The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 4:47 am
Ben C. Smith wrote:Christianity has too many overlaps with the Dead Sea Scrolls to be purely of gentile origin. The lack of Hebrew or Aramaic texts is easily explicable: after 70, Judea was in chaos; much was lost; the Dead Sea Scrolls cache itself was a stroke of luck, one which may never be replicated.
This was at least partly in response to ideas that Marcion, for example, is the (gentile) source of Christianity.
The idea that Marcion, or more generally the Gnostic threat, was at the origin of the Gospel tradition of Christianity (note: not of the pauline epistles) is not necessarily in contradiction with the Jewish origins in pre-70 times, since a scholar who argued that Jesus was just the Essene Teacher of Justice wrote so:
Hoffman 1984, against the prevalent views of modern theologians, holds that Marcion propagated his 'radicalised' version of Paul before c. AD 100, and thus before the canonical Gospels, which may have been written as a reaction to Marcion. That evidently agrees well with my hypothesis.

(Alvar Ellegard, Jesus - One Hundred Years Before Christ, p. 305-306, n. 7, my bold)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Michael BG
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by Michael BG »

MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:33 pm
Michael BG wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:01 pm
The Son of Man title for a heavenly figure in the gospels appears to be from Judaism, and is missing from Paul’s letters.
.
It was 'a son of man' in Judaism. It became the definitive article 'the Son of Man' in Christianity.

I thought it was used in Judaism with the definitive article 'the in Enoch and 4 Ezra.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Giuseppe wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 4:51 am
The idea that Marcion, or more generally the Gnostic threat, was at the origin of the Gospel tradition of Christianity (note: not of the pauline epistles) is not necessarily in contradiction with the Jewish origins in pre-70 times, since a scholar who argued that Jesus was just the Essene Teacher of Justice wrote so:

Hoffman 1984, against the prevalent views of modern theologians, holds that Marcion propagated his 'radicalised' version of Paul before c. AD 100, and thus before the canonical Gospels, which may have been written as a reaction to Marcion. That evidently agrees well with my hypothesis.

(Alvar Ellegard, Jesus - One Hundred Years Before Christ, p. 305-306, n. 7, my bold)
With -

"The idea that Marcion, or more generally the Gnostic threat, was at the origin of the Gospel tradition of Christianity (note: not of the pauline epistles) is not necessarily in contradiction with the Jewish origins in pre-70 times ..."

it's hard to know if you mean either
  • The idea that Marcion, or more generally Gnosticism, was at the origin of the Gospel tradition of Christianity ...
or
  • The idea that Marcion, or, more generally, reaction against the Gnostic threat was at the origin of the Gospel tradition of Christianity ...

And either
  • ... is not necessarily in contradiction with the idea of Christianity also having Jewish origins in pre-70 times ...
or
  • is not necessarily in contradiction with Jewish origins of Christianity in pre-70 times ...
Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Jul 09, 2018 6:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by MrMacSon »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 4:47 am But my point here was that Christianity is rooted in Judaism.
Sure, I agree it is. But, of course, we are discussing the nitty-gritty.

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 4:47 am
Are we certain they were buried before the War ended?
That is a prevailing theory. But it matters little to the dates of the scrolls, which have now been established both paleographically and by carbon dating.
Some have a radiocarbon terminus ante quem in the 2nd century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_da ... st_results

Major paleographic dating / linguistic analysis by Cross and Avigad dates fragments from 225 BCE to 50 CE .. The same fragments were later analyzed using radiocarbon dating and were dated to an estimated range of 385 BCE to 82 CE with a 68% accuracy rate.
  • Grossman, Maxine (2010) "Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls." pp. 48–51.

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 4:47 am
Recall the original assertion that I made:
Ben C. Smith wrote:Christianity has too many overlaps with the Dead Sea Scrolls to be purely of gentile origin. The lack of Hebrew or Aramaic texts1 is easily explicable: after 70, Judea was in chaos; much was lost; the Dead Sea Scrolls cache itself was a stroke of luck, one which may never be replicated.
Whether you connect the Dead Sea Scrolls to Christianity via Jewish Christians or through some other kind of Jewish messianists, that is bespeaks a Jewish origin for Christianity, and not a purely gentile one.
1 The lack of Hebrew of Aramaic texts where? In early Christianity?
  • The Tosefta and the early texts developed as the forerunner to the Mishnah would have been in Hebrew and Aramaic(?) - the tannaitic midrashim2 and the early midrash aggadah and midrash halacha.

    2 the Mekhilta on Exodus, the Sifra on Leviticus, and the Sifrei on Numbers and Deuteronomy

Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 4:47 am I personally think that Jewish Christianity forms at least part of the link, but I also personally go back and forth on how Christian James and the Pillars were.
James in the Pauline texts?
Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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MrMacSon
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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MrMacSon wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:33 pm
Michael BG wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:01 pm
The Son of Man title for a heavenly figure in the gospels appears to be from Judaism, and is missing from Paul’s letters.
.
It was 'a son of man' in Judaism. It became the definitive article 'the Son of Man' in Christianity.
Michael BG wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:13 am I thought it was used in Judaism with the definitive article 'the in Enoch and 4 Ezra.
All I know about that is is
While Daniel 7:13 "like a son of man" probably did not stand for the Messiah, where the phrase appears in extant versions of later apocryphal and deuterocanonical works such as the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra gave it this interpretation.[3] Whether these messianic "Son of Man" references are genuinely Jewish or the result of Christian interpolation is disputed.[4] An example of a disputed section is that of The Similitudes (1 Enoch 37-71) which uses Daniel 7 to produce an unparalleled messianic Son of Man, pre-existent and hidden yet ultimately revealed, functioning as judge, vindicator of righteousness, and universal ruler.[5] The Enochic messianic figure is an individual representing a group, (the Righteous One who represents the righteous, the Elect One representing the elect), but in 4 Ezra 13 (also called 2 Esdras) he becomes an individual man.[6][7][8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_ma ... depigrapha
The next section is also worth reading - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_man#New_Testament
Giuseppe
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:15 am
  • The idea that Marcion, or more generally reaction against the Gnostic threat, was at the origin of the Gospel tradition of Christianity ...
precisely that, yes.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by Secret Alias »

It's great that my OP has found such traction. I went away to a soccer tournament and now have an hour's worth of reading if not more. I don't think any of the subsequent posts answer my original post though. I don't doubt that Christian developed from Judaism in some way. My question is however that 'Jewish Christianity' - i.e. the tradition developed around 'James the brother of Jesus' has very little going for it. Yes various documents suggest the existence of a 'church' with James at its head. But are all these fabulous stories or history?

For instance, Jesus's death is always on the cross. There are no variations. There is always Jesus and the crucifixion perhaps with a substitution taking place. In James's case with a death that supposedly happened two generations or so later, we have no firm account of what happened with several conflicting accounts of the details of his death. His 'other brother' John might have died relatively early or might have lived on to die on Mount Patmos. We have a single corrupt source for the outlandish claim that it wasn't just James at the head of the Church but a kind of family mafia' that ran the church into the second century.

Again, I don't doubt there is Jewish influence in Christianity. I just don't see why we shouldn't suppose that this was in the Pauline writings already. Don't see the need to build theories on what amounts to spurious romances. What is the evidence for 'Jewish Christianity' as an actual historical phenomenon - i.e. the Ebionites a group of 'Jesus believers' which also practiced the Jewish Law in some form and could these Ebionites simply have been a branch or form of Marcionism. Why not? What reliable evidence helps us know the truth about the earliest period of the Church.
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John T
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 5:17 pm Christianity has too many overlaps with the Dead Sea Scrolls to be purely of gentile origin. The lack of Hebrew or Aramaic texts is easily explicable: after 70, Judea was in chaos; much was lost; the Dead Sea Scrolls cache itself was a stroke of luck, one which may never be replicated.
Yes, I agree.

For me, the most probable origin of Christianity (one that most on this forum refuse to consider) is Enochic Judaism, or as we call it today, Essene.

Although Rabbic Judaism have been very successful in their attempts to erase the history of Enochic Judaism, both the Old and New Testament still contain enough snippets of Enochic Judaism for us to know they were around long before Rabbic Judaism gained control.

See Genesis 6:4; 2 Peter2:4-5.

Ante-Nicene Fathers writings (e.g. Tertullian) are replete with Enochic language. It is not at all surprising that so many schism started over whether Jesus was a human being elevated to heaven as the Son of God or as the preexisting Son of God sent to earth as a human.

This willful ignorance of Enochic Judaism has been the folly of many Bibical scholars including Bart Ehrman.

"Ancient Jews had no exception-zero expectation-that the future messiah would die and rise from the dead."...How Jesus Became God pg 116.

Sincerely,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
Secret Alias
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by Secret Alias »

For me, the most probable origin of Christianity (one that most on this forum refuse to consider) is Enochic Judaism, or as we call it today, Essene.
Ok I get the 'similarity' bit. A good argument can also be that Jude cites Enoch which is difficult to explain as Enoch isn't generally considered to be a canonical text. But this still doesn't answer the question. There are very few things we can absolutely be certain of in Christian antiquity. I am not sure that James and his Jewish Christian tradition is one of those things. That Paul mentioned 'James' is not certain. Tertullian's first explicit mention of Marcion in his commentary on Galatians is the confrontation with Peter:
For if such a question had arisen, others also would have been "resisted face to face" by the man who had not even spared Peter on the comparatively small matter of his doubtful conversation. But what do the Marcionites wish to have believed (on the point)? [8] For the rest, the apostle must (be permitted to) go on with his own statement, wherein he says that "a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith: "
Note 'Marcionites' not Marcion is mentioned here. There is a similar lack of Marcionite commentary in chapters 1 and 2 in Jerome's commentary on Galatians which was developed from Origen's lost treatise. I am not sure why a lengthy 'personal discussion' or 'history' appears in this section but it clearly contradicts the 'secret' characteristic of the Marcionite recension referenced by Tertullian at the start of Book 5.

It is noteworthy that Galatians was the first epistle of the author of Against Marcion as it was for Ephrem the Syrian and members of his Edessan community. I suggest that the 'historical' details in Galatians were added to explain who Paul was as any historical details were entirely lacking in the Marcionite epistles. The Marcionite apostle could have been anyone - even Marcion himself. The Catholic epistles were written by someone named Paul who clearly met James and a circle of apostles in Jerusalem. But were these details developed as a result of the details provided by Acts?
I require to know of Marcion the origin of his apostles even----I, who am to some degree a new disciple,4 the follower of no other master; who at the same time5 can believe nothing, except that nothing ought to be believed hastily6 (and that I may further say is hastily believed, which is believed without any examination7 of its beginning); in short, I who have the best reason possible for bringing this inquiry to a most careful solution,8 since a man is affirmed to me to be an apostle whom I do not find mentioned in the Gospel in the catalogue9 of the apostles. [2] Indeed, when I hear that this man was chosen by the Lord after He had attained His rest in heaven, I feel that a kind of improvidence is imputable to Christ, for not knowing before that this man was necessary to Him; and because He thought that he must be added to the apostolic body in the way of a fortuitous encounter10 rather than a deliberate selection; by necessity (so to speak), and not voluntary choice, although the members of the apostolate had been duly ordained, and were now dismissed to their several missions. Wherefore, O shipmaster of Pontus,11 if you have never taken on board your small craft12 any contraband goods or smuggler's cargo, if you have never thrown overboard or tampered with a freight, you are still more careful and conscientious, I doubt not, in divine things; and so I should be glad if you would inform us under what bill of lading13 you admitted the Apostle Paul on board, who ticketed him,14 what owner forwarded him,15 who handed him to you,16 that so you may land him without any misgiving,17 lest he should turn out to belong to him,18 who can substantiate his claim to him by producing all his apostolic writings.19 [3] He professes himself to be "an apostle"----to use his own, words----"not of men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ."20 Of course, any one may make a profession concerning himself; but his profession is only rendered valid by the authority of a second person. One man signs, another countersigns;21 one man appends his seal, another registers in the public records.22 No one is at once a proposer and a seconder to himself. Besides, you have read, no doubt, that "many shall come, saying, I am Christ."23 [4] Now if any one can pretend that he is Christ, how much more might a man profess to be an apostle of Christ! But still, for my own part, I appear24 in the character of a disciple and an inquirer; that so I may even thus25 both refute your belief, who have nothing to support it, and confound your shamelessness, who make claims without possessing the means of establishing them. Let there be a Christ, let there be an apostle, although of another god; but what matter? since they are only to draw their proofs out of the Testament of the Creator. [5] Because even the book of Genesis so long ago promised me the Apostle Paul. For among the types and prophetic blessings which he pronounced over his sons, Jacob, when he turned his attention to Benjamin, exclaimed, "Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning He shall devour the prey, and at night he shall impart nourishment."26 He foresaw that Paul would arise out of the tribe of Benjamin, a voracious wolf, devouring his prey in the morning: in order words, in the early period of his life he would devastate the Lord's sheep, as a persecutor of the churches; but in the evening he would give them nourishment, which means that in his declining years he would educate the fold of Christ, as the teacher of the Gentiles. [6] Then, again, in Saul's conduct towards David, exhibited first in violent persecution of him, and then in remorse and reparation,27 on his receiving from him good for evil, we have nothing else than an anticipation28 of Paul in Saul----belonging, too, as they did, to the same tribe----and of Jesus in David, from whom He descended according to the Virgin's genealogy.29 Should you, however, disapprove of these types,30 the Acts of the Apostles,31 at all events, have handed down to me this career of Paul, which you must not refuse to accept. Thence I demonstrate that from a persecutor he became "an apostle, not of men, neither by man; "32 thence am I led to believe the Apostle himself; thence do I find reason for rejecting your defence of him,33 and for bearing fearlessly your taunt. "Then you deny the Apostle Paul." I do not calumniate him whom I defend.34 I deny him, to compel you to the proof of him. [7] I deny him, to convince you that he is mine. If you have regard to our belief you should admit the particulars which comprise it. If you challenge us to your belief, (pray) tell us what things constitute its basis.35 Either prove the truth of what you believe, or failing in your proof, (tell us) how you believe. Else what conduct is yours,36 believing in opposition to Him from whom alone comes the proof of that which you believe?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Folly of 'Jewish Christianity' Theories

Post by Secret Alias »

The only mention of James in Against Marcion doesn't make it explicit that the James reference was in Marcion's version of the epistle:
Accordingly, the false brethren who were the spies of their Christian liberty must be thwarted in their efforts to bring it under the yoke of their own Judaism before that Paul discovered whether his labour had been in vain, before that those who preceded him in the apostolate gave him their right hands of fellowship, before that he entered on the office of preaching to the Gentiles, according to their arrangement with him.97 He therefore made some concession, as was necessary, for a time; and this was the reason why he had Timothy circumcised,98 and the Nazarites introduced into the temple,99 which incidents are described in the Acts. Their truth may be inferred from their agreement with the apostle's own profession, how "to the Jews he became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews, and to them that were under the law, as under the law,"----and so here with respect to those who come in secretly,----"and lastly, how he became all things to all men, that he might gain all."100 [6] Now, inasmuch as the circumstances require such an interpretation as this, no one will refuse to admit that Paul preached that God and that Christ whose law he was excluding all the while, however much he allowed it, owing to the times, but which he would have had summarily to abolish if he had published a new god. Rightly, then, did Peter and James and John give their right hand of fellowship to Paul, and agree on such a division of their work, as that Paul should go to the heathen, and themselves to the circumcision.101 Their agreement, also, "to remember the poor"102 was in complete conformity with the law of the Creator, which cherished the poor and needy, as has been shown in our observations on your Gospel.103 [7] It is thus certain that the question was one which simply regarded the law, while at the same time it is apparent what portion of the law it was convenient to have observed. Paul, however, censures Peter for not walking straightforwardly according to the truth of the gospel. No doubt he blames him; but it was solely because of his inconsistency in the matter of "eating,"104 which he varied according to the sort of persons (whom he associated with) "fearing them which were of the circumcision,"105 but not on account of any perverse opinion touching another god. For if such a question had arisen, others also would have been "resisted face to face" by the man who had not even spared Peter on the comparatively small matter of his doubtful conversation. But what do the Marcionites wish to have believed (Sed quomodo Marcionitae volunt credi?)? [8] For the rest, the apostle must go on with his own statement (De cetero pergat apostolus), wherein he says that "a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith: " faith, however, in the same God to whom belongs the law also. For of course he would have bestowed no labour on severing faith from the law, when the difference of the god would, if there had only been any, have of itself produced such a severance. Justly, therefore, did he refuse to "build up again (the structure of the law) which he had overthrown."107 The law, indeed, had to be overthrown, from the moment when John "cried in the wilderness, Prepare ye the ways of the Lord," that valleys108 and hills and mountains may be filled up and levelled, and the crooked and the rough ways be made straight and smooth ----in other words, that the difficulties of the law might be changed into the facilities of the gospel.
I don't think any of these 'first things' were in the Marcionite epistle. I think it comes down to the meaning of "De cetero pergat apostolus" which I am not entirely sure I know the answer.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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