Matthew 27:25: a self-blaming lynch mob?

[toejam]

^If Christianity was a Gentile cultus from the beginning, how do you explain the controversies over how and whether or not the Mosaic laws should be followed? Seems to me that such a controversy is more naturally to have arisen as a Jewish sect made inroads into the Gentile communities (as the NT sources indicate) rather than the other way around. How do you explain Paul's rivals, the "Judaizing circumcision party" and Ebionitism etc.?

1. The controversy was between different sects of Gentile Christians.
2. "Paul's rivals" existed only in the minds of the second century writers of the epistles.
3. The Ebionites were Gentiles.

Seems a bit stretched to me.

[Stephan Huller]

A little bit stretched? It's utterly implausible.

[toejam]

^I was trying to be nice

[Stephan Huller]

The only out that makes sense to me at least is

1. 'THE Christ' means exactly what the Jews have always thought it meant
2. Jesus avoided this term because of its implications

But no one seems to share my detached interest in the Marcionites

[MrMacSon]

.
But no one seems to share my detached interest in the Marcionites

irony

[Stephan Huller]

No just like having an erection on Cialis or eating at a buffet on LSD. Detached interest.

[MrMacSon]

you're decrying others "lack of interest"

[Blood]

I guess if it's written in a holy book, it must be real then. The "Judaizing circumcision party" must be real, because ... I can't think of a reason why someone would make that up. Arguments from personal incredulity will always win the day in Biblical studies. It's the rock upon which they build their pseudo-critical church.

There's no way that, for example, some anonymous person would write fake epistles to a non-existent audience and pretend it was written 100 years earlier, and get away with it.

Oh wait, actually they did. And they put those epistles in the Bible.

[Stephan Huller]

I certainly accept the idea that false epistles were written. I am not sure whether or not there was a 'circumcision' party. But there certainly is a lot of evidence that there was a Jewish group in the late first century/early second century who said that circumcision was unnecessary because the utterance about circumcision was written by Moses rather than the God-given ten utterances given at Sinai. Those who said this were identified as a Jewish group closely aligned or connected with the Gentiles. This community IMO is likely one and the same with the Marcionites or the group which Marcionism grew out of. They are the two powers in heaven group made famous by Segal.

Akylas the Proselyte asked R. Eliezer, saying to him thus : Since circumcision is beloved before the Holy One, blessed be He, why was it not included in the Ten Commandments?

[Stephan Huller]

Aquila famously translated the name 'El Shaddai' as 'sufficient (ἱκανός) god' but the name seems to have scandalized Christians.