The Quest for the Historical Junior

[Minimalist]

However Christianity developed, it grew out of Jewish roots

I wonder.

[Guest]

Weelllll . . . yeah . . . perhaps that is a bit too simplistic on my part. I mean, if Mack is correct about Mk, for example, and Mk created a way of joining Hellenistic groups with the more Jewish groups . . . you cannot really say the Hellenistic types became attracted to the Jewish elements! Also, whomever the different authors were of the Synoptics, they sure miscast Judiasm to the point it appears doubtful they would recognize one if bitten on the proverbial heiney.

--J.D.

[Minimalist]

No, its more than that, Doc. You just reminded me of something.

I have a good friend who is a bible-thumper but not as obnoxious about it as you-know-who. And, of course, I don't treat her the way I treat him.

I once asked her a bible question and stumped her. She never did get back to me on it.

Anyway, this is history...even the bible doesn't disagree. When the Assyrians overran Israel in 722 they, as a matter of imperial policy, deported a significant portion of the population. Many thousands of refugees fled to Judah (thereby moving Judah out of the category of lousy little shithole and into something resembling an actual state.)

That is not all that the Assyrians did. They moved in thousands of people from other parts of the Assyrian empire and resettled them in Israel.

Next the Babylonians came along and absorbed the old Assyrian Empire and knocked off Judah. The Babylonians deported a significant portion of the Judahite population to Babylon where they remained until Cyrus of Persia knocked off Babylon and sent the Judahites back to Jerusalem. The Persians also absorbed the rest of the Babylonian Empire.

Follow me now. Persia maintained control of the entire area until Alexander the Great defeated the Persians c 335 BC. Alexander's empire lasted only a short time but was then divided among his generals. Seleuchos assumed control of the area known as Syria and Asia Minor and Ptolomy took control of Egypt.

The Seluecids and Ptolomies (both Greeks) fought over Palestine for over a century until Antiochus the III defeated the Ptolomaic forces in 198BC and took Judea for good. He continued to treat the Jews fairly well. A mere 8 years later the Romans defeated Antiochus at Magnesia and Antiochus' attitude toward the Jews changed. Eventually, Seleucid provocation led to the Maccabean revolt. The Maccabean revolt finally forced the Seleucids to withdraw from Palestine by about 140 BC. They occupied the area formerly known as Israel but again, there is no indication of any displacement of the now- native population which had grown up over the ensuing 5 centuries since the Israelites were evicted.

There were constant dynastic problems among the Hasmonean rulers (as the Maccabees came to be known) which would have kept them from any serious foreign expansion and then, in 65 BC, Pompey the Great arrived with a Roman army to put an end to Jewish independence. Herod the Great ended up on the Judean throne, ruling the whole area under Roman protection, but again, there seems to be no record of any Judean expansion into the north.

So the question comes up. How 'Jewish' was Galilee. How "Jewish" could it have been given that lots of other peoples had had plenty of time to settle in?

[Guest]

So the question comes up. How 'Jewish' was Galilee. How "Jewish" could it have been given that lots of other peoples had had plenty of time to settle in?

The question is how much blacker could it me. And the answer is "none." "None more black."

--Nigel Tuffnel, This is Spnal Tap

Very good question.

Methinks scholars have shared the misconception that "the area" was Jewish. That and the fact most spoke and wrote in Greek demostrates the Hellenistic influences. Now, I would think that Jerusalem had enough of a representation what with the Temple. There were enough Jews about. I really do not doubt Junior was Jewish given Paul's arguments with "the Pillars of Jerusalem." If he was a gentile then Paul would have no reason to refashion Judiasm as he does.

It is perhaps unfair to judge Junior and whomever his followers were through the lenses of the Synoptic authors or Jn. For example, they all denigrate the "apostles" as utter fools--Mk has to repeat a miracle for them and they still have no clue. Now, either the authors contended with opposition form whatever remained of such groups or they really enjoyed setting themselves apart. Who know?

For all we know the Historical Junior could have been a traditionalist like a Pharasee--interested in maintaining Jewish traditions--who never claimed any divinity . . . and later off-shoots placed their needs on him. He could have been a complete loon. One scholar--who wishes to remain annonymous--jokes that in his "gospel" Junior actually tried to destroy the Temple. He failed, of course, and this started a riot. Romans came in to do what Romans did. Someone turned "state's evidence" providing the basis for a "Judas"--gee . . . a Jew?--and Cephas/Peter denied knowing him. The group was not that important so the Romans off'd Junior--maybe right there. The crucifixion--which is fictitious in description--was created much later.

Possible? Sure--it explains "difficult traditions"--execution, failed claims to destroy and rebuild the Temple, Peter's denial, blah . . .blah.

BUT . . . those could all be literary devices as are in other myths. That could all be fiction.

I think the best people can do--absent digging up an earlier book--is construct "plausible" stories. As above, one has to be honest that these stories may reflect more the wants of the scholar rather than actual history.

--J. "No One Knows Who They Were . . . or . . . What They Were Doing" D.

[Beagle]

Doc - you're still trollin' for Jesus I see. A noble profession but you need some help.

I tried to warn you, to no avail, but this will be my last helpful post to you.
You began with a series of long, funny, girly-man posts (Nicole Kidman notwithstanding). You did seem somewhat "disoriented", but I have noticed as of last night that your posts are sounding like "dumb yada yada, dumb yada yada. (nice beat) but it's getting ad hominum.

Do you want me to tell you how you will sound in a few days?

"with my last breath, I spit at thee....."

Well, anyway, I know you don't believe me. Understand though - Arch doesn't count any point but one -"last man standing"

Now you know. So, unless you want to set up a tent permanently and learn some archaeology I would:



have Ed take you home, and you tell all your buds how you kicked ass.
Good strategy. Declare victory now. Yaaaaaay Doc.

[Guest]

[Minimalist]

Jesus was the only god who was ever said to actually live on earth.

Humanity had shown itself quite capable of inventing gods out of the air to 'believe' in. Zeus, Osiris, Baal, El, Yahweh, Mithras, etc never had any sort of earthly existence. Suppose the jesus story was simply a marketing ploy? A clever invention that got out of hand and resulted in legions of snot-spraying believers shouting his name? Neither archaeology nor history has any record of him or his movement in the first century AD beyond the self-serving religious documents which are of questionable providence.

You might enjoy The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty.

[Minimalist]

Spotted this online....the precursor religion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/us/06 ... ner=EXCITE

Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam, and many historians say it influenced those faiths and cross-fertilized Judaism as well, with its doctrines of one God, a dualistic universe of good and evil and a final day of judgment.

[Guest]

Jesus was the only god who was ever said to actually live on earth.

Junior was "a son of a god." He was not the first--Greek mythology is soaked with them. Gilgamesh and other epic heroes were all "sons of a god." The problem modern Christians have with polytheism or even henotheism did not exist for the Synoptic writers. They did not need the mental gymnastics and denial of a "trinity!"

In the earlier material--Q--he does not seem like much of a "son of a god."

Humanity had shown itself quite capable of inventing gods out of the air to 'believe' in. Zeus, Osiris, Baal, El, Yahweh, Mithras, etc never had any sort of earthly existence.

I would disagree with that. YHWH certainly has earthly existence in the J material--he wanders around looking for people. Granted, there is usually a separation between "here" and "up there"--understandable: how many gods do you run into? There seems to be a shift as popular gods remain someone to contact and the "father god" is remote.

Suppose the jesus story was simply a marketing ploy? A clever invention that got out of hand and resulted in legions of snot-spraying believers shouting his name?

The myths? Yes. Each gospel is "selling" a story to someone--we assume a like-minded group. Writing as well as reading was very labor intensive. Just as more modern Christianity was "happy" to take in other peoples myths--"him? Oh, he was a saint!"--earlier were happy to take in traditions that other people honored. I frankly feel most groups gave up with Judiasm and moved to Hellenistic circles that would be familiar with such myths as you list below.

Neither archaeology nor history has any record of him or his movement in the first century AD beyond the self-serving religious documents which are of questionable providence.

Here is where you meet the problem. To sustain that doubt, you have to explain the Galatians reference.

You might enjoy The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty.

To be honest, I was disappointed with Doherty as I am often disappointed with web-based scholarship where there is no peer-review. Doherty, as I noted above, "conveniently" ignores the Galatians reference while holding it up as a legitimate letter to further his argument that all of the theological details were "made up." Of course they were!

As for Zoroastrianism, it certainly sparked the concept of duality. We do not know when or if, in my mind, it influenced Judiasm. "Stn" is a thing at first--something to stumble over. In Job, he is part of the Heavenly Council--"Hello?! Evil Council?!"--who is sort of a spy for the Elohim. It is only until the Chronicler that we have a "Satan" who does bad things--simply to create distance between YHWH and his ordering of David to take a census . . . so he can punish him for taking a census!!!

Then we have a gap. There is Jewish Gnosticism . . . I think it reasonable to assume that the Synoptic authors got the idea of a Satan from someplace.

--J.D.
--J.D.

[Minimalist]

The Q gospel is merely theorized to have existed. Not a single scrap of it has ever been found.

It could be as much a fiction as all the others.

[Minimalist]

BTW, Doherty spends a great deal of time distancing Paul's "letters" from the later gospel crowd.

Since we have no manuscript copies of 'Paul' who is to say that these were not 'edited' by later christian copyists? They certainly showed no reluctance to create evidence of the godman to push their case.

[Guest]

The Q gospel is merely theorized to have existed. Not a single scrap of it has ever been found.

It could be as much a fiction as all the others.

The Kloppenborg-Verbin reference gives a nice summary of the evidence you would have to confront to hold that opinion. Thus far, no one has succeeded, including the Mathean Supremicist Goodacre. I suppose I could try to summarize the Two Source Hypothesis, but it would take some time, and I would feel like I am giving short shrift to a devestating argument. So emphatic is it, that it is the accepted explanation--competitors are considered less-likely and have the burden of proof to demonstrate their theory explains the textual evidence better.

BTW, Doherty spends a great deal of time distancing Paul's "letters" from the later gospel crowd.

Irrelevant, since it does not alter the reference. They are letters, are written as letters, and were preserved as collections of letters.

Since we have no manuscript copies of 'Paul' . . . .

To be precise, we have quite a number of manuscript witnesses. We have no autographs for any of the NT texts--or HB for that matter. Nevertheless, as noted above, the textual witness, while varying in other parts of Galatians to greater and lesser degrees, do not vary in this instance. This means the reference is old enough to be carried in all of the variants. Since letters were collected, there is less of a pressure on scribes to change them until later, but then we would expect variants.

The reference is stylistically consistent with the rest of the letter. Unlike Josephus, where the references stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, this one does not. I am unaware of anyone making a strong argument that the reference is secondary.

They certainly showed no reluctance to create evidence of the godman to push their case.

The push moved in both directions. We have variants to other references to Junior having siblings. I do not cite Mk's because it is clearly a story--a parabble--when his brothers and sisters come to "take him away" and he tell the summoner, "but my family his HERE" pointing to that massive crowd that always gathers in Mk but never leaves a record!

That passage does indicate that Mk had no problem with Junior having siblings. None of the "virgin birth" and "forever a virgin" crapolla. We do have instances of "cleaning up" such references in the texts. So, I would expect if it a late addition to Galatians, we would have witnesses supressing it, not having it, even some expanding it.

Then, this is why I am having this discussion.

--J.D.

[Minimalist]

I'm not so sure that Paul was any more real than Jesus.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/saul-paul.htm

The trail-blazing Christian missionary and apostle, St Paul, appears nowhere in the secular histories of his age (not in Tacitus, not in Pliny, not in Josephus, etc.) Though Paul, we are told, mingled in the company of provincial governors and had audiences before kings and emperors, no scribe thought it worthwhile to record these events. The popular image of the saint is selectively crafted from two sources: the Book of Acts and the Epistles which bear his name. Yet the two sources actually present two radically different individuals and two wildly divergent stories. Biblical scholars are only too familiar with the conundrum that chunks of Paul's own story, gleaned from the epistles, are incompatible with the tale recorded in Acts but live with the "divine mystery" of it all. Perish the thought that they might recognize the whole saga is a work of pious fiction.

[Guest]

I'm not so sure that Paul was any more real than Jesus.

That site reads like an Atheist-archaeologist, which is why I started this thread in a way beyond discussing the topic.

One would have to explain why separate writers would feel the need to refer to Paul. One would then have to explain how different letters were not only preserved they were preserved at different time periods. Writing was labor intensive. One has to then assume a grand conspiracy of sorts while also assuming that vast regions of the ancient world was stupid. To me, that is the atheist equivalent of a fundi screaming "But GOD DID IT!" whenever faced with a contradiction or, like, science.

Your link makes the mistake of concentrating on Lk's Acts which, as I indicated above, is a fiction. It is interesting that Lk would feel the need to "smooth" such a conflict. There had to be a tradition of a conflict between Paul and the Jerusalem Group that survived long after the Jerusalem Group went down with the city or why bother to smooth it? We know Paul's view from his Mein Kampf of Galatians. We do not know what the Jerusalem Group actually felt.

As the Synoptic authors and Jn "puffed" the fame of Junior--while at the same time suppressing it: "He told all 47,000,000 witnessing the miracle to tell no one about it."--I am sure Lk "puffed" Paul.

One thing the mythicists should latch onto, is if the Synoptics and Jn--and Paul for that matter--preserve anything of validity of "Junior's Teachings" [Available on Limited Edition DVD.--Ed.] it is that Junior did not consider himself divine. The Synoptics and Jn ridicule the disciples. They are fools and buffoons, and the intended audience is expected to share in this joke. English mistranslates Mk's "final joke" which is the Centurian actually says "truly this the man (a) son of (a) god was." As you know there is no indefinite article in Greek, but there is a definite article and Mk uses it in that sentence which, incidentally, also has no significant textual variant.

This is the equivalent of calling Big Papi "a god." Okay . . . Big Papi is a god, but I think you get the analogy.

The "joke" is this ROMAN Centurian gets closer to "the Truth" [Tm.--Ed.] than any of the dunderheaded disciples. Not all the way, but closer.

Which beggeth the question: are these attacks because of the tradition that Junior never claimed any divine status?

Possible.

Finally, the mythicists do have a point: whatever happened it was not worth non-believers noting until late into the development of the subsequent religions. Some clown riding into a city--on two animals . . . have to satisfy the prophecies!!--with crowds of people would get noticed.

For a "fun" reconstruction that actually reflects a decent understanding about the Jerusalem Group and what Paul may have done, read Vidal's Live! From Golgotha!.

--J. "Why Hath Thou Forsakeths Me?!" D.

--J.D.

[ed]

You are fairly far beyond me in terms of the textual critism but I think that I might be allowed a series of general observations.

Let us assume that there was an historic J. We might even assume that he was fairly popular. The Romans might have been negative to indifferent. Anyone with people following him around would, I suspect, have made them nervous. Not very, very, but less than well disposed. The Big Jews (BJ tm) were probably less well disposed than the Romans. So, when it comes down to it, the Romans are more apt to do a solid for the BJs than to protect j. They want him gone so the Romans oblige. Easy and not particularly notable. It is the history of humanity.

But there is a problem. J had hangers on. I think of the pathetic spectical of the "Doors" after another J died. J may not have said that he was divine but then again, perhaps he did not publicly deny it. Said hangers on co-opt existing, proven, mythic structures, inculcating J as appropriate. Who is going to argue? After all they knew the guy.

Then as now (witness Arch) there are people ready to believe any wackey thing (witness also Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, that wierd chinese thing, and about a billion more, all with their own versions of Arch ready to "believe"). So, OK, they have a flegling business. A pretty good business model (co-opt what is locally popular, insert J, stir, repeat). The problem is that they really have no vision. They are, after all, camel jockies.

The point is that they have a real ongoing concern. As long as they don't screw up, people will be attracted. Since they basically promise nothing, the expectations of the deluded are never thwarted. A little random schedule reinforcement, the odd miricle here or there always breathlessly reported by a believer and they are golden. But, still, they do not have the vision for Global Expansion. They need a hitter.

Enter Paul. Handsome (in a jewish kinda way), urbane, sophisticated, a member of both the tribe AND the best club in town. A natural to take the enterprise to the next level.

Where am I going wrong?