tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post1267423426549122482..comments2021-07-20T14:05:47.042-07:00Comments on <big>q</big>uixotic infidel <sup><small><small><small>(the)</small></small></small></sup>: were the authors real "Jews"?Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-81250954365386029552009-06-08T10:35:27.652-07:002009-06-08T10:35:27.652-07:00Remembered you had written about this stuff, found...Remembered you had written about this stuff, found this article and thought you might be interested:<br /><br />http://peterennsonline.com/articles-and-essays/“hey-get-away-from-my-bible“-christian-appropriation-of-a-jewish-bible/<br /><br />As a former Christian, I don't come to the same conclusions, but as a former Christian with Jewish roots find it interesting. I've been part of traditional Seders, both secular, orthodox, reformed, and messianic. Actually put together and led a few as a Christian.<br /><br />"<i>Obviously, I do not place the high value in Acts as a historical document that is common in NT study circles, which is to say that I think Jerusalem was only important to the early gentile converts because they needed some kind of historical grounding for their adopted Messiah.</i>"<br /><br />Yes, excellent, me too.atimetorendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10563649474540441597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-72420552150687721832008-02-11T14:37:00.000-08:002008-02-11T14:37:00.000-08:00Yes, Yacob is James. I can use "James" too for the...Yes, Yacob is James. I can use "James" too for the sake of ease of communication, if you like, but it has always seemed a curiosity to me how the name was transformed beyond recognition, so I usually say Yacob.<BR/><BR/>Yeah Eisenman is a bit out there, and I don't buy into his main thesis, but that's never stopped me from reading a book before (I can even make my way through NT Wright's stodgy prose! - laughs) and dang if Eisenman doesn't know those scrolls backwards and forwards. It's uncanny. <BR/><BR/>I'll give that website a look.<BR/><BR/>cheers!<BR/><BR/><B>Ó</B>Quixiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-3088601963047951272008-02-11T14:11:00.000-08:002008-02-11T14:11:00.000-08:00This is an interesting book that gets into a lot o...This is an interesting book that gets into a lot of historical references to James: "The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of Christianity" by Jeffrey J. Bütz.<BR/><BR/>I actually got into the apocalyptic frame through the writings of Anthony Buzzard, professor at Atlanta Bible College. One of his books was "Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted WOund." Obviously an anti-Trinitarian argument.<BR/><BR/>At the time I still believed more conventionally in the Bible being true (although I've always been liberal in the sense that I have an open mind and hate fundamentalism). The idea of the "Christadelphian" belief is that Jesus taught the coming of the Kingdom of God, a literal earthly kingdom. People do not have immortal souls, but Christians will be resurrected from an unconscious death at the second coming (living ones will stay alive).<BR/><BR/>Anyway, it is to me a persuasive argument about what Jesus taught based on the texts and the history. Thew rub is that Buzzard believes that the resurrection is still to come. Jesus was right, just the timing is off. I tried that out for a bit, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense in the end. That's why I like more secular apocalyptic scholars such as Ehrman and Tabor.<BR/><BR/>I did wrote some articles for Buzzard's newsletter in recent years that can be found at "Focusonthekingdom.org".<BR/><BR/>Who is Yacob? James?<BR/><BR/>Eisenman is provacative, but articles of his I have read seem to leap kind of far. His recent attack on April DeConick in Huffington Post was a bit bizarre. <BR/>I think the scrolls were written pre-Jesus movement, so his interpretation is a bit off. I don't think he has many scholars agreeing with him on that.<BR/><BR/>Too bad you don't live on the east coast, it would be better to discuss this over a drink. <BR/><BR/>paulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-17475149619194294322008-02-11T12:15:00.000-08:002008-02-11T12:15:00.000-08:00" ... there are plenty of non-Biblical accounts th..." ... <I>there are plenty of non-Biblical accounts that -- when added to the sketchy account in Acts -- make it relatively certain that James was in charge of the Jesus movement...</I><BR/><BR/>I'd love to know what those non-Biblical accounts are. There's only Josephus' Antiquities as far as I can see (and even THAT was written nearly thirty years after Yacob's murder).<BR/><BR/>But I'll accept, for the sake of argument, that Yacob "led" some small group of ascetic Jerusalemites in keeping the memory of Jesus alive in their midrashing and such. But, lacking any textual evidence, I insist that there is no basis to ascribe Paul's theological and christological innovations to Yacob and that the only reason we do is because we are conditioned to by our familiarity with the complete story as we inherited it—way after the fact. Josephus says he was a well-respected and particularly pious Jew who was killed in what seems like some political power-play. That's all he says.<BR/><BR/>I know what the traditions are, I was raised on them as you were ... as Bart Ehrman was. If you recall, it was my objection to Bart's "certainty" about Jesus' apocalypticism which sparked my initial volley of thoughts. I have read a fair amount of Ehrman's work. Where I think he misses the boat most is in that he seems to confuse the usefulness of criteria such as "multiple attestation" and "embarrassment" in determining the historicity of a given story. While multiple attestation IS useful in determining what goes back earlier than what, "early" is not necessarily "authentic" (and the "earliest" we have was already forty years incubating, distilling, as it is). <BR/><BR/>I'm afraid I've not read Tabor's work, but he IS on my reading list. <BR/><BR/>I would recommend Robert H. Eisenman's James book, in which he posits that the Qumran descriptions of a Teacher of Righteousness are veiled references to Yacob. His theories have limitations and problems (like all do :) , but it's fascinating stuff. <BR/><BR/>As far as the Pauline letters are concerned . . . <BR/><BR/>two points:<BR/><BR/><B>1-</B> Any apocalypticism they may reflect has no bearing on the person of Jesus or what he might have stood for, for Paul, in those very same letters, says he never knew Jesus personally. While I realize he says he got it in a divine revelation, I am an unashamed naturalist ("a miracle on the road to Damascus happenned" seems an escape-hatch answer to me). Now, I don't know whether Paul pieced his christological constructs together along the way and what help he could have had, but (as Schweitzer and other have pointed out) just as the enterprise of looking for a historical Jesus is like looking down a well and seeing one's own reflection <I>today</I>, so <I>then</I>. Though Paul is clearly worried about the end, the parable material seems to indicate that Jesus didn't think much about it after the Baptizer's demise. <BR/><BR/><B>2-</B> It is easily demonstrable that the spread of Christianity was primarily among gentiles. This being so, and especially in light of Paul being explicitly named the "Apostle to the Gentiles" ("appointed" so by Yacob, no less, as the story goes), Judaism has nothing to do with Paul's message. He knew who his audience was. Paul was not selling Judaism in his epistles, and HIS writings are <B>the only ones</B> in the NT that can arguably be called "early" if you ask me (and even the seven "authentic" letters are arguably full of interpolations and accretions, but that is a matter for another post altogether). He needed to borrow Abraham's bossom for his spiel—Jesus <I>was a Jew</I>, after all. But the epistles aren't selling Judaism, and there seems to be indication that there was some "original" Jesus tribute-band (pardon the metaphor; I just heard Terri Gross' interview with Mark Walberg . . . laughs) that was complaining about what Paul was saying. In my opinion, to take at face value Paul's telling of the story—the only side of the story that was preserved (later added to by the author/editor of Acts, who clearly thinks Paul is a swell guy)—is historically naive. <BR/><BR/>If we strip away the veneer of "tradition" . . . what do the texts "actually" say? <BR/><BR/>In our focus, I come up with: "<I>Very</I> little about Yacob."<BR/><BR/>Not until such later works as the Protevangelion and the Gospel of the Hebrews (preserved in Jerome) did scribes feel the need to flesh out this brother of the Lord in textual form. They're interesting works, but are they useful historically?<BR/><BR/>If the answer is "no" (my vote), then again the question:<BR/>Show me <I>in the texts</I> where James is a "Christian" in the Pauline christological sense.<BR/><BR/>I'm left wondering if one day we might discover a trove of buried Ebionite or Nazarene scrolls or codexes (comparable to the Nag Hammadi collection— :D ... hey! I can always cross my fingers and dream . . . laughs). But seriously, I wonder what such a find would tell us about the progression of traditions regarding Yacob.<BR/><BR/>anyway . . . <BR/><BR/><B>Ó</B>Quixiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-35753689631587093752008-02-11T08:43:00.000-08:002008-02-11T08:43:00.000-08:00Sorry I haven't had more time. It was a busy weeke...Sorry I haven't had more time. It was a busy weekend with house project, a birthday party and a scout dinner.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, there are plenty of non-Biblical accounts that -- when added to the sketchy account in Acts -- make it relatively certain that James was in charge of the Jesus movement. The unanswered question is whether he was a follower before Jesus died. Some scholars -- including Bart Ehrman -- think not because the Bible seems to indicate Jesus' family did not support his ministry. Others -- James Tabor is an example -- think that he was. Tabor proposes that James and Jesus' other three brothers were among the 12 apostles.<BR/><BR/>As far as the point about the NT authors being Gentiles, I'm not really competent to answer that. My own opinion is that it seems unlikely, but I don't know enough to give a serious rebuttal.<BR/><BR/>I will say that the handful of books that scholars generally believe to be written by Paul, including Galatians and Corinthians and Thessalonians, do generally exhibit an apocalptic mentality. For example, Paul talks about the Lord' second coming like a thief in the night, he gives advice on relationships in light of the imminent end of the world order (don't marry because the end is near), etc.<BR/><BR/>The forged letters written in Paul's name tend to downplay the end of the world. <BR/><BR/>Same with Peter -- his first letter is apocalyptic (the end is near!). Then the second letter, probably a different author, downplays that speculation (stop worrying about the end -- a day with the Lord is like a Thousand years).<BR/><BR/>It seems to me the earliest followers were Jews expecting the end, then that morphed into something else after the Temple was destroyed. In the wake of the rebellion against Rome, the Jews became non-grata in the Roman empire and Christians at that point began to emphasize differences with Jews that led to it becoming more Gentile over time.<BR/><BR/>paulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-82001933003166949462008-02-09T16:46:00.000-08:002008-02-09T16:46:00.000-08:00Paul:Since no comments are forthcoming . . .Questi...<B>Paul:</B><BR/>Since no comments are forthcoming . . .<BR/>Question: <BR/>James was "appointed" to what position by whom?<BR/><BR/>From Josephus we are only justified in surmising that James remained a pious Jew. Once again, the easy relagation of James to "leader of the movement" position that we inherited from our enculturization comes only "after the fact" of being familiar with the stories contained in the book of Acts regarding James approving the dismissal of Torah among the new gentile Messianists and other early goings on (and even Acts say very little indeed about James' role, mind you).<BR/><BR/>But any assertion that James "led the movement for 30 years" is a theological or otherwise a poorly-thought-out one. Though taken for granted, it is simply textually unsupported.<BR/><BR/>"<I>Paul was a Jew. The issue of whether Gentile converts needed to abide by the Torah is an indication that Jews were driving the bus.</I>"<BR/>No . . . it is indicative that it was initially a Jewish movement which was co-opted early on. The insistence on the observation of Torah would have been an unnecessary exhortation to pious Jews. It merely reflects that they were resentful of the gentile indifference for the law.<BR/><BR/>Obviously, I do not place the high value in Acts as a historical document that is common in NT study circles, which is to say that I think Jerusalem was only important to the early gentile converts because they needed some kind of historical grounding for their adopted Messiah.<BR/><BR/><B>Mr anonymous:</B><BR/><BR/>Thanks for the links.<BR/><BR/>pax<BR/><BR/>ÓQuixiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-16758170500198191242008-02-07T20:32:00.000-08:002008-02-07T20:32:00.000-08:00Hi, Im from Melbourne Australia.Please check out t...Hi, Im from Melbourne Australia.<BR/><BR/>Please check out this radically different understanding of the origins of the Paul created cult which is called Christianity.<BR/><BR/>1. www.dabase.org/exochrist.htm<BR/>2. www.dabase.org/spiritw.htm <BR/>3. www.beezone.com/AdiDa/jesusandme.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-59742334873421377902008-02-05T08:03:00.000-08:002008-02-05T08:03:00.000-08:00Quixie:Cool discussion, I haven't the time to dige...Quixie:<BR/><BR/>Cool discussion, I haven't the time to digest the whole thing because I have some meetings in Manhattan today, but I'll respond more later.<BR/><BR/>Just one quick observation, though, I think the idea that Jesus was transformed into a movement by Gentiles is dubious. His brother James was appointed head of the movement and it was based in Jersusalem for 30 years. James was a well-respected Jew whose murder was protested by Jews. <BR/><BR/>Paul was a Jew. The issue of whether Gentile converts needed to abide by the Torah is an indication that Jews were driving the bus.<BR/><BR/>paulAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com