The Origins of Christianity

[iskander]

...
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

Paul is commenting on the work of others , and he should be ignored when trying to discover the beginning of what later became known as Christianity.
Mark tells a story about the life of a Jewish reformer in Palestine who was executed before the temple was destroyed , and therefore Christianity began before 70 AD. Paul did not take part in any of the activities that constitute the earliest Christianity, but he became a part of the apostolic movement before the destruction of the Second Temple .

That is the way in which I approach the origin of Christianity.

[DCHindley]

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.

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.

But ... boy oh boy ... to make that conclusion you have to accept the letters of Paul, as we have them (at least the "undisputed = genuine" letters), as essentially how Paul penned them himself, allowing, perhaps, for the occasional interpolation or scribal gloss.

I am hesitant to do so. While there are many in modern times who want to chuck the whole lot of them as invented letters, I am willing to accept that they, individually and as a whole, contain at their cores, genuine material completely unrelated to Jesus or the development of early Christian doctrines.

IMHO, these core documents have been overlaid by the Christ theology created by gentile followers of Jesus who had refashioned Jesus' purpose in life, and his tragic death, into a divine redeemer figure.

This would change the game when it comes to dating the start of the Jesus movement, because the period when the core documents were produced may be quite distantly removed from that in which they were appropriated to be edited into "Christian" documents. The two movements may have evolved at the same time, or one might have preceded the other, but my general impression is that the core Pauline docs preceded the development of Christ Redeemer theology by the gentile followers of Jesus. Jesus himself could have existed, if a real person, either before or after Paul's time, but before a redeemer cult could have formed in parts of the movement he inspired.

My rough dates would be Jesus (active in the Judean populated areas of Judea, Galilee and Coele - Southern - Syria, btw ca. 19 CE-36 CE), Paul (active in the Hellenized Mediterranean area, primarily Syria, but also Asia Minor, Greece, and Arabia, btw ca. 40-60 CE), and then the gentile followers who synthesized the Redeemer Christ from the history of Jesus the man (in Gentile settled areas of Judea, Samaria, and Coele Syria, btw ca. 70 - 90 CE).

But that's just me ...

DCH

[outhouse]

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.

I don't argue what you posted at all. I agree.

It is starting in 70 that I was directing towards for context

[outhouse]

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

Exactly good catch

[outhouse]

My rough dates would be Jesus (active in the Judean populated areas of Judea, Galilee and Coele - Southern - Syria, btw ca. 19 CE-36 CE), Paul (active in the Hellenized Mediterranean area, primarily Syria, but also Asia Minor, Greece, and Arabia, btw ca. 40-60 CE), and then the gentile followers who synthesized the Redeemer Christ from the history of Jesus the man (in Gentile settled areas of Judea, Samaria, and Coele Syria, btw ca. 70 - 90 CE).

But that's just me ...

DCH

I have no problem there.

Less that Hellenist gentiles were there from the possible start roughly 33ce ish.


I think only Hellenist found value in the martyrdom and the theology/mythology of the messiah, that started right after the possible crucifixion. I think gentiles and Proselytes were there from the start, as we see in Pauline text active proselytizing and worship in rather large Diaspora households.

[iskander]

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

Exactly good catch

What made "Christianity " first noticed by the men and the women living in Palestine at the time of 'Jesus'?. If we could answer this question we would know the origins of Christianity.Foe example, Luther objection to the sale of indulgences is taken as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, but nobody alive in 1521 would have thought in terms of Protestantism then.


Is there anything in the gospel of Mark of equal importance to the objection of Luther? ---and if there is one such an event stated in Mark, then ,-- could we confirm this event with an independent source?

I am aware that Mark was edited by partisan hands and that information was otherwise destroyed by both the church and the synagogue.
Geza Vernes wrote

[Charles Wilson]

What made "Christianity " first noticed by the men and the women living in Palestine at the time of 'Jesus'?. If we could answer this question we would know the origins of Christianity.Foe example, Luther objection to the sale of indulgences is taken as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, but nobody alive in 1521 would have thought in terms of Protestantism then.


Is there anything in the gospel of Mark of equal importance to the objection of Luther? ---and if there is one such an event stated in Mark, then ,-- could we confirm this event with an independent source?

How about the cancellation of Passover after 3000 people are destroyed after the death of Herod?

CW

[iskander]

What made "Christianity " first noticed by the men and the women living in Palestine at the time of 'Jesus'?. If we could answer this question we would know the origins of Christianity.Foe example, Luther objection to the sale of indulgences is taken as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, but nobody alive in 1521 would have thought in terms of Protestantism then.


Is there anything in the gospel of Mark of equal importance to the objection of Luther? ---and if there is one such an event stated in Mark, then ,-- could we confirm this event with an independent source?

How about the cancellation of Passover after 3000 people are destroyed after the death of Herod?

CW

Thank you. Good, that is one. We will wait for some more and then I will invite you to explain its importance in the formation of Christianity.
If you prefer not to wait then, please explain .

[iskander]

OK, Charles. please , why do you think this cancellation could be the origin of Christianity?

[neilgodfrey]

It is my view that the origin of Christianity was probably a result of the destruction of the 2nd. Temple . . . .
Dennis Sutherland.

I think I agree. At least for Christianity as understood through the canonical Gospel narratives. Clarke Owens sees the the focus on crucifixion in the first of the Gospels as a response to the events of 70 CE. His ideas can be found in posts at my Son of Yahweh archive. Owens is a literature specialist but the same theme has been presented by a biblical scholar, Karel Hanhart.

There were Christian-like beliefs prior to 70 CE, as per Paul's teachings and others. Until 70 CE these were very much one of many of the forms of "Judaism" of the day. (It sounds odd to think of Paul as part of Second Temple Judaism but scratch the surface and one finds that he was not alone among the competing sects or schools who claimed to be the "true Jews" while others were false, etc.) But Paul's Christ-worship was largely a philosophical, abstract form of religion, like other Jewish "gnostic" type sects. From 70 CE we find a need for something much more concrete -- a serious replacement for the Temple and old form of worship, and an explanation for what had happened and a foundation for a new identity or preserving a stronger form of the old identity. Enter the symbolic/parabolic narratives that eventually came to be read literally. (Whether the first one was written down soon after 70 or only much later is another question.)

The messiah idea (as in a conquering Davidic hero to take over the political rule) only emerged during the Jewish war of 66-70 itself, and up to or again in the 130s with the Second Revolt. This concept of the messiah was not part of mainstream turn of the century Jewish thought, nor of Paul's, till then. The gospels are responding to the militaristic Davidic idea of a messiah that had emerged as part of the events of 70 CE.

Placing the Jesus narrative a generation (40 years) prior to 70 was also probably part of this process of working out a revised form of what became Christianity. Jeremiah's ministry also began 40 years before the fall of Jerusalem, and this is noted by the Jewish interpreters even though there is no explicit statement to that effect in Jeremiah itself: the text of Jeremiah includes the information but indirectly, in the same was as the Synoptic Gospels, do. It was a new narrative quite unlike anything conceived by Paul or others interested in a Christ/Logos figure up till then.