(October 24, 2019 at 4:38 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: So we have to account for the arrival, from within C1 Judaism, of a branch which believed that the long awaited Kingdom of God had been inaugurated;
Which, according to many NT scholars, started out as an earthly apocalyptic claim at the start (which wasn't that remarkable given other contemporary sources that were apocalyptic in theme as well), and then when things didn't occur as predicted, evolved to a more spiritual coming of the Kingdom.
Quote:that death had been defeated;
To me, this seems to be begging the question.
Quote:that resurrection (a fringe element within Judaism) was a thing and completely innovatively was in two parts;
Even if the belief itself was unique at the time and not very Jewish (and this is a big if), it served early Christianity well to hold to this as a central doctrine. The purported Messiah, after all, failed to save his people from the Roman occupants, as had been hoped for. The Resurrection thesis helped to rescue the early movement from this embarrassment.
Quote:that the universe, humanity and God's people had been freed; that the promise to Abraham had been completed; and that the forgiveness and exile of God's people had been enacted.
Again, feels like begging the question.
Quote:Quite a dynamite set of claims.
Depends on what you mean by "dynamite", lol. You made a set of claims, but the set itself doesn't do well in countering the alternative possible explanations I've proposed or some of the other alternatives that have been proposed. And the reason why is because some of the claims you made assume the Resurrection happened and the other claims didn't point to evidence that favors it against other alternative explanations.
