The Origins of Christianity

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

Post by eedipus »

To make sense of Christianity should be our goal and our court of appeal should be the voice of reason.
The fiction of the historical Jesus should be replaced with the meaning of Christ Risen shown in a new light, and the framework for this endeavor would be an understanding of the unconscious mind of man. For it is there and there alone that the primal processes will be found that will define us for what we are. In what I would regard as the essentials I put forward my argument as to how Christianity could have arisen.
It is my view that the origin of Christianity was probably a result of the destruction of the 2nd. Temple of Solomon by the Romans in the year 70AD. Nothing could have prepared the Jews for the assault on Jerusalem and the catastrophic devastation of the Temple with only the west wall remaining. The holy of holies obliterated and everywhere carnage. The suffering was monstrous and the Romans showed no mercy in their attempt to kill every Jew they could find and crush their resistance for ever.
The effect on the Jews who could run to escape the slaughter would have been indescribable, appalling.
They had come to a crisis point in their identity with their monotheistic God. How could the God of their fathers allow this to happen? The deaths of so many Jews were shocking in themselves but the loss of the beautiful Temple which took 46 years to complete had left them fragmented and buried in despair.
Put yourself in their shoes. What were they to do? They must have felt that they were facing the end of their Jewish faith in their God. 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.
It would be set in the past and it would include a number of people known to have lived at that time; their presence would greatly enhance the story’s seemingly historical authenticity. It would tell of how the Son of God was born within lowly humanity, taught his message of love, was betrayed and sent to trial by the leaders of his own kind and died by crucifixion. He rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, instructing them to go into the world and preach the message of Christ Risen in whom whosoever believed in Him would have everlasting life.
A scenario such as the above or of a similar nature would have been the reason that initiated the redirection of God’s salvation from the Jews to the Gentiles. Christianity was introduced as a dying and rising god man theme and it is transforming itself from a literal to a metaphorical basis, with finally science revealing the real meaning of Christ Risen as we unearth the depth of the unconscious.

Dennis Sutherland.
outhouse
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Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by outhouse »

Would you like some links to classes so you don't have to guess about it?

The owner of this site has a wealth of reading materials if you would like to get your feet wet in academic knowledge.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Secret Alias »

WTF is this?
the origin of Christianity was probably a result of the destruction of the 2nd. Temple of Solomon by the Romans in the year 70AD.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

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 interesting proposition.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Jun 13, 2016 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
iskander
Posts: 2091
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 12:38 pm

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by iskander »

eedipus wrote:To make sense of Christianity should be our goal and our court of appeal should be the voice of reason.
The fiction of the historical Jesus should be replaced with the meaning of Christ Risen shown in a new light, and the framework for this endeavor would be an understanding of the unconscious mind of man. For it is there and there alone that the primal processes will be found that will define us for what we are. In what I would regard as the essentials I put forward my argument as to how Christianity could have arisen.
It is my view that the origin of Christianity was probably a result of the destruction of the 2nd. Temple of Solomon by the Romans in the year 70AD. Nothing could have prepared the Jews for the assault on Jerusalem and the catastrophic devastation of the Temple with only the west wall remaining. The holy of holies obliterated and everywhere carnage. The suffering was monstrous and the Romans showed no mercy in their attempt to kill every Jew they could find and crush their resistance for ever.
The effect on the Jews who could run to escape the slaughter would have been indescribable, appalling.
They had come to a crisis point in their identity with their monotheistic God. How could the God of their fathers allow this to happen? The deaths of so many Jews were shocking in themselves but the loss of the beautiful Temple which took 46 years to complete had left them fragmented and buried in despair.
Put yourself in their shoes. What were they to do? They must have felt that they were facing the end of their Jewish faith in their God. 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.
It would be set in the past and it would include a number of people known to have lived at that time; their presence would greatly enhance the story’s seemingly historical authenticity. It would tell of how the Son of God was born within lowly humanity, taught his message of love, was betrayed and sent to trial by the leaders of his own kind and died by crucifixion. He rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, instructing them to go into the world and preach the message of Christ Risen in whom whosoever believed in Him would have everlasting life.
A scenario such as the above or of a similar nature would have been the reason that initiated the redirection of God’s salvation from the Jews to the Gentiles. Christianity was introduced as a dying and rising god man theme and it is transforming itself from a literal to a metaphorical basis, with finally science revealing the real meaning of Christ Risen as we unearth the depth of the unconscious.

Dennis Sutherland.
A Mosaic heresy
beowulf wrote:Was Christianity started by born Jews?

http://www.torahcafe.com/professor-lawr ... 34da4.html
Who was a Jew? Professor Lawrence Schiffman

The link is a video to a lecture lecture by Professor Schiffman on the origins of Christianity –among many other subjects.
The Christian origins begin at 19.33 minutes. At approximately 26.42 Professor Schiffman says that the first Christians were born Jews.

In his book: Who was a Jew? Professor Schiffman discusses the benediction against the minim which the professor says was a curse directed against the Christian Jews with the intention of separating the Jewish Christians from the mainstream Jewish community. It happened under the leadership of Rabban Gamliel II at Yavneh in the post destruction period

Who was a Jew?
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Ktav Publishing House, Inc. Hoboken, New Jersey1985ISBN 088125 054 6.
Pages 53ff
Is this statement from professor Schiffman good evidence for the existence of Jewish Christians circa 70 AD?
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The personification of the Shekhinah
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Griff
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Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:31 am

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Griff »

I think Eed is right. The timing of 70 AD looks good, fitting conventional dates for the gospels.

The later revolt is a little late to achieve a timely result. But it would have redoubled the effect of the first disaster, for any stragglers..

Christianity begins with the huge disaster of 70 AD.. Followed by a platonistic Greek-influenced apologetic: people might die. But it is now asserted that their dreams can live on. As immortal forms, gods, live on somehow. Invisibly. In heaven. To return again, perhaps, in revenge and correction.

"The South will rise again"; a common sentiment among defeated peoples.
iskander
Posts: 2091
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 12:38 pm

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by iskander »

Christianity is a later name for a group of religious reformers who rejected the 600 commandments , the sacrifice of ' guilty ' animals to appease an unpredictable god and the dominance of the temple... This reform movement was an alternative way of pleasing god.

The reformers were treated as heretics , and one of them is on record as having been handed over to the secular authority for execution. As the Catholic Church --the inheritor of the Temple-- did later with her heretics, such as Jan Hus .
outhouse
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Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by outhouse »

Griff wrote: Christianity begins with the huge disaster of 70 AD.. Followed by a platonistic Greek-influenced apologetic: people might die. But it is now asserted that their dreams can live on. As immortal forms, gods, live on somehow. Invisibly. In heaven. To return again, perhaps, in revenge and correction.
Only if one is uneducated enough to ignore all Pauline text
iskander
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Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 12:38 pm

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by iskander »

outhouse wrote:
Griff wrote: Christianity begins with the huge disaster of 70 AD.. Followed by a platonistic Greek-influenced apologetic: people might die. But it is now asserted that their dreams can live on. As immortal forms, gods, live on somehow. Invisibly. In heaven. To return again, perhaps, in revenge and correction.
Only if one is uneducated enough to ignore all Pauline text
Paul says , "Galatians 1:13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it".--- Paul tried to destroy the work done by others , and therefore he is a later development of something which had already started without his participation.
andrewcriddle
Posts: 2817
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by andrewcriddle »

iskander wrote:
outhouse wrote:
Griff wrote: Christianity begins with the huge disaster of 70 AD.. Followed by a platonistic Greek-influenced apologetic: people might die. But it is now asserted that their dreams can live on. As immortal forms, gods, live on somehow. Invisibly. In heaven. To return again, perhaps, in revenge and correction.
Only if one is uneducated enough to ignore all Pauline text
Paul says , "Galatians 1:13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it".--- Paul tried to destroy the work done by others , and therefore he is a later development of something which had already started without his participation.
IIUC the issue is that if Paul is pre 70 CE (which is IMO highly likely) then Christianity cannot begin with the fall of the temple in 70 CE.

Andrew Criddle
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