John2 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm
I'm just curious what people here think. You don't have to prove everything, just say what you think happened to produce Christianity. Fill in the gaps however you like.
Here's what I think. There were broadly three sects of Judaism since the time of the Maccabees, like Josephus says. By 6 CE a fourth sect emerged, largely from the Pharisees, and it more or less ran its course between then and the fall of Masada. I would call them radical or extremist Pharisees. And from this fourth sect emerged Jesus and Jewish Christianity. As such, Christianity shares the main Fourth Philosophic belief that "one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth" and similarly rejected the oral Torah.
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I think what has happening
in Judaism in the early part of the first century a.d./c.e. and probably before, from the time of Maccabee Revolt is significant as is, of course, what happened
to it such as the Fall of the Second Temple. And there's also what happened after the Fall of the Temple. The priests and priestly families are said to have moved out of Jerusalem, to have 'decamped' (?) to Yavne +/- other places concurrently or firstly or subsequently (I need to clarify that, it may be important). Apparently Jewish people stayed in and around Jerusalem.
They began what turned out to be a 100 year plus project to define and redefine Judaism through the Tosefta and the Mishnah. The Pharisees are said to have predominated. The Sadducees and other sects were no more (afaik; perhaps some manifest in other ways).
Do we know what happened to Judaism in other places though, after and as a result of the Fall of the Second Temple? In Alexandria? in Rome? in other centres with significant pre-70 a.d. diaspora? (I think the tabernacle became more prominent(?). There was another temple or two I think, but their roles seem to have diminished).
Furthermore, there's also the Bar Kokhba Revolt and the consequences of that for Jewish people: they were banned from Jerusalem afaik.
John2 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm
Sometime before 70 CE Jewish Christian leaders wrote letters that became part of the NT (James, 1 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, Jude, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon).
Do we have things that can tie these letters to pre-70 CE times?
or, Could the time-period in which they may have been written be wider? later )or even earlier)?
John2 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm
Then around 70 CE a follower of Peter named Mark wrote two versions
1 of Mark in Greek, one for Romans and one for everyone.
1
Around the same time someone wrote a Hebrew version of Matthew, from which two or more translations were made into Greek, one of which was combined with Mark and became the canonical Matthew, another of which may have been incorporated into Luke and the Ebionite Matthew, and perhaps another is reflected in the Didache.
< . . snip . . >
Sometime after 70 CE the Ebionites (as such) emerged from the Nazarenes and created their Matthew with one of the translations that were made of the Hebrew Mathew.
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An interesting set of proposals about how the synoptic gospels might have come about.
1 What makes you think there were two versions of Mark?
One think I think worth considering in the formation of the gospel attributed to Mark is that it is or seems to be also Pauline, as Luke seems to have been -
John2 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm
Luke and Acts (in perhaps more than one draft) were written by the follower of Paul named Epaphroditus (mentioned in Philippians) who was an imperial secretary and wrote sometime before his execution by Domitian c. 95 CE. He knew some or all of the NT letters mentioned above, Mark and one or more Greek translations of Matthew, and the we passages in Acts are his notes from his time travelling with Paul.
These propositions are noteworthy -
John2 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm
Nazarene Jewish Christianity was more or less the dominant form of early Christianity and peaked by the mid-second century CE (as reflected by Hegessipus) until it was deemed heretical and supplanted by orthodox Christianity by the late second century CE.
More or less all of the Nazarene NT writings were to some extent interpolated or altered by orthodox Christians to defend their beliefs (as per Celsus [via Origen's
Contra Celsus]
2) and were incorporated into their NT canon along with some of their own writings (Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, the Pastorals).
2 I'm intrigued that we hear about Celsus so relatively late (via Origen's
Contra Celsus). I'd be interested to hear a comparison of what we understand about Celsus and about trypho (from Justin Martyr of course).