hedrick@topaz.UUCP (12/22/86)
I'm going to respond to Eitan Shternbaum privately involving some
details of his posting, since detailed point by point response is not
something I really want to see in this group. But his basic claim is
commonly enough believed that it's probably worth looking at more
generally. He claims that Jesus was basically a good, if slightly
idiosyncratic, Jew, but that Paul hijacked him. Now I don't expect to
make a Christian of Eitan, but I would like to convince him that
things are a bit more complex than this. I have problems both with
his views about Jesus and his views about Paul.
First, we have the question of whether Jesus said anything that was
out of the ordinary for a Jewish rabbi. It's clear that Jesus was
entirely within the context of Judaism, as Eitan points out. This is
something that Christians all too often forget, and so it is useful to
point it out. However I think it is going too far to claim that there
is nothing about Jesus' teachings that point in the direction
Christianity took. I once went through Mark (generally considered the
earliest of the gospels) to see whether it was possible to construct a
picture of Jesus that didn't involve some sort of Messianic overtones.
It is not. Jesus' claims about himself are an intrinsic part of
everything that he says and does. Of course one could say that the
gospel-writers added this. But any picture of Jesus as a simple
teacher involves a rejection of the only evidence we have, or a
reconstruction sufficiently radical that you might as well reject it.
Jesus was crucified. Both the Jews and the Romans were reasonably
tolerant during this period. People made overt claims of being the
Messiah without being prosecuted. [Of course when they made war on
Rome, things did happen...] Presumably Jesus must have made some
unusual claims. Now I'm not saying one can prove that Jesus claimed
specifically to be God incarnate. But I think it is clear that he
believed he had been appointed by God to inaugurate God's Kingdom, and
that he had a special authority that was different from that of an
ordinary Jewish teacher. Even NT studies that start by assuming that
the NT portrait has been biased significantly by the beliefs of the
Church (see for example Perrin's "Rediscovering the Teaching of
Jesus") emphasize this escatological call that Jesus issues.
Second, there is a tendency to credit far too much to Paul. Paul
himself worked within a Jewish context. The problem is that 1st Cent.
Judaism included a wider range of beliefs than modern Judaism. (For
example, when was the last time you saw a Jewish missionary? In the
1st Cent., there were groups of Jews who actively encouraged Gentile
conversions.) Those scholars who have studied Paul carefully find
Jewish background to everything that he says. (This includes Jewish
scholars. See, e.g., H.J.Schoeps, "Paul". This doesn't mean that
Jewish scholars think Paul's conclusions were legitimate, but there is
less of a tendency to see Paul as importing Greek ideas than there
used to be a few decades ago.) In fact Paul did not go as far as
other parts of the NT in Christology. He avoids referring to Jesus as
God. The same restraint is not present in the Johannine tradition,
e.g. John and Rev. It seems likely that the earliest Christian
confession was "Jesus is Lord". Jesus' death was seen as in some way
saving others. [There are Jewish precedents for this sort of thing --
see Sam Williams' "Jesus' Death as Saving Event: the Background and
Origin of a Concept."] Without some such interpretation, it's hard to
see how any kind of community could have developed around an executed
leader. Christians ackowledged him as their Lord. Originally, there
probably was not a very clear definition as to what this meant.
"Kyrios" is a nicely ambiguous term which can refer to God, kings,
etc. As time went on, various alternatives were explored. We see in
the NT and elsewhere quite a variety of different formulations tried
out. The NT itself has not only Paul, but the Johannine tradition,
Hebrews, and several different traditions that show up in the Gospels.
Then we have the Gnostics and various groups that eventually came to
be considered heretical. Paul's letters show signs of several other
groups even during his life. One gets the impression that Paul was
more or less a middle of the roader. The Christian doctrines that we
know of now took form over several centuries. While they certainly
took much from Paul, I think that among the NT documents John's gospel
is probably more influential in the strictly doctrinal areas. Paul
was primarily interested in the reality of the Christian life. He is
known, for example, for his so-called "Christ mysticism", his
well-developed notions of the life "in Christ". However he didn't go
in for the sorts of speculation that you find in the first Chap of
John [except possibly in Colossians, but most scholars think he is
quoting a hymn at that point]. In many ways the Incarnation and
Trinity probably have the most direct basis in John's gospel. However
it is probably most accurate to think of the progression from the
primitive "Jesus is Lord" to the mysteries of the Trinity and
Incarnation as taking place across a broad front.
Let me say again here what I have found it necessary to say in
talk.religion.misc: The fact that the NT as a whole wasn't frozen
until around 300 doesn't mean that the individual documents were
changing that late. What varied was the *list* of documents
considered canonical, not the contents of the documents. And even the
list didn't vary by much by 300. It is likely that the earliest
documents in the NT are some of Paul's letters, and that they are from
the early 60's. Some scholars claim that all of the NT documents were
finished before 70. (John A. T. Robinson claimed this in a talk,
though I don't know whether he continued to maintain it seriously.)
At most a few documents are likely to have been beyond the end of the
1st Cent, and even there we are talking about the early 2nd Cent. (It
used to be claimed that John went into the mid-2nd Cent until several
papyrii were found that have portions of it, dated around 150.)
From eitans%wisdom.BITNET@cmcl2.UUCP (Eitan Shternbaum) Sat Dec 20 23:27:39 1986
Path: topaz!christian
From: eitans%wisdom.BITNET@cmcl2.UUCP (Eitan Shternbaum)
Newsgroups: mod.religion.christian
Subject: from Nazarian Judaism to Christianity
Message-ID: <8054@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: 21 Dec 86 04:27:39 GMT
Sender: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: unknown
Lines: 115
Approved: christian@topaz.UUCP
Trying to resolve the problem of Jesus,NT,Christianity vs History
is very complicated , b4 we try to dig proofs from the Nt we must check
wether the NT (which is our main source ) is a Valid & Euthentic
historical document (which is not) & while analysing the text we must
use logic & the knowledge of the debated historical period , Thus
we would be able to recreate the dynmical process in which this history
has taken its place . Ignoring history would leed us into deadend .
The first chapters of the NT begun to be written from 80 AC and the book
editing was finished around 220-250 AC in that period the nazarians
become into christians . from a JEWISH SECT the movement become a NON
JEWISH RELIGION , this editing EVOLUTION can be found in the NT.
There are 4 categories for the traces of that evolutions :
1: the attitude to the jews
2: thw attitude to the non jews
3: the attitude to the laws of the bible
4: the position of jesus
5: the definition of jesus's audience
by reading the NT you can notice that from the jews as the priests of god
jews become the anti-crist , from non jews being less then dogs-the glory
of god fall upon them , from keeping all the laws of the bible & keeping
all the laws of the pharasis - abolish evry law , faith holy not deeds
from jesus as a prophet & a social leader he envolves into messiah and
finally to the son of god .
The NT itself is based on several ideas,myths&legends who were spread
among the jews & non jews : the virgin birth,paganism (man-god,man son of
god ) , the legends of the bible (pharo=herode,moses=jesus,joseph flys to
egypt=abraham,izak,jacob) & the helenistic view about supiriority of the
spirit on the material (those were spread among the non jews & the
helenist jews , paul was a helenist jew)
finally , the book itself is full with contradictions
(partly dew to the evolution of the text) , and it's such an opinionated
book that in some cases there are clear traces of twisting truth
(if not lies & forgery) and of (deliberate or not) missinterpratation.
after clearing the question of the validity of the NT i'm moving to
the problem : what did he REALLY say ? . In order to get a correct answer
we must examine the evangelions carefully . From the text itself
we'll find our answer .
The first issue we need to settle is his attitude to the laws of the
bible and to the leaders of judaism in those times :
MAT Ch.5 17-20 , MAT Ch.23 1-3 , LUK Ch.16 17
Those 3 paragrphs show us that jesus doesn't come to change Judaism ,
Jesus accepts the leadership of the Pharasis , Jesus states that changing
the laws of judaism is forbiden . Jesus demands strict moral values but
for that one should first keep all the laws of judaism . One can not
to enter the Heavenly realm if he is less then the Pharasis .
the second issue we need to settle is jesus's attitude to the non jews
& to determine his target audience :
MAT Ch.10 5-6 MAT Ch.19 28 (not a full list)
As we see jesus speaks only for the jews , paulus himself admits it in
several places though he covers the fact with some excuses ...
I , myself , has done some reading in the TALMUD (book of jewish law)
and i've found that some of the proverbs & saying are quite identical
to those in the NT some of his ideas can be traced in the TALMUD
( mostly as the mionrity view but still a legitimate JEWISH view )
A full list with direct entries will be given later (i'm not a TALMUD
expert i'm consulting someone who knows more about it than me )
the few arguments of jesus with the leaders were mainly about their moral
( critisim that was spread among the pharasis themselves )
and about matters of law that were commonly debated in that period
( As i've already stated in the former paragraph , it was legitamate to
argue about those matters , the different interpratations has created
the various jewish sects ) some of those ideas has accepted by the
rabanical institution and can be found in the talmud .
ofcourse they were all quite axagerated because of the fact that the
vast majority of the christians after 50 years was no jewish thus
the non jew writers did not understand the meaning
There are several places where Jesus's Judaism can be shown by his acts
(He feasts the passover , he travels to jerusalem according to the jewish
callander, his crtisism about the Priests,Pharasis & the temple is quite
like the crtisism of the Old prophets . There is a match between his
ideas and the idears who were spread among the pharasis , especially
in the matter of resisting the romans & their servants ).
When we come to deal with paulus&the acts of the followers
Then we notice an ashtonishing fact , even though Jesus is the most
important figure in Christainity (or at least should've been).
still the NT has only 4 books about jesus (They all repeat the same
version , more or less) while Paul as someone who didn't even knew Jesus
Takes leadership & puts aside JESUS,Peter & the rest students.
1/2 of the NT is the ideas of Paul the other is devided among the others
but the 'spirit' of pauline editing is noticed all over the books .
The NT is an opinonated book (VERY) which shows the Pauline ideas about
How Jesus SHOULD have been .
Jesus himself didn't INVENT much of theology since he was only a REFORMER
founder of the JEWISH sect , The Nazarians not of a religion (Xianity) .
History itself state that only after 17 years the nazarian begun to
spread their ideas outside Judea & only after Paulus join the Nazarians
they accepted non jewish belivers of Jesus . the jews soon became
minority while Paulus takes over the leadership of the forign churchs
He change the Judaism into mixed helemism,semimonotheism while holding
a financial threat on the jewish community in Jerusalem unless they
accept his changes (his changes were mostly to gain power over the
students of Jesus) after 40 years most of the nazarians has died in the
jewish revolt against the romans , Thus Paulus could continue his
pragmatist Chrsitianity (no longer Nazarian Judaism), claiming
the 'copyrights' over jesus & making him into a 'trademark' of his ...
History is written by the winners ... and by the pragmatists !
That's all (for now)
Martyr