The full emergence of Christian book culture in the fourth century was anticipated and prepared for by a series of developments in the second century: by presenting (anachronistically) the early heroes of the Jesus movement as skilled literate communicators; by the emergence of “textual communities” formed around the reading, study, and preservation of books; by valorizing literate culture through the embedding of allusions to books and book culture in Christian documents; and in the very construction of early Christian scriptural documents so as to render them more easily accessible to sub-elite readers.
2nd
A second engagement with literate media is seen in Eusebius’s use of codex technology. This allowed him to do what no one else could have done before him: to create a synoptic account of world history. In the second part of the Chronicon, Eusebius employed new codex technology in an innovative fashion: he divided each left and right page in a codex into multiple vertical columns, using these columns to align parallel chronologies and to allow, for the first time, careful synoptic comparison. As T. D. Barnes has plausibly suggested, Eusebius’s model was probably Origen’s Hexapla, which also made use of the codex form for a synoptic presentation of multiple versions of the Hebrew Bible. Origen’s massive Hexapla could not have been contained in a single or even two codices. But almost a century later Eusebius engaged in the ambitious project of publishing in codex form a collation of nineteen different state chronologies, exposing synchronisms and, just as importantly, differences and contradictions.
The result was in the words of Williams and Grafton,
“a comprehensive political, religious, and cultural history of the ancient world, one that served until the sixteenth century as the richest single source of information for anyone interested in the history of human culture.”
The full emergence of Christian book culture in the fourth century was anticipated and prepared for by a series of developments in the second century: by presenting (anachronistically) the early heroes of the Jesus movement as skilled literate communicators; by the emergence of “textual communities” formed around the reading, study, and preservation of books; by valorizing literate culture through the embedding of allusions to books and book culture in Christian documents; and in the very construction of early Christian scriptural documents so as to render them more easily accessible to sub-elite readers.
This is very much in line with my view that a Theraputae type monasteries, which Philo wrote of (said they were throughout the Greek world), who had been studying the LXX and writing their own commentaries, plays and religious writings, at some point shifted to the Jesus (Joshua over Moses) movement. In my view this happened in Asia and surrounding Greek homeland compounds, right around the same time Kloppenborg's communities "appear."
For me this makes the most sense, as they would have had a ready cadre of trained monks and nuns to send out on missions, essentially becoming the legendary apostles who gave rise to the legends of patron saints like Paul, John and Peter, as well as others. It requires the least development of a new community, instead the conversion of an existing one from the first century, and probably with origins sometime a century before Philo wrote of them.
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:11 pm
Why would the focus of the community be Exodus 15 if it was a Joshua community?
The concept is Moses failed, it was Joshua who brought salvation to Israel, delivered them to the promised land. At some point over a hundred years or so Joshua became a type to the community.
As for crossing the reed sea by Moses, it was seen by the Theraputae as partner with the crossing of the Jordan by Joshua. You go from the decadence of Egypt into the cleansing austere life and trials in the wilderness in crossing the former. And the entering into the promised land of God's domain in crossing the latter. The former leader was not allowed to reach the land the latter gave the cleansed people. In fact it was Joshua (Jesus) who gave them the supernatural food (Mana) if you follow 1 Corinthians 10. Moses led them to trail and judgement (again 1 Corinthians).
The connection seems pretty obvious to me.
BTW, Detering saw deeper connections, relating the water crossings to the imagery of Jesus walking on the water, in much the same way Buddha crossed the Ganges (Indian version of the Jordan story) before his disciples, instantaneously arrive at the calm opposite shore. Representing a change of state from earthly to heavenly. The disciples chase but always seem to be on the opposite shore. And crossing is perilous for them, except when Jesus (Joshua)/Buddha lead them. Such is his theory (I think it's more a common theme of stories in the region).
while I like the Detering's findings about mystical crossing and Joshua etc at the origin of the Jesus myth, do you think that a gospel with the baptism of Jesus (by itself, a crossing of waters by a new Joshua) in the incipit - call it proto-Mark for semplicity - preceded Marcion's proto-Luke, also for the Detering's mentioned views ?
