Here is a discussion of the relevant Pauline hypothesis:neilgodfrey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 10:27 pmCan you point me to what you consider to be the better sources for these Kitos War connections?yakovzutolmai wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 9:32 pm. . . I have heard brilliant arguments placing the generation of the Pauline literature around Cyprus, among the last Herodians, shortly after the Kitos War. In my own narrative, it would be that this Pauline literature is a reaction to the Kitos War, which I interpret as a forgotten last gasp of the James cult's version of Christianity.
So, the villain of Magus is a key element of the Pauline perspective. You have 115-135, a solid intellectual generation, for the Kitos War to paint Jamesian and Simonian ideas as wicked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ZNBNoDH_4
As for the rest, my own perspective on Jamesian Christianity ties it intimately to the Babylonian Jews. The evidence is circumstantial but in the primary sources. The Eastern front of the Kitos war saw Mesopotamian Jews rise up against the Roman invasion of Babylon. That's notable, and doesn't seem necessarily linked to the situation in Libya/Egypt/Cyprus/Judea. The Romans were attacking Osroes of Parthia who is plausibly descended from the famous Izates.
My hypothesis about Jamesianism is that it (in contrast to the Christianity of the gospels) is primarily a transposition of the Babylonian martial cult into Judean messianism. Evidence for this includes insinuations on Julius Pantera and the Paulina story in Josephus which appears to mock the temple ceremony for Marduk. Also, the synthesis of the Ziggurat temple maiden into the Syrian goddess via Helena as the Magdalene (of the heavenly tower). Melchizedek is also an analogue to Marduk. I suspect that all Semitic peoples of the Ancient Near East were accounted as "lost Israel" in this cult. So the Assyrian/Syrian/Amorite/Chaldean and Jew alike. And that Jamesian messianism was nothing short of Assyrian restorationism with invocations of the Babylonian golden age. I also suspect that many Jews, perhaps even a majority, were aligned with this way of thinking until after Kitos. These would be the Ebionites etc.
I interpret the Kitos war as an expression of forgotten neo-Jamesianism. There might not have been a consensus on religious beliefs, but there seems to have been a consensus on fervor. As if the Kitos uprising was a second century Qanon movement among populist Israelites.
The dating of Paul's letters to ca 120 would mean that they would have to include an unavoidable reaction to neo-Jamesianism. Locating their provenance to political events on Cyprus, in such close proximity to the fact that Jewish violence in Cyprus was so severe that they were banned from setting foot on the island. Perhaps Pauline Christianity was an antidote to that hatred.
There aren't any good scholars for Roman era Assyria. Not until the Sassanid period. It's more or less a black hole, although there's plenty of circumstantial evidence. For instance, positing that Babylonian Jews rose up to defend Osroes because "Jews hated Rome and wanted revenge" is rather naive and ignores much important known nuance.