Doug Shaver

No.

According to the mythology, Jews by definition are the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac. The would make Isaac the first Jew, or perhaps Abraham himself, but it would exclude Abraham's father along with all his other ancestors.

According to real history, Abraham was almost certainly a fictional character. The first people we know of to have been called Jews were the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Judah.

Chunk

I have a question about Nag Hammadi.

As far as I understand it, after the cannon was formed, all other texts were ordered to be destroyed. Some were saved and recently found near Nag Hammadi in Egypt.

My basic question is, (in summary) what do these and and other non-cannonical texts tell us about Jesus and belief in Jesus.

I understand that the Christian view will be that they are not true, which is why they were left out of the cannon. However, do they actually tell us anything in significant contrast to what is show in The Bible?

Similarly, how reliable are they in terms of authorship and date etc. Do any of them add an weight (or indeed take away any) to the "claims" made in The Bible.

I appologise if this is too big a subject area to be answered in the manner I am asking.

Thanks.

Julian

They don't really tell us much more about Jesus. The have a lot more sayings and some different angles on the events and scripture. They really tell us a lot about the different views on christianity as well as the great diversity that has been almost entirely suppressed in church history. Mostly they are about interpreting christianity and what it meant to believers. They also reveal that just as the orthodox wrote polemics against the 'heretics,' the heretics fired back, somthing we have seen very little of because of the victory of orthodoxy.

Did you know that the gospel of Peter had a talking cross in it?

Many early christians, now deemed heretics, believed in multiple gods. Many gnostics believed that the Jewish creator god, the one we know simply as god, was a not-so-perfect god (how else could he have created this crappy, imperfect world?) called the demiurge and that the real god was somewhere behind all this and Jesus was our link to this real, perfect god. And many, many other views...
Overall they are not in great conflict with the canonical writings but they do add some more details as well as some very interesting interpretations. Mostly, they show the gnostic viewpoint, which is a very broad and not-so-unified view, which was a huge element of early christianity, especially that of the docetists (people who thought Jesus was not a physical, human being) which has some fun representations in the NH writings.
The gospel of Thomas is probably very early. Most of them are of a later date. The authorship and dating face the same problems we find with the canonical writings. Much specualtion, very few facts.
No problem. I encourage others to add answers to this very interesting question.

Julian

Doug Shaver

I am aware of no good evidence that there was ever any such general order. There probably were localized search-and-destroy missions, but in general the main reason the texts didn't survive was that nobody tried to preserve them.

They're all too late to tell us anything about Jesus himself, assuming there was such a man. They do attest, however, to a greater diversity of beliefs about Jesus during Christianity's very early years than many Christians care to admit to.

They're just like the canonical writings in that regard. The authors are totally unknown.

Didymus

Please explain how being nomadic would account for Abraham's monotheism. Thanks.

Didymus

Didymus

I've done quite a bit of searching on this subject, and I can't find any such order either. But if there was one, Roger Pearse knows about it.

A letter that may have seemed to threaten such action was written by the illustrious defender of orthodoxy Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in 367. In her book "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas," Elaine Pagels discusses Athanasius' list of canonical works. She writes,

"It is likely that one or more of the monks who heard his letter read at their monastery near the town of Nag Hammadi decided to defy Athanasius's order and removed more than fifty books from the monastery library, hid them in a jar to preserve them, and buried them near the cliff where Muhammad Ali would find them sixteen hundred years later."

Ath's letter was nothing more than a list, but it apparently sent chills.

Chunk

Thanks for the help on that.

Ive been reading about the theory of Midrash being used to write Mark, and then the other gospels being based on Mark (with the addition of sayings material - possibly Q).

Ive done some reading about midrash. To me, it seems that its more used to extract ideas abot laws, rather than something that could be mistaken as a literal historical account of something that happened on Earth.

If the gospel of Mark is infact Midrash, how much does this comply with the other midrash books we still have? If it is very similar, surely this adds weight to the claim. If all other midrash books are similar to each other, but nothing like the gospel of Mark then surley this tells us something too.

Thanks.

Doug Shaver

In any bureaucracy, subordinates sometimes assume that their bosses want certain things done that the bosses don't actually give a damn about one way or the other.

TomboyMom

Sorry if this is too demanding, though that's never stopped me before. Could someone summarize what historian/archeologists generally think was the actual history of the Jews before Jesus?

Codec

I'm not sure I can do the archeological bit. Here is what I know of the history of the Jews, squashed into bullet points. Please supply corrections - dates are very debateable early on. Historically I think its fair to say the Biblical history is skewed towards seeing the Jews in a more successful light than objective historians might state, but hey - its their history.

• (Genesis) Adam, Noah and stuff. (~2200BCE - 1800BCE)
• Time of the Patriarchs,Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (who had 12 sons - hence 12 tribes), Joseph (little archological data available). (~1800BCE)
• Joseph goes to Egypt, family follows him eventually after some fun and games.
• They stay in Egypt for about 400 years.
• (Exodus) Moses leads them out of Egypt into the wilderness for 40 years of wandering (~1200-1300BCE)
• (Joshua) They invade Canaan under Joshua, starting at Jericho. A Genocide of the existing occupants takes place. (~1200BCE)
• They settle down in various areas, divided amongst the 12 tribes.
• (Judges) Period of Judges, who lead the Israelites in battles with their neighbours. Time of Samson, Deborah and some others, ending with Samuel.
• They need decide they need a king, and elect Saul to rule them. (~1020BCE)
• (Kings) Saul doesn't turn out too well, and after some adventures, David (who slew Goliath amongst other things) takes over. (~1006BCE)
• David does very well, unites the tribes, conquers neighbours, and forms a solid kingdom.
• Solomon becomes the next king, after a power struggle amongst Davids sons (several of who die in the process).(965BCE)
• Said to be the wise king, but his decisions set up some north/south factions - Northern tribes not very happy. Builds the 1st temple.
• Solomon dies, his son takes over, but the north rebels and installs its own king. (926BCE)
• For ~200 years there are two kingdoms - North is Israel, South is Judah. various kings for each.
• Then the Northern kingdom is overrun by the Assyrians, and wiped out. The 10 tribes are lost at this point. (722 BCE)
• Judah varies between Kings that follow the law of Moses, and those that experiment with other religions.
• About 150 years later, Judah is attacked by the Egyptians and Babylonians.
• After some rebellions by the Jews, the Babylonians come in and burn Jerusalem and the first temple to the ground. Exile all the leaders and take them captive back to Persia. Judah is no more. (587-6BCE)
• For 50 years they live in exile "by the rivers of Babylon".
• (Nehemiah/Ezra) Then, a new Persian ruler (Cyrus) who has conquered Babylon allows them to go back to Jerusalem, rebuild the walls and the (2nd) temple. (537BCE)
• They live under various outside rulers for most of the time up to the Romans and Jesus.
• End of most of the biblical OT history, although Maccabees details some uprisings in the century or so before Jesus, when briefly they throw off their rulers for a while.
• Romans conquer the area (63BCE)

From my understanding, there is very little archeological confirmation, until we start getting into the David/Solomon time. Even that seems to contradict a little the Biblical history, or at least not support it in full. There is reasonably good evidence for the two conquests of Israel and Judah, including documentation from the invaders in some cases. Things get more solid after that.