Was Christianity started by born Jews?

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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spin
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

Post by spin »

beowulf wrote:Professor Cook writes in his book Modern Jews Engage:
Christianity, still deeply bonded to Judaism, accepted and based itself on the Jewish scriptures...Replicating Judaism’s synagogue structure and its networking enabled Christianity to offer a cohesiveness that pagan religions (commonly organized as local enclaves) could not match.

Moreover, Judaism at this point in its history, was modelling a creative and successful missionary style that also allowed for attracting and accepting in a kind of secondary status, Gentiles whom it styled “God-fearers”. These shared the faith, the worship and the ethical commitment of Judaism but were not obliged to adult male circumcision or to full compliance with the dietary laws, and thus were not full converts.

When Christianity emerged, however, it promised Gentiles acceptance as full members while allowing them to bypass the barriers of Jewish dietary laws and circumcision.God-fearers became key agents in publicizing Christianity’s appeal among the pagans.
Professor Rabbi Michael J. Cook
Modern Jews Engage the New Testament
Jewish Lights Publishing Woodstock, Vermont, 2008
Pages 38ff
Great, a book. Now on what grounds does Cook make the claim that christianity replicated "Judaism's synagogue structure"? Does he try to show how "Judaism's synagogue structure" generically differ from Greek associations?
beowulf wrote:Did Christianity use the synagogue networking as a Trojan horse?
Just more gormless nonsense.
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beowulf
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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BENEDICTIONS OF THE AMIDA

SHIUR #63: Simanim 115-118
Pages 285-288

by Rav Asher Meir

12. MINIM (SHOVER OYVIM U-MAKHNIA ZEDIM): "And once judgment has been performed on the wicked, then there will be an end to the heresy [minut], including the malicious [zedim], as it is said (Yeshayahu 1) 'And the sinners and the transgressors are together shattered.'"
................................................
The inclusion of number 12, the blessing (really it is a kind of curse) regarding the heretics, is an anachronism in this passage since it was not arranged by the 120 elders but was added only much later with the unfortunate schism of Jews who attended synagogue but were really believers in Christianity.
http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/mb/63mb.htm
mheyvaer
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

Post by mheyvaer »

beowulf wrote:Was Christianity born Jewish?
Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen: Blessed are you: A comprehensive guide to Jewish prayer.
Page 37ff,
The original version [of the Amidah] as recited in ancient Palestine, and as discovered this century in the Cairo Genizah, represents a far more passionate condemnatory targeting of various groups who were a thorn in the flesh of the first century Jewish community in the holy land:

Ve-ha-notzrim ve-a minim ka rega yoveidu yimmachu mi-sefer ha chayyim ve-im tzaddikim al yikatevu ,and may the Christians and other heretics perish in an instant. May they be erased from the Book of Life, never to be inscribed with the righteous.


Our tame Babylonian version [of the Amidah]is to be explained quiet simply by the fact that Babylonian Jewry was never troubled by any of the schismatics referred to in the Palestinian version. They were no Christians in Babylonia where the Jews lived an independent autonomous existence under the largely tolerant and benign rule of successive Parthian and Persian dynasties”

Blessed are you
Jason Aronson Inc.Northvale,New Jersey.London,1993
My understanding of the Jewish creed is only basic but I can point out that Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen his description of Babylonia is very much incorrect, and therefore I could not trust any statement made about the origins of parts of the creed. first of all, there were christian communities present, both under the Parthian and under the Sassanian-Persian dynasty. second, these dynasties there rule was far from tolerant or benign, though for periods it was for Jews living in their empire. Apart from Christians, there was a vast number of groups throughout these centuries which was influenced by Jewish and/or Christian beliefs. From small sects with only a few people as member to important and well-known religions like Manichaeism. To state that Jews lived independently is to completely deny, or at least trying hard to ignore, the socio-cultural and religious exchanges which Babelonia is known for. As the situation is considerably different between Palestine and Babylonia, I can't simply make a case for either a tame or a more hardened version, but clearly neither can Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen.
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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The book was explaining the importance of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem in the first century: a heretic group with the power to change Judaism into some new alien form and to set brother against brother and so forth.


Alien influence is perceived by the author to be less threatening. Historians may think of Jews living in Britain today as an “independent autonomous community”.
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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Image

What people have to understand - and this is something of the inverse of what we find in Christianity - Judaism emerges as a religion which has through centuries of abuse embraced the notion that converting the Gentiles to their religion is a 'bad idea.' This is utterly incredible given that we see the exact opposite in the first two centuries of the common Era. More importantly the same pattern is observed in Samaritanism - i.e. Marqe references 'the making of proselytes' as matter of fact among contemporary Samaritans but the practice has been similarly abandoned by the Samaritan community.

It's like getting a man to stop getting aroused at pornography and violence (= Clockwork Orange). How did Jews and Samaritan abandon something allowed and theoretically encouraged in the latest strata of the Pentateuch? Some people act as if the Jews voluntarily avoided proselytes. This fucking stupid and only avoids admitting what is implicit in second and third century references to Imperial involvement in the Jewish cult - i.e. that the Roman state didn't like Jewish proselytism and took steps to 'encourage' Jews to give up on the practice.

In other words, what has emerged as 'Judaism' and 'Samaritan' is basically a patient that has been systematically electrocuted to avoid certain behaviors. But in its 'natural' state - i.e. the religion of the pre-Antonine period - Jews and Samaritans were actively converting everyone that would listen to them.

Christianity emerges from this culture of conversion. By the Antonine period - perhaps better the Commodian period specifically - a new Christian identity that was wholly divorced from Jewish practice emerged. I don't think there is 'Gentile Christianity' per se until 180 CE. Even Clement says Paul actively converted the Hebrews. Indeed you can substitute 'proselyte' wherever you see the term Hebrew being used as a description of a group of people.

And yes, I stand by my assertion that Marcionitism is properly defined as a radical Jewish messianism. It was not 'Gentile' in the idiotic manner that white people imagine 'Pauline' to mean. After all Tertullian tells us it was aimed at proselytes. How the fuck do normative scholars deal with this evidence and its implication on Paul? Oh of course - what a surprise. These jackasses ignore the evidence. It gets in the way of keeping everything neat and tidy.
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beowulf
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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Momigliano writes:


“It is our task to elucidate more precisely the meaning of Josephus’s twofold blindness about the synagogue and the widespread Jewish and Christian apocalyptic trends of his time...

The mere existence of a minimum of weekly reading and interpretation of the Bible in public seems to me a new departure in the religious life of the classical world...The mere fact that one had to study in order to be pious is a strange notion which made Judaism increasingly intellectual- not what cults were known for in the Greco-roman world.

It favoured separation of the learned from the ignorant and it caused (and allowed) basic doctrinal disagreements; in the end it introduced schism and excommunication....As it happened, one of the sects which developed in the atmosphere of Jerusalem was to replace the old religion of Rome and Athens”
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A_Nony_Mouse
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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[quote}Great, a book. Now on what grounds does Cook make the claim that christianity replicated "Judaism's synagogue structure"? Does he try to show how "Judaism's synagogue structure" generically differ from Greek associations?[/quote]

Frankly I would like to see archaeological evidence of synagogues prior to the destruction of the temple. I have read of lots of discoveries but none earlier than the 3rd c. AD. One would expect bibleland to be littered with them.
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spin
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

Post by spin »

A_Nony_Mouse wrote:
Great, a book. Now on what grounds does Cook make the claim that christianity replicated "Judaism's synagogue structure"? Does he try to show how "Judaism's synagogue structure" generically differ from Greek associations?
Frankly I would like to see archaeological evidence of synagogues prior to the destruction of the temple. I have read of lots of discoveries but none earlier than the 3rd c. AD. One would expect bibleland to be littered with them.
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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stephan happy huller wrote: Christianity emerges from this culture of conversion. By the Antonine period - perhaps better the Commodian period specifically - a new Christian identity that was wholly divorced from Jewish practice emerged. I don't think there is 'Gentile Christianity' per se until 180 CE. Even Clement says Paul actively converted the Hebrews. Indeed you can substitute 'proselyte' wherever you see the term Hebrew being used as a description of a group of people.

And yes, I stand by my assertion that Marcionitism is properly defined as a radical Jewish messianism. It was not 'Gentile' in the idiotic manner that white people imagine 'Pauline' to mean. After all Tertullian tells us it was aimed at proselytes. How the fuck do normative scholars deal with this evidence and its implication on Paul? Oh of course - what a surprise. These jackasses ignore the evidence. It gets in the way of keeping everything neat and tidy.
"Gentile Christianity" IS Christianity. It was from the "start" (whenever that was) -- that is what defined it as Christianity: watered-down Judaism for Greco-Roman Gentiles. Had it been Jewish, it would have been something akin to Pharisaic Judaism or whatever branch Philo represented. You certainly would not have had a complete repudiation and negation of Jews and the popular Jewish interpretation of the Bible that you have in the NT. Had it actually been Jewish, you would not have had the central tenet of "the Jews killed Lord Jesus and are the enemies of all men."

Clement's "Paul converted the Hebrews" is just legendary nonsense. Just like Eusebius's "Hebrew Bishops" in 1st century Jerusalem.

This isn't hard. Gentiles converted to Judaism: they were called proselytes and theosobeis. Over time, proselytes and theosobeis broke away, interpreted the texts to their own ideas, made it more appealing to gentiles, melded it into a generic "universal" religion that everyone (but Jews) would want to join. Voila. Christianity.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Re: Was Christianity started by born Jews?

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Blood wrote:
stephan happy huller wrote:"Gentile Christianity" IS Christianity. It was from the "start" (whenever that was) -- that is what defined it as Christianity: watered-down Judaism for Greco-Roman Gentiles. Had it been Jewish, it would have been something akin to Pharisaic Judaism or whatever branch Philo represented. You certainly would not have had a complete repudiation and negation of Jews and the popular Jewish interpretation of the Bible that you have in the NT. Had it actually been Jewish, you would not have had the central tenet of "the Jews killed Lord Jesus and are the enemies of all men."

Clement's "Paul converted the Hebrews" is just legendary nonsense. Just like Eusebius's "Hebrew Bishops" in 1st century Jerusalem.

This isn't hard. Gentiles converted to Judaism: they were called proselytes and theosobeis. Over time, proselytes and theosobeis broke away, interpreted the texts to their own ideas, made it more appealing to gentiles, melded it into a generic "universal" religion that everyone (but Jews) would want to join. Voila. Christianity.
You certainly would not have had a complete repudiation and negation of Jews and the popular Jewish interpretation of the Bible that you have in the NT.
That makes perfect sense. Now let me address the premise. This is not intended to argue that Jesus was real only that there is a different context for the Christian narrative. Of course you have to reject the idea there is any truth at all in the magical tales of the Septuagint which is reasonable to expect of adults.

From Josephus we read that the Judeans conquered the Galileans and forced them to adopt the Yahu cult practices including specifically circumcision. Jesus and 11 of the 12 were Galileans. Forced converts. They were put under the obligation of obedience to the tyrannical priests and their taxation by force of arms. Who is Jesus constantly pissed at? Those priests. Yes, he rejects Judean ideas and teachings from the Septuagint, the book which gives them the power of summary execution for violating even the most nonsensical of the hundreds of laws. (One expects fines were always a way out of execution, aka extortion.)

Is this not something we might expect from an oppressed people? Simply condemnation of their oppressors and their authority?

So if one still insists the magical tales of the Septuagint are true and the Galileans were all originally some tribe of Israel and devout followers from time immemorial the Jesus story makes no sense. If on the other hand we accept Josephus we have a perfectly understandable story of the response of an oppressed people to their oppressors.

And it goes further. The response of the priests to Jesus is all out of proportion to a street magician wonder worker no matter how big his crowds. Just send in some novice priests to crack skulls if they get out of hand. But as a potential leader of a revolt of all of Galilee against Judea he was a greater threat than any immediate success. It is trying to start a revolt as opposed to leading a revolt just under the surface for centuries.

Is this the backstory or context of the New Testament? I merely offer it for consideration. But NO PLACE does it say Jesus was a Jew or Judean. Every place it makes a point of saying he was a Galilean. Nazareth is in the Galilee. In those days Jew meant only Judean. It had not a religious name or designation, again from Josephus. {Yes, spin, when I do a formal paper on this there will be footnotes.}

But Jesus did teach a conception of God as father who actually cared for individuals. This is contrary to the Judean god who was solely interested in the people as a whole and other tribal concepts. I have NO source for anything the Galileans might have thought about their chief god before being conquered so it is purely speculation to suggest the gospels have Jesus simply expressing the old Galilean ideas. However this does not require a very human, illiterate, uneducated Jesus to invent a new theology. He simply repeats the old time religion. And it has no priests or intercessors between the individual and the god, the oppressors are out of work.
The religion of the priests is not the religion of the people.
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