The Origins of Christianity

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
eedipus
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by eedipus »

MrMacSon wrote:
eedipus wrote:
... the origin of Christianity was probably a result of the destruction of the 2nd. Temple ... by the Romans in the year 70AD.
True, but do you think the "crisis point in their identity with their monotheistic God ... facing the end of their Jewish faith in their God" came then of after the put down of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the then absolute sacking of Jerusalem with no chance of rebuilding the Temple.
eedipus wrote:
Where was the promised Messiah?

The answer to the problem was the opposite to what they had previously thought. The Messiah was not yet to come, He had already been but he had not been recognized for who he was.

It was probably a Hellenic Jew who fashioned the story of Jesus of Nazareth. He intuitively understood the real meaning of the Greek mystery cults, the Elusinian Mysteries, and wrote the story of Jesus as an allegory for how we should view life and death but, tragically, it was altered and interpreted literally. It is not that the Jesus story is untrue, but it was really intended to point to a greater truth.
An nteresting proposition.
eedipus wrote:

The Roman-Jewish Wars between 66 and136AD were a catastrophe for the Jewish people,
and in terms of religious significance I see the sack of Jerusalem and in particular the destruction
of the Temple in 70AD as the watershed between the beginning of Christianity and Rabbinic
Judaism.
The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved through the centuries to what we have today.
The Bar Kokhba revolt from 132 to 135AD was certainly another crisis point but in making a choice
I would choose the destruction of the Temple in 70AD that produced the crisis in their faith and initiated the origins of Christianity.

Dennis Sutherland.
Clive
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Clive »

Is a huge issue the possible confusion that Christ - anointing - and Messiah - some form of saviour - mean the same thing?

I think we do have some horizontal gene transfer, some co-evolution, some symbiosis, some grafting of different plant stocks happening, and because everyone assumes Messiah and Christ are the same, this causes real confusion.

(I forgot parasites, cuckoos ...)
Last edited by Clive on Mon Jun 13, 2016 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Clive »

What use is a heavenly anointing high priest when we need a war lord saviour? A Christ when we want a Joshua?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Clive
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Clive »

I propose the term Jesus in Paul is an interpolation, and conversely Christ in gospels is also an interpolation.

Some texts - Hebrews(?), may have been written with both as joining texts - not just Acts.
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

MrMacSon wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote: ..the crucifixion of the Christ is Pauline and pre-70.
On what basis do you . . . say these things? and, What do you mean by the crucifixion of 'the Christ'?
neilgodfrey wrote: Good question. It's always good to be challenged and tested on the fundamentals.

Galatians 2:20; 1 Corinthians 1:23, 2:2, etc. -- hence the crucifixion of Christ is a Pauline teaching.

Paul spoke of crucifixion of the Christ as something that he personally could in some sense identify with.
Do you think there was originally a Jesus identified with Paul's Christ?

neilgodfrey wrote: He "died", "mortified his old self", to have the life of Christ in him. It is a spiritual conquest relevant to Jews and gentiles alike.
I realise there is, in Paul's writings, "a spiritual conquest relevant to Jews and gentiles alike".

Are you saying Paul 'mortified his old self'? or another entity?

neilgodfrey wrote: That it's pre-70 I base on the evidence that Paul demonstrates no knowledge of the events of the War of 68-70. He speaks of Jews as redeemable as anyone else. That doesn't prove the texts we work with are pre-70 but it's a reasonable starting point.
Could Paul be writing elsewhere: somewhere distant with little knowledge of events in Jerusalem in 68-70 AD/CE??

or, could Paul be writing long after the events of 68-70*, when the inability to rebuild Judaism or the Temple in Jerusalem was an accepted fate?

or both?
The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved ...

Dennis Sutherland.
  • * with the Pauline-texts 'time-shifted' into the pre-70 time-period? to align with the gospel texts (as a back-story as doctrine was being developed later; 2nd-C or later)?
Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Jun 13, 2016 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

Clive wrote:
  • I propose the term Jesus in Paul is an interpolation, and conversely Christ in gospels is also an interpolation.
I think this is a proposal worth considering, investigating, & discussing.
Clive wrote: Some texts - Hebrews(?), may have been written with both as joining texts - not just Acts.
That does seem to be the case.
outhouse
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by outhouse »

Clive wrote:Why does one translation (DRA) read
For if he that cometh preacheth another Christ,
?

Then you are as bad as he is with your severe lack of education.


This hobby/profession takes a certain amount of comprehensive skills which obviously many are severely lacking.


Do you read Genesis literally and believe it?
outhouse
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by outhouse »

Solo wrote:


Evidently, it doesn't matter at your level of analysis there were quotation marks around another Jesus. :confusedsmiley: Was kann man tun ?

Best,
Jiri
Comprehension is required here.

It was in context against false teachers, not multiple jesus, just concepts from those teaching different traditions about the same one.

Context is key here, not literal reading. This is exactly why mythicist are laughed at in academic circles.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by neilgodfrey »

MrMacSon wrote: Do you think there was originally a Jesus identified with Paul's Christ?
I don't think the question is relevant to anything Paul taught. We need to work with what we read in Paul's letters and take all our cues from those. Whatever else there may have been but does not appear in his letters is irrelevant.

MrMacSon wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote: He "died", "mortified his old self", to have the life of Christ in him. It is a spiritual conquest relevant to Jews and gentiles alike.
I realise there is, in Paul's writings, "a spiritual conquest relevant to Jews and gentiles alike".

Are you saying Paul 'mortified his old self'? or another entity?
He followed the same principles as taught by Stoic and other philosophies of the day. Self-control. He had a different spin on how he explained the process and seems to have added a few other spiritual flourishes.

MrMacSon wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote: That it's pre-70 I base on the evidence that Paul demonstrates no knowledge of the events of the War of 68-70. He speaks of Jews as redeemable as anyone else. That doesn't prove the texts we work with are pre-70 but it's a reasonable starting point.
Could Paul be writing elsewhere: somewhere distant with little knowledge of events in Jerusalem in 68-70 AD/CE??
"Could" be but way too little evidence to support this speculation to make it viable. That's not to say later persons added much to his writings. In fact there's no evidence I can think of at all to support such speculation. Simpler explanation for contents of his letters (as Ben Smith outlined) is that he was pre 70.
MrMacSon wrote:or, could Paul be writing long after the events of 68-70*, when the inability to rebuild Judaism or the Temple in Jerusalem was an accepted fate?
No. The events of 70 were still talked about right through the second and third centuries.
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Tenorikuma
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Tenorikuma »

Ben C. Smith wrote: I think Paul is seeing Satan lurking behind more mundane earthly obstacles in 1 Thessalonians 2.17-18:

17 But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. 18 For we wanted to come to you — certainly I, Paul, did, again and again — but Satan blocked our way.

I suppose Paul could intend his readers to think of Satan literally appearing in front of him and blocking his path in a physical sense, but I have family members who speak in this way all the time. What is "really" happening amounts to car repairs, economic downturns, and mistakes, but how it gets retold is: "Satan opposed me."

Similarly, in the Christian portion(s) of the Martyrdom of Isaiah, the villain of the piece is Nero, but he is seen either metaphorically or spiritually as an incarnation of Beliar descended from the firmament.
Great points, and I probably wrote too hastily.

I think Clive is on the right track when he observes that things on earth have heavenly counterparts in first-century thinking. This makes all Christian exegesis tricky, because it's not always clear whether a story set on earth is a metaphor for a heavenly reality or vice versa. I do think Paul's Christ and the crucifixion are primarily spiritual realities for Paul; whether he derives them from an earthly story is harder to say. (I'm favourable toward a scenario similar to that of Mack and Wells, that Hellenistic Christ cults which had little or no basis in an earthly figure merged with Jesus movements that did. There's no earthly Jesus to be found in Paul's untampered writings, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't one.)
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