What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[watchamadoodle]

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Paul was originally the poster prophet for Marcionite Christianity. Ehrman's book on Lost Christianities mentions that Marcion's scriptures used Paul's letters. Marcionite Christianity, I probably don't need to explain to you but for the benefit of others, preached that the OT god Yahweh was a lesser god to Jesus. He wanted to ditch the OT completely and all things Jewish to create a whole new religion, centered around the superior god Jesus who offered us salvation. Jesus would never have been a baby, so ditch the whole Mary and Joseph drama along with any linage to King David. Jesus came down to earth as all gods do, appearing fully formed as an adult.

Yet when Paul does mention Jesus, he writes of the "seed of David", came to us "by woman", that "the head of Christ is (Yahweh)", and that he sits "at the right hand of (Yahweh)". etc.

So I'm confused. Did Marcion not read the letters of Paul? Or did he promote the letters of Paul hoping no one else would read them? Or do we have the letters of Paul as they existed at that time?

Just to be sure I understand, you are suggesting that those mentions in the letters of Paul are later additions by proto-orthodox, and Paul was more of a gnostic? Isn't there something in the NT that suggests that nobody knows where Jesus came from?

EDIT: I'm thinking of John 7:27-28. I guess I remembered the details wrong.

27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”

28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him,

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV

[DeistPaladin]

Just to be sure I understand, you are suggesting that those mentions in the letters of Paul are later additions by proto-orthodox, and Paul was more of a gnostic? Isn't there something in the NT that suggests that nobody knows where Jesus came from?

Aside from the Bible, we know about this guy "Paul" as he was promoted by Marcion, who was the leader of the nothing-to-do-with-Judaism Christian sect. It seems very curious that his letters include tidbits that support either Christian orthodoxy or some Jewish elements like the "seed of David". If Jesus was a higher god, never born on earth but appeared one day, then he doesn't have a human ancestry of any kind, does he?

This would be like discovering letters from Muhammad that praised Jesus as the "Son of God" and intercessor with the divine. It makes no sense. How could Paul be the prophet of Marcionite Christianity and yet promote a view of Jesus inconsistent with Marcionite Christianity?

...unless the letters from "Paul" that we have now are either altered from their original or less than authentic in their entirety.

I do note how "Paul" is depicted in Acts of the Apostles, in stark contrast to his nature as revealed in the letters. In the letters, Galatians in particular, Paul seems like a bombastic bully, not afraid to disagree openly with other early Christian leaders and a man who's on a mission under direct orders from the Big Guy Himself. The Paul of his letters answers to no earthly authority, kind of like Darth Vader after the Death Star was destroyed, no longer subject to anyone other than the emperor.

But the Paul in Acts is a most submissive fellow after his conversion. He is passively "sent here" and "sent there". He is a team player. When the Greeks saw him with Peter at one point, they thought Peter (the poster boy for the ascendant Catholic Church) was Jupiter and Paul was Mercury (the messenger godling). The joke on Paul was hard to miss.

Was Acts doing to Paul what the Gospels did to John the Baptist? Take the poster-boy for someone else's religion and incorporate them as a submissive cheer leader for your own?

If so, were the letters of Paul also doctored?

[watchamadoodle]

@DeistPaladin, was the book of Acts included along with Luke in the canon of Marcion? I know that many people think Luke and Acts were a single book. Apparently the apologists were very thorough in their criticism of Marcion's Gospel of the Lord, so we should know if it included both Luke and Acts. If Acts was not part of Marcion's canon, isn't that suspicious?

What if, instead of Marcion editing Luke to create his Gospel of the Lord, somebody edited Marcion's gospel to create Luke and then invented Acts to go with it? And Paul's epistles might have received the same treatment?

[DeistPaladin]

@DeistPaladin, was the book of Acts included along with Luke in the canon of Marcion? I know that many people think Luke and Acts were a single book. Apparently the apologists were very thorough in their criticism of Marcion's Gospel of the Lord, so we should know if it included both Luke and Acts. If Acts was not part of Marcion's canon, isn't that suspicious?

What if, instead of Marcion editing Luke to create his Gospel of the Lord, somebody edited Marcion's gospel to create Luke and then invented Acts to go with it? And Paul's epistles might have received the same treatment?

Well, certainly the whole Nativity scene was not part of Marcion's Luke, as the higher-god-Jesus would certainly not have been born or had parents.

Really, that's a point of Christianity that makes no sense anyway. If Jesus was God-incarnate, or a piece of God as Christians say, does that mean Mary had to change God's diapers? Did she and Joseph fight over who's turn it was to wake up and feed God in the middle of the night because God's crying again? The whole idea of a god-baby makes no sense.

But I digress.

I reject the notion that Luke and Acts had the same author. Luke says in his Gospel that the ascension of Jesus happened on the day of his resurrection. Acts says the ascension happened 40 days later. You'd think if they were the same author they'd have gotten such an important detail straight.

[TimOneill]

I mean rather than "A" happened, then B, C, D, and E all reported on A, my proposal is A happened, B wrote a story about A (to what extent of accuracy or fanciful addition is another matter), C and D each wrote their own mutually incompatible fanfic versions of B's story and then E comes along and writes a new story based on the political/religious needs at the time.

And I wasn’t entirely disagreeing with your summary, which I think is generally a very accurate one. But it did seem like you were giving the impression all the stuff in gMatt, gLuke ultimately goes back to gMark, with just the addition of some “fanfic”. Which ignores the Q material, which clearly indicates another early source or sources which possibly pre-dates gMark. Then there is the Aramaic source or sources that lie behind gMark and the independent traditions (and probably sources) which lie behind gJohn.

I’m highlighting all this because I keep coming across this strange idea that all of the gospels can ultimately be traced back to gMark, with a bit of “fanfic” added. And this is wrong. That wasn’t you were saying, but I was elaborating for the benefit of others.

John actually glosses over the whole baptism. Notice how JtB never baptizes Jesus at all in John.

Yes, that was what I was referring to. The different ways in which all the gospels deal with the awkwardness of the Baptist baptising his supposed superior is something that indicates this whole Jesus/Baptist story has a historical core.

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I keep wondering about Mandaeism (the John the Baptist Gnostics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism ).
I'll include an image of the Mandaean cross. Daily baptism is a part of Mandaean beliefs (I think), and it was also part of Essene beliefs. I wonder if there were cross-like racks where the Essenes hung their robes during their daily baptism ritual. This is what the Mandaean cross appears to represent - a robe hanging on a rack while somebody is baptized.

Now, one of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas symbolizes the material body as a robe. If the crucifixion represented Jesus' spiritual body returning to heaven, then his physical body would be an empty robe. If Jesus was an Essene, then his body would be depicted hanging on a cross - just like the robes of the Essenes might have hung on crosses while they purified themselves through baptism.

LOTS of speculation in there! Firstly, it’s very difficult to the point of being almost impossible to extrapolate much from modern Mandaean beliefs and traditions, because their origins are so uncertain. That tradition has been heavily influenced by so many other faiths and strands of belief – gnostic, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Jewish – that it’s pretty much impossible to untangle what may be ancient, what is much more recent and how the two fit together.
Secondly, you can come with all kind of speculation about Mandaeans, Essenes, the Baptist etc, but none of it is going to be more than that. Were the Mandaeans really directly connected to any sect of John the Baptist? Maybe, but it’s very hard to tell. Was the Baptist an Essene? We really don’t know. Is that “Mandaean cross” symbol ancient or a later Christian-influenced accretion? Again, we don’t know.
There simply isn’t enough solid evidence here to do more than play with “maybes”.

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Easily done - here you are: The Q Material.

Excuse me but that is the same shit.

Pardon? I mentioned the Q material – the material in gMatt and gLuke that is common to both, but not found in gMark and also so close verbally as to obviously be from a common source or sources. You demanded I show you this material and so I did. So what exactly is the problem?

I assume that you have nothing which constitutes any sort of Quelle material. This does not surprise me.

That comment makes no sense, given I have just given you what you asked for – the Q material I was referring to.

It remains a 19th century hypothesis by a bunch of (mainly) German protestants.

Ummm, no. The idea that this material represents a single lost source remains a hypothesis. But the material that hypothesis is based on is right there in the text. That is the “Q material” I referred to and which you asked to see. And which I have shown you.

When you can produce actual evidence be sure to drop me a line.

Already done – see above. As I said in my last reply to you, whether this common material represents one source, two, several or a mix of sources and oral traditions is up for debate. But that it exists and that at least some of it (most of it, actually) is based on a written source or sources is pretty hard to dispute.
How do you account for this material? Simply shouting “hypothetical” doesn’t help you here – you need to explain this material common to gMatt and gLuke and then explain its clear textual origin.

Until then, I have to tell you that I don't care how many bible-thumpers swear to it. They have an agenda to push.

What I actually pointed out to you is that the “Bible-thumpers” don’t swear to it. Like you, they try to reject it. So I’m afraid you and the “Bible-thumpers” are on the same side on this one. Make of that what you will.

I want to see facts.

I gave you the textual evidence that the Q material exists. Perhaps you could pause for a moment and explain why it is there if it isn’t evidence of some kind of lost source, sources and/or oral traditions.

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Here is a quote from Ephesians which dates 80 CE to 100 CE and is Paulian. Notice how gnostic this sounds. I don't have time to find them now, but the parables of Jesus sound very gnostic to me - even the idea that the meaning is hidden from most listeners.

EDIT: My take on gnostic theology: eternal spiritual beings fall from heaven and are entrapped in material human bodies. Salvation comes from waking up and remembering that we are not physical beings and don't belong here. Christ descended deliberately into human form to wake us up, so that we can go follow him home to heaven where we belong.

So doesn't this sound gnostic?

Ephesians 5:14

Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/te...s-asv.html

Firstly, most scholars don't think Ephesians is actually by Paul. That's why Early Christian Writings puts the dates for it at 80-100 AD - if it was Pauline it would have to predate the most likely date of his death in the 60s.

Secondly, since you asked, no that passage doesn't sound particularly Gnostic to me at all. It is talking about the coming general resurrection expected when Jesus was supposed to return.

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Yes, I'm well aware of those passages. Those epistles are pseudepigraphical and most scholars date them to the early second century.

On a related note, is there a way that scholars determine what is pseudo-epigraphical and what isn't with any degree of certainty? I mean this as a sincere question.

With any degree of certainty? No. People who like certainty should avoid this whole field like the plague – it will drive them mad. In the case of 1John and 2John we can be pretty certain on linguistic and stylistic grounds that its author was an educated Greek and not a Galilean fisherman’s son. It shows some influence from the theology of gJohn, but stylistic differences. So this is why it is usually dated to after the most likely date for that gospel, putting it in the first two decades of the second century AD.

I was under the impression that Doceticism was one of the brands of Gnosticism, like Christianity is to Theism. One is a subset of the other.

Not quite. Docetism was believed both by most Gnostics and some non-Gnostics. It’s a theological position on the nature of Jesus’ form that can be held completely separately from Gnostic dualism and its wider cosmology. So you could be a Docetist but not be in any way a Gnostic (even given how rubbery that latter term is).

There is nothing to indicate this in any of the Pauline material or in any of the earliest gospels.

Paul doesn't get very specific on the life of Jesus and what we do have, I'm rather confused by and let me explain why.

Before you do – note that Paul wouldn’t need to go into Jesus’ life to make it clear he held Gnostic views. He has a lot to say about who he thought Jesus was and how he fitted into Jewish cosmology. That’s plenty of opportunities to make it clear that he held to a Gnostic cosmology. But there is nothing there.

Paul was originally the poster prophet for Marcionite Christianity. Ehrman's book on Lost Christianities mentions that Marcion's scriptures used Paul's letters. Marcionite Christianity, I probably don't need to explain to you but for the benefit of others, preached that the OT god Yahweh was a lesser god to Jesus. He wanted to ditch the OT completely and all things Jewish to create a whole new religion, centered around the superior god Jesus who offered us salvation. Jesus would never have been a baby, so ditch the whole Mary and Joseph drama along with any linage to King David. Jesus came down to earth as all gods do, appearing fully formed as an adult.

Yet when Paul does mention Jesus, he writes of the "seed of David", came to us "by woman", that "the head of Christ is (Yahweh)", and that he sits "at the right hand of (Yahweh)". etc.

So I'm confused. Did Marcion not read the letters of Paul? Or did he promote the letters of Paul hoping no one else would read them? Or do we have the letters of Paul as they existed at that time?

Good questions. The answer lies in the fact that all kinds of people read the Pauline material and come away having seen substantiation for wildly contradictory views. Orthodox Christians assure me they can read them and see validation of their belief that Jesus was God in human form and equal to the Father etc etc. Though when I ask them to show me this validation by reference to Paul’s letters they came back with very slim pickings. At the same time Mythicists insist they can find no mentions of an earthly historical Jesus in Paul, despite several references that are well nigh impossible to read any other way.

People see what they want to see. Fanatics doubly so.

[Mudhammam]

I agree with everything you said here, Tim. Excellent post. I think part of the initial attraction to mythicism for many people, at least it feels like one of its strengths to me (which I don't presume to be many), is that it dissolves one of the issues I can only make modest sense of: granted Jesus was crucified in front of his followers, at least a handful, and presumably all of them knew he died, and considering that these are Jews who have pretty clear ideas about who and what the Messiah is supposed to be---death on a cross definitely not part of the equation until OT passages are reinterpreted to fit the fact afterward---what motivates them to start claiming that he is bodily risen? I don't think this question poses such a problem that one must deny the historical core of certain events in the Gospels in order to construct a (highly speculative) natural explanation for this strange development, but it is something that probably drives a lot of people towards the one extreme of a resurrected Christ, on the one hand, and a completely mythical story on the other.

[TimOneill]

I agree with everything you said here, Tim. Excellent post.

Thanks.

I think part of the initial attraction to mythicism for many people, at least it feels like one of its strengths to me (which I don't presume to be many), is that it dissolves one of the issues I can only make modest sense of: granted Jesus was crucified in front of his followers, at least a handful, and presumably all of them knew he died, and considering that these are Jews who have pretty clear ideas about who and what the Messiah is supposed to be---death on a cross definitely not part of the equation until OT passages are reinterpreted to fit the fact afterward---what motivates them to start claiming that he is bodily risen?

I can understand how it would have this appeal, but I don’t think it actually does a very good job of explaining how this idea arose in a parsimonious way. If there was evidence of a pre-Christian expectation that the Messiah would die and that this death would be somehow sacrificial and so salvific, then I’d be much more open to the idea that the whole story arose without any actual dead Messianic claimant at its core. But, despite some failed efforts by Carrier to claim he’s found evidence of such a tradition, there doesn’t seem to be anything that would explain how this idea arose. On the contrary, what we find is both Paul and the gospel writers having to go to some lengths to convince people (and, I get the impression, themselves) that this strange turn of events was actually what was meant to happen all along.

The whole crucifixion element makes this even more difficult for them. To the Jews, anyone “hung on the tree” was accursed and abandoned by Yahweh. To the gentiles, it was simply the most shameful and humiliating death for anyone, one reserved for rebels, slaves and the lowest of the low. Again, there is no tradition or expectation of a crucified Messiah before Christianity and they have to work extremely hard to turn this (to use Paul’s word) “scandalous/absurd” idea into something people could accept – Paul’s way of dealing with this has an element of “so crazy it must be true!” to it.

The idea of people rising from the dead, on the other hand, definitely was around at the time and was something of a theological hot topic in Jewish circles. And stories of apotheosis, people being taken up into the heavens leaving an empty tomb and other parallels were also in the air. Add to this the fact that seeing a loved one who has died suddenly is actually a very common phenomenon amongst bereaved people and it doesn’t take much at all to get from a sudden traumatic death, visions of the dead Jesus and a belief that he was, in some sense, risen. Studies of how cults react to the failure of a prophesied event shows this is actually how people react –they find a way to reinterpret the failure into a success, or into a soon-to-come success. And then they get right back to believing as before.

I don't think this question poses such a problem that one must deny the historical core of certain events in the Gospels in order to construct a (highly speculative) natural explanation for this strange development, but it is something that probably drives a lot of people towards the one extreme of a resurrected Christ, on the one hand, and a completely mythical story on the other.

I have found over the last 15-20 years of debating Mythicists that the idea does tend to appeal most to people who have a rather binary way of looking at things – a sort black and white, all or nothing view of the world. Not surprisingly, a large number of them are also former fundamentalists who have gone from one form of absolute belief (“Jesus is Lord!”) to the other extreme (“Jesus didn’t exist!”). The idea that a historical Jesus on whom the later stories were based did exist but was very little like their Jesus of their religious upbringing just doesn’t seem to work for them. Too nuanced and too vague. Unfortunately ancient history is usually nuanced and often vague.

[robvalue]

I'm pretty sure Richard Carrier has come to the conclusion that any letters where Paul mentions Jesus "the man" are forgeries. If I interpreted him right. He believes Paul was referring to an entirely different, celestial Jesus. I need to check that out again to see if I got that straight. It makes a lot more sense to me than the tangled mess we have if we accept everything.

Paul, if he was real, was a nob end. That's not just my opinion, but the opinion of everyone in my basement both dead and alive.

I personally feel no need to go full on mythicist, I'm happy to say that we can stick very few pins into Jesus (ouch!). If they're accurate, and I'm not totally convinced that they are, It's not enough to pin him down to just one person beyond reasonable doubt. In my opinion. In other words, I feel HJ is weak, and I see no reason to believe most of his life story (say 95%+) is anything other than fiction.

It's a subject of some interest to me, and I'll continue to look at all the evidence. It makes fuck all difference to me one way or the other, I'd be happy to concede to anyone in a debate that Jesus did everything in the bible except anything supernatural, makes no odds. It's just a bit of fun.

[watchamadoodle]

I reject the notion that Luke and Acts had the same author. Luke says in his Gospel that the ascension of Jesus happened on the day of his resurrection. Acts says the ascension happened 40 days later. You'd think if they were the same author they'd have gotten such an important detail straight.

Apparently most scholars think Luke and Acts had the same author, but it is highly suspicious that the ascension to heaven is inconsistent, and it is also suspicious that Marcion didn't include Acts in his NT if Acts and Luke were a pair. Acts is mostly about Paul, and Marcion would have liked that IMO.

So, maybe the similar writing style between Luke and Acts is a result of a single editor? Maybe Marcion's Luke was the original Luke instead of an edit of the Luke we know?

On the other hand, here is a quote describing the standard view of scholars:

The first question that confronts one when examining Luke and Acts is whether they were written by the same person, as indicated in the prefaces. With the agreement of nearly all scholars, Udo Schnelle writes, "the extensive linguistic and theological agreements and cross-references between the Gospel of Luke and the Acts indicate that both works derive from the same author" (The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, p. 259). This implies the implausibility of the hypothesis of such as John Knox that Marcion knew only Luke, not Acts, and that Acts was an anti-Marcionite production of the mid second century.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/acts.html

[Mudhammam]

The idea of people rising from the dead, on the other hand, definitely was around at the time and was something of a theological hot topic in Jewish circles. And stories of apotheosis, people being taken up into the heavens leaving an empty tomb and other parallels were also in the air

Interesting. Can you direct me to that material? I've always been under the impression that while some stories contained gods or heroes who were revived and brought up from the underworld, none of them made the slightly bolder claim of a physical, bodily resurrection. Was it Enoch and Elijah who are thought to have ascended into heaven and thereby escaped death, and were there others?

Also, I recently read this compilation of ancient texts edited by James Pritchard called Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement. Aside from being very interesting, I found it quite illuminating. Do you know if anyone has published a similar work for Jewish and non-Jewish documents specially related to Christianity?