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History’s Jesus – Part IVThe Evolution of ChristianityByA. C. McCann - hon. DDIt is my contention that indeed Jesus is a compilation of characters beginning in the last century BC with the story of Jesus Ben Pandira (or Panthera or Pandera) who was slain and then hanged on a tree on the eve of the Passover. Originally, this was the prevailing gospel and remnants of it remain in the NT today. “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” (Acts 5:30) “And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:” (Acts 10:39) In his book On the True Doctrine, the Epicurean philosopher Celsus tells us this is so and that Christians changed the “gospel” to hide the fact that Jesus was born to a Jewish seamstress because of an affair with a Roman soldier. "Let us imagine what a Jew- let alone a philosopher- might say to Jesus: 'Is it not true, good sir, that you fabricated the story of your birth from a virgin to quiet rumors about the true and unsavory circumstances of your origins? Is it not the case that far from being born in the royal David's city of Bethlehem, you were born in a poor country town, and of a woman who earned her living by spinning? Is it not the case that when her deceit was uncovered, to wit, that she was pregnant by a roman soldier called Panthera she was driven away by her husband- the carpenter- and convicted of adultery?" (Origen Contra Celsus – Book 1). The remnants of this story is also in the NT; in the Gospel of John, in chapters 7 and 8 there is a big argument of how Jesus is a man born of fornication (8:41) following a story about a woman taken in adultery and forgiven (8:3) which lies right between the argument over knowing that Jesus is from Galilee and not Bethlehem as the scripture says (7:41). Then follows the story of the blind man healed (chapter 9) whom Jesus says was not a sinner and neither were his parents (9:3), meaning of course, that Jesus could not help who his parents were either. However, the priests said they knew the man (Jesus) was a sinner (9:24) and just as in the case of Jesus, John 9:34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. The whole story is a comparison between being born blind and being born a bastard. Both Jesus and the blind man received their sight by being washed (9:11) (Mark 1:9-11). It was prophesied in the Psalms that the Messiah would be born in sin and conceived in iniquity, just as Celsus said that Jesus was and what Celsus said the original gospel taught but was changed by the church. Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. The whole of Psalm 51 would have fit Mark’s chapter 1 Jesus to a tee along with Psalm 2:7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Which were the original words of Mark 1:11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Why the church would want to change it is anyone’s guess. In this final part IV of History’s Jesus, I intend to examine the early Christian beliefs from the first century through the first decades of the second century. Historians attempting to examine early Christianity have the problem of an “orthodox” doctrine, developed by a church based on this doctrine. Any other doctrines existing at that time were either suppressed, or misrepresented, in intervening centuries. Therefore, learning the exact truth about the actual beginning of Christianity, from those who actually lived when it was born, is impossible, as those records did not survive. This is unfortunate because Christianity later became a major force in world history and we have no direct evidence of its beginnings, we have only indirect or later hearsay evidence. The slaughter of the children by Herod the king in Matthew, for example, was not recorded by Josephus but a slaughter of children by the king of Judea, Alexander Janneaus, (many years before Herod) is recorded in Josephus. No doubt, that story was known in the first century in Israel and it is to that slaughter that Matthew refers, about the time Jesus Ben Pandera was born and escaped to Egypt with his father as told in the Talmud http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/JewishJesus/san107b.html The New TestamentOnly a small selection of the documents from the first couple of centuries of Christianity are represented in the New Testament and they have been edited and revised since then. The NT didn’t come into the final form until around 1,000 AD and recent discoveries have provided possible corrections to these. Some NT books that appear to have been written rather early contain portions that appear to have been written later. Scholars conclude, therefore, that they were edited some time after they were originally written and the later, edited portions added are known as “interpolations.” This was not just a Christian phenomenon -- many classical works show interpolations, and so this practice wasn’t at all unusual. The NT has three parts: the 4 gospels and Acts of the Apostles; a large number of epistles; and Revelation. There is a great amount of church tradition about these books. Most of the books do not have a known author. The gospels, for example, are claimed by tradition to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (Acts is also claimed to have been written by Luke) but this has turned out almost certainly not to be the case, as all these books were written between 70 and 150 AD. These books also have passages that contradict their dating, such as the episode in Mark, where Jesus eulogizes the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem – the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. Biblical scholars have determined that Mark preceded Matthew and Luke and that Mark was used as a source by the authors of both Matthew and Luke and that John was written well after the other three. The author of John’s gospel is a definite attempt by the “orthodox” church of changing Jesus, the man, into God. The oldest books of the NT are actually some of the epistles by Paul (or Apollonius, see History’s Jesus Part III) In fact, there is no reason to suspect they were written by anyone other than a “Paul” who lived originally in Asia Minor and traveled often to Syria. However, some of “Paul’s” letters, particularly to Timothy and Titus, are a different style from his usual language and make mention of doctrinal issues that were not known to have existed in the first century and are more accurately dated to the middle of the second century. Even Romans and the two Corinthian epistles have some apparent interpolations. These interpolations, as well as the later “forged” epistles, mention some doctrinal issues that were not a problem during the first century. Revelation is a book that probably has as many ways to interpret it, as there are people who read it. During the process by which the church decided which documents to accept as “canon”, Revelation almost didn’t make it. St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into the Latin “Vulgate” translated it along with the others but did not think that it should be included. The Synoptic GospelsLinguistic scholars, during the nineteenth century, began to examine the three synoptic gospels closely, to find out why they matched each other. These scholars determined that there must have been a common source of all three, which they called Q or Quelle, the German word for “source”. They then determined the properties of Q and with that determined they examined other early Christian writings to determine if Q had inspired other documents, or if Q had been incorporated into one. As it turned out, there was nothing like what they knew Q would be, which would mostly be a collection of Jesus’ sayings, with only just enough narrative to put them all together. Scholars began to wonder if they had been right, then further study showed that Mark had to have been a source for both Matthew and Luke. Removing Mark material from Matthew and Luke made it clear that these two had been drawn from a common source, that being a collection of Jesus’ sayings, and that even Mark had made use of some of it. There had to have been a Q, even if it had not survived. The scholars then “distilled” the Q material out of the synoptic gospels. Their version of Q, which had to have existed in order for the synoptic gospels to arrive in their final forms, was very different from any other early Christian writing. It wasn’t written by people looking for a Christ but by people who appreciated a classical Cynical lifestyle. Classical Cynics were generally wandering philosophers who belittled the normal social and cultural traditions. They were sometimes sought out as advisors, since they tended to be fairly well educated, but they could be petulant and difficult. Apparently, the people who wrote Q, liked this lifestyle. Perhaps some were itinerant Cynics themselves. The determination that a Cynical community had a part in the origins of Christianity seemed amazing to the scholars. There was little Cynical philosophy about Christianity so far as anyone knew, so how did Cynics fit into the origins of Christianity? The scholars could only determine that the origin of Christianity was far more complex than they had thought. Apparently, different movements had somehow welded themselves together. The evidence pointed away from Christianity starting at a single point and radiating outward. Many movements More study and investigation revealed several distinct movements during the early first century that may have contributed to the origin and evolution of Christianity. One, of course, was the Cynic-inspired “Q” community in Galilee. Another was the “Christ movement” of which Paul was the leader and which was prominent in southeastern Anatolia. Another was a movement centered on tales of miracles based in Syria. Also there was a Messianic movement in Judea, which was nearly wiped out by the Jewish revolt from 66 to 70 AD. Yet another mystical Judaic movement originated in Alexandria and possibly expanded into western Palestine. The “Christ movement” of Cilicia (Paul’s movement) appears to have consisted of Greeks, Syrians and Hellenized Jews. This movement resembled a number of other mystical movements that had existed for centuries, with god/men as their foundation. These god/men were all usually half human, were outcasts, suffered in some way, and either died and were resurrected, or they ascended to heaven to be with their fathers. These god/men had many names; in Greece he was Dionysus, in Phrygia he was Attis, in Syria he was Adonis, in Egypt he was Serapis. Another similar cult had sprung up in Cilicia, (where Paul was) named Mithras. (See History’s Jesus – Part I) These movements were known as the “mystery religions.” It is known that they taught that their stories of the mystical god/man were metaphors for the human condition, and represented a pathway for believers to attain spiritual excellence and a set of rituals representing certain spiritual truths. Among those rituals were a ritual bath (baptism) and a ritual meal (communion). The “Christ movement” of Paul was a young one but greatly influenced by Mithras. Although Paul refers to certain Jewish principles and Old Testament scripture, the movement itself is clearly Hellenistic in nature and in derivation. As Paul himself said, the truth of God was revealed to him in a “mystery”, he meant the Mithraic Mystery, as I have shown in Part I. The “miracle movement” in Syria collected tales of miracles that had supposedly been performed; healings, exorcisms, raising of the dead, etc. They may have attributed these miracles to some actual person. They did not believe this miracle worker was living in their own time but they seem to have believed that he might return at any time. The “Messianic movement” in Judea was simple and uncomplicated. It was quite common for a number of Jews to band together with someone whom they presumed to be the Christ. The main one and the one for which we have the best record is Judas of Galilee. These movements generally did not last very long. As they began to make trouble for the authorities they were quickly suppressed and the leaders were all killed or imprisoned and their followers disbanded. It seems, though, that one such movement did not entirely disband. They had lost their messiah figure but presumed a resurrection had taken place because of his body being missing from the tomb in which he was first placed. The supposed discovery of Jesus’ family tomb, as seen on the recent TV documentary, may be the answer. Perhaps Jesus’ (or Judas’) body was reclaimed by the family and his followers were not informed of that fact. Perhaps later, because of persecution the movement’s followers scattered (as it says in Acts) their focus turned to a deeper examination of Judaic thought. However, they kept the idea that the messiah would soon come back and in time his name changed from Judas of Galilee to Jesus of Galilee (more on this a little later). The Movements Become OneActually, the movements never really became just one. History shows that there has never been a time in all of Christian history when someone wasn’t teaching some variant doctrine in Christendom. What is likely, which is seen by the development of the synoptic gospels, is that three of these communities — those of Galilee, Cilicia, and Syria — rather rapidly welded themselves together. The mysticism of the Cilicians was de-emphasized, as was the Galilean Cynicism, while the miracle stories were kept, and integrated into the gospels. Why these three unified, is still unclear. They may have seen a great deal of mutual overlap, and simply mistook each other for variants of the same movement; or, more likely, one or two were either repressed, or put under some other sort of pressure, and forced to shelter with another. The warring going on in Judea in the 60’s — while it probably didn’t affect the Galileans directly — may have had an indirect effect. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem certainly played a major part in the gospel of Mark, which was probably written by the Syriacs. It is possible that Jews fleeing the war came in large numbers to Galilee and Syria, creating problems of some kind. At any rate, once these three started to blend, the messianic movement in Judea fell in line with them, soon after. Probably this, again, was due to the Jewish revolt. The Messianists may have suffered a setback, and saw in the merging Galilean/Syriac/Cilician movement, a kindred belief system. These four movements account for the vast majority of the material in the New Testament. The gospel and epistles of John (not written by the apostle John, of course, as he'd have been a hundred years old when they were penned!), as well as the epistles of Jude and James, came from the Judean movement. Despite the merger, things were not going easy. Tensions arose, especially where the Jews in the movement were concerned. In the Cilician movement, and in the Judean, there had already been an ongoing debate concerning the Judaic Law. Must believers still be circumcised and otherwise obey the Law? Or did the new movement free them from having to obey it? Decades before the “mergers” began, Paul had thought the Law was obsolete, and it appears that his view won out. In all likelihood, this is due to the fact that the Christian movement, such as it was, was seen by its own members as primarily a Hellenistic one, not a Judaic one, even if it had elements of Judaic tradition. For much more on this subject, let me suggest the following website: http://www.earlychristianhistory.net
--9/01/2007
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