Blood wrote:stephan happy huller wrote:"Gentile Christianity" IS Christianity. It was from the "start" (whenever that was) -- that is what defined it as Christianity: watered-down Judaism for Greco-Roman Gentiles. Had it been Jewish, it would have been something akin to Pharisaic Judaism or whatever branch Philo represented. You certainly would not have had a complete repudiation and negation of Jews and the popular Jewish interpretation of the Bible that you have in the NT. Had it actually been Jewish, you would not have had the central tenet of "the Jews killed Lord Jesus and are the enemies of all men."
Clement's "Paul converted the Hebrews" is just legendary nonsense. Just like Eusebius's "Hebrew Bishops" in 1st century Jerusalem.
This isn't hard. Gentiles converted to Judaism: they were called proselytes and theosobeis. Over time, proselytes and theosobeis broke away, interpreted the texts to their own ideas, made it more appealing to gentiles, melded it into a generic "universal" religion that everyone (but Jews) would want to join. Voila. Christianity.
You certainly would not have had a complete repudiation and negation of Jews and the popular Jewish interpretation of the Bible that you have in the NT.
That makes perfect sense. Now let me address the premise. This is not intended to argue that Jesus was real only that there is a different context for the Christian narrative. Of course you have to reject the idea there is any truth at all in the magical tales of the Septuagint which is reasonable to expect of adults.
From Josephus we read that the Judeans conquered the Galileans and forced them to adopt the Yahu cult practices including specifically circumcision. Jesus and 11 of the 12 were Galileans. Forced converts. They were put under the obligation of obedience to the tyrannical priests and their taxation by force of arms. Who is Jesus constantly pissed at? Those priests. Yes, he rejects Judean ideas and teachings from the Septuagint, the book which gives them the power of summary execution for violating even the most nonsensical of the hundreds of laws. (One expects fines were always a way out of execution, aka extortion.)
Is this not something we might expect from an oppressed people? Simply condemnation of their oppressors and their authority?
So if one still insists the magical tales of the Septuagint are true and the Galileans were all originally some tribe of Israel and devout followers from time immemorial the Jesus story makes no sense. If on the other hand we accept Josephus we have a perfectly understandable story of the response of an oppressed people to their oppressors.
And it goes further. The response of the priests to Jesus is all out of proportion to a street magician wonder worker no matter how big his crowds. Just send in some novice priests to crack skulls if they get out of hand. But as a potential leader of a revolt of all of Galilee against Judea he was a greater threat than any immediate success. It is trying to start a revolt as opposed to leading a revolt just under the surface for centuries.
Is this the backstory or context of the New Testament? I merely offer it for consideration. But NO PLACE does it say Jesus was a Jew or Judean. Every place it makes a point of saying he was a Galilean. Nazareth is in the Galilee. In those days Jew meant only Judean. It had not a religious name or designation, again from Josephus. {Yes, spin, when I do a formal paper on this there will be footnotes.}
But Jesus did teach a conception of God as father who actually cared for individuals. This is contrary to the Judean god who was solely interested in the people as a whole and other tribal concepts. I have NO source for anything the Galileans might have thought about their chief god before being conquered so it is purely speculation to suggest the gospels have Jesus simply expressing the old Galilean ideas. However this does not require a very human, illiterate, uneducated Jesus to invent a new theology. He simply repeats the old time religion. And it has no priests or intercessors between the individual and the god, the oppressors are out of work.
The religion of the priests is not the religion of the people.
Priests are just people with skin in the game and an income to lose.
-- The Iron Webmaster