How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by Secret Alias »

I don't understand any of this you wrote about paganism. It may be true that Israelites venerated something like the ten commandments before the Exile and eschewed pagan divinities. They were often accused on atheism as a result.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
outhouse
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by outhouse »

Secret Alias wrote: But how was Judaism 'perverted' by kissing the ass of their conquerors in the Greek and Roman period when the religion began by Ezra kissing the ass of the Persians?.

To the rich Hellenistic Jews and "Israelite Jews for a very minor part ?" this was a means to stay wealthy.


To the common peasant, this was corruption and oppression.


Two distinct version of the same events regardless.
outhouse
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by outhouse »

Secret Alias wrote:I don't understand any of this you wrote about paganism. It may be true that Israelites venerated something like the ten commandments before the Exile and eschewed pagan divinities. They were often accused on atheism as a result.
I was quoting the Jewish encyclopedia almost verbatim.

Regarding Hellenist and Judaism. In some circles some were considered Jewish, simply by swearing off pagan deities.


You had different levels of knowledge possessed by the people called Jews, is my point. Defined by who was using and or perverting the term Jew. An Aramaic Jew and a Hellenistic jew would each have a different definition of Judaism and who qualified.

As well as different knowledge levels of text.

Even peasant Hellenistic Proselytes just starting would have gone way beyond 10 laws. Or why stay? Nothing easy is valuable enough to convert to. The rich religious traditions were not sought after because of just 10 laws. Were talking about the evolution of a thousand years of rich religious heritage no Jew was blind to.
Secret Alias
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by Secret Alias »

I still don't understand your train of thought. Can you spend a bit more time and develop your thoughts in an easy to follow paragraph or two? Again I am trying to figure out what you object to and why
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
outhouse
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by outhouse »

Secret Alias wrote:I still don't understand your train of thought. Can you spend a bit more time and develop your thoughts in an easy to follow paragraph or two? Again I am trying to figure out what you object to and why
That the common Aramaic peasant Jew, knew far more then the 10 laws you suggest.
outhouse
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by outhouse »

If peasants only dealt with 10 laws.


Why was apocalyptic Judaism so popular?

Why was baptism so popular?, it was not in the 10 laws


Why all the different sects of Judaism so vastly different?
Secret Alias
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by Secret Alias »

That the common Aramaic peasant Jew, knew far more then the 10 laws you suggest.
Well he might have heard this or that about the Pentateuch. He might heard this or that from the Pentateuch in weekly services theoretically. But he certainly didn't live according to the laws of the Pentateuch. The Talmud makes that clear and there is no reason to think that average Jews became less observant over time. The legal texts of the later Roman period afforded Jews something of a privileged position (when compared to Samaritans for example) and there would have been a strong effort for Christians and Jews to compete over the People of the Land. So it would have been less and less easy for an ignoramus to occupy a 'middle position' between maintaining a Jewish identity and something else.

The point is simply that the Pentateuch itself recognizes various covenants (i.e. an Abrahamic covenant) and the description of God giving only the ten commandments on Sinai. The reason the text does this is IMO because there were various communities who considered themselves either 'Abrahamic' or 'Israelite' according to different forms of righteousness.

Moreover if you look at most of the 613 commandments in the Pentateuch (603 if you subtract the ten commandments) how many of these really applied to the life of an average Joe. Most of the animal slaughtered were strictly a priestly concern. If we turn around your argument and ask - is it possible that people of the Land knew most or all of the commandments of the Pentateuch then it becomes readily apparent the answer is no. Then if we follow that up with Paul's statement in Galatians:
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not establish (יָקִ֛ים) all the words of this Law by doing (or making = לַעֲשׂ֣וֹת) ” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us
Who was this directed at? Jews that had formerly fulfilled all the commandments of the Pentateuch? Certainly not. Who then? The text makes it seem as if Peter was succumbing to Jewish Christians wanting him to carry out certain things from the Law. But if Peter had been a law abiding Jew why wasn't he fulfilling 'all of the Law' before Paul said this.

Clearly Peter was an idiotai (as the text of Acts makes manifest) and NEVER fulfilled any of the Law. Otherwise Paul's words don't make any sense. His point is that (a) the system embodied in the Pentateuch was foreign to the People of the Land and that (b) even the limited obligations (Abrahamic covenant?) proposed by the Jewish Christian community is pointless because the Pentateuch demands 'all the laws' be fulfilled.

And why is Jesus 'cursed' in Galatians? Because he didn't 'establish' (= יָקִ֛ים) the words of the Pentateuch (a literal reading of Deuteronomy 27:26 where the English texts say something else). No he didn't establish the words of the Pentateuch because they came from Moses. He brought only the ten commandments and then in the ministry of the gospel explicitly demonstrated antinomian behavior.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
John2
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by John2 »

Stephen,

The association of the am ha-aretz with poverty and animals and ignorance of the Torah in Pesachim 49 (e.g., "Regarding their daughters it says 'Arur Shochev Im Kol Behemah.' (They lack understanding; like animals)" is interesting and reminds me of something from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The same word for "animals" is used in Hab. 2:17:

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/habakkuk/2-17.htm

And this word from this verse is applied in the Habakkuk Pesher to people associated with the DSS sect and the poor who are called "the simple ones of Judah, those who observe the Torah" (and the word for "simple ones" [petayim] has the possible sense of "naïve ones": http://biblehub.com/hebrew/6612a.htm):

"The interpretation of the passage concerns the Wicked Priest -to pay him his due inasmuch as he dealt wickedly with the Poor Ones; for 'Lebanon' is the Council of the Community, and the 'beasts' are the simple ones of Judah, those who observe the Torah- (he it is) whom God will condemn to complete destruction because he plotted to destroy completely the Poor Ones" (1QpHab 12:2-6).

https://books.google.com/books?id=t05ok ... ls&f=false

So the DSS refer to people who were simple and liken them to animals -like the am ha-aretz in Pesachim 49- yet they are said to "observe the Torah" [osei ha-Torah] using the same expression used to describe "all the doers of the Torah in the House of Judah whom God will save because of their works and their faith in the Righteous Teacher" (1QpHab 8:1-3).

As for how much of the Torah was read out loud every seven years (or the meaning of "this Torah" in Dt. 31), and whatever issues the rabbis had with other sects, M. Sotah 7:8 presents more than only the Ten Commandments as being read out loud in the first century CE.

Jesus is also presented as blessing the poor in Mt. 5 and saying, "You have heard that it was said" and "It has been said" and mentioning some laws that are not in the Ten Commandments, such as the law of divorce:

http://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/5.htm
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Secret Alias
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by Secret Alias »

So the DSS refer to people who were simple and liken them to animals -like the am ha-aretz in Pesachim 49- yet they are said to "observe the Torah"
I don't see any relevance to this. You just like seguing to the DSS whenever you get the chance and warp it out of its original context. It's like what you come here to do. Here is what Schiffman writes about the connections:
Despite Pharisee-Sadducee- and Dead Sea sect– disputes, it must be stated that the vast majority of legal rulings regarding the observances of sacrificial law, Sabbath, purity laws, and other halakhic practices were common to Second Temple period Jews. This common Judaism was practiced by the masses (later termed {am ha-ares)32 who had little to do with the detailed disputes of the various elites who enrolled in the sectarian groups. [Qumran and Jerusalem p. 8]
Regardless of whether Schiffman would go as far as me and argue that the people of the land only knew the ten commandments - going back to our original point - the gospel portrait of an idiotes arguing with the erudite simply wasn't a historical happening. It was a made up story. These sorts of things didn't happen.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: How Much of the Gospel is Actual History

Post by Secret Alias »

While I have a few minutes let me bury any counter-argument in the sand:
In Early Judaism the 'am ha-aretz 'la-Torah' designated the Jew who was ignorant of the Torah; the 'am ha-aretz 'le-mitzwot' specified the Galilean who after Usha (140- 1 70 C.E.) was disparaged by the Sages because he did not observe the commandments. [Charlesworth The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament p. 21]
While the term may well have been used to disparage groups who didn't adhere to the same rules of ritual purity (= the am ha'aretz le mitzwot) the core concept is that of the al ha'aretz la Torah i.e. those who did not know or ignored the Pentateuch.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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