Interesting: we mentioned this before. It seems pretty clear to me that to establish what Christian and Jewish means, one has to reason backwards, as that wasn't even clear at the time. (Not surprising, as Christianity started out as a Jewish sect.) But to remain on the case: the doctrine of the Holy Trinity - an important aspect of which was the deification of Jesus, which started rather early - developed into a key aspect of Christianity, whereas it is absent in Judaism. You mentioned Enoch, but he is not identical to God. (One might also mention the archangels, which are close to God in both religions.)
The doctrine of the Trinity is certainly important in Christianity and absent in Judaism
today. But what has that got to do with anything? I asked why,
in antiquity, someone couldn't believe in the Trinity and yet count as Jewish, and you haven't answered that.
Also, I've told you repeatedly that the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus - although historically linked, in that they developed roughly at the same time - are quite distinct. People can and do believe in the Trinity without believing in the divinity of Jesus (e.g. the more extreme Nestorians) and people can and do believe in the divinity of Jesus without believing in the Trinity (e.g. unitarians).
Now certainly the orthodox doctrine of Jesus' divinity differs from the earlier Jewish beliefs about figures such as Enoch, Metatron, and other angelic figures. But I think you will find it hard to find that orthodox doctrine of Jesus' divinity in the first century or indeed for most of the second. So you can't make it some kind of shibboleth to distinguish between Christianity and Judaism during that period.
Er, the fact that it's true. Nothing you said there supports the claim that Paul and the Jerusalem apostles disagreed over whether to preach to gentiles. It only supports the claim that they disagreed over what to do with the gentiles once they'd been preached to!
First, Paul was one of those converts and (possibly, as their spokesperson) argued against such observances of Jewish law.
Erm. You think Paul was a
gentile? Have you read the New Testament, including those parts of it written by Paul?
Galatians 1:13-14 said:
You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.
2 Corinthians 11:21-22 said:
But whatever anyone dares to boast of - I am speaking as a fool - I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.
Philippians 3:4-6 said:
if anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Romans 9:1-5 said:
I am speaking the truth in Christ - I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit - I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
Not only was Paul Jewish, he was an extremely zealous Pharisee; and not only that, he remained obviously proud of the fact for the rest of his life. He was certainly no gentile! You are right to say that Paul argued that the law, including circumcision, should not be binding upon gentile converts to Christianity. But he did not argue that out of some kind of anti-Jewish sentiment or view that the law was unimportant, as the last-quoted passage should make clear. It was because he believed that, if salvation comes through Christ, it cannot come through anything else - even the law. Paul's struggle to understand, given this, what purpose God could have had in giving the law is one of the most convoluted and disputed areas of his thought, and he comes to different conclusions in Galatians and Romans. But he consistently holds that if someone follows the law
thinking that this is essential to salvation, they are not only wrong but damning themselves, because salvation comes through Christ alone:
Romans 10:1-13 said:
Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them [the Jews] is that they may be saved. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that "the person who does these things will live by them." But the righteousness that comes from faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say?
"The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart."
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
That is why Paul opposed those who thought circumcision necessary for gentile converts: such an action would amount to the claim that Christ was not sufficient for salvation. It wasn't anything to do with opposition to Jewish practices per se. In fact it is generally thought that Paul probably continued to observe the Jewish law himself for his entire life. He had no problem with people observing the law, just as he had no problem, in principle, with people either eating or refusing to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. What he objected to was people thinking that you
had to observe the law (or
had to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols). So he didn't "argue against such observances" at all - it was more subtle than that.
Second, he got permission to preach his variety of Christianity among the gentiles for the simple fee of paying for the Jerusalem-based disciples - and, as it turned out, his way won out, becoming the predominant variety of Christianity in the world today.
Do you think early Christianity was like Starbucks, a sort of franchise where missionaries paid a fee in order to be allowed to use the brand name? No! The collection for Jerusalem was not a "fee"! It represented the unity and solidarity of the church. It was collected for poverty-stricken Christians, not to line the pockets of Peter and James (Rom. 15:26). Paul describes it as a collection for "the poor" (Gal. 2:10) and indeed it seems that considerable sections of the Jerusalem church at this time were extremely poverty-stricken, for reasons that are not well understood. Once again, Paul's understanding of the collection has been interpreted in many different ways; I found an interesting article on this
here. But to call it a "fee" that he paid for the right to preach to gentiles is a gross caricature.
I'm sorry, but this is just flawed reasoning: as mentioned above, there were two main streams in early Christianity; the one willing to observe Jewish law and the other, more lenient one. Obviously, the latter won out. So, while in the early communities it may be unclear whether there were more Jews or more Christians - and may I remind you of saying that these terms were pretty interchangeable at the time -, it wasn't long before there were more (gentile) Christians than Jews.
If you think my reasoning is flawed you should point out where the flaw is. In fact it's your own reasoning that's flawed. You say that there were two streams in Christianity - those who observed the law and those who didn't. Well, that's an over-simplification for a start. What about those who observed the law but didn't think it necessary - like Paul himself? So perhaps we should say instead that the streams were those who
required that people observe the law and those who did not. You then point out, rightly, that the latter became dominant and won out. You conclude that this meant that gentiles outnumbered Jews.
But that supposes that the Christians who required observance of the law were Jewish, and those who did not require it were gentiles. But why think that? Remember, Paul was Jewish, but he did not require people to observe the law. Moreover, it is quite likely that many of the "Judaisers", who required law observance, were not Jewish at all. They were gentile converts to Christianity who learned about Judaism and the law, and who thought that it was necessary to follow the law. We can attribute their desire to get circumcised to the zeal of the convert, not to the inflexibility of the conservative. If you read Galatians you will see that Paul
informs his readers about how the law works:
Galatians 5:3 said:
Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.
Wouldn't a Jew know that already? It seems that Paul is here speaking to gentiles who have become enthusiastic about Jewish customs and who want to become circumcised - not to Jews who are insisting that gentiles must become circumcised. He is telling them that if they think circumcision is necessary, then they must think the entire law is necessary; but that view would be inconsistent with the Christian faith:
Galatians 5:6 said:
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
Obviously Paul's arguments (or at least, the arguments of people like Paul - I don't know any good reason to suppose that Paul changed things single-handedly) won the day, and most Christians came to think that the law was not obligatory for Christians. But why that should be regarded as a triumph of gentile Christianity over Jewish Christianity, I can't imagine. To reach that conclusion you would need to show that the "law is obligatory" party were all Jews and the "law is optional" party were all gentiles. But we know that that is false right from the start, since Paul represented the latter party, but he was Jewish.
While your hypothesizing is interesting in itself, it doesn't confirm to historical development: by the early 4th century Christianity had become the dominant religion of the Roman empire, while Judaism remained the minority it always had been.
Again, no. First, that argument
presupposes that Christians weren't Jewish. Someone who thought that all Christians were Jewish would simply retort that Judaism did not remain such a minority, since there were so many Christians, who were all Jewish. You need to show that Jews and Christians were distinct.
And I would remind you that even as late as
the sixth century there were people who regarded Christianity as intrinsically Jewish. Take 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, 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, for them, usually restricted to Marcionites.
Also, I'm afraid that your premise about the numbers of Christians in the empire is quite wrong too. We do not know the numbers of Christians at any given time, but a probable estimate is that by the time of the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century, roughly 10% of the inhabitants of the Roman empire were Christian. By the end of the fourth century, perhaps half were Christian. So Christianity remained the preserve of a small minority in the empire until the time of imperial patronage - only then did the church's numbers swell significantly. That again is quite consistent with the supposition that Christianity remained largely Jewish until that time.
Why indeed? I did not say that. What I meant (and it seemed clear to me) is that since Jesus Christianity has accepted him as the Messiah, whereas Judaism has not - just as Islam does not, but does accept Jesus as a prophet. I am sorry if I've led you to believe otherwise.
That still doesn't address the basic point: how do you know that Judaism has not? How do you know that in the first century, or the second, or even the third or fourth, someone could not believe that Jesus was the Messiah while still counting as Jewish? As I keep on repeatedly asking you, how do you
know?
Where are you getting these definitions from?
Indeed. But it seems rather consistent with the separation testified at the 'Apostolic council' that Paul's letters circulated among his own followers (as his interpretation of Christianity varied in more significant ways from Judeo-Christianity than simple circumcision questions, as I'm sure you are aware) and the disciple-based gospels in others.
Did Paul's understanding of Christianity differ significantly from that of "Judeo-Christianity" (whatever
that means, and how Paul doesn't count as "Judeo-Christian" himself I don't know)? You've done this before: refer to some highly controversial claim of nineteenth-century theologians as if it's some established fact and assume that I must agree with it. Well, I'm afraid that that is a very controversial claim nowadays. I've said here before that I think that the differences between Paul's theology and that of other early Christian theologians and even Jesus himself are probably overblown. There are certainly differences of emphases, and even a few contradictions, but I see no really fundamental differences between Paul and other early Christian sources.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "the disciple-based gospels", given that, as you've said yourself, the Gospels weren't written by any disciples (or at least we have no good reason for supposing that they were, and pretty good reasons for supposing that at least some of them were not).
I don't see how that relates to what we were discussing.
It is relevant because your sole argument for the claim that the author of the Fourth Gospel had read (some of) the Synoptics was that the Synoptics were written earlier, and so he must have read them. I pointed out that this does not follow, because Paul's letters were written earlier than
all of the Gospels, yet none of the authors of the Gospels shows any signs of having read them. So that indicates that just because a text was written earlier - even decades earlier - that doesn't mean that all Christians would be familiar with it. And that means that you can't assume that the author of one Gospel would have read any of the others just because they were written earlier.
And I note again that now you seem to have acknowledged that my claim isn't so unusual at all.
I said no such thing. You made two claims. The first was that the author of the Fourth Gospel based it on Mark's Gospel. The second was that the author of the Fourth Gospel had read the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In response to the first claim, I said that that is disputed. In response to the second claim, I said that that is a very unusual claim and one that I have never seen before. Both claims therefore require some kind of evidence to back them up (especially the second). Nothing I have said since contradicts that. I continue to maintain that the supposition of Johannine reliance upon Mark is controversial, and that the supposition of Johannine reliance upon Matthew and Luke is very unusual. And you continue to give no reason to suppose that either supposition is true.
If "in practice there may not be much difference" - which is what I presumed, that it is a matter of nuance - why make such a big issue of it? If you feel allegory and typology are mutually exclusive, so be it; I don't agree. Let's just leave it at that, shall we ?
It's not a matter of "nuance" - it's a matter of genre and of theoretical underpinning. To the pious reader, it may make no difference whether the text is to be interpreted allegorically or typologically, given that the practical or spiritual message will remain the same; but that doesn't mean that allegory and typology are the same thing. However, it seems we will indeed have to leave it at that. If you choose to apply your own meanings to words, then that is your prerogative, but you will have to be aware that people will disagree with you as a result.