Mythology 101

[Jenny A]

I have only read the reviews on this book. The author is a scholar, but his views don't seem to be accepted yet. He claims that pre-Rabbinical Judaism was actually very diverse and there was a proto-Christian branch awaiting a figure like Jesus. So Christianity didn't evolve after Jesus; it evolved before Jesus. The author's claim makes a lot of sense to me, but apparently it isn't widely accepted yet.

In short, every idea in early Christianity is to be found in the variety of Judiasms of the first century. There were Jewish groups who built their Judaism on Daniel, on Isaiah, and the ideas of Qumran. The Pseudepigrapha was not just a funky alternative to our midrashic narratives, rather they were people’s lived version of Torah
...
There was widespread bi-theism or binitarianism within Judaism where Jews perceived God as an unknown God and a lower logos of God. The ideas of a complex godhead (a God with two or three persons) have their origins in the Judaism of Jesus’ time and before him. Many, perhaps most, Jews were expecting a Redeemer who was an anthropomorphic divine being, known as the Son of Man.

https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2012/03/0...sh-gospel/

Interesting. A suffering redeemer is certainly is closer to what Christians imagined after the fact of crucifixion than I had understood the Jewish view to be.

Despite strong objections from conservative Christian apologists, the prevailing rabbinic interpretation of Isaiah 53 ascribes the “servant” to the nation of Israel who silently endured unimaginable suffering at the hands of its gentile oppressors. The speakers, in this most-debated chapter, are the stunned kings of nations who will bear witness to the messianic age and the final vindication of the Jewish people following their long and bitter exile. “Who would have believed our report?,” the astonished and contrite world leaders wonder aloud in dazed bewilderment (53:1).

* * *

Simply put, there are 15 verses in the Targum’s annotation on Isaiah 53 (52:13-15 and 53:1-12), yet with surgical precision, missionary conversionist tracts selectively and deliberately ignore almost all of them with the exception of the first verse on Isaiah 52:13. This is a well-worn technique of wielding rabbinic literature as an evangelical sledgehammer, in order to drive home the well-crafted message to unlettered Jews that ancient rabbis concealed the truth that Isaiah 53 is speaking of Jesus, and not the nation of Israel. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth.

https://outreachjudaism.org/gods-sufferi...isaiah-53/

There is consensus though that the Jews were not a unified faith by the time of Jesus, and probably never were a unified faith--sects, sects, many many sects.

To add to the confusion, what the Jews meant by "Son of Man" and "Son of God" are quite different than the modern Christian interpretation. "Son of God" is used in the OT to refer to favored representatives of god such as David, Saul, Solomon, etc. There is no implication that they are biological sons of god, only god favored men. So when Jesus said he was the "Son of God" those listening to him understood that differently than Christians reading gospels today.

The "Son of Man" on the other hand, meant the messiah to the Jews.

You can see how interpretations could change rapidly in the hands of Gentiles who were unfamiliar with the Jew scriptures.