I hope this doesn't sound like a cop-out, but my working hypothesis is that Christianities were both an off-shoot of diaspora Judaism and Gentile cults. The religion(s) eventually called Christianity were ultimately rooted in Gentiles joining Jewish religious groups in the diaspora, being exposed to the texts, beliefs, rituals, etc., and then eventually breaking away and forming their own sects, evolving their own exegesis toward the scriptures ... exegesis that highlighted those passages that talked about how great Gentiles were and how unfaithful and "stiff-necked" the Jewish people were to God. The latter, of course, exist in abundance.
Where does Paul fit in all this? I don't know. Everything attributed to "Paul" sounds like a Christian apologist, so perhaps "the Pauline epistles" are just part of the same mythology.
Matthew 27:25: a self-blaming lynch mob?
Re: Matthew 27:25: a self-blaming lynch mob?
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
Re: Matthew 27:25: a self-blaming lynch mob?
^Maybe they sound like a Christian apologist because the historical Paul was an apologist for his brand of Christianity?
All seems like a bit of a roundabout way to get to an end result in an opposite direction to what the texts themselves imply (forged or otherwise), that it started as Jewish movement that became more watered down as it made inroads into the gentile communities.
All seems like a bit of a roundabout way to get to an end result in an opposite direction to what the texts themselves imply (forged or otherwise), that it started as Jewish movement that became more watered down as it made inroads into the gentile communities.
My study list: https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-bignell/judeo-christian-origins-bibliography/851830651507208