The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
arnoldo
Posts: 969
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:10 pm
Location: Latin America

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by arnoldo »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 7:33 am
arnoldo wrote: Sun May 20, 2018 4:56 am Maybe the following writing should be changed to "Against the Gentiles", no?
It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness. Though it has in it nothing divine, by making full use of that part of the soul which loves fable and is childish and foolish, it has induced men to believe that the monstrous tale is truth.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julia ... 1_text.htm

Good question. The ''Galileans'' are precisely the Judaizers who invaded the Gentile communities after the 70 CE. They didn't reject the gentile story that wanted Christ crucified by the Jews. They did expand it and convert it in a Jewish Christian propaganda. So Julian could well say that the entire Jesus legend was a Galilean invention. What escaped to him, and to the same Jewish Christians, was that a gentile Christian introduced the idea that the Jews crucified the Christ.
Thanks, I've read Magnus Zetterholm's book,The Formation of Christianity in Antioch, a couple of times and apparently came away under the false impression that this belief did not originate with gentiles, rather with jews. How does Marcion fit into your theory that a gentile Christian introduced the idea that the Jews crucified the Christ?
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Giuseppe »

Marcion was a historicist, I think. The gentile Christian (who introduced the Jews as killers of Jesus) came before Marcion. But I think that he didn't need the writing of an entire Gospel to propagate that new idea. A simple rumor ("the Jews have killed the Christ") was sufficient.

The first evangelist (Marcion?) limited himself to embellish the picture in a period when the theological differences were already formed.

I think that after that rumor and before the Earliest Written Gospel, the mainstream Jews had already replied against that disturbing rumor. In this way: "yes, we killed your Jesus but totally rightly". Traces of this answer ended then in the Talmud.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
User avatar
arnoldo
Posts: 969
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:10 pm
Location: Latin America

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by arnoldo »

Since Titus destroyed Jerusalem he could've introduced the idea that the Jews killed their Messiah to further demoralized them perhaps? Then after 70 A.D. the judaizers ran with this idea and tried to get the gentile believers to conform to greater degree to judaism. Then in a kind of Antithesis, Marcion tried to strip away the judaizers impact on this sect. . . Just trying to wrap my mind around your theory.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Giuseppe »

Titus? No thanks. I am not a fan of Joe Atwill.

If the accusation of deicide addressed to Jews was a Christian rumor, I don't see why the same belief that Jesus lived on the Earth couldn't be also a Christian rumor.

Really: it was one and the same (Christian) rumor. That is what makes the entire Jesus legend so negative in my eyes (if I define "negative" a false accusation), differently from other legends about other mythical characters.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
User avatar
arnoldo
Posts: 969
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:10 pm
Location: Latin America

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by arnoldo »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 6:23 am Titus? No thanks. I am not a fan of Joe Atwill.

If the accusation of deicide addressed to Jews was a Christian rumor, I don't see why the same belief that Jesus lived on the Earth couldn't be also a Christian rumor.

Really: it was one and the same (Christian) rumor. That is what makes the entire Jesus legend so negative in my eyes (if I define "negative" a false accusation), differently from other legends about other mythical characters.
Ok.
Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 6:23 am The ''Galileans'' are precisely the Judaizers who invaded the Gentile communities after the 70 CE. They didn't reject the gentile story that wanted Christ crucified by the Jews. They did expand it and convert it in a Jewish Christian propaganda.
Ok, I don't see according to your theory why judaizers would want to "buy into" this gentile concept that they killed their own Messiah but who knows?
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Giuseppe »

arnoldo wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 7:28 am Ok, I don't see according to your theory why judaizers would want to "buy into" this gentile concept that they killed their own Messiah but who knows?
They did convert in a point of advantage what was designed to be a (Gentile Christian) accusation against them. I can't condemn (or justify) them for that more than I can condemn (or justify) the Talmudist defamation of the various Jesuses.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Benway
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue May 29, 2018 1:04 pm

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Benway »

I think the basic idea is quite plausible. Not for the crucifixion alone, but the entire story. The Gospel of Mark gives us a Jesus with no genealogy linking him to David who shows no interest in reuniting Israel and ruling it. He has no interest in destroying the enemies of Israel and leading it to glory, but instead travels among the gentiles and is received better by them than by the Jews. He breaks the Law at every possible opportunity and clashes with Jewish priests all the way through.

Mark's Gospel references the old testament only to invert it. Moses cast lepers out; Jesus cures them and sends them back to the priests. Moses gave the law; Jesus breaks the law. Moses parted the waters; Jesus just ambles along on top, leaving them in place. Elijah asked a Phoenician widow for food and she said she had to feed her children; Jesus tells a Phoenician widow to feed her children... and so on.

It's not until Matthew and Luke that the story is rewritten to try to force it into conforming with Judaism.

I think some form of the nativity also predates Matthew or Luke, as both of those include genealogies showing the decent of Jesus from David, but the nativity, with it's virgin birth completely rules out Jesus being a male-line descendant of David and so cannot be the messiah. The later proto-orthodox writers were just stuck with it and had to include it anyway. Luke tries to fudge the issue a bit and both include things stressing that Jesus is the messiah, despite the contradiction involved. Also, Moses escaped from Egypt and Jesus escapes from Israel into Egypt. It's very much in keeping with Mark's 'not the messiah' gospel.
Ulan
Posts: 1505
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:58 am

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Ulan »

I'm not sure why such an extensive treatment of Jewish scripture and stories found therein would mean that the author cannot be a Jew. You first have to know scripture to subvert it. Even if these elements from scripture are used to argue against them, the idea that only a non-Jew could do so assumes that Judaism was some kind of monolithic body of people who all thought the same. Yet, we don't only have different sects mentioned by Josephus and other authors, we also know of the schools of Hillel and Shammai, which are known to take very different approaches to Jewish law, how strictly it has to be followed and the meaning of episodes from scripture. I mean, most people know Hillel probably just for the "Golden Rule", and I don't see the teachings of Jesus as very different.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Giuseppe »

The negative portrait of the 12 Jewish apostles is something that only a gentile Christian could invent. For ''not Jew'' you can mean ''not more Jew'' or ''gentile''. There was no reason, for a Jewish Christian, to blame the Pillars.

And note that here I don't talk about the Matthean verse ''his blood falls upon as and our sons'' etc.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Ulan
Posts: 1505
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:58 am

Re: The Earliest Gospel was not written by a Jew

Post by Ulan »

Giuseppe wrote: Wed May 30, 2018 1:19 am The negative portrait of the 12 Jewish apostles is something that only a gentile Christian could invent. For ''not Jew'' you can mean ''not more Jew'' or ''gentile''. There was no reason, for a Jewish Christian, to blame the Pillars.
Why? This is, again, just an assertion. What's the reasoning? The AT is full of Jews that get the blame for fundamental calamities. If we go with the usual dating that the gospels were written after the fall of Jerusalem, we have a big calamity to work on, and someone has to be blamed for it. As the Jewish people got the punishment, it's natural, especially for a Jew, to blame the Jews themselves, for the sole reason that they assumed their god was just. For gentiles, all of this doesn't really matter one way or the other.
Giuseppe wrote: Wed May 30, 2018 1:19 am And note that here I don't talk about the Matthean verse ''his blood falls upon as and our sons'' etc.
Well, yes, but that's exactly what happened. It's not some anti-Jewish statement - even if it has been made such by many later in history - it was, at the supposed time of writing, a quite astute observation about what actually happened. I'm sure that, at that time in history, people had not forgotten yet that Jesus was in fact a Jew.
Post Reply