Overview of proposed development of the Jesus story

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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rgprice
Posts: 2058
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

Overview of proposed development of the Jesus story

Post by rgprice »

I'm posting this here because I'm stalling out on my book and just trying to get some feedback and get my thoughts going again. This isn't an outline of my book, which actually covers more topics than this. What I'm struggling the most with is the material most directly related to Judaism and Christianity. What follows is a gross simplification.

Judaism as we know it developed in the third and second centuries BCE, far more recently than long believed. The Semitic populations in Palestine and Egypt were polytheistic up through the fourth century BCE, throughout the Persian period. Following the fall of the Persian empire to Alexander's forces, "Judahite" elites sought to align their society with the new world order, while at the same time establishing a case for "Jewish" sovereignty and engendering a sense of ethnic pride for the shattered Judahite population.

They did this through the creation of the Pentateuch. It is likely that the Pentateuch and a summary of its stories were presented to the Judahite population following the fall of the Persian empire as a "restoration of our ancient heritage". Accounts of something like this are presented in Nehemiah explaining this process happening under the Persians, but it would seem that such a thing would have happened after the Persian fall. Over time, other scriptures were produced to fill out the quasi-history of the Jewish people.

Regardless, the main point is that Judaism as we know it is a quasi-monotheistic religion that was formed out of polytheistic traditions. The scriptures themselves contain many polytheistic elements. In the creation of the scriptures during the 3rd and second centuries, the identities of the Israelite gods El and Yahweh in particular were intertwined such that the scriptures claim that El and Yahweh are one and the same. In the authentic Canaanite and Israelite traditions, El was seen as the Father and Creator of the cosmos. Yahweh was one of the sons of El, who was the Lord of the Israelites. In the authentic traditions, El was seen as the ruler of the divine counsel, who did not interfere directly in the working of the world. Yahweh, along with other sons of El, came to earth and took human form in order to enforce the will of their Father and to serve as protectors of their nations. They meted out punishments and aided the faithful.

It is likely that the success of the new Jewish religion was somewhat limited in the 3rd century. The real expansion of the religion occurred during the Hasmonean period, in the second century BCE, when, as is well documented, the inhabitants of Palestine were forcefully converted to the religion, and Jewish leaders were able to convince the Romans of the antiquity and importance of their religion, allowing for its significant expansion. It is clear from the fact that estimates put the Jewish population of the Roman empire in the first century at around seven million people, that Judaism was significantly evangelical.

Yet, Judaism was never a fully cohesive or uniformly adopted religion. There were significant disputes about the interpretation of its scriptures, the validity of various priesthoods, and the truth of its teachings. The polytheistic underpinnings its scriptures and traditions resulted in on-going perceptions that there were multiple powers or gods beneath the surface. No doubt Semitic memories and traditions of the polytheistic past continued to reverberate throughout time. Theologians like Philo attempted to develop solutions that made sense of the multiple personalities of God within the scriptures, which resulted from the fact that the Jewish god was in fact a composite of multiple gods.

One interpretation of Judaism resulted in the view that the Jewish God was responsible for everything, including good and evil. Other Jews could not abide such an interpretation and so developed the idea of Satan/Belial, who was seen as the "lord of this world". Who was the "lord of this world", was it Satan or Yahweh? This question had significant implications. Who was responsible for the introduction of evil? Was it God himself? Was it Mankind? Was it heavenly forces, the angels (lead by Satan/Belial)?

If Satan was the "lord of this world" then there was a need to defeat Satan and return rule of the world to Yahweh/God.

Qumranic Jews concluded that Satan/Belial was the "lord of this world" and that it was up to the human sons of light to defeat the forces of Satan/Belial, returning rule of the world to God/Yahweh.

It would appear that "mainstream/temple" Jews did not think that Satan/Belial was lord of this world or necessarily that such a figure existed or had anywhere near such power. For them Yahweh was the lord of this world.

Gnostics were Jewish or God-fearing theologians who sort of split the difference between the two views, and seemed to have some understanding of how the Pentateuch was created. Gnostics acknowledged that Yahweh was the "lord of this world" but instead of viewing Satan as an opponent of Yahweh, they essentially concluded that Yahweh was Satan. Or rather, Gnostics attributed to Yahweh the negative qualities attributed to Satan by the likes of Qumranic type Jews. Gnostics viewed Yahweh as a liar, who had tricked the Jews into believing that he was the only God, when in fact he was actually a lesser god. Gnostics worked from interpretations of Genesis in particular to arrive at their views. The extent to which potential pre-Torah Semitic traditions played into their views in unknown.

In the second century, a quasi-Gnostic Christian named Marcion was the first to "publish" a written "scripture" for his Christian teachings. This was likely called the "New Testament". Marcion's "New Testament" contained a single Gospel and a collection of letters attributed to Paul. Marcion claimed that there were two gods. Those gods were the Father, who was the Highest God, and essentially Yahweh, who was a lesser god. Yahweh was the "lord of this world". Yahweh had created the world, as indicated by the Jewish scriptures, but Yahweh was evil. Essentially, Yahweh was Satan, in some interpretations Yahweh was the father of Satan. Jesus, on the other hand, was the son of the Father, the Highest God, who was sent to earth to spiritually defeat the Jews and liberate the world from the rule of Yahweh.

Second and third century proto-orthodox theologians concluded that Marcion had derived his Gospel and collection of Pauline letters from sources that they used. Proto-orthodox theologians had a collection of documents they referred to as the New Testament, which is first testified to by Irenaeus in the mid-second century. This collection included virtually all of the same works as the modern Catholic New Testament, including all four Gospels and the same Pauline letters. The proto-orthodox theologians alleged that Marcion had derived his Gospel from the Gospel of Luke found in the orthodox New Testament and that Marcion had derived his Pauline letters from the orthodox versions. They alleged that the orthodox versions were authored by people living in the time of Jesus: two of his followers (Matthew and John) and two associates of his followers (Mark and Luke).

Recent modern analysis, however, concludes that Marcion's Gospel was not derived from the Gospel of Luke. Indeed, if anything, the Gospel of Luke was derived from Marcion's Gospel. In fact, it appears that many elements in the orthodox New Testament were written in response to Marcionism and Gnosticism in general. Orthodox theologians alleged that the orthodox New Testament recorded the pre-Gnostic truths as they were laid out by the original apostles of Jesus, and that the Gnostics later twisted the original truth. To support this claim they used the writings of the orthodox New Testament, which contradicted many points of Gnostic and Marcionite teaching. All of those points in the orthodox New Testament which directly contradict Gnostic teaching, we can now conclude, were in fact written in response to Gnostic teaching. The reason that the orthodox New Testament was so useful in "disproving" Gnostic claims is because it was created for that purpose.

Contrary to the claims of orthodox theologians, the orthodox New Testament was not a record of the original teachings of Jesus as recorded by his apostles, rather, the orthodox New Testament appears to have been derived at least in part from Gnostic works, revising Gnostic writings to make them contradict Gnostic teachings. A key book of the orthodox New Testament is Acts of the Apostles. Acts is the book that assembles the orthodox view of history. It is from Acts that orthodox theologians were able to construct an historical outline, which postulated that after the death of Jesus there was a period known as the Apostolic Age, in which the apostles of Jesus founded the true religion of Christianity and spread it throughout the Roman empire. Following this period was the rise of the Gnostics, who subverted the apostles and almost destroyed Christianity. They would have succeeded, if not for the fact that the orthodox theologians were able to obtain the true writings of the apostles, as recorded in the orthodox New Testament. Thus, the orthodox theologians, with the real teachings of Jesus' real apostles in hand, were able to counter the fraudulent claims of the Gnostics.

What modern analysis shows, however, is that these claims are entirely fictitious. There was no "Apostolic Age". Acts of the Apostles is pure literary invention, designed to legitimize the entire New Testament collection. The orthodox collection is not a collection of the true original writings, just the opposite. It is a collection of anti-Gnostic propaganda.

So what were the Gnostic teachings that the orthodox were refuting?

The Gnostics and their kind (such as Marcion) refuted the idea that there was one God and that the God of the Jews was the one "Highest God". According to the Gnostics, the coming of Jesus was not foretold in the Jewish scriptures. It could not have been, because Jesus was sent by the Highest God, not by Yahweh, the lesser god of the Jews. In addition, Jesus was unborn and not of the flesh. The material world was created by the evil Yahweh -- Jesus would never have been part of the material world. Thus, to combat Gnosticism, orthodox writers were compelled to present Jesus as having fulfilled prophecies from the Jewish scriptures and to show that Jesus had in fact been born on earth to a human mother. In addition, orthodox writers presented Satan as the clear opponent of Jesus, alleviating any insinuation that his opponent could have been the Jewish God.

But where does this leave us? Were the Gnostics the true originators of Christianity? Such a conclusion is difficult to reach. It is possible. Yet, what we know is that Gnosticism is rooted in, but opposed to, Judaism. It is also possible that Gnostic Christianity was rooted in, but opposed to, an existing faith that was closer to Judaism, as the orthodox Christians indeed alleged.

What can be concluded is that the Pauline letters appear to be the root source of Christian teaching as we know it, Gnostic or otherwise. The Pauline letters invoke two powers: God the Father and the Lord Jesus his son. Certainly we can find the roots of this model within the known currents of so-called Second Temple Judaism. It would appear to me that what I call true "Paulinism" was a sort of "missing link" between Judaism and Gnosticism. The original Pauline letters represent a half-way point between Qumranic style Judaism and full blown Gnosticism. As such, it was possible to adapt them to both Gnostic and anti-Gnostic causes. The original Paul was neither Gnostic nor traditionally Jewish. Paul recognized two powers, God the Father (El) and his son the Lord (Yahweh), who was manifested as the Christ. One way or another, Jesus is literally Yahweh son of El according to Paul. Paul denied the need for circumcision, denied the need to follow Jewish law, and disregarded the Jewish prohibition against saying the name of the Lord. This is because Paul believed a personal relationship was possible between people and the Lord, who could know him by name and call upon him. But in no way did Paul think that Jesus was a real human being who lived during the time of Pilate.

Yet, once we accept that the orthodox New Testament does not in fact pre-date the works of Marcion, but rather was produced in response to Gnosticism, it is no longer possible to try to discern the exact original text of the earliest Christian writings. All that we have left are works that have been heavily revised, likely having gone through multiple iterations of alteration. There is no simple diagram of editorial relations to be had. The works as we have them have been edited in the presence of one other, are composed of multiple layers, written by many different people.

But what we can conclude is that the narratives in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles are pure and total literary fabrications. Nothing that they recount has any basis in actual history or fact. The Jesus of Christianity is almost certainly just a story book figure, whose identity was originally drawn from the Lord of the Jewish scriptures, who was understood in some quasi-Jewish circles as the second power, who was the son of El/Elohim.
Last edited by rgprice on Wed Sep 28, 2022 3:04 am, edited 7 times in total.
dbz
Posts: 512
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Overview of proposed development of the Jesus story

Post by dbz »

Where are you at per Pessimism and Optimism in Hellenistic Judaism?
Religion involves both optimistic and pessimistic aspects. Since the essence of religion is salvation from evil, an optimistic element is essential to it; yet not all individuals or groups are saved. The magical component in religion is optimistic, since it promises success in the achievement of desired values; yet the failure of religious rites or prayers is common enough to support pessimism. Salvation is postponed to a future life, and the present world is viewed as a vale of tears, or as the historical conflict between good and evil, or as a source of desires to be resisted, or as an illusory order that possesses no substance. Yet in all religion there is also a joyous world-affirming element that expresses itself in community life and mystical or prophetic exaltation. Eschatological religions combine pessimism about a temporal world that is destined to end with joyous optimism about the new life that will follow.

dbz
Posts: 512
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:48 am

Re: Overview of proposed development of the Jesus story

Post by dbz »

Philo, who made the first attempt in Jewish history to reconcile the Bible with Greek philosophy, cannot have been unique; he must have had peers and a considerable audience, even in Palestine itself.

[But] Rabbinic literature betrays no hint that such interests existed. It is hard to believe that this silence is accidental.
[...]
[The goal] is clearly to demonstrate to Jews, and to any pagans who might read Aristeas, that the most highly regarded of all Hellenistic kings valued the Jews and treated them as equals; but it also served, surely, to show the Jews that it was possible to share in the intellectual and even social life of their Hellenistic environment without compromising their religion.
Moses Hadas (1956). "Judaism and the Hellenistic Experience: A Classical Model for Living in Two Cultures". Commentary Magazine.

The degree to which Jews reconciled the Bible with Greek philosophy, cannot be known beyond Philo, all else is lost. But we do know other types of exposure to Greek learning. Hadas writes,
[S]ince the central institution of the Greek city was the gymnasium (which embraced literature as well as athletics), and “graduation” from the gymnasium was an indirect prerequisite for citizenship, many “barbarians” in Alexander’s empire—including Jews—as citizens of the Hellenistic cities, must have been subjected to at least a minimum of Greek learning.
  • Greek names began appearing within Jewish families as early as the late third century BCE.
  • Jews outside of Palestine, namely in Egypt, exhibited greater signs of Hellenization.
  • At times during the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) a Male Jew, would be OK with changing his normative sexuality and his body image as Jew.
[When] a Jewish man appeared in the gymnasium nude, circumcised or otherwise, given the status of nudity within Judaism, he would be changing his image as a Jew. A reverse circumcision on top of this would not only be breaking the covenant, but would also be saying as clearly as possible that his image as a Jew has changed forever.

In addition to issues of nudity, ideas of normative Jewish sexuality became increasingly defined during the Second Temple period […] While not as prevalent in the East as it had been in Greece, pederasty remained a part of the education of gymnasia. [Percy, Pederasty and Pedagogy, 34.]
A HISTORY OF JEWS IN GREEK GYMNASIA FROM THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD THROUGH THE LATE ROMAN PERIOD [PDF], Diss. by JORDAN, H. A.​


I see a Religious syncretism of Middle Platonism, Mystery religions, and Hellenistic Judaism in Paul.

Middle Platonism is a stumbling block for many people, due to it not actually being Platonism per se!

IMO, a sophisticated first_CE Platonist (i.e. middle platonic) would understand evil in the same way that something being “cold”—can be understood as merely the absence of heat. All (Loddy, Doddy, and Everybody) have the potential to be good in the same way that every atom—understood as a ball on the classical (pre QT) Newtonian billiard table universe—has the potential to have heat. Thus a person is evil if they are not living their full human potential. As the bible says; since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, “men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men … They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.” because they are ‘COLD’ (i.e. not fulfilling their potential to be good), thus have “a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” Cf. Romans 1:28
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