Sex, Lies and Dead Sea Scrolls - those early years surrounding Christianity (Page 2)

ghostgeek: Whose canon are you talking about, Zanjan?

ghostgeek: The Poor, or the Ebionites, regarded James the Just as their leader… and regarded Paul as a Greek who converted to Judaism and then apostatized. Of course, the Ebionites also rejected all of Pauline Christianity’s teachings – like the virgin birth, co-equality with Hashem, pre-existence, divinity, atoning death, and the physical resurrection of Jesus. They also rejected Paul’s abrogation of the laws of Moses.

[ https://deusdiapente.wordpress.com/category/james-the-just/ ]

ghostgeek: Eisenman depicts Jesus and James as Jews who were nationalist and apocalyptic who started a movement that was one of many sects along others, such as the Essenes, the Zealots and the Nazirites. He argued that Jesus was not for James or for original Christianity the "spiritual redeemer" or sovereign of an "invisible kingdom." This emerged later, due to Paul's accommodation with Hellenic and pagan systems. Earlier, Joseph Klausner had similarly argued that Jesus was a good Jew while Christianity was a Pauline synthesis of certain Jewish, with Greek and pagan notions. "James," says Eisenman, "was a normative Jew of his time." Joseph Klausner, writing in 1944, similarly stated that James "was punctilious about observing the ritual requirements and honouring the Temple" and that his "peculiar Messianic" views were tolerated."

[ https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/James_the_Just ]

Zanjan: "Whose canon are you talking about, Zanjan?"

The Hebrew Old Testament. The Tanakh was completed in 450 B.C. and has remained the same ever since because they had no more prophets after that.

The Ebionites weren't Christian at all - they were among the wandering gnostic groups. Early Christianity had no sects so, no orthodoxy.
Mainstream Judaism didn't see them as Jewish either. The earliest mention of them was in 140 AD. and they were denounced as a heretical sect. Shortly after, they disappeared forever.

No one has ever been successful in writing new scriptures except the Prophets of God. That we find such junk still lying around certainly isn't indicative of successful adoption. It merely shows there will always be naysayers and opportunists and both get fully trounced.

edmund_carey: I don't see how there can have been an "original Christianity" without Jesus. Speculation that there may have been is certainly interesting, but, surely we have no actual evidence of any such thing, and it sounds about as likely as an "original" version of Shakespeare's Hamlet with no prince in it.

That James was more important in the earliest Jesus movement than he is traditionally given credit for is often argued, and sounds plausible. But that "the brother of the Lord" led a form of Jewish belief which had nothing to do with the Lord whose brother he was celebrated for being seems a bit tortured to me.

ghostgeek: From the little evidence that's percolated down to us about James, it would seem that he was a pious Jew who followed the teachings of the Torah to the letter. No reason, therefore, to think that he treated his departed brother, Jesus, as some resurrected adjunct of God. The Christian message about having faith in the risen Christ is, I feel, purely a concoction of Paul's.

ghostgeek: Little information exists on the Ebionites, and the surviving accounts are subject to considerable debate, since they are uniformly derived from the Ebionites’ opponents. ... The Ebionite movement may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (ad 70). Its members evidently left Palestine to avoid persecution and settled in Transjordan (notably at Pella) and Syria and were later known to be in Asia Minor and Egypt. The sect seems to have existed into the 4th century.

Most of the features of Ebionite doctrine were anticipated in the teachings of the earlier Qumrān sect, as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They believed in one God and taught that Jesus was the Messiah and was the true “prophet” mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15. They rejected the Virgin Birth of Jesus, instead holding that he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary. The Ebionites believed Jesus became the Messiah because he obeyed the Jewish Law. They themselves faithfully followed the Law, although they removed what they regarded as interpolations in order to uphold their teachings, which included vegetarianism, holy poverty, ritual ablutions, and the rejection of animal sacrifices. The Ebionites also held Jerusalem in great veneration.

The early Ebionite literature is said to have resembled the Gospel According to Matthew, without the birth narrative. Evidently, they later found this unsatisfactory and developed their own literature—the Gospel of the Ebionites—although none of this text has survived.

[ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ebionites ]

edmund_carey: Amongst the little evidence that has percolated down to us about James is the fact that he was considered a brother and a believer by believers in redemption through Christ. That, in fact, is how we know about him. Clearly at that point in the development of the Jesus cult there was no contradiction between being a pious Jew and believing that the Messiah had come and got himself unexpectedly crucified.

It has been endlessly speculated that Paul invented the idea of Jesus as the Saviour, but, there isn't any way we can know that. Presumably the idea developed between the death of Jesus - which must have been quite a shock to his original followers - and the conversion of Paul. Those who had known Jesus, being adherents to a religion centred on rituals of sacrifice, naturally reached out to that in order to hold onto their faith in him. Paul converted to that and became its greatest advocate. (I would guess.)

Zanjan: Edmond: "But that "the brother of the Lord" led a form of Jewish belief which had nothing to do with the Lord whose brother he was celebrated for being seems a bit tortured to me. "

True, a man doesn't get the title of "Just" if he's a traitor or in competition for favour.

Christians have always referred to fellow believers as "brothers" and "sisters" because Jesus called them that and said why. He wouldn't have called James a brother, regardless of biological connection, if James had not fully accepted and obeyed Christ.

I don't find any historical evidence that Paul was a greater advocate of Christianity than any of its other contemporary members. Paul is revered because he was the best educated, acutely perceptive, a deep thinker, and could schmooze at any societal level. He was the greatest traveler of all the believers and became a martyr for this faith.

All of the disciples knew who Jesus was; every Jew knew what a Messiah does. Being saved from a fate worse than death was hardly a new concept to them.

ghostgeek: I'm sure everyone's read the Community Rule, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Well, section eight gives an insight into the group's organization and it looks a lot like what Paul tells us about the Jesus Movement. The Dead Sea Scrolls group had a council composed of twelve men and three priests. Compare that to the Jerusalem Church, where James, Cephas and John are the esteemed pillars and there is a group called the Twelve that is quite distinct from the Apostles. Something of a coincidence if the two movements were separate as some continue to insist.

ghostgeek: Something else to note is that Paul treats Peter and Cephas as two distinct individuals:

Galatians 2:8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. ( New International Version ).

Cephas is a pillar of the Jerusalem Church and Peter is an Apostle just like Paul claimed to be.

ghostgeek: This underlines the fact that the Twelve were quite separate from the Apostles. It's only in the Gospels that you get this muddling up of the two groups.

ghostgeek: There was clearly some underhand wheeler-dealing going on between Paul and James. In return for a cash bung, James allowed Paul to preach his gospel to the Gentiles without interference.

Galatians 2:9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Thus we see how Christianity came into being, with money changing hands.

Zanjan: The number 12 is consistent with the zodiac, which is older than Moses......astrology was big in the ancient world but I'm sure it wasn't reduced to the personal crystal ball form we see today. When a thing lasts that long, you might want to believe there's something to it.

12 Tribes, 12 Months, 12 Houses, 12 Gates

The text doesn't say anything about money or even suggest it.

When Jesus hand-picked His crew of 12 disciples, not one of them was a Jewish or Gentile priest. If there is any reference to one of them being a priest, it's as a minister of Christianity. Christians have often referred to Jesus as the "High-Priest of God's Faith"; yet on earth, He was only a Rabbi. In heaven, He was a Spiritual King, the Lord of the Age.

Zanjan: There must have been a time when James, the biological brother of Jesus, wasn't a follower of Jesus because Jesus had said His own family didn't believe Him. For some people, it takes a fair bit of time to come around, especially those who are highly educated in religion.

James had to learn how to be a just man - it's not automatic. Once he did, then he could see the reality. From the Bahai' scriptures:

"O Son of Spirit!
The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor.
Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes. "

(Baha'u'llah, Hidden Words)

ghostgeek: Time and again Paul talked about the collection for Jerusalem. It was a big, big issue with him. It also got him into trouble with his followers, some of whom seem to have thought that he was dipping his hand into the collection plate for his own benefit.

ghostgeek: As for James, he wore the linen robes of a priest and prayed daily in the temple for the people.

ghostgeek: Paul in his letters tells us that straight after his conversion in Damascus he went to Arabia for an unspecified period of time. After returning, he spent three years in the city before having to escape in a basket. What's notable about this incident is where he goes straight afterwards. He scurries down to Jerusalem and hides away in Cephas' house while being visited by James. Then he legs it out of town as fast as he can go. Conclusion? He needed to do a deal with James, a deal that involved cash being exchanged.

Zanjan: Paul was nobody's treasurer - he helped to collect donations from *the churches* (not from individuals) for the Jerusalem believers. Every religion has had charitable institutions. Governments didn't issue welfare payments back then.

The text says the money went to the widows and orphans; there wasn't the slightest suggestion of graft so I don't know where you're getting the idea of all the grumbling. You accuse the Bible of being a work of fiction while your own imagination seems to be a runaway horse.

ghostgeek: Have you read any of Paul's letters?

1 Corinthians 9 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? 2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

3 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4 Don’t we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?

7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? 8 Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”[b] Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

13 Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? 14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

[ New International Version ]

Somebody had clearly accused him of putting money aside to make him write the above defense of himself.

Zanjan: Who was Paul's target audience? He couldn't have been speaking to former Jews. They understood that those who perform critical services for the Faith full time should be supported by the religious community - that is, give them shelter and food, a stipend for clothing, transportation, and personal effects. These people live simply.

Essentially, you're delegating someone to do what you can't/won't do to further the Cause. No religion of God was ever spread by independently rich folks; and, since it's an organization, it must depend on material means to operate.

I can only think they were ignorant former pagans; Christian communities were very small so it would have been difficult to raise substantial donations. Tightwads will look for ways to cut back.

Paul was teaching them about unity and how it was important to make sacrifices for the Cause - sacrifice comes in different forms. Paul and Barnabus made double the sacrifice - whatever they'd done, it was out of their own pocket until this particular time. Sooner or later, you're down to your last shekel.

Zanjan: It's a moot point anyway. We no longer need financial support in matters of service to the Faith. We have modern conveniences and easy, fast transportation that give us loads more free time.

We have infinite ways to advertise and everyone is literate - everything one needs to teach the Faith, hold gainful employment, go to school, and bring up children while making donations.

Today, you'll receive a salary for doing secretarial work, not for teaching the faith. If you're a guest speaker at various venues, you'll receive hospitality and an honorarium/gift from the hosts.

Laws protect the public from predators. Today, Religions must meet the criteria for charitable status so no one can run off with the funds and live as a high roller.

In many, many ways, our wicked world is way better than what the ancients had to live in.

edmund_carey: It's pretty fanciful to assume that Paul was "doing a deal with James that involved cash being exchanged". There is no warrant whatever for that conclusion. That's about on a level with supposing that the person you just met must be rude, lazy, and prone to crime, because he's Black.

Zanjan: Well, that's a stereotype. I don't think people fear generalizations so I'd put that on a different level, eh.

Ghost looks for evil in the shadows. It's the easiest thing to spot, even when it doesn't exist.

ghostgeek: One of the most important projects of the Apostle Paul has often been neglected in scholarly treatments of him and his mission: Paul spent several years and considerable effort in organizing a financial collection to offer to the Jerusalem church. Indeed, in a surprising number of scholarly studies one can’t even find a single reference to this project. The Jerusalem collection is referred to in several of Paul’s letters: Galatians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; the entirety of 2 Corinthians 8–9; and, in the final days before setting off to carry the collection to Jerusalem, in Romans 15:25-33. This surely indicates that it was not a passing thought for him, but occupied him quite seriously.

In a recently produced movie written and directed by Rob Orlando, “A Polite Bribe,” the Jerusalem collection is the focus and receives a deliberately provocative interpretation. Drawing upon observations of a number of scholars, but forging his own particular “spin” on the topic, Orlando offers the intriguing suggestion that Paul sought literally to purchase the approval of the Jerusalem church authorities for his gentile mission and converts.

[ https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/a-polite-bribe-paul-and-the-jerusalem-collection/ ]