Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

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Jagd
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by Jagd »

mlinssen wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:12 pm I'm looking for initiation rites though, such as we find in Acts - yet none of them in the gospels. Where is the bond? Where is the buying in, where is the declaration. Where is the signed contract, where is the hazing, the celebrating of having become Chr?stian

There's none of it, the gospels are just a distant story about some dude who did some stuff. Somewhere.
Why would people know only the gospel narratives? There's nothing in it for them - but that's off-topic perhaps, the OP doesn't inquire about all that. And I know from experience that all you need to do to become a Christian is having Christian parents, as those will simply compel you into doing that
I think the baptisms in the gospels give a hint that they were massively important to becoming a Christian as an initiation ritual. The eucharist is probably extremely old too (its absence in John could be because one of the authors of that Gospel was getting so carried away with the farewell discourse that he just forgot it, or it was snipped out during all the crazy edits that have happened to that text). Celsus mentions Christ creating great banquets out of nowhere, there's the wedding at Cana, the multiple stories of feeding the multitudes, the lord's supper, the blood and wine bleeding out of Christ, and the vine and bread discourses in John. These hint toward the typical agricultural/fertility focus of mystery religions, with the baptismal initiation and ritualistic eating/drinking being no different from other ancient mystery religions. The significance between this and the Isis mysteries are no joke, and following your discovery of male-female pairs of names, I wouldn't be surprised if Christ's forename was meant to be a masculine version of Isis (although I know you point to a different Egyptian god/name).

So I think that was mostly what these earliest Christians were up to, and much of the gospels' narratives focus on these practices in one way or another (everything otherwise are miracles, teachings, and everything to do with the passion/resurrection, which itself is based on the dying-and-rising motif common in mystery religions, reframed later on to parallel the Yom Kippur sacrifice)
mlinssen wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:12 pm By the way, it would seem there weren't even gospel narratives before the 3rd CE. I'm reading Christi Thora at the moment and have a hunch of what Vinzent is going to write next - this is going to be a very exciting decade
Extremely excited to hear more about this. The more I read into the texts, the later in history they appear to emerge, especially in final form. Many scholars seem to discount how much these texts must have changed over time, believing that they emerged in full-form at their convenient ranges of dates, like Athena emerging as an adult out from Zeus.
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Jagd
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by Jagd »

neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Feb 18, 2022 10:14 pm If we are limiting ourselves to the plebeian class before, say, 150, I think the sorts of stories they knew about and discussed were such as:

Jesus descending through the heavens to magically put himself in Mary's womb where he gestated for 7 months before magically appearing outside of her, without any normal birth process involved;

Jesus growing up in secret until an adult and then going out and peforming all sorts of miracles. The miracles would have been items of speculation among groups gathered to socialize --- maybe curing the blind and raising the dead, disappearing through a crowd out to toss him off a cliff, casting out demons;

Jewish priests becoming so envious of Jesus' power -- instigated by Satan -- that they grabbed Jesus and had him crucified;

after 3 days the angels descended and took a living Jesus back up to heaven.

All of which was followed by Jesus appearing again to the Twelve and instructing them on what to teach the rest of mankind, and to have a ceremonial meal on a regular basis by which they would remember that he had come in the flesh and beaten Satan for them all.

Canonical gospels removing the gnostic and docetic elements were introduced only from the mid second century.
This is a very good reconstruction. A lot of the miracles are also framed as Christ triumphing over demons/Satan, along with the temptation story, so I think that would be an angle that the storytellers would've focused on. I'm very glad that you mention how the miracles would have differed based on what the audience would've been receptive to, that certainly appears to be the case.

I notice you didn't include any teachings: do you think those were mostly reserved for the more-than-plebeian classes? Now that I think about it, the miracles and teachings pericope appear to be written very differently, as though the miracles were aimed at plebeians and the teachings aimed at the higher classes/more learned.

Your bit about the crucifixion also aligns with the Toledot Yeshu, where Christ was hanged from a tree for his blasphemous magic powers. There doesn't appear to be any hint that the death was any kind of sacrifice/atonement, and that idea came in later on. Otherwise, the tragic execution was just a tragic execution.
ABuddhist
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

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Jagd wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 11:48 am Your bit about the crucifixion also aligns with the Toledot Yeshu, where Christ was hanged from a tree for his blasphemous magic powers. There doesn't appear to be any hint that the death was any kind of sacrifice/atonement, and that idea came in later on. Otherwise, the tragic execution was just a tragic execution.
With all due respect, I would not expect a Jewish account of Jesus's death to present his death as a sacrifice/atonement.
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mlinssen
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by mlinssen »

Jagd wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 11:36 am
mlinssen wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:12 pm I'm looking for initiation rites though, such as we find in Acts - yet none of them in the gospels. Where is the bond? Where is the buying in, where is the declaration. Where is the signed contract, where is the hazing, the celebrating of having become Chr?stian

There's none of it, the gospels are just a distant story about some dude who did some stuff. Somewhere.
Why would people know only the gospel narratives? There's nothing in it for them - but that's off-topic perhaps, the OP doesn't inquire about all that. And I know from experience that all you need to do to become a Christian is having Christian parents, as those will simply compel you into doing that
I think the baptisms in the gospels give a hint that they were massively important to becoming a Christian as an initiation ritual. The eucharist is probably extremely old too (its absence in John could be because one of the authors of that Gospel was getting so carried away with the farewell discourse that he just forgot it, or it was snipped out during all the crazy edits that have happened to that text). Celsus mentions Christ creating great banquets out of nowhere, there's the wedding at Cana, the multiple stories of feeding the multitudes, the lord's supper, the blood and wine bleeding out of Christ, and the vine and bread discourses in John. These hint toward the typical agricultural/fertility focus of mystery religions, with the baptismal initiation and ritualistic eating/drinking being no different from other ancient mystery religions. The significance between this and the Isis mysteries are no joke, and following your discovery of male-female pairs of names, I wouldn't be surprised if Christ's forename was meant to be a masculine version of Isis (although I know you point to a different Egyptian god/name).

So I think that was mostly what these earliest Christians were up to, and much of the gospels' narratives focus on these practices in one way or another (everything otherwise are miracles, teachings, and everything to do with the passion/resurrection, which itself is based on the dying-and-rising motif common in mystery religions, reframed later on to parallel the Yom Kippur sacrifice)
mlinssen wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:12 pm By the way, it would seem there weren't even gospel narratives before the 3rd CE. I'm reading Christi Thora at the moment and have a hunch of what Vinzent is going to write next - this is going to be a very exciting decade
Extremely excited to hear more about this. The more I read into the texts, the later in history they appear to emerge, especially in final form. Many scholars seem to discount how much these texts must have changed over time, believing that they emerged in full-form at their convenient ranges of dates, like Athena emerging as an adult out from Zeus.
I'd agree to most of that Jagd, yet I'm missing all that in the 4 gospels - John the Baptist is a mere nuisance in Mark, gets 6 verses and then is exited so the Elijah in him can fulfil his utterly silent role in the transfiguration.
Yes, the world was full of Isis and that cult lasted many centuries.
I'm just second guessing with Iusaas, he/she is the helping hand in Atum's creation myth and there is similarity between the name and IS - but I'm not even convinced myself.
We mustn't forget that there are two sides to the coin: whatever Thomas had in mind, and what the people made out of it - look at Thomas and the NT and I won't have to say anything more.
Yes, everything in life then was about food, feeding, harvest. Every god must have purpose, it must be useful, and the Jesus of the canonicals is entirely useless to everyday life, he has no benefit to any of it. Strip him of his eschatology and his Christology and an utterly uneventful person remains.
Yet the feeding, yes. The magic that is demonstrated, the walking on water and calming of the storm that demonstrates control over the elements: a true god is depicted there, a useful god, a god of nature, growth, harvest - but still I miss the initiation rites whereas Philip just doesn't stop ging on about baptism, precisely as initiation rite.
The feeble attempts by Matthew (who copied his ramblings into Luke as well) to turn John B into a lecturer like the prophets of the Tanakh are embarrassing, yet we see in Acts that they finally try to elaborate on baptism, as contradictory results as that renders. The reluctance of John the gospel writer to baptise Jesus is absolutely justified and he elevates John B to make clear who of the two in fact is Elijah: Jesus. Unsure that would go along with a warm fuzzy role for John B as a ritual initiator - or perhaps that got struck, I'd have to read Audlin some more

Yeah, it seems that the stories got fixated with the Canon, and 4th/5th CE is the earliest date for that. I'm slowly advancing through Vinzent, but the next topic will be about *Ev, and how Thomas connects to that - or rather, vice versa.
Let me put it this way: Marcion and Thomas agree against Luke on quite a few occasions, in the exact same way where the Synoptics display major agreement yet minor disagreements
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Jagd wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 11:48 am
neilgodfrey wrote: Fri Feb 18, 2022 10:14 pm If we are limiting ourselves to the plebeian class before, say, 150, I think the sorts of stories they knew about and discussed were such as:

Jesus descending through the heavens to magically put himself in Mary's womb where he gestated for 7 months before magically appearing outside of her, without any normal birth process involved;

Jesus growing up in secret until an adult and then going out and peforming all sorts of miracles. The miracles would have been items of speculation among groups gathered to socialize --- maybe curing the blind and raising the dead, disappearing through a crowd out to toss him off a cliff, casting out demons;

Jewish priests becoming so envious of Jesus' power -- instigated by Satan -- that they grabbed Jesus and had him crucified;

after 3 days the angels descended and took a living Jesus back up to heaven.

All of which was followed by Jesus appearing again to the Twelve and instructing them on what to teach the rest of mankind, and to have a ceremonial meal on a regular basis by which they would remember that he had come in the flesh and beaten Satan for them all.

Canonical gospels removing the gnostic and docetic elements were introduced only from the mid second century.
This is a very good reconstruction. A lot of the miracles are also framed as Christ triumphing over demons/Satan, along with the temptation story, so I think that would be an angle that the storytellers would've focused on. I'm very glad that you mention how the miracles would have differed based on what the audience would've been receptive to, that certainly appears to be the case.

I notice you didn't include any teachings: do you think those were mostly reserved for the more-than-plebeian classes? Now that I think about it, the miracles and teachings pericope appear to be written very differently, as though the miracles were aimed at plebeians and the teachings aimed at the higher classes/more learned.

Your bit about the crucifixion also aligns with the Toledot Yeshu, where Christ was hanged from a tree for his blasphemous magic powers. There doesn't appear to be any hint that the death was any kind of sacrifice/atonement, and that idea came in later on. Otherwise, the tragic execution was just a tragic execution.
The idea of crucifixion as an atonement for sins came late, I believe. The initial idea was that it was a ransom paid to release victims from the grip of the evil powers. A pure exchange. No notion of a penalty paid for sins. Nor was it an "accidental" or "political" death, not a result of human circumstances except as they were engineered by the devil. It was a cosmic drama and the death was planned from the beginning: the devil was tricked by not knowing who Jesus was.

There were two early tales of how the devil was tricked: one, Jesus only had the appearance of a man and was not a man at all, so the devil was fooled; two, Jesus had his divine birth hidden from the devil so he did not know he was a heavenly being born of a virgin into this world.

Jesus was sent to rob the devil of the dead; he was not sent to teach. A teaching saviour was a later development.

My thoughts are entirely hypothetical, of course. I have selected those elements because they appear to be mid-way between the earliest form of Christianity (which was more akin to a gnostic set of teachings that involved reflection on the nature of the divine and the self) and the later, mid-second century "catholic" story (that was a raw earthly story rather than a prompt for spiritual contemplation) that we have today.
moses
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

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Quote:
And "I will go ahead of you to Galilee" means that his disciples will go there too,


its funny that when it comes to jesus failed second coming, christians are happy to add in 2000 plus years , but the claim to go to galillee must be immediate? how does that work out?

he doesnt say, "there you will DEFINATELY see me you bunch of cowards"


Possibility one:

Who would be marks first readers? maybe it is marks readers who are suppose to make a journey to galilee because the end of the world is around the corner?

"I would go ahead of you to galilee " does not mean immediately. he probably meant something like within 20 years or a little more.

"some standing here will not taste death untill they see..."


he definately couldnt have meant that he went to galilee straight after he disappeared.

Possibility two:

"going ahead of you" is conditioned on obediance of risking your life in time of danger:

Peter said to him, “Even though all become deserters, I will not.” 30 Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 31 But he said vehemently, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And all of them said the same.

How you follow? the condition is to risk your life, since peter couldnt , then mark isnt talking to peter, but christians who should be making journey to galilee.




"and since he precedes this by citing the scattered sheep verse, "

scattered sheep like the disciples are not ready to follow, the last peter is seen when he weeps in safety.

"it implies that they won't be scattered sheep"

How?

"after they go to Galilee, because they'll be with Jesus there."


It doesnt say that
moses
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by moses »

"There you will see him, just as he told you."

Thats not what mark has him say. "I will go ahead of you to galilee"

Where is this, "there you will see him" business come from? Whoever wrote this made an inference. There is no "just as he told you" in 14:28
John2
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by John2 »

moses wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:56 am "There you will see him, just as he told you."

Thats not what mark has him say. "I will go ahead of you to galilee"

Where is this, "there you will see him" business come from? Whoever wrote this made an inference. There is no "just as he told you" in 14:28

To me, "I will go before you into Galilee" means that when Jesus' disciples go there they will see him.

Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

Just like the disciples "will all fall away," so will they all see Jesus in Galilee after his resurrection. My guess is that the original ending of Mark is lost and that it contained an appearance of the resurrected Jesus to all of the disciples, including Judas Iscariot, and that this is why it no longer exists. All the disciples would fall away and Jesus would go before all of them to Galilee. This might be supported by 1 Cor. 15:5, even if it's an interpolation ("he appeared Cephas and then to the Twelve), but regardless of that, I think an appearance to Judas could not stand so the original ending was lost.

And in any event, the disciples didn't need the women to tell them to meet Jesus in Galilee, since he had already told them, as per 16:7, in addition to telling them numerous times that he would be resurrected after three days. So all 16:8 means is that the women failed to heed the young man in the empty tomb, not that the disciples failed to heed Jesus.

As Marks stands, we don't know if the disciples failed to heed Jesus or not, but since Jesus foretold that he would go before them to Galilee (just as he had foretold that they would all fall away) and 16:7 interprets it to mean, "there you will see him, just as he told you," it seems logical to suppose that they went there and saw him, whether there is a lost ending or not.
ABuddhist
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by ABuddhist »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:16 pm My thoughts are entirely hypothetical, of course. I have selected those elements because they appear to be mid-way between the earliest form of Christianity (which was more akin to a gnostic set of teachings that involved reflection on the nature of the divine and the self) and the later, mid-second century "catholic" story (that was a raw earthly story rather than a prompt for spiritual contemplation) that we have today.
What are your opinions about the claim that Gnosticism did not exist, summarized here by Dr. Carrier: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/17119
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Did common early Christians know much of the gospel narratives?

Post by neilgodfrey »

ABuddhist wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:48 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:16 pm My thoughts are entirely hypothetical, of course. I have selected those elements because they appear to be mid-way between the earliest form of Christianity (which was more akin to a gnostic set of teachings that involved reflection on the nature of the divine and the self) and the later, mid-second century "catholic" story (that was a raw earthly story rather than a prompt for spiritual contemplation) that we have today.
What are your opinions about the claim that Gnosticism did not exist, summarized here by Dr. Carrier: https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/17119
It is generally acknowledged that there was no gnostic sect or "gnostic movement" as such but certain ideas (as Carrier himself implicitly acknowledges in his article) are conveniently characterised as "gnostic".

Carrier:
Nearly all religious sects shared one or another Gnostic idea,
and.
What I found was no sect matching what historians had come to call “Gnosticism,” just diverse sects, each having some elements of it, and no sects with no elements of it, nor all of them
-- that is, there are certain ideas that are conveniently labelled "gnostic" as long as it is clear what we mean. Scholars still use the term for convenience when it is clear what they are referring to -- and that's why I clarified my own use of the term with
a gnostic set of teachings that involved reflection on the nature of the divine and the self
My point was to make a clear distinction between those ideas and the very concrete and historicized story of Jesus.

I think the ball started rolling against "gnosticism" with Michael Williams' Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category
-- you can read it at https://archive.org/details/rethinkinggnosti0000will

This book can be usefully read alongside another later work (one that lists the Williams book in its references) by Birger Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism : traditions and literature available on the same site at https://archive.org/details/ancientgnosticis0000pear
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