My review of The Christianity Myth, of K. A. G. Thackerey

[rakovsky]

For all we know, there were 100 reports of small groups, say 5 folks each, seeing the same sort of vision. The likelihood that it was something like 5 groups of about 100 is small. The chance of more than 10-20 men gathered at any one time would attract attention from the authorities, funerals and synagogue worship excepted.

I don't know of any Judean law against that for Christians at the time. I know that in practice under current Israeli military rule, the native Christians and Muslims are classed as "Palestinians", and gatherings of more than ten are banned past the Green Line and downtown Jerusalem:

According to Israeli military law, Palestinians wishing to gather in groups of more than ten require permission from the Israeli military.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/issa ... nonviolent

So theoretically the same kind of law could have been in place.

But we do read about gatherings of Christians, even if illegal, in the Bible. At least 11 disciples were gathered when Jesus showed up in John 20. Presumably there could have been major gatherings at Matthias' election and at the Council of Jerusalem. Maybe that was true for Pentecost.

[Ulan]

The second implication is more interesting: if Paul claimed the direct vision of Jesus, could the Pillars lie against Paul by claiming a more direct and concrete vision of Jesus before the his death ? Were the Pillars the original first euhemerizers, before even Mark?

Yup, that's an interesting proposal. The passage in 1Cor always struck me as if a bunch of would-be leaders tried to one-up each other with visions. In a race to leadership, nobody can be left behind. Even Joseph Smith found his witnesses for his golden plates.

I was always asking myself who those 500 were. The first few communities? The number of Christians during Paul's time?

For all we know, there were 100 reports of small groups, say 5 folks each, seeing the same sort of vision. The likelihood that it was something like 5 groups of about 100 is small. The chance of more than 10-20 men gathered at any one time would attract attention from the authorities, funerals and synagogue worship excepted.

Were the first Christians, then, carried up in the spirit of "revival" in which whole synagogues would get caught up in it and have group visions guided by the preaching of the speaker? The relatively modern Christian "revivals" we have here in the USA, and which I understand also occurred among protestants in Scotland, Ireland and Britain, follow that sort of pattern.

I've been at evangelical churches right in the middle of such revivals and your hair actually rises as you get goose-bumps to see so many people so much into it, and all at the same time. A lot of those churches were conservative, almost Fundamentalist, and they would start speaking in tongues and prophesying, which is taboo to the old guard in these churches' presbytery. It was kind of weird.

"Mainline" churches (Presbyterian, Anglican/Methodist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and a few Baptist bodies) which went this direction called themselves part of the "charismatic" movement. I even saw a Roman Catholic church with an all boys high school go over to the charismatic movement, priests and all.

The ones which were a bit closer to Fundamentalist in doctrines, called themselves "Full Gospel" churches.

The Fundamentalist churches that did not go over were by far the majority, and they emphasized the name "Bible" churches, to signify that their POV was based on passages from the Bible that they felt made their POV the "obvious" one.

Tracts were written defending or attacking one or the other side of the debate over "spiritual gifts", by both factions. "Speaking in tongues" and "prophesying" (which were hard to tell apart) were the things which divided them.

Now it seems to me that, just as it is possible to write histories of more or less modern revivals and the dynamics of the history of Christian churches in various regions, based on clues like particular practices, language, etc., it should be possible to do the same with the early Christian movement.

Unfortunately, the literary and physical remains from ancient times have preserved only a tiny fraction of what was then the "full" story known generally among the local population. This "full" story is hardly more than a foggy idea of the "real" story, in which an infinite number of causes are instantly taken into consideration all at once and as time moves on. No one of us can, or will, ever see the "real" story. We only have the foggy "full" idea colored by the spirit of the age and place.

And when we read ancient sources, fragmented as they are, that foggy-ness is compounded to an almost total lack of visibility. We just get an impressionistic picture that, if you stand back far enough, can be interpreted with a bit of effort to be a kind of picture of something, whatever we like.

That being said, there are a lot of "legally blind" people who can see well enough to identify friends and acquaintances, walk about town, do everyday tasks, etc. Many of them are very much in tune with what is going on around them, having heightened their senses of touch, smell, tasting and hearing, but are also fully aware of their limitations. So we too have to be able to heighten our imaginative sensibilities, but in a controlled manner cognizant of our limitations.

Naaaaah!

Sorry, was just musing ...

DCH

No, I think your observations are spot-on. The same letter (1Cor) also contains hints of the same struggles about the direction the meetings will go as you just described. Maybe, seeing someone speaking in tongues or prophesize in an ecstatic state counted as "seeing the Lord". Who knows.

[rakovsky]

Yup, that's an interesting proposal. The passage in 1Cor always struck me as if a bunch of would-be leaders tried to one-up each other with visions. In a race to leadership, nobody can be left behind. Even Joseph Smith found his witnesses for his golden plates.

I was always asking myself who those 500 were. The first few communities? The number of Christians during Paul's time?

For all we know, there were 100 reports of small groups, say 5 folks each, seeing the same sort of vision. The likelihood that it was something like 5 groups of about 100 is small.

I sympathize with DCH's claim about the difficult of gathering as a group. But I think the barrier might not have been absolute. For example, Gamaliel said in Acts to leave the Christians alone (I think that was before Paul got involved), and Acts says the Christians continued worshiping publicly.

The passage in question says 500 Christians saw him at once:
ἔπειτα ὤφθη ἐπάνω πεντακοσίοις ἀδελφοῖς ἐφάπαξ,
in 1 Cor 15

Now they could be gathered in the Temple and maybe see Jesus - that is where Paul claimed to.
Or they could be gathering in some isolated place like a mountain
Or they could be gathered at a Jewish festival
Or they could be working at a job outside or walking around in a city and see Jesus above them.

There is no detail given except that it was sometime between when Jesus appeared to the disciples (maybe like in Luke 24) and when he appeared to James and then to the rest of the apostles. Out of all the narrated appearances I know of from tradition, that seems to leave room for this is Jesus' appearance in Matthew 28 where he meets the apostles on a mountain. That would be #2 in my list of "ORs" above. I say this in part because it's still before the Ascension, and apostles are described as seeing Jesus at the Ascension in Acts, which would be the final appearance Paul lists.

Acts 1 says:

after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit Promised 4 And being assembled together with them,

This is about the Ascension. It talks about the apostles He had chosen, which could go beyond just the 12 but refer to "all the apostles".

Reason #2 is that Matthew 28's appearance falls between the Ascension and the appearance in the Upper Room in Jerusalem to the 12. That would be about where it is in Paul's list. Plus, matthew doesn't name how many people were present, and a lot more can be there than in a locked room.

[DCHindley]

The size imitations I mentioned are approximate and based on what we know about the Roman attitude towards "voluntary associations". The only really legal associations were those of ancient (Roman) religious affiliation. All others, including innocuous clubs and even fire brigades, were strictly forbidden. About the only other public gatherings that were allowed legally were synagogue services, and this was due to a concession granted to all Judeans to reward Herod for his contributions to the Roman cause.

On the practical level, provincial governors and some of their subordinates looked the other way when it came to burial associations. Members of these type voluntary associations were automatically eligible for internment in the club's own burial tomb (there would be a niche for their bones) when their time came, including the necessary time in the decomposition room and a plaque to commemorate them. Tertullian speaks of this kind of meeting as usual in N. Africa. The normal Roman practice (at least in Italy) had been cremation, but you still got a niche. These would charge dues to members, and have pot-luck dinners monthly (usually) in the tombs. Woo-hoo! If anyone wonders why many early Christians met in tombs or catacombs, well, this was it.

On the practical level, other types of private associations did exist, sometimes in secret and sometimes openly, some religious, some secular, some related to ethnic origin or occupation, with the primary object of drinking too much. I guess the magistrates figured that if they were drinking there wouldn't be too much political talk.

You see, the reason that voluntary associations were originally banned was the fact that private parties involved in the Roman civil war had planned their strategies and organized their actions behind cover of voluntary associations, and the winners decided they would nip that kind of thing in the bud!

The two books on the subject that I have read are Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed. John Kloppenborg, 1996) and Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations (Philip Harland, 2003). There are surely many more.

DCH