The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
John2
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

I was talking to Ben about starting a thread on adoptionism when it occurred to me that it pertains to this one since this was a belief of Jewish Christians (and others), based on Ps. 2:7, and I find myself in agreement with this website that it was probably the original idea in other gospels and not just the Jewish Christian Matthew/Gospel of the Hebrews. It lays out all of the evidence and concludes that:
It takes no genius to figure out why this text was deleted about "this day I have begotten thee." It conflicted with a doctrine first adopted in 325 AD at Nicea that Jesus was the 'eternal son of God.' While no verse expressly supports that idea, it became fixed dogma. Hence, it is no coincidence that all the texts prior to that era have 'this day I have begotten thee' in the baptism account -- proven by numerous quotations-- and all those surviving today after 325 AD are missing it.

https://www.jesuswordsonly.com/books/23 ... count.html
I see that Ken Olson started a thread on this subject last year http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... hp?p=48063 and I'm also refreshing myself on Ehrman (who seems to be the go-to guy on adoptionism), but I think the above website makes a good case and I don't have anything to add to it.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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DCHindley wrote: Sun Aug 06, 2017 10:28 am
This can be taken a number of ways. Who exactly are the "sons" who are free? Judeans? Jewish christians (note the little "c")? Gentile Christians (note the big "C")? Who are the kings of the earth? Judeans? Romans? The original temple tax was not a government tax, but a religious one paid to the temple. So there should not be any "kings" involved, although in Jesus' time Judea was in the emperor's trust in that period, considered part and parcel the emperor's private property and thus administered by the emperor, who governed indirectly through a Procurator who was given the powers of a Prefect. This governor was also the overseer of the temple apparatus, which included collecting religious dues. I just don't think the Judeans would consider the HPs of Jesus' time as "kings".

DCH
Its always been my opinion, the biblical rhetoric on taxes was to combat the Aramaic Galilean Jews and Zealots if there is even a difference there. It accepts it as an issue and plays it off as being not an enemy of the Roman Empire so that anyone who read the text would not be viewed as treasonous.

They tried to paint over the Galileans hatred of over taxation and oppression which was centered around their religious movement. These pious people were not happy about their religion being perverted by Hellenist following a Judaism light.

Your right in that I would love to know much of the missing context in it all.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

I've been a little mired in the issue of adoptionism, but in the big picture, while God is said to have "begat" Jesus at different times (baptism, resurrection and pre-incarnation), as far as Jesus' baptism goes, to me it looks like the version in the Gospel of the Hebrews is the original and is the one cited by Justin Martyr, as some argue, such as Akers, who additionally notes that:
...the whole thrust of the story of the baptism by John -the image of the spirit descending from above- is an adoptionist metaphor that completely contradicts the virgin birth story. The spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove, one of the most celebrated of all Christian images, in both the canonical and the Ebionite account. If Jesus were already the son of God since the beginning of the world, and already fully divine, this image would be completely superfluous.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7LfL6 ... us&f=false
And I don't see a big difference between this idea and the one that Jesus became the son of God at his resurrection (as per Rom. 1:4), since in the big picture all it really amounts to is that at some point at the end of Jesus' life, whether it was at the start or end of his ministry, he was thought to be the son of God, and I think the time difference here is negligible (no more than three years and maybe only one, I gather).

At the same time we have an apparently pre-existent Jesus in the Philippians Hymn:
...Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!


I think this would be in keeping with Daniel's divine/angelic "one like a son of man" aspect of Jesus, the "Christ" part that came from heaven and entered or lighted upon Jesus at his baptism in the adoptionist version, who was pre-existent and "in very nature God." And I notice that is a case where Paul says "Christ Jesus," a usage which apparently is seen as generally emphasizing the divine aspect of Jesus (and this believer's blog has a handy chart for this: http://removethemud.com/wp/studies/jesu ... ist-jesus/).

So I have no problem with all three elements of when/how Jesus was thought to have become the son of God. Sometime at the end of the human Jesus' life, Daniel's pre-existent divine/angelic "one like a son of man" (a.k.a. "Christ") entered into or lighted upon him, first at his baptism and confirmed by his resurrection shortly after, and this "Christ" part was pre-existent.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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John2 wrote: Thu Aug 17, 2017 11:49 amAt the same time we have an apparently pre-existent Jesus in the Philippians Hymn:
...Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!


I think this would be in keeping with Daniel's divine/angelic "one like a son of man" aspect of Jesus, the "Christ" part that came from heaven and entered or lighted upon Jesus at his baptism in the adoptionist version, who was pre-existent and "in very nature God." And I notice that is a case where Paul says "Christ Jesus," a usage which apparently is seen as generally emphasizing the divine aspect of Jesus (and this believer's blog has a handy chart for this: http://removethemud.com/wp/studies/jesu ... ist-jesus/).
The forms "Jesus Christ" and "Christ Jesus" are often exchanged in the manuscript tradition. Refer to a previous post of mine for an example of this phenomenon: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494#p55935. (This is not an argument that "Christ Jesus" is incorrect here, but rather an observation urging caution on the matter.)
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John2
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

Adoptionism at Jesus' baptism is in keeping with Epiphanius' comments that the Matthew of one branch of Jewish Christians did not have the first two chapters and that he doesn't know if the Matthew used by another branch had "the genealogies from Abraham to Christ" or if they believed in the virgin birth.

Pan. 30.13.2-7:
Now in what they call a Gospel according to Matthew, though it is not the entire Gospel but is corrupt and mutilated—and they call this thing 'Hebrew'!—the following passage is found ... But the beginning of their Gospel is, 'It came to pass in the days of Herod, king of Judea, in the high-priesthood of Caiaphas, that a certain man, John by name, came baptizing with the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan, and he was said to be of the lineage of Aaron the priest, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, and all went out unto him.'

And after saying a good deal it adds, 'When the people had been baptized Jesus came also and was baptized of John. And as he came up out of the water the heavens were opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove which descended and entered into him. And (there came) a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased, and again, This day have I begotten thee.


Pan. 29.7.6:
As to Christ, I cannot say whether they .. regard him as a mere man—or whether, as the truth is, they affirm that he was born of Mary by the Holy Spirit.
Pan. 29.9.4:
They have the Gospel according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. For it is clear that they still preserve this as it was originally written, in the Hebrew alphabet.But I do not know whether they have also excised the genealogies from Abraham till Christ.
And Irenaeus, who is the first church father to mention Jewish Christians, says they did not believe in the virgin birth.

AH 3.21.1:
God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us, giving us the token of the Virgin ... The Ebionites ... assert that He was begotten by Joseph; thus destroying, as far as in them lies, such a marvellous dispensation of God, and setting aside the testimony of the prophets which proceeded from God.
AH 5.1.3:
Vain also are the Ebionites, who do not receive by faith into their soul the union of God and man, but who remain in the old leaven of [the natural] birth, and who do not choose to understand that the Holy Ghost came upon Mary, and the power of the Most High did overshadow her
But other church fathers (Origen, Eusebius, Jerome) say that there was a branch of Jewish Christians who believed in the virgin birth, and I want to take a fresh look at them. Eusebius says:

EH 3.27.1-3:
The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ.

For they considered him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.

There were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name, but avoided the strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed, being God, Word, and Wisdom, they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law.
And Origen says:

Against Celsus 5.61:
Let it be admitted, moreover, that there are some who accept Jesus, and who boast on that account of being Christians, and yet would regulate their lives, like the Jewish multitude, in accordance with the Jewish law—and these are the twofold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge with us that Jesus was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain that He was begotten like other human beings.
And Jerome says:

Epist. 112.4.13:
In our own day there exists a sect among the Jews throughout all the synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents to this sect are known commonly as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, is the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they desire to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other.
But before their time (and just after Irenaeus), Hippoltyus appears to be saying that there were Jewish Christians who believed in the virgin birth but still maintained that Jesus "received Christ" at his baptism:

RH 7.22-23:
The Ebionaeans, however, acknowledge that the world was made by Him Who is in reality God, but they propound legends concerning the Christ similarly with Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live conformably to the customs of the Jews, alleging that they are justified. according to the law, and saying that Jesus was justified by fulfilling the law. And therefore it was, (according to the Ebionaeans,) that (the Saviour) was named (the) Christ of God and Jesus, since not one of the rest (of mankind) had observed completely the law. For if even any other had fulfilled the commandments (contained) in the law, he would have been that Christ. And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfil (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all (the rest of the human family).

But there was a certain Theodotus, appropriating, however, (his notions of) Christ from the school of the Gnostics, and of Cerinthus and Ebion, he alleges that (our Lord) appeared in some such manner as I shall now describe. (According to this, Theodotus maintains) that Jesus was a (mere) man, born of a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, and that after he had lived promiscuously with all men, and had become pre-eminently religious, he subsequently at his baptism in Jordan received Christ, who came from above and descended (upon him) in form of a dove. And this was the reason, (according to Theodotus,) why (miraculous) powers did not operate within him prior to the manifestation in him of that Spirit which descended, (and) which proclaims him to be the Christ.

So it looks to me like even the Jewish Christians who believed in the virgin birth maintained that Jesus "received Christ" at his baptism.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

Ben wrote:
The forms "Jesus Christ" and "Christ Jesus" are often exchanged in the manuscript tradition. Refer to a previous post of mine for an example of this phenomenon: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494#p55935. (This is not an argument that "Christ Jesus" is incorrect here, but rather an observation urging caution on the matter.)
Thanks, Ben. I will bear this in mind.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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I'm trying to figure out exactly how Rom. 1:4 (which says that Jesus was appointed/declared/determined to be the son of God at his resurrection) fits into all this. Here is Rom. 1:4:
... who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
A commenter on the biblehub says, "The verb ὁρίζειν means properly to "appoint" or "determine;" and if this meaning be re-mined, the whole passage would seem to preclude the idea of Sonship previous to the Resurrection being in view."

I'm looking at the resurrection as being a confirmation of Jesus' "sonship," like in Acts 17:31, which uses the same word for declared/appointed in a speech attributed to Paul:
For he [God] has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
Maybe the resurrection was "proof .. to everyone" of Jesus' "sonship" because it looks to me like only Jesus had seen the dove (and presumably heard the voice) come down from heaven when he was baptized:

Mk. 3:9-11:
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Mt. 3:16-17:
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Lk. 3:21-22 is slightly different and I can't tell if anyone else saw the dove and heard the voice:
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Is there any indication elsewhere that anyone besides Jesus saw the dove and heard the voice at his baptism?

Regarding the resurrection being "proof ... to everyone" that Jesus was the son of God, while I get the impression that the disciples were aware that Jesus would be resurrected in Mark (e.g., 16:7: "But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you'"), it's curious that the short ending of Mark (16:8) says, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

In any event, Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:4-7 (bearing in mind the issue of interpolations):
...he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also...
And according to Jerome (Ill. Men 2) the Gospel of the Hebrews said:
Also the Gospel according to the Hebrews, lately translated by me into Greek and Latin speech, which Origen often uses, tells, after the resurrection of the Saviour: "Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth unto the servant of the priest, went unto James and appeared to him (for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour wherein he had drunk the Lord's cup until he should see him risen again from among them that sleep)", and again after a little, 'Bring ye, saith the Lord, a table and bread', and immediately it is added, 'He took bread and blessed and brake and gave it unto James the Just and said unto him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep'.
So after his baptism and before the resurrection maybe only Jesus knew (or thought) he was the son of God (and the disciples seem to be presented as struggling to understand the dying and rising "Son of Man" concept before this, if I recall correctly), but after his resurrection his "sonship" was "proven" when he was seen by "everyone." I don't know, I'm still trying to figure this out.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:37 pm I'm trying to figure out exactly how Rom. 1:4 (which says that Jesus was appointed/declared/determined to be the son of God at his resurrection) fits into all this. Here is Rom. 1:4:
... who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
A commenter on the biblehub says, "The verb ὁρίζειν means properly to "appoint" or "determine;" and if this meaning be re-mined, the whole passage would seem to preclude the idea of Sonship previous to the Resurrection being in view."

I'm looking at the resurrection as being a confirmation of Jesus' "sonship," like in Acts 17:31, which uses the same word for declared/appointed in a speech attributed to Paul:
For he [God] has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
The problem here is that the verse in Acts allows for the appointment to have happened at any time whatsoever, with only the proof of this appointment being explicitly reserved for the resurrection. Romans 1.4, on the other hand, clearly links the appointment with the resurrection, as if it had not happened earlier.

A view for which I have argued before is that Romans 1.1b-5a is an interpolation: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494. Bernard and I debated the meaning of the participle ὁρισθέντος, and (to be frank) he really did not have a very good reply to the obvious sense of the word, whereby the resurrection would be the moment of the appointment or determination. He may have come up with something better since that discussion, of course. I assembled and studied usages of the word from the LXX in a later post on that same thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494&start=20#p55982.

My recent mythicohistorical approach to Christian origins was formulated partly in order to make sense of the various Christologies available in early Christianity. If Romans 1.1b-5a is an interpolation, then the Pauline position seems pretty consistently to be that Jesus was the preordained son of God, sent in the form of humanity in order to redeem us, with no point of adoption in his putative human form. How then to explain that later gospels and other texts posit an adoption of some kind at the resurrection, at the baptism, or at the virgin birth? Are these later authors actually demoting Jesus? If so, why? My proposed solution is that Paul was writing of a purely mythical divine figure, whereas those later authors were writing either about a purely human Jesus or about the hybrid divine human or human divinity we know as Jesus Christ. The confusion arose over different ways of merging the two figures.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:06 pm The forms "Jesus Christ" and "Christ Jesus" are often exchanged in the manuscript tradition. Refer to a previous post of mine for an example of this phenomenon: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2494#p55935. (This is not an argument that "Christ Jesus" is incorrect here, but rather an observation urging caution on the matter.)
DCH looked at that, and I slightly recatagorized his figures
MrMacSon wrote: Mon Jun 13, 2016 11:16 pm
I took DCH's data and categorized it further ... Reproduced here (with slight grammatical or layout modification)
DCHindley wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:12 pm
Re-worked subtotals of the relative proportions to illustrate the real differences by groups.
  1. The four Gospels;
  2. Acts (alone, as I am not convinced was written by same author as Luke);
  3. the five generally uncontested letters of Paul (ROM, 1CO, 2CO, GAL & 1TH);
  4. the four "disputed" letters to cities (EPH, PHI, COL & 2TH);
  5. the four "Pastorals" (1TI, 2TI, TIT, PHM);
  6. Hebrews (alone, again, as its likely not by any genuine Paul);
  7. the seven "General" letters (JAM, 1PE, 2PE, 1JN, 2JN, 3JN & JUD, which are usually transmitted along with ACT).
The Gospels, 'the seven "General" letters', Revelation (aka the Apocalypse), and Hebrews, are all 100% *Jesus Christ*,

Acts (which DCH noted "are usually transmitted along with the seven 'General' letters") is 92% *Jesus Christ* (12/13),

The 5 "generally uncontested Paulines" are ~2/3 'Jesus Christ' and ~1/3 'Christ Jesus',

The 4 "disputed" letters to cities are 50/50; and

The Pastorals are 25% 'J C' and 75% 'C J'.
MrMacSon wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:56 pm
It would be interesting to know
  • 1. if we can determine what the early versions of 'Christ' were
      • a. the 'anointed' version - Χριστός (Christós); or

        b. the good/useful version - Xρηστός (chréstos);

        (or any variations of them) ... and
    2. if the versions of 'Christ' in any way changed over time
    • (we know Codices Sinaiticus & Vaticanus had 'Chrestians' - what about their versions of Christ??)
      • Codex Sinaiticus seems to have the nomen sacrum XC for Matt 24:5
        It seems to have (to my untrained eye) IU XU for Jesus Christ in Matt 1:1

"Christ" alone being more predominant is note-worthy, too ---viz. -
DCHindley wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:12 pm
This does NOT include "Jesus" alone, or "Christ" alone, or "Lord" (whether alone or whether in combination with any of the previous).

From experience, I'd say "Christ" (alone) far outnumbers "Jesus" (alone).
DCHindley wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:12 pm
"Lord" gets a little complicated. If the term proceeds either J, C, JC or CJ, should it be treated differently that if it comes after, as in "our Lord"?

If that is the case, then the combinations would be:
    • J
      LJ
      JL
      C
      LC
      CL
      JC
      LJC
      JCL
      CJ
      LCJ
      CJL
It would be interesting to see if or how Lord is used interchangeably, as it often is in [some] OT books for angels.
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Re: The Jerusalem Church after 70 CE

Post by John2 »

Ben wrote:
If Romans 1.1b-5a is an interpolation, then the Pauline position seems pretty consistently to be that Jesus was the preordained son of God, sent in the form of humanity in order to redeem us, with no point of adoption in his putative human form. How then to explain that later gospels and other texts posit an adoption of some kind at the resurrection, at the baptism, or at the virgin birth? Are these later authors actually demoting Jesus? If so, why? My proposed solution is that Paul was writing of a purely mythical divine figure, whereas those later authors were writing either about a purely human Jesus or about the hybrid divine human or human divinity we know as Jesus Christ. The confusion arose over different ways of merging the two figures.
I can more or less live with this solution (though I would take Paul's "purely mythical divine figure" to be based on Daniel's "Son of Man"), but is there really no evidence in Paul of a moment in time when this divine figure entered into a human Jesus?

Ben wrote in his thread that he linked to above (which I recall reading before but forgot it involved Rom. 1:4):
I see some potential wriggle room in the exact phrasing of Romans 1.4 inasmuch as Christ is said to have been declared the Son of God with power at his resurrection, but having wriggle room is not the same thing as it being a good idea to take advantage of it.


I was wondering how much wriggle room there could be regarding "in power" too, but if we can jettison the whole verse, then it falls back to is there anything else in Paul that supports some kind of adoptionism, and I gather there isn't from your statement above that if Rom. 1:4 is an interpolation, "then the Pauline position seems pretty consistently to be that Jesus was the preordained son of God, sent in the form of humanity in order to redeem us, with no point of adoption in his putative human form." But are you saying that Paul's position is that there is no human Jesus, just a pre-ordained son of God sent at some point in time in the form of humanity (like Docetism)?
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