I read several chapters of Dialogue with Trypho & intend to read it all. It's very interesting. I expected to see a nasty argument, but it reads more like two old friends having a philosophical discussion. Nobody's getting stomped. It's a bit amusing to me that I find myself agreeing more with the arguments of Trypho. I've had similar discussions with Christian friends throughout my life so that work seems timeless.
Yes, it's an interesting book from that point of view (although a very dull one from another point of view!). Justin does seem to have been a very open-minded and agreeable sort of person - he's probably most famous for his belief that because Christ is the divine Logos (Reason), anyone who leads a rational life is really following Christ, which means that philosophers and others who lived before Christ would be saved. The character of Trypho is unknown except from this book, so it is uncertain whether he was a real person or not, but it is very likely that Justin's
Dialogue was based on real discussions he had with Jews. There is good evidence that at least some Christians and Jews were on friendly terms at least until the end of the fourth century. But it is uncertain how typical this was.
It sends a chill up my spine to read the chapter titles of Barnabas which are also on that page. If Judaism & Christianity had had the same relationship as Trypho & Justin throught the centuries, allot less blood would have been spilled.
Yes, the letter of Barnabas (which was probably written shortly before Justin Martyr was writing) isn't quite so friendly, to say the least. It certainly goes beyond anything you'll find in the New Testament. The letter to the Hebrews, for example, argues that Christians have inherited the promises made to the Jews, and that Christ fulfils the promise of the Law, so Judaism is now superseded. But Barnabas goes much further by arguing that the Judaism was
never legitimate in the first place and that God's promises were
always applied to the Christians. The letter of Barnabas was quite popular in the early church - more so than the letter to the Hebrews in most places - but fortunately it never made it into the canon.
That site is certainly not objective, but it holds allot of interesting information. Bookmarked.
It's an incredibly useful site. The Library of the Fathers was a major series of editions from the nineteenth century, which you'll find in any decent theology library, and to have them all online is very useful. Many of these texts have still not been translated into English in any other edition. The translations are generally reliable although somewhat archaic in their tone. You're right that the editorial matter is not objective. The translations were made as part of the revival of patristic scholarship in the Church of England in the nineteenth century, which itself was part of the theological and liturgical movement in a Catholic direction. In fact some of the translations are based upon Newman's. So the editorial matter is
very nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholic, and they try to present the authors as Anglo-Catholics. They are particularly keen to attack Roman Catholic interpretations of the authors - it is quite funny to read the footnotes to those passages (eg in Cyprian) which seem to teach the primacy of Rome, something the editors try to spin as actually teaching something else entirely. So the chapter headings (which are editorial) are not always reliable, and the opinions in the introductions are not either. However, the purely historical information is generally reliable and the editorial material does give you a good idea of what it's all about.
It seems that the Pharisees' opinion won out. Some of our practices today are based on the belief that the messiah will raise the dead. It can be seen on the news when there's a street bombing in Israel. Ultra-religious Jews can be seen in the background mopping up blood & bady parts with towels. They're not trying to clean the street & sidewalks. It's because they want to be sure the fluids & parts get properly buried with the bodies so that the bodies will be resurrected as whole as possible when the messiah comes.
That's interesting - I didn't know that. You're right, though, that the Pharisaic view won out. As I'm sure you know, the Great Bet Din at Jamnia in the late first century AD was dominated by Pharisees (indeed it was set up by one of the most prominent Pharisees, Johanan ben Zakkai). It was the Great Bet Din that basically founded rabbinic Judaism, which would go on to dominate Judaism in late antiquity and become the ancestor of modern Judaism. So by the Middle Ages, the notion of the resurrection of the dead would be regarded as an essential Jewish doctrine; it's among Maimonides' 13 fundamental principles of Judaism.
It's also interesting to me how differently the history of 2nd Temple period is taught. Rabbis & Jewish professors almost never mention the various sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, etc.) instead focusing on things like the relationship with Rome, the Temple's role & Herod's massive building projects. Christian & secular professors seem to focus on the sects, their philosophies & the differences between them. Maybe it's just me, but that always seems to be the case.
I think that non-Jewish scholars do talk about the Temple and the other things you mentioned. There has certainly been rapprochement between Christian and Jewish scholars since the 1960s, which has fuelled new interpretations of early Christianity (basically, Christian scholars have realised that the portrayal of early Judaism in traditional Christianity was ridiculous). I suppose Christian and secular scholars focus on the sects because they are of particular interest to the study of the historical Jesus: which sects was he most closely related to? Also, of course, Paul was a Pharisee so they are important from that point of view too.
Understood. The 1st generation or two of Christians were almost certainly Jews. When Christianity spread to Greeks, Romans & others, that, of course, ceased to be the case. At some point, the two set off down distinctly different theological paths. I can't say exactly when that occurred, but Christianity hasn't been a sect of Judaism for a long, long time.
You might be surprised. Don't forget that it was perfectly possible to be Greek or Roman and also Jewish. In the past, scholars often thought in terms of binary opposites: Hellenistic
or Jewish; Jerusalem (Jewish)
or empire (non-Jewish); and so on. But in fact things were much more complex. As I said before, some scholars think that Christianity remained very Jewish for centuries. Apart from the evidence of friendly relations between the two religions mentioned above, for example, there is evidence that Christians (at least many of them) continued to observe Jewish dietary regulations for centuries.
One Jewish text from third-century Palestine tells of the first-century Pharisee Rabbi Eliezer, who was mistaken for a Christian and arrested. He assures the judge of his loyalty to the emperor and is released. Afterwards, the rabbi recalls that he had been listening cheerfully to a Christian in the marketplace, and this must have been the reason why he himself was mistaken for a Christians. Perhaps third-century Palestinian Jews often mixed with Christians in this way.
Some Christian sources hint at an even closer relationship between Judaism and Christianity. A particularly interesting one is the sixth-century Syriac life of Mar Abba, one of the leaders of the Persian church in that period. One passage recounts a meeting between Mar Abba (at that time a pagan) and a man who claimed to be both Jewish and Christian. Mar Abba asked him how this was possible, and the man replied:
I am a Jew secretly; I pray to the living God, and I am faithful to his son Jesusmessiah and the Holy Spirit. And I run away from idol worship and all filth. I am a Christian truly, not like the Marcionites, who defraud and call themselves Christians. For Christian is a Greek word. And the interpretation of "Christian" in Syriac is Marcionite. And [therefore] with respect to that which you have asked me: "Do you worship the Messiah?," I worship him truly.
So even as late as the sixth century AD, in the border regions between the Roman and Persian empires, there were people who regarded Christianity and Judaism as basically the same religion; who worshipped Jesus but identified themselves as Jews because the very word "Christian" was usually restricted to Marcionites (Christians who tried to purge the religion of all Jewish elements).
These examples come from Boyarin, D.
Dying for God: martyrdom and the making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1999) which is well worth having a look at. Stark, R.
The rise of Christianity: a sociologist reconsiders history (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1996) also has some very interesting ideas in it.
But examples such as these lead some scholars to argue that we shouldn't think of "Christianity" and "Judaism" in the first few centuries AD at all; rather, we should think of a spectrum, with "Christianity" at one end and "Judaism" at the other but many positions in the middle as well. What we think of as "Judaism", namely rabbinic Judaism, took time to emerge from this complex muddle, just as what we think of Christianity did too.
Cool! Please let us know if it hits the bookshelves in the U.S.
Of course - it might be a while yet though, as I only just finished the first draft. It'll be called
The crucible of Christianity.
I 1st met Ethiopian Jews when I spent the summer of 1989 in Israel-just a couple of years after that article was written. Their integration into modern society was still a work in progress. Most of the men seemed to be employed as security guards for tourist groups & places commonly targetted in terrorist attacks (malls, markets, grocery stores, night clubs, etc.). They were supplementing their income by buying hard-to-find items from tourists & reselling them to Israelis. I sold a well-used pair of Levi's jeans to an Ethiopian for twice what I paid for it in the U.S. & he was happy that he was getting such a great deal.
There was some racism going on, but, overall, the Israelis were very excited & proud of their return & trying to help them integrate-kinda like their reaction when boatloads of Holocaust refugees were arriving.
That article brought back allot of memories-most happy, some sad.
That is very interesting. There have apparently been many tensions between the Ethiopian Jews and the Israelis. There was a bit of a scandal when it turned out that blood banks had been throwing out blood donated by Ethiopians, on the grounds that it wasn't as good as proper Israeli blood. There was a big outrage when that was discovered. Beta Israel do seem, in many ways, to be one of the most unfortunate groups of people in history; after centuries of persecution in their own country they finally made it to Israel but found that things weren't quite as rosy as they'd hoped.
Based off what it known of Jesus's teachings what Christian sect would you say most closely follows what he thought should be believed, Or do Christian religions not follow his ideas well at all?
That's hard to answer. Jesus' main message seems to have been that the end of the world was coming soon, so it's rather hard for anyone today to agree with that. So I'm not sure that any mainstream church really follows his ideas closely.
Also based on your study how likely are the events shown by people like Michael Baigent in books like "Holy Blood Holy Grail" and "The Jesus Papers"? Are they very likely, possible, complete bs?
They are absolute rubbish.
Plotinus: Whats your favorite solution to the problem of the trinity?
It's funny you should ask that as I have just finished the first draft of an article suggesting a new solution to precisely that problem. I have always thought that Gregory of Nyssa's approach was the most promising, as set out
here and
here (the former of these texts is presented here as a letter by Basil of Caesarea
to Gregory, but in fact Gregory wrote it). This is a form of social Trinitarianism. As I'm sure you know, it's usual to distinguish between social Trinitarianism - which begins with the three persons and then tries to explain how they are one God - and Latin Trinitarianism - which begins with the one God and then tries to explain how he is three persons. I've always thought that social Trinitarianism was superior. Although Brian Leftow wrote a famous article a couple of years ago called "Anti-social Trinitarianism" (in Davis, S., Kendall, D., and O’Collins, G., eds.
The Trinity Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999) which in my opinion gives a very powerful set of arguments against this position. And Leftow's other paper "A Latin Trinity" (in
Faith and philosophy vol. 21 2004) gives a very clever version of Latin Trinitarianism, based on time travel. So now I'm not so sure!
). Over there is a Jew asking people to try hallucinogens to open their minds (Ginsburg). Over there is a Jew exploring the human psyche (Freud). Over there is a Jew singing badly about civil rights (Dylan)... When it relates a story about a man hacking through the jungle to introduce people to G-d, I'd read: Over there is a Christian.
