Irish1975 wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2019 12:52 pm
John2 wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2019 11:22 am
Irish1975 wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2019 7:45 am
John2 wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 6:10 pm
If Christianity existed before Josephus and Titus were even born (which Irish1975 and I agree with), but Mark was Flavian propaganda to get Jews to worship Vespasian or Titus, how did the Romans distinguish "Flavian" Jewish Christians from "non-Flavian" Jewish Christians? Did they have to ask them if they used Mark instead Matthew (which is the only gospel Jewish Christians are said to have used)? In other words, what's the difference between "non-Flavian" Jewish Christianity and "Flavian" Jewish Christianity?
Where have I said any such thing?
It seems to me that only one Flavian-sponsored Gospel is required in order for the Flavian hypothesis to work: gMark.
It's really a question of when the Gospels were written, not when Christianity (broadly defined) began. The fact that Paul was founding churches and worshipping a deity he called Jesus Christ is not in dispute.
So it was something that you said, to which I responded by saying that I wasn't talking about "Christianity." That doesn't mean that I agree with your statement that Christianity existed in the 30s. As far as that issue goes, the evidence for the dating even of Paul's conversion is pretty slim. Paul casually refers to Aretas IV of the Nabateans, so we have that to go on. But nobody knows when he started founding churches, or when he wrote Galatians or 1 Thessalonians. There is no archeological record, no definite historical record, of when "Christianity" began.
I didn't realize you had such issues with dating Paul, so I was wrong to assume that we were in agreement that Christianity existed before Josephus and Titus were born.
When it comes to the dating of Paul for me, I factor in something else that you may not. I think the reference to James "the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ" in Ant. 20 is not an interpolation or a reference to any other James (or Jesus) than the one Paul mentions in Gal. 2. And since Josephus places James' death c. 62 CE and James was still alive when Paul says he met him (and which happened after his conversion), then I assume Paul existed (and was a Christian) sometime before c. 62 CE, at least.
But since you have issues with dating the existence of Christianity to the 30's CE then we are not in agreement about it as I had thought.
However you want to argue, please don't ascribe to me things that I haven't said. Such as, that "Judaism is bad, Romans are good" in gMark.
I didn't say you
said that, I said that you seemed to be
suggesting that based on comments like this:
... Jesus, the messiah who preached a humble Judaism of righteousness (12:28-34), rejecting sacrifices and purity laws, and affirming the payment of taxes to Caesar. For gMark, the people of Jerusalem get in 70 from God and from Rome what they deserve for this blind, theologically perverse, and sinful decision in 30.
And now that you have clarified your opinion I no longer have that impression, though I think the above citation warranted the clarification I had asked you for:
Does this not suggest that you think Judaism (as a whole, with its sacrifices and purity laws) in Mark is bad and the Romans are good? Are you not suggesting that the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in accordance with the Jewish God because Jews as a whole (represented by the crowd in Jerusalem) were bad for killing Jesus?
I haven't said, furthermore, that gMark was Flavian propaganda "to get Jews to worship" the emperors. The Romans were not idiots. They knew and took seriously the peculiarity of Jewish monotheism. Rather, the suggestion is that gMark was intended to put forward a Jewish messiah, a teacher of gentile-friendly, apolitical Judaism, who correctly prophesied the war and the temple's destruction, and of whose death the people of Jerusalem were guilty. You can argue that gMark also makes Pilate responsible for Jesus' execution, out of callous indifference. But I don't think the Flavians would have minded that at all. Pilate was just one man to them. To the people they ruled, the Romans were happy to be hated, so long as they were feared (borrowing from Tacitus). They didn't go around like Americans hoping the whole world would love them.
We just have different impressions of what Mark is and means, and if nothing else at least we are now aware of it.