Biblical literacy

[DaryLLL]

Since some have been asking, I submit a sampling of where my interests lie re the intersection of: Bible and intertestamental lit, gnostic gospels and Hellenistic paganism/mystery religions.

This upcoming event presents several of my Biblical scholar heroes, Spong, Pagels, Armstrong, King and Borg.

(disclaimer: I object the the use of the term Judeo-Christian)


http://www.westarinstitute.org/Event...rograms04.html

[tracymom]

Thank you DaryLLL.

[DaryLLL]

So if anybody, like, has any questions or anything...

[dado]

some reading suggestions from contemporary authors...

"Who Wrote the Bible?", Friedman (this is the J,E,P,D hypothesis, and there's a follow up coming later this year

"Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English", Geza Vermes

"Nag Hammadi Library in English", James Robinson

"Introduction To Early Judaism", James Vanderkam

"Judaism When Christianity Began", Jacob Neusner

"Lost Christianities", Bart Ehrman

that should be enough to get someone up to speed very quickly on current scholarship. for those interested in creating their own "spin" two of the most important original sources are Josephus and Origen. Josephus was a Jew who survived the destruction of the temple and wrote a great deal about the history of the region. Origen was a second-century figure, the first significant Christian scholar and philosopher whose writings laid the groundwork for the orthodoxy Constantine would establish a few generations later.

[DaryLLL]

But watch out for the Dick Cheneys of their day, Tertullian and Eusebius.

Dado, have you read all those books?

[PaganScribe]

I'm in the middle of Lost Christianities and really enjoying it.

DaryLLL, it looks like a conference that I would really enjoy as well.

I still have so, so much to learn. :sigh:

[dado]

Originally posted by DaryLLL
But watch out for the Dick Cheneys of their day, Tertullian and Eusebius.

:LOL very clever! you think anybody is going to get that?

unfortunately, i haven't been able to get to all of them just yet...

[me&3]

I googled Nag Hammadi and found this: http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlintro.html

It was a short intro on gnosticism - pretty interesting. Since I'm not knowledgable about this subject, I can't say if it's accurate. DaryLLL? Dado?

Wish I had the time to do more in-depth reading, since I find this subject fascinating. But I can't even get to my homework.. hehe, probably because I keep checking the boards. I think I may need to go cold-turkey for awhile...

:LOL

[dado]

observations stemming from a truncated discussion elsewhere. the thread title clearly delineates this as a discussion about the texts themselves and not about the inherent, personal value of the texts.

un-redacting the arrest/conviction of Jesus...

All from Mark 14, starting right after the arrest at Gethsemane, noting all the participants in the drama were Jews, in Jerusalem, living under Jewish law...

53 They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests and teachers of the law came together...

Sanhedrin was not allowed to convene at night.

Sanhedrin did not convene on Shabbat(!).

Sanhedrin most assuredly did not convene on Pesach.

61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"

no Jew then or now would associate "messiah" with divinity. a clear Constantinization as the question has no basis in Judasim and jesus's divinity was not orthodoxed until Nicea.

62 "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven."
63 The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked.

it was not then nor is it now a Judaic crime to declare oneself the Messiah. there have been so many self-proclaimed messiahs rabbi ben Zakkai is famously quoted as saying "If you should happen to be holding a sapling in your hand when they tell you that the Messiah has arrived, first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Messiah."

64 "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" They all condemned him as worthy of death

in Judaism "blasphemy" has specific legal meaning related to defiling the ineffable name of G-d. what is recorded here is not blasphemy.

capital cases in particular were forbidden to be tried right before Shabbat or a holiday.

the sanhedrin was not allowed to return immediate guilty verdicts in capital cases: there was a mandatory 24 hour "cooling down" period.

Now in chapter 15...

1 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders and the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and turned him over to Pilate.

even assuming all the extreme irregularities actually took place and the reported verdict was accurate, there was no need to turn Jesus over to Pilate as Sanhedrin had the authority to execute people. Jesus would simply have been stoned - or possibly strangled - to death.

the story then proceeds to the Romans killing Jesus at the request of Jews.

whoever wrote this version/part of the story could not have had more than a passing familiarity with Judaism, that much is very clear. since all the apostles were Jewish, this part, at least, had to have been redacted at a later date.

but why?

we may never know for sure. the most compelling explanation for the redaction would be to flip the culpability: from "Jesus arrested by Jews for the Romans" - which is, indeed, something the Jewish leadership would quite possibly have done - to "Jesus executed by Romans for the Jews". this would have been necessitated by Constantine and Nicea. not coincidentally there are no surviving fragments corroborating the "accepted" version that predate Nicea.

ultimately this question won't be answered definitively until we find an older version of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[tracymom]

the story then proceeds to the Romans killing Jesus at the request of Jews.

whoever wrote this version/part of the story could not have had more than a passing familiarity with Judaism, that much is very clear. since all the apostles were Jewish, this part, at least, had to have been redacted at a later date.

I just finished Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Henry Lincoln, et al and in it he poses an interesting hypothesis that since the gospels were being written for a primarily Roman audience and in a Roman-dominated culture,they needed to be palatable to that culture so as not to be completely suppressed. Since the temple had just been destroyed in the war 66-70 AD, anti-Jewish sentiment was high and so the Jews became the scapegoat in the gospels, minimizing the Roman responsibility. He gives other thoughts along that line, but I can't look them up because I've loaned it out to my dad.

[dado]

it certainly fits. putting Pilate in the story is just so completely unnecessary that it must have served a rather specific purpose. the Pilate described in the christian books doesn't sound anything like the Pilate described in works by historians of the time, with Josephus in particular showing ruthless, iron-fisted ruler who doesn't give a hoot about the religious sensitivities of his subjects. he even minted new coins for Judea bearing pagan symbols.

this is clearly not a "i wash my hands" kind of guy.

[thistle]

Originally posted by dado
it certainly fits. putting Pilate in the story is just so completely unnecessary that it must have served a rather specific purpose. the Pilate described in the christian books doesn't sound anything like the Pilate described in works by historians of the time, with Josephus in particular showing ruthless, iron-fisted ruler who doesn't give a hoot about the religious sensitivities of his subjects. he even minted new coins for Judea bearing pagan symbols.

this is clearly not a "i wash my hands" kind of guy.

On the contrary, Josephus describes an account of Pilate stepping back after a demonstration from Jewish leaders.

2. Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberius, sent by night those images of Caesar that are called ensigns into Jerusalem. This excited a very among great tumult among the Jews when it was day; for those that were near them were astonished at the sight of them, as indications that their laws were trodden under foot; for those laws do not permit any sort of image to be brought into the city. Nay, besides the indignation which the citizens had themselves at this procedure, a vast number of people came running out of the country. These came zealously to Pilate to Cesarea, and besought him to carry those ensigns out of Jerusalem, and to preserve them their ancient laws inviolable; but upon Pilate's denial of their request, they fell (9) down prostrate upon the ground, and continued immovable in that posture for five days and as many nights.

3. On the next day Pilate sat upon his tribunal, in the open market-place, and called to him the multitude, as desirous to give them an answer; and then gave a signal to the soldiers, that they should all by agreement at once encompass the Jews with their weapons; so the band of soldiers stood round about the Jews in three ranks. The Jews were under the utmost consternation at that unexpected sight. Pilate also said to them that they should be cut in pieces, unless they would admit of Caesar's images, and gave intimation to the soldiers to draw their naked swords. Hereupon the Jews, as it were at one signal, fell down in vast numbers together, and exposed their necks bare, and cried out that they were sooner ready to be slain, than that their law should be transgressed. Hereupon Pilate was greatly surprised at their prodigious superstition, and gave order that the ensigns should be presently carried out of Jerusalem.


From The Jewish War, Book 2, Chapter 9

[dado]

that describes Pilate "stepping back" from a full-fledged revolt, not from a beaten up prophet in bloody rags about to be executed. he ultimately lost his post over his heavy-handedness and committed suicide.

[cottonwood]

61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"

no Jew then or now would associate "messiah" with divinity.[snip]

62 "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven."
63 The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked.

it was not then nor is it now a Judaic crime to declare oneself the Messiah. [snip]

64 "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" They all condemned him as worthy of death

in Judaism "blasphemy" has specific legal meaning related to defiling the ineffable name of G-d. what is recorded here is not blasphemy.

I appreciate your comments, Dado. I spent some time in college with evangelists (my boyfriend was Southern Baptist) and I would love to hear what you have to say about their take on all this. Which is that previously to the above event Jesus had said things that implied that he was equating himself with God, or related to God, or some such thing, in other words redefining 'Messiah' in a special new way that assumed divinity. In Matthew the high priest asks more specifically if Jesus is the son of God, to which Jesus replies "I am." The Christian explanation for why this was considered blasphemous is that "I AM" is supposedly the name of God which must not be uttered under penalty of death, and also an equating oneself with God which is also blasphemous.

Comments?

[dado]

Originally posted by blueviolet
In Matthew the high priest asks more specifically if Jesus is the son of God, to which Jesus replies "I am."

all Israel, all humankind are "sons (and daughters) of G-d". it is a common phrase. it is also perfectly acceptable to use the term for an individual person rather than a group of people, especially for a strong leader. there's simply no crime there.

The Christian explanation for why this was considered blasphemous is that "I AM" is supposedly the name of God

"I am" isn't the ineffable name. but there's a bigger problem: language. they weren't speaking Hebrew.

that aside, i think your friends first need to establish how such an event could happen at all at night, on Shabbat, during Passover.

[AnnaReilly]

I have just started reading the Jesus Mysteries and am finding this subject very interesting. I'll have to add a few more of these books to my "to-read" list.

Sanhedrin was not allowed to convene at night.
Sanhedrin did not convene on Shabbat(!).
Sanhedrin most assuredly did not convene on Pesach.

It's been awhile since I was ensconced in the Evangelical Christian world, but I remember once hearing a speaker talk about this. He actually brought up all of these things as proof of the under-handed way that Jesus died. He was saying that the Jewish leaders were aware of Jesus' charismatic following undermining their authority. So they convened a special meeting of the Sanhedrin and did not follow proper protocol. He suggested that the Sanhedrin that was convened was not even the full Sanhedrin, but just a few of the members who had it out for Jesus anyway. This is not my personal viewpoint so I can't be more specific about the finer points what this speaker said, but this was the general idea.

[AnnaReilly]

And this may be a dumb question, but where does one find works by Josephus and Origen - written in English?

[dado]

Originally posted by AnnaReilly
He was saying that the Jewish leaders were aware of Jesus' charismatic following undermining their authority.

that doesn't seem consistent with prior and later actions where the Jewish leadership backed others claiming to be the Mosiach in very open, public fashion.

the other problem is that the High Priest was specifically named as present and prosecuting - and the High Priest of the time was a puppet installed by Rome itself. Rome being worried about a charismatic leader and using a corrupted element of the Jewish leadership to find and arrest him for their own purposes...this i don't have any trouble believing. they killed many, many "charismatic" Jews.

He suggested that the Sanhedrin that was convened was not even the full Sanhedrin, but just a few of the members who had it out for Jesus anyway.

i find it hard to reconcile "i know! let's have a secret lynching!" with "let's turn him over to the romans 12 hours later and have a giant public spectacle!". if they were that secretive and slimy they would have simply made him disappear Tony Soprano style.

[dado]

Originally posted by AnnaReilly
but where does one find works by Josephus and Origen - written in English?

why, at MDC's sponsor, of course!

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/bibli...2-0825429242-0
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/bibli...2-0809121980-0

i believe they are also available in free, electronic form from the Gutenberg Project.

[me&3]

Cool site - I haven't actually gone through what I can find on it yet... But here it is:
www.earlychristianwritings.com

AnnReilly - you can find Josephus online in English at www.earlyjewishwritings.com

Have fun!