During the years of Roman occupation, it's likely there were hopes the messiah would appear to throw off Roman rule. Simon bar Kochba who led the rebellion during the reign of Hadrian was considered the messiah by some.As Jesus was The Son of God. Bar Kochba was The Son of the Star. Same sort of title system used by the Egyptians. People today literally think Jesus was the son of god. I don’t think that was the way people were thinking back then. An example. A guy becomes Caesar, leader of the Roman Empire. He is declared a god. Born of a virgin mother. His brothers and sisters become related to a god. And his mother becomes the virgin mother of a god. Justin Martyr tells that Kachba punished Christians if they did not agree that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah and cursed the man from Nazareth (First Apology 31.6). What can we make of this statement that occurred 100 years after Jesus? Maybe the Romans went after the Jews but left the Christians alone. Causing a bigger rift between the two religions.
so too might the original Christians have invented stories about Jesus’ divinityI think you got something there. If you don't mind I'll expand on my thoughts a bit: (1). Robert M. Price is interesting about the crucifixion. He writes: The Crucifixion (Mark 15:21-41): The substructure for the crucifixion in chapter 15 is, as all recognize, Psalm 22, from which derive all the major details, including the implicit piercing of hands and feet (Mark 24//Psalm 22:16b), the dividing of his garments and casting lots for them (Mark 15:24//Psalm 22:18), the “wagging heads" of the mockers (Mark 15:20//Psalm 22:7), and of course the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34//Psalm 22:1). Matthew adds another quote, “He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him" (Matthew 27:43//Psalm 22:8), as well as a strong allusion (“for he said, ‘I am the son of God’" 27:43b) to Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20, which underlies the whole story anyway (Miller), “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life: for if the righteous man is God’s son he will help him and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture that we may find out how gentle he is and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected." As for other details, Crossan points out that the darkness at noon comes from Amos 8:9, while the vinegar and gall come from Psalm 69:21. It is remarkable that Mark does anything but call attention to the scriptural basis for the crucifixion account. There is nothing said of scripture being fulfilled here. It is all simply presented as the events of Jesus’ execution. It is we who must ferret out the real sources of the story. This is quite different, e.g., in John, where explicit scripture citations are given, e.g., for Jesus’ legs not being broken to hasten his death (John 19:36), either Exodus 12:10, Numbers 9:12, or Psalm 34:19-20 (Crossan,). (2) Paul said “Christ died for our sins ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES (1 Corinthians 15:3)." So the question is what scriptures are Paul Referring to? As I said above in section (1) above, many details of the crucifixion seem to be derived from Psalm 22. In fact, the crucifixion itself may be derived from the implicit piercing of hands and feet in Psalm 22:16b (Mark 24). Psalm 22:16 says “Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet." The Septuagint , a Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek made before the Common Era, and which the New Testament writers used, has "ωυξαν χειάς μου και πόδας (“they have dug my hands and feet")," which some commentators argue could be understood in the general sense as “pierced". The proper way to render the phrase remains disputed, but given the extensive parallels between Psalm 22 and the crucifixion, which I outlined, I have no problem with rendering it as “pierced." In any case, since the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus were understood to have fulfilled scripture by the original Christians (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), they have a theological rather than an historical significance, so there is no reason to think they ever happened (since the original Christians may have just invented them to suit their purposes). (3) So there really isn’t any reason to think Jesus was crucified. Maybe all the stuff about Pilate and the like was just good historical fiction, like the stuff about the Census of Quirinius relating to Jesus. Regarding the Empty Tomb, Price comments that: The Empty Tomb (Mark 16:1-8) Crossan (p. 274) and Miller and Miller (pp. 219, 377) note that the empty tomb narrative requires no source beyond Joshua (=Jesus, remember!) chapter 10. The five kings have fled from Joshua, taking refuge in the cave at Makkedah. When they are discovered, Joshua orders his men to “Roll great stones against the mouth of the cave and set men by it to guard them" (10:18). Once the mopping-up operation of the kings’ troops is finished, Joshua directs: “Open the mouth of the cave, and bring those five kings out to me from the cave" (10:22). “And afterward Joshua smote them and put them to death, and he hung them on five trees. And they hung upon the trees until evening; but at the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took them down from the trees, and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves, and they set great stones against the mouth of the cave, which remain to this very day" (10:26-27). Observe that here it is “Jesus" who plays the role of Pilate, and that Mark needed only to reverse the order of the main narrative moments of this story. Joshua 10: first, stone rolled away and kings emerge alive; second, kings die; third, kings are crucified until sundown. Mark: Jesus as King of the Jews is crucified, where his body will hang till sundown; second, he dies; third, he emerges alive (Mark implies) from the tomb once the stone is rolled away. The vigil of the mourning women likely reflects the women’s mourning cult of the dying and rising god, long familiar in Israel (Ezekiel 8:14, “Behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz;" Zechariah 12:11, “On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo;" Canticles 3:1-4, “I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but found him not; I called him but he gave no answer," etc.). Regarding The Resurrection, Price comments that: 2. The Resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 27:62-28:20) Matthew had before him Mark’s empty tomb story and no other source except the Book of Daniel, from which he has embellished the Markan original at several points. (Matthew had already repaired to Daniel in his Pilate story, where the procurator declared, “I am innocent of the blood of this man," Matthew 27:24b, which he derived from Susanna 46/Daniel 13:46 LXX: “I am innocent of the blood of this woman.") (Crossan, p. 97-98). First, Matthew has introduced guards at the tomb and has had the tomb sealed, a reflection of Nebuchadnezzer’s sealing the stone rolled to the door of the lion’s den with Daniel inside (6:17). Mark had a young man (perhaps an angel, but perhaps not) already in the open tomb when the women arrived. Matthew simply calls the character an angel and clothes him in a description reminiscent of the angel of Daniel chapter 10 (face like lightning, Daniel 10:6) and the Ancient of Days in Daniel chapter 7 (snowy white clothing, Daniel 7:9b). He rolls the stone aside. The guards faint and become as dead men, particular dead men, as a matter of fact, namely the guards who tossed Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-nego into the fiery furnace in (Daniel 3:22). To provide an appearance of the risen Jesus to the women at the tomb (something conspicuously absent from Mark), Matthew simply divides Mark’s young man into the angel and now Jesus himself, who has nothing more to say than a lame reiteration of the angel’s words. He appears again on a mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16) which he now says Jesus had earlier designated, though this is the first the reader learns of it. There he dispenses yet more Danielic pastiche: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." This is based on a conflation of two Greek versions of Daniel 7:14. In the LXX, “to him [the one like a son of man was] ... given the rule... the authority of him [the Ancient of Days]." In Theodotion, he receives “authority to hold all in the heaven and upon the earth." The charge to make all nations his disciples comes from Daniel 7:14, too: “that all people, nations, and languages should serve him" (Helms, p. 141). HAPPY EASTER
Elaborate historical fictions of Christianity, based on the “evidence” of a conglomerate of often broadly varying and divergent other historical fictions and the hallucinations &/or fabrications of certain individuals, based on a religion that itself is a syncretic blend of various previous religious historical fictions results in this “most holy of days”. Happy Easter.
so too might the original Christians have invented stories about Jesus’ divinityI think you got something there. If you don't mind I'll expand on my thoughts a bit: (1). Robert M. Price is interesting about the crucifixion. He writes: The Crucifixion (Mark 15:21-41): The substructure for the crucifixion in chapter 15 is, as all recognize, Psalm 22, from which derive all the major details, including the implicit piercing of hands and feet (Mark 24//Psalm 22:16b), the dividing of his garments and casting lots for them (Mark 15:24//Psalm 22:18), the “wagging heads" of the mockers (Mark 15:20//Psalm 22:7), and of course the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34//Psalm 22:1). Matthew adds another quote, “He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him" (Matthew 27:43//Psalm 22:8), as well as a strong allusion (“for he said, ‘I am the son of God’" 27:43b) to Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20, which underlies the whole story anyway (Miller), “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life: for if the righteous man is God’s son he will help him and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture that we may find out how gentle he is and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected." As for other details, Crossan points out that the darkness at noon comes from Amos 8:9, while the vinegar and gall come from Psalm 69:21. It is remarkable that Mark does anything but call attention to the scriptural basis for the crucifixion account. There is nothing said of scripture being fulfilled here. It is all simply presented as the events of Jesus’ execution. It is we who must ferret out the real sources of the story. This is quite different, e.g., in John, where explicit scripture citations are given, e.g., for Jesus’ legs not being broken to hasten his death (John 19:36), either Exodus 12:10, Numbers 9:12, or Psalm 34:19-20 (Crossan,). (2) Paul said “Christ died for our sins ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES (1 Corinthians 15:3)." So the question is what scriptures are Paul Referring to? As I said above in section (1) above, many details of the crucifixion seem to be derived from Psalm 22. In fact, the crucifixion itself may be derived from the implicit piercing of hands and feet in Psalm 22:16b (Mark 24). Psalm 22:16 says “Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet." The Septuagint , a Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek made before the Common Era, and which the New Testament writers used, has "ωυξαν χειάς μου και πόδας (“they have dug my hands and feet")," which some commentators argue could be understood in the general sense as “pierced". The proper way to render the phrase remains disputed, but given the extensive parallels between Psalm 22 and the crucifixion, which I outlined, I have no problem with rendering it as “pierced." In any case, since the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus were understood to have fulfilled scripture by the original Christians (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), they have a theological rather than an historical significance, so there is no reason to think they ever happened (since the original Christians may have just invented them to suit their purposes). (3) So there really isn’t any reason to think Jesus was crucified. Maybe all the stuff about Pilate and the like was just good historical fiction, like the stuff about the Census of Quirinius relating to Jesus. Along with the connection between the crucifixion and Psalm 22 that Price points out, John Shelby Spong also demonstrates the crucifixion is dependant on Isaiah 53: Likely the clearest Prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth." The only thing is, Isaiah wasn’t making a prophesy about Jesus. Mark was doing a haggadic midrash on Isaiah. So, Mark depicts Jesus as one who is despised and rejected, a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. He then describes Jesus as wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The Servant in Isaiah, like Jesus in Mark, is silent before his accusers. In Isaiah it says of the servant with his stripes we are healed, which Mark turned into the story of the scourging of Jesus. This is, in part, is where atonement theology comes from, but it would be silly to say II Isaiah was talking about atonement. The servant is numbered among the transgressors in Isaiah, so Jesus is crucified between two thieves. The Isaiah servant would make his grave with the rich, So Jesus is buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a person of means. It's all just made up :bug: