Historical Jesus: 4 views

[Jayson]

Regarding Jesus and theophobes: Quite.
Though, not directly related, I'm looking into some discourses by Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch regarding the minute space of time that is so difficult to work with between the Levant and Mediterranean adoptions.
I'm hoping to gather some pieces of information that will fill in the tiny gaps of the timeline (as we know it did not dart from Levant to Mediterranean; the church of Sepulchre quite clearly shows, on its walls, prior to Orthodoxy worshiping groups from other regions).

Regarding Maccoby.
I remain open to the possibility of Jesus as a Pharisee (a), but do not think it likely.
I do, however, think he was on generally good terms with them. (b)

The reason that I think it unlikely for the proposition of (a) is due to Luke 12.
I commented on this in the past.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=167317&p=2058962&hilit=Pharisees#p2058962

Essentially, you don't sit down and share communal breakfast after Shacharit with Pharisees and then after debate and no agreement found, state that your pupils would do well to steer away from the Pharisees for their misguided understandings (notice: not hate or malice) if you are a Pharisee.

Granted: Luke is clearly not grammatically Hebrew like Mark, nor explicitly declaring Hebrew interest in content as Matthew, however, I believe the individual was quite possibly a Hellenistic Hebrew (they absolutely knew the intricate workings of even minute details of temple schedules, practices, and implied cultural meanings, yet wrote with prose of Athenian philosophy and in a hand of great grammatical exactness specifically intended for Greek reading audiences [possibly specifically for Hellenistic Hebrews which could not read Hebrew but were still devout]).

It would be odd, and serve no real purpose to a Hellenistic Hebrew demographic, for Jesus to be a Pharisee and yet not condone the Pharisee logic and understanding of the meaning of the value of the Law.
What I mean is that Luke is exact. This author does not make mistakes like the other texts.
They are a sniper with words.
By positioning Jesus as stating not to seek the advice of the Pharisees, the author would have accidentally meant that Jesus should not be listened to should he have been a Pharisee.
But the author also presents a Jesus that does not hold malice against the Pharisees.
The statements made against them, for instance in chapter 12, are not vicious or cutthroat.
They are matter-of-fact in tone.
Jesus simply states that the Pharisees are ignorant of what they speak about in full value and are not a good choice for his pupils to seek for guidance; implying that his pupils seek a full meaning of understanding and not one level of understanding as Jesus is shown to be identifying the Pharisees as in this section.

Because I do not see the author of Luke painting a target on the Pharisees in Jesus, nor making an accident that would paint Jesus as accidentally stating that his pupils should not listen to him, I have a hard time going along with the idea that Jesus was a Pharisee.

THAT said.

I do agree with Maccoby that Jesus was regularly consistent WITH the Pharisees in teachings.
He just also happened to take things further than their logic had proposed.
In a manner, akin to Plato on Socrates (but not exactly).

This is now in regards to (b).

Mark 3:23-27 is a good example of Jesus' inclusive stance regarding factions.
His general philosophy on unity is stated in that section, not just to compete against the allegation's logic, but also as a double-sided comment of explaining how attacking his character is essentially bad for all Hebrew business.

Another quick example is Luke 17, around 20 something.
This section contains a great show of the logical games in which Jesus took the logic of the Pharisee teachings and pushed them to conclusions they could not argue with.

Here, we get this commonly stated, "Kingdom of God is within you", phrase.
Keeping in mind that Luke is precise, all previous possessive's were 2nd person singular, "you".
The last, which everyone plops down as "you" as well, is derived from the word for "within" and it's conjugation; 3rd person singular: "him".

The implication of that conjugation is akin to stating, "one", as in, "this belongs to one who..."

This phrase is taking a discussion of the Pharisees asking where the authority of their God is, when is it coming?
They are asking because this would be a common question of dancing around the answers by many teachers and eventually rabbi's all throughout their culture because it is a trick question that allows the asking audience a means to attack after the answer regardless of the answer.
If the answer is regarding when such authority arrives, then one is suggesting that God's authority is absent currently, which undermines all authority in the Hebrew culture on every layer.
Yet, if you try to not answer it for this reason, then they can attack you for not having any divine knowledge as you don't know where the authority of God is; which you should as a worth-while teacher of the divine.

Jesus takes their standard holding that the authority of God was given unto Abraham for all of his children to come through the covenant which granted the Hebrew's this authority by blood.

As such, Jesus trumps them by stating that the authority of their God is within "him" (not-possessive as "his watch", more non-central conjugation as in "he that is"), ; implicitly, "one of us".

So in such examples, I see a Jesus that is sympathetic to the Pharisees, but sees them as shortsighted.

[felix dakat]

Regarding Jesus and theophobes: Quite.
Though, not directly related, I'm looking into some discourses by Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch regarding the minute space of time that is so difficult to work with between the Levant and Mediterranean adoptions.
I'm hoping to gather some pieces of information that will fill in the tiny gaps of the timeline (as we know it did not dart from Levant to Mediterranean; the church of Sepulchre quite clearly shows, on its walls, prior to Orthodoxy worshiping groups from other regions).

Regarding Maccoby.
I remain open to the possibility of Jesus as a Pharisee (a), but do not think it likely.
I do, however, think he was on generally good terms with them. (b)

Yes Luke 13:31 shows that: "At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” If the Pharisees had wished to kill him as the gospels say elsewhere, why warn him of Herod murderous intentions?

According to Maccoby, Jesus would have been a real threat to the High Priest who was a Sadducee and a collaborator with Rome. The Pharisees on the other hand would have had no objection to Jesus on the basis to his claim of Messiahship. Jesus was crucified because he was a rebel against Rome. His main concern was religion but he preached the Kingdom of God and eventually proclaimed himself King in the religious tradition of David, Solomon and Hezeziah. That was a capital offence to the Romans who had abolished the Jewish monarchy. John Dominick Crossan reaches the same conclusion in his book “Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Story of the Death of Jesus”.

[Jayson]

Well, Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch was pretty empty....he concentrates on too much of the spread at the nexus point of 70 CE and not before, but he does go into a TINY fragment of information regarding the spread of Christianity to Mesopotamian Edessa which has some marginally interesting considerations regarding how teachings were viewed by those in the Near East as opposed to those in the Asia Minor and further West.
But that's about it.

In regards to the Pharisees, one of the things that I think many people skip over is that you can have contradictory statements about a group in the Hebrew culture in ancient times.
When you see Pharisees in ill favor and in good favor both in the same source, what you are seeing is a division being discussed.
That means some Pharisees leaned one way, and others leaned the other.
There's no real effort in the texts to state "some" from the whole in all cases.
If all Pharisees present at the "moment" were one way, but "all Pharisees" present were not "all Pharisees" in total affiliation, then it would be written just as "the Pharisees".

This is why you can't just broadly sweep and say that the gospels were later altered to paint the Pharisees as all bad.
That determination would need to be made by the text itself. As in, does the grammar, tone, etc... change in these segments, thereby indicating a change at some point to the text?

Considering Luke is so iron clad from beginning to end, the answer for that book is a very robust, "No".
The answer then is the above: that some were in favor and some were not.

I do not see any logic to assigning Jesus the role of a Pharisee, however, as his philosophies are counter-cultural.
Or rather said, not exactly counter in the sense of against, but counter in the sense of a-cultural.
Jesus doesn't show any interest in being anywhere by seat, title, or other indicators that suggest an affiliation to any council.

Instead, he has many views which are in line with the Pharisees IF you are a Pharisee that lacks political ties to power seats which conflict with Jesus' movement.

[felix dakat]

In regards to the Pharisees, one of the things that I think many people skip over is that you can have contradictory statements about a group in the Hebrew culture in ancient times.
When you see Pharisees in ill favor and in good favor both in the same source, what you are seeing is a division being discussed.
That means some Pharisees leaned one way, and others leaned the other.
There's no real effort in the texts to state "some" from the whole in all cases.
If all Pharisees present at the "moment" were one way, but "all Pharisees" present were not "all Pharisees" in total affiliation, then it would be written just as "the Pharisees". .

Maccoby confirms what you are saying. He says that when there was a disagreement on an issue they would vote. They even resolved disagreements about scriptural interpretation this way. So, phariseeism was a democratic institution! And a dissenter was only required to go along with the majority on the issue they voted on. They were not expected to conform next time the issue came up.

This is why you can't just broadly sweep and say that the gospels were later altered to paint the Pharisees as all bad.
That determination would need to be made by the text itself. As in, does the grammar, tone, etc... change in these segments, thereby indicating a change at some point to the text? Considering Luke is so iron clad from beginning to end, the answer for that book is a very robust, "No".
The answer then is the above: that some were in favor and some were not.

OK but Maccoby argues that none of their internal disagreements were so great that they wanted to kill over it. Further, as a party, the Pharasees were dissenters against the Roman occupiers. Further still, if you remove the claims to deity on the basis that they were not historical, nothing Jesus claimed would have been blasphemous to the Pharisees. They would have been happy to see a messiah rise up to defet the Romans and as a matter of historical fact did so several times.

In support of this is the witness of Gamaliel in Acts chapter 5:

33 When they heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill them. 34 Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them: “Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. 36 For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. 37 After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. 38 And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; 39 but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.”

Gamaliel the Elder or Rabban Gamaliel I (רבן גמליאל הזקן; Greek: Γαμαλιήλ ο Πρεσβύτερος), was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid 1st century CE. In the Talmud, Gamaliel is described as bearing the titles Nasi and Rabban (our master), as the president of the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem; although some dispute this, it is not doubted that he held a senior position in the highest court in Jerusalem. Gamaliel holds a reputation in the Mishnah for being one of the greatest teachers in all the annals of Judaism. [Source: Wikipedia]

I do not see any logic to assigning Jesus the role of a Pharisee, however, as his philosophies are counter-cultural.
Or rather said, not exactly counter in the sense of against, but counter in the sense of a-cultural.
Jesus doesn't show any interest in being anywhere by seat, title, or other indicators that suggest an affiliation to any council.
Instead, he has many views which are in line with the Pharisees IF you are a Pharisee that lacks political ties to power seats which conflict with Jesus' movement.

I'll look into this further and get back to you.

[Jayson]

OK but Maccoby argues that none of their internal disagreements were so great that they wanted to kill over it. Further, as a party, the Pharasees were dissenters against the Roman occupiers. Further still, if you remove the claims to deity on the basis that they were not historical, nothing Jesus claimed would have been blasphemous to the Pharisees. They would have been happy to see a messiah rise up to defet the Romans and as a matter of historical fact did so several times.

Regarding this; There are two easy picks that could cause differences:
There were more than just Jesus flying around creating movements.
Some may have favored others,
But more to the point of what I tend to rest on as more likely causing higher volume of voice, some may have not favored Jesus not because of Jesus, but because of alliances in power play seats in politics - just as still done today.

Mixed into this, we have to keep in mind that even the Pharisees that did like Jesus (which would have most likely been the majority), they STILL would have riddled him with what seems to us as attempts to trick him into being wrong.

If Jesus had survived, it could have been possible that he may have eventually become a leading member of the Pharisees.
That's conjecture, but it's possible.
The reason I say that is because if the gospels are accurate, then Jesus accomplished every test they laid out in front of him.
And to boot, he surpassed them and turned their tests backwards in a test on them.
Very much like the tit-for-tat at the end of, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".

This part isn't cardinal to this understanding, but I'll throw it in as an extra:
Further, if you take the translation that I have done, then the scene where Jesus is traditionally dealing with the devil in the three temptations actually ends up with Jesus: 1) Having a deeply religious philosophical debate internally in the desert 2) and then taking himself to the courts (highest point of the temple) asking to be convicted without delay for questioning the law and only leaving when no one around could find fault in him.

This form of portrayal would be quite attractive to the Pharisees and a rather big thorn in the eye of the Sadducees.

Again, this translation is one that many would disagree with because of its deviation from the traditional translations, and as such, I'm not listing it as a critical part of the consideration.
To me, however, it is a pretty interesting moment in regards to the above considerations that we have been discussing.

[felix dakat]

On another website, someone claimed that Jesus said things and did things which imply he was God. If he wasn't God, he would never even imply them. There are many places in the Gospels where people worshiped him. He cited Matthew 14:33 and 28:9:

Mt 14:33 And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!”

Mt 28:9 And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.
Why did he not reject that worship? He himself said that we should worship only God (Mt 4:10). If he wasn't God, why did he receive the worship?

In response to this I noted that the word translated as worship is proskyneo which sometimes describes only a respectful bow to a superior not the religious worship of a deity. However, the contexts in which the word appears in Matthew do seem to warrant the translation "worship". After all, the Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the virginally conceived Son of God. The significance of Jesus as "God with us" is invoked by citing Isaiah 7:14 in chapter 1 verse 23. Jesus is worshiped in Matthew by the magi, a leper, a Canaanite woman, the mother of Zebedee's son's and the disciples as you have pointed out.

However, Mark and John say nothing about the disciples worshiping Jesus in their versions of the "walking on water "story. Luke doesn't mention the story at all.

The other three gospels all recount the "women at the tomb" story. But the others don't mention that the women worshiped Jesus. According to Luke, the women didn't see Jesus at the tomb at all.

None of the other gospels include the story of the magi. Mark tells the story of the Canaanite woman and of the leper but does not say they worshiped Jesus. The mother of the sons of Zebedee is not mentioned in the other gospels.

So it appears that Matthew may have added the detail about people worshiping Jesus to support his case that people received Jesus as "God with us" and that Jesus accepted worship as an appropriate response. It is less likely that the historical Jesus understood himself to be God.

[Jayson]

Quite.
This is where I bring up again that the opening chapters of Matthew are different than the middle in authorship style.
Matthew is quite likely a compilation over time and not a single sweeping piece of work such as Luke appears to be.
Further casting serious concerns over the opening of Matthew is, as you brought up, the magi.

No Hebrew would care one bit about Zoroastrian magi. They did not recognize them as priests of their god, nor did they hold them as any sort of authority on the matter.
In fact, to a Hebrew, such a citation would be proof that Jesus was not from their god, nor of their god, nor of the authority of their god (Hebrew).
The gifts that are cited are also an alarming list.
If for no other item on the list than Myrrh.

Myrrh? Bringing myrrh to a birth in Hebrew culture? No.
I'm sorry, but that would be like bringing a casket to the delivery room as a baby gift.

But more problematic is the frankincense.
This incense is incredible detailed and exact depending on which use was going to be applied.
The Talmud has an incredibly detailed list of applications.
While we can't determine which use was implied in this citation, what is possible is that it would be unacceptable for use if the Boswellia sacra was foreign, and no one around the Hebrew lands would have haggled to foreigners, especially Zoroastrian Magi, any amount of this incense in any form.
The reason is rather simple; there's no way these men would be allowed to be involved in any practice in which the Hebrews used the incense.
Giving it to them only presented possible threats; misuse of a sacred incense that was reserved for specifically Hebrew rituals and practices in the region.

Even if the magi were to claim that they were going to use it for their own rituals and not Hebrew, again, they would have been denied.

Even if they had compounded their own on the way, no Hebrew would have accepted it.
It would be a large disgrace to do so because the only means of using it would be in respect to the Hebrew god, and using foreigner blessed incense unto the Hebrew god was absolutely not allowed.

There is only one demographic of people that would value the opinion of a Zoroastrian magi's on Jesus:
"Magi"...is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which was – in the main – the ability to read the stars, and manipulate the fate that the stars foretold.
-Wiki

It's pretty clear from this alone why the opening of Matthew exists.
The inappropriateness of the gifts in Hebrew culture and the fact that its authorship differs from the body of Matthew just adds another nail.

It is extremely likely that the opening was added so that a Hellenistic people gave a shit about Jesus where otherwise, if you remove the opening and start around chapter 4 on (also chopping out the late 20's chapters for much the same reasons), then there is really far less provocation for a non-Hebrew Hellenistic citizen to pay attention to this account.

Or rather said another way, if Mark had been what they received...then there would be no real reason for them to pay attention.
But throw in magi, star prophecy, immaculate birthing, and you have their attention.

----

As to the worship, you are quite right.
The word does not mean worship.
And your concern about the context of its use (the people) seeming like they could suggest worship; I would assure you that they are not.
Not one single thing they do to Jesus is an act of worship in the Hebrew culture.
If they believed him to be their Hebrew god, then they would have treated him as their temple; not the temple.
The entire point of the temple in Hebrew worship was that it was the literal house of their god.
If their god was standing with them, then - firstly, they would want him to cover most likely and not allow for others to see.
Secondly, they would not have any interest or value in the temple at all. The temple would be an empty dead body.

There are no signs of this reaction anywhere in the gospels.
And at every section where divinity of Jesus is eluded to, a radical presentation of authorship changes and does so with quite Hellenistic cultural references and not so much Hebrew references.

Saying that someone is a true son of their god, also, is not claiming them to be the divine and immaculately conceived human incarnation of their god.
No more than someone today saying that someone is a true follower of Christ means that the individual is one of the literal Disciples of Jesus immaculately incarnated in the modern era.

Many point to the word, "the", being singular; you may have ran across that proposition.
Such as the example provided in Matthew 14:33

33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

The Greek:
οἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ λέγοντες, Ἀληθῶς θεοῦ υἱὸς εἶ.

Which raw is:
οἱ
this, that, these, those, etc...
Article: Nominative Plural Masculine

δὲ
and, but, moreover, etc...
Conjunction

ἐν
in, by, with, etc...
Preposition

τῷ
this, that, these, those, etc...
Article: Dative Singular Neuter

πλοίῳ
a ship, a boat, etc...
Noun: Dative Singular Neuter

προσεκύνησαν
kiss in reverence, reverent act, homage, common unto high priests, etc...
Verb: 3rd person Aorist Active Indicative Plural

αὐτῷ
him, himself, etc...
Pronoun: Dative Singular Masculine

λέγοντες
to say, to speak
Verb: Present Active Participle Nominative Plural Masculine

Ἀληθῶς
truly, of truth, certainly, etc...
Adverb

θεοῦ
generalized name for the deity class, a god or goddess
Noun: Genitive Singular Masculine

υἱὸς
a son
Noun: Nominative Singular Masculine

εἶ
to exist, to be, conceptually equal of the English, "are" and "is"
Verb: 2nd Person Present Active Indicative Singular

This would come out as something like:
Those in/by/with the boat showed reverence (to) him speaking, "Truly, of god a son you are".

The phrasing, "Of god a son you are" is because θεοῦ is a Genitive form, meaning a reference of belonging, "Of", in English accomplishes this.
Such as, "The man of Apple County."
Apple county would be Genitive, of which the man would then belong to.
Commonly, "the man", would also be genitive in Greek as it's odd to see only one word in the Greek in the genitive.
Typically, when you place something as Genitive, then all things which belong to it following (usual) or leading (less usual) to it in the sentence are also in the Genitive.

However, Nominative is basically blank. It's mostly used to highlight the subject of a sentence.
Technically, the genitive would need to be dropped off of υἱὸς to make room to announce that it is the subject: a son of god.

The point, however, is that no effort is made to single Jesus out in this passage as the only son of this god.
For instance, when Theos is used in direct meaning of "The God" specifically, it is preceded by a the article τοu (in some fashion) to state the equal of, "the".
This is how Theos is isolated as their god's psuedo-name and not just a title often in the Greek of the new testament (and other) texts.
See, for instance, Matthew 19:24:
πάλιν δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν κάμηλον διὰ τρυπήματος ῥαφίδος διελθεῖν ἢ πλούσιον εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

Here, no such practice is used.
Jesus is not singled out as an only.
He is simply outlined as a, not the, son of god.


But in this, we find that loop back to the Eastern and Hellenistic slant again.
προσεκύνησαν
"among the Orientals, especially the Persians, to fall upon the knees and touch the ground with the forehead as an expression of profound reverence"
But NOT to the Hebrews.
To the Zorestrians, and those that respected the magi of the Zorestrian way, this word could be seen as worship.

[felix dakat]

Here's a passage I find interesting from church father, Justin Martyr regarding the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus:

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Æsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Cæsar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire. [I emboldened the font of particularly significant phrases.]

[1 Apologia 21]

So Justin Martyr admits that the miraculous claims made about Jesus by Christians were no different than the claims that the Greek made for their heroes except that unlike the stories of Jesus, the Greek hero myths were demonic in origin. C.S. Lewis picked up a similar notion from J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis spoke of Christianity as the one "true myth". He wrote, "The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened." [Wikipedia]

[Jayson]

Yes, the ability to compare in such fashion has presented more problems than the early apologetics probably foresaw.
Much work, such as Martyr's, has gone on to become backbone material inspiring grand conspiracy theories of religious theft by Christianity of other religions.
I think that particular line of thought is a bit off and a gross misunderstanding of cultural anthropology, but yes; the comparison capacity in reflection is at the least provoking to look twice at the texts themselves as well as the purported cultures which they are traditionally attributed.

[felix dakat]

Yes, the ability to compare in such fashion has presented more problems than the early apologetics probably foresaw.
Much work, such as Martyr's, has gone on to become backbone material inspiring grand conspiracy theories of religious theft by Christianity of other religions.
I think that particular line of thought is a bit off and a gross misunderstanding of cultural anthropology, but yes; the comparison capacity in reflection is at the least provoking to look twice at the texts themselves as well as the purported cultures which they are traditionally attributed.

So the historical Jesus is received into a mythology which understands the gods of other religious not to be non-existent fictions but rather to be wicked spiritual entities i.e. demons or what Paul calls "principalities and powers".

[Jayson]

Are you asking if Jesus was accepted into Hellenistic cultures which then eventually saw previous religious mythologies of their cultures as not fake, but of demon (using their understanding of that word and not Medieval understanding) inspirations?

[felix dakat]

Are you asking if Jesus was accepted into Hellenistic cultures which then eventually saw previous religious mythologies of their cultures as not fake, but of demon (using their understanding of that word and not Medieval understanding) inspirations?

Yes that was what I was suggesting. That's what Justin Martyr is saying. But here's a question: Did the demons invent lying stories about virgin births or did the virgin births actually occur? Justin seems to be saying that the demons were lying.

But Genesis 6 says 1 Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
3 And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.

Unless that passage from Genesis is what I suppose C.S. Lewis would call an "untrue myth", Justin was mistaken, the daughters of men did bare the children to the sons of God according to Genesis.

[Jayson]

I'm confused. Did you switch to a theological discussion?
Because I don'tthink I would respond in the way you seem to be looking for here...I would bring up the origin of the Hebrew culture and how that is reflected in genesis.

[felix dakat]

I'm confused. Did you switch to a theological discussion?
Because I don'tthink I would respond in the way you seem to be looking for here...I would bring up the origin of the Hebrew culture and how that is reflected in genesis.

Not really. In this case don't we have a parallel of both Hebrew culture and Christian culture reading the gods of other cultures as fallen angelic or demonic beings? And yet, the heroes were god-men and a way similar to how jesus came to be seen.

[Jayson]

You are aware of the levant highland familial religion diversity which transferred in time into the eventual body of the Hebrew peoples united religion right?

[felix dakat]

You are aware of the levant highland familial religion diversity which transferred in time into the eventual body of the Hebrew peoples united religion right?

The Hebrew Bible tells the story of the Israelites coming from outside, besieging the Canaanite cities, destroying them and then becoming a nation in the land of Canaan, whereas I have read that archaeology has found evidence for something which is the opposite. According to archaeology, the rise of early Israel is an outcome of the collapse of Canaanite society, not the reason for that collapse. The Israelites were themselves originally Canaanites. The Bible consistently cast the Israelites as outsiders in Canaan because the Israelites did not like the Canaanite system, and they defined themselves in contrast to that system. However, even hundreds of years after the Israelites rise from their Canaanite pagan roots, monotheism has still not completely taken hold. The Bible admits the Israelites continued to worship Asherah and other Canaanite gods, such as Baal. In fact, the prophets consistently railed against breaking the covenant made with Moses to worship only Yahweh.

[Jayson]

More or less, but to the matter at hand is this, which you may like reading:
Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Vol 7) - K. van der Toorn
Chapter starting at Page 183.

Basically, my point in highlighting this section in regards to Genesis is that what you are looking at in that, often theologically dodged, section of Genesis is a remnant from when the Hebrew peoples were rather more mixed in their belief systems and some carried in them a variety of pantheon markups - to include proper Bronze Age deity familial lineage accounting.
One of these such uses is the use of where life comes from and how it all got here.

It is also interestingly telling that in this same section you have a citation which counters modern theological interpritation of the afterlife in Christianity and most of mainstream Rabbinic Judaism:

“My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh"

More or less...crude raw (not taking time to weed through the vowel mark conjugations) is something along the lines of:
The existing one spoke, "not judge-strive-endeavor breath-spirit man for long for he flesh is"

Either way, the concept here is not simply that man is mortal, but more to my tangent here, it also highlights the early concept of many of the Hebrew peoples lacking afterlife concepts in their descriptions, and also that many Hebrew peoples concept of their god (which should not be confused as "who" this god came to be later in unification) as the force of life in them equal to both existing and judging at once.
Without an identity on it, it would be like stating that your endeavoring breath judges when you no longer live and can because it is in you and all through you entirely.
With the identity of it being their personified (to some degree at the least) god, this group of Hebrew peoples saw it as at once their god and their life-force, of which the interaction with either is limited.

This is a different tangent than later applications, and it is at odds with the later dogmatic organization of the Hebrew peoples belief system in the late BCE and later Rabbinic eras.

And I bring all of that up because I'm not sure I really see a fair comparison between Justin and this as this is a select leftover from a portion of the very early Hebrew peoples familial religions in which larger traditional Bronze Age pantheon constructs were common among them.
The discussion of the gods' sons giving life into women isn't something which really compares to Justin, I wouldn't say, because Justin isn't trying to answer where people began and how in a Bronze Age style.

He is instead trying to outwit an opponent to his position (Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius) by pointing out that his opposition has more in common with 'traditional' beliefs (at the time) than they (the court) may wish to admit and therefore that their resistance of Christianity is quite applicable unto their own in reverse.
And that's why I wrote that it actually hinders his belief's independent development validity in the long run as it openly shows how easily it is to see the cultural crossing point between what was a Levant messianic following into the megalithic divinity worship that Christianity became by his time.
Of course, Justin wasn't interested in trying to make a claim of independence (though he probably would) as he was a bit too tied up trying prove reason for acceptance.

[felix dakat]

In the first place, I am simply making the factual observation that these texts: the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, Justin Martyr and Genesis 6 all recount stories of virgin [i.e. in the absence of human father] births of sons of god. If you agree that is the case, we can consider the implications.

[Jayson]

Sure. I'm just not sure how each is exactly comparable to another yet...specifically though, how Genesis is comparable.
But I'll see where you are going with that I suppose.

[felix dakat]

Like many of the heroes, Jesus was said to be son of God born of a virgin. The title son of god did not necessary mean divine genealogy in either the Jewish or the Greek worlds. Justin says in 1 Apologia 22" now if god's son who is called Jesus were only an ordinary man he would be worthy because of his wisdom to be called son of god for all authors call God father of humans and gods." Jesus says something similar in John 10:34-36.The Jews debated about the genealogy of the Messiah. Christians quoted Isaiah 7:14 as prophesy of virgin birth but the interpretation was disputed. But there was no denial of virgin birth in the general culture. Heroes were born of virgin humans as partners of divine fathers and mothers. I think that is what is going on in Genesis 6 too.

B'nai Elohim in Genesis 6:2, usually translated "sons of God" is a term that refers to angels. It occurs four times in the Old Testament and is rendered "Angels of God" in the ancient Septuagint translation. The intrusion of certain angels into the human species resulted in unnatural offspring termed Nephilim, which derives from the Hebrew naphal (to fall), or the Fallen Ones. The Greek Septuagint renders this term gigantes, which actually means "earth-born." This is often misunderstood to mean "giants"---which they also happen to have been, incidentally. Genesis 6 indicates that the "sons of God" (B'nai Elohim) took wives of the "daughters of men," which gave birth to the "Nephilim." The early church viewed the B'nai Elohim as angels up through the late fourth century: Justin, Athenagoras, Cyprian, Eusebius, et al. (also Josephus, Philo, Judeaus, and the Apocrypha regard this view).

2 Peter 2:4-5 refers to this mythology: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly..."

Jude 6 also refers to it;
"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."

The prediluvian age of Genesis corresponds with the golden age of Greek and Persian mythology. The Greek heroes were sons of Zeus who correspond to the heroes of Persian mythology and are referred to in Genesis as the Nephilim. Justin appeals to the familiarity which the emperor would have had to the divinely born heroes of mythology in order to legitimate the putative divine origin of Jesus. The early Christians considered the gods of foreign mythologies to be fallen angels and their heroic offspring to be demons. During the golden age they inhabited the world as physical god-men. After their destruction they became disembodied spirits who could influence and/or possess people. You still see this kind of thinking in the supernaturalism in some Christian sects today. For example, Dr. C. Peter Wagner of the New Apostolic Reformation said recently:

"Japan, as a nation, is one of the nations of the world which has consciously, openly invited national demonization. The sun goddess visits him in person and has sexual intercourse with the emperor. It's a very, very powerful thing. So the emperor becomes one flesh with the sun goddess, and that's an invitation for the sun goddess to continue to demonize the whole nation. Since the night that that - that the present emperor slept with the sun goddess, the stock market in Japan has gone down. It's never come up since."

Now that example may be extreme, but there is a background understanding of a dualistic conflict between God and the devil to much of conservative Christianity that lends it self to this kind of thinking. So there is some continuity in current Christian supernaturalism with these Biblical ideas.

But a big question as far as the subject of this thread is concerned, is whether or not this kind of thinking is representative of the historical Jesus or whether it was something that was introduced later and superimposed on the story of Jesus. what was Jesus' understanding of himself? Did he think he was "born of a virgin?" Did he think that the world was controlled by disembodied spirits that had been god-men of another age?

I don't think there is any NT record that Jesus claimed to have been divinely conceived. From his conflicted relations with his family it doesn't appear that they considered him divinely conceived. Paul never mentions the virgin birth. The gospels of Mark and John seem unaware of the virgin birth stories as well.