MrMacSon wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:10 pm
GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:30 am
Adam Winn finds a clue in the cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. For Jews and Christians it was an apocalyptic moment. The gods of Rome seemed to have conquered the God of the Jews. Could it be that Mark wrote his Gospel in response to Roman imperial propaganda surrounding this event? Could a messiah crucified by Rome really be God’s Son appointed to rule the world?
Thanks McMacSon, that's interesting. I can only respond to the clips you've provided, but I have to wonder why the Christians of that time felt they had to respond to Roman imperial propaganda surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem? There is something missing there, that perhaps Winn covers elsewhere.
Josephus seemed to think that God allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed due to the wickedness of the Jews and their profaning the Temple grounds, to the point that God was heard to say "I'm outta here!" Tacitus records the same event.
But I don't see how Christians, believing that God was coming personally to establish God's kingdom on earth, would be affected by that. Were there groups of Jews who thought that Vespasian might have been the prophesied Messiah? Josephus hints at the idea, but not to the point that it set up a compelling challenge to Christians IIUC. Or am I reading things wrong?
I think one would need to read most of those books +/- the journal article +/- others' writings to know.
The key excerpts from those summaries for me are
... This reconstruction focuses on the rise of the new Roman Emperor Vespasian and the aftermath of the Jewish Revolt in Rome. A significant feature of this reconstruction is the propaganda used to gain and secure Vespasian's power - propaganda that included oracles and portents, divine healings, and grand triumphs. Of particular interest is the propagandistic claim that Vespasian was the true fulfillment of Jewish messianic prophecies ... [Winn] demonstrates how the major features of Mark's gospel -his incipit, Christology, teaching on discipleship, and eschatology- can be read as a counter resume to the impressive resume of Vespasian. In the end, this project concludes that Mark was composed for the purpose of countering Roman imperial propaganda that had created a crisis for its author and community.
for
The Purpose of Mark's Gospel: An Early Christian Response to Roman Imperial Propaganda, 2008
and
in the cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 ... [t]he gods of Rome seemed to have conquered the God of the Jews. Could it be that Mark wrote his Gospel in response to Roman imperial propaganda surrounding this event? ... [Winn] introduces us to the propaganda of the Flavian emperors and excavates the Markan text for themes that address the Roman imperial setting. We discover an intriguing first-century response to the question “Christ or Caesar?"
for
Reading Mark's Christology Under Caesar: Jesus the Messiah and Roman Imperial Ideology, 2018
It'd be interesting to read all that he says in those two books published a decade apart, especially in light of what's said in the 2016 intermediate multi-author book,
An Introduction to Empire in the New Testament.
While it's feasible that Mark's gospel could be read as a response to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple or to the messianic prophecies and/or claims about Vespasian, or both, there would still seem to be questions raised. Such as
- Why would accounts in the gospel/s mimic accounts of Vespasian's divine healings as recorded by Tacitus and Suetonius?
- What other oracles and portents, divine healings, and grand triumphs of Vespasian might have found their ways into the gospel/s?
- Where did the accounts of Jesus in the gospel or Mark come from?
- Why were they not recorded earlier?
- Why would 'Mark' have written the Gospel bearing his name as is, ie. without reference to contemporaneous events: events just before or as he was writing?
- Why is there not a tradition documenting Christian community responses or attitudes to various significant events ?
Well, all that but mostly this:
The gods of Rome seemed to have conquered the God of the Jews.
That's exactly it. But again, we need to start backwards: the God of the Jews is defeated once again, or he allowed the Romans to so very severely punish the Jews.
No temple, no capital - the Judean worshiping is fatally wounded, its entire design and build decapitated.
Surely that called for a reaction, a counter action. One of which would be the appearance, creation, of the view that the god of the Romans defeated that of the Jews
But this is the very confrontation, after more than a century of Romans owning (sic) Jews. Look at WW II and the resistance movement, then imagine that lasted not 5 years but 125 and more.
This is it, the war is over, game over, the Jews are once more humbled beyond belief, and still don't concede - and it is Kokhba that annihilates them completely, because nothing will make them learn their lesson
Those are the sentiments of that time, I think
And of course the Jews would get daily reminders that their asses had been whooped by the great and glorious Romans. Surely the Roman leaders were magnified, glorified, and the Jewish ones belittled. Take your average football match and all the back-and-forth going on afterwards between the supporters of both teams - that is only human, and this just another example of hoe putting down others raises your own self esteem
That's when Mark gave them two birds with one stone: a new religion, safe to practice, and an explanation for the punishment of the Jews. And he built on top of the Thomasine community and their story, their text, of people rejecting everything Judaic including its religion
And then the Jews must have flocked towards it, haughtily objecting to its contemporary followers, how they were not Jewish. And then Paul was invented and created, who tried to identify with them by purporting himself as a Jewish convert, initially opposed to Christopher as well.
It was not a Jewish religion at that point being flocked by Gentiles, thus causing resistance among the incumbent - it was exactly the other way around