aa5874

There were NO Jesus cult Christians in the 1st century up to at least 110 CE based on Philo, Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius.

The Jesus cult of Christians is from the 2nd century.

If one takes note of the recovered manuscripts of the Jesus cult writings--NONE are dated to the 1st century and none was located in Galilee or Jerusalem.

Manuscripts of the Jesus stories have been found in Greek, Syriac, and Latin but NOT in Aramaic and NOT in Galilee or Jerusalem up to the 4th century.

The early Jesus cult Church or assembly have been found outside Galilee and Jerusalem.

The Jesus cult is a product of the Fall of the Jewish Temple when NON-Jews believed that the day of Judgment was imminent using the Septuagint.

Examine Joel 2 Examine gMark 13 It was AFTER the Fall of the Temple that stories about a Son of God that was killed by the Jews began to surface.

spin

I'm certainly bemused by the gullibility. It's like you've got your shoelaces tied together and you refuse to separate them as you stumble around.

You are facing a religious situation in which external interference in Jewish life has been explained the same way so often that you should be suspicious. The Assyrians... corruption. The Babylonians... corruption. The Greek... corruption. The Romans... corruption. This is rhetoric. Foreigners invade... whaddid we do wrong? The divisions within the Jewish community in the 100 years prior to the fall of the temple show the various reactions to Roman occupation. As the temple was a business as usual kind of place, that made it the brunt of the various groups. The christians are heirs to this mentality of blame.

On what grounds do you argue that corruption, real or perceived, "greatly contributed to the Roman burning in 70AD"? The temple was not the issue at all but the fact that those in control of the temple had a working relationship with the Romans in order to continue functioning. A temple is a sitting target. It couldn't get up and walk away to live to fight another day. Collaboration with the powers that were was the only functional approach outside failure-bound armed rebellion. We saw the result of armed rebellion centered around the temple in 63 BCE when Pompey killed everyone therein. Think of how history vilifies collaboration. The rhetoric of corruption from the non-temple factions is an obvious reaction and when the temple was destroyed who was there around to defend against the accusation? We cannot take the claim of corruption seriously.

And what "greatly contributed to the Roman burning in 70AD" was the desire of the factions to get out from under the Roman yoke. They had no hope due to the military forces arrayed against them. So blame is laid. And when you have a nascent religion trying to publicly separate itself from Judaism, the adoption of the same rhetoric to demonstrate the distance is only to be expected.

We don't have any literary defense of the temple that has come down to us to balance the story. The temple was destroyed and that in itself caused the usual recriminations. We have to do the balancing ourselves. That's what one has to do in the effort of trying to gain an objective perspective on the past.

Do you think that the people who performed their religious duties at the temple believed that they were corrupt? Do you see them like the executive board of some corporation today willing to do anything to increase their profit share? Corruption in the context of Jerusalem 2000 years ago was a matter of violating purity and I see the average credent having a lot of faults, but I don't see them willingly and consciously violating their own religious beliefs. The accusation of corruption must be seen as a post hoc external view based on tendentiousness, a tendentiousness easily spotted, and not to be taken seriously until you have dealt with the tendentiousness.

My interest is the way that you are presenting the corruption nonsense as basis for your reasoning.

semiopen

I think we are on the same side for a change.

I mentioned that early stories of Jesus' death placed that simultaneous to the destruction of the temple. I think Richard Carrier discussed this in some of his anti-Ehrman works but haven't been able to find it yet.

However the Gospel_of_Mark may have been written before that.

The reference in Mark to the Temple could have been added later I suppose. Or the gospel could have been composed after the destruction in which case, there is no issue of an amazing prophecy (although how amazing such a prophecy would have been had it been made is another question).

There has also been a lot of discussion here about the corruption of the temple. So far as I know, there is no hard evidence that the temple was especially corrupt at this time as opposed to some other random time. It certainly wasn't destroyed because it was corrupt.

Finally, the schism between Judaism and Christianity is probably, at the most, indirectly related to the destruction of the temple. Things like getting circumcized and not eating pork or cheeseburgers are probably much more important.

TedM

spin, I now see your viewpoint: You attribute a lot to the word 'corruption' and fail to see that by definition outsider involvement with the temple is "corruption". Collaboration IS corruption. That's the mindset of the Jew of the time. I said "real or perceived". You should have let it go at that instead of getting all worked up.

I"m self-banning as I have great things to do.

semiopen

Another one bites the dust...

There are issues about the state of temple construction in the first half of the common era.

The building project started by Herod is generally thought to have been completed between 60-64 CE.

TEMPLE OF HEROD:

However, the year and a half seems idealized.

Coins show Herod built only part of Second Temple walls

This seems to make it better than even money that Jesus at the temple was anachronistic as the temple was likely still under heavy construction during his alleged time.

spin

This new faux TedM is ever one for shifting the goal posts...

...and the crass over-generalization...

...and ass covering.

What you call "getting worked up" is handing your ass to you for spouting shallow rubbish about "corruption in the temple, or at least that perception by fellow Jews, which greatly contributed to the Roman burning in 70AD". The real TedM has a bit more perception than that.

Let's see what the next regeneration will be like.

:wave:

spin

How do you read the implications of the parable of the wicked tenants in Mk 12:1-9, based on Isa 5:1-7, which talks about the vineyard as being the house of Israel (Isa 5:7a)? How do you date Mk 12:9b? Isn't the tower Jerusalem?

[t2]1 And He began to speak to them in parables: A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. 2 "At the [harvest] time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive [some] of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. 3 "They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 "Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. 5 "And he sent another, and that one they killed; and [so with] many others, beating some and killing others. 6 "He had one more [to send], a beloved son; he sent him last [of all] to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' 7 "But those vine-growers said to one another, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!' 8 "They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 "What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.[/t2]

semiopen

I try to stay away from the Christian threads because of my ignorance about the NT. For example, I only know that Mark is often considered the oldest because of this thread.

Have to admit, my preference for an after destruction date for Mark is emotional, as Yoshke miracle arguments annoy me.

aa5874

The Jesus story is POST c 121 CE. There is no known non-apologetic source that wrote about Jesus of Nazareth or wrote about Jesus of Nazareth as a predicted Messianic ruler since the time of Tiberius.

It is MULTIPLE attested from c 75-121 CE by Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius that the Jews BELIEVED the Messianic ruler would come at c 66-70 CE---NOT c 1-33 CE.

It is also MULTIPLE attested that Vespasian was considered the Predicted Messianic ruler from c 69-79 CE.

Non-Apologetics began to write about the Jesus story late in the 2nd century--See Lucian's "Death of Peregrine" and Origen's Against Celsus.

The ENTIRE Canon which mentions a Jesus of Nazareth as a Messiah was most likely composed AFTER c 121 CE.

In fact, it was around 133 CE that it was believed that Simon Barchocheba was the Jewish Messianic ruler.

c 75 CE
Josephus' Wars of the Jews 6.5.4c 110 CE

Tacitus' Histories 5c 121 CE
Suetonius' Life of Vespasian There is simple no evidence from antiquity at all that Jews had already acknowledged a character called Jesus as a Messianic ruler before the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE.

outhouse

In context, It was quite normal to build a guard tower for any small farm.

The parable possibly does deal with the temple though but "can be" indirect in repsect to the tower.


Looks like the author is using Isa 5: 1;7 as influnece to describe the fall of the temple.

On the other side of the coin, they have prophecy that the messiah predicted the destruction of the temple.

You also have to deal with this as a compilation of sources that existed before the temple fell.


I dont think you can hinge one sentance in a parable for accurate dating of the whole gospel, taking into context many different aspects that apply.