I just reread, Jesus Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus. Once again I could not put the books down and finished both within a few days. I was just thinking about the false narrative of Jesus’ explanation of the coming of the new kingdom and that the timeframe was for this current generation in which Jesus lived. And further emphasized by Jesus with the quote about some not seeing death until these things come to pass…I just do not understand how Christianity sustained this false narrative. This never happened and people are still looking for it to happen. How did Christianity survive?
Omaharebel said
I just reread, Jesus Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus. Once again I could not put the books down and finished both within a few days. I was just thinking about the false narrative of Jesus’ explanation of the coming of the new kingdom and that the timeframe was for this current generation in which Jesus lived. And further emphasized by Jesus with the quote about some not seeing death until these things come to pass…I just do not understand how Christianity sustained this false narrative. This never happened and people are still looking for it to happen. How did Christianity survive?
Omaha Rebel,
It did happen.
It certainly is not a false narrative. It happened during the Jewish Revolt.
Jesus lost his religion over the kingdom not being a theocracy of Israel under Temple Judaism.
You’re right: people should not still be looking for the Star Prophecy, the Tribulation, or the New Kingdom to happen. It already did.
Go to YouTube. Search subscriber name WBFbySteefen.
See the video: “Jesus; …” It’s a little longer than 2 hours, but your question is fully answered in that timeframe.
I am sorry to disappoint you Steefan but that’s not convinving for me (at least)
the allegation of a jesus return was alright at some stage, but then with time, people got bored and the authors had to change things a bit, initially it was within the generation, Paul used to think he will meet him before he dies (Paul that is) and then they had to make up ‘signs’ and bit by bit they had to find a solution and said it actually has happened!.
but if it has happened then where is the lion eating with the sheep? where’s the temple? where’s peace?
What has ever changed by the existence of jesus, first, second, third or any coming at all? nowts!
Omaharebel said
How did Christianity survive?
I’ve long wondered about this too. There’s a (mainly) Roman Catholic theological view called Preterism that holds, among other things, that the second coming was a symbolic event and that it happened around 70AD and fulfilled Matthew 16 where Jesus says that some of you will not taste death. Maybe it’s more widely held among some Protestants today. It’s been a while since I read anything on Preterism. In any event, to me this view is backwards looking and doesn’t address what 1st century Christians thought about what Matthew wrote.
My thoughts on the “how” of Christian surviving would take a lot to explain so I’ll summarize by saying that I think Christians found a religion that offered them a lot of desirable attributes not found in any single religion (to my knowledge): redemption, forgiveness, an afterlife where you and your loved ones lived on for eternity, etc. Also, going by the examples given in the Beatitudes it offered something better in the future for the poor, the downtrodden, the meek, etc (read the Beatitudes if you need this explained!). I think this second point may be more important and appealing to 1st century Jews (and anyone under Roman rule for that matter) than the first point I made.
These are the basics of why I think Christianity was appealing and survived because of that appeal, but there are other reasons I can think of as well.
I think the best answer to the question (how did christianity survive) would be in the book: “The Jesus Wars”, available on Amazon.
It was a struggle between different versions of christianity, but to settle it down it was like a match between two teams where both sets of supporters were not just chanting slogans, but rather using Toma Hawk and S2S missiles (literally)
Christianity started and spread by the force of the state, believe or die, and not just any good old death, but get burnt on the stake, ask Galileo !!
walid said
I think the best answer to the question (how did christianity survive) would be in the book: “The Jesus Wars”, available on Amazon.It was a struggle between different versions of christianity, but to settle it down it was like a match between two teams where both sets of supporters were not just chanting slogans, but rather using Toma Hawk and S2S missiles (literally)
Christianity started and spread by the force of the state, believe or die, and not just any good old death, but get burnt on the stake, ask Galileo !!
The question is how it survived immediately after the crucifixion. At that time it was practiced by and large in secret. It would be hundreds of years before it had the power to enforce “submit or die”.
Greetings Mr Matthews, exactly, second that.
Allow me please to put in my view: I would actually say there was no ‘christianity’ per se right after crucifiction.
Jesus (had there been one) tried to prove a point, failed, got killed, end of. Yet he was a Jew for all intents and purposes.
After his failure to achieve much he would have simply been forgotten had it not been for the Jewish revolutions in Palestine.
It’s a Jewish custom to reconsider their stance from god when they face problems.
When the temple was wiped out, people tried as their habit to find out what they did wrong.
It’s obvious that some lost faith in the synagogue, they simply had no hope that would bring back the kingdom of David.
They made up a character which fitted many different personas, mixed them with Roman mythology, and came up with the bloke.
Now was there a person who got killed? .. yes many not just one.
Did he walk on water, play with Daemons, fly up into the sky? .. no way.
So they took the concept of the saving Messiah and made a suit for a jesus of myth.
About Jesus’s alleged “prophecies” that didn’t come true: I was raised Catholic, and I remember being taught that people had confused his “end-of-the-world” type prophecies with his prophecy about the coming destruction of the Temple. According to this school of thought, the destruction of the Temple was the only one of those things he’d meant would happen within the lifetimes of some of his contemporaries.
Catholics rarely read the Bible, so I doubt many of them question that explanation. (And until very recent centuries, few people were able to read the Bible!)
Walid
I am sorry to disappoint you Steefen but that’s not convincing for me (at least).
Steefen
Hm, it seems you did not watch the instructional video.
The new kingdom would have been something to replace the Julian-Claudian Dynasty which was over Israel or it would have been a Temple Judaism Theocracy. Obviously the latter failed. Jesus was crucified and the Jewish Revolt was put down by the dynasty that came after the Julian-Claudian dynasty.
What we all know is that before the kingdom, there would be a tribulation. Now, this is natural because a new world order for Israel would require a tribulation of transition from the status quo. Jesus was getting push back from Temple authorities, let alone from Rome. The tribulation turned out to be, within a generation time span of 40 years, the Jewish Revolt.
Now, the question is how did the new kingdom come into being. Would the Jewish rebels win thereby fulfilling the scriptures that God would deliver Israel so that Israel could have its own glorious kingdom of God and Righteousness or would the Roman Empire win with its father and son generals? Rome won and the new Flavian Empire was the new dynasty over Israel.
Well, one might say, that did not fulfill the prophecy and the scriptures. The Star Prophecy said a leader would come from the Ancient Holy Land. During the Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Roman War, the victorious leader was the one to fulfill the prophecy and the scriptures. That’s why Jesus says in the gospels the promise will be taken away from Jerusalem and given to the gentiles. That was so easy to write after the Revolt was over–and three of the four gospels were written after the Revolt was over.
Walid
The allegation of a Jesus return was alright at some stage…
Steefen
Not according to Jesus. Jesus did not say he was returning as the Son of Man to bring in the kingdom of God.
There are two Sons of Man: the first person Son of Man, Jesus and the third person Son of Man, un-named.
Sure, Jesus self-identified as the first person Son of Man telling John the Baptist, his disciples, and others that he was the Son of Man, not one of the Sons of Man. When Jesus made it to Jerusalem from Galilee, he became disillusioned with his reception. He knew he was not going to see his Son of Man movement through to its glorious fruition. So, in sour grapes, he snapped at a disciple about him thinking the Temple was grand and beautiful: no, it would be destroyed; he attacked / withered a fig tree; he came up with dire predictions of a Great Tribulation; finally, he says his death will be a sacrifice (the God of Israel did not appreciate human sacrifices over animal sacrifices; the Isaac thing was only a test, the God of Israel is not on record for directing Hebrews to offer humans at the altar) and then Jesus says this is my blood for a new covenant (well, Jesus did not go to a mountain and get new tablets for a new covenant; what he did was to get the God of Israel to turn his face away from him because if anyone consumes blood, human blood, no less, God would turn his face away from him/her and separate him/her from the People of the God of Israel).
So when one loses one’s God, there’s a risk of godless atheism or the individual becomes the God in the vacuum. And, that’s exactly what happened. Jesus became God and Christians sing “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full on his wonderful face.” because the God of Israel isn’t looking at the Christian which has Communion (metaphor of human sacrifice and consuming blood which makes That face of turn away).
In short, disillusioned Jesus lost his religion, led his followers astray from the God of Israel, and turned over the Son of Man responsibilities to some un-named person. Maybe he knew if he, pure as he was, would not be the Son of Man, no one else could/would. So, he declared the handwriting on the wall of Son of Man FAIL would be a punishment for the purity of aspiring to fulfill scriptures that continued the hopes of Mosaic deliverance.
Jesus said: the world will no longer see me. Jesus never had an intention of coming back. He would send us a Comforter, the Holy Spirit, but even the Holy Spirit wasn’t the third person Son of Man. Disillusioned Jesus knew the Son of Man movement would die with him.
His dream was beautiful and inspiring.
CS Lewis said this was the most embarrasing statement in the whole of the NT. As a former Christian seeking the truth, this failure for Jesus not returning in that generation was a huge reason why I went on to really read the bible in a different way by critical analysis of the text. Apologetics argue that the destruction of the temple in AD 70 was the prophecy within that generation but that doesn’t fit the end of days and judgement for the whole world and Jesus coming back with his Angels to rule on the earth etc. Paul himself thought Jesus was coming back in his generation as he said in his letters. I quote. “The time of his return is less than when we first believed” end of quote. So he didn’t think it was the temple being destroyed. That failed prophecy proves he wasn’t the eternal Son of God, certainly not God and just a first century Jewish soothsayer, indeed like John the Baptist was. Both were preaching the end of the world and God’s Judgement in that generation. Paul told his followers not to get married as virgins were more highly thought of in the new Kingdom.
So how come it continued as it did?
Two main reasons imo.
The second generation gentile Churches were becoming hierarchial and so all had a vested interests in carrying on as a means of income and control of the people and having tasted all that power etc? That is the whole ethos of the Catholic Church for 2000 years. Secondly, Constantine adopting it as the official religion of the empire. In my 50 years going to Church the second coming was rarely preached as it leads to to many questions just like this.
Omaharebel said
thinking about the false narrative of Jesus’ explanation of the coming of the new kingdom and that the timeframe was for this current generation in which Jesus lived. And further emphasized by Jesus with the quote about some not seeing death until these things come to pass…I just do not understand how Christianity sustained this false narrative. This never happened and people are still looking for it to happen. How did Christianity survive?
I don’t like thinking of this as a false narrative (although you probably mean the prediction that did not come true.) It’s an intriguing question
There are a few good reasons this would not have much affect.
1.) It’s well established that in this part of the world at that time, literacy was very rare. Hezser has it at something like 3%. So
how many people were likely to even know about those specific sayings?
2.) Verbal ambiguity. Just as with Isaiah suffering servant passage, people hearing “this generation” think of their own rather than
of the sources. It seems like every generation of Christians thinks that it is the last generation.
3.) Often people convinced of something are difficult to dissuade. The first reaction tends to be something along the lines of
Did I misunderstand. This opens them up to things like Oh it’s a metaphor reasoning. Consider also the Kingdom of God
immanence vis its presence.
Even in modern times, people of various Christian offshoots hold to predictions of a specific date or time frame for Jesus’ return. And when the deadline passes and Jesus hasn’t returned, the prophecy is either revised with a new date or they say that it really has happened in some sort of spiritual sense. So, it’s not really surprising that when a prophecy seems to have failed to come true, many believers manage to continue believing. i.e. understanding the phenomenon is mainly a matter of psychology and sociology.
John 21: 23 appears like a specific attempt to deal with doubts that have arisen by the time of the writing of the fourth gospel. I forget where the verses about “no man knows the day or the hour”, “like a thief in the night”, etc. are, but I would guess these also might have been written in order to reassure anyone concerned that The Kingdom of Heaven should have already arrived.
(quote from John chapter 21, NRSV on Biblegateway):
20 Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” 21 When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” 23 So the rumor spread in the community[** you do not have permission to see this link **]
c. ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Gk among the brothers
d. ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Other ancient authorities lack what is that to you
Omaharebel said
I just reread, Jesus Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus. Once again I could not put the books down and finished both within a few days. I was just thinking about the false narrative of Jesus’ explanation of the coming of the new kingdom and that the timeframe was for this current generation in which Jesus lived. And further emphasized by Jesus with the quote about some not seeing death until these things come to pass…I just do not understand how Christianity sustained this false narrative. This never happened and people are still looking for it to happen. How did Christianity survive?
Not sure how I missed this topic, but I first noticed it today. As for how religions can survive and thrive despite failed prophecies, I suggest you check out When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Have you read Prof. Ehrman’s Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium? He touches on the same subject.
In short, failed prophecies and other problems with logic do not cause religions to wither and die. Seems to me that sufficient faith makes a person impervious to logic.
Rastafarians believe that Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie is the second coming of Christ. Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966. Selassie met thirty-one Rasta leaders and, being a devout Christian, told them he was not God. They did not believe him, and considered his humility divine. Hélène Lee, The First Rasta, Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism 272 (2003). His visit only strengthened the faith. Leonard Barrett, The Rastafarians 108-09 (Beacon Press 1997). Their God looked them in the eye and told that he was not God. So why do you think early Christians should have had such a big problem with a failed prophecy? You seem to presuppose an analytical framework mind that simply does not apply to true believers.
When I was going to school at Emory U in Atlanta way (way) back when I had a couple neighbors who were Rastafarians. This was before dreadlocks became merely a fashion statement and they were both quite striking of aspect. I remember sitting around one Sunday afternoon and the subject of theology came up and they explained their beliefs to me. Made perfect sense at the time. Of course the proportion of THC molecules in the air far outstripped the actual oxygen present so it may be I was mistaken, heh heh heh.
gmatthews said
Omaharebel said
How did Christianity survive?
My thoughts on the “how” of Christian surviving would take a lot to explain so I’ll summarize by saying that I think Christians found a religion that offered them a lot of desirable attributes not found in any single religion (to my knowledge): redemption, forgiveness, an afterlife where you and your loved ones lived on for eternity, etc. Also, going by the examples given in the Beatitudes it offered something better in the future for the poor, the downtrodden, the meek, etc (read the Beatitudes if you need this explained!). I think this second point may be more important and appealing to 1st century Jews (and anyone under Roman rule for that matter) than the first point I made.
These are the basics of why I think Christianity was appealing and survived because of that appeal, but there are other reasons I can think of as well.
Can’t recall where I saw this or the accuracy of my retelling, but I recall some documentary where some archaeologist spoke about the myth of a Roman peace. How, when the Romans took over they seized land and threw people out of their homes leaving many dispossessed. Consider the appeal of a religion that promised a reversal of fortunes to a dispossessed population. Yes, the forces of evil appear to have won, but God will set things straight when he sets up his good kingdom. The First shall be last and the last shall be first.
Personally, I doubt Jesus spoke of returning, but do believe he thought things would come to an end in his own generation. Is it accidental that most Christians still seem to have this sort of expectation?
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