):

RSV Gal 4:25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. ... 29 But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now.

RSV 1 Thessalonians 2:14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved -- so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has come upon them at last!

These lists are not exhaustive, of course. Now read the following.

I am supposing that in many of the places of southern Syria and Palestine the Jewish and Syrian neighbors had got along and interrelated with one another before the War, just as was the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda. But also like those modern examples tensions existed under the surface.

It would seem natural to suppose that some Gentiles were attracted to Jewish religion or practices and associated with them. This category is where I would place gentile Jesus followers. Whatever Jesus taught, although I believe it was about the coming of the future kingdom of God, they felt an affinity to it, perhaps simply hoping to participate in that messianic kingdom. They likely considered themselves, at minimum, "strangers within the gate" with some actually converting and undergoing circumcision.

Then the war began:

1. NOW the people of Cesarea had slain the Jews that were among them [...] and all Cesarea was emptied of its Jewish inhabitants [...]. Upon which stroke that the Jews received at Cesarea, the whole [Jewish] nation was greatly enraged; so they divided themselves into several parties, and laid waste the villages of the Syrians, and their neighboring cities, Philadelphia, and Sebonitis, and Gerasa, and Pella, and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara, and Hippos; and falling upon Gaulonitis, some cities they destroyed there, and some they set on fire, and then went to Kedasa, belonging to the Tyrians, and to Ptolemais, and to Gaba, and to Cesarea; nor was either Sebaste [Samaria] or Askelon able to oppose the violence with which they were attacked; and when they had burnt these to the ground; they entirely demolished Anthedon and Gaza; many also of the villages that were about every one of those cities were plundered, and an immense slaughter was made of the men who were caught in them.

2 ... the disorders in all Syria were terrible, and every city was divided into two armies, encamped one against another, and the preservation of the one party was in the destruction of the other; so the day time was spent in shedding of blood, and the night in fear, which was of the two the more terrible; for when the Syrians thought they had ruined the Jews, they had the Judaizers in suspicion also; and as each side did not care to slay those whom they only suspected on the other, so did they greatly fear them when they were mingled with the other, as if they were certainly foreigners.

3 ... So [the Scythopolitans] commanded [the Jews, who had until then been fighting among them against the Jewish rebels], that in case they would confirm their agreement [to support the city] and demonstrate their fidelity to them, who were of a different nation, they should go out of the city, with their families to a neighboring grove; and when they had done as they were commanded, without suspecting any thing, the people of Scythopolis lay still for the interval of two days, to tempt them to be secure; but on the third night they watched their opportunity, and cut all their throats, some as they lay unguarded, and some as they lay asleep. The number that was slain was above thirteen thousand ...

4 ... when the people of Scythopolis threw their darts at them in the grove, [Simon, son of Saul, who had fought with the men of Scythopolis against the Jewish rebels] drew his sword, but did not attack any of the enemy; for he saw that he could do nothing against such a multitude; [...] he looked round about him upon his family with eyes of commiseration and of rage (that family consisted of a wife and children, and his aged parents); so, in the first place, he caught his father by his grey hairs, and ran his sword through him, and after him he did the same to his mother, who willingly received it; and after them he did the like to his wife and children, every one almost offering themselves to his sword, as desirous to prevent being slain by their enemies; so when he had gone over all his family, he stood upon their bodies to be seen by all, and stretching out his right hand, that his action might be observed by all, he sheathed his entire sword into his own bowels.

5. Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up against the Jews that were among them; those of Askelon slew two thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two thousand, and put not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also put a great number to death, but kept a greater number in prison; moreover, those of Hippos, and those of Gadara, did the like while they put to death the boldest of the Jews, but kept those of whom they were afraid in custody; as did the rest of the cities of Syria, according as they every one either hated them or were afraid of them ...

Etc, etc. This kind of animosity was bi-directional, and must have severed many close ties between family, friends, clients and patrons.

As Stephan correctly stated, there were regions which expected any gentile who wished to take refuge in the land of Israel (defined as the territory the Jewish scriptures ascribed to the kingdoms of David or Solomon) to receive circumcision.

Josephus, Life 112 At this time it was that two great men, who were under the jurisdiction of the king [Agrippa] came to me [Josephus, in Tiberias] out of the region of Trachonitis, bringing their horses and their arms, and carrying with them their money also; 113 and when the Jews would force them to be circumcised, if they would stay among them, I would not permit them to have any force put upon them [Josephus was trying to garner favor with Agrippa by sparing these men, in case he had to seek a favor later].

Now go back to the statements from the Gospels and Paul listed above. See any common themes?

I think this kind of social disruption and suspicion and bloodletting (and there were certainly many more tragic stories than what Josephus relays in his hyperbolic style) would certainly have a profound effect on the gentile converts and "strangers" associated with the Jesus Movement in the Land of Israel.

Perhaps feelings of abandonment by "fellow" Jews, disappointed expectations occasioned by the defeat of the rebels, and a need to figure out what exactly went wrong, created a bitterness towards Judaism, but not it seems its God.

Like the Jehovah's Witnesses in the USA, who rationalized away their dissonance at the lack of a predicted 2nd coming in 1974 by deciding that Jesus had actually came in spirit and established an invisible kingdom of God (the park-like earth would have to come later), gentile/convert Jesus followers reasoned that Jesus really wasn't a messiah-king like the Jews expected, but an anointed redeemer of those who remained faithful to what God really intended to do, which was boot the Jews from favor for carelessness and transfer the mantle of the still-to-come kingdom to the faithful gentiles.

:bulb:

DCH

maryhelena

David, perhaps just stop here for a bit......

If you are going to read these passages literally - then you know what, you have just upheld the most immoral and inhumane philosophy known to man. The fundamental premise of the philosophy outlined in these passages, read literally, is one of negative dualism between people. Such a philosophy is the mainstay of every wannabe tyrant everywhere.

Christianity would never have got off the ground with such an inhumane philosophy. And to imagine that the above philosophy, taken literally, ever came from a Jewish pen, is a monstrous idea.

This negative philosophy, in these gospel quotes, has nothing to do with human interaction, man to man or woman to woman. These are words, by the gospel writers, placed into the mouth, not of a historical gospel JC, but into the mouth of a fictional, created, pseudo-historical JC figure. The benefit of this premise, a pseudo-historical JC, is that the one can read the above passages in an intellectual, purely philosophical, theological or spiritual context. The benefit is that one is not in the position of having to support the unsupportable literal, immoral, reading of the text.

It’s ideas, David, not people, that one rejects. One ‘hates’ the bad ideas, the immoral ideas, the downright crazy ideas. One does not hate ones literal mother or father or ones brothers and sisters. One ‘hates’, and leaves behind, the old outdated and harmful ideas. And yes, the old and dangerous ideas will ‘persecute’ you, they will fight to the death for their survival once the glory days of their youth have faded.

OK, I won’t go over this again as I have given my thoughts on Gal.4.21-31 in an earlier post in this thread. Suffice to say that Paul’s use of the Hagar and Sarah storyline should not be read literally.

Any war situation is going to cause problems for everyone. People take sides. However, to use a war situation as a basis for interpreting either the gospel anti-family persecuting storyline or Paul’s Hagar and Sarah storyline - is putting the cart before the horse. First one identifies what one is working with. In this case the gospel story and Paul’s Hagar and Sarah storyline. If one is going with a literal reading - then one is going to go and look for a literal, physical, ‘fulfilment’. But if ones literal reading of the passage leads to an anti-family action or philosophy, then one needs to stop in ones tracks and take in the consequences of that literal reading before one attempts to take a further wrong step with ones ‘fulfillment’ application scenarios.


Basing ‘an anointed redeemer’ figure upon a failed gospel messiah figure is bizarre. Again, it’s only a literal reading of the pseudo-historical gospel JC story that leads one to such a logically flawed premise. The very idea of a failed Jewish messiah figure is self-contradictory. A Jewish Messiah figure is thus by virtue of his accomplishments not the wishful thinking of his disillusioned followers.

David, I’m an ahistoricist/mythicist - and, consequently, have no need to attempt any support, any salvage operation, for a literal reading of the gospel JC story. You, obviously, from this post, are operating from a very different premise. So, methinks, I’ll leave you to your literal reading - a literal reading, which for me, holds no possibility for advancing a search into early Christian origins - and thus of no benefit. I had presumed, without basis I suppose, that your interest in Gal.4.21-32 was to understand the text, in and of itself. Now it seems that you are trying to let history, the history of the Jewish war, be the arbitrator in understanding the text. Indeed, history is vital in trying to understand early Christian origins: The NT story is about a JC figure. One can only proceed from that starting point. Once one decides either way, ahistorical or historical - then one takes that chosen premise as ones working model. It is my opinion that taking the historical JC model leads one to the bizarre notion that negative dualism between man and man, woman and woman, is the ‘moral’ road to human ‘salvation’. Ie reading the above gospel passages literally should be rejected out of hand.

So, David, since we are both working from opposite premises - methinks I’ll bow out of this thread and leave you to your attempt to support a literal reading of the above gospel quotes and Gal.4:21-31.

DCHindley

I just don't want to be sugar coating things found in the New Testament. These statements were there in the Gospels because the authors felt an affinity to them. "Yes, we too have given up our pagan fathers and mothers, sometimes even our spouses and children, in hopes of the blessed messianic age taught by Jesus."

The fact that ISB Encyclopedia article makes the point that Rabbinic tradition asserted that "[t]henceforth he had to put behind him all his past; even his marriage ties and those of kinship no longer held good (compare Yebham. 22a; Sanhedrin 58b)" shows that the circles which produced the Gospel authors were very probably proselytes to Judaism.

This wasn't just any ol' war, faught on both sides by professional soldiers who generally ignore or even protect the civilian population. The "camps" that fought each other in each city were militias formed by the Greek and Jewish groups, battling for turf (their neighborhoods) against rival militias intent on harming them. That Greeks and Jews of these towns still had some direct, although uneasy, contact (in the market, probably), suggests a scenario that in modern times played out in places such as Sarajevo and Beruit.

A modern day example is the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995.

[D]uring the Bosnian War, ... more than 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, [were massacred] by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) [a militia] under the command of General Ratko Mladić. ...

On 12 July 1995, as the day wore on, the refugees in the compound could see VRS soldiers setting houses and haystacks on fire. Throughout the afternoon, Serb soldiers mingled in the crowd and summary executions of men occurred. ... Soldiers were picking people out of the crowd and taking them away. A witness recounted how three brothers – one merely a child and the others in their teens – were taken out in the night. When the boys’ mother went looking for them, she found them with their throats slit.

During the first days of the Jewish War, anyone with ties of family or religion with either faction, and Jesus followers had both, had to wonder when some militia with a list of "collaborators/spies" would come pounding on the door at night and drag the men away, or have themselves selected arbirarily as hostages, etc.

So you think the Christian high Christology was created from nothing? Generally, a chemical reaction between stable chemicals or compounds occurs only under certain conditions. The War was the catalyst that calused the elements of Jesus as the coming Jewish messiah, middle Platonism, and perhaps other popular mythology, to react and produce the "high Christology" we see reflected in the NT.

The only thing that should be taken literally in Gal 4:21-31 is "just as then the son of the slave persecuted the son of the free woman, so it is now."

DCH

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