The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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arnoldo
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by arnoldo »

Leucius Charinus wrote:
arnoldo wrote:
John T wrote:
10. With that all said, Christianity is a concurrent/direct descendent of Judaism.
According to Ignatius of Antioch, it's the other way around.
CHAPTER X.--BEWARE OF JUDAIZING.

Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. For were He to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be. Therefore, having become His disciples, let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity. For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, is not of God. Lay aside, therefore, the evil, the old, the sour leaven, and be ye changed into the new leaven, which is Jesus Christ. Be ye salted in Him, lest any one among you should be corrupted, since by your savour ye shall be convicted. It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believeth might be gathered together to God.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... berts.html
Nice catch arnoldo.



LC
Thanks, here's another quote by Ignatius.
CHAP, VIII.--CAUTION AGAINST FALSE DOCTRINES.

Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace. For the divinest prophets lived according to Christ Jesus. On this account also they were persecuted, being inspired by His grace to fully convince the unbelieving that there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence, and who in all things pleased Him that sent Him.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... berts.html
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John T
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by John T »

arnoldo wrote:
John T wrote:
10. With that all said, Christianity is a concurrent/direct descendent of Judaism.
According to Ignatius of Antioch, it's the other way around.
CHAPTER X.--BEWARE OF JUDAIZING.

Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. For were He to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be. Therefore, having become His disciples, let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity. For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, is not of God. Lay aside, therefore, the evil, the old, the sour leaven, and be ye changed into the new leaven, which is Jesus Christ. Be ye salted in Him, lest any one among you should be corrupted, since by your savour ye shall be convicted. It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believeth might be gathered together to God.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... berts.html

Yes, I agree with Ignatius, that it was the Jews who came to believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah that started Christianity not the other way around. Christianity is the concurrent/direct descendent of Judaism and not the other way around.
Sorry, but nothing new or contradictory there.

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

It looks like JC (Jesus Christ not Julius Caesar) was suppose to usher in a brand new Empire.
The Jews and the Gentiles and Roman Citizens in general embraced a brand new [literary] Ethos.

It was a miracle.



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
bcedaifu
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by bcedaifu »

Sheshbazzar wrote:
Where do you get the idea that this had to be 'Paul's "new" covenant' _exclusively?
Any Jew who could or can read Hebrew could and can read;

הנה ימים באים נאם־יהוה וכרתי את־בית ישראל ואת־בית יהודה ברית חדשה׃
לא כברית אשר כרתי את־אבותם ביום החזיקי בידם להוציאם מארץ מצרים אשר־המה הפרו את־בריתי ואנכי בעלתי בם נאם־יהוה׃

or in reading Greek, could and can read in the LXX;

ἰδοὺ ἡμέραι ἔρχονται φησὶν κύριος καὶ διαθήσομαι τῷ οἴκῳ Ισραηλ καὶ τῷ οἴκῳ Ιουδα διαθήκην καινήν
οὐ κατὰ τὴν διαθήκην ἣν διεθέμην τοῖς πατράσιν αὐτῶν ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ἐπιλαβομένου μου τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν ἐξαγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου ὅτι αὐτοὶ οὐκ ἐνέμειναν ἐν τῇ διαθήκῃ μου καὶ ἐγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν φησὶν κύριος

And known that a 'NEW' Covenant; 'One NOT according to that Covenant made with the Fathers in the wilderness' was in the offing.

'Paul' certainly was not the first, nor the only one to announce this New Covenant, and the Scriptural Promises made to the GENTILES that believe in The Holy One of Israel.


So you have quoted Jeremiah 31:31. Yes, it says that a new covenant will be made. Was Jeremiah, at the time of the Babylonian captivity, of the same stature, in the minds of Jews, as "Paul"?

I can write that the USA needs a new tax code. Do you think my stature is equivalent to someone else in a position of authority, writing about the need to change the tax code? I think it is incorrect, from a theological perspective, to equate the texts of "Paul" and Jeremiah. In the eyes of 99.99% of religious Jews, at that time, in my opinion, Paul/Saul would have been viewed, in the best of circumstances, as an apostate, a traitor, a man facing death by stoning. Is that how Jews viewed Jeremiah?

Wikipedia wrote
Jeremiah is written in a very complex and poetic Hebrew (apart from verse 10:12, curiously written in Biblical Aramaic). It has come down in two distinct though related versions, one in Hebrew, the other known from a Greek translation. Both versions are heavily edited and reflect the perspectives of later ages; both portray Jeremiah as a "second Moses" but in reverse, presiding over Israel's banishment from the Promised land. The book is a representation of the message and significance of the prophet substantially intended for the Jews in Babylonian exile: its purpose is to explain the disaster as God's response to Israel's pagan worship: the people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children: their infidelity and rebelliousness make judgement inevitable, although restoration and a new covenant are foreshadowed.


Did the Jews living two thousand years ago, (or today, for that matter), consider "Paul" a second Moses ?
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Leucius Charinus wrote:
maryhelena wrote:
Yep - Jewish context.

Open to evidence that demonstrates the opposite.....

:)

Bruno Bauer certainly wrote as if he had some evidence against this proposition. The problem is that I don't know precisely what his claims were at the moment.

First of all he rejected the 1st century as the century of the NT authorship gig.
Secondly he rejected the Jewishness of the Gospels --- AFAIK based on their use of Seneca and the Stoics.

Examples will be furnished in due course.

ROMAN INFLUENCE on the Christian Good News via Seneca

Since we don't seem to have English translations of the claims of Bruno Bauer
related to the Roman influence on the writings of Paul and the Apostles
I have extracted the following from Lightfoot's treatment.
The source may be found between pages 278 and 283.
I have renumbered the footnotes sequentially for this extract.


http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029294398
Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians; a revised text (1888)

Author: Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, 1828-1889
Publisher: London : Macmillan and co.
Book contributor: Cornell University Library

  • ST.PAUL and SENECA


    p.278/279

    ... we might imagine ourselves listening to a Christian divine,
    when we read in the pages of Seneca that

    ' God made the world because He is good,
    ' and that Goodness ' as the good never grudges anything good,
    He therefore made every thing the best possible'.[1]

    Yet if we are tempted to draw a hasty inference from this parallel,
    we are checked by remembering that it is a quotation from Plato.
    Again Seneca maintains that in worshipping the first thing
    is to believe in the gods,' and that
    ' he who has copied them has worshipped them adequately'; [2]

    and on this duty of imitating the gods he insists frequently and emphatically'. [3]

    But here too his sentiment is common to Plato and many other of the older philosophers.
    'No man,' he says elsewhere, 'is good without God [4].

    Between good men and the gods there exists a friendship —
    a friendship do I say? nay, rather a relationship and a resemblance [5]';

    and using still stronger language he speaks of men as the children of God". [6]
    But here again he is treading in the footsteps of the older Stoic teachers,
    and his very language is anticipated in the words quoted by St Paul from Cleanthes or Aratus,

    'We too His offspring are [7]'

    From the recognition of God's fatherly relation to man important consequences flow.
    In almost Apostolic language Seneca describes the trials and sufferings of good men
    as the chastisements of a wise and beneficent parent :

    ' God has a fatherly mind towards good men and loves them .stoutly; and, saith He,
    Let them be harassed with toils, with pains, with losses, that they may gather true strength'.[8]'


    p.280

    Those therefore whom God approves, whom He loves, them He hardens, He chastises. He disciplines'.[9]

    ' Hence the'sweet uses of adversity' find in him an eloquent exponent.
    'Nothing,' he says, quoting his friend Demetrius, 'seems to me more unhappy
    than the man whom no adversity has ever befallen [10]'

    'The life free from care and from any buffetings of fortune is a dead sea [11]'
    Hence too it follows that resignation under adversity becomes a plain duty.
    'It is best to endure what you cannot mend, and without murmuring to attend upon God,
    by whose ordering all things come to pass. He is a bad soldier
    who follows his captain complaining [12].'

    Still more strikingly Christian is his language, when he speaks of God, who

    ' is near us, is with us, is within,' of ' a holy spirit residing in us,
    the guardian and observer of our good and evil deeds [13],'

    'By what other name,' he asks, 'can we call an upright
    and good and great mind except (a) god lodging in a human body [14]?'

    The spark of a heavenly flame has alighted on the hearts of men'. [15]

    They are associates with, are members of God.
    The mind came from God and yearns towards God". [16]

    From this doctrine of the abiding presence of a divine spirit
    the practical inferences are not less weighty.

    ' So live with men, as if God saw you; so speak with God, as if men heard you'. [17]

    'What profits it, if any matter is kept secret from men ? nothing is hidden from God'[18]

    'The gods are witnesses of everything".[19]

    But even more remarkable perhaps, than this devoutness of tone
    in which the duties of man to God arising out of his filial relation
    are set forth, is the energy of Seneca's language, when he paints
    the internal struggle of the human soul and prescribes the discipline
    needed for its release.

    "The soul is bound in a prison-house, is weighed down by a heavy burden.' [20]

    "Life is a continual warfare." [21]


    p.281

    From the terrors of this struggle none escape unscathed. The Apostolic doctrine
    that all have sinned has an apparent counterpart in the teachiag of Seneca ;

    'We shall ever be obliged to pronounce the same sentence upon ourselves,
    that we are evil, that we have been evil, and (I will add it unwillingly)
    that we shall be evil'. [22]

    ' Every vice exists in every man, though every vice is not prominent in each".' [23]

    ' If we would be upright judges of all things, let us first persuade
    ourselves of this, that not one of us is without fault' [24]

    'These are vices of mankind and not of the times.
    No age has been free from fault.' [25]

    ' Capital punishment is appointed for all, and this by a most righteous ordinance'.[26]

    'No one will be found who can acquit himself; and any man calling himself innocent
    has regard to the witness, not to his own conscience'.' [27]

    Every day, every hour,' he exclaims,' ' shows us our nothingness,
    and reminds us by some new token, when we forget our frailty'. [28]

    Thus Seneca, in common with the Stoic school generally, lays great stress
    on the office of the conscience, as 'making cowards of us all.'

    'It reproaches them,' he says, 'and shows them to themselves". [29]

    'The first and greatest punishment of sinners is the fact of having sinned'. [30]

    'The beginning of safety is the knowledge of sin.' ' I think this,' he adds,
    ' an admirable saying of Epicurus".' [31]

    Hence also follows the duty of strict self-examination.

    "As far as thou canst, accuse thyself, try thyself :
    discharge the office, first of a prosecutor,
    then of a judge, lastly of an intercessor" [32]

    Accordingly he relates at some length how, on lying down to rest every night,
    he follows the example of Sextius and reviews his shortcomings during the day :

    'When the light is removed out of sight, and my wife,
    who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent,
    I pass the whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and words.
    I hide nothing from myself, I pass over nothing' [33]

    Similarly he describes the good man as one who

    ' has opened out his conscience to the gods, and always lives
    as if in public, fearing himself more than others'. [34]

    In the same spirit too he enlarges on the advantage of having a faithful friend,

    'a ready heart into which your every secret can be safely deposited,
    whose privity you need fear less than your own"; [35]

    and urges again and again the duty of meditation and self-converse [36],
    quoting on this head the saying of Epicurus,

    'Then retire within thyself most, when thou art forced to be in a crowd [37].

    Nor, when we pass from the duty of individual self-discipline to
    the social relations of man, does the Stoic philosophy, as represented
    by Seneca, hold a less lofty tone. He acknowledges in almost Scriptural
    language the obligation of breaking bread with the hungry [38]

    'You must live for another,' he writes, ' if you would live for yourself'. [39]

    ' For what purpose do I get myself a friend ? ' he exclaims with all the
    extravagance of Stoic self-renunciation,

    'That I may have one for whom I can die, one whom I can follow into exile,
    one whom I can shield from death at the cost of my own life.' [40]

    'I will so live,' he says elsewhere, ' as if I knew that I was born for others,
    and will give thanks to nature on this score' [41]

    Moreover these duties of humanity extend to all classes and
    ranks in the social scale. The slave has claims equally with the
    freeman, the base-born equally with the noble. ' They are slaves,
    you urge ; nay, they are men. They are slaves ; nay, they are
    comrades. They are slaves ; nay, they are humble friends. They are
    slaves ; nay, they are fellow-slaves, if you reflect that fortune has
    the same power over both.' ' Let some of them,' he adds, ' dine
    with you, because they are worthy; others, that they may become
    worthy.' ' He is a slave, you say. Yet perchance he is free in spirit.
    He is a slave. Will this harm him? Show me who is not.



    p.283

    One is a slave to lust, another to avarice,
    a third to ambition, all alike to fear'.'




    FOOTNOTES

    p.279


    [1] Ep. Mor. lxv. 10.
    [2] Ep. Mor. xcv. 50.
    [3] de Vit, heat. 15
    [4] Ep. Mor. xli ; comp. Ixxiii.
    [5] deProv. 1; cojnp.Nat. Quaest. prol.,
    [6] de Prov. r, de Benef. ii. 29.
    [7] Acts xvii. 28.
    [8] de Prov. 2.
    [9] de Prov. 4 ; oomp. ib. § i.

    p.280

    [10] de Prov. 3.
    [11] Ep. Mor. Ixvii. This again is a saying of Demetrius
    [12] Ep. Mor. cvii ; comp. ib. Ixxvi
    [13] Ep. Mor. xli; comp. ib. Ixxiii
    [14] Ep. Mor. xxxi
    [15] de Otio 5.
    [16] Ep. Mor. xcii.
    [17] Ep. Mor. x.
    [18] Ep. Mor. Ixxxiii; comp. Fragm. 14 (in Laotant. vi. 24).
    [19] Ep. Mor. cii
    [20] AdHelv.matr.ii,Ep.Mor.lxv,cii.
    [21] See below, p. 287, note 9.

    p.281

    [22] de Benef,i. 10.
    [23] de Bene/, iv. 27.
    [24] de Ira ii. 28; comp. ad Polyb. 11, Ep. Mor. xlii..
    [25] Ep. Mor. xcvii.
    [26] Qu. Nat. ii. 59
    [27] de Ira 1.14.
    [28] Ep. Mor. ci
    [29] Ep. Mor. xcvii. 15
    [30] Ep. Mor. xcvii. 14
    [31] Ep. Mor. xxviii. 9
    [32] Ep. Mor. xxviii. 10

    p.282

    [33] de Ira iii. 36.
    [34] de Benef. vii. i.
    [35] de Tranq. Anim. 7. Comp. Ep. Mot. xi.
    [36] Ep. Mor. vii
    [37] Ep. Mor. xxv
    [38] Ep. Mor. xcv
    [39] Ep. Mor. xlviii
    [40] Ep. Mor. ix.
    [41] de Vit. beat. 20: comp. de Otio 30 (3)
This is just the beginning.

Lightfoot then deals with the influence of Seneca's thinking on ......

the "Sermon of the Mount" (p.283 to 285).
the Gospel narratives (p.285 to 287)
the Apostolic Epistles (p.287 to 288)
the Pauline Epistles (p.299 to 290).


from p.293

' Though doing no wrong,' Socrates is represented saying, 'he will have the greatest reputation for wrong-doing,'
'he will go forward immovable even to death, appearing to be unjust throughout life but being just,' 'he will be scourged,'
'last of all after suffering every kind of evil he will be crucified (afao-p^ivSuAewSifo-eTai)".' [piato Resp. ii]

Not unnaturally Clement of Alexandria, quoting this passage, describes Plato as 'all but foretelling
the dispensation of salvation." [Strom. V. 14]



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by Leucius Charinus »

^ The above post provides substantial instances to support the contention that the literature underpinning the philosophy of the earliest Christian authors has been "lifted" from Seneca and the Stoics (and from Plato and other earlier philosophers). It follows from these "borrowings" that the earliest writings of Christianity do not reflect anything Jewish at all. What follows from this is that these earliest literary borrowings suggest a Roman literary invention.

It seems to me that anyone who feels inclined to defend and support the age-old hypothesis that Christianity is Jewish
needs to address all this copy/pasting of Roman literature from Seneca into all the books of the NT.

Render unto Caesar the things that belong to the "Lord God Caesar", and unto the God of Seneca the things that belong to this Roman conception of God.

This IMHO is the message of the NT.


OVER



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
Sheshbazzar
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by Sheshbazzar »

bcedaifu wrote:Did the Jews living two thousand years ago, (or today, for that matter), consider "Paul" a second Moses ?
No, and they didn't (don't) need to.
Any Jew that was familiar with the content of accepted Tanakh, was aware of Torah regarding the respective promises and obligations vouchsafed respectively to the Jews first, and then to the 'other nations', the 'Gentiles'.
Righteous ger toshavim were never required to live like Jews nor to observe those Laws of which Moses said; 'Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.' (Deut 2:26)

Because uncircumcised gentiles were specifically excluded, and never 'under' nor subject to the restrictions of this Covenant made in the wilderness with the Fathers of the nation of Israel alone, out of all the nations of the earth.
No uncircumcised gentile could be permitted to eat of that Passover meal (Ex 12:43-46). This was not to damn, nor to condemn gentiles, but that the gentiles in being exempted from such, might also in their due time, and according to YHWH's abundant mercy inherit those good Scriptural promises vouchsafed to all 'the Nations'.
Every learned Jew knew (knows) this. Only the most ignorant, and spiritually degenerate among Jews did (do) not.

There is no desire by Tanaka educated and observant Jews to 'convert' gentiles to 'Judaism', and to make 'Jews' out of them.
For to do such would only be counter-productive, in bringing gentiles now free from curses of the Law of Moses, to under the curses of that Law, to their condemnation and damnation for transgression thereof. No gain there.

Why would any compassionate Jew ever do so, when the Scriptural promise is that the righteous among the GENTILES, the Nations, will also be blessed and delivered, without any obligation to full obedience to the Laws given the nation of Israel according the flesh (genealogy) alone?
Paul in this, teaching to gentiles nothing other than what was, and still is, common Scriptural knowledge to every learned Jew.

.
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John T
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by John T »

Yet, the Gentiles are reminded of the Law of Moses and what is expected of them, which implies restrictions based on the law.

"Therefore I [James the Just] have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from the things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues."...Acts 15:19-21

I look at James as saying, hey, you gentiles have not grown-up within the law so we will cut you a break until you have time to learn it. Until then, learn proper table manners of the Jews while you learn and grow in the Jewish faith.

Of course Paul wanted the gentiles to be free of the oral law but Paul was not in charge of the Church so it was not his call to make.

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
bcedaifu
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by bcedaifu »

Sheshbazzar
There is no desire by Tanaka educated and observant Jews to 'convert' gentiles to 'Judaism', and to make 'Jews' out of them.
For to do such would only be counter-productive, in bringing gentiles now free from curses of the Law of Moses, to under the curses of that Law, to their condemnation and damnation for transgression thereof. No gain there.


Thank you Sheshbazzar, for another well written response, always worthwhile reading.

I had sought to engage you on your notion, according to your quotes from Jeremiah 31:31, that observant Jews were waiting for a messiah and new covenant, and therefore, there was nothing particularly startling about “Paul's” epistle 1 Corinthians announcing the “new” covenant.

The OP challenges the prevailing notion, that Christianity is a Jewish derivative. I don't deny that much of the trappings of Christianity come from ancient Judaism. I simply deny that the fundamental aspect of Christianity is Jewish. The cake is Paganism. The frosting is Judaism. Like all good cakes, there is quite a bit of frosting in the middle!!!!

(yes, I am a bit overweight)

What about a laboratory exercise, to help us along, in figuring out whether or not Christianity arose from Jewish congregations, who were unhappy with the prospects of their ancient heritage, and sought to find something new and better: belief in the son of YHWH, as human's saviour. Of course they did not call him YHWH, did they? Nope, they may as well have called him Zeus, for they certainly attributed to the father of this saviour, the behaviour of Zeus, descending to terra firma to impregnate a young teen age Jewish girl.

So, this laboratory exercise, is found in Ethiopia, where, it turns out, genetic studies have demonstrated a marker or two, unique to one or more Jewish subgroups, in a population, isolated for two millenia from Jerusalem, with an ancient tradition of following the Tanaka, knowing nothing of the Talmud, and include, amongst their ancient princesses, Moses' wife.

The literature, even more confusing than some of the threads on this forum, includes debates among all manner of scholars, arguing not about pins and fairies, but about influences of Christianity on Judaism, and vice versa. What I have found, personally, most interesting in reading these articles by geneticists, archaeologists, and linguists, is the apparent agreement that evidence of the arrival of Christianity in the horn of Africa is found not before the middle of the fourth century CE.
Why not third century, or second century CE? Did they stop trading during those two centuries? That short crossing point to Yemen has been a trading route for 150,000 years. Jewish missionaries must have traveled there, how else to explain this group of isolated Jews, writing Ge'ez, and ignorant of all Jewish tradition, since the fall of Jerusalem.

Wikipedia wrote
Many of the Beta Israel immigrants, especially those who came from remote villages in Ethiopia, had never used electricity, elevators or televisions. In addition, the adaptation to the Israeli food was difficult.


Ibrahim M. Omer wrote
Sudan connection: Are Ethiopian Jews descendants of the ancient Israelites?
http://geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/ ... sraelites/

the name Ethiopia, in ancient and medieval sources, denoted the Nile valley civilization of Kush, also known today as ancient Nubia, in what is today Northern Sudan.
the religious substance of the Beta Israel has been adapted from the Jewish character already found in Ethiopia’s Christianity. [Jews of Ethiopia are derived from Christianity!!!!]
Linguistic evidence found in translations of Biblical material into Ge’ez, has already shown that a Jewish society had entered Aksum sometime between the first and fourth centuries (Kaplan, 1995, p. 13-20). As a result of this, the influence of Judaism in the Ethiopian Orthodox church has been overwhelming and has no counterpart in the contemporary Christian world. Traditions including circumcision on the eighth day of birth (Ullendorff, 1956), the historical upholding of the Saturday Sabbath (Ullendorff, 1968, p. 109-13), the architectural division system of the Ethiopian church that mimics Solomon’s Temple (Ullendorff, 1968, p. 87-97), as well as a diversity of other features, testify to a powerful former Jewish culture.

The fact that studies found the Beta Israel to be genetically so diverged from other Jewish communities (e.g. Lucotte & Smets, 1999) may suggest that the group was initiated by Jewish settlers who converted a majority of local people to Judaism more than two thousand years ago (Begley, 2012). Accordingly, Entine (2013) concludes, “That would mean that Ethiopian Jewry predates Ashkenazi Jewry” (interview, July 7); however, this does not necessarily suggest that the Beta Israel descent can be specifically traced to the Fertile Crescent.


So, there were missionaries, converting gentiles, but, WHY?

Wikipedia wrote
According to the beliefs of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the original consonantal form of the Ge'ez fidel was divinely revealed to Henos "as an instrument for codifying the laws", and the present system of vocalisation is attributed to a team of Aksumite scholars led by Frumentius (Abba Selama), the same missionary said to have converted the king Ezana to Christianity in the 4th century AD.


Now, where have we seen that notion: spread of Christianity during the fourth Century CE?

I claim, the new religion sputtered until Constantine, then it exploded. With regard to the OP, I deny that the first Christians were Tanaka educated and observant Jews. They were the poorest outcasts, illiterate, and without hope. Genuine Jews would never willingly consent to follow an apostate, like “Paul”. The Ebionians described by Origen and Tertullian, may have been Jews originally, or, may simply have done like you, Shesh, and studied Hebrew, and understood the ancient texts. So far as I know, we possess no documents written by them.
Sheshbazzar
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity

Post by Sheshbazzar »

I understand all to well where you are coming from John in your interpretation of Acts 15:19-21, as having spent over two decades as a member of a very legalistic messianic cult that held this same view of this text.
Of course we both know, or should know, that this is by far not all that 'Paul' or the Scriptures have to say on this matter.

I lived thus. All The Sabbaths, the Feasts, the keeping of kosher, to the limits of what extent that any foreign born gentile possibly could.
Yearly, I observed an all night vigil in the sanctuary of the Assembly on the evening of the fourteenth day of the moth of Abib,(Deut 16:1) marking off the hours from the beginning of that month, studying both Tanakh and 'NT' texts till the rising of the sun.
In so 'observing' and in the 'doing' I learned a great many things. Both about time and measure (Ecc 8:5) and about myself and those around me. Not that I was 'justified' or 'righteous' by this, but that there are lessons to learned through humility.

Sheshbazzar
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