(June 8, 2021 at 3:52 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I think that what the story tells Us, some 2,000 years later, is that all four Gospels were written post-70 AD, after the future emperor Titus had laid waste to the city of Jerusalem, and the fledgling Christian community wanted to frame its new religion as being friendly to the Romans, the victors, and hostile to the losers, the Jews.
I suspect a lot of stuff in the Gospels were put there because of the challenges the Christians faced at the time the Gospels were written. Which we all know is decades after the supposed death of Christ. Assuming Christ actually existed, it is likely that he had no issues with the scribes or Pharisees. It's more likely that Christians well after Christ's death were butting heads with these particular groups, and so added Christ's spats with these groups to their mythos.
The main trend was gentiles wanting to join, specifically Roman gentiles. So the message was adapted to best take advantage of this trend. Not many Romans wanted the penis surgery as a requirement to join the religion. So, lo and behold... it is revealed... circumcision is not necessary for salvation. The book of Acts is a huge work of revisionism meant to accommodate Roman converts.
