Gamaliel Never Existed

[DeistPaladin]

We can start to piece lots of things together now...

How about this as an alternate scenario:

The Jewish people considered themselves specially blessed as a chosen people of God with a divine promise that the line of David would rule eternally. They had to reconcile that theology with the harsh reality of being the province of various empires, from the Selucids to the Romans. Someone had to explain what happened to that covenant.

The ancient Hebrews were not only occupied by different foreign pagan empires but they also were at the crossroads of three continents. Further, they already had an established history of adopting the myths and folklore of other nations. The "flood" myth of Genesis likely came from the epic adventures of Gilgamesh. Early Hebrew books deny the existence of the afterlife (see Sheol) but later books had vague ideas of an afterlife (see the story of Samuel and King Saul) which seemed reminiscent of Greek ideas of Hades. The character Satan was once the punisher working for Yahweh (in the OT) and later changed to be the nemesis of Yahweh in the NT.

Furthermore, the new religion, Christianity, had as many pagan concepts as Jewish. The very ideas of an afterlife or an intercessor with the divine were pagan concepts. The "messiah" offered by Christians is nothing like what the Jews defined.

So we've established the Jews were open to influence from other cultures. We've established that some of the elements of Christianity are either foreign or, in some cases, blasphemous to the Jewish faith.

Then we have the real history of Christianity itself. There was not one Jesus or one Christianity but many. The Ebionites, Marcionites, Docetics, Valentians, Arians and others all had their own ideas of what Jesus was, when he lived, whether he was a real flesh-and-blood being, how many gods there were, whether to honor the OT and what the path to salvation would be.

Finally, we have the total dearth of evidence contemporary with Jesus' supposed miracles and the supposedly successful, famous and controversial ministry. Evidently, nobody considered Jesus noteworthy in his own lifetime. Even the Gospels weren't penned until at least 70 CE.

Put it all together, and here's my proposed scenario:

A sect of Jews decided the promised kingdom was in a higher world, were influenced by pagan concepts of a divine intercessor and thought this being would vanquish the Romans (see Revelation, the earliest NT book). The early Jesus was a celestial king, born in Heaven to rule on earth. Eventually, this Jesus' birth was moved to earth so he might rule in Heaven. At first, these stories were parables but later people started thinking of them as true stories. "Paul", if he didn't exist, was the poster prophet for the second century Marcion, who was later co-opted by the Trinitarians much the same way they co-opted John the Baptist. The triumphant Chruch, now ruling Rome, wrote history as they saw fit. The rest is history.