Unconventional Religion

[DeistPaladin]

So in my two previous posts, how Christianity is a synchratic faith, blending different traditions and ideas together, like streams and tributaries eventually forming a river. The ancient Jews had neither a concept of Hell nor did their god allow for an intercessor figure. These rather crucial elements to the Christian faith came from elsewhere.

So why blend them at all?

Details on the historical Jesus and what the real story behind the Gospels was are sketchy at best. The closest we have (ignoring the Testimonium Flavianum as a rank forgery by Bishop Esubius) is an entry into the Annals of Tacitus somewhere in the early second century. This reference is so oblique it doesn't even mention Jesus by name, only that the "anointed one" of Christianity was crucified by Pilate. There are a few other scraps but nothing that provides any details. The details on the founding of the "early church" are almost as fuzzy, especially if you factor in the problems of interpolation and pseudo-epigraphy into the letters we have.

All that said, the glib assertion that Christianity got started as a unified faith that "got off the ground quickly and spread rapidly in spite of persecution" is just not supported by the facts we do have. As I've previously mentioned, there was not one Christianity but many.

The scenario that seems more compelling to me is that the ancient Jews were chaffing under Roman rule. Yahweh had promised David that his seed would rule for all time. Where was this promised kingdom? Why had Yahweh abandoned them?

2 Sam 7:13 He (David) shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.

Some of the Jews, most notably the historian Josephus, believed that Yahweh was punishing them and using the Romans to do so. Reading the OT, it was not uncommon for Yahweh to abandon the Jews to their enemies when they had sinned against him.

The early Christians may have been trying to resolve this conundrum. Perhaps their promised kingdom was not on earth but existed in a higher place. The "throne" that Yahweh spoke of need not, after all, be an earthly one, right? The follow up Gospels to Mark made an effort to establish a blood line from David to Jesus, thereby reestablishing his House onto a throne that the Romans couldn't touch. And given how, according to apologist dates, the first Gospel was penned at the time of Masada, moving the promised kingdom out of striking distance became the only realistic option.

[DeistPaladin]

Short version for those who didn't want to read through all my posts above:

"Damn Romans! Yahweh, how can you see this and do nothing to help? What happened to our promised kingdom?"

"Maybe it's not on this earth. Maybe it exists in the sky with Yahweh."

"You mean we don't just go to Sheol (the grave) when we die?"

"No, we go to live with the Messiah in Heaven."

"Sounds good to me."

...and the rest is history.

[Consilius]

Interesting theory. If it's true, however, Christ served a poor resolution to the theological crisis in the eyes of the Jews. The hundred or so that became his followers stood in the face of tens of thousands of adherent Jews, who eagerly accepted the many other claimants to the title "Messiah" who came after Christ's death. A product like Jesus tailored to attract attention would have been more popular with the Jewish nation, particularly heading for the powerful and drawing on their authority to gain a much larger following. It would seem like a much more plausible marketing scheme.
Not to mention Christianity's large number of Gentile adherents. Wouldn't a man championing the poor have incited them against the rich?

---

In some cases money comes first, in others morals. Which is why you should make choices such that you'd rarely have to choose.

In some cases? I didn't realize that human morality changed value with the situation.
To think that the right thing should ever be equated, let alone replaced, with cash or comfort sounds wrong.
Would I be wrong to say that your opinion is grounded in moral relativism?

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The Jesus of Revelation is the closest to what the Jews were expecting. He was a celestial warlord who leads an army to triumph over Israel's enemies.

Revelation was addressed to Gentile Christians, and the author is talking about their persecution under Rome. There is no reason for the author to purposely attract Jewish appeal.

The Epistles had little to say of Jesus' trip to earth ("take and eat", a quoted reference to the pagan Eucharist is the only quotation of Christ's earthly life as found in the Epistles that I'm aware of). They were more concerned with a celestial lord that had existed from the beginning and had sacrificed himself and offered us salvation.

The early evangelists believed that the world would end during their lifetimes. They were more concerned with Christ's moral message than the details of his life.
The writer of many of the Epistles, Paul, also had not witnessed Christ's ministry.

Jesus would later be rewritten as God-incarnate in John's Gospel, the only one compatible with Trinitarian theology.

Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me." John 7:33
John doesn't make it any less confusing.
Matthew, Mark and Luke were more concerned with Christ's life story than they were with theology. Jesus acted as if He was not God to cover his messianic secret as well as to pose as a model for holiness. John was impacting theology in his Gospel, so he had to explain Christ for who he really was.

And let's not forget the very first commandment:

Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

So the OT *forbids* us to have an intercessor.

Christ is not another God, hence the Trinity. An intercessor isn't a God. Christ was the Judeo-Christian God and a human being at the same time.

In fact, the OT seems to require that a blasphemer like Jesus be put to death:

Deuteronomy 13:1-6 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams.

Jesus didn't advertise a new God.

Gehenna is:

• A place associated with a sadistic god
  
• A place associated with a rival of the Judeo-Christian god
  
• A place of torment and suffering
  
• A place of fire
  
• A place where the wicked would be tossed after their death
  

Sound familiar?

It's easy to see how this idea of Hell evolved and was incorporated into Christianity.

Christ's description of Hell was a physical allegory used for the benefit of a very physical culture (so physical that slaughtering goats symbolized absolution for sins). It fit the culture of the time, hence it was very well understood by Jews and Gentiles.

[Consilius]

it's clear that the Jewish god is a jealous figure who demands direct attention from his chosen people and tolerates no middle-man. So how is it that the same god fades into the background while his son takes center stage?

Jesus exists as an intercessor and remains an intercessor. He does not claim supremacy to God (the center stage).

To be generous, we can overlook the tautology that this creates with John 16:4, turning the phrase into "no man cometh unto me except by me."

"No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6, KJV
Jesus, as an intercessor, is the closest link mankind has to God. Man cannot directly get to God without Christ, the only way.

[genkaus]

In some cases? I didn't realize that human morality changed value with the situation.
To think that the right thing should ever be equated, let alone replaced, with cash or comfort sounds wrong.
Would I be wrong to say that your opinion is grounded in moral relativism?

That sentiment is to be expected of someone who values dogma over rationality. And yes, you would be wrong to make that assumption.

[DeistPaladin]

Interesting theory. If it's true, however, Christ served a poor resolution to the theological crisis in the eyes of the Jews. The hundred or so that became his followers stood in the face of tens of thousands of adherent Jews, who eagerly accepted the many other claimants to the title "Messiah" who came after Christ's death. A product like Jesus tailored to attract attention would have been more popular with the Jewish nation, particularly heading for the powerful and drawing on their authority to gain a much larger following. It would seem like a much more plausible marketing scheme.
Not to mention Christianity's large number of Gentile adherents. Wouldn't a man championing the poor have incited them against the rich?

Where you seem to me to be tripping up in your attempt to understand Christianity's origins is you seem to be under the impression that the only alternative to Christianity having a divine origin is a bunch of people meeting in a back room in some secret conspiracy to carefully craft and devise this religion as a means to a planned end. Now it is true that some religions are born this way but this is not the only alternative.

It reminds me of the "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" trilemma so famous in apologetics. You start with your desired conclusion, insist that there's only one or two possible alternatives and then straw-man the alternatives by way of reducto ad absurdum. In this case, it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that you insist that Christianity either has a divine origin or it was a carefully crafted backroom conspiracy.

My theory is that Christianity was not intelligently designed but rather is the product of theological evolution. Ideas were cobbled together from other pagan religions, merged with Judaism and the strongest of the different Christianities eventually won out while the others died out.

The Marcionites lost because the Romans would not accept a "new" religion. The question that eventually killed Marcion's brand was "If your religion is true, how come nobody heard about it until now? Why was God simply sitting back and letting everyone get it wrong for so long?" The Romans needed to have their new religion have some appeal to antiquity. Given Islamic and Mormon success, it seems people have stopped asking questions like this.

The Ebionites lost because they were too insular. Like the Jews, they had no desire to convert anyone outside their faith. Their evolutionary weakness was their meme's inability to spread.

As barking mad as Trinitarian theology is, it was the strongest and most viral. It succeeded where the others failed.

Revelation was addressed to Gentile Christians, and the author is talking about their persecution under Rome. There is no reason for the author to purposely attract Jewish appeal.

That doesn't change the fact that early ideas about Jesus seemed to be closer to Jewish concepts of the Messiah.

The early evangelists believed that the world would end during their lifetimes. They were more concerned with Christ's moral message than the details of his life.
The writer of many of the Epistles, Paul, also had not witnessed Christ's ministry.

Or that story of his life had not yet been written.

...more later.

[max-greece]

"Christ's description of Hell was a physical allegory used for the benefit of a very physical culture (so physical that slaughtering goats symbolized absolution for sins)."

The barbarians!

How much better the faith that slaughters a man to symbolize absolution from sins.

[DeistPaladin]

Continued from earlier...

The writer of many of the Epistles, Paul, also had not witnessed Christ's ministry.

Neither had Mark or Luke. Both were companions of Paul and Luke introduces his Gospel with a flat denial that he was a witness but rather compiled the account. And all this is assuming that they were the authors of the books in question.

As for Paul, he was the chief prosecutor for the Jews and had his conversion experience only a few years after the crucifixion of Jesus. I would think he would have witnessed such a grand execution that involved the rabbis meeting on Passover Eve in order to get rid of this troublemaker. But that's another issue for another thread. For now, I think you and I agree that the Epistles are more concerned with the salvation message of Jesus than his life.

John doesn't make it any less confusing.

True. Even John's Gospel isn't consistent on the question of the divinity of Jesus. My point was the Trinitarian Christians have no support from the Synoptics, books that clearly depict Jesus as being separate from and completely subordinate to his father.

That said, there was some evolution of Jesus in successive Gospels. Mark's Jesus was the most meek and mild. Mark's Jesus was unable to perform miracles where the faith in a town wasn't strong enough. Matt's Jesus says that he denied them miracles because their faith wasn't strong enough. Mark's Jesus asks the rich man "Why do you call me good? There is none good but God." Matt's Jesus edits out this line. Mark's Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist after JtB introduces himself as Jesus' forerunner. Matt's JtB expresses how awkward it is to baptize Jesus but does so anyway when ordered to. John's JtB never baptizes Jesus at all. Jesus got stronger with each successive Gospel. The tale got better with the telling.

Jesus acted as if He was not God to cover his messianic secret as well as to pose as a model for holiness.

Jesus was alone when praying at the Garden of Gethsemane, so no need for posing there.

Christ is not another God, hence the Trinity. An intercessor isn't a God. Christ was the Judeo-Christian God and a human being at the same time.

...and here we have the barking madness and near-incoherent babble of the Trinity. Jesus is God and not God at the same time, depending on the needs of the story at that moment. When Jesus is praying at Gethsemane, that's when he's not God. When he's forgiving sins, that's when he is God. Flip, flop, flip, flop.

But the madness of the Trinity is really exposed when we have to ask why a god would need to be his own intercessor with himself. If Jesus is God, there is no intercessor because he is the god you are trying to contact. If Jesus is not God, Christianity violates the 1st Commandment (in addition to Commandment #4, since the Sabbath is Saturday).

However, the madness of the Trinity is needed to explain how we can reconcile pagan concepts of an intercessor with a Divine that is otherwise out of reach with Jewish strict monotheism that has a god that interacts with worshipers directly, sometimes face to face "as one speaks to a friend". The OT god was not out of reach for the faithful and an intercessor, according to Yahweh, was neither necessary nor desired.

Jesus didn't advertise a new God.

In your opinion, perhaps. Reading the OT and comparing it to the NT, they look different to me.

Christ's description of Hell was a physical allegory used for the benefit of a very physical culture (so physical that slaughtering goats symbolized absolution for sins). It fit the culture of the time, hence it was very well understood by Jews and Gentiles.

You can assume the existence of all kinds of supernatural things that "just so happen" to resemble the natural source of their inspiration. I can't prove they don't exist, as you can't prove a negative, and the burden is not on me to do so. All I can do is show you natural sources of inspiration for the supernatural belief and state Occam's Razor, that one should not look to supernatural explanations where a natural explanation is available and plausible.

I've done my part.

[max-greece]

Seriously impressed with DeistPaladin's posts here. Nice one.
+1 on the rep.

[DeistPaladin]

We're starting to get off your original topic and delve into the plausibility of Christian theology and its compatibility with OT beliefs. That's fine, of course, but just saying...

Jesus exists as an intercessor and remains an intercessor. He does not claim supremacy to God (the center stage).

But Christians pray to Jesus, something the OT would not tolerate, given the verses I quoted you.

As stated before, if Jesus is God, he doesn't need to be his own intercessor with himself. That makes no sense. If he is not God, Christianity violates the 1st Commandment and Christians are sinning in a way that Yahweh would not tolerate.

Jesus, as an intercessor, is the closest link mankind has to God. Man cannot directly get to God without Christ, the only way.

But the ancient Jews were able to go directly to Yahweh with no need for an intercessor. Yahweh publicly spoke to the whole nation of Israel in Judges 1. He spoke to Moses face to face as one does to a friend. He dropped by Abraham's place for lunch. He wrestled with Jacob. He took someone up into Heaven in a whirlwind (sorry but his name escapes me right now, I'll likely remember it later).

The OT god required no intercessor. The OT god tolerated no intercessor.

Christianity is the amalgamation of pagan concepts of an intercessor deity awkwardly rammed together with strict Jewish monotheism. The babbling nonsense of the Trinity is the glue that holds it together.