(June 8, 2015 at 8:11 am)Rhythm Wrote: What else would the first christians be? "Paul" if you'll recall......was the apostle to the gentiles. They went out of house because the inhouse crowd wasn't buying their bullshit Lek. They continue to await the messiah. The answer to your question "who else would the first christians have been?"-is, in truth, just about anybody -except- jews. The early christing business wasn't picky, the jews were. Judaism isn;t really all that well represented in christianity. That it's a jewish offshoot sect is more a convention of the literary lineage of god claims, than of the origins of their contents or the geneology of it's early adherents.
While it is true that the majority of Jews never accepted christianity, the first christians were definitely Jews. The twelve apostles were all Jews, as well as the three thousand converts on Pentecost day. It was agreed that Paul would go to the gentiles and the other apostles would remain with the Jews.
Quote:The question can be framed further back, of course....who were the first jews? As it so happens there is a similarity between the first jews and the first christians. A similarity of situation, not faith, mind you. We find that they were not a monolith(and still aren't) in precisely the same way as we find that christians were not a monolith at their "coming out"(....and still aren't). I don;t know why we would expect to find anything else in an area coming to, but not yet steeped in, a revelatory religion. There will always have been some point in time where the demographics are fractured, that point before the varying sects homogenize and their dissimilar creeds are calcified as doctrine.
The bible story doesn't rely on where the Jews came from genetically or culturally. Jesus was a descendant of Abraham. What bothers me is when people throw out a bunch of stuff that may be true in itself, but then try to use it to discredit christianity, when it's not related. It's like saying that the Book of Revelation is based on other Jewish writings because it's written in apocalyptic style. While it's true that this style of literature was popular at the time, it doesn't follow that Revelation was based on another Jewish story. Show me the story that it's based on and how it relates. Don't just make statements without showing the connections to the point you're trying to make.
Quote:I think that you're going to have to give up the story that your faith -has told you- about it;s formation and come back to reality, before you can call the comments of others crazy, before you can impugn the character of their conclusions or facts.
First, I apologize for calling the statements "crazy'. I could have used a better word. It is also true that the faith as it is today has gone through a formation process. I doubt that the earliest christians had a concept of the Trinity, for instance. The were also groups such as the gnostics, as well as disagreement over doctrinal issues. To this day, there are still disagreements and heretical groups. You could say that you don't accept orthodox christianity because of this, but it doesn't actually invalidate christianity. It's akin to saying atheists should accept christianity because they can't prove there is no God. It doesn't support the premise.
