Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity (Part 2)
After the Assyrians and Babylonian exiles, you get Ezra and Nehemiah.
the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought.
“The Letter of James also, according to the majority of scholars who have carefully worked through its text in the past two centuries, is among the earliest of New Testament compositions. It contains no reference to the events in Jesus’ life, but it bears striking testimony to Jesus’ words. Jesus’ sayings are embedded in James’ exhortations in a form that is clearly not dependent on the written Gospels.”
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The author introduces himself merely as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” without invoking any special family relationship to Jesus.
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One could date James before anything Paul wrote because much of Paul is a refutation of James.
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Paul is Philo 2.0. – Hellenism in Judaism. Paul went beyond Philo by adding man-god and even adding Serapis, Lord of Resurrection
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The gospel is a metaphor against rebellion and for assimilation.
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Titus’ entrance into Jerusalem is at age 33, the same age when “Jesus” enters Jerusalem for Palm Sunday.
Jesus is Titus.
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Pick up at (Part 1), Part 2 was not Part 1 without the technical difficulties.
Creating Christ: How the Romans Invented Christianity (Part 1) (youtube video)
8:00 – 11:49
The Romans were cultural sponges, absorbing foreign religions. So, after the Romans conquered Judea, they absorbed their religion, and then there was Roman Judaism.
The Pauline content of the NT is clearly a message against messianic Judaism, and that is why Paul does not speak of the Son of Man Movement and the Kingdom of God/Righteousness/Heaven.
The author was a prosecutor.
Josephus declares his boss Vespasian was the Jewish Messiah.
Since God is showing favor to the Romans, I will go over to the Romans and minister there. – Josephus
Do you agree The Koran is more reliable because it is not weighed down by the Roman subjugation, say the first decade after the war AD 70 – 80 about the time the synoptic gospels were completed?
Dr. Ehrman
No, I decidedly don’t. It had its *own* historical context and vicissitudes.
Steefen
Definition of antinomian. 1 : one who holds that under the gospel dispensation of grace (see grace entry 1 sense 1a) the moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to salvation. 2 : one who rejects a socially established morality.
The Koran is the heir of Jamesian anti-antinomianism. The Koran shares the ethos of James, not the ethos of Paul. The tone of the Koran is more reflective of the messianic majority of the first 67% of the first century and more reliable than the gospels in that respect. You have informed us on this blog that Jesus only had a small following; so, far from being in the majority of zealots or a sizeable minority, Jesus’s followers would be in the single digit percentage of those seeking change, if not a fraction of 1% while the ethos of James and the tone of Apocalyptic War as opposed to Apocalyptic tribulation of destruction of Temple and defeat of people was a vocal and sizeable minority, was a sizeable minority if not larger against the pro-Roman Herodians.
Even with The Koran’s own historical context and vicissitudes, the ethos and the tone of The Koran are more reflective of zealot Christians who adhered to the War Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls and more reflective of the Jews who wanted to run Paul out of town or worse. The Koran’s own historical context and vicissitudes are not direct counter-claims to the ethos and tone claims.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert