lsayre wrote: ↑Sun Mar 18, 2018 4:49 am
I wonder how, where, and when a Jesus who fit the bill of being the awaited Christ (Messiah) began to retroactively appear upon the scene (or stage)? The million dollar question.
IMO there are two different how, where and when’s: one about Jesus appearing as the long-awaited messiah, and one about the start of propagation of this ‘realized messianism’ message.
1. Jesus’ appearance as the long-awaited messiah
It is utterly improbable that in 1st century Palestine a ‘single man (= Jesus) messianism’ emerged around the thirties, simultaneously with a powerful stream of Essene messianism that debouched into the great messianic war of 66-70 CE. I believe that Jesus-the-messiah can only be understood within the belligerent Essene messianic ideology. This ideology has been described extensively in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it consists of three paradigmatic elements, the when, where and how questions raised above.
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When: The DSS expression for the decisive moment of the turn of the era is the ‘day of revenge’, which is identical with the ‘day of the Lord’ of the New Testament (but more neutrally worded). This turning point would be the end of the final battle between the Jews (the Essenes in particular) and their enemies, the Romans. The Essenes expected to win the war, but the pivotal day they were looking forward to would equally dawn when they would lose the war (which happened). In other words: the paradigmatic time for the arrival of the messiah and the start of the messianic ear is the end of the war against the Romans.
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Where: The paradigmatic messianic place is clear: Jerusalem
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How: The paradigmatic characteristic of the messiah was of course that he would be victorious over the Romans.
So the paradigmatic triad which the Essenes designed was as follows: end of the won war – Jerusalem – victorious Jewish leader (who would defeat the Romans). Reality was slightly different but the paradigmatic messianic triad equally applied : end of the lost war – Jerusalem – victorious Jewish leader (personally ‘defeating’ the Romans by surviving a certain death from their hands).
In other words: if the Essenes were to be consequent with themselves, they could only realize their messianic expectation through a victory in Jerusalem at the end of the war. They were looking for God’s help, and this is how God intervened.
2. The start of the propagation of messianism realized in Jesus
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When: Shortly after the end of the war. Jesus’ small victory was of utmost importance to brace up the depressed Essenes who survived the war.
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Where: inside the Roman empire anyway – this explains Mark’s cunning method.
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How: Mark defused the explosive content of the story by antedating it. ‘Retroactively’ really is the appropriate word.
It is difficult to make modern parallels with Jesus’ fate at the end of the war. Therefore, just some questions:
• If Adolf Hitler would not have committed suicide but would have escaped to a far off country without ever have been run in by the allies of the 2nd World War, wouldn’t he have gained a heroic status with all neo-Nazi’s in the world despite the crushing defeat of the Third Reich?
• If an important American politician would have been rescued unharmed from under the debris of the Twin Towers, wouldn’t he have become a powerful icon for the war against terrorism?
• Wasn’t the fact that Nelson Mandela regained freedom upright and unbroken after 27 years of imprisonment something that attributed to a considerable degree to his legendary fame?
Could we call this the fame of invincibility?