Were the authors of the Greek NT Jewish?

[Leucius Charinus]

What is the evidence for and against the hypothesis that the authors of the canonical books of the Greek new testament were Jewish.

What are some of the discussion points concerning the hypothesis that the authors of the canonical books of the Greek new testament were Jewish.

To what extant is this hypothesis (the NT authors were Jewish) accepted as a consensus of Biblical scholarship?

What alternative hypotheses have been considered if the authors of the NT were not Jewish?

Thanks for any thoughts, research, summarisations and above all things ................................................................ evidence (both for and against).


Be well.


LC.

[MrMacSon]

It might pay to try to discern what types of Jewishness one might find - Judaism had been & was increasingly diversifying by the late 1st & 2nd centuries AD/CE

(edited to make type plural ie. types)

[outhouse]

It might pay to try to discern what type of Jewishness one might find - Judaism had been & was increasingly diversifying by the late 1st & 2nd centuries AD/CE

I would have to agree.

Define 1rst century Judaism, then we can address the OP in context.

[outhouse]

What is the evidence for and against the hypothesis that the authors of the canonical books of the Greek new testament were Jewish.

Much of your question has do with how long did Jewish Christianity exist before the final divorce.

If we use Paul as an example, it helps place this into context and why it opens a can of worms the same way your OP does.

Pauls Judaism has always been debated.

Gentiles within a very short period after his death are said to be baptized and converted to the new Movement. These were not Jews. Its also these early followers that could be the unknown authors of the NT.

Hence the word unknown.

Aramaic Judaism that a possible Jesus may have followed died with his death in my opinion.

Hellenistic Judaism that was more or less a perversion of Judaism to different degrees due to wide spread diversity, had long wanted to divorce cultural Judaism as the cultural differences separated these different versions.

With Jesus death and martyrdom, Jesus Aramaic Judaism died with him as he was not the messiah they waited for. The Hellenist in the Diaspora however did find importance in it. Many were proselytes to Judaism and were glad to shed cultural Judaism.

Part of the trouble is who is calling who a Jew. Aramaic Jews would probably not call Hellenistic Proselytes jews, while fellow Proselytes might claim each other jews. Some gentiles were claimed to be Jews in Hellenistic circles, by simply forswearing off other pagan deities.


With Jesus death there were groups like Ebionite that were called Jewish Christians but we know nothing about them.

can of worms lol

When was Hellenistic Judaism finished divorcing cultural Judaism? Early on Is my guess.

[Leucius Charinus]

Thanks for the responses ...

It might pay to try to discern what type of Jewishness one might find - Judaism had been & was increasingly diversifying by the late 1st & 2nd centuries AD/CE

I would have to agree.

Define 1rst century Judaism, then we can address the OP in context.

Part of the trouble is who is calling who a Jew.

Why don't we start with the so-called expert opinions of contemporary scholarship?

Do the mainstream biblical scholars subscribe to the hypothesis that the authors of the Greek NT were Jewish?

Is there any consensus on this question?



LC

[Blood]

It should always be kept in mind that, according to Cassius Dio, people who converted to the Jewish religion called themselves Jews. It was not merely an ethnic marker.

The mythos that Mark historicized was the Jews killed Lord Jesus Christ, and though his death, salvation has come to the Gentiles. This obviously is not a Jewish conception. It depends on multiple false understandings of Judaism and the scriptures, that the Messiah would become a resurrected god, that the Messiah-god would be killed by "the Jews," that God intended the Law to be annulled, that God had to figure out some wicked secret plan to bring salvation to the Gentiles (when this already existed in the form of Noahide laws), etc. All this points to the gospels being conceived and written by Gentiles, a long physical and mental distance away from any form of Palestinian Judaism.

[Bertie]

Diversity or no diversity, circumcision was still a pretty strong marker of who was in and who was out in this time period, no?

I think a conventional (secular) listing of the NT books authored by Jewish-Christians would be: Matthew, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, 1 Thessalonians, James, Revelation.

[Charles Wilson]

http://www.syriacstudies.com/AFSS/Syria ... chard.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=RsVnE0 ... an&f=false

Weitzman was pointing the way to an understanding of what was happening during that period.

CW

[Leucius Charinus]

It should always be kept in mind that, according to Cassius Dio, people who converted to the Jewish religion called themselves Jews. It was not merely an ethnic marker.

That is true blood. And according to Florus, Trajan ordered the crucifixion of 2,000 Jews of the city of Emmaus in the very early second century. It seems clear to me at least that date of authorship of Acts, given by ECW as ...... "Estimated Range of Dating: 80-130 A.D." includes a date after the mass crucifixion of Jews under Trajan. But this still does not advance the discussion as to whether the author of Acts was Jewish.

Firstly thanks for engaging in this thread. Your contribution has reminded me that in order to address the OP, the original authorship of each of the books in the Greek NT must be separately questioned. It may ultimately be that some books of the NT are to be assessed as being written by a Jewish author of some variety, and/or that some books were not written by a Jewish author of any variety. The way I see it is that the NT is a "package" or "collection" of specific books. So maybe the OP needs to be applied to each book, and then somehow a summation process can be applied to the whole collection? IDK.

The mythos that Mark historicized was the Jews killed Lord Jesus Christ, and though his death, salvation has come to the Gentiles. This obviously is not a Jewish conception. It depends on multiple false understandings of Judaism and the scriptures, that the Messiah would become a resurrected god, that the Messiah-god would be killed by "the Jews," that God intended the Law to be annulled, that God had to figure out some wicked secret plan to bring salvation to the Gentiles (when this already existed in the form of Noahide laws), etc. All this points to the gospels being conceived and written by Gentiles, a long physical and mental distance away from any form of Palestinian Judaism.

Mark your words.

I have been reading everyone's comments about Paul too.
You can deal me in when the Stoics or Platonists get involved.
This is an interesting research project I started by reading ...

St. Paul and Stoicism
Author(s): Frederick Clifton Grant
Source: The Biblical World, Vol. 45, No. 5 (May, 1915), pp. 268-281
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3142715

It might be a bit dated, but it covers the basics.

Returning to the OP ...

So there is Mark and the Gospels, Acts and the letters of Paul and Pseudo-Paul and few others as the collection of Greek NT texts.

Which of these texts (if any) may NOT have been written by Jewish authors?

What does the history of scholarship on this question have to say?

Any links?

One final comment:

It seems to me that the more locked in to an early first century authorship for the NT the more inclined one would be to automatically back the hypothesis that the authors of the Greek NT were Jewish, because it goes with the "Story Line". The further one postulates a NT authorship date into the late 1st century, and then into the 2nd century, and even later 2nd century, the more remote becomes the hypothesis that the authors of a Greek work were Jewish. This is not to say that a mid 2nd century authorship of some of these canonical NT books does not rule out Jewish authorship. It's just that, as it seems to me, it opens up more possibilities that we may not be dealing with a Jewish authorship of the Greek NT.

It could be that the hypothesis that the authors of the Greek NT were Jewish is an unexamined hypothesis held to be true.

I am open to any suggestions on this suggestion, or OTOH, what does scholarship have to say?

Do Bart Ehrman or Robert Price or Richard Carrier or any other recent authors express an opinion on the OP in their writings?

Thanks for any leads.



LC






LC






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[Blood]

Scholarship was/is all over the map on this question.