Jesus and Christ

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus and Christ

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 10:37 pm The community of the Odes of Solomon was a pre-70 Jewish community in the Diaspora that was anti-Jewish (and persecuted by the Jews) and adored the god of the Jews, according to prof Stevan L. Davies. Also the Naassenes were pre-70 Jews from the Diaspora but they hated the god of the Jews.
All of this is irrelevant to the subject of Paul. Neither the Odes of Solomon, nor the Naassenes, were pre-70 ad. The Naassenes did not hate YHWH, but conflated him with Sabazios and Attis, whom they made an Adamic figure.
Throughout the Old Testament, Jews constantly knock each other. So why--how?--this be indicative of a gentile origin?
no, this reference to OT (in association to Jesus) would be indicative of a Jewish APOLOGY to accept an otherwise dramatic "reality" of gentile origin: that "the Jews" killed the Son of God is a gentile and anti-Jewish theme.
What in God's holy name are you talking about? You're merely compounding disparate assumptions upon one another.

I think this is what happens when you rely too much on the conflicting words of others, instead of using your own scepticism.

That Jews are made responsible for the death of Jesus in the Gospels is totally in keeping with the Old Testament pattern of a prophet being persecuted by the very people he has come to save.
The Talmudist is an apologist insofar he explains that Jesus ben Stada was not the true Christ. If the same Talmudist had heard of a Jesus crucified by the Romans, then he would have described him in more positive terms.
How is he an apologist, when he, 1) has nothing to apologize for, and 2) is completely okay with ben Stada being killed?
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus and Christ

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Sat May 19, 2018 11:49 pm Neither the Odes of Solomon, nor the Naassenes, were pre-70 ad. The Naassenes did not hate YHWH, but conflated him with Sabazios and Attis, whom they made an Adamic figure.
about evidence that the Odes are pre-70 read here.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3141&start=60#p87088.
That Jews are made responsible for the death of Jesus in the Gospels is totally in keeping with the Old Testament pattern of a prophet being persecuted by the very people he has come to save.
if it was so, then a pre-70 Paul would have written really 1 Thess 2:14-16 and we could resolve the question of the historicity in a positive sense. I am sorry but it doesn't work so. A Jew couldn't invent a Messiah killed by the Jews. A Jew could only justify - apologetically and naively - a similar story. Invention is not justification.

How is he an apologist, when he, 1) has nothing to apologize for, and 2) is completely okay with ben Stada being killed?
he had to apologize and defend the Jews against the Gentile accusation addressed against the Jews that the Jews - not Pilate - had killed the true Christ.

So his answer was: we have pride for being killers of Ben Stada. No reason to have embarrassment.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus and Christ

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Giuseppe wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 1:01 am about evidence that the Odes are pre-70 read here.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3141&start=60#p87088.

His [of the author of the Odes] universalistic outlook is indeed apparent in the extracts already given.

emphasize added

Right there, the supposed evidence for a pre-70 ad composition is itself refuted, as such a universal, cosmopolitan, idea did not exist until after the bar Kochba revolt, and reflected in other texts from that time. (2 Esdras, Epistle of Barnabas, etc).

I will note what Stephan said a few days ago, that you do have a habit of supposing assumptions as end-all, be-all proofs based on what amounts to someone else's say-so, instead of being sceptical and critical.
if it was so, then a pre-70 Paul would have written really 1 Thess 2:14-16 and we could resolve the question of the historicity in a positive sense. I am sorry but it doesn't work so. A Jew couldn't invent a Messiah killed by the Jews. A Jew could only justify - apologetically and naively - a similar story. Invention is not justification.
No, Giuseppe. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 equates Jesus with the prophes. Having the Jews kill their own messiah would be literary irony. Not an apology, nor an accusation.
he had to apologize and defend the Jews against the Gentile accusation addressed against the Jews that the Jews - not Pilate - had killed the true Christ.
Which doesn't make sense at all. For starters, the Talmud was written by Jews, for Jews. Not Christians. Not gentiles. The two communities were, by and large, separate from each other in medieval times.

What's more, Justin even says that Jews had villainous writings about Christ, which some have interpreted as early Toledot Yeshu accounts. So how were they attempting to apologize their supposed actions? if indeed they were truly villainous and unapologetic.
So his answer was: we have pride for being killers of Ben Stada. No reason to have embarrassment.
So how is this an apology? How is it an explanation for their reasons? And what's more, why would they give a damn what gentiles thought?
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Re: Jesus and Christ

Post by Giuseppe »

Joseph D. L. wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 1:46 am Right there, the supposed evidence for a pre-70 ad composition is itself refuted, as such a universal, cosmopolitan, idea did not exist until after the bar Kochba revolt, and reflected in other texts from that time. (2 Esdras, Epistle of Barnabas, etc).
So was Philo not universalistic in your view? I note that you are not confuting the Rylands's argument linked above about the Odes.
I will note what Stephan said
Said by one of which the agenda is clearly an absurd reductio ad Judaeum, even applied on the sects of who hated the god of the Jews, it would be a compliment for me.



No, Giuseppe. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 equates Jesus with the prophes. Having the Jews kill their own messiah would be literary irony. Not an apology, nor an accusation.
it is clearly an accusation for the his author.

Which doesn't make sense at all. For starters, the Talmud was written by Jews, for Jews. ....
So how is this an apology? How is it an explanation for their reasons? And what's more, why would they give a damn what gentiles thought?
the Jews had to explain to other Jews how to defend themselves before the Christians, especially against the accusation of having killed the Christ. Defense = apology.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus and Christ

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Giuseppe wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 3:36 am So was Philo not universalistic in your view? I note that you are not confuting the Rylands's argument linked above about the Odes.
Philo was a Hellenist who acknowledged the use of the Temple as the center of Judaism; the Odes are clearly post-Temple, writing that it had been carried away in a flood--obviously, the flood of Jesus.
Said by one of which the agenda is clearly an absurd reductio ad Judaeum, even applied on the sects of who hated the god of the Jews, it would be a compliment for me.
Giuseppe, even the Marcionite rescinsion recognizes the Jewish priority of its tenants. Saying that Christianity was completely gentile in origin is tantamount to idiocy. The sects that opposed the Jewish god, were gentile, and came afterward. (Marcion did not oppose YHWH, but held him as second to a higher god, a concept that existed in rabbinical Judaism at the time).

You shouldn't take it as a compliment if it's not meant to be one. That just makes you seem incredulous.
it is clearly an accusation for the his author.
How?
the Jews had to explain to other Jews how to defend themselves before the Christians, especially against the accusation of having killed the Christ. Defense = apology.
No, Giuseppe. The Toledot Yeshu is not a defense (read, not an apology) due to the scathing material therein; while the Talmudic references to ben Stada are history transmitted orally and written down later. It's not even clear if ben Stada is supposed to be the Jesus of Christianity, because he died in the second century.

But God forbid that there was an actual Jesus.
Last edited by Joseph D. L. on Sun May 20, 2018 5:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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arnoldo
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Re: Jesus and Christ

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. . .Or is an actual Jesus.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus and Christ

Post by Joseph D. L. »

No. Jesus is dead and remains dead.
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Re: Jesus and Christ

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 4:57 am

Philo was a Hellenist who acknowledged the use of the Temple as the center of Judaism; the Odes are clearly post-Temple, writing that it had been carried away in a flood--obviously, the flood of Jesus.
you can read the alternative interpretation of that same passage about ''the flood of Jesus''.

Giuseppe, even the Marcionite rescinsion recognizes the Jewish priority of its tenants. Saying that Christianity was completely gentile in origin is tantamount to idiocy. The sects that opposed the Jewish god, were gentile, and came afterward. (Marcion did not oppose YHWH, but held him as second to a higher god, a concept that existed in rabbinical Judaism at the time).
Marcionism was a first institutionalized religion, and as any institutionalized religion, it had to reach a diplomatic compromise even with the his adversaries. So we do an error if we take the ''positive'' description of the Demiurge in Marcionism (whereas the Demiurge, we are said, is ''just but not evil'' as for other Gnostics) as ''evidence'' of a friendly relation with the Jews or even of Judaism. It is mere diplomacy (we would call it ''ecumenism''), not the real thing (the real thing being the hate against the Jewish God even among the marcionites).

You shouldn't take it as a compliment if it's not meant to be one. That just makes you seem incredulous.
And sincerely I am incredulous about any effort of ''judaizing-who-cannot-be-judaized-by-definition'': the marcionites.

If the Gospels would have said that Jesus was a smoker, then the Christian apologists would say that he doesn't breathe the smoke.

If the proto-catholics say that the marcionites hate the Jewish God, then the modern Judaizer commentators à la Secret Alias would say that the marcionites didn't hate the Jewish God, only, confined it to the second position.

This is again and again the same apologetical spirit in action. Only the object of love is changed.
it is clearly an accusation for the his author.

How?
If I say that you have killed your father, surely you don't take it for something of different from an accusation.


No, Giuseppe. The Toledot Yeshu is not a defense (read, not an apology) due to the scathing material therein; while the Talmudic references to ben Stada are history transmitted orally and written down later. It's not even clear if ben Stada is supposed to be the Jesus of Christianity, because he died in the second century.
I think that there is a link between the Talmud's rumors about the Jesuses and the Celsus's Jew, so when they despised Jesus behind various names - and emphasized the fact that they and only they (not Pilate) killed these Jesuses - then they were converting in a point of force what was in the eyes of the Christian enemies an element of condemnation: to have killed the presumed true Christ.


But God forbid that there was an actual Jesus.
Amen.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus and Christ

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 7:26 am you can read the alternative interpretation of that same passage about ''the flood of Jesus''.
Pardon? The flood that washes away the Temple--the flood of Noah--is the effuse that pours from Jesus upon his death in John.
Marcionism was a first institutionalized religion, and as any institutionalized religion, it had to reach a diplomatic compromise even with the his adversaries. So we do an error if we take the ''positive'' description of the Demiurge in Marcionism (whereas the Demiurge, we are said, is ''just but not evil'' as for other Gnostics) as ''evidence'' of a friendly relation with the Jews or even of Judaism. It is mere diplomacy (we would call it ''ecumenism''), not the real thing (the real thing being the hate against the Jewish God even among the marcionites).
Even though Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, and pretty much everyone, goes on about how evil Marcion is for corrupting YHWH--you think they were right???

No, your argument is clearly ad hoc.
And sincerely I am incredulous about any effort of ''judaizing-who-cannot-be-judaized-by-definition'': the marcionites.
Because they were already Jewish. Their beliefs Jewish; their text attached to Jewish traditions.
If the Gospels would have said that Jesus was a smoker, then the Christian apologists would say that he doesn't breathe the smoke.
What?
If the proto-catholics say that the marcionites hate the Jewish God, then the modern Judaizer commentators à la Secret Alias would say that the marcionites didn't hate the Jewish God, only, confined it to the second position.
And you have a problem taking the Gospels at face vaule, because... ? Clearly you lack any sense of nuance or critical thinking.
This is again and again the same apologetical spirit in action. Only the object of love is changed.


And you're not an apologist?
If I say that you have killed your father, surely you don't take it for something of different from an accusation.
Unless there was some indication that I killed my father, you wouldn't--or a reasonable person wouldn't--make such an accusation to begin with. Smoke needs fire.


I think that there is a link between the Talmud's rumors about the Jesuses and the Celsus's Jew, so when they despised Jesus behind various names - and emphasized the fact that they and only they (not Pilate) killed these Jesuses - then they were converting in a point of force what was in the eyes of the Christian enemies an element of condemnation: to have killed the presumed true Christ.
What a load bollocks.


Amen.
Do not respond, reply, or comment to me, again.
Giuseppe
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Re: Jesus and Christ

Post by Giuseppe »

About all the rest I can even concede your points. But not on who wrote the Earliest Gospel.

Smoke needs fire.
the "fire" in this case would be the aggressive proselytism by the judaizing "false brothers".
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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