Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

robert j wrote:
Paul’s Messiah

Paul’s Christ was a cosmic salvific figure. A spirit destined to appear on a cloud similar to the one like a son-of man in Daniel (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and Daniel 7:13). According to Paul, his Christ was coming in the very near future --- in the end --- to gather the living and the dead believers and sweep them to heaven to join all-in-all with god. (1Corinthians 15:22-28).

Who needs an earthly priest or a warrior-liberator when those in Christ will soon be whooshed-off to heaven?

Paul’s Christ humbled himself and died for the sake of mankind.

“… he humbled himself, having become obedient unto death …” (Philippians 2:8)

“… Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures …” (1 Corinthians 15:3)

"… And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? … This one bears our sins and suffers pain for us … he was wounded because of our acts of lawlessness … by his bruise we were healed … and the Lord gave him over to our sins … like a sheep he was led to the slaughter … and he bore the sins of many, and because of their sins he was given over." (Isaiah, chapter 53, NETS).

What if the Pauline texts were written in the 2nd century? After the bar Kochba revolt?

after "acts of lawlessness', ..after "the Lord gave him over to our sins …like a sheep he was led to the slaughter", ..after "we were healed" ...

robert j wrote:
Paul’s Christ was not a warrior-king anointed by god to restore the glory of the kingdom --- nor a priestly figure anointed by god to restore an earthly domain that would be pleasing to god for the people of Israel --- nor a human liberator destined to throw-off the yoke of foreign domination from the Jewish homelands.

• but the precursor to a 2nd century Pauline Christ might have been those things.

Edited: -

robert j wrote: Paul’s Christ was the lord (Greek: kyrios), a sovereign, the heavenly ruler and master. It was the author of Mark that brought Paul’s cosmic spirit [back] down to earth as he created his tale and placed the events in ... the Galilee and Judea [in the 1st century AD/CE].

“… who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, "You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29).

The messianic label became even more specific in John with the use of the Greek transliteration “messias” in John 1:41 and 4:25. The tales in both Mark and John are generally considered to have been written primarily for Gentile audiences.

In the very wide and diverse world of second-temple Judaism, there were precedents of those suffering or dying for their own salvation and for the benefit of a people or nation --- in both the Jewish scriptures and the Apocrypha. Here are a couple of examples in addition to the important passages from Isaiah chapter 53 cited above ...

and, of course, in Simon Bar Kochba we have a real-life potential precedent to the NT books, albeit post 2nd Temple.

robert j wrote: Neil Gillman argues that the following well-known passage in Daniel was intended as reassurance that those “pious Jews” that had “been martyred precisely because they were loyal to God and Torah” in the tumultuous events and persecutions of the author’s time had not died in vain (The Death of Death, 1997, pp. 86-89).

“And many of those who sleep in the flat of the earth will arise, some to everlasting life but others to shame and others to dispersion [and contempt] everlasting.” (Daniel 12:2, NETS version).

In 2 and 4 Maccabees, the martyred brothers brought redemption to the nation in the 2nd-century BC revolt. The consensus dating for 4 Maccabees is from the turn of the Common Era (or earlier) to sometime prior to the destruction of the temple. And 4 Maccabees is dependent upon an earlier 2 Maccabees (or a non-extant document on which 2 Maccabees was dependent). The legends and thoughts in these documents were contemporary with the development of early Christian thought.

Mysticism, soteriology, eschatology, and messianic expectations are often intertwined. Paul’s mystical sharing with his Christ --- and the salvation provided by the belief in his Christ spirit when the end comes and that spirit descends and sweeps the faithful to heaven --- differs significantly from the traditional view held by many today of Jewish expectations of a human messiah.

In a world where the Jewish people were awash in Hellenistic influences, their homelands dominated by foreigners, and no priestly or warrior liberators had successfully restored the Israel of God --- someone found a spiritual salvation in the sacred scrolls. But ironically, the widest trail left from the spread of this "good news" was among the Gentiles.

Kris wrote:Neil, if you don't believe that messiahism was the driver, why do you believe that Jesus was placed in the first half of the century?

Interesting question. To begin, I don't see any indications that the gospels are drawing upon historical memory in their setting of the Jesus narrative. Even their Pilate is anything but the historical Pilate. (His role and character are literary-theological necessities.)

And the gospels don't support the view of popular messianism at the time.The scene in the GMark where people are asking "who is this guy?" sets up a society where people are evidently not expecting a messiah. I have argued that the gospel of Matthew likewise assumes people at the time of Jesus' birth were unfamiliar with messianic expectations.

As for John the Baptist, there is some question whether this scenario was at the original opening of Mark's gospel. (Recall Roger Parvus.) Even if it was original to Mark's gospel, it does not recall history. It sets up a theological link between the Prophets and Jesus, the old and the new. JtB is himself a literary pastiche of Elijah tropes. He is not the JtB found in Josephus -- Josephus effectively as good as denies he was an apocalyptic prophet.


There is some evidence that it took a little while before the setting of our canonical gospels became the standard for the Jesus narrative. Other early ideas, iirc, had Jesus crucified by Herod and the Jews (GPeter), Justin indicates he understood that Jerusalem was destroyed immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus, and then there is the view that Jesus lived till 50 years of age.

I like to think that the setting in the time of Pilate nicely functioned as a convenient starting point as a generation before the fall of Jerusalem.

If the story emerged post 70, it made sense to set such a tale in the generation prior. It was a tale of a person who came unrecognized, and whose credentials were only proven by a miracle that only few knew about, the resurrection -- but who was publicly vindicated only by the fall of the Temple and the new society that thereby replaced the old kingdom of the Judeans.

As such it was set in a time before anyone could remember and that was especially theologically meaningful.

Later evangelists, Matthew and Luke, added the details of how he fulfilled so many prophecies. And from there the idea developed among many Christians that all the OT prefigured Jesus, etc.

Just thoughts.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:Again what are your (primary) sources?

neilgodfrey wrote:The same as anyone else uses.

spin wrote:And they are?

Oh spin, do stop playing your silly games. Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine and we'll find they are the same! There, is that an appropriate playful matching response?

I'd just like to get out of this rehashing of secondary sources to find out what your claims are fundamentally based on.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:Literature of the period belonged to communities. Scribes worked for people who paid them. For there to be texts with explicit information about messianism, there needs to be communities behind them. We have signs of at least two communities supporting messianism, that behind 1QS and behind Psalms of Solomon.

neilgodfrey wrote:What do you mean by "messianism"?

spin wrote:See PsSol 17:21-42 for some understanding of the Jewish messianic thought. I think it should give a notion of "messianism" and some notion of my understanding of the term.

But that's not what I asked. I asked what YOU mean by "messianism". The reason for my question is that we are discussing a particular question that I set out in three points in the OP. I was beginning to think you might have been starting to shift goal posts by discussing something else.

The basic notions of Jewish messianism are to be found there. It is the sort of material on which my understanding of messianism is derived from, ie what I mean by messianism. You asked what I meant and I pointed you to a source that would help you. Stop flapping around.

neilgodfrey wrote:In the context of the OP "messianism" of any relevance for me means those three points in the OP.

When you ask me what I mean by messianism, it is irrelevant what you want to talk a bout in the thread. It might not be what you want to talk about, so why ask the question?

neilgodfrey wrote:But just pulling out a chapter and verse to answer a question such as this is essentially the form of proof-texting. It only convinces if the text carries all your baggage for you. You need to explain how your text answers the three-point question.

Stop playing little dictator. You might be better off not asking questions that you don't want to hear the answers for. Your topic is not about messianism per se at all, so asking me what I mean by messianism is irrelevant to your topic.

neilgodfrey wrote:Clue: PsSolomon 17 doesn't. The messianic figure in the Psalms of Solomon is not primarily a military conqueror but a scribe filled with wisdom. There is a passage depicting him slaying his enemies with "the word is his mouth" -- interesting metaphor, not a literal sword. He is the ideal king who does not multiply horses and chariots but who rules through the study of the word, like a scribe-king.

How does he destroy the godless nations? With a conquering army? It says "with the word of his mouth".

By an act of god.

neilgodfrey wrote:Now let's get back to literary functions, metaphors, apocalyptic and wisdom imagery, etc.

But if you take it literally and see a messianic figure who begins his career by the grace of God sitting on the throne in Jerusalem slaying all enemies around about, then I submit that that is a different notion from the "messianic movement" of the sort said to infuse the Judeans looking for a king out to take over the throne in his own power and from there militarily liberate/destroy the world.

Fervent believers are good at midrash.

neilgodfrey wrote:The image in the Psalms of Solomon is one of an idealistic but indefinite future time. It is a hope for readers that "in the end" all will be well.

There is nothing in the Psalm to give us cause to think that it inspired the imaginations of Judeans wholesale so that they were all ready to follow any upstart coming along to be the fulfillment of that Solomon figure who was going to slay all the wicked with his miraculous voice.

You'll note that what you are describing is quite like the one like a son of man in Dan 7 who doesn't do anything, yet the enemies of Israel are vanquished

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:In synagogues texts were read out for the community present and then interpreted according to rabbinical understanding. The interpreter became known as meturgeman and was probably paid by the community. It was his job to communicate the ideas in the literature.

That's all very interesting but it tells us nothing about the question we are discussing.

The delivery mechanism for how ordinary people learned about the contents of literary works is of no interest to you in this thread, when you are trying to separate ordinary people from the content of books. This was why you were trying to confound communities with schools and taking about elites. Can you concentrate?

neilgodfrey wrote:The question is not "how" the Judeans were taught by the literate class. It is whether a particular belief came to have a certain significant sociological impact in the early first century.

Do you think synagogues functioned differently in the first century??

neilgodfrey wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:Communities/schools...

spin wrote:Blurring terms.

Ah, you trapped me then! Very clever. You used the two terms but then said you prefer "schools" to "communities" and I was attempting to accommodate both so you can choose the one you prefer.

Be good, Neil. I talked about communities having texts, you know, the community behind the unique DSS and the community behind the PsSol. You attempted to obfuscate the fact by talking of scribal elites, a notion that has no currency in the era we are dealing with and blurring communities with (scribal) schools.

neilgodfrey wrote:If this particular point is so significant for addressing the question of the OP then fire away.....

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:...are also a hypothetical construct that do need justification. I can well expect a community/school of scribal elites around the Psalms of Solomon.

Can you? Why are you belting "scribal elites"? Where did you get the idea from and why inject it here? A scribe is a worker whose skills were hired.

You are getting lost in little gotcha games, spin, and getting distracted from the question. I use the term "scribal elites" as the way it is used in this context in the literature. But I'd rather not go down these pettifogging attempts to deflect from the main question. You yourself said every text had a community (or school) behind it.

Ass covering rhetoric won't change the fact that you are avoiding issues that relate to your topic, which I understand to partly deal with the possibility of widespread belief in a messiah. Different communities demonstrating belief in a messiah points to some notion of widespread.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:Can we justify extending that community beyond such a group? And even limiting ourselves to that scribal elite -- what does PsSolomon tell us about the attitude of those scribes towards a belief that a messiah was about to appear very soon in the early first century?

How the hell should I know: you are not talking to me or reading what I said. You're seem bent on making me a prop in your performance art.

I think you have lost sight of the OP being discussed.

I have already demonstrated that you are not concentrating.

neilgodfrey wrote:I'm glad you can interpret my efforts to avoid following your digressions as performance art.

How the hell should you know? That's my point exactly. You seem not to have grasped the what the OP is about and are now resorting to cat and mouse games.

I like irony as well as the next person, but this is a bit thick.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:As for the DSS and the community, school, whatever you want to call the group associated with any text, my point has been that such a group cannot be equated with or considered representative of the attitudes of the wider Judean population.

You can assert that, but that's as far as you could get. As it stands, the PsSol were not a DSS. They reflected some other community from the yahad. Hence at least two communities. The yahad was a social entity with a large number of members. They were not scribes. But they were a community which formed an association in order to support and foster their community.

Yes, spin, I know you know a lot about the societies and I really am impressed. But focussing on such details is missing the point.

Not dealing with your own subject is an interesting approach. Not dealing with the upshot of what you say is just evasion.

neilgodfrey wrote:We are not interested in the "how" teaching worked and through what channels. We are interested in whether we have any evidence for a particular idea capturing the imaginations and emotions of a widespread community at a particular time in history.

Baby and bathwater moment. Forget you ever tried to say anything about scribes and blurring it with communities so as to belittle the notion of communities thus allowing you to ignore evidence for some sense of widespread awareness of messianism. You don't seem to want to know about it.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:but they are not evidence for popular preoccupations. . . . I wonder if you expect me to be arguing something I am not interested in arguing.

No. I'm pointing out you didn't say anything meaningful in the statement. Assertions that have no opportunity to be falsified are funny that way.

Once again the condescending spin emerges . . .

Giving your waltzing around over an initial misrepresentation on your part ("Scribal communities yes, but they are not evidence for popular preoccupations."), it's interesting that when I make a statement of fact concerning unfalsifiable assertions you obfuscate by feigning indignation at your straw claim of condescension. Ignoring your inappropriate addition of "scribal" in the comment I just cited of yours, a plurality of communities is evidence for some degree of popular preoccupations.

neilgodfrey wrote:The assertion being made is the one found assumed in much of the scholarly and popular literature -- including by people here -- and you. You are the ones making the assertion about a particular historical reconstruction.

You've lost the thread of what we were talking about.

neilgodfrey wrote:My point has been that the assertion does not bear scrutiny. The texts cited do not support the historical reconstruction that has become conventional wisdom.

That polarizing dialectic again. The texts cited represent different communities. Deal with it.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:Josephus is specific that the Jews thought the prophecy specifically indicated that the king (their king) would come out of Israel. That's a clear allusion to Num 24:17.

neilgodfrey wrote:I covered that in the OP.

spin wrote:I asked you to cite the material, because I can't see where you did.

I'm not interested in playing mouse to your cat, spin.

Jesus, Neil, stop the slippery eel. You said no such thing in your OP. You might have thought you did, but forgot to include it. Who knows? At present it seems you are talking BS.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:Perhaps you could supply a better known messianic alternative. (And I didn't speculate on why Josephus did not use χριστος in his works.))

neilgodfrey wrote:"Messianic" alternative?

spin wrote:Alternative to the obvious connection of the king coming from Israel to Num 24:17. If you are so hellbent in nixxing the connection, you should be able to provide an alternative.

Ah, now we see it's "your turn" to play the polarizing game, the either/or set up. No spin (sigh) I never "nixed" the connection.

Ah, an attempted tu quoque! But it's just a misrepresentation involving the process I was talking about with an assumed fait accompli.

neilgodfrey wrote:You just can't be bothered reading what Josephus wrote in the lines leading up to his "ambiguous prophecy" to get the context.

That's simply wrong. You are just ignoring what was said to you:

Do you note that sentence, He said "more than all else"? It was a response to your earlier complaint ("The prophecy is coupled with another from a source that is apparently non-canonical. "). The prophecy we are dealing with is the one that was "more than all else", not the one mentioned before it.

neilgodfrey wrote:I explained what the alternative is. If you can't take a "we don't know" as an answer and insist that everything must be either from the BIble or an identifiable noncanonical source then you the one limiting your options.

I'm extremely familiar with "we don't know", as I've already indicated in this thread. This is not one of those cases. You may wish to ignore the context of messianic speculation in both the DSS and the era of bar Kochba involving Num 24:17, but that is at your peril.

neilgodfrey wrote:I don't know where the prophecy came from: the context gives me reason to be unsure. Have you read the context?
It may be an allusion to Numbers 24.
Even if it is an allusion to Numbers 24 a "messianic" association in the minds of Josephus and his Judeans needs to be argued, not assumed.
Even if we do conclude it is "messianic" in the mind of Josephus etc, we need to argue its relevance to the point of the OP.

So when Josephus says, "more than all else incited them [the Jews] to war was an ambiguous oracle", you cannot see the relevance of "the Jews" being "incited" by this "ambiguous oracle", the notion of "the Jews" here does not reflect a claim of widespread awareness of messianism and its motivation to action, ie directly on topic??

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:Why? I pointed to the context and the grounds for uncertainty in the OP.

My response last post was "Perhaps you could quote the relevant part." You might do so this time.

I set out the OP. You want me to write up a special one just for you after you came in saying you had not paid much attention to it.

I did not ask you to write something different. I think you don't seem to know what you wrote anymore, so I asked you to "quote the relevant part". That requires no extra writing, just a simple cut-&-paste of the specific section would be fine.

neilgodfrey wrote:Sorry. Don't come into the class until you do your homework. (Though thanks to your earlier complaint I have since edited some erroneous cut and paste in the OP.)

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:The prophecy is coupled with another from a source that is apparently non-canonical.

Josephus says in BJ 6.312, "But more than all else incited them to war was an ambiguous oracle, likewise found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world." He said "more than all else". Still seems like a simple midrash on Num 24:17.

And indeed it may be. "May" be. But you are ignoring the contexts -- both textual and political. And ignoring any discussion of its relevance to the OP.

It seems you've forgotten the topic. Josephus clearly indicates a claim regarding the ubiquity of messianism. Deal with it constructively, bald assertions aside.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:We also have the political motivations for Josephus (and Vespasian) to make a very big deal of the prophecy.

But do you have anything beyond this conjecture?

Conjecture? I assumed you would be familiar with the arguments given your background in studies of ancient Roman history.

The conjecture being that the prophecy's use here somehow invalidates Josephus's claim regarding the Jews.

neilgodfrey wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:And correct, I don't see evidence that messianic speculation was involved in motivating Jewish action in the war. But that's another topic and I don't think it is relevant for the early first century.

spin wrote:It is part of this topic if you want to talk about evidence for a wider interest in messianism than your closeting attempts.

neilgodfrey wrote:Too time consuming. No, I am only interested in addressing early first century here. The causes of the war are another topic entirely. But I am heavily influenced by Steve Mason's latest.

spin wrote:So it's not really that you don't think it's relevant, but that it's too time consuming. Josephus makes the claim that belief in a prophecy was responsible for Jews acting as they did in the war. He is making a statement that speaks directly to the issue you are dealing with, the reputed widespread nature of messianic awareness.

No, it is irrelevant.

You haven't shown it to. You merely try to handwave away what Josephus says.

neilgodfrey wrote:And it is too time consuming to bother with discussions that are side-issues. Convince me it's not a side issue and then I'll be obligated.

If you don't think indications of widespread belief in messianism in Josephus is not directly dealing with "widespread/popular expectations [in OP]" concerning messianism, perhaps you need to rethink your understanding of the topic.

neilgodfrey wrote:I see you have read two of the three points in the OP, spin. That's a start. Take your time, but when ready do read the opening paragraph -- the one where I set out the parameters. Then have a look at point 3. Complicated, I know. An OP that requires one to read an opening statement!

Is "trajectory" in your dictionary? We have a clear claim of widespread expectation in Josephus and a plurality of communities in the 1st c. BCE. If Josephus's claim represents reality, it points to a growing awareness between the two time constraints.

neilgodfrey wrote:(I know I didn't tell you to read the opening paragraph earlier. That was my oversight. But do read it now. It's where the whole OP is coming from.)

spin wrote:I made no such suggestion. You are not proposing an alternative to mine, but to some notion you hold to be the status quo and in so doing it seems to me you are reducing the alternatives to just two: the status quo and your negation of it, the polarization. That at least is the impression I receive. I admitted, "I don't know how widespread messianic speculation was in the 1st c."

You beg the question when you say you don't know "how widespread messianic speculation was" in 1C.

That's called eisegesis. It's based on a poor analysis of an English grammatical crux. When one asks "how tall is he?" it does not imply that he is tall. He may in fact be extremely short. Now be good and recycle that back to "how widespread...".

neilgodfrey wrote:You seem to find it problematic that anyone should point to the evidence used to support a common assumption and say, hey, there's nothing here to support that assumption at all. Why is that such a problematic position to take?

I don't see how this is relevant to what you indicate you are responding to.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:If that's the way you want to interpret an attempt to justify conclusions through normative historical methods then so be it. You speak of trajectories of evidence but I see trajectories of texts/data that cannot be presumed (without clear justification) to inform us about extra-textual social attitudes at a particular time in history. My hypothesis is as tentative as anyone else's.

I cited texts.

You did indeed. I don't deny the trajectory. Stop being so defensive. My sentence that began "You speak of trajectories of evidence but I see trajectories of texts/data that cannot be presumed . . . . " did not end there. Read the rest of it.

You could have simply cited the whole sentence. You have such trouble citing yourself.

I guess the attempted obfuscations regarding schools and communities and assertions about the claims of Josephus are what go to the goalpost shifting need for "clear justification".

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:My impression of the publications that have made the same sorts of arguments as I have presented here is that they are engaging in normal productive debate in a positive way. I see debate as a positive. I don't really understand why you seem to see disagreement or difference as a negative. Perhaps a discussion of historical methods would be useful to understand better where each of us is coming from.

I feel happier drawing conclusions regarding issues we have more substantive data for.

This is my point exactly! I am saying that the common assumption has no substantive data from which to draw.

Back to the baby and the bathwater. I would say "little" rather than "no". I have never supported the common assumption, but I'd say here at BC&H it is better to get the reality of the situation out rather than simply expressing your firm opposition to a tenuous status quo view.

neilgodfrey wrote:

spin wrote:I think it interesting that Paul opts for calling his savior the "messiah" despite the fact that his Jesus doesn't fit the mold. It indicates a willingness to use the notion of messianism to attract converts and Gal 3 shows his converts were conversant with complex Jewish notions that he could write midrash for. One doesn't use obscure notions in that regard.

neilgodfrey wrote:Paul is another area of great interest and complexity in this discussion.

spin wrote:He seems to me to be capitalizing on the currency of the messianic notion, doesn't he?

He does indeed. Now what is that messianic notion, I wonder....

Aqiba's response to bar Kochba is an indicator of the tradition.

That was far too long and time wasting. Neil, I think you understand my position: I don't know how widespread messianism was, but we have a few indicators that suggest some idea. They are not solid, but they should not be ignored or swept under the carpet. Enjoy your thread.

neilgodfrey wrote:And the gospels don't support the view of popular messianism at the time.The scene in the GMark where people are asking "who is this guy?" sets up a society where people are evidently not expecting a messiah.

I don't think this argument is conclusive, leaving aside the question for a moment that the gospels are probably dealing with post-70CE sensitivities. While the Jesus/Barabbas scene is different in each of the gospels and, consequently, deals with different themes, it seems clear to me that, in gMark, the scene specifically deals with the question "what kind of messiah are people expecting". The people decide for Barabbas, the messiah of war. The connection with Yom Kippur imagery gives further nuances, which are however of no specific interest here.


A general comment on the thread: While the original question of the thread yields a negative answer, simply from the very limited way the question was worded, I don't think this answer is overly meaningful. While I generally like the approach to start from an assumption that something doesn't exist if we don't have direct evidence for it, I also see the flip side that expectations of some kind of messiah can be proven for the periods directly before and after the early first century. As such, any conclusion that there were no messianic expectations stands on weak ground. I don't think we can know this.

neilgodfrey wrote:

Kris wrote:Neil, if you don't believe that messiahism was the driver, why do you believe that Jesus was placed in the first half of the century?

I like to think that the setting in the time of Pilate nicely functioned as a convenient starting point as a generation before the fall of Jerusalem.

If the story emerged post 70, it made sense to set such a tale in the generation prior. It was a tale of a person who came unrecognized, and whose credentials were only proven by a miracle that only few knew about, the resurrection -- but who was publicly vindicated only by the fall of the Temple and the new society that thereby replaced the old kingdom of the Judeans.

As such it was set in a time before anyone could remember and that was especially theologically meaningful.

A very big ''If'' indeed......

I find attempts to discount, or nullify, early first century Jewish history as having relevance to the Jesus story simply astonishing. Back-dating later ideas to an earlier specific time frame would have meaning if these backdated ideas contributed, added insight, developed, an understanding of that earlier historical time period.

To assume the gospel writers backdated ideas because they were fearful their story would not hold water if it was set post 70 c.e. - is to discredit these writers.

Updates, new insights, are part and parcel of historical research.

Arguing over how many people at any one time held such and such an idea or expectation is a fruitless debate. How widespread does an idea have to be before it reaches relevance for understanding the gospel story? Who makes that numerical decision?

It's impossible to know how many people hold any specific view. That's a fact not a myth. Mind-reading is not yet a science.

===================

Perhaps your OP - Myth of widespread messianic expectations early first C - should have been titled -
Myth of widespread messianic movements early first C - then you could have had a debate on your hands. There is no logical debate possible over the relevance of numbers in the context of belief. Its only when belief is translated into action, into 'movements', that numbers begin to have relevance.

my formating

neilgodfrey wrote:This topic is...about the historical evidence we have or don't have (that is the question) for:

• widespread/popular expectations

• of the appearance of a messiah figure to liberate Judea from Rome

• in the early years of the first century, let's say up to around year 30 CE

...The evidence for such a social phenomenon at that time and place simply does not exist...

Although I responded to this thread with historical evidence (e.g. Deuteronomy 18:18-22, DSS 11Q13, contemporary writings of the era, etc.) of an anticipated messiah in the first century A.D., the author of the o.p. discounted it as if he is the sole arbitrator of what evidence can or can not be validated on his thread.

A self-serving game with an ever moving goal post and changing of the rules is not one that I care to play any longer.

With that, I am done on this thread.

Neil: I know what you mean. This alleged truism of history has a real Sunday School apologetics ring to it. I remember reading somewhere that between 100 BCE and Bar Kochba there were "at least one hundred claimants" to messiahship. But where does this come from?
Novenson might have looked harder in the Pauline epistles to support the notion that Paul was advocating for a non-militaristic, non-Davidic "Christos". (Doesn't it seem Roger Parvus was on to something when he posited the Vision of Isaiah as foundational protochristianity, much as Earl Doherty does? There The Beloved is a wholesale nonincarnational heavenly entity. And note a kind of Pauline disparagement of "the flesh" therein!)
Paul says, "for the Spirit is at war with the flesh, and the flesh with the Spirit," AND "of David's stock, according to the flesh." That is to say that we might be wrong just in assuming that Paul was favorable to a Davidic understanding of the origin of the Christ, because given his low estimate of the spiritual validity of anything "kata sarka," he may be referring to a Jewish or 'alternate gospel' not his own. (There is other interesting evidence for this: Dr. Price's argument that GMark was an allegory penned by a Pauline Christian for a Pauline gospel finds support in the amazing pericope where Jesus uses the Psalm to show deductively that the Messiah could NOT be David's son; and note too a BLIND Bartimaeus misidentifying Jesus as a "Son of David.").

If I understand well what James says, the first people to emphasize the legend of an "expected" military Messiah "among the Jews" were just the Christians, in order so to emphasize, by direct contrast to the (by them fabricated) opinion of the hoi polloi, the greatness of the SPIRITUAL Messiah.

So we have a SINNER Jesus coming from Nazaret, therefore raising the paradox that the invented prophet of the coming military Messiah, JtB, purifies by baptism just the military messiah himself (insofar he is davidic, i.e. from Nazaret).

If there wasn't the Christianity, not a Jew would have talked about the coming military messiah.

The baptism of Jesus purifies his unique sin: to come from Nazaret, i.e. to be davidic messiah kata sarka.