The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Jax
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:22 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:17 am With a small paradigm shift in time it seems simpler to me. Paul living in or around Damascus in the 1st century BCE is influenced by the sectarian Jewish splinter group that wrote at least some of the material found at Qumran. Paul then becomes caught up in the conflicts of Greece and Asia Minor and with other Jewish men also part of these campaigns introduce the core concepts of this splinter sect to the Roman soldiers that they interacted with. Colonies of these Roman soldiers from these campaigns are established in Greece and Asia Minor (Corinth, Philippi, Troas, Sinope..) as well as other places like Rome, North Africa, Antioch, Alexandria, Spain, and are then the points that originate early Christianity.

Christianity as we understand it then finally comes to Judea after 70 when Romans settle in the Levant after the war. More so after Bar Kokhba.

I feel that this scenario has at least reasonable plausibility.
On this scenario, the Damascus "branch" of the sect represented at Qumran, the branch with which Paul would have had contact, would have had documents bearing ideas similar to those from the scrolls discovered at Qumran, correct?
Yes. Correct. :cheers:
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:57 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:17 am With a small paradigm shift in time it seems simpler to me. Paul living in or around Damascus in the 1st century BCE is influenced by the sectarian Jewish splinter group that wrote at least some of the material found at Qumran. Paul then becomes caught up in the conflicts of Greece and Asia Minor and with other Jewish men also part of these campaigns introduce the core concepts of this splinter sect to the Roman soldiers that they interacted with. Colonies of these Roman soldiers from these campaigns are established in Greece and Asia Minor (Corinth, Philippi, Troas, Sinope..) as well as other places like Rome, North Africa, Antioch, Alexandria, Spain, and are then the points that originate early Christianity.

Christianity as we understand it then finally comes to Judea after 70 when Romans settle in the Levant after the war. More so after Bar Kokhba.

I feel that this scenario has at least reasonable plausibility.
I want to point out here my initial contribution to this thread:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:17 pm Christianity has too many overlaps with the Dead Sea Scrolls to be purely of gentile origin. The lack of Hebrew or Aramaic texts is easily explicable: after 70, Judea was in chaos; much was lost; the Dead Sea Scrolls cache itself was a stroke of luck, one which may never be replicated.
It seems that you agree with me that Christianity has too much in common with the sectarian Scrolls to be purely of gentile origin. It was of sectarian Jewish origin in your scenario, as well. The only difference is that you think that the Jewish sect in question was an outpost in Damascus instead of being located in the homeland.

So there are two different questions on the table:
  1. Was Christianity founded in Judaism (as a religion or philosophy)?
  2. Was Christianity founded in Judea (as a geographical region)?
You and I agree that the answer to the first question is yes. We may disagree on the answer to the second question. Naturally, when I interjected, I was going from my own point of view that (at least an important thread of) Christianity did start in Judea before 70. But I will completely agree that it is not impossible that the Judaism from which Christianity developed was located abroad; it is not my preferred reconstruction, but it is possible.

In order to focus the lens upon the geographical issue, I have to ask you about Galatians 2 again. On your scenario, Paul both hails from Damascus and interacts with a Jewish sect in Damascus. On mine, Paul may hail from Damascus (or perhaps he was at least based there for a time), but the Jewish sect he interacted with was located in Judea. Galatians 2 mentions a sect with which Paul interacted, and it was located in Jerusalem. That looks like evidence for my position; what is the equivalent evidence for yours? What shows us that Paul had meaningful dealings with a Jewish sect in Damascus?
If I understand it correctly, the sectarian group that Paul may have had interaction with in the area of Damascus, went there initially because of political dissension with the ruling classes of Judea at the time. That political situation may have been removed on the death of Alexander Jannaeus in 76 BCE allowing a return to Jerusalem by the splinter sect. At least in part if not fully.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:06 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:22 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:17 am With a small paradigm shift in time it seems simpler to me. Paul living in or around Damascus in the 1st century BCE is influenced by the sectarian Jewish splinter group that wrote at least some of the material found at Qumran. Paul then becomes caught up in the conflicts of Greece and Asia Minor and with other Jewish men also part of these campaigns introduce the core concepts of this splinter sect to the Roman soldiers that they interacted with. Colonies of these Roman soldiers from these campaigns are established in Greece and Asia Minor (Corinth, Philippi, Troas, Sinope..) as well as other places like Rome, North Africa, Antioch, Alexandria, Spain, and are then the points that originate early Christianity.

Christianity as we understand it then finally comes to Judea after 70 when Romans settle in the Levant after the war. More so after Bar Kokhba.

I feel that this scenario has at least reasonable plausibility.
On this scenario, the Damascus "branch" of the sect represented at Qumran, the branch with which Paul would have had contact, would have had documents bearing ideas similar to those from the scrolls discovered at Qumran, correct?
Yes. Correct. :cheers:
So those documents have been lost to us, correct? We have a cache of such sectarian documents from Qumran, but no cache of them from Damascus, nor any direct literary evidence that they ever existed (no one says, "I saw some scrolls at Damascus that reminded me of the ones I had read at Qumran," or some such), correct?

I ask because everybody's reconstruction of things has to posit intermediate entities like this. You asked me before:
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:56 amWhy are there no letters to Syria or Cilicia? One would think that those two locations would have all of the Gentiles that Paul could ever hope to recruit.

Also why is there no apparent Christian presence in the areas around Judea except Antioch and Alexandria; major Greek and Roman commerce and military hubs, until after the areas in and around Judea have been resettled by Romans after the Jewish and Bar Kokhba wars?
And this is why I responded that there are so very many gaps in the ancient evidence that to find a gap and have to fill it in with hypothetical texts is to be expected. I may as well be asking you, "Why are there no Damascus documents like those at Qumran?" But my point is that the question itself is misguided.
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:27 amIf I understand it correctly, the sectarian group that Paul may have had interaction with in the area of Damascus, went there initially because of political dissension with the ruling classes of Judea at the time. That political situation may have been removed on the death of Alexander Jannaeus in 76 BCE allowing a return to Jerusalem by the splinter sect. At least in part if not fully.
Okay, but what I am asking for is evidence that Paul had dealings with such a sect in Damascus. My claim that Paul had dealings with a sectarian group in Jerusalem is supported directly by Galatians 2. Does anything support your view as directly?
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:38 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:06 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:22 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:17 am With a small paradigm shift in time it seems simpler to me. Paul living in or around Damascus in the 1st century BCE is influenced by the sectarian Jewish splinter group that wrote at least some of the material found at Qumran. Paul then becomes caught up in the conflicts of Greece and Asia Minor and with other Jewish men also part of these campaigns introduce the core concepts of this splinter sect to the Roman soldiers that they interacted with. Colonies of these Roman soldiers from these campaigns are established in Greece and Asia Minor (Corinth, Philippi, Troas, Sinope..) as well as other places like Rome, North Africa, Antioch, Alexandria, Spain, and are then the points that originate early Christianity.

Christianity as we understand it then finally comes to Judea after 70 when Romans settle in the Levant after the war. More so after Bar Kokhba.

I feel that this scenario has at least reasonable plausibility.
On this scenario, the Damascus "branch" of the sect represented at Qumran, the branch with which Paul would have had contact, would have had documents bearing ideas similar to those from the scrolls discovered at Qumran, correct?
Yes. Correct. :cheers:
So those documents have been lost to us, correct? We have a cache of such sectarian documents from Qumran, but no cache of them from Damascus, nor any direct literary evidence that they ever existed (no one says, "I saw some scrolls at Damascus that reminded me of the ones I had read at Qumran," or some such), correct?

I ask because everybody's reconstruction of things has to posit intermediate entities like this. You asked me before:
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:56 amWhy are there no letters to Syria or Cilicia? One would think that those two locations would have all of the Gentiles that Paul could ever hope to recruit.

Also why is there no apparent Christian presence in the areas around Judea except Antioch and Alexandria; major Greek and Roman commerce and military hubs, until after the areas in and around Judea have been resettled by Romans after the Jewish and Bar Kokhba wars?
And this is why I responded that there are so very many gaps in the ancient evidence that to find a gap and have to fill it in with hypothetical texts is to be expected. I may as well be asking you, "Why are there no Damascus documents like those at Qumran?" But my point is that the question itself is misguided.
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:27 amIf I understand it correctly, the sectarian group that Paul may have had interaction with in the area of Damascus, went there initially because of political dissension with the ruling classes of Judea at the time. That political situation may have been removed on the death of Alexander Jannaeus in 76 BCE allowing a return to Jerusalem by the splinter sect. At least in part if not fully.
Okay, but what I am asking for is evidence that Paul had dealings with such a sect in Damascus. My claim that Paul had dealings with a sectarian group in Jerusalem is supported directly by Galatians 2. Does anything support your view as directly?
No. Except perhaps the similarities of the DSS material and early Christianity.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:43 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:38 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:06 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:22 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:17 am With a small paradigm shift in time it seems simpler to me. Paul living in or around Damascus in the 1st century BCE is influenced by the sectarian Jewish splinter group that wrote at least some of the material found at Qumran. Paul then becomes caught up in the conflicts of Greece and Asia Minor and with other Jewish men also part of these campaigns introduce the core concepts of this splinter sect to the Roman soldiers that they interacted with. Colonies of these Roman soldiers from these campaigns are established in Greece and Asia Minor (Corinth, Philippi, Troas, Sinope..) as well as other places like Rome, North Africa, Antioch, Alexandria, Spain, and are then the points that originate early Christianity.

Christianity as we understand it then finally comes to Judea after 70 when Romans settle in the Levant after the war. More so after Bar Kokhba.

I feel that this scenario has at least reasonable plausibility.
On this scenario, the Damascus "branch" of the sect represented at Qumran, the branch with which Paul would have had contact, would have had documents bearing ideas similar to those from the scrolls discovered at Qumran, correct?
Yes. Correct. :cheers:
So those documents have been lost to us, correct? We have a cache of such sectarian documents from Qumran, but no cache of them from Damascus, nor any direct literary evidence that they ever existed (no one says, "I saw some scrolls at Damascus that reminded me of the ones I had read at Qumran," or some such), correct?

I ask because everybody's reconstruction of things has to posit intermediate entities like this. You asked me before:
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:56 amWhy are there no letters to Syria or Cilicia? One would think that those two locations would have all of the Gentiles that Paul could ever hope to recruit.

Also why is there no apparent Christian presence in the areas around Judea except Antioch and Alexandria; major Greek and Roman commerce and military hubs, until after the areas in and around Judea have been resettled by Romans after the Jewish and Bar Kokhba wars?
And this is why I responded that there are so very many gaps in the ancient evidence that to find a gap and have to fill it in with hypothetical texts is to be expected. I may as well be asking you, "Why are there no Damascus documents like those at Qumran?" But my point is that the question itself is misguided.
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:27 amIf I understand it correctly, the sectarian group that Paul may have had interaction with in the area of Damascus, went there initially because of political dissension with the ruling classes of Judea at the time. That political situation may have been removed on the death of Alexander Jannaeus in 76 BCE allowing a return to Jerusalem by the splinter sect. At least in part if not fully.
Okay, but what I am asking for is evidence that Paul had dealings with such a sect in Damascus. My claim that Paul had dealings with a sectarian group in Jerusalem is supported directly by Galatians 2. Does anything support your view as directly?
No. Except perhaps the similarities of the DSS material and early Christianity.
But that the sect carrying those ideas forward hailed from Judea explains those similarities just as easily as the sect hailing from Damascus, right? In both cases it is the same set of ideas.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Stephan wrote:
Can you point to any of these texts as being in a pure pristine state preserving their alleged connection to "Jewish Christianity" or must we employ source criticism to uncover the "Jewish Christianity" ur-text within our surging canonical text?
As I said, it's only my opinion (and a starting point), but James, 1 Peter, Jude, 1, 2 and 3 John and Revelation seem pretty "pure" to me, and what they say is in keeping with what Hegesippus says (and I've given examples of this in other threads). They also share characteristics with some of the DSS. Jude cites 1 Enoch, which is known to have been used only by the DSS sect(s) and Christians, and 1 Peter has strong correlations with the spiritual temple idea in 1QS, for examples. These kinds of similarities with pre-70 CE writings add to my over all impression that these letters could have a pre-70 CE provenance.

As for Mark and Matthew, I've no doubt they have been "tampered" with (like Celsus says about Christian writings), but since they were used and preserved by orthodox Christians, it seems easy enough to pick out the things that promote their agenda, such as Mt. 28:19:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ...
This conflicts with what Jesus says in Mt. 10:5:
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans."


But on the whole both gospels seem very "Jewish Christian" to me, if by Jewish Christian we mean Jewish believers in Jesus who observed the Torah (and rejected the oral Torah of the Pharisees). This is the clear message of Jesus in both gospels to me.

After this, I would pick the Didache, which I think is at least heavily influenced by Jewish Christianity and mentions only one gospel, which resembles Matthew, the one Jewish Christians are said to have used.

One of my favorite books on Jewish Christianity discusses the similarities between Matthew, James and the Didache (called, appropriately enough, Matthew, James and Didache) and the Jewish Christian milieu thought to have produced them.

https://books.google.com/books?id=CkRmO ... he&f=false

Next I go to Celsus, who I noticed the other day (on page 90 of Hoffmann's translation) appears to know of Jewish Christians, and Origen identifies them as Ebionites in 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.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04165.htm


Hoffmann notes that this could also be a reference to Elkasites, but that's six on one hand and half a dozen on the other, since they were Jewish Christians too.

And you mentioned the Clementine writings, which are no doubt late, but they are still commonly thought to have incorporated earlier Jewish Christian writings, called the Grundschrift, which strongly resembles the Jewish Christian writings Epiphanius claims to have seen called the Ascents of James and the Travels of Peter, as discussed in this review of a book by Jones, for example. (And not to get too far back into the Church fathers, but it's worth noting that Epiphanius also claims to have known Jewish Christians in his time and he says they knew Hebrew and could not read Greek NT writings without having them translated into Hebrew.)
Explaining the similarities between the two works (Homilies and Recognitions), scholars have come to the view that both made independent use of an earlier source, which they called the Grundschrift.

https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/ ... y-jones-2/
So I think we're on fairly good grounds for seeing Jewish Christians as Torah observant believers in Jesus, starting from Paul's time on down, like in Gal. 2:12-13 and 2 Cor. 11:12-23:
For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ ... Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:46 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:43 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:38 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:06 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:22 am

On this scenario, the Damascus "branch" of the sect represented at Qumran, the branch with which Paul would have had contact, would have had documents bearing ideas similar to those from the scrolls discovered at Qumran, correct?
Yes. Correct. :cheers:
So those documents have been lost to us, correct? We have a cache of such sectarian documents from Qumran, but no cache of them from Damascus, nor any direct literary evidence that they ever existed (no one says, "I saw some scrolls at Damascus that reminded me of the ones I had read at Qumran," or some such), correct?

I ask because everybody's reconstruction of things has to posit intermediate entities like this. You asked me before:
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:56 amWhy are there no letters to Syria or Cilicia? One would think that those two locations would have all of the Gentiles that Paul could ever hope to recruit.

Also why is there no apparent Christian presence in the areas around Judea except Antioch and Alexandria; major Greek and Roman commerce and military hubs, until after the areas in and around Judea have been resettled by Romans after the Jewish and Bar Kokhba wars?
And this is why I responded that there are so very many gaps in the ancient evidence that to find a gap and have to fill it in with hypothetical texts is to be expected. I may as well be asking you, "Why are there no Damascus documents like those at Qumran?" But my point is that the question itself is misguided.
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:27 amIf I understand it correctly, the sectarian group that Paul may have had interaction with in the area of Damascus, went there initially because of political dissension with the ruling classes of Judea at the time. That political situation may have been removed on the death of Alexander Jannaeus in 76 BCE allowing a return to Jerusalem by the splinter sect. At least in part if not fully.
Okay, but what I am asking for is evidence that Paul had dealings with such a sect in Damascus. My claim that Paul had dealings with a sectarian group in Jerusalem is supported directly by Galatians 2. Does anything support your view as directly?
No. Except perhaps the similarities of the DSS material and early Christianity.
But that the sect carrying those ideas forward hailed from Judea explains those similarities just as easily as the sect hailing from Damascus, right? In both cases it is the same set of ideas.
And, I think, probably the same group.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:27 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:46 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:43 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:38 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:06 am

Yes. Correct. :cheers:
So those documents have been lost to us, correct? We have a cache of such sectarian documents from Qumran, but no cache of them from Damascus, nor any direct literary evidence that they ever existed (no one says, "I saw some scrolls at Damascus that reminded me of the ones I had read at Qumran," or some such), correct?

I ask because everybody's reconstruction of things has to posit intermediate entities like this. You asked me before:
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:56 amWhy are there no letters to Syria or Cilicia? One would think that those two locations would have all of the Gentiles that Paul could ever hope to recruit.

Also why is there no apparent Christian presence in the areas around Judea except Antioch and Alexandria; major Greek and Roman commerce and military hubs, until after the areas in and around Judea have been resettled by Romans after the Jewish and Bar Kokhba wars?
And this is why I responded that there are so very many gaps in the ancient evidence that to find a gap and have to fill it in with hypothetical texts is to be expected. I may as well be asking you, "Why are there no Damascus documents like those at Qumran?" But my point is that the question itself is misguided.
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:27 amIf I understand it correctly, the sectarian group that Paul may have had interaction with in the area of Damascus, went there initially because of political dissension with the ruling classes of Judea at the time. That political situation may have been removed on the death of Alexander Jannaeus in 76 BCE allowing a return to Jerusalem by the splinter sect. At least in part if not fully.
Okay, but what I am asking for is evidence that Paul had dealings with such a sect in Damascus. My claim that Paul had dealings with a sectarian group in Jerusalem is supported directly by Galatians 2. Does anything support your view as directly?
No. Except perhaps the similarities of the DSS material and early Christianity.
But that the sect carrying those ideas forward hailed from Judea explains those similarities just as easily as the sect hailing from Damascus, right? In both cases it is the same set of ideas.
And, I think, probably the same group.
So you think that the group of sectarian Jews from which Christianity broke off as a branch, so to speak, was operating both in Judea and in Damascus? If so, then that is very close to my position. I find the evidence for Judea to be more secure, but I have no problem with there having been a Damascus coterie, as well. I go back and forth on exactly how "Christian" James and the Pillars in Jerusalem were, but I think that Christianity owes its existence to them at least in some way.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:35 pm
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:27 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:46 am
Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:43 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:38 am

So those documents have been lost to us, correct? We have a cache of such sectarian documents from Qumran, but no cache of them from Damascus, nor any direct literary evidence that they ever existed (no one says, "I saw some scrolls at Damascus that reminded me of the ones I had read at Qumran," or some such), correct?

I ask because everybody's reconstruction of things has to posit intermediate entities like this. You asked me before:



And this is why I responded that there are so very many gaps in the ancient evidence that to find a gap and have to fill it in with hypothetical texts is to be expected. I may as well be asking you, "Why are there no Damascus documents like those at Qumran?" But my point is that the question itself is misguided.



Okay, but what I am asking for is evidence that Paul had dealings with such a sect in Damascus. My claim that Paul had dealings with a sectarian group in Jerusalem is supported directly by Galatians 2. Does anything support your view as directly?
No. Except perhaps the similarities of the DSS material and early Christianity.
But that the sect carrying those ideas forward hailed from Judea explains those similarities just as easily as the sect hailing from Damascus, right? In both cases it is the same set of ideas.
And, I think, probably the same group.
So you think that the group of sectarian Jews from which Christianity broke off as a branch, so to speak, was operating both in Judea and in Damascus? If so, then that is very close to my position. I find the evidence for Judea to be more secure, but I have no problem with there having been a Damascus coterie, as well. I go back and forth on exactly how "Christian" James and the Pillars in Jerusalem were, but I think that Christianity owes its existence to them at least in some way.
Yes. Exactly this. It seems to me that under Alexander Jannaeus a sect of Judaism broke off from the priesthood and set up shop in the area of Damascus and then with the death of Janneaus returned in full or in part to Jerusalem.

The idea that there were sympathizers for the Damascus sect in Jerusalem all along exists as well.
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Jax wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:47 pmIt seems to me that under Alexander Jannaeus a sect of Judaism broke off from the priesthood and set up shop in the area of Damascus and then with the death of Janneaus returned in full or in part to Jerusalem.

The idea that there were sympathizers for the Damascus sect in Jerusalem all along exists as well.
I go back and forth on the status of Galatians 1.18-24, but what do you think of these verses?

Galatians 1.18-24: 18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. 20 (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; 23 but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they were glorifying God because of me.

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