Um, okay. Don't think your objections mean much here. These are the states of affairs. The parent's are making a decision based on them.. If you need me to connect that for you, just did.

Okay, good so far....

Here is the moral claim: It is unethical/bad/misguided (depends on how you view ethical decisions), to create unnecessary collateral damage for someone else.

Here is where we can start debating a bit because this is the normative claim about the states of affairs.

The parent is causing unnecessary harm. Unnecessary harm is harm that did not need to be created. If for example there was a person who already existing and needed you to cause a minor harm to prevent a greater harm, one can make a case that this may be necessary harm. However, this is never the case in procreation.

You are going to jump in and say: "But joy!" "But joy!"

This is where we really need to focus the argument. Is creating unnecessary collateral damage for someone else ever ethical?

If we agree that this is about the parents.. It is about creating collateral damage versus not creating collateral damage.

Look back at the states of affairs. In one case, the parent WILL be creating collateral damage. That is the qualification for the ethical matter. Someone WILL be affected with collateral damage.

EVEN if you deemed "goods" deprived as bad (which we can argue about whether that's even an ethical matter or supererogatory behavior), it is the state of affairs that NO ONE will be deprived, and thus even IF this was an ethical issue (of depriving someone of joy), the ethical element is moot, since there is no one's interests that are deprived.

What YOU would have to answer for is whether humans are ever indebted to non-existent future beings to ensure "they" experience joy.

Yeah whatever.. So we are on the same page so far..
It is a problem regarding the PARENT's decision.

Good, good... ok, we made it to the first step.

Now, keeping in mind that, this is about the parent.......

We can see outcomes of the parent decisions in regarding to harms and joys...
1. It is the case that no one experiences collateral damage in no procreation.
2. It is the case that no one experiences joy in no procreation.

We are agreed on this?

To be fair.. I should have stated
1. It is the case that no one experiences collateral damager of harm in no procreation
2. It is the case that no one experiences the collateral damage of no joy in no procreation.

I haven't straw manned you. I think you're the one who keeps prevaricating in order to attempt to defend the indefensible. — DA671

You would say that, being that you keep MISSING THE FUCKN POINT!

I have to go over this in piecemeal I guess and spoon feed this...
Okay,

FIRST and very important!!
We are talking about the actions or non-actions of the parent, and the ethical problem procreation. Presumably that means the parent making this decision. Correct!!??

The argument given in favour of this was the claim that nobody is deprived of happiness when they don't exist. When I pointed out that nobody in the void has the capacity to experience happiness to be deprived of it (which is why the lack of deprivation doesn't seem to have any value), it was decided that this should be ignored whilst still repeating the claims about lack of damage being good (even though there aren't any souls in the void who are relieved/saved from the damage, since there's nobody who experiences this good). — DA671

UGGHHGGHG

I am very frustrated that you are not getting this. See, I would be okay, if you understood my point and then we disagreed from here, but you keep missing it!

Please look at what I am saying. That's all I can say. You are misrepresenting my argument, making a strawman, and then arguing against that.

Yup, there's little point in continuing when there's an obstinate refusal to be consistent. — DA671

Rubbish statement because it ain't true :wink:.

I don't think that the lack of harms (or happiness) necessarily means much when someone does not exist, but I granted that for the sake of the discussion. — DA671

But you didn't. That is most your argument (no one exists to be deprived of the benefit of the non-harms). And you didn't pay attention to the states of affairs themselves, just how you would like it to sound so you can rattle off your point.

As you state, right, here:

1. It is also the case that nobody experiences benefits in no procreation. — DA671

Yet, this is an irrelevant objection. It's obvious that people who don't exist aren't derprived, but that lack of deprivation does not lead to an actual good for someone, — DA671

You are being as arsehole dude I can't help this congenital problem.

It's about states of affairs. That's all. In one case you create collateral harm. In the other you are not. It is not about "good for someone", it is about YOU the fuckn perpetrator acting on behalf of someone.

The question is put on the PARENT. Do YOU (the parent) want to create collateral damage or not? That's the fuckn question.

I'm putting a lot of emotive words in here (like fuckn) because I NEED you to get my point and this may be the only way to get through cause calmly repeating isn't working.

There's no asymmetry (lack of procreation does not lead to a tangible benefit for a person either) — DA671

I'm going to stop this here because THIS is where you keep tripping up on my argument.

The asymmetry is about states of affairs. It is the case that no X is happening, is what I am saying.

1. It is the case that no one experiences collateral damage in no procreation.
2. It is the case that on one experiences joy in no procreation.

If one does not believe in causing unnecessary collateral damage for someone else, then one would not procreate.

The rebuttal chimes in (in unison): But joy! But joy!

Then the fact is again: No person actually exists to be deprived of the collateral damage of no joy.

That is an asymmetry buddy. Deal with it. I am not reading the rest until your error in reasoning here is addressed.

I think this is all encapsulated best in my argument from a previous thread:
There is a state of affairs where someone actually experiences the collateral damage of harm.
That is procreation.

There is a state of affairs where someone does not actually experiences the collateral damage of not feeling joy. To reformulate this, that is to say: No one actually experiences the collateral damage of not feeling joy.
That is non-procreation.

These are the facts of the case.

This is an asymmetry. If one does not want to cause someone else the collateral damage of harm, one would choose non-procreation.

It is moral not to cause unnecessary collateral damage for someone else, if one can prevent it.

It is not immoral to prevent joys for someone else, if no one was around to be deprived of it in the first place.

These are the outcomes of moral judgements regarding the morality of causing unnecessary harm.

If joy came about without collateral damage, there may be an ethical case, if one was purely a utilitarian. This is not the case with procreation, so it is a moot point.

If harm to a person came about through not experiencing joy, there may be an ethical case, if one was purely a utilitarian. This is not the case with non-procreation, so a moot point.

Josephus is a good place to start I suppose. Popular writers of Historical Jesus secondary literature abound: Ehrman, Sanders, Vermes, Eisenman, Schweitzer, Bultmann, Maccoby, Levine, Maier, Pagels, Chilton, Falk, Tabor, even just writers like Reza Aslan did a decent job coalescing sources. Then just look up any academic journal article in Second Temple Judaism, Palestine under Greeks and Romans, History of Israel under Greco-Romans, New Testament Studies, Historical Jesus, Jerusalem Church, James the Brother of Jesus, Jewish Christians, Early Christianity, and have a ball.

However, if it's ethical to not create a harm, it's also unethical to not create a good. — DA671

Not the case.

If you procreated someone into the mouth of a volcano to be burned alive.. that is objectively bad in just about every measure. If the case was, born into a volcano or not born into volcano, the moral choice is not to be born into the volcano.

If you did not procreate someone into some happy moment, that is not objectively bad. You deprived no "one". A state of affairs where one's action prevented happiness (and no one was around to see it), then it is not immoral. A state of affairs where one's action prevented pain (regardless of if someone was around to see it), it is moral.

@Albero you started this.. Your input please. Don't throw meat to the lions and sit back with glee whilst the lions fight over the meat. Participate, please.. I do usually agree with you, and like your posts, but I hate being the lone voice and debate the same anti-antinatalists over and over.. Why pick the fight with khaled again, anyways? Let sleeping dogs (threads) lie... Just like humans should do when it comes to not creating more humans.. Let sleeping (non-existence), the default, just be.

@Albero The presumption of parents of being messiahs of happiness spreading the good experience has to stop. NOT spreading happiness by creating new people isn’t unethical. Otherwise, me you or anyone who currently isn’t or never will procreate would be unethical. Clearly that’s not true. However spreading harm unnecessarily is a different story.

Also, presuming that the burdens of life are a fine thing to burden a new person with is paternalistically selfish and callous to do on behalf of another. You, the parent want to see an outcome so you drop existence on another persons front door and say your forced move is then deemed as good. You think your priority of being X or wanting to see X means others must be forced to bear whatever consequences and then that you should be thanked for it. Just selfish, manipulative thinking. You’re neither doing gods work, nor are you doing society, your future child, existence, the universe, or anything else a favor by procreating, only yourself.

Individual lives also shouldn’t be experiments in probabilistic outcomes. This isn’t a statistics game, but real people. Oops, they had a bad life, just a glitch, is again, callous and selfish. This is not to say I buy into the notion that there are necessarily “bad lives” vs “good lives” each being easily determined by some dumbass hedonic calculus or exit survey :lol:. Everyone is harmed by existence. Everyone will experience burdens and the struggles of living, and is indeed burdened with the challenge of overcoming x, y, z in the first place. This itself is enough.

Well, you are talking to a Schopenhauer sympathizer here..

I believe my problem with Stoicism is similar to the Bahnsen's critiques..
However, one of my personal reasons I think Stoicism is not good is that it basically takes the stance of the status quo. By not allowing oneself to get emotionally upset at a situation, one is tacitly giving credence that the situation was okay to begin with. No, it wasn't. Yes, you were wronged by even encountering it. Yes, it is too late. But yes, by way of antinatalism and sublimation through philosophic griping, one can at least rebel in both action and prose against it. Stoicism is just the middle-classes way of keeping people in line. Fuck that. It reminds me of Bertrand Russell's (I think it was?) critique of Aristotle's boring, middle-class, "golden mean" virtue ethics. It's a businessman's ethics. It's shopkeeper's ethics. It's the ethics of not looking at the total and not wanting to look at the total. It's an ethics for people who think that life provides Reason, and that they just have to "tap in" to that Reason. It's the smug man's overcoat of self-assuredness.

Thank you, I do know a bit about Mainlander's theory as a philosophical pessimist myself. I just have never read his works in full and have not done an analysis like your OP, so I thought it interesting you made a topic about it. I'll check those out. I especially want to read Beiser's book, which I was aware of but reminds me to try to get a copy.

The problem all these philosophers saw was being born at all. Being becomes an inescapable trap where we must constantly pretend to distract from being itself.

Peter Wessel Zapffe captures this in his notion that we have evolved a self-reflective consciousness, that inadvertently puts us in a double-bind. We know we exist in a suffering state. Combining this with Existential ideas, we know we are an animal with certain propensities, yet we know we can also do otherwise than what we are doing, yet the "thrownness" of the world makes it so we really "can't" do otherwise than the confines of the socio-economic-physical forces of our existence provides for us. This whole situation thus makes it that we are the only animal that can do a task, resent it, but know we have to do it if we need to survive. We are the species of the double-bind mind. We cannot escape our own evaluations and analysis and preferences. We know we can't. Yet we are compelled to continue on doing what we don't want to do.

And so we have mechanisms of distraction, isolation, sublimation, and ignoring that we do to try to pretend like the suffering of our existential situation doesn't exist. But it always rears its ugly head.

Now consider the justifications (and their many combinations) for having more humans go through this.
1) It isn't that bad! (and can we count on ourselves to even judge our own lives let alone if others should endure this?)
2) I feel like I did ok!
3) Whoops, accident, I guess I'll keep it!
4) Religion/tradition
5) Family strongly pressures me
6) I want to see X come out as a result (usually happy experiences upon the child, or some achievement). This probably the most popular "philosophical-based" reason (if these people were pressed.. people barely have a coherent philosophical reason why they procreate).

None of these justifications are good ones for causing the consequence of creating the conditions for suffering on another experiential point of view (will?) put into the world.

Why make others go through this? Isn't this a messianic complex? Parents think they are "spreading" the X (insert positive value here) of life to new people! Yet, the collateral damage is they are spreading the suffering, and very human existential condition upon yet another hapless victim of it.

So what do we do about it? Well, Mainlander certainly advocated the idea of redemption through non-being. The ultimate move here would be suicide, which he himself followed through with. One of my questions about him is, how does he reconcile individual redemption through non-being vs. universal redemption through non-being? How does one resolve salvation and non-being here? I guess it is simply the ceasing of suffering itself, as a state-of-affairs he is after, and not the realization of it (which of course cannot happen if you are not alive to realize it). Perhaps it is the consolation that non-being is always an option that is sort of a "salvation" while already alive? Also, really for the dying god, nothing really matters until the absolute final death of the universe itself. So it is still pessimistic in the sense that redemption isn't had for the dying god until much further in the future. Each death means nothing if it is constantly replaced.. There would have to be a total finality for it to have any redemption for itself. But what does that look like? Just a complete "silencing" of there being "no-thing"? But if that's the case, what is that equivalent to in the real world? The heat death of the universe?

Hartmann thought that we should keep pursuing our petty individual plans, and play out our lives, because eventually at some future time (in an inversion of Hegel's positive Absolute), we would all come to the understanding that life should no longer be lived and basically decide to die out as a species. The Absolute here would be an understanding of the suffering of the world, as we understand that perpetuating it for some happy purpose is an illusion. I find his idea fascinating here as he thinks we should keep on hurrying along as we do, so that we will eventually become existentially disillusioned, and as a sort of species-realization (?), we would stop our petty pursuits and give up the silly notion of happiness, progress, etc. and essentially die out of our own accord (by not procreating?).

Bahnsen, provides the pessimism of the non-salvation. That is to say, we are all in this shit, and there is, and will be no way out. It has flavors of Camus' Sisyphus. He thought the closest thing to a respite, was laughter and humor, and that is just a consolation and no real reprieve. There is no progress, but there is no escape route through ascetic retreat either. He emphasized that we shouldn't even try to use hedonic calculus for pessimism, as this isn't what truly makes life pessimistic. The pessimism comes from the existential struggle itself, as described by Schopenhauer and so many other philosophers through time on the human condition. I applaud this specific point as I think when debating the ethics of things like procreation, people will try to point to "there may be more goods than bads" or "people in surveys generally say they like being born" or something like that. This sort of bypasses the tendency to take hedonic calculations and surveys as somehow "definitive" of whether life was worth starting for someone else. Bleak? Certainly. But we must stare into the abyss and not flinch if we are to get some clarity as this double-bind creature of the human.. A creature that knows its own existential situation and can do something about it. I feel like people rush into judging the pessimist after one has some great experience and says, "NOOO! WAIT! I HAD A GOOD TIME! Then wait a day or two and see.. the story might change. We should not hang our hat on just these whims that perhaps Bahnsen was getting at.

I personally, would add my own spin that having a child in this existence means creating for it burdens to overcome. It is ethically wrong to be so paternalistic as to think others need burdens created for them to be overcome. What ever happened to leaving "well enough alone"? Why create situations of challenge-overcoming in some existential obstacle course for someone else in the first place? That is to say, nothing needs nothing needs nothing needs nothing. Yet, here we are, playing paternalistic messiah, creating need in the first place. Need to survive. Need for love. Need for pleasure. Need for stimulation. Need for this or that. And this is irresponsibly deemed as "good" to create in the first place on someone else's behalf! But what gives you the right to think others must need need? That there must be a state of affairs in the world where someone experiences the overcoming of challenges? Why is this somehow considered necessary and good? The universe doesn't care. It creates the struggle de novo, out of nothing, and all because one wants to see the situation repeated, over and over. But one should pause before pursuing this and making the strife in the world in the first place. It can be prevented upon other individuals. We have the ability to do this, and not give into delusions that the struggle is necessary.

It is often said that Julius Bahnsen even surpasses both Schopenhauer and Mainländer in pessimism. — spirit-salamander

Yep, I can see that. Schopenhauer offers a monified Will, compassion, and ascetic salvation. Mainlander provides salvation-through-negation. Bahnsen offers no hope of salvation with an emphasis to the multiplicity of being, and its non-monistic, non-unified quality. We are just hopelessly alone amongst other wills, not even knowing which value is necessary or right, often contradicting ourselves and others as we go about in our self-interested path.

I've brought this idea up before that the more pessimistic thought is not a unified monism (even if it strives hopelessly for no end, and with an escape through aesthetics, compassion, and quieting of the will) but an irrevocable disunified multiplicity of being that can never be reconciled.

In a sense, isn't the truly committed academics' quest that of unification of knowledge? Yet working against him is the massive amounts of data, physical properties, technologies, and such.. Minutia upon minutia, to be mongered by specialized departments, teams, and organizations.. Unification of knowledge becomes a losing game.

And in a sense, the unification sought after in Marxist and Communist theories of a unified society- one where everyone is working for a decided humanist purpose of sorts withers away to the more natural and efficient, messy markets.. keeping knowledge, goals, social interests, etc. separated into their companies, corporations, and profit-seeking ventures, competing in a market place. Unification of economics, and purpose becomes a losing game the roiling marketplace of just trying to survive by working a job where one must focus their attention on this set of inane things, not that set, you see.

This is right up my alley. I would argue Mainlander is Philosophical Pessimism (capital "P"s) par excellence.

Working in the metaphysical framework of Schopenhauer, Mainländer sees the "will" as the innermost core of being, the ontological arche. However, he deviates from Schopenhauer in important respects. With Schopenhauer the will is singular, unified and beyond time and space. Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism leads him to conclude that we only have access to a certain aspect of the thing-in-itself by introspective observation of our own bodies. What we observe as will is all there is to observe, nothing more. There are no hidden aspects. Furthermore, via introspection we can only observe our individual will. This also leads Mainländer to the philosophical position of pluralism.[2] The goals he set for himself and for his system are reminiscent of ancient Greek philosophy: what is the relation between the undivided existence of the "One" and the everchanging world of becoming that we experience.

Additionally, Mainländer accentuates on the idea of salvation for all of creation. This is yet another respect in which he differentiates his philosophy from that of Schopenhauer. With Schopenhauer, the silencing of the will is a rare event. The artistic genius can achieve this state temporarily, while only a few saints have achieved total cessation throughout history. For Mainländer, the entirety of the cosmos is slowly but surely moving towards the silencing of the will to live and to (as he calls it) "redemption".

Mainlander theorized that an initial singularity dispersed and expanded into the known universe. This dispersion from a singular unity to a multitude of things offered a smooth transition between monism and pluralism. Mainländer thought that with the regression of time, all kinds of pluralism and multiplicity would revert to monism and he believed that, with his philosophy, he had managed to explain this transition from oneness to multiplicity and becoming.[15]

Death of God
Main article: God is dead
Despite his scientific means of explanation, Mainländer was not afraid to philosophize in allegorical terms. Formulating his own "myth of creation", Mainländer equated this initial singularity with God.

Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer's metaphysics in two important aspects. Primarily, in Mainländer's system there is no "singular will". The basic unity has broken apart into individual wills and each subject in existence possesses an individual will of his own. Because of this, Mainländer can claim that once an "individual will" is silenced and dies, it achieves absolute nothingness and not the relative nothingness we find in Schopenhauer. By recognizing death as salvation and by giving nothingness an absolute quality, Mainländer's system manages to offer "wider" means for redemption. Secondarily, Mainländer reinterprets the Schopenhauerian will-to-live as an underlying will-to-die, i.e. the will-to-live is the means towards the will-to-die.[16]

Ethics
Mainländer's philosophy also carefully inverts other doctrines. For instance, Epicurus sees happiness only in pleasure and since there is nothing after death, there is nothing to fear and/or desire from death. Yet Mainländer, being a philosophical pessimist, sees no desirable pleasure in this life and praises the sublime nothingness of death, recognizing precisely this state of non-existence as desirable.

Mainländer espouses an ethics of egoism. That is to say that what is best for an individual is what makes one happiest. Yet all pursuits and cravings lead to pain. Thus, Mainländer concludes that a will-to-death is best for the happiness of all and knowledge of this transforms one's will-to-life (an illusory existence unable to attain happiness) into the proper (sought by God) will-to-death. Ultimately, the subject (individual will) is one with the universe, in harmony with it and with its originating will, if one wills nothingness. Based on these premises, Mainländer makes the distinction between the "ignorant" and the "enlightened" type of self-interest. Ignorant self-interest seeks to promote itself and capitalize on its will-to-live. In contrast, enlightened self-interest humbles the individual and leads him to asceticism, as that aligns him properly with the elevating will-towards-death.[17] — Wikipedia article on Mainlander

Mainlander's take is an interesting one. I have not read his complete works. Does he actually believe the metaphysics of a dead god or was this more a metaphor for a unity that has exploded into a multiplicity? It does have shades of kabbalistic elements in it. Have you heard of Lurianic Kabbalah? If so, was Mainlander familiar with it, perhaps by proxy through indirect sources even?

According to Lurianic Kabbalah, God's light could not be held in various vessels (sefirot) and thus they broke. This accounts for a certain amount of sin. By following the commandments, one repairs the vessels, some such like this.

See here for more in depth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qliphoth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurianic_Kabbalah

I see. If it is "Greek-influenced" then is mustn't be true. :grin: — Apollodorus

No, rather it is fitting into a framework the author wanted.. Logos, virgin birth, heavenly version of Jesus that is pre-made and has an end goal in mind.. Jews are looked at more contemptuously as "other" than Jesus.. etc. It has more Greek-inspired rhetorical dialogue, etc.

Sure. But this does not constitute evidence that Greek was not spoken together with Aramaic, does it? — Apollodorus

I already explained in what contexts that it would make sense that Greek was spoken by a person in Judea/Galilee.

Scholarly opinion is divided on this: — Apollodorus

Scholarly opinion is not divided on whether Josephus spoke Aramaic.. His native tongue was Aramaic, as he states himself. And that quote also states Josephus' experience of Greek before he learned it to write (or with others who helped him ghost-write) his Jewish Wars and Antiquities. That is to say, that he didn't know it well, nor would any self-respecting religious-minded Jew (his quote, note mine on this). Also note that I don't doubt Josephus' main audience was fellow Jews primarily and gentile secondarily, but the Jews he was writing to weren't the defeated and depleted countryman from Judea/Galilee but the Jews around the diaspora- that is to say, more Hellenized Jews around the diaspora (Paul and Philo of Alexandria are examples of this).

That's a big "IF" there. It is not unusual for people to communicate to others what had been said in private. :smile: — Apollodorus

Uhuh.. right. Anything is possible.. Maybe the author got an exclusive with Pilate's bodyguard!

So I'm sort of done with this debate. You can say whatever you want otherwise, but I presented my view which aligns generally with most scholarly consensus on this. Say your piece, but if I give you the last word on it, it doesn't mean I agree, or what you say is the last word on this.. I just don't wish to keep harping on this particular part of the history of Jesus.

But he did write in Greek, for people who could read Greek, no? — Apollodorus

Let me get you that quote again...

I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains. — — — Antiquities of Jews XX, XI

It seems here that Greek wasn't encouraged amongst religious-minded Jews. It was to be avoided as for its association with Hellenists, etc. So he reluctantly learned it so he could explain Jewish history better to Greco-Roman audience. He wrote part of the Jewish Wars in his native language, which was the same as the "Upper Barbarians" which are the Parthians/Babylonians, which again, is Aramaic.

Not necessarily. There could have been a number of other reasons. The text may be simply rendering what was actually said in Aramaic, etc. — Apollodorus

Because people generally spoke Aramaic! :lol:.

Well, by that logic, we might as well ignore the Gospels altogether. PLUS the fact they were written in Greek. In which case, there wouldn't be much point in me giving you any quote .... :smile: — Apollodorus

Not sure what you are saying here. Are you saying, because something was written down, it must be true? I hope you aren't committing the often religious-based circular logic that, "The (X holy scriptures) is true because it is considered holy and thus can't not be true". Rather, any writing from ANYONE (gospels, letters, epistles, histories, etc.) always needs to be read with skepticism. Especially so for anything before what we might consider "scientifically-minded" history written after the Enlightenment. And even MORE so in ancient times, when history was replete with mythological tangents, speculations, and the like. Also, everything has a bias. The Gospels were written with a purpose, not just "stating the facts, mam". It was trying to convey something and convince an audience of a point of view.

Ok, regarding your Book of John reference, there are a couple things..

1) The Book of John is without a doubt the MOST Greek-influenced.. They had Jesus fit into the scheme of being an incarnated Logos, etc. There are definitely shades of influence of Plato (probably via ideas from Philo of Alexandria).

2) There is really no way for the author to know what was really stated in private if this was not open to the public. In other words, the authors took literary liberties here. It isn't live, captured recording or anything :lol:.

3) This is a much less important point but possibly relevant. Just because people didn't speak Greek, doesn't mean they couldn't borrow words after 100s of years of cultural diffusion. Hades could have been a term borrowed from Greek without speaking Greek, if it was even used at all and not an interpolation (which is probable anyways). Also, there is a term in Hebrew/Aramaic, and that is Sheol which means "the pit". You don't have to be fluent Spanish, but when someone says, "Comprende?" These are just words that have made it in the vernacular.

But Josephus did write some of his works in Greek. And Aramaic phrases in a Greek text do not show that Greek wasn't spoken. — Apollodorus

Yeah but look at that quote again.. He said it was hard for him to write in Greek and that it wasn't usual or encouraged by his countrymen!

We need to remember that the Greek spoken by the Jews of Roman Palestine was not exactly the same as that spoken in Athens. And this shows that a version of Greek existed in Palestine that could only have emerged by being spoken by Palestinian Jews. — Apollodorus

So the question is, "Did Jesus speak Greek?". The definitive answer has to be, "We don't know exactly". However, using various filters, we can try to make the best guess:

Greek was generally used by various people who needed to speak Greek. Who needed to speak Greek? Mainly three types of people: Highborn elite and government officials who spoke with other Greek-speaking leaders in the Empire, and people involved in trade who spoke with Greek-speaking traders across the Empire.

Aramaic was spoken amongst the peoples of the Near East from Judea to Mesopotamia since the time of the Neo-Babylonians. Some of the Hebrew Scriptures are written in Aramaic even, along with some prayers. It is known to be the language of common folk via texts like the Talmud, even though the Talmud itself was actually written in Midrashic Hebrew.

Aramaic phrases were poking out of the Gospels, because that was the lingua franca used. The writers were translating (most likely oral) sources, and simply used the Aramaic original phrases where they saw it most effective to keep.

So knowing this:
A. Was Jesus a high born person?
It seems not. He was definitely not a Herodian or Maccabee descendent as far as we know. He wasn't a Sadducee or in a priestly class. Certainly they would be more likely to have Hellenistic tendencies due to need to speak with Roman overlords and officials.

B. Was Jesus a government official?
It seems not. He wasn't part of the Sanhedrin. He wasn't working on behalf of Roman political hierarchy. He wasn't a government functionary as far as we know.

C. Was Jesus a trader or in commerce?
It seems not. Though, this might be the most likely out of them all. If he was indeed a "tekton" maybe there was some wheeling and dealing with Greek-speaking folks. If so, it's never presented.

So what have we? As far as we know, his birthplace, following, and destinations were all pretty heavily Jewish populated areas where the lingua franca was indeed Aramaic. He probably knew Hebrew too if he was quoting from actual scripture and not just memory. If that was the case, then in my view, he may have been a variety of Pharisee, as it was uncommon for just anyone to know Hebrew without being elite priestly class, Pharisee, etc.

Now, does that mean he may have known Greek, nonetheless? Perhaps. It is not out of the land of possibility. I just think it is less probable, that's all.

By the way, what language would you say Jesus used when he spoke with Pilate, and why is he using Greek words like "Hades"? — Apollodorus

You'd have to give me the quote, but while I think some of the NT has a broad accuracy to the events of Jesus [mainly the "gist" of some of his sayings (very much parallel to things found in the Talmud by the way), his stance on halacha, his being known as a miracle-worker, and his trying to "cleanse" the Temple], I don't think a lot of exact words in there were what was said and transpired. In other words, the Greek-speaking writers took liberties.. either simply filling it in or hearsay traditions. I don't read the gospels like they're gospel or anything.. Just some crude accounts with a lot of interpolations.

By the way, circumcision appears to have been practiced in Ancient Egypt, so it wasn't quite so "different", after all: — Apollodorus

Yeah, I'm just saying compared to other Canaanites.

But how does Josephus show that Greek wasn't spoken at least as widely as Aramaic? — Apollodorus

That quote seems pretty definitive to me that it wasn't widely spoken. Also, the NT has a decent amount of Aramaic phrases. It seems to be the main language across the large swath of the Near East from Judea to Babylonia at least since the times of the Neo-Babylonians. Even parts of the Hebrew Bible were written in it towards the end due to its popularity. It was the common language. Greek was the educated one of the cosmopolitans. Look at Bar Kochba's letters.. Interestingly, since he may have thought he was the messiah, he wanted to change the lingua franca to Hebrew and started writing in Hebrew.

Ah ok, then yes I think we are in agreement.

Yeah I can see what you mean. I'm just saying, that prophecy cannot NOT be fulfilled for them, and there is the result. It's THIS guy cannot NOT be the one. How can that be so, we were so feeling it! haha

I'm not getting your objection.. all of this points to polytheistic origin..

Elohim is plural.. It COULD be that it is like the royal "we", but more likely that it started as a pantheon.

El Shaddai is possibly "God of the Wilderness
El Elyon is probably "God of the High Places" (as in sacred high places where worship took place by ancient Canaanites).
Yahweh corresponds with a warrior god of the Midianites.. this was absorbed as the major God of Hosts and attached to the El deity as one and the same.

Yes, no doubt that Judaism started as a henotheistic religion (pantheon with El-Yaweh and variation on Canaanite/Midianite religions), that then had a contingent of "Yaweh-alone" prophets (still not the mainstream but starting to become a thing.. kind of reformist prophetic movement), and then kind of reconstituted with Yaweh alone with Second Temple Period. The people who held these beliefs were possibly the pastoralists who didn't settle in city-states, that occupied the hill country areas. They thus started making more and more demarcations between themselves and the city-state Canaanites (with practice of abstaining from pig and circumcision being probably the earliest traditions that marked differences).

As far as what I was saying with Galilee region earlier, my summation was here:

Mainly speculation, but based on a lot of this, I would say that Jesus represented families of Jews who inhabited the region after the Maccabean takeover. There was a sort of "pioneer" element to Galilee.. the Jewish inhabitants were mainly newcomers for the last 200 years or so from the southern areas around Judah. The Hellenists, and Samarians were thus to be avoided for these folks. They probably also developed a bit different Hebrew/Aramaic than their southern neighbors. Based on John the Baptist and Judas the Galilean messianic claimant, it was indeed a hotbed of Jewish rebellion as opposed to the more tenuous situation in Jerusalem where any outward rebellion can be identified and crushed easily.

In other words, Jews in this region would have possibly been fierce separatists to the syncretism you might be thinking. We are both speculating really.

I strongly believe the lingua franca of religion during the time of Christ was Greek (at least in his circle). I like to think that Jesus was somewhat familiar with the Septuagint but I’m sure there is debate regarding this. — Dermot Griffin

Aramaic is still the consensus. Even Josephus stated:

I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains. — — Antiquities of Jews XX, XI

I think the same thing happened to Shia Islam. They're waiting for some guy. — frank

Yep, interesting how these things take the same form. I don't think its intentional.. just how groups create an escape hatch for what "has" to be a sure thing.

In a way, the same thing applies to Jesus: the messianic and son-of-god 'mythology' has come at the expense of the message. What the man had said became largely irrelevant once he was made a god. His idealization trumped his ideas; his exaltation was his humbling (Matthew 23:12). — Olivier5

:up: exactly. I see interesting parallels.

I'm actually an admirer of the Rebbe and the Lubavitch movement, especially their positivity doctrines (tracht gut vet zein gut!). For a hasidic sect, they are vey welcoming, which is a very different case with some others. I do think it's unfortunate that a small number within that community have gone down that path and declared the Rebbe the Messiah. It detracts from the real message, but this is a thread about Jesus, so I won't annoy anyone here with the teachings of the good Rebbe, but I do think it is in his spirit to portray events in their most positive light. — Hanover

I'm not trying to trash talk the Rebbe :wink:. However, I can't resist bringing up the parallels with the very small number of Messianists in that group and the early Jesus followers for natural responses to the death of very charismatic leaders. I don't think the group was intentionally following the Christian model, and that's why I find it fascinating. I think this is actually one outcome that presented itself to the early followers of Jesus after his death. What do you do when you think your leader was ASSUREDLY the messiah? You make the move that he didn't really "die" or he was "resurrected".. Maybe the "first" in what will be the End Times, when EVERYONE will be resurrected! So While this group does represent a sort of weird deviation from the usual Jewish understanding of the role of the messiah, it is also a good thing in (possibly) shedding light on how the early followers of Jesus responded to his death. Does that make sense?

Importantly, the Roman supression of the Bar Kochba revolt killed millions of Jews and left Palestine unrecognisable, "ethnically cleansed". So what may have been left of the Ebionites or any other Jewish Christian sect in Palestine at the time was simply killed by the Romans with the rest of the nation. — Olivier5

Agreed. Interestingly, it is known that the "Jerusalem Church", was headed by a series of Jesus' brothers, followers, and relatives (first James, then Simeon-both Jesus' brothers, the last was Judas, the son of Jude, another of Jesus' brothers, which would make him his nephew). All were considered "Jewish Christians". The cutoff from the Jewish Christian leaders and the gentile Christian leaders in that church is exactly demarcated at the Bar Kochba Rebellion's defeat in 135 CE. So yes, I believe this did represent a breaking point between the last remnants of the original followers/traditions and the Proto-Orthodox Gentile Church that became "Christianity". They were removed as other Jews in a sort of ethnic cleansing.

Ironically, a strong contingent of scholars remained, not in Judea proper (that was forbidden for a while) but in the Galilee area around Caesarea and Tiberius. The Mishna was compiled there in 200 CE and the Jerusalem Talmud around 400 CE. So there was still a small presence allowed there, more as academic enclaves, but important ones.

After Alexander, the hellenizing programs of the Ptolemies and Seleucids dotted the landscape on all sides of Galilee with newly founded cities on the Greek model. Greek cities were founded in Phoenicia, southern Syria, the Decapolis (region of "ten cities" to the east of the Sea of Galilee), northern Palestine, and the coastlands to the west. Theaters, schools, stadia, porticoed markets, administrative offices, foreign legions, and transplanted people with franchise as ‘citizens’ took their place as signs of the hellenistic age. Samaritans and Galileans did not resist. They did not generate a revolution like that of the Maccabees in Judea.”

I think the idea that Galilee was a melting pot in the Middle East makes the connection between Jesus and the Hellenic tradition much more interesting. — Dermot Griffin

I think what I said previously encapsulates what you present here. I am not unaware of what you are saying. I think this passage summarizes the region nicely:

L. Michael White:

Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin
POLITICS OF GALILEE

Galilee, throughout the time of Jesus, was ruled by one of Herod's sons. So it was ruled much as his father's kingdom had been, as a kind of small client kingdom. This means that local politics in Jesus' home region were a little different than those in Judea under the Roman Governors.

...In a client kingdom, the King, himself, is the absolute overlord. He's given a lot of freedom by Romans, insofar as all he has to do, basically, is raise his own taxes. And then he's in charge of everything else. So the control of the north was, in some ways, more independent, and indeed the trade and commerce that we see in this northern region shows us the degree to which the intersection of the different cultures of the north were really starting to become very important in the developing life of that region.

People use the word Galilean in a special way. What was the connotation of being a so-called Galilean?

The term Galilean seems to have been used in a variety of ways in this period. To some, it just might mean an outsider, or someone who's not really an old Jew of the traditional sort. Precisely because the Galilee had traditionally not been Jewish at the time of the Maccabean Revolt a hundred or 150 years before Jesus. But from another perspective, "Galilean" also took on the coloration of being rebellious, or insurrectionist. Precisely because we know of some people in that region who resisted first, Herod's rule, and then that of his sons and the Romans themselves. So for some, the term Galilean might also mean something political.

POLITICAL UPSTARTS AND THE ROMAN RESPONSE

Social dissent?

... Because of its position away from Jerusalem, Galilee may have become a center of, not only social dissent, but economic protest. There seems to be a rise of what we might describe as social banditry. One of the most famous characters this sort is a fellow by the name of Judas the Galilean.

What happened to him?

Judas the Galilean, himself, was eventually captured and executed by Herod's sons, but his own family continued his tradition. We hear of two more of his sons in the mid-40's A.D. who were captured and crucified by the Roman Governor, Tiberius Julius Alexander. This is kind of an ironic story. Here is this ongoing tradition of protest against Roman rule, but the Governor, himself, Tiberius Julius Alexander, is actually a Jew by birth. He is the nephew of Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria. And yet, he's the one who orders them executed because of their political rebellion.

[Who was] The Egyptian?

We hear of a number of other characters during this period who reflect this growing social banditry and political protest. One of the most interesting, and famous cases is a character known as The Egyptian. We don't know his real name. He seems just to have come from Egypt. But according to Josephus, he's someone who had magical powers and garnered an enormous following among the popular folk. It seems that at one point he led a mass of people up on the Mount of Olives, literally looking down into the Temple from across the way. And Josephus says that as a kind of false prophet ... and that's Josephus' favorite way of putting it ... as a kind of false prophet, this Egyptian promised them that he would lead these common people into Jerusalem, to take the Temple. They would make him their King, and they would, in turn, become his royal honor guard.

And what happened to him?

Well, the Romans have a fairly standard response to this kind of individual. They immediately dispatch the cavalry, and any support units of the military that are at hand. Their response is quick and certain. Go first for the leader, and disperse the rest. The leader is usually arrested, or executed on the spot. The rest of the mob, as they appeared to be to the Romans, would have been dispersed, in some cases with a great deal of brutality.

Is that what they did to the Egyptian?

The Egyptian seems to have escaped in this case. Most others did not. And so, the Egyptian is a kind of a namesake of someone who lives on in the memory for a number of years, precisely because he wasn't executed. — https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/galilee.html#:~:text=Galilee%2C%20throughout%20the%20time%20of,Judea%20under%20the%20Roman%20Governors.

Also just an interesting descriptio here:

On the whole, the Galileans are said to have been strict in their religious observances (M. Ḳ. 23a; Pes. 55a; Yer. R. H. iv. 6; Yer. Soṭah ix. 10). Measures and weights were peculiar in Galilee: 1 Judean se'ah = 5 Galilean se'ah; 5 Judean sela = 10 Galilean sela (B. B. 122b; Ḥul. 137b). The Galilean Sicarii were dreaded (Tosef., Giṭ. ii.). Study of the traditions was not one of the Galilean virtues, neither was their dialectic method very flexible ('Er. 53a). But it is for their faulty pronunciation that the Galileans are especially remembered: 'ayin and alef, and the gutturals generally, were confounded, no distinction being made between words like '"amar" (= "ḥamor," uss), "ḥamar" (wine), "'amar" (a garment), "emar" (a lamb: 'Er. 53b); therefore Galileans were not permitted to act as readers of public prayers (Meg. 24b). Still, according to Geiger ("Orient," iv. 432), to the Galileans must be ascribed the origin of the Haggadah. Galilee was very rich in towns and hamlets (Yer. Meg. i. 1), among which were Sepphoris ( or ) Asha, Shephar'am, BetShe'arim, Tiberias, Magdala, Kefar Ḥananyah, 'Akbara, Acco, Paneas, Cæsarea. On Galil, a place of the same name as the province, see Hildesheimer, "Beiträge zur Geographic Palästinas," P. 80. — https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6475-galilee

Also note that Sepphoris was a Greek-like city near Nazareth here:

After Herod's death in 4 BCE, a rebel named Judas, son of a local bandit, Ezekias, attacked Sepphoris, then the administrative center of the Galilee, and, sacking its treasury and weapons, armed his followers in a revolt against Herodian rule.[29][30] The Roman governor in Syria, Varus is reported by Josephus - perhaps in an exaggeration, since archaeology has failed to verify traces of the conflagration - to have burnt the city down, and sold its inhabitants into slavery.[29][30] After Herod's son, Herod Antipas was made tetrarch, or governor, he proclaimed the city's new name to be Autocratoris, and rebuilt it as the "Ornament of the Galilee" (Josephus, Ant. 18.27).[31] An ancient route linking Sepphoris to Legio, and further south to Samaria-Sebastia, is believed to have been paved by the Romans around this time.[32] The new population was loyal to Rome.

Maurice Casey writes that, although Sepphoris during the early first century was "a very Jewish city", some of the people there did speak Greek. A lead weight dated to the first century bears an inscription in Greek with three Jewish names. Several scholars have suggested that Jesus, while working as a craftsman in Nazareth, may have travelled to Sepphoris for work purposes, possibly with his father and brothers.[33][30] Casey states that this is entirely possible, but is likewise impossible to historically verify. Jesus does not seem to have visited Sepphoris during his public ministry and none of the sayings recorded in the Synoptic Gospels mention it.[30]

The inhabitants of Sepphoris did not join the revolt against Roman rule of 66 CE. The Roman legate in Syria, Cestius Gallus, killed some 2,000 "brigands and rebels" in the area.[34] The Jerusalemite Josephus, a son of Jerusalem's priestly elite had been sent north to recruit the Galilee into the rebellion's fold, but was only partially successful. He made two attempts to capture Sepphoris, but failed to conquer it, the first time because of fierce resistance, the second because a garrison came to assist in the city's defence.[35] Around the time of the rebellion Sepphoris had a Roman theater – in later periods, bath-houses and mosaic floors depicting human figures. Sepphoris and Jerusalem may be seen to symbolize a cultural divide between those that sought to avoid any contact with the surrounding Roman culture and those who within limits, were prepared to adopt aspects of that culture. Rejected by Sepphoris and forced to camp outside the city Josephus went on to Jotapata, which did seem interested in the rebellion, – the Siege of Yodfat ended on 20 July 67 CE. Towns and villages that did not rebel were spared and in Galilee they were the majority.[36] Coins minted in the city at the time of the Great Revolt carried the inscription Neronias and Eirenopolis, "City of Peace". After the revolt, coins bore depictions of laurel wreaths, palm trees, caduceuses and ears of barley, which appear on Jewish coinage albeit not exclusively.[37]


Remains of Zippori synagogue
George Francis Hill and Peter Schäfer consider that the city's name was changed to Diocaesarea in 129/30, just prior to the Bar Kokhba revolt, in Hadrian's time.[20] This gesture was done in honour of the visiting Roman emperor and his identification with Zeus Olympias, reflected in Hadrian's efforts in building temples dedicated to the supreme Olympian god.[20] Following the revolt in 132–135, many Jewish refugees from devastated Judea settled there, turning it into a center of Jewish religious and spiritual life.[citation needed] Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the compiler of the Mishnah, a commentary on the Torah, moved to Sepphoris, along with the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish religious court.[38] Before moving to Tiberias by 150, some Jewish academies of learning, yeshivot, were also based there. The Galilee was predominantly populated by Jews from the end of the 2nd century to the 4th century CE.[39] As late as the third-fourth centuries, Sepphoris is believed to have been settled by one of the twenty-four priestly courses, Jedayah by name, a course mentioned in relation to the town itself in both the Jerusalem Talmud (Taanit 4:5) and in the Caesarea Inscription.[40] Others, however, cast doubt about Sepphoris ever being under a "priestly oligarchy" by the third century, and that it may simply reflect a misreading of Talmudic sources.[41] Aside from being a center of spiritual and religious studies, it developed into a busy metropolis for commerce due to its proximity to important trade routes through Galilee. Hellenistic and Jewish influences seemed blended together in daily town life while each group, Jewish, pagan and Christian, maintained its distinct identity.[42] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepphoris

Mainly speculation, but based on a lot of this, I would say that Jesus represented families of Jews who inhabited the region after the Maccabean takeover. There was a sort of "pioneer" element to Galilee.. the Jewish inhabitants were probably mainly newcomers for the last 200 years or so from the southern areas around Judah. The Hellenists, and Samarians were thus to be avoided for these folks. They probably also developed a bit different Hebrew/Aramaic than their southern neighbors based on John the Baptist and Judas the Galilean messianic claimant, it was indeed a hotbed of Jewish rebellion as opposed to the more tenuous situation in Jerusalem where any outward rebellion can be identified and crushed easily.

Yeah I've heard this suggestion before, that Jesus was involved with the Pharisees. Its certainly plausible and has some merit, the problem is the lack of positive evidence that this was indeed the case... as with so many other aspects of Jesus's life (hence my comment about how frustrating it is). — Seppo

Of course. Hence my conjecture based on what I see presented and the context of the time, place, culture, etc.

But the influence of John the Baptist on Jesus's ministry is difficult to doubt, and we can trace a line through John the Baptist as as sort of mentor figure at the beginning of Jesus's ministry, to the apocalypticism of early Christians like James and Paul, making this one of the few things we can know with a reasonable degree of confidence. — Seppo

True. While the Jesus Movement may have been a smaller branch from the bigger JTB branch, the JTB sect eventually had its own evolution into Mandeanism which also mixed with Zoroastrianism most likely around Iraq and Iran. Some of this branch didn't even know who Jesus was, or barely mentions him, so this just shows how influential even JTB was at the time. Of course I don't think the Mandeans were any more representative of the original JTB group than the gentile Christians were. It probably had its own interpolations and mixing over time, especially with Syrian gnostic sects.

Thanks :D.

No, they're sometimes metaphors for what's inside you. Jesus screams on the cross and then asks why God has abandoned him. It's odd that they kept that detail in there after all these years. — frank

My take on this is that might be the only real thing in that NT :lol:. I would say that Jesus may have thought something was going to happen to save him.. Didn't happen. Jesus was looking for a miracle.. The whole "seeing Jesus after he died" and "empty tomb" thing were embellishments of disciples that had their movement stamped out too early. Oddly parallels can be seen in the Lubavitch Jewish community today in Brooklyn. A vocal minority there think that even though their beloved rebbe is dead, they think he really didn't "die" but is in sort of stasis and will come back to reveal he is the King Messiah. Now that is some ironic shit!



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabad_messianism

Some scholars of religion have made comparison with the development of early Christianity[94] and some have sought to describe Chabad messianism as "halakhic Christianity".[citation needed]

Anthropologist Joel Marcus writes:

The recent history of the modern Chabad (Lubavitcher) movement of Hasidic Judaism provides insight into the development of early Christianity. In both movements successful eschatological prophecies have increased belief in the leader's authority, and there is a mixture of ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ elements. Similar genres of literature are used to spread the good news (e.g. miracle catenae and collections of originally independent sayings). Both leaders tacitly accepted the messianic faith of their followers but were reticent about acclaiming their messiahship directly. The cataclysm of the messiah's death has led to belief in his continued existence and even resurrection.[95]

Such comparisons make many Orthodox Jews uncomfortable. Mark Winer has noted that "The Lubavitcher movement's suggestions that their late Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the Messiah, reflect Christian millenarianism."[96]

Anthropologist Simon Dein noted:

Lubavitchers held that the Rebbe was more powerful in the spiritual realm without the hindrance of a physical body. However some have now claimed that he never died. Several even state that the Rebbe is God. This is a significant finding. It is unknown in the history of Judaism to hold that the religious leader is God and to this extent the group is unique. There are certain Christian elements which apparently inform the messianic ideas of this group.[65]

Jacob Neusner writes:
A substantial majority of a highly significant Orthodox movement called Lubavitch or Chabad Hasidism affirms that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was laid to rest in 1994 without leaving a successor. . . will soon return to complete the redemption in his capacity as the Messiah. Hasidim who proclaim this belief hold significant religious positions sanctioned by major Orthodox authorities with no relationship to their movement.[97] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chabad_messianism

I know what you mean. And, a good deal of the ritual involved in the worship of the traditional gods seems devoted to keeping them happy enough not to smash us, or abandon us, and induce them to do favors for us. Traditional Roman religion seems almost legal in its devotion to rules; if you got one step wrong during the ritual, you had to start all over again. More than that seems to have been involved in the mysteries.

It seems that most looked to philosophy for ethics. Epicureanism and Stoicism were quite popular among the elite during the Empire. — Ciceronianus

Right. Ethics was its own prescriptions and science of human behavior, separated out from the gods. Philosophy developed perhaps as a result of having a religion where metaphysics was lacking. The gods were capricious. They did what they wanted. Gods weren't moral. Humans could be more moral than a god, but gods could demand things that you must do to make things go well for you. Well, these kind of contradictions could create opportunities for a more coherent and complete religious system. Greco-Romans were able to fill the existential cracks with philosophy. This was really only amenable to the elite. The majority of poor people had their capricious gods, household alters and such, but here you have a religion that can provide a little more existential fulfillment without the intense literacy and understanding needed to grasp the major philosophies. Thus, Christianity's ability to shapeshift as simple "salvation" and "charity" for the poor and "theology" for the literate and academic oriented, became a great two-pronged approach.

Hadrian did that. I mean, the region was devastated by Hadrian's legions circa 130 AD, with millions of deaths. Jewish presence was purposefully erased from the area. Hence the Jewish Christians disappeared together with the Essenes, the Saducees and scores of other groups, and what was left was gentile Christians on the one hand and rabbinical Jews on the other. — Olivier5

Yes agreed. The Bar Kochba rebellion may have represented an irrevocable split between the Jewish Christians and other Jews, especially ones supporting Bar Kochba. Thus, you probably see total separation in synagogues by this time. You pretty much explain it there with the only ones left being rabbinical Jews and gentile Christians in that region.

Very interesting. Some think it was too late to do anything significant, but perhaps he could at least have managed to keep paganism going for a time if only among minorities. — Ciceronianus

True, could have been holding off the inevitable. But if he was successful, what an interesting change in history. Tolerance might have had more of a premium (but perhaps not the violence of those Roman games.. only medieval torture!).

By the way, if you haven't read Gore Vidal's novel Julian, I recommend it highly. — Ciceronianus

Yes I have. Excellent read. He has so many great historical fictions, but that's my favorite.

Fair enough. I find it an interesting puzzle. It would have been interesting if the emperor Julian were to have not died after three short years as emperor. He was trying to reverse the course of the Christian spread. He was the last pagan Roman emperor.

I think Greco-Roman religion had a fatal flaw in that the gods themselves were not ethical, but capricious. Thus mystery-cults and religions that provided an ethical-oriented deity made more sense. Add to it the apocalypticism of a sort of "goal" and you have this inbuilt, very appealing worldview. It was the world's greatest "just so" story. Paul and his disciples embellished it, and the Church Fathers promoted it. They overtook other "just so" stories like the Gnostics, and killed off most of the original Jewish Jesus Movement around Jerusalem, and that was that. Proto-Orthodoxy (which became the basis of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christianities) became the main religion of the land in Europe.

@Ciceronianus@god must be atheist
I write this in another Jesus thread. Perhaps this might be helpful:

My rough theory is thus...

Jesus may have actually been a part of the pharisees, in a more liberal sect like Hillelites. He was also influenced by the John the Baptist movement, and consequently became more of an apocalyptic miracle-working teacher.

His interpretation of Jewish law (halacha) represents that of a Hillel-influenced pharisee (more inclusive, less strict, ethics-oriented). His ability to hold his own and quote at will against other pharisees also to me (if ANY of this is true) seems to give more credibility here. An illiterate peasant with no training, would probably not be able to do that. However, I do recognize this can all be interpolation and perhaps he quoted nothing, and was just a sort of local miracle-worker with later sayings. In this case, he would have represented more the "am ha-aretz" or "people of the land" in perhaps contradiction to the pharisees.

His apocalypticism represents the influence of John the Baptist. Thus his Son of Man imagery, and Kingdom of God being at hand

His goal was to show he was the messiah by "cleansing" the Temple of foreign influence (including the Sadducees, the priestly/elite party that ruled the Temple and more aligned with political Roman status quo of Rome rule over Judea). He probably hoped for a miracle to occur and perhaps thought he would somehow make it through any punishment like crucifixion. He didn't, he died.

His actual brother James took over the sect after he died and led this reformist pharisee/apocalyptic hybrid in Jerusalem. Hillelite pharisees and some zealots (extreme anti-Romans/Saducees) in Jerusalem probably sympathized with this group as well. Ananus I believe was related to Caiaphas, and remembered Jesus opposing him, and thus makes sense that he would want to destroy the remnant of this reformist/rebellious group that represented an affront to the current authority, and the family of priests that were running the Temple.

My rough theory is thus...

Jesus may have actually been a part of the pharisees, in a more liberal sect like Hillelites. He was also influenced by the John the Baptist movement, and consequently became more of an apocalyptic miracle-working teacher.

His interpretation of Jewish law (halacha) represents that of a Hillel-influenced pharisee (more inclusive, less strict, ethics-oriented). His ability to hold his own and quote at will against other pharisees also to me (if ANY of this is true) seems to give more credibility here. An illiterate peasant with no training, would probably not be able to do that. However, I do recognize this can all be interpolation and perhaps he quoted nothing, and was just a sort of local miracle-worker with later sayings. In this case, he would have represented more the "am ha-aretz" or "people of the land" in perhaps contradiction to the pharisees.

His apocalypticism represents the influence of John the Baptist. Thus his Son of Man imagery, and Kingdom of God being at hand

His goal was to show he was the messiah by "cleansing" the Temple of foreign influence (including the Sadducees, the priestly/elite party that ruled the Temple and more aligned with political Roman status quo of Rome rule over Judea). He probably hoped for a miracle to occur and perhaps thought he would somehow make it through any punishment like crucifixion. He didn't, he died.

His actual brother James took over the sect after he died and led this reformist pharisee/apocalyptic hybrid in Jerusalem. Hillelite pharisees and some zealots (extreme anti-Romans/Saducees) in Jerusalem probably sympathized with this group as well. Ananus I believe was related to Caiaphas, and remembered Jesus opposing him, and thus makes sense that he would want to destroy the remnant of this reformist/rebellious group that represented an affront to the current authority, and the family of priests that were running the Temple.

@Seppo

And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest. — Flavius Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews Book 20, Chapter 9, 1[100] For Greek text see [3]

An excellent account. Thank you. — Paine

No problem, thank you! :up:

But there is difference here between Jewish receptivity to the message of Jesus of Nazareth vs. Jewish receptivity to the Christian message. As already noted, Jesus was a Jew, who was preaching the Jewish faith, and an interpretation of the Jewish faith that wasn't unique or particularly radical at the time (we know of other Jewish apocalypticists at the time, including, notably, Jesus's mentor/associate John the Baptist). So no real problem there. The real problem, as far as theology goes, appears with Jesus's death and the distinctively Christian message of a crucified messiah: a concept that was antithetical to most Jewish understanding, for the reasons already mentioned. — Seppo

Agreed.

No, not just the religious authorities, and not just because they were worried about protecting their positions or privileges: the concept of a crucified messiah was, to most Jews, a contradiction in terms. The messiah was, quite literally, the King of Israel. And under the geopolitical circumstances at that time, being the messiah meant throwing off the Roman occupation and re-establishing Israel as a sovereign nation under the Davidic kingship. Which Jesus not only failed to do, but worse, he was crucified- a particularly shameful way to die.

So there were plenty of ordinary Jews who dismissed Christianity out of hand simply because the Christian message was, to their mind, completely absurd: a crucified criminal could NOT be the messiah, simply as a matter of definition. — Seppo

I think we must look at James, Jesus' brother to see how the original group acted and thought. The Ebionites are a group to look at, which is "evionim" or "poor ones" in Hebrew. This may represent the original beliefs before Paul.