A New Theory for Christian Origins

[Secret Alias]

I have been discussing certain aspects of Jewish religious life at the turn of the Common Era in the Jewish section of this site which might have some implications for early Christianity. Of course the ideas are one part new information, one part old hobby horses on my part. Nevertheless I thought I would share them with the forum and welcome any constructive criticism of them.

1. Yonathan Adler gives us the state of archaeological evidence for "practical Judaism" “We don’t have evidence for any of these [Torah] practices or prohibitions prior to the second century before the common era, that is to say from the period of the Hasmonean Dynasty,” said Adler. “We do not have any evidence that the Judean masses, that your regular every day Judean you would have met on the street of Jerusalem, prior to the middle of the second century BCE had any knowledge of the Torah and or that he observed the rules of the Torah.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/bad-judea ... nt-israel/
2. the emergence of synagogues seems to be tied to the destruction of an Israelite community's temple. For the Samaritans Delos Synagogue = Samaritan synagogue that dates from at 150 to 128 BCE. Jewish synagogues date from Ostia, Italy (Runesson, 1999, 2001a, 2002) = first century CE.
3. I have always argued that Justin testimony regarding the nomen sacrum IC being a symbol for the second god "Man" of the early Israelite tradition has deep implications for the earliest gospels (now non-existent). Abraham Heschel was the first to notice IC (Jesus/Man) becomes the mouthpiece for a tradition that only the Ten Commandments represent the "heavenly Torah." This position was juxtaposed against a later Jewish orthodoxy that argued that all 613 commandments of the Pentateuch were not only "from heaven" but also - I would argue - binding on all Israel.
4. Many commentators (the first person I came across with this POV was Hugh Schonfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_J._Schonfield) have noted that Christianity is about a pre-Mosaic covenant. Marcion clearly was somehow "against the Jews" but I and others have always advocated he was "anti-Jewish" in more subtle ways than his Patristic opponents tell us. Marcion is explicitly connected with the Matthean idea that divorce is not permitted by God (because Moses not God introduces it in his "man-made" law). Many of Marcion's other "antitheses" can be traced to a "only the Ten Commandments came from heaven/God" position.
5. Given Tertullian's statement (and the implicit POV of the Acts of Archelaus which I have always argued are Marcionite or neo-Marcionite not only because of the Paul = the Paraclete position) that Marcionism developed from the large community of Jewish proselytes in the world at that time. This community by implication of (1) did not follow all 613 laws. What if proselytes only adhered to the Ten Commandments?

If we put all of this together the gospel might well have used the god/Man that gave Moses the Ten Commandments to advocate against contemporary Pharisaic dogma that all 613 laws were binding upon all of Israel. Already Adler demonstrates that there is little evidence for Jewish adherence to "all of the Pentateuch." There likely were no synagogues at the time Jesus is depicted as descending to earth (i.e. before the destruction of the Temple). This might mean that Jesus didn't enter synagogues but (for reasons I develop from Baarda's "Flying Jesus" research was struggling against and demonstrated as entering repeatedly the Jewish temple.

Could the gospel have been written originally from the POV that the god who visited all the Patriarchs including Moses came back to earth to argue:

a) the Temple would be destroyed because it was an affrontery to Him.
b) Israel would go back to the "original understanding" of only being bound by the Ten Commandments which he originally gave to Moses (before "Moses" added new commandments)
c) the chief commandment was "do not lust"

Of course all of this is predicated on the idea that (i) Jesus of Nazareth was a mid-second century invention and (ii) the original understanding that the second god of Israel came down and visited with 12 disciples was replaced with a quasi-historical understanding first associated with Justin and then expanded by Irenaeus that the Holy Spirit impregnated a virgin in order to allow this same Man-god to come in the flesh to do all the things I just argued. In other words, historicism of Justin and the so-called "mythicism" of Marcion are separated by the thinnest of degrees. In other words, even the "historicism" of Justin and Irenaeus is quasi-mythicist. Yes they say "Jesus/Man" was a historical man of the flesh but when you dig into this history it's about as nutritious as a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.

[mlinssen]

Yonathan Adler's is a pretty good book which I've read with interest - and via private communication I have retrieved the little factoid that the chalk tableware, so to say, amounts to about 1% of the dumps that were excavated - so even that doesn't attest to a lot of Judaism

Perhaps it's time to introduce the notion of earliest Christianity which in fact is Chrestianity, that developed a full blown baptism ritual meant to symbolise the end of (spiritual) death, and perhaps we can then reserve early Christianity to the 2nd / 3rd CE fabrication that your refer to.
Neither were rooted in any form of Judaism - and if you want to become acquainted with Marcion I would certainly deem it a wise suggestion to cease quoting from the FF, and read e.g. Klinghardt or Vinzent instead, or try BeDuhn - maybe he'll take questions. Marcion was ferociously anti-Judaic without a doubt

There never was a shred of Judaism to any form of Christianity or the original movement that preceded it, save for the desperate attempts to make it look that way in the former.
Just read the texts, observe the stark differences between MT and LXX where they're used to back the NT, and look up some of the fantastic "prophecies" employed by Matthew

[lclapshaw]

Interesting

[MrMacSon]

3. I have always argued that Justin testimony regarding the nomen sacrum IC being a symbol for the second god "Man" of the early Israelite tradition has deep implications for the earliest [theology]

Sounds feasible (I dunno if gospels, as written there, is appropriate, given Justin doesn't seem to know much about the gospels or even a gospel)


There's some food-for-thought here

Abraham Heschel was the first to notice IC (Jesus/Man) becomes the mouthpiece for a tradition that only the Ten Commandments represent the "heavenly Torah." This position was juxtaposed against a later Jewish orthodoxy that argued that all 613 commandments of the Pentateuch were not only "from heaven" but also - I would argue - binding on all Israel.

4. Many commentators (the first person I came across with this POV was Hugh Schonfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_J._Schonfield) have noted that Christianity is about a pre-Mosaic covenant. Marcion clearly was somehow "against the Jews" but I and others have always advocated he was "anti-Jewish" in more subtle ways than his Patristic opponents tell us. Marcion is explicitly connected with the Matthean idea that divorce is not permitted by God (because Moses, not God, introduces it in his "man-made" law). Many of Marcion's other "antitheses" can be traced to an "only the Ten Commandments came from heaven/God" position.

5. Given Tertullian's statement (and the implicit POV of the Acts of Archelaus, which I have always argued are Marcionite or neo-Marcionite, not only because of the Paul = the Paraclete position) that Marcionism developed from the large community of Jewish proselytes in the world at that time. This community by implication of (1) did not follow all 613 laws. What if proselytes only adhered to the Ten Commandments?

If we put all of this together [an early theology] might well have used the god/Man that gave Moses the Ten Commandments to advocate against contemporary Pharisaic dogma that all 613 laws were binding upon all of Israel. Already Adler demonstrates that there is little evidence for Jewish adherence to "all of the Pentateuch." There likely were no synagogues at the time Jesus is depicted as descending to earth (i.e. before the destruction of the Temple). This might mean that Jesus didn't enter synagogues but (for reasons I develop from Baarda's "Flying Jesus" research) was struggl[ed] against and demonstrated as entering repeatedly the Jewish temple.

Could [a] gospel have been written originally from the POV that the god who visited all the Patriarchs including Moses came back to earth to argue:

1. the Temple would be destroyed because it was an affrontery to Him,
2. Israel would go back to the "original understanding" of only being bound by the Ten Commandments which he originally gave to Moses (before "Moses" added new commandments), and
3. [that] the chief commandment was "do not lust" ??

Of course all of this is predicated on the idea that

1. Jesus of Nazareth was a mid-second century invention, and
2. the original understanding that the second god of Israel came down and visited with 12 disciples was replaced with a quasi-historical understanding first associated with Justin, and then expanded by Irenaeus, that the Holy Spirit impregnated a virgin in order to allow this same Man-god to come in the flesh to do all the things I just argued.

In other words, [the] 'historicism' of Justin and the so-called "mythicism" of Marcion [would be] separated by the thinnest of degrees. In other words, even the "historicism" of Justin and Irenaeus is quasi-mythicist. Yes, they say "Jesus/Man" was a historical man of the flesh but, when you dig into this history, it's about as nutritious as a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.