While I can agree with most of that, as an abstract commentary, at least, I get the impression you've set a dichotomy at 70 CE, and an absolute dichotomy at that.neilgodfrey wrote: 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).
Which "turn-of-the-century 'Jewish-thought'" are you referring to? ie. the turn of which century?neilgodfrey wrote: 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.
(and do you want to elaborate on the forms of Jewish thought you were alluding to /thinking of?)
This is interesting -
neilgodfrey wrote: 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.