I think you have not factored in Josephus' accounts of the ethnic polarization the war caused in Judean dominated areas and nearby Gentile regions. Assuming that early Christians who produced the books that became the NT were originally gentiles, we should be asking ourselves "Why did they identify with Judaism?" "On what terms did they do so?"
Here we have gentiles who are more than just casually familiar with Judaism. Why? Since popular Judaism, even in the Diaspora, held hopes that "one day" God would make good his promise to Abraham's "seed," for a just, blessed age of plenty. The common belief was that there would be a general resurrection of the righteous to allow them to experience their reward. Of those alive, there would be a divine judgement by his angels. The nations would be tamed with a Judean ruler who would rule them with a rod of iron (that is, harshly).
I think it is likely that the earliest gentiles to become proto-NT "Christians" had converted to Judean ways, circumcision and all. They had wanted to be a part of the action in this new age. Back then, "christian" simply meant you put your hope in an anointed leader who would lead in the new age. I cannot yet say whether Jesus had a message of human action to realize that kingdom or just wait for God to act through his angels. However, the war of 66-73 had dashed any hope for either option, although those hoping for god to act held sway throughout the 1st Judean war, especially in the Simon Bar Giora party in Jerusalem and also among the Sicari in Masada, even to the very end.
Josephus describes how polarized the regions of Judea/Samaria/Idumea and southern Syria became. It was very intense, involving ethnic cleansing, killing everybody even remotely perceived as a threat, and jailing of moderates on both sides as people not to be trusted. Just being friendly towards one another was enough to get people killed or arrested. Images of athletic fields being turned into detainment camps, and deciding to just kill the detainees rather than risk letting them "show their true colors," are not just for 1990s Bosnia Herzegovina.
If you are a former gentile, your extended family may have supported you in better times, but now they think their convert relative is a lightning rod bringing down destruction on them. The converts were cut off, rejected. The sense of betrayal among the gentile converts would have been intense some some. I would suggest they renounced their conversions to Judaism and fealty to their Laws, and sought a way to rationalize what had happened. In southern Syria and Judean regions, these gentile converts were clearly worse off after the war.
The natural reaction is to rationalize what had happened. They clearly felt an affinity to the Judean God, and could not believe that they had followed him in vain. Here is where the Divine Redeemer myth was incorporated into the story, where God has punished the natural born Jews by the Roman defeat, and that the true seed of Abraham was actually the gentile converts! Yes, that is a complete reversal.
However, as natural as that way of looking at the incubation process seems, nobody seems to be able to think outside of predetermined boxes developed to explain away the triumph of the Church. Of course, seeing early gentile Christians as "political" or having personal motives (better future for selves and others) is not popular at all.
DCH
neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:11 am
rgprice wrote: ↑Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:44 pm
After the First war, tensions started to grow in this community and such God-fearers became increasingly uneasy with their ties to Judaism. This increased over time as the conflicts continued to roil.
But why would gentiles who had been attracted to Judaism become increasingly uneasy with their ties to it? Would not we expect the war to elicit sympathy and increased sense of solidarity rather than a distancing? People who have bonds to begin with usually have them strengthened when one of them suffers a calamity, yes?
Why Marcion and Gnostics used Paul and the Gospels is a great question, though. I think when we can find a foolproof answer to it we will have put our finger on the very origin of Christianity -- at least Christianity as it is recognizable to us. I have been struggling with it for some time.