The Origins of Christianity

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote:
MrMacSon wrote: Do you think there was originally a Jesus identified with Paul's Christ?
I don't think the question is relevant to anything Paul taught. We need to work with what we read in Paul's letters, and take all our cues from those. Whatever else there may have been, but does not appear in his letters, is irrelevant.

[Paul] followed the same principles as taught by Stoic and other philosophies of the day. Self-control. He had a different spin on how he explained the process and seems to have added a few other spiritual flourishes.
Cheers Neil. Are you positing Paul as a docetic or gnostic?

neilgodfrey wrote: The events of 70 were still talked about right through the second and third centuries.
In isolation? or in conjunction with the events of of 130-134 AD/CE?
  • [Were the events of 30-134 AD/CE also talked about through the 2nd & 3rd centuries?
    • and if so, were they discussed in conjunction with the events of 68-70 AD/CE? or on their own? or both?]
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by neilgodfrey »

MrMacSon wrote:
The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved ...

Dennis Sutherland.
  • * with the Pauline-texts 'time-shifted' into the pre-70 time-period? to align with the gospel texts (as a back-story as doctrine was being developed later; 2nd-C or later)?
Sorry I don't know if I fully understand what you're asking or inferring here.

Not sure what is meant exactly by "a large exodus of Jews from Palestine" for a start.

The doctrines that were being developed in the second century were often interpolated into Paul's letters then and there. I don't know of anything in Paul's letters that would indicate they are somehow edited especially to be set in the pre-70 period. This all sounds very fanciful with no secure basis at all.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by neilgodfrey »

MrMacSon wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:
MrMacSon wrote: Do you think there was originally a Jesus identified with Paul's Christ?
I don't think the question is relevant to anything Paul taught. We need to work with what we read in Paul's letters, and take all our cues from those. Whatever else there may have been, but does not appear in his letters, is irrelevant.

[Paul] followed the same principles as taught by Stoic and other philosophies of the day. Self-control. He had a different spin on how he explained the process and seems to have added a few other spiritual flourishes.
Cheers Neil. Are you positing Paul as a docetic or gnostic?

neilgodfrey wrote: The events of 70 were still talked about right through the second and third centuries.
In isolation? or in conjunction with the events of of 130-134 AD/CE?
  • [Were the events of 30-134 AD/CE also talked about through the 2nd & 3rd centuries?
    • and if so, were they discussed in conjunction with the events of 68-70 AD/CE? or on their own? or both?]
The events of both 70 and the 130s were taken as a sign of God's wrath on the Jews. Paul has no such concept. (That solitary passage in Thess is an interpolation.)

Paul is Paul. I think terms like "gnostic" and even "docetic" are way too fluid. We do know Valentinians and Marcionites liked Paul's writings. I can't say that Paul himself founded either of these, however.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote:
MrMacSon wrote:
  • The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved ...

    Dennis Sutherland.
  • * with the Pauline-texts 'time-shifted' into the pre-70 time-period? to align with the gospel texts (as a back-story as doctrine was being developed later; 2nd-C or later)?
[/color]
Sorry I don't know if I fully understand what you're asking or inferring here.

Not sure what is meant exactly by "a large exodus of Jews from Palestine" for a start.

The doctrines that were being developed in the second century were often interpolated into Paul's letters then and there. I don't know of anything in Paul's letters that would indicate they are somehow edited especially to be set in the pre-70 period. This all sounds very fanciful with no secure basis at all.
The full questioning of mine began earlier in that post. The asterixed indented passage relates to question b. (which is one of 3 alternatives) viz. -
MrMacSon wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote: That it's pre-70 I base on the evidence that Paul demonstrates no knowledge of the events of the War of 68-70. He speaks of Jews as redeemable as anyone else. That doesn't prove the texts we work with are pre-70 but it's a reasonable starting point.
a. Could Paul be writing elsewhere? ie. somewhere distant with little knowledge of events in Jerusalem in 68-70 AD/CE?? or,

b. Could Paul be writing long after the events of 68-70*, when the inability to rebuild Judaism or the Temple in Jerusalem was an accepted fate?

c. or both?
The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved ...

Dennis Sutherland.
  • * with the Pauline-texts 'time-shifted' into the pre-70 time-period? to align with the gospel texts (as a back-story as doctrine was being developed later; 2nd-C or later)?
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote: The events of both 70 and the 130s were taken as a sign of God's wrath on the Jews. Paul has no such concept. (That solitary passage in Thess is an interpolation.)

Paul is Paul. I think terms like "gnostic" and even "docetic" are way too fluid. We do know Valentinians and Marcionites liked Paul's writings. I can't say that Paul himself founded either of these, however.
Cheers.

Besides the passage in 2 Thess; 1 Thess (chaps 4&5) also seems to be an interpolation (1 Thess (chaps 4&5) refers to the 'Synoptic Apocalypse' (SA) and seems, along with SA references in Revelation of John, the Apocalypsis Petri, the Epistula Apostolorum, and other passages, to be derived from a prior source).
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

I find it weird that Christianity (and its development) is proposed to be a reaction to the events of 68-70 AD/CE, and the events of 13-134/5 AD/CE (or both, and possibly events in between), but there are either no overt references to the events in those time periods, or scant references to them, in the texts, or by scholars or commentators (such as those of us on this Forum).
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Tenorikuma
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by Tenorikuma »

MrMacSon, in my view, Christianity didn't really adopt a "messianic" veneer until the Gospels were written. The events of the Jewish war(s) had little impact on Hellenistic Christians outside Palestine.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by MrMacSon »

Tenorikuma wrote: MrMacSon, in my view, Christianity didn't really adopt a "messianic" veneer until the Gospels were written.
the Synoptic gospels?
Tenorikuma wrote: The events of the Jewish war(s) had little impact on Hellenistic Christians outside Palestine.
Is there evidence there were Christians in Palestine at the time of the War/s?
eedipus
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by eedipus »

eedipus wrote:
... the origin of Christianity was probably a result of the destruction of the 2nd. Temple ... by the Romans in the year 70AD.
True, but do you think the "crisis point in their identity with their monotheistic God ... facing the end of their Jewish faith in their God" came then of after the put down of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the then absolute sacking of Jerusalem with no chance of rebuilding the Temple.
eedipus wrote:
The Roman-Jewish Wars between 66 and136AD were a catastrophe for the Jewish people,
and in terms of religious significance I see the sack of Jerusalem and in particular the destruction
of the Temple in 70AD as the watershed between the beginning of Christianity and Rabbinic
Judaism.
The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved through the centuries to what we have today.
The Bar Kokhba revolt from 132 to 135AD was certainly another crisis point but in making a choice
I would choose the destruction of the Temple in 70AD that produced the crisis in their faith and initiated the origins of Christianity.

Dennis Sutherland.
Where was the promised Messiah?

The answer to the problem was the opposite to what they had previously thought. The Messiah was not yet to come, He had already been but he had not been recognized for who he was.

It was probably a Hellenic Jew who fashioned the story of Jesus of Nazareth. He intuitively understood the real meaning of the Greek mystery cults, the Elusinian Mysteries, and wrote the story of Jesus as an allegory for how we should view life and death but, tragically, it was altered and interpreted literally. It is not that the Jesus story is untrue, but it was really intended to point to a greater truth.[/quote]
An interesting proposition.[/quote]
eedipus
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Re: The Origins of Christianity

Post by eedipus »

The Roman-Jewish Wars between 66 and136AD were a catastrophe for the Jewish people,
and in terms of religious significance I see the sack of Jerusalem and in particular the destruction
of the Temple in 70AD as the watershed between the beginning of Christianity and Rabbinic
Judaism.
The possibility of a large exodus of Jews from Palestine would have galvanized the Jewish intellectual elite to produce an answer that evolved through the centuries to what we have today.
The Bar Kokhba revolt from 132 to 135AD was certainly another crisis point but in making a choice
I would choose the destruction of the Temple in 70AD that produced the crisis in their faith and initiated the origins of Christianity.

Dennis Sutherland.
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