outhouse
Atheistically
This was the Hellenistic authors writing who never met or heard a words from Jesus
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Did Jesus preach with intent to start a new religion?
- Thread starter jeager106
- Start date
This was the Hellenistic authors writing who never met or heard a words from Jesus
Vishvavajra
Active Member
I certainly agree. Judaism was the cultural bedrock of everything Jesus (and Paul) taught, even if their particular interpretations were outside of the mainstream. The anti-Jewish sentiment that you find in, say, the Gospel of John reflects a later attitude, at a point where Christians are now trying to distance themselves from their Jewish roots. And of course they retroject that conflict back to the lifetime of Jesus and make it look as if the Jews killed him, which is absurd from a historical perspective.
Of course, it's not very likely that Jesus and his immediate followers were antagonistic with the Pharisees either, at least not in the way that is portrayed in the Gospels. That conflict probably arose a few decades later, once the Christian sect had grown big enough to be a real competitor. All the bits in the Gospels really tell us is that Christians around the time of their composition saw the Pharisees as rivals. At the same time, it's quite possible that Jesus's approach to scripture and the framing of Judaism was incompatible with the Pharisaic model from the beginning. Their aims are similar in trying to figure out how the ancient Law should apply to everyday life in their own time, but the Pharisees' exoteric approach yielded quite different results from Jesus's decidedly esoteric one.
As for whether the Gospels constitute propaganda, I wouldn't say that's all they are, but at the same time it's hard not to see that as one of their various functions.
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outhouse
Atheistically
Not true brother. Biased yes,
But
Some of the Pharisees were known animals using Roman muscle to extort more tithes then normal.
The Pharisees were as divided as the rest of Judaism, and the Hellenistic ones oppressed the cultural ones.
outhouse
Atheistically
Some of the Pharisees viewed each other as rivals.
So did the Zealot s for many.
The Hellenist who formed Judaism did so as Proselytes in the empire/Diaspora who cared less about the Pharisees.
Were also talking about a very small window of time here before the temple fell and Jesus death. After the temple fell they were long divorced from cultural Judaism and viewing Jesus as divine was blasphemous. And the movement was already anti Semitic
outhouse
Atheistically
Vishvavajra
Active Member
What do we really know about the Zealots in that regard? They were obviously big on Messianic prophecy, but they seem to have taken it literally instead of as pointing to a spiritual reality as Christians did.
outhouse
Atheistically
Galileans are known as Zealots due to the geographic location alone. This would also limit them to Aramaic peasant Galileans the Hellenist and Hellenistic Jews oppressed.
That is because Hellenist created Christianity as you know it. Not Aramaic Jews who looked at Jesus as a failed Messiah.
Robert Landbeck
Member
First I shall preface my comments, so my own prejudices are on the table. While having an interest in religious ideas, I have little confidence that any religious tradition has offered humanity a true insight into the nature of God or man. Thus when the question is asked: did Jesus " intended to start a religion different than the Jewish faith." I have to think, why should God bother.
I have always questioned the validity of 'theology' as a valid human intellectual project, whether that process be Rabbinical or Christian theological. For myself, theology only exists because nothing has been revealed! So the question is, if the all too human attempt to comprehend the mind of God by the interpretation of scripture is not legitimate, then a theologically driven tradition is taking us not closer to God but further from God! The necessity to send such a profoundly important messenger must necessarily mean that theological tradition had taken a wrong turn both in the assumptions on the nature of God and truth, and that the existing temple tradition was in error and correction necessary. But the 'correction' what ever that might have been was unwelcome, threatened the religious status quo and the rest is history.
But the same question continues to apply today applied to Christianity. Yes a new tradition was formed but only another one founded upon the theological, philosophical and moral assumptions that were and remain the same as Judaism. But with a different spin of NT language. There remains no evidence of any direct 'revelation' from Jesus ever being passed on. The early church, much divided, struggled with the considerable variety of ideas and material about Jesus in circulation until at the Council of NIcea, AD 325, a body of scriptural was deemed canonical, necessarily to enforce a theological uniformity [which didn't last long] so an institutional church could be founded. So any faith today is not in God or Christ but in the theological middle men of tradition who interpret scripture as a product of natural reason and then claim to speak for God.
Looking at the drift of history, now with issues so pressing, so urgent, so grave and divisive, the world can barely discuss them, let alone address and resolve them, where does progress come from? Never in history has our species so needed 'correction' with the authority and legitimacy to effect radical change. Yet what choices exist between any political, religious or intellectual tradition, when like a 'slow reckoning', the planet's very capacity to sustain existence is coming under threat? I have to wonder if God were ever to offer that 'correction' lost in ancient times once again, one with the wisdom to save us from ourselves, would it even be welcomed if that required discarding the theological conception of God we have become so comfortable? Or threatening tradition once again, will history repeat itself??? Quoting Dante from his Divine Comedy:
I have always questioned the validity of 'theology' as a valid human intellectual project, whether that process be Rabbinical or Christian theological. For myself, theology only exists because nothing has been revealed! So the question is, if the all too human attempt to comprehend the mind of God by the interpretation of scripture is not legitimate, then a theologically driven tradition is taking us not closer to God but further from God! The necessity to send such a profoundly important messenger must necessarily mean that theological tradition had taken a wrong turn both in the assumptions on the nature of God and truth, and that the existing temple tradition was in error and correction necessary. But the 'correction' what ever that might have been was unwelcome, threatened the religious status quo and the rest is history.
But the same question continues to apply today applied to Christianity. Yes a new tradition was formed but only another one founded upon the theological, philosophical and moral assumptions that were and remain the same as Judaism. But with a different spin of NT language. There remains no evidence of any direct 'revelation' from Jesus ever being passed on. The early church, much divided, struggled with the considerable variety of ideas and material about Jesus in circulation until at the Council of NIcea, AD 325, a body of scriptural was deemed canonical, necessarily to enforce a theological uniformity [which didn't last long] so an institutional church could be founded. So any faith today is not in God or Christ but in the theological middle men of tradition who interpret scripture as a product of natural reason and then claim to speak for God.
Looking at the drift of history, now with issues so pressing, so urgent, so grave and divisive, the world can barely discuss them, let alone address and resolve them, where does progress come from? Never in history has our species so needed 'correction' with the authority and legitimacy to effect radical change. Yet what choices exist between any political, religious or intellectual tradition, when like a 'slow reckoning', the planet's very capacity to sustain existence is coming under threat? I have to wonder if God were ever to offer that 'correction' lost in ancient times once again, one with the wisdom to save us from ourselves, would it even be welcomed if that required discarding the theological conception of God we have become so comfortable? Or threatening tradition once again, will history repeat itself??? Quoting Dante from his Divine Comedy:
For as I turned, there greeted mine likewise
What all behold who contemplate aright,
That's Heaven's revolution through the skies.
What all behold who contemplate aright,
That's Heaven's revolution through the skies.
outhouse
Atheistically
truthofscripture
Active Member
Jesus himself stated that he was sent to end the law, and to preach the Kingdom, and to begin the Christian Congregation. He did not ever say it was a religion, he said it was the "one true faith". He also said that the physical nation of Israel was Jehovah God's chosen nation until they broke the covenant (contract) between Israel and God. Therefore Jesus began the new covenant between "spiritual Israel" and his father Jehovah. That covenant was specifically between Jehovah and the 144,000 holy spirit annointed, the only ones that ever go to heaven. They comprise the Christian Congregation, and their associates are part of it as well. Jesus never said he was starting a religion. Religions claim that they are Christian, but Jesus said otherwise.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Hard to imagine the Zealots as a strictly Galilean phenomenon, since they seem to be effectively in control of Jerusalem by the late 60s. Josephus attributes their founding to a Galilean, which is certainly conceivable, but their activities seem to have centered in Judea. And Josephus also claims that the Zealots' main difference with the Pharisees was political, and that they agreed substantially in other areas. And he claims to be a Pharisee himself, so...
As for the rest, you're still banging that drum, but "Hellenistic Jew" in normal parlance refers to any Jew in the period in question, not a subset of the population. Nor is "Aramaic" an ethnicity in this period; it's a language that was spoken in the region by peoples of all social classes among the native population (i.e. Jews and Syrians, but not colonists of Greek or Italian origin). Nor am I aware of any evidence that one group was oppressing another. Seems to be based on outdated ideas of how Hellenistic culture worked, by comparison to modern colonial models that don't necessarily hold up in this context. People used to have the same model for Ptolemaic Egypt, but the evidence just doesn't support it, and scholars have been steadily backing away from it for decades.
It's about as sensible as talking about "Hellenists" taking over Rome from the oppressed native Latins, as if those were two distinct peoples. What you really have is upper and lower classes, as you always do.
But the Zealots who instigated the war with Rome were not thinking much of anything about Jesus; there's no non-Christian Jewish mention of him until the time when Christianity was a big enough thing that Talmudic authors felt the need to address it somehow. It's not as if we have a direct Jewish reception of Jesus. We have no evidence at all of what Jews in Jesus's time thought of him, or even that they thought of him at all. Contrary to the image that the Gospels paint, in which he's traveling around with hordes of followers like a king and preaching to multitudes, there's no reason to believe that most people in Jerusalem had even heard of him at the time he was killed. Hence his utter lack of mention in historical sources until a movement builds up around him.
Basically, we have zero Jewish response to Jesus that is not actually a response to the Christian movement itself.
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outhouse
Atheistically
Galilean - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Generically, a Galilean is an inhabitant of Galilee. Galileans (or Galilæans) were also the members of a fanatical sect (Zealots), followers of Judas of Galilee, who fiercely resented the taxation of the Romans, and whose violence contributed to induce the latter to vow the extermination of the whole race.
The Pharisaic criticism of Galileans is mirrored in the New Testament, in which Galilean religious passion is compared favorably against the minute concerns of Judean legal scholars, see for example Woes of the Pharisees. This was the heart of a friendly "crosstown" rivalry existing between Galilean Zealots and Judean Pharisees.
outhouse
Atheistically
Absolutely, Hengels work is incomplete here.
Aramaic was widely used. But so was Koine Greek by the temple cult as well as Antiaps and all the other oppressors of cultural Jews. Many of the oppressors were Hellenistic Jews speaking Koine oppressing cultural Jews, who would have spoken Aramaic.
Thank you for showing the need for clarification and context. These details are important
Vishvavajra
Active Member
OK, but that's the opposite of what you seemed to be suggesting above: it's not that Galileans generally were called Zealots, but that Zealots were often called Galileans after the nationality of their founder. Christians were also called Galileans for the same reason, but it's not true that all Galileans were called Christians. Compare the practice of referring to Christians as Nazarenes, which doesn't imply that everybody from Nazareth was a Christian.
And the thing about calling Zealots Galileans is that it's not the sort of thing that actual Galileans would say. It's obviously a term used by non-Galileans (i.e. Judeans) to basically refer to Zealots as "those people who follow that guy from that place (that's not here)." So insofar as they're called Galileans, it's actually indicative of their activities in Judea.
What do the Woes of the Pharisees have to do with the Zealots?
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outhouse
Atheistically
Yes but the upper class were Hellenist for the most part speaking Koine and working hand in hand with Romans to retain their wealth.
When we look at Sepphoris and its opulence, then we look at Nazareth and its filth, the division between Koine Jews so to speak oppressing Aramaic Jews becomes quite obvious.
outhouse
Atheistically
Agreed 100%
All Hellenist called Aramaic Galileans, Zealots. That's is the only view we have.
I highly doubt any Aramaic Galilean called himself a Zealot.
outhouse
Atheistically
Hatred of the Hellenistic Pharisees by Zealots.
To place this into context, you have to be aware that the Pharisees were divided between the Hellenist and the Cultural Jews.
So it was not all Pharisees being criticized. But since we only have one version of what happened written by Hellenist, the full story is not visible in text.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Yeah, I'm not seeing the evidence for that. While it's true that knowledge of Koine probably would have been common, especially among elites, there's no indication that it had replaced Aramaic as a native language for any of the native Judean population. In fact, Josephus indicates otherwise. Jewish Koine literature, including the Septuagint, is pretty much all coming out of Alexandria, whereas it seems Aramaic continued to be the native language even for Judean elites (they usually refer to it as "Hebrew," but by that they mean "the language currently spoken by the Hebrews" rather than the Hebrew language proper).
And I'm also not seeing evidence of oppression of Aramaic speakers. Nor any evidence that "cultural Jews" is a meaningful category. Or that Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria could be described as somehow less Jewish, culturally or otherwise. Nobody seriously thinks that Philo wasn't a real Jew. Or the translators of the Septuagint. In other words, all of this rests on a definition of "real Jew" that just doesn't seem to be based on anything concrete.
outhouse
Atheistically
outhouse
Atheistically
When Romans or Hellenist inhabited Israel, did they keep their own language, or switch to keep their oppressed people happy.
Who were oppressed under Pilate and Antipas ??????
Cultural Jews, and their native language was?