Jan Haugland

A partly relevant side note: While it has been commonly believed that the Christian evangelisation to the Jews failed, and that it was more successful among "gentiles", Rodney Stark argues quite convincingly in The Rise of Christianity that this view is false. A high proportion of early Christians across the Hellenistic world were Jews. Cities with a high Jewish population tended to also become important Christian centres.

While there certainly was opposition to Christianity in Judaism, it also seems that many converts were taken from the Jewish communities. The books of the NT seems to give an exaggarated view of a confrontation between what can be called two Jewish sects, where one actively proselyted to gentiles, the other did not.

- Jan

...who rants and raves every day at Secular Blasphemy

Yuri Kuchinsky

Here I found something that's even more relevant.

Yuri.

http://individual.utoronto.ca/hayes/...h/lecture7.htm

In the past, the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and
Christianity has usually been dated to the first century. The nineteenth-century German liberal Protestant historian Adolph
Harnack thought that Jesus himself had rejected his Jewish
roots. (Nazi Protestant anti-semitism loved this idea.) More
often, it's been dated to the Council of Yavneh in A.D. 90. This
was a council of Jewish rabbis which, according to the Mishnah,
re-shaped Judaism in the light of the destruction of the temple
in A.D. 70. Judaism could no longer focus on temple, sacrifice,
priesthood. Instead it focused on synagogue, prayer, and
rabbinical teaching. The Council of Yavneh, it's recorded,
included among the Eighteen Benedictions (said at prayer by Jews
at least once daily) a curse on Nazarenes (Christians).


* In the last generation there has been a tendency towards a later
date for the "parting of the ways". Jean Daniélou, a Roman
Catholic archbishop of Paris, in The Theology of Jewish
Christianity (1964), argued that Christianity remained
essentially Judaistic until the middle of the second century. He
identified a number of early Christian writings as Jewish in
their assumptions, including Jude, Shepherd of Hermas, Odes of
Solomon, Sybilline Oracles, Epistle of Barnabas, Didaché, the
Gospel according to the Ebionites, and the pseudo-Clementine
literature.

...

Most recently, Daniel Boyarin, a talmudic scholar at the
University of California, Berkeley, and a few others (whom he
cites in an article in the September 2001 number of Church
History), has argued that Jews and Christians were not clearly
differentiated by anything like a clear border until the fifth
century. The Council of Yavneh (undocumented before about A.D.
200) and its curse of the Nazarenes (undocumented before about
A.D. 250) are to be seen as retrojections into the past of
then-current concerns (like the Apostolic Tradition of
Hippolytus). He argues that "Judaism in all of its forms and
Christianity in all of its forms were part of a complex
religious family." Intimately knowledgeable in both the
Christian and Jewish literature of these centuries, Boyarin
finds a great number of mutual influences in these texts,
suggesting that common ideas were circulating among these
groups. He also cites evidence that on at least a few rare
occasions Jews and Christians worshipped together.

vtran31

Amos
I must admit that I do enjoy your inane metaphoric prose poems, but you have gone too deep into the muck this time by making statements out of thin air. The Messiah in Judaism could not be called “Christ”.

messiah is hebrew for anointed one, different spelling in Hebrew and Christ is greek for messiah, Christos. so I figure your wrong

The Jewish concept of Messiah has nothing what so ever to do with the Christian concept of a GOD/MAN.

how about Isaiah 9:6?

The Jewish concept is as foolish as the Christian concept but it is a this world concept.

if you beleive so

The Messiah is a worldly King appointed by God.

or could be a prist. both kings and priests were anointed

Of course one has to distinguish between the Messiah ben Joseph who must come first and the Messiah ben David.

a load of bunk to try to harmonize Isaiah 53 with Daniel with Zacheriah. nowhere hinted in Scripture

The Messiah does not end Judaism or end the world. He just leads all the Jews back to Israel and raises the righteous dead.
On second thought this stuff is so ridiculous that Amos might as well be right.

we shall see

Baidarka

Yuri
Your illuminating questions forced me back to my books. Lucky that Apikorus was there to take up the slack while I reread enough to be able to write without confusing myself.
First I would like to fill in some of the details that I left out of my earlier post.

There is a story from the time of Rabbi Akiva of a Jewish scholar, Rabbi Eleazar ben Dama, who was dying from a snake bite. A Jewish Christian, Jacob of Kefar Sama, offered to cure him in the name of Yeshua ben Pantera but another Jewish scholar, Rabbi Ishmael intervened and refused the blasphemous treatment, saying “ Ben Dama it is not allowed” .

There is the story of Rabbi Eliezer who was caught in a Roman raid against the “Christian” sect. He was questioned and then set free. Akiva questioned the old man as to why he was mistaken for a follower of Jesus. After thinking for a while the Old Rabbi said “By Heaven, you have reminded me! I was walking once along the main street of Sepphoris, and I met Jacob of Kefar Sikhnin, and he told me a bit of minut in the name of Yeshua ben Pantera, and I enjoyed it”.

In The Jews in their Land, Gedaliah Alon divides early Jewish Christians into 4 groups.
1- Ebionites A- a totally Jewish sect. It seems that they were tea-totalers and may have been vegans. They believed that Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph and that he earned his Messiahood by his perfection and virtue.
2- Ebionites B- Fraternized with gentile Christians. Were very liberal in their attitude towards Gentile Christians in terms of adherence to Jewish laws. They believed in the virgin birth and that Jesus was a God/Messiah. They observed both the Sabbath and the Lord’s day (Sunday).
3- Nazarenes – Jews who totally embraced Pauline Christianity. They continued to be practicing Jews but they had antipathy towards the Jewish sages-“The Scribes and the Pharisees”. This sect was “completely alienated from the Jewish people” according to Alon.
4- Jewish Christian Gnostics- (It sounds like they were the ancestors of Amos’ brand of theology)
They believed themselves to be practicing Jews (Alon says “in their opinion”).
Belief in Jesus as Messiah or as Prophet.
Belief that Jesus was from the beginning of time.
Rejection of some parts of the Bible.
That Jesus came to end animal sacrifice.
A very imaginative sect.
A very practical belief that it is permissible to violate the law to avoid Martyrdom.

It seems that these separate sects would have been would have been treated very differently from each other by Rabbinic Judaism.

“Up to the time of the Destruction, the Pharisees did not generally take any punitive measures against Jews who believed in Jesus, even though they did occasionally discipline them as sinners.”
“But there were two factors that caused the atmosphere to change radically. The first was that, in moments of national crisis the Jewish Christians turned their backs on the national cause of the Jewish people.”
1- According to Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. III:5:2-3) Hegesippus said that the Jewish Christians fled from Jerusalem in 68 CE during the siege and fled to Pella.
The Jewish Christians refused to join the Jewish cause during the Bar Kokhbar revolt.
2- “the Destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple brought about a sense of national emergency and a consequent closing of ranks.” There was a need to become one people with unified beliefs.

I have just finished reading Gersholm Scholem’s book about Sabbatai Sevi and I think that this story from the middle ages can give us some very important insights into the mechanics of a failed messianic cult and it’s aftermath.

Baidarka

Vtran31

The Greek word Christ is not the same as the Hebrew word Moshiach. It is not always so easy to translate complex theological ideas. Moshiach is the Hebrew word for King.
David, Saul and Hezekiah were all Moshiachs. Were David, Saul and Hezekiah Christs? Christ is a Greek word for a concept that is completely foreign to Judaism.
It’s late now I will try to respond to the rest of your post tomorrow.

Amos

But is that not the reason why the Jews could not accept Jesus as the messiah and they never did call him the Christ. It is just the mythmakers who used this word to start a new religion that was different from Judaism.

As for the Jews not knowing the concept God/man just proves that their mystery of faith remained a mystery because some Jews did "walk with God" which is just another way of saying that they were God. Enoch was one but so were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and I suspect that there were many, many others not mentioned in the bible).

Baidarka

vtran31
B- For the sake of clarity please use quotation marks to differentiate my words or anyone else’s from yours.

vtran31- ”messiah is hebrew for anointed one, different spelling in Hebrew and Christ is greek for messiah, Christos. so I figure your wrong “

B- Was Saul a Christ?

vtran31- “how about Isaiah 9:6?”

B- How about it? Many Biblical names contain God. All it says is that “he will be called” not that he will be. Joel, Samuel, Saul, Israel, Yacov, Yeshua etc. All these people had God as part of their names. So I don’t know what point you are trying to make.

B- The Jewish concept is as foolish as the Christian concept but it is a this world concept.

vtran31- ”if you believe so”

B- Just as foolish but very different

B- The Messiah is a worldly King appointed by God.

vtran31- or could be a prist. both kings and priests were anointed

B- You are quite right the Messiah concept applies to Priests as well as Kings.

B-Of course one has to distinguish between the Messiah ben Joseph who must come first and the Messiah ben David.

vtran31”a load of bunk to try to harmonize Isaiah 53 with Daniel with Zacheriah. nowhere hinted in Scripture”

B- Of course its Bunk. Religion is bunk. What’s your point?


B- The Messiah does not end Judaism or end the world. He just leads all the Jews back to Israel and raises the righteous dead.
On second thought this stuff is so ridiculous that Amos might as well be right.

vtran31- “We shall see”


B- Vtran31 we live in the real world. I have no patience or sympathy for those who insist on replacing reality with fantasy. Isaiah was writing about his own time. Prophecy is an illusion and a delusion. Isaiah most emphatically did not magically predict Jesus or any other future events. Creative minds can prove anything from scripture. Look at all the Bible Code buffoons.
It is important to keep a grasp on reality when trying to understand any text. Melville did not predict Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea when he wrote Moby Dick. Hemingway was influenced by Melville. Just so Isaiah wrote in, for and about his time. I’m sure that he influenced the writers of the NT and that they stretched things a little to pretend that he was writing about their favorite guy, but this is pure baloney.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Baidarka,

Thanks for some good info you've provided in your post. Indeed, usually, there's more than one way to interpret all this often confusing data.

Have you read the info I've provided about Daniel Boyarin and his theories? I think he's now in the forefront among the Jewish scholars in trying to locate the hard historical info in the traditional Jewish sources.

Quote:

“Up to the time of the Destruction, the Pharisees did not generally take any punitive measures against Jews who believed in Jesus, even though they did occasionally discipline them as sinners.” “But there were two factors that caused the atmosphere to change radically. The first was that, in moments of national crisis the Jewish Christians turned their backs on the national cause of the Jewish people.” 1- According to Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. III:5:2-3) Hegesippus said that the Jewish Christians fled from Jerusalem in 68 CE during the siege and fled to Pella. The Jewish Christians refused to join the Jewish cause during the Bar Kokhbar revolt. 2- “the Destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple brought about a sense of national emergency and a consequent closing of ranks.” There was a need to become one people with unified beliefs.

Well, IMHO there are risks of over-generalising here.

_All_ Jewish Christians "fled from Jerusalem in 68 CE"?

_All_ Jewish Christians "refused to join the Jewish cause during the Bar Kochba revolt"? And what about the great many other Jews who also refused to join Bar Kochba?

After Bar Kochba was defeated, and it became very clear that he wasn't really the Meshiakh, why should have the failure to join a failed revolt been held against anybody?

Anyway, these are just some questions...

Best regards,

Yuri.

George W.

Christianity is a pagan religion. Judaism did have in the Talmud a Jesus Ben Pandira who was son of Mary Magdalene. He was tried for sorcery, and stoned to death, then hung on a tree. That was more than a century before the fictional Jesus of christianity.

Paul, a very irrational fellow had some Jewish training and education but he was raised in the Pagan city of Tarsus. There he was surrounded by the dominant Roman religion at the time, Mithraism. There were other Eastern Myster Cults in Tarsus, an important sea port and crossroads of trade routes.

Paul when to Jerusalem where a Jesus cult still existed, and tried to put his "spin" on the legend. Incidently there are no Roman records of a Jesus being crucified for anything, or even being tried. The Ebionite Messianic Jews who followed the teachings of Jesus (Possibly Peter and James) argued and the bunch of them drove Paul out of Jerusalem. Paul fled first to Petra, but soon made a nuisance of himself and had to flee by boat back to Tarsus where he remained "silent" for 14 years.

During that time, Paul using Mithraism as the model, re-invented it using Jesus in place of Mithra. He gave Jesus most of Mithra's characteristics. Virgin birth (alternately he was born of a rock), in a cave attended by shepherds, and visited by Magi. He was the son of Ahura Mazda, the high God but also human. He later was killed but resurrected to save mankind. Mithraism being an offshoot of Zoroastrianism believed in Heaven and Hell, a final battle of Good versus Evil. A final judgement day was supposed to follow in which Ahura Mazda would assign the good to Heaven and the bad to Hell. Mithra brough saving grace, and water baptism as well as blood baptism in which one was "Born Again."

Mithraic rites of which a limited amount is known but 5 cave frescoes that indicate they had 7 sacraments. They also had 7 in a number of other myths perhaps being the origin of the 7 horned beast in Revelations.

By the time Paul had syncreted Mithraism with Jesus he was ready to spread the new faith along with his early disciples. They still needed to iron out a few details. Was Jesus equal to God? Was he a created God (Arians), or one of a trinity (Athansian)? Emperor Constantine intervenened. He was favourable to Sol Invictus the Sun God. But his mother converted to Athanasian Christianity. The Empire had been through multiple German invasions and Persian Wars and several civil wars with rival emperors. He needed a unifying factor. He decided that Athanasian Christianity nearly identical with Mithraism the largest relgion could be compatible with Sol Invictus and even the second fastest growing cult, Druidism. So with his troops at Nicaea, he called the Bishops together, banned competing christian cults and forced the Mithraists, most continental Druids, and Sun Cultists to admit that Jesus was Mithra was the Sun God Sol/Aten, and the Druidic Sun god Lugh (Light).

His merger worked rather well. The empire so unified, lasted another 150 years. His successors, especially Theodosius I, persecuted the remaining "pagans" out of existence or exiled them to remote rural areas. Where is the Judaism here?

Paul had utilised various Jewish scriptural texts to show prophesy of Jesus/Mithra's coming, he really had to put a heck of a spin on most of them. He reinterpreted them in his epistles to better fit his new religion, which wasn't really a new religion but a syncretized mosaic of four pagan cults with a superficial Judaic "history".

George W.

Radcliffe Emerson

Do you have any sources for this info about Paul?
I personally believe there's a good chance this could be the case, but I'd like to see some sources.