outhouse

Your arguing my interpretation more then the discussion of the origins of Judaism. Are you not?

Monotheism was not invented nor started with second Isaiah, although I do understand what the video posits regarding second Isaiah and his possible role regarding monotheism. .

Grog

I am interested in learning who you think is the individual who started preaching a message that was or became known as "Judaism."

Grog

J-D,

Ok, so first IF Jewish monotheism "originated with Deutero-Isaiah," THEN "it fits the pattern of an original preacher being involved in a new religious development."

I do think I am detecting some movement of the goalposts here from "religions" originated with an individual to "new religious developments." Religious innovations do originate within individuals, but as part of a collective process, mostly subject to a process of natural selection. I can accept that. I do not think that all "religions" are created whole cloth by an individual who preaches a message that is accepted by others. Looking at this statement:

So, first of all, the hypothesis of "Deutero-Isaiah" already involves more than one individual, so it does not fit your "pattern" at the outset. Second, your claim is that religions are created basically whole cloth by an individual preaching a message. Deutero-Isaiah refers to a specific religious teaching that was written down by two or more authors. What is your evidence that the literary production was created by the "founder" who preached the message? How do you know that this teaching can be traced back to original individual who preached a message? How do you disentangle the innovations added by that individual from the ideas that were, so to speak, already "in the air?"

There are times when that can be done. L Ron Hubbard originated the idea of "Dianetics," although he did distill his ideas from a hodgepodge of half-baked notions brewed in the miasma of countercultural stew. I think Mormonism originated in a similar fashion. However, there are times when that can't be pinpointed to an individual. I have many times raised the example of New Age Spiritualism. There is no single individual that can be pointed to as the originator of this body of thought. It has largely evolved out of a syncretic process, borrowing ideas from several strands. Yet there is a body of thought and practice that can be categorized under the label of "New Age." While this is not an organized religion, it could be an incubator movement for organized religion.

I think the evidence from then ancient world seems to indicate that the cultural clash occurring in the Mediterranean world provided a similar incubator that led to beliefs such as Jesus-belief in its many different forms, one of which emerged as what we now consider "Christianity."

When you look at the evidence for the origins of this religion, you find that our sources are literary and that they borrow heavily from older sources, including the Old Testament and secular sources such as the works of Josephus. When all the sources are put together, there is little that seems to have originated with an individual preacher. At least we have no sources that link back to that alleged individual.

It seems more likely to me that these ideas emerged out of previous ideas, such as those contained in Daniel, Isaiah, the Wisdom of Solomon, early Gnostic works (specifically, I think the Apocalypse of Adam). These are precursors to what I see emerging in early Christian works like some of the Pauline epistles.

J-D

What do you think that you are disagreeing with me about?

outhouse

Yes it can.


Deities were needed by many. And I do view it as 100% mythology.

outhouse

This position I find unsupported.

Can you point to a specific time in the vid that claims "the exiles" switched to monotheism and that they accepted the preaching of second Isaiah?


Does it not state how alienated to Yahweh the Hebrews felt in exile?

It does claim there was a change to the cult of Yahweh however not those exiled. If you did not know, the cult of Yahweh does not represent all Israelites

Toto

You still have not identified the author of this video, or why it is a source of authority. So who cares what the video says?

outhouse

Is there a rule against unaccredited information being posted here as a source? No matter how accurate the information is?

Chris Redford

Toto

This is just common courtesy. But it is also in the Terms of Use.

How is anyone to judge the accuracy of information that is unsourced? You can find all sorts of claims on the internet, some of them true, some of them not so much.

There is the further problem that much of this information is conjectural. How do you know what is relatively sure, versus what is the best judgment of scholars versus what is just pure speculation?

And who is Chris Redford?

J-D

I've already told you that I haven't taken any position on that question.