DCHindley wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am
In physics the saying goes: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
If Jesus was a prophet predicting an immediate establishment of a kingdom of God on earth (a kingdom which would be led by an anointed king-messiah, or was a claimant for this himself), that is not what "our" proto-Christians believed. To them, Jesus was not a messiah but a specially anointed divine entity sent to remove "sin" from all who believe that it had happened and dedicate themselves to the creed of doing good and being just, and they were almost all gentiles. That is not, IMHO, a Judaic thing, but a gentile type mystery cult.
The Jewish belief that Messianic rulers would come at around c66 CE had nothing whatsoever to do with a character called Jesus of Nazareth or nothing about Jesus called Christ in the Gospels. Based on Josephus, Suetonius and Tacitus the Jews used their own ancient writings to establish their prediction.
There could not have been Christians who were followers of the character called Jesus of Nazareth when in their own story their Jesus was not even known as Christ and that their Jesus told his disciples not to tell anyone he was Christ.
If Jesus was not known as the Jewish Messiah when he was alive then he could not be the Jewish Messiah after he was dead.
The Jews are not and have never looked for a dead Messiah.
The War of the Jews c66-70 CE confims that there was never any known Jewish Messiah up to c 70 CE and that the Jewish Messiah must be called the Christ when he is living.
DCHindley wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:33 am
This is what happened to the Jehovah's Witnesses when Charles Russell's predicted coming of Jesus did not happen. They spiritualized it.
The very stories of Jesus contradict you. Unlike Charles Russell's prediction of October 1874 there is no specific date given for the coming of the "son of man". in the Gospels.
In the Jesus story, it is claimed the supposed Jesus of Nazareth said "this generation will not pass till all things be fulfilled.
Now the Gospel story places the supposed prophecy of Jesus in the time of Pilate or sometime around c27-37CE. If a generation is regarded as a 70 year period then the supposed prophecy expires at around 97-107 CE.
The generation prophecy expires c97-107 C
The supposed imminent return of Jesus based on the Jesus story would therefore be the end of the 1st or start of the 2nd century which would most likely coincide with the writing of the earliest Gospels.
Like the Russell prediction had to be modified after his supposed prophecy expired it is the very same that the Jesus prophecy had to be altered after at least 97-107 CE or around the time it was expected for "this generation to pass".
Based on the supposed prediction, the writings attributed to Philo, Pliny the Elder, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and the Dead Sea Scrolls I place all NT writings about Jesus around or after the end of the 1st century.