[Serious] The Story

[Pat Mustard]

What a brilliant question!

For some, I would advise listening to the Kings Cambridge “9 lessons and carols” service on Xmas Eve. Milner-White did a fantastic job summarising the Xian story in readings.

A TL;DR version might perhaps be:

Humanity discovers disobedience to God. This is incompatible with eternal life so God goes all Timberlake.
God has a plan to solve this problem, which involves the descendants of Abraham. However they prove not up to the task, and a cycle of sin->exile->forgiveness->restoration gets repeated over and over.
God promised in a series of prophecies that He would sort out all these problems personally, and subsequently set up the Kingdom of God (KoG).
Israel gets exiled to Babylon and the return is not seen as proper forgiveness.
Around AD 33 Jesus says stuff about the KoG arriving, he dies and gets resurrected. As Israel's representative, he's sorted out the sin/death problem. The KoG is started, and we live in the latest act, in which this message is taken to the world.

The two stories are from separate cultures thousands of years removed from each other.  There is no singular narrative from beginning to end largely because of that fact and the differences between.

Why do gospels and epistles make such a massive effort to show how the death and resurrection fit into prophecy and the whole OT narrative? Surely Jesus' death only means what it means because it is in a pretty rigid OT/prophecy framework?

I've always found it odd that the line on this is that the jews got it wrong..rather than the christians getting it right.  

Would a better historical model be that Judaism forked between those who decided Jesus did bring in forgiveness etc and those who disagree?

Why and how does a perfect being create imperfect people to carry out its tasks? Does that not defeat the meaning of perfection?

Face facts, your religion's bullshit is painfully stupid.

[Neo-Scholastic]

At a cosmic level if God created a Perfect Being it would also be God. And since there can be only one God it follows that it cannot be done. The notion that creation is imperfect is embedded in the narrative. There's a snake in the garden.

[Jehanne]

At a cosmic level if God created a Perfect Being it would also be God. And since there can be only one God it follows that it cannot be done. The notion that creation is imperfect is embedded in the narrative. There's a snake in the garden.

Where's the garden?

[Mister Agenda]

At a cosmic level if God created a Perfect Being it would also be God. And since there can be only one God it follows that it cannot be done. The notion that creation is imperfect is embedded in the narrative. There's a snake in the garden.

So something can't be perfect unless it's omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? Ordinarily, perfect means 'without flaws'. I wouldn't say not being all-powerful is a flaw.

Edit: Sorry for the double post.

[Mister Agenda]

[quote='Neo-Scholastic' pid='2113694' dateline='1661177843']
At a cosmic level if God created a Perfect Being it would also be God. And since there can be only one God it follows that it cannot be done. The notion that creation is imperfect is embedded in the narrative. There's a snake in the garden.

So something can't be perfect unless it's omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? Ordinarily, perfect means 'without flaws'. I wouldn't say not being all-powerful is a flaw. And can we really say God is omnipotent if it can't create another god, with all the same qualities except is isn't the God who created the universe?

[Vicki Q]

In a rigid OT framework...both good....and profitable.

Thanks for the reply- very thoughtful!

In a rigid OT framework, jesus' death means nothing in particular.

Surely the Suffering Servant passages tell us that Jesus death should be seen as redemptive?

Why do the gospels and epistles make effort to recast the OT as it's own supporting documentation?  Because they felt it useful to their new religion.  There was quite a bit of debate in proto christianity whether the whole lot could be cast aside.  

Could you point me towards the evidence for this statement? I'm not aware of any debate within the Early Church about Jesus as fulfilment of OT prophecy. The NT documents are very clear on that point.

For better and for worse (largely for worse..I'd contend, obvs) christian authority determined that christianity could not make it on it's own.  

Christianity might be seen as a separate religion to Judaism today, but that's wrong, and not how it was seen by the Early Church in C1. Paul's olive tree illustration amongst other writings tells us as much. Could you explain what the evidence is that Xianity considered itself apart from Judaism?

There's nothing explicitly historically accurate about relative moral ideologies...As though the christian's new religion was the proper historical form of judaism, through the implication of prophecy.  It isn't.  

Surely it's a question of history rather than morality? The central Judeo-Christian claim is that YHWH has acted in history to  inaugurate His Kingdom. Is that a moral or historical statement?

You could not become, by self affirmation, a member of the chosen people under the previous view of divinity. This necessarrily constrained it's share of the religious market. Altering that notion was both good....and profitable.

Converts to Judaism were not uncommon in the C1 Mediterranean world. They would find a ready made international community accepting them. Converts to Xianity walked around with a huge target on their back. They were denying the rule of Caesar, denying the Torah/Jews as unique people of God, and denying the role of regional gods, thus angering (in order) the Romans, Jews and pagans. Pretty much everyone wanted them hurt.

Not good for the bottom line?

[Jehanne]

Hi Vicky,

A couple of points:

1) What OT passage are you appealing to for the "Suffering Servant"?

2) Outside of Nero's persecution of Christians in the 60s, what historical evidence can you present for any Empire-wide persecutions of Christians during the 1st century?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

At a cosmic level if God created a Perfect Being it would also be God. And since there can be only one God it follows that it cannot be done. The notion that creation is imperfect is embedded in the narrative. There's a snake in the garden.

Who says it has to be at the cosmic level? I don’t there’s any logical inconsistency in God creating a perfect pirate, a perfect guitarist, or a perfect doctor. The attributes commonly ascribed to godly perfection need not be applied to perfect humans.

And the snake was in the Garden only because God put it there. You sure you want to follow that road?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Surely the Suffering Servant passages tell us that Jesus death should be seen as redemptive?

The traditional interpretation of the servant songs is that they refer to the nation of israel.  Certainly not christ, and not christian redemption.   I'll just mention here at the top - since it seems to apply to many of these questions - there are still jewish people in the world.  It would be beyond absurd to argue over whether or not there are christian claims about some inheritance or right to judaism - but this is an article of faith - not any historic or present reality.  

Could you point me towards the evidence for this statement? I'm not aware of any debate within the Early Church about Jesus as fulfilment of OT prophecy. The NT documents are very clear on that point.

By the time there's a church, proto-christianity is in the rearview.  However, if you've never been made aware of the disagreement in proto-christianity regarding this issue (which did persist in some forms for some time in the early church) you'll find no shortage of verses de-emphasizing the necessity of cultural and ritual (or moral/ceremonial..if we prefer) jewish identity in the NT in Acts, as it's product.  One of the most aggressive views, however, is found in galatians.  There is no longer jew or greek.  There is no longer slave and free.  There is no longer male or female.  All of you are one in christ.  

Christianity might be seen as a separate religion to Judaism today, but that's wrong, and not how it was seen by the Early Church in C1. Paul's olive tree illustration amongst other writings tells us as much. Could you explain what the evidence is that Xianity considered itself apart from Judaism?

Wherein the jews are cut off from the tree by their unbelief, and the gentiles grafted in through faith in christ?  The aggressive expansionism represented by galatians above has backfired into flat out appropriation.  

Surely it's a question of history rather than morality? The central Judeo-Christian claim is that YHWH has acted in history to  inaugurate His Kingdom. Is that a moral or historical statement?

Neither.  It's an establishment myth.  

Converts to Judaism were not uncommon in the C1 Mediterranean world. They would find a ready made international community accepting them. Converts to Xianity walked around with a huge target on their back. They were denying the rule of Caesar, denying the Torah/Jews as unique people of God, and denying the role of regional gods, thus angering (in order) the Romans, Jews and pagans. Pretty much everyone wanted them hurt.

There was no concept of conversion that biblical israelites would have understood.  National and religious identity were one and the same.  There was assimilation, ofc.  Assimilation through marriage, or purchase, or capture.  It would remain this way until right around 75bce, when the pharisees came (or can be said to have come into) power.  Amusingly, given their reputation to the christian faith - they were the ones that really leaned into jewish universalism - a product of exile - and this might be the only period in history in which we could consider judaism an actively proselytizing religion.  It would be short lived, obviously.  

By 60-70ace or so (so we're told) we've got paul up there talking about grafting and the temple destroyed.  It would be a necessity for the growth of the proto-christian movement to appeal to gentiles.  Particularly in their capture of the roman state.  I don't doubt the effectiveness of the pitch.  I don't see any way to explain the demographic explosion of christianity after the romanizers work aside from a very successful appeal to the gentiles.  Been pretty much on a roll since then - and has continued to work towards inclusivity while bumbling it's way through appropriation.  Today, there are something like 15million jewish people, and 2.5billion christian people.  To say that judaism was then and is now less active in proselytization than christianity is to put it mildly.  To say that one holds greater market share than the other is to be diplomatic.

[Vicki Q]

The traditional interpretation of the servant songs is that they refer to the nation of israel.  Certainly not christ, and not christian redemption.

Thanks for your thoughts!

The suffering servant certainly does refer to Israel, but also to Jesus. To unpack what was mentioned earlier, it had always in the OT been the calling of Israel through suffering to free the world from sin/death. Israel failed in this task, and it fell to Jesus as representative for Israel to fulfil their destiny.

The various texts in the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 40-55) seem to flow from Israel to a servant-figure who stands over against Israel, and the Servant could be seen in the second-Temple period as a reference to the Messiah.

 However, if you've never been made aware of the disagreement in proto-christianity regarding this issue (which did persist in some forms for some time in the early church) you'll find no shortage of verses de-emphasizing the necessity of cultural and ritual (or moral/ceremonial..if we prefer) jewish identity in the NT in Acts, as it's product.

I think you're conflating a number of separate issues here. The necessity to obey Torah was the subject of considerable debate. The idea that Jesus was the most recent part of the Jewish story that began with the OT was not debated. Jesus only meant what he meant because of the complete OT context.

There is no longer jew or greek. There is no longer slave and free. There is no longer male or female. All of you are one in christ.  

This refers to the change in definition of God's People, rather than whether Jesus was the next part of the OT story. Xians are defined by their relationship to the Messiah of Judaism.

Wherein the jews are cut off from the tree by their unbelief, and the gentiles grafted in through faith in christ

But the plan was always that Israel would be a “light to the nations”. That the promise to Abraham was that “through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed”. And so on.

The penny dropped that rather than the People of God consisting of just one nation with the rest locked outside, it was open to all- especially Jews. Rather than fighting for a patch of land in the Mediterranean, the whole world had been won. Rather than defeating the Romans, sin and death had been defeated.

All of this was totally in line with the OT story, but very different to how people were expecting it to play out.

I don't see any way to explain the demographic explosion of christianity after the romanizers work aside from a very successful appeal to the gentiles.  

If you were going to invent a pitch to gentiles you wouldn't start with 'this is the ongoing story of the Jewish nation' and continue it with what they would have understood as a zombie story.