Christianity
Christian Origins Discussion with Rabbi Rosen
Abstract
Contents Updated: Saturday, 05 March 2005
Rosen
You have not replied to my last email. I hope that your health is good and and I didnt upset you with my questions.
Mike
My apologies. I only go online on weekends as I am not on broadband and have to watch the clock while online. It is cheaper at weekends. Morevoer, while I am reasonably healthy at the moment, my partner, Shirlie, has been very ill and has had to have two operations for osteo myelitis of the spine. We are having some bad luck, between us. It has meant a lot of travelling the 35 miles to visit her, often by public transport, when no lift is available. It has cut down my chances of chattering online! Now I can catch up a bit because it is Easter, and the public transport services are too poor to make it worth even bothering.
I would think you should write a new book on exactly this topic, covering only the 18-140CE period. That would kind of bring together all your earliers books and put it very strongly for the researchers. The split, when, how, for what purpose, and why then, all these questions will be layed to rest, and elucidated in a clear, easy to follow manner.
Well, I have put it online, but I am not in a position to publish anything new in hard copy unless I sell more of the ones I have already published, or win the lottery!
“History at this distance can rarely be certain. When it seems certain perhaps we ought to look carefully to see that we have not been fed someone’s propaganda! History usually has to be detective work, and can rarely be ‘proved’ as fundamentalists like it to be.”
How true. The best indicator that we are misled down the paths some elite or sect wants us to take is that too much information from a very distant past is “available” or that the story is a little bit too seamless. At such distances, given the paucity of surviving original material, such stories indicate a planted agenda or road map we are supposed to take.
Quite so. It gives away the recent parts of the Jewish scriptures too—romances like Joseph and Samson, almost seamless as you say, and therefore late compositions.
“We have to have the best synthesis of the data based on the best hypothesis about what transpired. If we are sane, we do not let ‘supernature’ into it. Better to stick to nature, including human psychology.”
Yes, to bring the supernatural into any explanation is to take a step back toward the cave and think like cavemen. The moment the supernatural comes in, all claims to science go out.
“The hypothesis I am suggesting here hangs on to much of the Christian story, and since it turns out to be a history about an unrecognized Jewish hero, it ought to be acceptable to all liberal Christians and Jews.”
It depends how ‘liberal’ they are. Some Jews, even secular ones will reject this, because of bad feelings in general with past Christian persecution. It also might conflict with their Zionist views, which although seemingly secular have been forged in the post exile world dominated ideologically by Phariseism/Rabbinism. Thus to accept Yeshu as Jewish hero will conflict with too much of their ideological baggage. No, Mike. It will take a greatly liberated Jew or Christian for that matter to accept Yeshu as Jewish hero, as a historical, human and militant fighter man. It will take a while for Christians and Jews to absorb, stomach and ultimately accept this fact. It will happen, but it will take time. This is not an easy thing to accept because it goes against what people have been told for so long; and that includes the “secular” people. That is because few are truly secular.
I suppose when I say “liberal” I assume with it that the people are intelligent. Many Christians accept Jesus as a holy man rather than literally a supernatural son of God, but they are thoughtful Christians for whom supernaturalism is a non-starter. I would have thought that there would be a bigger proportion of similar Jews, if only because there are more secular Jews and Jews are more often thoughtful. I am not making them a majority, but they ought to be influential. Some “Ebionite” sects that seem to have formed since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered might be heading in this direction.
“We have to remember that the Jews leaving Judaea in 70 AD sought refuge in the Jewish communities abroad, and these communities were the communities in which the ‘Christians’ (the Hellenized Jews impressed by the message of the kingdom given by the rebel Jesus) still lived. They were still Jewish. They had been, until then, nominally under the leadership of the Jerusalem Church, led until 66 AD by James the ‘brother’ of the ‘Lord’. The dispersed Jews from Palestine will have been incredulous to find that here was a sect that was already thinking in terms of a son of God! The birth narratives must have been in the air around this time! So, there would have been name-calling and finger pointing from both sides, but it was all essentially in a Jewish environment. Most gentiles would not have cared, the only ones bothering being the Godfearers, and the bishops used this very dissension among the Jews to help divorce Christianity from Judaism.”
It seems logical but only if the Bishops were already Gentiles. With the Jerusalem Jewish Church gone, the outlaying communities would have had a golden opportunity to break free and assert their right to set dogma, to interpret it and provide Responsas to their faithful, without asking Jerusalem Church for permission, opinions etc. That much is clear and logical. But here is a difficulty—why rewrite the history of the Yeshu deeds and teachings/doctrine and why separate from Judaism?? This could only have happened if the Bishops were already Gentiles and/or G-dfearers converted to the Churches’ views. If they were Jews, even Hellenised Jews, they would not have wanted to break away from Judaism completely. To change/moderate it? Perhaps; but not to completely throw it away. It is inconceivable that this should have happened post 70 CE, if the Bishops were not already Gentiles. So perhaps the ’’Gentilisation’’ process was already very advanced by 70 CE that this split was possible. It may be that the Jewish element was already very diluted at least at the Bishop level by then, and the split could not have happened earlier because the Jerusalem Church was still the apex of power. But now with the Roman legions having wiped it out more or less completely, the road to the assertion of spiritual autonomy/independence was open. Another possibility is that the Jewish bishops were not so few and insignificant, but that the Roman government and its local enforcers would have imposed or helped Gentile Bishops gain power over their Churches. If this was the case, it was in the interest of Rome to set its own agents in control, in the interest of keeping things quiet. A normal thing after a big war just ended. This was not the first time a government would have used theological agents to keep things quiet. (see the Persians). Or it may be a combination of both these currents.
Bishops gentiles—I don’t think it necessary that they were. We are peaking of a time after the Jewish War. Even if many or most bishops were still Jews—former Essenes and Hellenised Jews—they were now facing the ire of the gentile Romans. Think of it like the Moslems having to handle 9/11. Those who had found a niche in western society were embarrassed by the attack. Look at the result. The US sought revenge by attacking Moslem countries and arresting Moslems they said were dangerous. Some Moslem organisations have rejected the attacks as not Islamic. The proto-Christians, even though they were still nominally Jewish, will have wanted to distinguish themselves from the Jews that fought the Romans. “It was not us, your honour.” Since the Jerusalem Church had almost certainly fought with the Jews and been subsequently scattered, the diaspora churches were free to reject the centre. It could not object.
Why rewrite?—Because of the war. You say even Hellenised Jews would not have wanted to break away from Judaism, but I disagree. Their tie to Judaism was already flimsy. It amounted only to a once or twice in a lifetime trip to Jerusalem for Passover. The word Hellenisation means they were adopting the Roman way of life in all other matters. The war combined with the Jewish link provided by their devotion to a Jewish messiah was sufficient. Hellenisation implies to me that the Hellenised Jews were probably also already impressed by the mysteries which they were probably not eligible to join. Christianity was a hybrid religion. The dying and rising messiah had given it characteristics of a mystery, and after the war, if not before, it will have reinstated Essene-like initiation conditions to baptism. What otherwise was a catechumen?
Roman agents—It would not surprise me. I have already argued that Paul was a Roman agent, an idea already suggested by Maccoby. It would answer many questions in the career of Paul, not least why he was chummy with Romans governors, centurions and Jewish princes.
“They rewrote the history of the rebel to mystify it, and accuse the Pharisees. Another speculation I have offered is that many Sadduccees, now out of work, actually found a new home in Christianity and were happy to widen the gap between their newly adopted sect and the Pharisaic sect that still held on to the loyalty of many Jews.”
It is true that the Pharisees emerged by the second century CE as the main and by far the most important Jewish sect/faction. This was in fact a longer process, as they have in fact been ascendant since at least the 2nd century BCE. The Sadducees were in nominal control, but only because of Temple control and majority in Sanhedrin where they were maintained by the Judean puppet kings and later by Roman governors. Even under the Maccabees they were from time to time culled because of their zealotry and interference with the kings habits etc. They were in control outside Jerusalem in Palestine (but not yet outside; they had a presence, but not control). If the Sadducees did what you assert, it would have been lower rank and at most middle rank Sadducees. The top one were either killed by Romans or other Judean sects during the war, OR if they survived they were too well known to play this game. We have to assume also, that the top Sadducees were also not that flexible as to accept the Christian dogma. They were refined, cultivated people, without the magical thinking mentality of the Christians and Pharisees. They were in fact the real intelligentsia of Judea.
I am inclined to think the Sadducees were already pretty much Hellenised. I doubt that they had much of an axe to grind vis-á-vis the Jewish religion. They were the placed men of the Greeks. Pharisees and Essenes were more loyal to the original Persian concepts of the religion (Pharisee = Parsee, if you like). Their interest in it was as rulers, and a source of their wealth. They were like the Aga Khan. You are right, though, in that I am not suggesting they became Christians en masse, but they had lost their sinecures and needed something similar to replace them.
“By exacerbating the division at this time, and with the publishing of the gospel of Mark, the gentile godfearers, who had also been discouraged by the Jewish rebels in Palestine until then, now felt easier about joining. As we have agreed, the movement was essentially gentile by the time of bar Kosiba—in the diaspora! In the wider empire!”
Yes. Possible even as early as 70 CE or even earlier as I proposed above.
“But the remnants of the Jerusalem church remained Jewish up until the time of Bar Kosiba, and Kosiba even mentions Galilaeans who would not fight, presumably because they accepted Jesus and not The Star as their messiah.”
There was no Jerusalem left after 70 CE. So we can only speak of a Judean/Palestinian Church post 70CE, since the Jews were allowed to remain in Judea, but NOT in the region of former Jerusalem. We can see already a metamorphosis in this Judean Church—they wouldn’t fight in the 132-135 CE war but they DID fight in the 66-70 war. So perhaps the Gentilisation process, and the reinterpretation of the call to arms of Yeshu as allegorical was now influencing the Judean Christians in Judea too. So it seems by now the Judean Church was under the theological/doctrinal control or influence of the Diaspora Gentilised Church. Quite a reversal of roles here! Who benefited from this? Why, the Romans, of course. This further strengthens my assertion made earlier that they would have had a hand in the Gentilisation of the Bishops leadership and in allegorising the original militant Yeshu doctrine. In these 66 years between the two wars, the change was completed under the prophylactic Roman guidance.
Jerusalem Church—Well, Jerusalem was left. It was the temple that was closed down at that stage. I think it was R Akiva who describes seeing a fox running across the ruined temple court, so he must have been in Jerusalem after the war. In any case, I take it that “Jerusalem Church” is the name of the organisation of the Jewish Christians in Judaea as opposed to the Christians in the diaspora.
Fighting—I take it that the Jerusalem Church considered Jesus to be the messiah, but otherwiese were typical Essenic Jews. They would have fought in the Jewish War because they will have seen it as the beginning of the return—the hosts of heaven emerging from the Mount of Olives led by Jesus to win the cosmic battle against evil. Again it did not happen. Many Palestinian Jews will have returned to Pharisaic Judaism with this disappointment, but those who did not continued as the Ebionite sect of Jewish Christians. Since the followers of Jesus were called Galilaeans, these might have been the same people. Jesus repeatedly speaks of the poor, interpreted as abstract references to poor people. He meant “The Poor”, the Ebionites. members of his own following. These people could not support Bar Kosiba’s revolution because he claimed to be the messiah. Jesus was the messiah of the Galilaeans. They might have helped the revolt in 132 rather as consciensious objectors will help their own country’s war effort. Not as soldiers but in any other pacific way. Kosiba’s Murabba’at letter seems to imply something like this. So, there is no need to think the diaspora churches had influenced the central church. There was no reversal of roles.
“You are right, and your figures suggest even more. When I said that many Jews might not have originated in Judaea, I did not just mean converts or people born to pious Jewish families in the diaspora. It goes back to my pages on Judaism being formed by the Persians. Jerusalem was made as the Temple State of Abarnahara, but the people of Abarnahara who were made to pay allegiance to that treasury were all Jews. Indeed, all of those conquered peoples of the Persians in the west whose gods were acceptable to Ahuramazda because they had not fomented trouble for the conquerors, I suspect were moulded into the lesser form of Zoroastrianism that became Judaism. You have to admit that 16 million people is too many to have come, even indirectly from a small country, even in 500 years. Many of the 16 million were in Babylonia, Asia Minor and Persia itself. Ea is Iah!”
Of course, 16 million could not have come from the few thousand “Jews” that lived in an around Jerusalem during Cyrus the Great. Even in 1500 years. On the topic of Abarnahara it is a little more tricky what was considered a Jew then. After the Macedonian conquests the term was redefined in protean manner. Since many Jewish scriptures are post Alexander, and the Persians and Cyrus are kept in such high regard, we have to conclude that spiritually/ideologically the Jews were still very much loyal to the Persian agenda. By then also Zoroastrianism has lost the political control of Judea and had its own temples torched by Macedonians, so the outlaying lesser Zoroastrian cults were autonomous from their founders and free to mutate and take more localised forms. That is why Judaism became a nationalist movement and separated completely from Zoroastrianism, taking a Hebrew outward garb, even while maintaining and carrying the ideas of Zoroastrianism. That later on (post 70CE) happened also with the Church too. The Zoroastrian roots are unmistakable. I even venture to say that Judaism must have been used as an anti-Hellenistic and later on anti-Roman tool by the Persians. The numerous rebellions and the help they received from Parthians support this view.
I agree.
“Concerning the army, you are right that he was not recruiting for any sort of formal war or even a guerilla one. The war he was to fight was the origin of the Islamic jihad—it was a holy war! The hosts of heaven would burst out of the Mount of Olives and defeat evil in the world. Jesus needed righteous men to add to this mystical army. It could only consist of angels and saints or righteous men. There were two ways of being righteous. One, by living a righteous life. Two, by sincerely repenting one’s sins, and thereafter living a righteous life. This is the point of all of those parables like the prodigal son, and the lost sheep. Those who had always been righteous men had no need of any further attention. Those in need were those who had sinned. Apostasy was a serious sin. That is why the Hellenised Jews were prime targets. Having repented, they joined the holy army to fight God’s fight with all their might, so to speak. It is the origin, too, of all that militant Christian imagery. So, yes, in the urgency of the moment, many normally unobservant Jews attending the Passover will have “spontaneously” joined the rebellion. It was, if you like, the heat of religious fervour because Jesus was saying the end of the world was due at any time now!”
Yes. We can see in Islam also, many Christian, Jewish and also Zoroastrian elements. The “holy war” concept being one of them. If anything Islam is ideologically even closer to Judaism and Zoroastrianism than Christianity is or was.
“We are not talking about Temple Judaism. The Essenes rejected the temple, and, from their scrolls, had a special regard for Michael the angel.”
Mike, the Essenes did not reject the Temple per se. They only rejected what they considered perverted, traitorous and sinful collaborative Temple priests, primarily Sadducees. It is my view that they were one and the same as the Pharisees, just a more extreme wing of this hyper nationalistic Hebraising branch of the Pharisees. Like Sinn Fein and the IRA are both Irish Republicans and overlap, yet maintain outward separation. The Pharisees were also present in the Temple priesthood and the Sanhedrin, while the Essenes were not. But they did not fight all that much if at all. They however BOTH maintained an especially vitriolic critique and attack on the Sadducees and the Hellenised Jews.
Temple—The Essenes had an ambiguous attitude to the temple, but it certainly amounted to a rejection. Perhaps, if they had been able to have unconditional control over it, they would have been happy to restore it to the temple it should have been in their view. So, you are correct in that respect, but they realised long before that there was no prospect of it, and had taken the view that the people (Essenes) were a living temple. This is one of the evidences that Jesus was an Essene because it was his view too, although the bible contrives to make Jesus alone the temple.
Essenes/Pharisees—I cannot see this to be the case but perhaps it is possible. The interpreters of the Scrolls see the Essenes and Pharisees as different groups, and the Essenes use various euphemisms for the Pharisees such as “seekers of smooth things”. Both were originally the Hasidim but they apparently split because the Pharisees were more pragmatic, and the Essenes more zealous, over the law and occupation. That is why the Essenes would have nothing to do with the Sanhedrin, a puppet organisation of the Romans.
“I agree it would be nice to have it specifically confirmed, but the Essenes need not have thought that the earthly leader would be Michael as long as the early Christians decided it. I don’t think that Jesus necessarily thought he was the angel Michael in any way, for he expected the hosts to arrive led by Michael while he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemene. But when the Nazarenes thought Jesus had been resurrected as the first fruit of the dead, and formulated the idea that he would return after an interval of forty years, they concluded that Jesus must then appear as Michael. It was one of the steps to his apotheosis.”
It is likely that this apotheosis concept appeared after the Gentilisation at the Bishop level rather than it being an Essene doctrine. It is too un-Judaic and un-Zoroastrian a claim to be the genuine product of the Essenes. It is more in line with Hinduistic and Graeco-Roman views, which should point out its true parentage.
Graeco-Roman mystery religion in this context, I’d say was more likely, though some Indian influence through Alexandrian Christians is just possible. I don’t think it necessary to postulate it, when the mysteries are more obvious by far.
“Indeed not. The Hellenised Jews and the observant Jews were all together in the same community, and the bad feeling between them is described in the Acts of the Apostles. The only point about the end of the war was that a flood of Jews came into the diaspora communities, expelled by the Romans or fleeing from them. They arrived and were astonished to find so many Christians believing an earlier Jewish rebel was a son of God. Others might have made the case, but now a large number of Palestinian Jews who knew the whole story well could give the times and places of the story.”
This is fitting perfectly with the theory I had presented earlier that Gentilisation of the Church should have already been completed by 70 CE, or else there wouldn’t have been such a vast majority of Church members totally in the dark of the major happenings in Palestine and of its geography, cities, etc. for the Bishops tales to have any meaning or credibility. Even if as I suspected the Romans had a hand in picking Gentile Bishops who will moderate the jihadist messages as allegorical (as we see already by the Christians not joining other Jews even in Palestine in their war against Rome in 132-135 CE), the Bishops tale wouldn’t make any sense if the flock was not also mostly Gentile by now. (by 132 at the latest).
You might be right, but I think you are again underestimating the degree of Hellenisation, as before. My impression of them is that they are Romans in all but name and tradition. Yours is that they are still essentially Jews. I don’t believe that the Hellenised Jews would have been regular attenders of synagogues, and, since they were not taught geography, they need not have had much clue about the geography of Palestine. I see them as being glad to grasp at the straw offered them by Christianity—they could be Jews without the bother, and in a gentile world, it suited them. The commitment they had, such as it was, to Judaism evaporated with the embarrassment of the war. They wanted to assimilate while hanging on to a remnant of Jewish tradition, but the war left them even more outside society than they had been before. It gave them a choice of returning to Judaism, a grave problem, or abandoning it for their new Judaeo-gentile belief. The bishops, half a century after the original event that founded Christianity, had enjoyed a comfortable living and faced the prospect of losing it. So, they quite naturally made their excuses to retain their flocks and separated from Judaism. From now on, it was not a matter of the Christians being Jewish, althouh many still were, in origins, but of the Romans being willing to accept they were not. In the next half century, recruitment was of gentiles even though many were Hellenised Jews still! The temple had been closed, so the Hellenised Jews no longer had the Passover pilgrimage to keep them tied to Judaism. They happily joined the practical alternative, a mystery religion that had a Jewish flavour. Devout Jews became loyal to the Pharisees, and after the Bar Kosiba revolt became the founders of modern non-temple Judaism.
“Some knew of this occurrence, and others knew of that one, from their own experience or from their parents’. These were the pericopes that make up the synoptic gospels. In a sense they were great for the bishops because they were confirming that Jesus indeed had lived, but they were telling an embarrassing story. So they kept the pericopes, but mysticised them.”
Yes. See above.
“Do not ignore the fact that believers will believe despite the evidence. I do not doubt that it was true then. This new sect offered what the Hellenised Jews and gentile godfearers wanted. They would not give up their belief easily, and once the bishops explained that the expatriot Jews were misunderstanding the tales deliberately to discredit the new sect, they readily accepted it.”
Yes. See above.
“My contention is, for example, that the fall of Jerusalem is the story of the Gadarene swine, the gentile Roman soldiers being considered as swine, metaphorically, by Jews but made into real swine in the story (the likely legion had a boar on its banner). The twentieth legion had an emblem of a boar but so too did the tenth legion, the one you mean. It was called Fretensis, and was indeed stationed in Syria in 20 AD, according to H D D Parker, The Roman Legions, 1958. If there were trouble in Palestine at this time, or trouble was expected by the Roman spies, then the tenth legion could easily have been despatchedthere from Syria to qwell it. I suggest that the gospel story is a disguised account of the fact that it did (or part of it did), and suffered an embarassing defeat.”
This is the dilemma. The records, if any existed, have been expunged of any such reference. There is still a chance that some studious historical buff may dig something up and give flesh to the theory. Until then we can only work on the theoretical level. There is a mention in the NT about a rebellion in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifiction. But interestingly enough, there are no records of either crucifiction or rebellion in Roman records either in 21, 30 or 33 CE. It seems some busy censors have been hard at work here.
It would have been impossible for the ruling Christians under Constantine to keep the records in the Roman acta. They told the real story, not the one the post-war bishops had doctored. It seems to me, late though they are, that there might be evidence yet to be found in the Jewish commentaries, albeit in disguised form. Is there anything that could be read as a capture or recapture of a city by Jews? Are there any unknown Jewish heroes, perhaps considered mythical or parabolic that might fit the bill. Or any relevant commetaries on the messiah. You have shown that various identities were given to Jesus in a negative way, but are there more that might be him however unlikely on the basis of the Christian story, but possible on this reconstruction, negatively or positively presented?
“But the Jerusalem church was a Jewish sect. You are speaking of the later revolt of Bar Kosiba by which time—as you say—the Christians had distinguished themselves from the Jews in the wider empire, and, as noted above, would not accept Bar Kosiba as the messiah even in Palestine. Whatever remained of the original Jewish Christians were scattered as were the other Jewish sects to become the Ebionites, frowned on by Rome.”
Since the 132 CE rebellion was not joined by the Christians of Palestine, this provides support to my theories exposed above, regarding Gentilisation of the Bishop leadership, flock and/or Roman guidance/interference in the theological affairs of the Church. It also is giving more support to the Essenic/Pharisee connection. It also explains why the Yeshu rebellion was not joined by the Pharisees—as extremists they were fewer, less protected and after the defeat in 21 CE they were much weakened and lived mostly in the Diaspora where fast Gentilisation occurred post 21 CE. Although the Church followed Pharisee leadership in 66 CE against Rome, it did not do so outside Palestine. (I may be wrong, but to my knowledge the Church outside Judea and larger Palestine was not involved in the 66-70 war). So they joined their ideological masters (Pharisees), but post 70 CE they separated as the Gentile Bishops broke away from the demolished and decimated Jerusalem leadership. The Pharisees did not join in 21 because that was water testing/Trial run for later, sacrificing some Essene hotheads led by Rabbi Yeshu. A hint to their connection is that NT gospel of Mark slanders the Sadducees, but not the Pharisees.
I don’t think this is true, unless you have a particular definition of slander. Mark mentions the Sadducees only once when they ask him about the resurrection, and he answers them fairly. He mentions the Pharisees 12 times, depicting them as pious sticklers for the law, keen to trip him up on doctrine, “tempting him”, and he warns against “the leaven of the Pharisees”. You might be right that all this is added later to discredit the Pharisees after the Sadducees had disappeared, it must have happened, but there already was a basis for it, the Scroll scholars think, in that the Essenes disliked the Pharisees as collaborators and avoiders of the hardships of obeying the law—they did not think God meant it to be hedged about.
“Well, there seem to have been two groups of Ebionites, the ones who decried Paul as a fraud, and another sect that accepted more of the Christian mythology. The Nestorians were later. It seems the Ebionites who indluenced Mohammed were the proper Jewish ones who did not accept Jesus as God.”
Actually there were Jews in Medinah who traded with Mecca and there were some even in Mecca. Also the uncle of Muhammad’s first wife was a Christian of Nestorian? sect. There is no indication of any Ebionites in Arabia around Muhammad’s time. There were however Jews and Christians.
The Ebionites were Christians, and would have been known as Christians to the Arabs. The more Jewish branch, rejected by the Church, did not accept Jesus as having any divine nature or substance. The Nestorians did. The Moslem identification of Jesus as a major prophet but not divine in any way matches the Ebionite belief.
“So Islam agrees with them that Jesus was a prophet. The gentile Christians between 70 ands 130 AD separated from the ideas of the original Jerusalem Church. The original Essene idea was that the archangel Michael would lead the hosts of heaven. Then, for Christians, the hosts of heaven would be led by Jesus at his second coming, to end 40 years of cosmic battle between good and evil. What then had happened to the angel Michael? The answer to this conundrum is that Jesus was the archangel Michael, a view supported by the Gnostic sects which saw Michael and Satanael as the two sons of God.”
Maybe, but the Gnostics came later and were a Hellenistic syncretism of the Christian and Judaic myths. IT is anachronistic to take them as a source, because they came AFTER the church Gentilised and broke from Judaism. They were thoroughly gentiles and even tried to take the Gentilisation process much firther, by jettisoning the OT completely and declaring the G-d of the OT as the devil, Satan, the G-d of evil as opposed to the G-d of the NT which was good.
No one knows when Gnosticism began. Christianity makes it almost contemporary with apostolism in that Simon Magus was supposed to have been the first Gnostic. Christianity was itself a syncretism of Hellenistic and Jewish myths, and Gnosticism might have been a parallel but different formulation of it. The fact that Simon Magus was a magus seems to me to be significant because it suggests an alternative route from Persian religion into the melting pot. Persian religion was manifestly dualistic, but Judaism is not. Perhaps the Rabbis suppressed Satan as well as apocalyptic. In any event, it cannot be said with certaintly that Gnosticism was not contemporary with the early Christians. What matters, though, is that the dualism of Persian religion must have been known. Mithras was the face of Ahuramazda, and there was a wicked spirit called Ahriman, who logically also had his public face. In Christianity it was named Satan and in Gnosticism Satanael. Which came first. Satanael is more Jewish as a God’s name since it has “el” in it. The evidence indicates that the duality of Satan and Christ which appears clearly in Christianity and in Gnosticism has been suppressed in Judaism.
“The archangel Michael is the Jewish form of Mithras, the face of the Persian transcendent god, Ahuramazda, so Michael is the visible face of Yehouah. So, Jesus is God—or an aspect of Him. It is a moot point whether any observant Jews can have gone this far. The general view is that they could not have, but Ahuramazda was also an exclusively good god who eventually became Mithras to the Zoroastrians of Asia Minor. Naive people cannot be stopped from believing what appeals to them most. Anyway, that is for experts like yourself to debate.”
I do not know of any such currents in ancient Judaism that would deify a man or consider him the presence of G-d on earth. Judaism did eventually develop something remotely similar, but NOT regarding a human. It was Shekhina, or divine presence of G-d. In later times though, including modern times, there were in Pharisaic/Rabbinism some examples where sects have gone this far, including in modern times a Rabbi from New York which was though by his followers and a few times declared himself G-d. But to my knowledge nothing of the sort happened in ancient times. The idea of Moshiack was there, true, but it was not taken to be a identification with G-d until the 1666 Messianic fervour which caught a half of the worlds Jews in its maelstrom. But that is 16 centuries too late and it was greatly influenced by the Christian and Islamic milieu, hardly a sampling of Jewish thought around the time of Yeshu. It might have happened as you suggest, but not to my knowledge.
In Persian religion, God has several aspects, most obviously the Holy Spirit that also appears in Christianity. In Judaism, he seems to be the archangel Michael, but He is certainly the Angel of the Lord, whoever this is in the angelology. Angels in the Jewish scriptures commonly appear as if they are ordinary men, as they do in the Christian gospels. Plainly in both Christianity and Judaism God can appear as a man. There is therefore a basis in Judaism for it. The suggestion here is that the Essenes, from what we can read in the Scrolls, believed the hosts of heaven would be led by Michael. Christians modified it so that the hosts of heaven would be led by Jesus Christ on his return. The only conclusion I can see in this is that the Christians identified their dead hero with the archangel Michael. If Michael was accepted as the face of God, then Jesus becomes the face of God, and so is God.
“It is not necessary for this hypothesis, though it might help it, if an Essene sect could have had such a view even inchoately before the Christian schism.”
True, it is not crucial for the hypothesis, but it would have been nice to have it recorded. Then again, it might have existed and been lost or expunged.
That’s right.
“Perhaps so, up to a point, but in those days absolute control was much more difficult even than today, when sects divide like rabbits. The spallated state of Jewish belief even in Palestine is utterly clear. “Where is the Jewish Liberation Front?” “He’s over there!” (Monty Python’s Life ofBrian). It must have been the same in the Diaspora. As for proof, it is wonderful to have, but there is no proof that things are as they are presented by Christians.”
True. Even IF the Christian story were accurate, it has to be verified and confirmed by outside sources to be accepted as factual. That is because one can not testify for himself and be believed without any corroborative evidence. And as far as Christian history and claims there is no outside corroboration. A few faked and interpolated texts that do exist, do not count on account of their being doctored and plastered over the original texts which did not contain these claims. In short they are pious lies so they must be discarded.
“Since they had propaganda reasons for changing the story, one can guess with some confidence that their story is not true history, should it not be obvious anyway. I say again that the best hyothesis is the one that offers the best explanation of as many of the most important facts as possible, without having to stretch reality into the fantastic.”
Of course.
“I think it is explained by the antagonism between Rome and the Palestinian Jews which exploded in the Jewish War of 66 AD. This war brought out into the open what had been known only in some Jewish communities before—Jesus was an earlier Jewish rebel just like the latest ones, a Jewish troublemaker.”
Despite the long history of pogroms and persecutions that his Gentile followers unleasged over the centuries against the Jews, I CANNOT regard Yeshu as a bandit or troublemaker. He was if he existed, and your theories are quite plausible, a patriot, who wanted freedom for his country and his people from Roman occupation. In my eyes, such a man counts as great patriot and freedom fighter. Yes, the Romans of that time might have viewed his as a trouble maker, but I view him as a Judean patriot. There is nothing wrong with a man fighting for the freedom of his country and his people. Even if the Gentile Church abused Jews in his name. Yeshu, if he existed as you portray him was a great Jew. Even if he lost the contest with the Romans.
I am, of course, categorising him as the Romans would, not as the Christians, or even the Palestinian Jews at the time would (except the collaborators). As we know only too well in this day and age, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.
“The efforts of the bishops to hide this drove a wedge between the orthodox Jews and the Hellenised/gentile sect which eventually left the gentiles in charge.”
As I exposed above, in the beginning of this email, I do think that the Romans had a hand in changing the Church doctrines outside Judea. IT is logical, but there is little evidence left by the Romans on this. (They would have been dumb if they did leave traces, as it would lead to exposure and the ploy would have failed). But the metamorphoses of the Church after 70 CE, does support this hypothesis, especially since in 132 the Judean Church (not only the church outside Judea/Palestine) did NOT join the other sects in the fight against Rome.
The story of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, read with suspicion, reveals him as a Roman agent provocateur. I have pages on it, if you have not read them.
“I cannot see it. Some might have joined them to find an alternative home, but I think that many were scattered into the diaspora, and being disliked by the Pharisee led synagogues, they joined the Christians. Both Sadducees and Essenes were priestly sects, and had some things in common from that, even though the Essenes despised the Sadducees. Once the ties to the Jerusalem Church were severed or even weakened enough, the colonial churches could accept Sadducees into them.”
Dear Dr Mike, when I said the Sadducees disappeared from history, I did not mean a physical extermination (though the top Sadducees might well have been killed off by the Romans and by the other Sects during the war against Rome and the civil war within Judea and Jerusalem), but I only meant their survival as organised party/sect. Also, the Pharisees had a dual existence, BOTH as a lesser Temple/priestly party/sect, AND as Rabbis/teachers roaming the country side and other cities of Judea and the larger Palestine. (Perhaps to some extent they were also present in cities in diaspora) This dual nature in fact explains why the Sadducees went extinct while the Pharisees continued to exist—they did not totally depend on the Temple.
I know you were not saying they were exterminated, but you seemed to be saying they became Ebionites. That is what I could not see. They were Christians all right but presumably Christians as Jesus might have exoected them to be—aware of the spiritual benefits of poverty. The Sadducees had been the ruling class, and, while not all were loaded, they were comfortably off even in the villages, and used to having privileges. Joining the Christian sects in the diaspora led by Hellenised Jews and expatriot Essenes dismayed by the turn of events in Judaea seems more likely. If any Pharisees had priestly functions, it will be because some Sadducees had changed allegiance to the Pharisee party. It cannot have been many.
“24 hours is a long time in politics! It is a question of how principled these people were, or how committed to their beliefs. Influential and wealthy Sadducees given the choice of working by the sweat of their brow to earn a living when the temple closed, or becoming a Christian bishop, given the chance, would have chosen the latter, or enough of them would to help swell the Christian ranks.”
It is not merely a function of the Sadducees loyalty to their beliefs or conviction of their beliefs. It is rather the fact that they had very few skills outside being priests. (Josephus was one of the lucky few to be taken to the Roman court and be a court lackey, writing drivel that the Romans wanted to hear; but few others were so lucky. Most died in Jerusalem. The few who might have survived-there weren’t that many Sadducees to begin with-were relatively low ranked). So it is possible that some lower rank Sadducees found a place in the Church ranks. If they did, their usually anti-war stance and more moderate/sober approach to the Roman superpower would have made them just the kind of pliable material that the Romans would have looked for in their policy to moderate the church. Their extensive literary and scriptural knowledge would have been well suited, since the gentile flock and the Hellenised Jewish flock would have been weak on OT knowledge. They would have been the perfect tools to carry out this policy. This line of thought may unlock some more doors to this mystery, don’t you think?
As I said, they were out of a job! Joining the Christians in the diaspora would have offered them a natural home that would allow them to aspire to a job and the respect of a small community, not dissimilar to the position they had formerly, especially the provincial Sadducees. Your further observations are pertinent. We agree on this.
“Essenic principles would have been watered down as the senior Essenes were left behind in the Jerusalem Church, leaving less committed people in charge.”
Actually, there was no Jerusalem church, since the whole city was wiped out. There might have been some surviving Church left in Judea/Palestine, but its leadership would have been decapitated. The Diaspora Church was in effect headless from 70 CE onwards. This of course opened the way to fast innovations and metamorphoses in the Diaspora Church, unlike the more conservative Ebionite and Nassarenes of Judea who still did not bring themselves to accept Yeshu as G-d even as far as the 6th century CE.
I noted above that the church of the Palestinian Jewish Christians we call the Jerusalem Church. We don’t know whether that was its name for itself (they probably called themselves “The Poor” (Ebionites—Paul was collecting for “The Poor” in Jerusalem), but it is a clear name for our purposes, and does not necessitate it being based in Jerusalem after the war, though I don’t see why some of its remaining members should not have returned to Jerusalem. It must have been thrown out after Bar Kosiba’s revolt because it remained Jewish. The gentile Christians by then were distinct and were allowed a church in the city.
“It is another reason why the early church was so protean. It was Jewish but not Jewish, Essenic but not Essenic, a Mystery Religion but not a mystery religion, and so on, until it was a new religion suited to wealthy Romans, and then it took over the known world.”
Amazing. I was thinking/remarking the same thing. It is this flexibility without the fear of breaking under the bending that has made Christianity such a successful religion (2.1+ billion today) It is about twice as large as the second largest (Islam: 1.2 billion) Other religions would have disintegrated if they changed doctrinally as much as Christianity did/does, yet Christianity grows while doing it. I know of no other such protean and resilient religion.
I guess that I am among them, but can hardly be called a Christian in fact. I wonder how many of the two billion are practising Christians.
“Of course. It illustrates that the Temple had no overall control in Judaea, and many of the factions in Palestine will have had their supporters abroad. The cristiani mentioned in the early first century Roman histories were not Christians, as Christians always like to claim, but messianic Jews of various persuasions, some of whom might indeed have been Christians, but not all by any means.”
Mike, the Temple had no overall control even over Jerusalem! It depended on the Roman puppets and Roman governors and troops to maintain order and its own authority. They were only in control of the Temple and its dogma. The enforcement of these was tenuous, and from time to time a hot headed rebel would create troble, take over the temple temporarily etc, and that mad their reliance on Roman puppets and governors even greater. It also forced them (Sadducees) to bring the more moderate of the Messianists (the Pharisees) into the Temple priesthood and the Sanhedrin. IT was a way of buying their help in keeping things quiet in the poor quarters of the city and outside it, lest the Romans use disturbances as a pretext to annex the whole province and destroy the Temple, which unfortunately is what did happen.
Earlier you said to me, “Could be, but the link of the Hellenised Jews of the Diaspora with the Essenes and the Jesus group must be proved. The naysayers would counter (with some credibility) that the Temple and not the Essene insurrectionists controlled the Diaspora. ” You have just answered the “naysayers”!
“Yes, I can buy this with no trouble. Like the IRA and Sinn Fein in Irish republicanism.”
Something like that. With the Essenes being the IRA and the Pharisees being the Sinn Fein. The differences were tactical, not of strategy; they were two sides of the same coin, kind of the good cop, bad cop, but cop in both cases, sort of thing.
I thought you meant that the Zealots and particularly the Sicarii were the armed wings of the Essenes. Essenes spent their days professing to be pacific when they were looking for signs auspicious for a holy war.
“Perhaps you are trying to BE too logical!”
Yeah. It is a character trait (defect maybe??) Many people have told me the same thing. ;-)) A hard habit to change. Perhaps because I love mathematics.
I’ve had the same said to me by some counsellor when my marriage was on the rocks. I was too rational and my wife too emotional so we were both missing the target! I like mathematics too, but lost it when the school I went to made me skip the fifth form. What the sixth form were being taught was beyond me.
“It was a great confusion, but essentially the gentile followers have to be thought of separately from the Jewish ones. Until the Jewish War, the Jerusalem Church was presumably in charge of the embryonic Christians, but since most of them were hundreds of miles away in Asia Minor and even further off in Rome, the Jerusalem Church did not matter much to them. They were influenced by people much closer at hand. People exemplified by the New Testamant Paul of Tarsus, a man ready to bend with the wind, to do in rome what the Romans do, and to be all things to all men. They were opportunists ready to use the collections for the Poor in Jerusalem for their own aggrandisement. It was to their advantage to keep their flocks out of involvement in the geopolitics of the time to keep the funds flowing.”
If memory serves right, Saul/Paul used to be Pharisee before switching to the Church? Perhaps here we are given a hint in NT about the Pharisee conncetion and guidance from the shadows of the whole Essene/Church movement. There might be more here than it looks on the surface?
Yes, so he claimed in the bible as we now find it, but early on the gentile Christians wanted to distance themselves from their parent, the Essenes—whom they wrote out of the account to further the pretence that Jesus was unique—and the Pharisees—whom they made the villains as the strongest surviving Jewish party after the war (they were often referred to as “the Jews”), and the manifest villains in 135 AD.
“Whenever have Christian Churches been different except when the geopolitics was to their own advantage, of course? They knew that they were causing a division in Judaism that would lead to a new relgion, and some of them like Paul seemed to be acting consciously to do it. That is why the Jerusalem Church saw him as a rogue, and their successors, the Ebionites, always thought so.”
If the Ebionites thought Paul as a rogue and the Jerusalem church saw his courting of Gentiles as a ploy to divide Judaism and create a new religion, perhaps they saw at work the hand of Rome. They would have smelled that something sneaky is done here, but they couldn’t do much in Diaspora. They had sway in Jerusalem and around it, but in say, Egypt, or Syria or Asia Minor, their sway was far less and dependent of Roman governors of these places. Also the Jerusalem church had its own troubles inside Jerusalem itself, with the Temple authorities and the other competing sects. It appears that the Jerusalem Church’s authority was being eroded even before 70 CE!
Agreed. Paul was a Roman-Jewish spy, and, whether Rome had its fingers in the pie or not, it was hard for the Jerusalem Church to control the outreach churches. Acts shows that they sent men to control the activities of Paul and fellow Hellenists, but they could not.
“Too true! The silly thing is that the Rabbis helped it, but then again,, it seems they had little choice.”
Maybe they had little choice. But with the benefit of hindsight it was a disastrous decision, which led to over 17 centuries of hardship and persecutions. They should have worked harder to prevent a split. But hindsight is perfect, while they did not have the benefit of hindsight.
Going back to the topic of the gentilisation of the church: it seems that the pharisee/yeshu messianics split may have been exagerated after 70 and even more so after 135 and then projected backwards in time. Yeshu himself was called a Rabbi in NT, a title that was usually (cant remember any exceptions right now) denoting a Pharisee. IT may be that the Pharisee and the Essene/Jewish christians were the same group, but the Essenes being as lightly more extreme version of it. Obviously as the church spread in the gentile world in the 40 year generation before the resumed fighting in 66 it became more mild. Those Jews in diaspora were more interested in spiritual salvation than in political independence like their palestinian brethren. In this scenario, the Jeruslem/Palestinian branch of the church/Essenes would have been actually the trigger of the 66-70 war. The Pharisees would have been allies, but a little more distinct from them by now, though still under the same umbrella. When the Romans demolished Jerusalem the Jewish element as well as the link between the Hellenised Jews/gentile members and the Jerusalem headquarters would have been severed, as well as the link with Pharisees.
There seems little doubt to me that the Church did exaggerate the hatred between the contemporary followers of Jesus for the Pharisees, althouh I cannot agree that there was none originally because they were all chums. The Essenes did not like the Pharisees because they were pragmatic, and, though they too resented the occupation, they were willing to tolerate it pro tem rather than constantly get battered to a pulp by superior forces. Since Jesus expected a holy miracle and wanted to save Jews for the kingdom of God, he must have been ready to accept Pharisees along with any other Jew that was willing to repent and be baptised. As you know, the real enemies were the Sadducees whose position depended on the foreigner.
The death of James in about 62 AD, almost the precise Jewish generation from the suggested date of the Nazarene uprisng in 21 AD, has been said to have caused the dissent that eventually triggered the Jewish War.
“The Pharisees had undertaken a function of being teachers, but I cannot see other sects not having the same function, and anyone with the function of teaching a doctrine would have been called rabbis.”
But the term is used only in describing the Pharisees, not the Sadducees or other sects. And here is the rub—the Essenes did not have Rabbis either. They had only masters and teachers of righteusness (that being a supermaster, the top Essene) who incidentally happened to be called a Rabbi! Just like Yeshu is called repeatedly throughtout the NT! Caincidence? Maybe, but it is quite some coincidence!
Take care. The term “rabbi” is used only to describe Pharisees—except for Yeshu… and except for the Righteous Teacher. You are being contrary, R Rosen! It seems that it might be a case of the Pharisees doctoring their own commentaries to keep the honourable title to themselves. Since “rabbi” means “my master”, and refers to sages qualified to give decisions on the Mosaic law, it seems to be entirely appropriate for Essenes. When the rabbis withdrew from proselytising after the Bar Kosiba revolt, and reformed Judaism, they took the title for themselves. They were the only people who could justifiably hold it.
“The ultimate Pharisaic domination of Judaism has perhaps left the deliberate impression that only Pharisees were rabbis.”
You may be right, be we have no surviving evidence that other sects had this title. (Of course I may be biased or it may be beyond my current knowledge).
You just gave it.
“Pharisees and Essenes were distinguished by Josephus so it seems unlikely that they could have been the same,”
Josephus was a captive court Jew, who would sing the songs the Romans wanted to hear. Also he might not have though it wise to associate the Pharisees of which he was one with the more extreme and more zealously anti-Roman Essenes. There were reasons of self preservation and self ingratiation with the Romans. Also there is the possibility the Christians tinkered with the texts also, after the Gentilisation of the church when the Bishops had an interest in severing any traces of ties with Judaism.
You are right about these possibilities, but much of what comes to us in Josephus has been verified from the original documents of the Essenes in the Scrolls. There are differences, of course, and your comments might explain some of them, but the two sects were distinct, and not on friendly terms. While both seem to have descended from the Hasidim, there was a split before 100 BC, and the two factions went in different directions. Details are still shrouded in history, but the general outline seems right.
“Though the real point is that they were all Jews, and when it came to consideration of who should be in charge in God’s country, just like today, there would be little disagreement—the Jews not the Romans. Essenes seemed not to like the Pharisaic idea of having a law to protect the law, which seemed, to them, like backsliding. The Pharisees thought it was an excellent way of achieving holiness by making it harder to break god’s law.”
Sure there were some differences (like IRA and Sinn Fein), with the Essenes being the more intransigent sect. But that is no proof of them being a separate sect.
Well, you are using “proof” like any fundamentalist here. There might be no proof, but there is plenty of evidence. The whole period is fraught as our discussion shows. I cannot see any point in generating unnecessary complications besides those there already are!
“The ranting against the law in the New Testament might be ranting against this building of a wall of the law around the law not ranting against the Law of Moses per se.”
This may well be later interpolation by the Gentile Bishops. We do see a stronger anti-Pharisee line in the older gospels, but less so in the Mark gospel.
By general consent, Mark’s is still the oldest of the four, but I agree that many of the instances when Pharisees are depicted as Jesus’s opponents, Sadducees would make more sense. The explanation, besides the desire for Christians to distinguish themselves from the unpopular Jews, was that the Sadducees had disappeared from history, some of them, we surmise, into the Christian ranks, and so there were two reasons for substituting them for Pharisees in the original accounts.
“It has been deliberately confused to suit the Hellenised Jews and gentile godfearers for whom the Law was a tribulation and a bore.”
Yes, but it appears a later, post-Gentilisation twist.
“Quite so. It gives away the recent parts of the Jewish scriptures too—romances like Joseph and Samson, almost seamless as you say, and therefore late compositions.” Yes, the Jewish scriptures are as much a fictional literary creation as the Christian ones. The same goes for all the scriptures of all religions. Taken as allegorical stories they are harmless. Taken as divine commandments and real historical events they have historically caused much pain and suffering.
“I suppose when I say ‘liberal’ I assume with it that the people are intelligent. Many Christians accept Jesus as a holy man rather than literally a supernatural son of God, but they are thoughtful Christians forwhom supernaturalism is a non-starter.” That might be true of the well educated, European Christians, schooled in a progressive, secular and modern school system. But that does not extend to non-European Christians, which are the vast majority, who did not have the benefit of this kind of education system. The ‘supernatural’ is much easier accepted by people in grinding poverty and with only a little education, inside countries where political violence is common, food is a problem and the best of the educated leave the country in search of saner life and better opportunities. It becomes accepted as a palliative for such deperate people. This is an explanation, of this phenomenon, not an excuse of it. “I would have thought that there would be a bigger proportion of similar Jews, if only because there are more secular Jews and Jews are more often thoughtful. I am not making them a majority, but they ought to be influential. Some ‘Ebionite’ sects that seem to have formed since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered might be heading in this direction.” Yes, you are correct about the % and the influence of this subgroup but as I said there would be little acceptance among them too, at least for now, because Yeshua failed, and all failed Messiahs are given a bad light. It also has to do with the subconscious baggage of Jewish Christian relation. If that history didn’t happen, and Jews would not have been persecuted for so many centuries in the name of Yeshua, then he would be easier to accept. Again, this is an explanation of this phenomenon. Do not take it as an excuse made by me (or anyone else) for it. I personally have no problem with accepting Yeshua as a great man, but you will not find too many Jews that could stomach it. I have also read about the neo-Ebionites, but they are rejected by the Jewish mainstream for the reasons (whether conscious or unconscious) that I gave above.
“Bishops gentiles—I don’t think it necessary that they were. We are speaking of a time after the Jewish War. Even if many or most bishops were still Jews—former Essenes and Hellenised Jews—they were now facing the ire of the gentile Romans. Think of it like the Moslems having to handle 9/11. Those who had found a niche in western society were embarrassed by the attack. Look at the result. The US sought revenge by attacking Moslem countries and arresting Moslems they said were dangerous. Some Moslem organisations have rejected the attacks as not Islamic. The proto-Christians, even though they were still nominally Jewish, will have wanted to distinguish themselves from the Jews that fought the Romans. ‘It was not us, your honour.’ Since the Jerusalem Church had almost certainly fought with the Jews and been subsequently scattered, the diaspora churches were free to reject the centre. It could not object.” You made a good point. Some would have tried to find a way to blend, to avoid unnecessary attention and retribution from the Romans. (guilt by association). What is the less understandable thing is why the Pharisees did not try to blend and de-Judaise in the same manner? (as an aside, this is the last remaining hole in your theories, as you have already answered all my other questions-sorry I had so many, but I had them unclear and I thank you for helping me find an answer to them- so again, this is the last puzzlement. IF the Sadducees were gone as a political party, and the Christians were already trailblazing this assimilation and syncretism path, why the Pharisees stuck with Judaism. They were under the same duress and circumstances as the Christians, after all. (ok, this is more of a philosophical question, and it has no negational influence on your theory, but it is an interesting question nevertheless.
It seems to be a question of geography and commitment. The Hellenised Jews who became Christians were not too committed to Judaism and mainly were living outside Judaea. The Pharisees were highly committed to Judaism and mainly were living in Judaea, indeed in Jerusalem. These latter were soon to go into conclave to find a way of practising their religion without causing periodic outbreaks of rioting and dissension that caused Jews and Romans trouble, and that the Jews habitually came out of worst. They invented modern Judaism.
Though this new form of Judaism resembles little the previous types, I think it was a good decision to adopt it because it lessened conflict. The periodical rebellions against the super power of the time led to cyclical massacres when the inevitable defeat happened again and again. IT made it possible for the Jews to survive because otherwise we wouldn’t be around. The Romans were not the forgiving type and their punishments were savage when provoked.
“Why rewrite?—Because of the war. You say even Hellenised Jews would not have wanted to break away from Judaism, but I disagree. Their tie to Judaism was already flimsy. It amounted only to a once or twice in a lifetime trip to Jerusalem for Passover.” Yes and no. The Islamic faith also requires the Hajj once in a life time, but that does not mean Mecca is not important to Muslims. Just like today the Muslims face Mecca when they pray, the Jews faced Jerusalem. IT was more than just a trip to see the temple. People who undertook this pilgrimage were very, very, committed to that religion (Temple Judaism). The trip was expensive, dangerous and time consuming. It was not just a trip to the park for a picnic. Unlike the Hajj, which is required once in a life time, the Jews where required to undertake the pilgrimage many times (yearly is possible), but at least once in a life time. (maybe this is the origin of the idea for the Hajj, but maybe not. It is definitely a parallel) The point is that any Jew, Hellenised in daily life in Diaspora, or not, if he was undertaking the pilgrimage, he was committed to Judaism. You can see for example the British Muslims who take the Hajj, They would be the least likely to dump Islam. (this is just intended as a contemporary example)
Perhaps you are right, but I suspect you are making the distinctions two black and white to be realistic. An assimilated Jew is no longer a Jew, despite his origins. A devout Jew is still loyal in every respect to one or other sect of Judaism. I think that the Hellenized Jews were in between, but even they were not monolithic. There were degrees of Hellenization. I take it, from the events described in Acts that there were Hellenized Jews who were nevertheless committed enough to want to undertake the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Despite your argument, my guess is that for many of them, their annual or occasional pilgrimage was their last solid link with their original religion. They would eventually stop the pilgrimages, and then little if anything would be left of their religious affiliation. Perhaps the usual weddings and funerals would sometimes draw them back to communal worship. That is all. Their children would probably be all together assimilated, or would be after a brief adolescent interest in the religion of their fathers. So, I am saying that at the fringe of those who attended the Passover were quite uncommitted, nigh on assimilated Jews still clinging to the last vestige of their belief, the vestige retained in the seder la-shaner.
“The word Hellenisation means they were adopting the Roman way of life in all other matters.” Yes, in all other matters, but not in matters of religion. The same was a British Hajji (Muslim who undertook the Hajj pilgrimage) will dress with European clothes instead of the Arabic clothes of the Meccans, and will freely associate in business with non-Muslims, but still remain very committed about Islam. You seem to think the 2 contradict, but as you can see by this example, they don’t always contradict.
“The war combined with the Jewish link provided by their devotion to a Jewish messiah was sufficient. Hellenisation implies to me that the Hellenised Jews were probably also already impressed by the mysteries which they were probably not eligible to join. Christianity was a hybrid religion. The dying and rising messiah had given it characteristics of a mystery, and after the war, if not before, it will have reinstated Essene-like initiation conditions to baptism. What otherwise was a catechumen?” Yes. But to have such an effect, the link to a Jewish Messiah could have supplanted the loyalty to the Temple only if/after the Temple was razed. Then it would have provided the only psychologically soothing link to the home country and the religion of the ancestors. So this fits perfectly with the post 70 CE period, but only tenuously with the 21-70 CE period. In this intermezzo the Temple would still have trumped any Messiah, especially a failed one.
“Roman agents—It would not surprise me. I have already argued that Paul was a Roman agent, an idea already suggested by Maccoby. It would answer many questions in the career of Paul, not least why he was chummy with Roman governors, centurions and Jewish princes.” Never heard of Maccoby. I will go back to re-read the webpages about Paul. Seems I missed that. But anyway, with different material and different angle of looking at it I reached a similar conclusion. So it is not just a wild idea. It is in fact a very logical act that Romans would do it (with or without Paul). The Persians have done it before and it is still done to this day.
“I am inclined to think the Sadducees were already pretty much Hellenised. I doubt that they had much of an axe to grind vis-á-vis the Jewish religion. They were the placed men of the Greeks.” Not only of the Greeks, but later also of the Romans too. Although I have been trained and conditioned to think of them as traitorous, I have come to see them as the most sober and wise of the sects. It was clear that some degree of moderation and accommodation with the Hellenistic kingdoms and later with the Roman Republic and Empire were necessary. Of course I have the benefit of historical hindsight. The Sadducees were also decrying the fact that too many of the Jews were taking up Hellenistic customs, so they were trying to slow down that assimilation process. But they also took Greek names so they were also assimilating. What is important in realising when assessing them is that the Maccabee kings and later the Roman puppets and Roman governors had far more power and control than the Temple had. The Temple as a political tool, dependent on the Roman puppets and governors had the assigned role of channelling the Jewish fervor on safe paths and to avoid religions and political extremism. They were not simple stooges though. They realised that open rebellion against the super-power of their day will result in the destruction of the nation. Although the Essenes and the Pharisees have painted them as cowardly, traitorous tools of the Romans, historical hindsight proves they were the wisest and most realistic of the sects/parties of their time.
“Pharisees and Essenes were moreloyal to the original Persian concepts of the religion (Pharisee = Parsee, if you like).” Actually the word Pharisee is from the Hebrew perushim, from parash, meaning “to separate”).
How certain are you that the verb came before the sect? Separate is what the separated ones, the Perushim, do.
The use of the verb in ancient texts preceded the emergence of the sect. I think that is a good enough reason.
Even if the verb precedes the sect historically, I would say the name was chosen for its dual sound—punning again. Even my unscholarly eye sees a tremendous amount of it in Hebrew writing.
That is true. I was just pointing out that the word had a Hebrew, not a Persian root. The Persians imposed their theology, slightly changed, but they never insisted in imposing their language. The Arabs were much better colonialists in that respect.
The point is how far back does the Hebrew root go? If Jewish literature began in the Persian period, then the word could still have been a reference to Persians. The Persian Magi were also men who had to be separated out for reasons of ritual cleanliness. We might be misled by the idea that some of the books in the Jewish scriptures are pre-Persian, but this is most unlikely. The best test is whether an unquestionably cognate word is found in other pre-Persian Western Semitic writings. It would be quite significant if “Pharisee” could be shown to mean Persian, Parsee or whatever.
“Their interest in it was as rulers, and a source of their wealth. They were like the Aga Khan. You are right, though, in that I am not suggesting they became Christians en masse, but they had lost their sinecures and needed something similar to replace them.” In terms of purity, the Sadducees were unrivalled. They had to be as theirs was the role of keeping the purity laws of the temple. They were more in line with the original Persian concept of religion, because their role was to keep things quiet and the masses away from politics. The Essenes and the Pharisees were the more militant ones, so their involvement in politics is more unlike what the Jerusalem Temple was designed by the Persians for—collecting taxes, keeping things quiet and promoting difficult and self-absorbing purity laws and some form of lesser Zoroastrianism. The difficulty was that now the Romans and not the Persians were in control, so now that this instrument of control (the Temple) was in the hands of the Romans, which were at war with the Persians, the Sadducees were of no use to them anymore. So I imagine that the Persians would have much preferred the hot heads, even as the Romans would have preferred the Sadducees. But in terms of pure dogma, you are right, because the Sadducees rejected some key Zoroastrian concepts such as the immortality of the soul, the existence of angels and spirits etc. So in that respect you are absolutely correct. The Sadducees were more rational than the other sects.
To strengthen the assertion I made about Sadducees being more strict and continuing the Zoroastrian purity laws to a larger extent, I include a few articles about the purity of the Temple rituals and I will contrast them with the Pharisee views so you may compare them:
- They held that the daily burnt offerings were to be offered by the high priest at his own expense, whereas the Pharisees contended that they were to be furnished as a national sacrifice at the cost of the Temple treasury into which taxes were paid.
- They held that the meal offering belonged to the priest’s portion; whereas the Pharisees claimed it for the altar.
- They insisted on an especially high degree of purity in those who officiated at the preparation of the ashes of the Red Heifer. The Pharisees, on the contrary, opposed such strictness.
- They declared that the kindling of the incense in the vessel with which the high priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement was to take place outside, so that he might be wrapped in smoke while meeting the Shekhinah within, according to Lev. xvi. 2; whereas the Pharisees, denying the high priest the claim of such super-natural vision, insisted that the incense be kindled within.
- They opposed the popular festivity of the water libation and the procession preceding the same on each night of the Sukkot feast.
- They opposed the Pharisaic assertion that the scrolls of the Holy Scriptures have, like any holy vessel, the power to render ritually unclean (taboo) the hands that touch them.
- They opposed the Pharisaic idea of the eruv, the merging of several private precincts into one in order to admit of the carrying of food and vessels from one house to another on the Sabbath.
- In dating all civil documents they used the phrase "after the high priest of the Most High," and they opposed the formula introduced by the Pharisees in divorce documents," According to the law of Moses and Israel".
