Jesus--Fact or Fiction??

[Mike Cl]

Element 33:
In addition to its pagan influences, Christianity was also influenced by several Jewish sects and can be understood only in this contest, too.  This means the role must be considered not just the OT and many other Jewish scriptures then revered (Elements 6-9), but of specific Jewish sects and their distinctive ideologies  and innovations, many of which we do not in fact know much or anything about (such as the so-called Galilean sect, whose particular beliefs, apart from being somehow opposed to the Pharisees, are otherwise unknown).

Christianity is a syncretism of pagan and Jewish salvation ideology, and as such differs from each precisely in what it borrows from the other.  Therefore, both must be understood.

[Cavebear]

Element 33:
In addition to its pagan influences, Christianity was also influenced by several Jewish sects and can be understood only in this contest, too.  This means the role must be considered not just the OT and many other Jewish scriptures then revered (Elements 6-9), but of specific Jewish sects and their distinctive ideologies  and innovations, many of which we do not in fact know much or anything about (such as the so-called Galilean sect, whose particular beliefs, apart from being somehow opposed to the Pharisees, are otherwise unknown).

Christianity is a syncretism of pagan and Jewish salvation ideology, and as such differs from each precisely in what it borrows from the other.  Therefore, both must be understood.

Evey religion is derivative of an older one.

[Mike Cl]

Evey religion is derivative of an older one.

True.  Carrier is trying to lay the ground work here to establish that this is true for Christianity.  Christians like to think that their religion is unique; that it did not spring from older religions.  Many Christians try to get around this fact (all religions spring from older ones) by saying that the Devil planted this false 'history' and that all these 'facts' are simply of the Devil's making.

[Baruch]

Element 33:
In addition to its pagan influences, Christianity was also influenced by several Jewish sects and can be understood only in this contest, too.  This means the role must be considered not just the OT and many other Jewish scriptures then revered (Elements 6-9), but of specific Jewish sects and their distinctive ideologies  and innovations, many of which we do not in fact know much or anything about (such as the so-called Galilean sect, whose particular beliefs, apart from being somehow opposed to the Pharisees, are otherwise unknown).

Christianity is a syncretism of pagan and Jewish salvation ideology, and as such differs from each precisely in what it borrows from the other.  Therefore, both must be understood.

Yep.  But also influences from Egypt, Babylon, Persia and India.

[Baruch]

True.  Carrier is trying to lay the ground work here to establish that this is true for Christianity.  Christians like to think that their religion is unique; that it did not spring from older religions.  Many Christians try to get around this fact (all religions spring from older ones) by saying that the Devil planted this false 'history' and that all these 'facts' are simply of the Devil's making.

This is common to all the Abrahamic religions ;-(  They are unique in that they are derived partly from unique tribal or historical circumstances, but there are broader influences as well.

[Cavebear]

True.  Carrier is trying to lay the ground work here to establish that this is true for Christianity.  Christians like to think that their religion is unique; that it did not spring from older religions.  Many Christians try to get around this fact (all religions spring from older ones) by saying that the Devil planted this false 'history' and that all these 'facts' are simply of the Devil's making.

Trump wasn't the first, LOL!  I love pointing out the similarities of Mithraism to the door-bangers...  They go away offended.

[Cavebear]

This is common to all the Abrahamic religions ;-(  They are unique in that they are derived partly from unique tribal or historical circumstances, but there are broader influences as well.

I've read (no evidence I can offer fast) that the Jews got mush of their earliest beliefs from OTHER nomadic tribes in the mid east.

[Cavebear]

LOL!  "mush" was a typo but it sure fits...  Coudn't have done that deliberately.

[Cavebear]

This is common to all the Abrahamic religions ;-(  They are unique in that they are derived partly from unique tribal or historical circumstances, but there are broader influences as well.

I sometimes suspect that the reason the jews christians and moslems hate each other so much is that they are all so similiar.

And forgive me some typos.  I need new reading glasses; I can barely see the screen as I type.

[Baruch]

I've read (no evidence I can offer fast) that the Jews got mush of their earliest beliefs from OTHER nomadic tribes in the mid east.

Of course ... Midianites.  That is clear from the narrative.  But also Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Canaanites.  Israel was a crossroads.  And Solomon never met a wife he didn't like ;-)

[Baruch]

I sometimes suspect that the reason the jews christians and moslems hate each other so much is that they are all so similiar.

And forgive me some typos.  I need new reading glasses; I can barely see the screen as I type.

Forgiven.  Yes, they are similar (hence Abrahamic).  Though Judaism and Islam are closer than either are to Christianity.  Yes, get some glasses.

[Cavebear]

Forgiven.  Yes, they are similar (hence Abrahamic).  Though Judaism and Islam are closer than either are to Christianity.  Yes, get some glasses.

I have a prescription to be filled.  But narrow little glasses seem to be all the rage currently.  I like big ones.

Christianity and Islam seem to be more similar.  They found their messiahs.  And they want to kill the heretics more.

[Mike Cl]

Element 34:
Popular cosmology at the dawn of the Common Era in the Middle East held that the universe was geocentric and spherical and divided into many layers, with the first layer of 'heaven' often consisting of all the air between the earth and the moon (or sometimes the same term only meant the topmost part of this: the sphere traveled by the moon).  This expanse was known even then to extend hundreds of thousands of miles.  Above that there were several more levels of heaven, the number varying depending on the scheme adopted, but the most commonplace view was that there were seven in all, one for each major celestial body: the region from the moon to Mercury being the first, then on to Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (not always in that order), and finally the sphere of the stars (astronomers tended to regard the stars as distant suns; theologians tended to favor the theory that the stars comprised a single layer of lights at the top of heaven).

So this notion of seven heavens, with the heavenly firmament at the bottom separating the earth from the higher heavens, had certainly become a fundamental Christian doctrine.  It was clearly a component of Christian belief even from earliest times.  Paul assumes Jesus will descend ' from heaven and then snatch us up 'into the clouds' to meet him in the 'air' (aer, meaning the terrestrial part of the atmosphere, i.e., the firmament):  thus he distinguishes heavens above from air below. 

[Baruch]

Element 34:
Popular cosmology at the dawn of the Common Era in the Middle East held that the universe was geocentric and spherical and divided into many layers, with the first layer of 'heaven' often consisting of all the air between the earth and the moon (or sometimes the same term only meant the topmost part of this: the sphere traveled by the moon).  This expanse was known even then to extend hundreds of thousands of miles.  Above that there were several more levels of heaven, the number varying depending on the scheme adopted, but the most commonplace view was that there were seven in all, one for each major celestial body: the region from the moon to Mercury being the first, then on to Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (not always in that order), and finally the sphere of the stars (astronomers tended to regard the stars as distant suns; theologians tended to favor the theory that the stars comprised a single layer of lights at the top of heaven).

So this notion of seven heavens, with the heavenly firmament at the bottom separating the earth from the higher heavens, had certainly become a fundamental Christian doctrine.  It was clearly a component of Christian belief even from earliest times.  Paul assumes Jesus will descend ' from heaven and then snatch us up 'into the clouds' to meet him in the 'air' (aer, meaning the terrestrial part of the atmosphere, i.e., the firmament):  thus he distinguishes heavens above from air below.

Correct.  Astral cosmology comes from Babylon.  The Egyptian system was different.  Canaan was influenced by both.  In Egypt, salvation was to the West, not Above.  In the Johannine gospel, Jesus ascends from the altar of the Red Heifer, into outer space (which was thought to be breathable).  Each star in astral cosmology was in the care of an angel.  That is the vision of the shepherds at Bethlehem.  A rapture of theophanic astral cosmology.  I experienced this myself at 18 on a starry night at a DeMolay (Freemasonic) conference Greeley Colorado.  Named for Horace Greeley, who famously said "Go West young men" ... he was obviously a worshipper of Osiris aka Ba'al of Canaan.  From Sumeria, we get our notion of natural man vs civilized man, Enkidu vs Gilgamesh.  I recently purchased a cylinder seal from Iraq, that has Enkidu on it.

[Mike Cl]

Element 35:
Popular cosmology of the time also held that the sub-heaven, the firmament, was a region of corruption and change and decay, while the heavens above were pure, incorruptible and changeless. 

Paul clearly embraced this view himself, and assumed his Christian congregations did as well.  For example, in 1 Cor. 15.40-50, Paul divides the world into the region of decay (the 'terrestrial' world, the epigeia, the 'earthly'  places, meaning 'on or above the earth') and the region of indecay (the 'celestial' world, the epourania, the 'heavenly' places meaning 'in the heavens'), which distinction is also reflected in 2 Cor. 5.1-5.  This is the same division of worlds that Plato, Philo and Plutarch described.  As Philo attests, this notion had already been assimilated in pre-Christian Jewish thought.