When Does Christianity Begin? Prof. Paula Fredrikson

Summary

Professor Paula Fredrickson, speaking in Jerusalem, delves into the complex question of when Christianity began. Her lecture touches on the blurred lines between early Christianity and Judaism, highlighting David Flusser's 1983 article as a pivotal point of reference. Fredrickson critically examines the interplay of identity, cultural origins, and theological differences that characterized the nascent stages of Christianity. Through an engaging narrative, she explores various historical and religious perspectives, ultimately suggesting that Christianity's separation from Judaism may not have been clear-cut or timely.

Highlights

• Professor Paula Fredrickson addressed a Jerusalem audience, discussing the historical conundrum of Christianity's beginnings. 🎤
• The lecture was rooted in David Flusser's 1983 article about the Jewish-Christian schism. 📖
• Fredrickson challenged the perception of an early, clear division between Judaism and Christianity. 🧐
• She critiqued the notion that Jesus intentionally founded a new religion, suggesting he and his followers had an apocalyptic expectation instead. 🌟
• The dynamics of Jewish and Gentile interactions in the early Christian era were explored. 🤝
• Fredrickson discussed issues like ancient Jewish monotheism versus 'mega-theism.' 🔍
• Audience participation emphasized the complex interplay of identity and religious practice in shaping Christianity. 💬

Key Takeaways

• Christianity's origins are intertwined with Judaism, making it complex to pinpoint its exact beginning. 🤔
• David Flusser's work from 1983 remains influential in discussions about Christian origins. 📚
• Cultural identity plays a crucial role in defining religious beginnings and separations. 🧠
• Professor Fredrickson emphasizes that theological and community interactions were vital in early Christian history. 🔍
• The transition from Jewish practices to distinct Christian identity was not immediate or obvious. ⏳
• Issues like monotheism and the role of other gods in early beliefs were contentious. ⚔️
• Professor Fredrickson's discourse encourages us to view religious history as fluid and intertwined rather than separate. 🌊

Overview

Professor Paula Fredrickson captivated her audience with a deep dive into the historical intricacies surrounding the birth of Christianity. Her discourse centered around the pivotal question: when does Christianity truly begin? The lecture navigated through the hazy boundaries separating early Christianity from Judaism, offering a scholarly yet engaging exploration of this significant religious transition.

Throughout her lecture, Fredrickson invoked David Flusser's seminal 1983 article, which has long influenced the debate on Christian origins. She adeptly deconstructed Flusser's ideas, questioning the premises and underlining the cultural and theological fluidity that distinguished early Christian communities. By highlighting moments of identity shaping and transformation, she urged the audience to appreciate the complexity of early Christian distinctions.

Fredrickson's presentation brimmed with historical anecdotes and religious analysis, from exploring the divine sonship concept to dissecting early Christian interactions with synagogues and Gentile converts. Her narrative richly illustrated how the supposed Jewish-Christian schism wasn’t a straightforward event but a gradual and culturally charged process.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Reflection on Previous Experience The speaker addresses an audience in Jerusalem, expressing some nervousness. They reflect on a previous speaking experience at the McDonough Museum in the 1990s, where they discussed Paul's letters and took audience questions, one of which was delivered in a notably dramatic accent.
• 00:31 - 03:00: Discussion on David Flusser's Article The chapter discusses a lecture involving Professor Fredrickson, where a significant moment occurs involving a quote from Josephus. During the lecture, a complex paragraph in Greek is brought up, highlighting a common anxiety among graduate students faced with such challenges. Professor Fredrickson provides the students with a Greek handout in anticipation of similar questions, like one hypothetical regarding a quote from Paul.
• 03:01 - 06:00: Cultural Origins of Christianity This chapter titled 'Cultural Origins of Christianity' delves into the initial schism within Christianity, beginning with discussions originally published in 1983. These discussions were republished in a comprehensive anthology. The chapter provides a framework to understand the pagination of the anthology and bases further remarks on statements made throughout these discussions. It examines the historical and cultural contexts that led to the divisions within Christianity, offering a deep analysis of the factors that contributed to the schism.
• 06:01 - 07:00: Flusser's Perspective on Early Christianity In this chapter titled 'Flusser's Perspective on Early Christianity,' the author references their articles available on Academia.edu to provide primary sources for their discussion points. Rather than overwhelming the audience with these references, they have been made accessible via footnotes for those interested in further study. The chapter sets out to explore the initial stages of cultural phenomena, specifically in the context of early Christianity. Although the exact transcript of the lecture or discussion appears incomplete, it emphasizes a scholarly approach to examining the roots and cultural significance of early Christianity.
• 07:01 - 12:00: Concept of Monotheism and Jewish Identity The chapter discusses the development of Christian identity in relation to Jewishness. It explores when Christianity, which originated as a form of Jewishness, began to distinguish itself as a separate religion. The analysis is based on the framework provided by Felissa in her article, complemented by insights from Steve Weitzman's recent book.
• 12:01 - 19:30: Issues of Synagogues and Pagan-Jewish Relations This chapter explores the origins of Jewish communities and their implications for identity. The discussion references a book from Princeton Press and David Flusters' 1983 essay on Christian origins. It suggests that understanding cultural origins is closely tied to questions of identity.
• 19:31 - 27:00: Struggle for Orthodoxy in Early Christianity The chapter discusses the early struggle for orthodoxy within Christianity, focusing on a distinct period between Jesus's death and Paul's conversion. It highlights an emerging Christology during this time, characterized by distinctions that contribute to the development of doctrinal identity in early Christian communities. A key figure identifies a three-year phase as foundational for understanding the differentiation within the faith.
• 27:01 - 30:30: Debate on Early Christian Identity This chapter explores the debate on early Christian identity, focusing on the distinction between different types of Jewishness. It questions whether the perceived clarity in these distinctions is influenced by individual perspectives on personal identity. The chapter invites reflections from those who personally knew a key figure involved in this discourse, suggesting that personal clarity on Jewish definitions may impact broader understanding of Jewish identity.
• 30:31 - 39:00: Challenges in Defining Christianity's Beginnings The chapter explores the challenges in defining the beginnings of Christianity, focusing on the concept of Christology and its reception among Jews. It discusses how the notion of God's oneness was central to Jewish belief, making the idea of Christ's superhuman nature and cosmic task problematic and unacceptable for the majority of Jews, despite many of the New Testament authors being Jewish themselves. The chapter highlights the disharmony between Jewish beliefs and the early Christian narratives.
• 39:01 - 47:00: Discussion on Eschatology and Religious Identity The chapter begins by acknowledging the belief in a singular God, but hints at complicating this notion through further remarks. The focus is on discussing the origins of Christianity, following the perspective of Flusser. However, the author chooses to set aside the specific beginnings of Christianity, opting instead to delve into four distinct issues highlighted by Flusser regarding Christian origins.
• 47:01 - 60:00: Comments and Questions from Audience This chapter discusses four interconnected historical issues related to religious eschatology. The primary focus is on what is termed the 'meta historical Christological cosmic drama,' referring to the anticipated events surrounding the parousia or the second coming of Christ. This concept includes key eschatological events such as the overcoming of evil and the resurrection of the dead, which are traditionally associated with apocalyptic hopes. The chapter raises questions about the meaning and implications of these eschatological beliefs.

When Does Christianity Begin? Prof. Paula Fredrikson Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I address a Jerusalem audience in the afternoon with some trepidation I did so once in the 1990s from the McDonough the museum talked about Paul's letters said this and said that and then took questions and the first question I got was from somebody who had still a slightly dramatically inflected accent
• 00:30 - 01:00 in English and he said but Professor Fredrickson what about when Josephus says and then out came this block paragraph of Greek it was like in a graduate student anxiety dream but this is why you have a Greek handout here just in case any of you were gonna say but Professor Fredrickson what about when Paul says I'm armed and ready this time when does Christianity begin this is the the question that is addressed in David flossers article the Jewish
• 01:00 - 01:30 Christian schism part one and that was originally published in 1983 and republished in his big anthology of articles what you have in the first half of the handout is the pagination to the anthology and I'm going to be referring to statements he makes in the course of my remarks here and what you have below
• 01:30 - 02:00 the asterisks azar articles of mine that are available on academia edu just so that I don't paralyze all of you by giving you the primary references to why I'll be saying what I'm saying but there are primary references and you can find them in the footnotes there so what are we looking at and what are we looking for when we look at the beginnings of something that are cultural we can determine what we mean by the
• 02:00 - 02:30 beginning of something if we're talking about something biological scientific in a way with more clarity than we can with something cultural and what felissa is doing and framing in this article is trying to ascertain when Christianity which starts out he's very clear starts out as a type of Jewishness when does it become something quite different and other I'm thinking partly in my own remarks here of the recent book by Steve Weitzman called the
• 02:30 - 03:00 origin of the Jews which came out last year I think from Princeton Press Steve in that book makes the point that questions of origins with cultural phenomenon usually have to do with questions of identity and this I think is partly reflected in David flusters 1983 essay on Christian origins because it seems to me that in his remarks there he both presupposes and argues for an
• 03:00 - 03:30 early and clear distinction even though he has the original matrix the same and I wonder how much his sense of distinct difference which he locates if you look at page 623 be during the period between Jesus's death and Paul's conversion so he's naming a three-year zone as the beginnings of a Christology that quite
• 03:30 - 04:00 distinctly differentiates one type of Jewishness from the other so that it becomes something else I wondered how much his perception of this clear and early distinction is because of his own personal clarity about his own identity those of you who had the privilege of knowing him personally can answer this question better than I can but his personal clarity about definitions of Jewishness and thus definitions about Jewish identity for example his on page
• 04:00 - 04:30 620 his remark on God's oneness for the majority of Jews even the Christology contained in the New Testament was clearly unacceptable forget that most of the authors are Jewish not only because such a belief was unusual but also because the whole cosmic drama of Christ the super human nature and task of Christ was in disharmony with the Jewish
• 04:30 - 05:00 belief in the God who is one and whose name is one I'm going to make that complicated as I go on with my own remarks what I'd like to do in addressing this issue that Flusser also addressed on Christian origins is bracket the question of the beginnings of Christianity and instead attend to four issues that he lifts up in his treatment of this question these are
• 05:00 - 05:30 four interrelated historical issues the first one is what he calls quote the meta historical Christological cosmic drama by which I think he means events around the parousia the second coming of Christ and which will involve the overcoming of evil the resurrection of the Dead and that usual package of hopes that we associate with apocalyptic eschatology what does he mean by this
• 05:30 - 06:00 relating it to I quote him here Jesus's own elevated sense of divine sonship he makes those two comments on page 619 and page 623 which are excerpted in your handout so the first question I'd like to look at is how reflections on the the heroic inclusio of history brought about by the second coming of Christ has its
• 06:00 - 06:30 roots in the historical Jesus of Nazareth self consciousness of divine sonship it's a big fat package but I'll not unpack that in a minute the second issue I want to look at and related to this issue issue of cosmological resolution to the problem of evil going to Jesus's own ideas of sonship the second issue as notions about ancient Jewish quote/unquote monotheism which is
• 06:30 - 07:00 a word I'm going to make problematic too the third issue that he treats and that I will concentrate on in my remarks is the relation of pagans and Jews in diaspora synagogues it doesn't have to be that diaspora a diaspora there are mixed synagogues pagans visiting Jewish places in Caesarea also but specifically in Asia Minor and the type of communities that Paul both establishes and visits or in the case of the Epistle
• 07:00 - 07:30 to the Romans writes to what's going on when you have pagans and Jewish places and what's going on when you have Jews in pagan places specifically in ancient pagan religious institutions which is the definition of an ancient city ancient cities are not neutral secular spaces they are pagan religious institutions Jews are resident in those places Philo comfortably refers to
• 07:30 - 08:00 Alexandria as his as his Patris his it's a patrimony of his so there are pagans and Jews that are cheek-by-jowl and interacting socially with each other not only in the synagogue but also more largely in the city everybody goes to the same place to take a bath even rabbi Gamaliel knew that okay and forth the issue of the struggle would flicker calls the struggle for orthodoxy which he identifies on page 618 and also his remark about Christology the
• 08:00 - 08:30 struggle for orthodoxy he says begins in the second century with the development of Christology the way Christology becomes as fraud as it does I'm going to argue that the struggle for quote/unquote orthodoxy in the Christian Gentile context is a crisis not of Christology everybody is kind of more or
• 08:30 - 09:00 less on the same page about the the status of Christ as in a unique way the Son of God in these types of Valentinian ism or marcin ID or proto Orthodox Christianity but it's a crisis of theology specifically in the second century God has a Jewish identity crisis and that's what I'm going to talk
• 09:00 - 09:30 about as we look at more closely at flitters article okay and the framing for it all is when does Christianity begin which also then means what do we mean by Christianity my first remark about this article is that Flusser seems to know a lot and he voices this with a great deal of self-confidence felissa seems to know a lot about Jesus's own sense of self he seems to know a lot
• 09:30 - 10:00 about what Jesus thought of his own divine sonship this is again on 6:19 and again 6:23 which he talks about as Jesus's self-awareness his remarks are not footnoted I assume that he's thinking with the synoptic Gospels that's Matthew Mark and Luke all of them are written sometime between after 70 and a hundred Jesus died around the year 30 the Gospels are written in Greek
• 10:00 - 10:30 somehow Jesus's own personal sense of sonship is mediated through these documents so that Flusser can take Jesus's personal idea of sonship as a starting point that will be the germ of what eventually becomes Christianity even though he says specifically that Jesus was not preaching a new religion the suggestion is that that Paul is 6:19 Jesus himself had spoken of the coming
• 10:30 - 11:00 of the Son of Man the quote this figure is the highest concept of the Messiah in Judaism end of quote um I don't I don't know if that's true but in a sense what he is doing by setting us up in the beginning pages of this article is beginning the story of Christianity from inside Jesus's head that's an it
• 11:00 - 11:30 that's an interesting historical question about how he can manage to do that but it also says that in a way it was always a little bit different even though not intentionally different we'll talk about unintended consequences in a minute the the parousia the second coming the resurrection of Jesus the resurrection of the Dead that his second coming well will occasion is the mythologized message of the cosmic drama he uses the word mythologized for what other
• 11:30 - 12:00 scholars might think of as the core curricula core message of earliest Christianity he talks about as his secondary mythologized level of the message and it represents the secondary or tertiary development from Jesus's followers I'm reading now from page 623 be during the period between Jesus's death and Paul's conversion some Jewish believers whose Judaism was already
• 12:00 - 12:30 strong leary mythologized so there's something a little bit off off grid about these people anyway reinterpreted jesus' self-awareness the cross and the belief in his resurrection in light of their own understanding of jewish faith this is great terrific rhetoric this this was the hour of the birth of Christology this was the this was the minority these postmodern modern
• 12:30 - 13:00 orthodox followers of Jesus this was the minority which without desiring it caused Christianity to become a new religion in other words Christianity begins by accident through this myth Oh mythologized reinterpretation of Jesus's own sense of self and this new religion is different from Judaism because of
• 13:00 - 13:30 Jews the Jewish idea of God's oneness as opposed to the types of ideas about Christ's divinity that evolved which brings me to the issue of monotheism the second of our four issues I wanted to look at mana there is no such thing as monotheism and antiquity there are people who believe that their God is the highest God some of those people are pagans some of those people are Jews and
• 13:30 - 14:00 an historian has suggested that we talk in terms of mega theism my god is the biggest God rather than monotheism because those of you who are familiar with Tanaka know that God is not the only God even in his own book Psalms are full of other gods when when God goes down to Egypt he fights with the gods of Egypt and so on it is a congested cosmos in antiquity and the idea of gods
• 14:00 - 14:30 oneness as inflected by this 1983 article isn't quite the same thing as saying that there's only one God that exists because one of the things Christ does when he comes back is fight the other pagan gods if it weren't for the pagan gods whom the Christ at his second coming defeats he wouldn't be functioning as a Davidic Messiah but as we'll see shortly he does so mega theism not monotheism because there is more than one God in antiquity it's just that
• 14:30 - 15:00 the Jewish God if you happen to be Jewish is the God who is higher than all other gods for example in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures Psalm 95 five the gods of the nations are idols becomes the gods of the nations are Damania God leans their lesser gods which means that they're not
• 15:00 - 15:30 just tchotchkes they are forces but they're they're not as big a force as a God of Israel so in antiquity all gods exist and the question is how does one relate to them coming up with an idea of multiple divine personalities in other words isn't something unique to Christianity third the god-fearers also known as pagans who voluntarily go to the
• 15:30 - 16:00 synagogue because they want to Flusser says on page 630 and you have it there the god-fearers accepted certain basic Jewish obligations at least the so-called Noah kite precepts against idolatry the shedding of blood and grave sexual sins those are all forbidden these precepts were accepted also by the synagogue to which the Gentiles were obliged the Noah kite precepts were only
• 16:00 - 16:30 seen as a minimal condition for Gentiles to be recognized as god-fearers and my comment to this comment is that Flusser will correlate synagogue going Jewish Lee inclined pagans also known as god-fearers with ones that are also members of the Christian movement I want to make the case that there is an apocalyptic difference socially between those pagans who are associated with the
• 16:30 - 17:00 Christ Movement who very likely had something to do with the synagogue and those pagans who are associated with the synagogue who are going there because they want to he also felissa talks about the Gentiles natural sense of inferiority on page 624 and again on page 634 working with the
• 17:00 - 17:30 idea of the inscriptions that we have now from Asia Minor in particular that's Paul's apostolic ambit Giulia severa who is an aristocratic Roman lady who builds the Oikos she writes a big fat check so that the synagogue is built in this city and AK mania in Asia Minor and she's senatorial family and she her day job is she's a priestess in the cult of the Emperor
• 17:30 - 18:00 I don't think Julius severa had an inferiority complex to anybody and I also think if severa came in to give him the fact that it heard she's a priestess in me and the cult of the emperor she obviously wasn't signing a certificate saying she'll follow the NOAA kite laws before she built this particular synagogue this end you can go through other inscriptions like this the town councillors who are also public patrons of synagogue
• 18:00 - 18:30 establishments pagans who Judy eyes publicly are thanked for conspicuous philanthropy they get a donor inscription which is well if you've walked around on the University campus on Scopus you know exactly what those are that's what ancient synagogues are nothing was imposed upon these people they're voluntary they're voluntary Judaizers so what inscriptions also show us is Jews showing respect to foreign
• 18:30 - 19:00 gods pothos who liberate s-- one of his slaves in a synagogue in Asia Minor begins with the benediction to the highest God the Jewish God and ends by calling as witnesses to the liberation of this slave earth sky and and Sun Helios Zeus and Gaia so these gods are accommodated in a
• 19:00 - 19:30 synagogue inscription that is dedicated and made in the name of the highest God and all of this is all mixed in together is pothos doing public cult to these lower gods no but they are lower remember the earth is in the center of the universe the gods are lower so they're witnesses to his act of liberating his slave flusters conflation of synagogue god-fearers with paul ein god-fearers is very interesting and that fits in with the idea of no idol worship
• 19:30 - 20:00 being part of the apocalyptic endtime if you were a pagan who is a member of the christ movement paul said you could not sacrifice to your native gods anymore you could not worship in front of idols if that sounds familiar to any of you it's because it's the first two of the ten commandments Paul is making a
• 20:00 - 20:30 radical radically Judaizing demand of his ex pagan pagans that the synagogue never made of theirs and I think and Lauren oh I hope maybe we can talk about this this has to do with the nowness of his apocalypticism so it's a radical form of Judaism that was neither expected nor required from the synagogue and in other words it's harder to be a Christ following synagogue going pagan
• 20:30 - 21:00 than it is to be a non Christ following synagogue going pagan and Paul himself this causes more of a shock in a New Testament audience and it will probably here at the Academy Paul himself is a Judy Iser Paul himself is suggesting Jewish behaviors to his non-jewish listeners in Romans 13 8 through 10 he
• 21:00 - 21:30 quotes the second table of the Ten Commandments in 1st Corinthians 7 and in Galatians 5 he tells his ex pagan pagans that they should fulfill the law which they have the power to do by getting spirit but he's talking about he's talking about the law as in Jewish law finally the struggle for orthodoxy as flipster sees it related to Christology and on page 623 he talks about the
• 21:30 - 22:00 authority of the mother church in Jerusalem in Palestine which priest 70 was quite strong in matters of faith and who developed its Christian and who developed its Christology took his appoint as departures Jesus's self-awareness and his own concept of Sunday it's not only David Flusser could see inside Jesus's head so could the people in the assembly in Jerusalem what I think happens rather is that there was never a point at which the
• 22:00 - 22:30 Jerusalem community had any authority or Paul wouldn't be yelling at so many other Christ following apostles to Gentiles as he does in his own letters it's already clear by mid first century that this is a movement that is gloriously energetically various and the variety results in a tremendous amount of heated argument with each other about what is the right way to do this which
• 22:30 - 23:00 sounds pretty Jewish to me so it is clear from Paul's own letters that the Jerusalem assembly might have had some kind of notional primacy but it had no authority and no power the arguments that happen in the second century are not about the role of Christ but they're about the identity of God
• 23:00 - 23:30 Paul's God is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob Paul's God is the god of tinaka Paul's God is the God of the Ten Commandments in the second century thinking with the concepts of middle platonism valentineís Justin Martyr and Marcion make the highest God the ethnically neutral god of philosophy the God who has no ethnic characteristics a God who with thinking
• 23:30 - 24:00 with Jubilees certainly wouldn't hang around with circumcised angels one day out of seven because he just wouldn't do that because he's the god of Paideia so that the high god becomes another type of god than he was in this in the first century when this messianic movement was when did it distinguish itself from judaism and when is it just another type
• 24:00 - 24:30 of judaism given how various judaism itself is in this period i would hesitate to guess and that's even if i could see inside of jesus's head myself let me turn you to the very quickly how many more minutes do I have professor none I'm just doing the main ideas so this is this is this is a
• 24:30 - 25:00 statement by Paul writing to annex pagan pagan congregation and or I should say assembly in Rome introducing himself and saying who Christ is and what he says is Paul a slave of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle separated for the good
• 25:00 - 25:30 news of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy writings concerning and the rest goes in Greek but I'll just sit with the english's concerning his son the one born from the seed of David according to the flesh the one publicly announced son of God in power by the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the Dead Jesus Christ our Lord
• 25:30 - 26:00 that's not how it is translated in Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version in English it goes designated son of God in power by the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead but as all of you can see that's not what the Greek says and in case you don't believe me
• 26:00 - 26:30 there are all those different references of if you say from the dead you need a preposition just like you would in English if you just say of the dead then that means daily Atum 18 that means the the communal so at what point is Christ who is the son of David according to flesh publicly acclaimed in power by the spirit of holiness once he comes back which affects the resurrection of the Dead and if you don't believe me believe Agustin into whose head I look
• 26:30 - 27:00 routinely the very last two sentences on passages in this handout Agustin writing his commentary on Romans a couple of years before he wrote the confections confessions says according to the spirit of holiness by resident by the resurrection of the dead and moreover Paul does not say what the RSV will say Paul says does not say that Christ was predestined by his resurrection from the
• 27:00 - 27:30 dead but by the resurrection of the Dead for his own resurrection does not show how he is the son of God because other people yet this is more common in antiquity than it is now other people are also raised from the dead but he was so designated by the resurrection of all the dead meaning he's designated son of God when he comes back and one of the things he does when he comes back other than occasion the resurrection of the Dead is also defeat the pagan gods so
• 27:30 - 28:00 that they bend knee in Philippians 2 they also bend knee and acknowledge just like Psalm 97 7 they acknowledged the God of Israel these lower gods these demoniac acknowledged the God of Israel which is to say that for Paul the idea of divine sonship the idea of Messiah and the idea of the Lord and the idea of
• 28:00 - 28:30 son of David are all synonyms Paul isn't doing Nicene Christology at either he's declaring a Messianic apocalyptic movement of approaching redemption and that's all I wanted to say to you today thank you very much
• 28:30 - 29:00 the floor is open for discussion any comments questions thank you yes please
• 29:00 - 29:30 second time for the Messiah is very Jewish thing as he's using the Book of Daniel chapter 7 13 14 hazare vapor has Vallejo they're open in a smile give out a national day of our column I am listen I have a wish you had a full sheet on a sheet or a lamb deliah very well then the latecomers ever say about me thank
• 29:30 - 30:00 you I just want to say and I know you you have a question next right with you on that those passages from Daniel I think are very important I think partly because of something that Luke never mentions in the Acts of the Apostles but something that he should have was Caligula trying to introduce his statue
• 30:00 - 30:30 of himself to the Temple in Jerusalem in 39 40 he Caligula meets an untimely end but that there's an a reflection of the apocalyptic prophecy of Daniel in the apocalyptic area that Jesus sings in mark 13 where what is it called in the movie where suddenly one of the characters stops talking to the other character breaking the fourth wall and turns around and addresses the audience
• 30:30 - 31:00 and says let the reader understand and talks about the abomination of desolation from I think from Daniel so I think I'm sorry I couldn't say that to you and our may but I think there's something going on there with all that stuff do you think that Jesus Christ was aware of creating a new religion do you think
• 31:00 - 31:30 that Jesus Christ was aware of creating a new religion but I don't think how could I possibly just stop after one word answer I think that Paul also didn't know I mean Jesus is the nice Jew Paul's always the bad Jew right I gave I gave a seminar to colleagues at Mount Scopus last year called how Jewish is
• 31:30 - 32:00 God and it was about Paul talking about gone and by the end of the seminar everybody in the room was convinced that God was Jewish but they still weren't that sure about Paul so I think in given the and I'd like to hand this to you yes I I think given the way time is compressed with a movement of let's use the clinical apocalyptic eschatology I don't think anybody's thinking of
• 32:00 - 32:30 founding a different institution because they're expecting the resurrection of the Dead and the the cosmic resolution to the problem of evil within their own lifetimes nuts and that's the current one but I'm right next to you a specialist in this so I'm going to defer no need to defer I think you've said it it the the point is is that eschatology certainly doesn't stop with the Jesus
• 32:30 - 33:00 Movement and with Paul it continues just like it was in in Jewish apocalyptic tradition so there is not a restructuring of things and it is messy and it works backwards and forwards and those who understand themselves living in a very terrible world are not about hope the Jewish the let's say the nun Jesus Jewish people didn't require a messiah
• 33:00 - 33:30 to you know to have hope at all in getting through the problems of this world they didn't really need what many New Testament specialists think they needed but just couldn't recognize because they were blind they had enough almost all the pieces they had enough pieces in there together
• 33:30 - 34:00 it's just that some attach themselves to a leader who had a great deal of influence and that took on a life of its own someday I'm gonna read another book on the historical Jesus and the subtitle is going to be stop picking on the Pharisees it's these are all different types of Jewishness and even especially with again something like Paul the bad boy of of this particular minion he's Judy he's radically Judaizing these
• 34:00 - 34:30 these pagans it's it's anything the difference between doing it right and doing it wrong as if you're doing if you're doing something and saying something the way I say it then you're right and if you don't then you're wrong and that's what everybody's saying to each other so it's I think it's hard not only to ascertain when the beginnings of something we think of as Christianity is
• 34:30 - 35:00 there's an argument that it's not until the emperor clarifies the issue of power sometime in the fourth century that you have a clear distinction between these movements because we also have sermons from bishops complaining about it's it's exactly analogous to yelling at the students who are in class about all the students who are skipping it's it's just the High Holidays it's just before the hugging and John Chrysostom starts yelling at the people in the pew about
• 35:00 - 35:30 all the other people who are skipping Mass because they're out listening to the sounding of trumpets or helping friends build their circus so so you tell me was a Christian Felix over there and seems to me that for for a Jew he's hoping for the Messiah to come whereas
• 35:30 - 36:00 the Christian believes that Messiah has already come this is where the difference so if Jesus was a good Jew he definitely did not see himself as an aside because good Jews now see themselves as the Messiah for a Jew hope lies in hoping for the Messiah to come non Jewishness I'm not
• 36:00 - 36:30 maybe some day will rise again there I mean Jews deciding that some other Jew
• 36:30 - 37:00 is that Messiah is something that happens routinely in Jewish history I'm certainly not saying that Christianity and Judaism aren't two different things now but there are within underneath those two big umbrellas there are many many different varieties of Christianity and many many different kinds of Judaism and I'm thinking of that joke about the closest religion to Judaism do you know this is Habad right so
• 37:00 - 37:30 hi-oh first of all thank you for two really wonderful papers I have a question actually maybe that connects the two but I was really intrigued by the idea that Paul is a Jew dizer and what he's
• 37:30 - 38:00 requesting of those to whom he's writing is to accept Jewish theology in some way and Jewish ethics and what he's allowing them to dispense from are just a few very particular rituals and practices that he thinks well maybe not everyone has to do even though Jews typically do those and the ones that come to mind for me are the Sabbath keeping kosher circumcision and purity and those are
• 38:00 - 38:30 all things that are explicitly sort of rhetorically impractically things that distinguish Jesus from others right they're the things the Sabbath through time interactions and so maybe one way and I think this is what you were getting out but I wanted to ask if this is what you meant was Paul actually was Judi icing but also wanted to dispense from the things that were designed to create difference and that was what maybe not wasn't required of everyone
• 38:30 - 39:00 and as Jews could continue doing those things but the project that self was still a Jewish project with those things sort of mitigate it this is a very rich comment is everybody
• 39:00 - 39:30 I'm thinking of Isaiah which is this provides the bony structure for the Epistle to the Romans and at the end of time when as Paul says the full number of the nations and all Israel is saved and Isaiah they're all going to come to Jerusalem and they'll be parking for everybody
• 39:30 - 40:00 it'll be America Oh what he said that's not just a pleasant abstraction he's talking about the 70 nations descended from Noah's three sons and he's talking about all 12 tribes both of which are an eschatological concept there's we don't have anything from Paul saying what you should do we only have him yelling at ex pagan pagans about what they should do and the things he's specifically telling
• 40:00 - 40:30 them to do I mean not worshipping idols is a bizarrely Jewish thing I mean I mean look at Monaco's don't believe me look at Menachem stands but I mean it's one of the things everybody comments so it's just because of the rhetoric in Galatians when Paul is yelling at Peter about being a Judaizers that determined the next 20 centuries of Christian historiography missing the point that Paul himself is is asking there's no reason why Gentiles should do all those
• 40:30 - 41:00 Jewish things are not becoming Jews but they're becoming as one of my colleagues puts it Jew ish right sort of a little bit like they're becoming eschatological Gentiles now and that that's the no not yet just to come in on the side this is really important because sorry you have you have identified what are really the issues
• 41:00 - 41:30 with which Paul is concerned and those who think that Paul is a founder of Christianity in a high christological sense I wouldn't deny that he thinks a great deal about Jesus and so forth but what is very very interesting and I think James done at one point pointed this out as he was arguing with Larry Hurtado about high Christology low Christology and so forth is that Paul's Jewish opponents let's say Jewish Christians and others who are opposed to
• 41:30 - 42:00 him are not arguing with him about Christology this very little indication of that but are arguing with him about practice what to do with Gentiles and I think that's actually quite interesting and that that dovetails nicely with the emphasis of your lecture that's a tremendous relief to hear you say that
• 42:00 - 42:30 thank you right so as if all Jews in the late second temple period we're on the same page about how to act Jewishly extend the argument for how Gentiles are now supposed to act Jewish Lee as well and you now understand why Paul was doing so much yelling in his in his letters do we have time for more we have time okay if there's any urgent question we can take it is energy question
• 42:30 - 43:00 over there okay thank thank you both first of all Paul you nicely demolished what flues have said about the beginning of Christianity and my great my big question is wife Luther wrote what he wrote in this article designated for the
• 43:00 - 43:30 amano John I don't know because Russell himself goes against his many intuitions in his Jesus book so it's my question but actually my question is maybe to your balls when does Christianity begin okay we know that loser was only partially right but you kind of promised in the beginning that it's something about self-identity or something like that but what's the big question answer when does it begin
• 43:30 - 44:00 the middle of the fourth century a Wednesday but my learning no real answer for that is there I think a more crucial question than when it
• 44:00 - 44:30 begins is did it ever separate and of course we can answer that in different ways I would like to answer that to say no it never really in its best expression separated from Judaism but that won't satisfy a lot of it's a question of identity and where we place ourselves within that spectrum of
• 44:30 - 45:00 possibilities I also you know if you look at Justin Martyr he's he's clearly facing off with um with Jews because they aren't reading his Justin's Septuagint correctly but he's also using Jewish arguments and he's depending completely on Jewish Scriptures so it's it's it is it to profiles or is it of Oz
• 45:00 - 45:30 it's it's hard to know you know there are certain moments of inflection the the forced conversions of Menorca yeah that's there are distinctly different types of scriptures biblical religions going on when that Jewish community is forced to either go into exile or be baptized I think the Spanish Inquisition was a bad moment I mean but in terms of the
• 45:30 - 46:00 earliest centuries if it hadn't been this is counter history if Constantine hadn't had his idea how would these communities have continued to interact and the fact is that they would continue to interact and the difference that Constantine makes is one of power and once you get well this is hard for us to imagine of course but once you get religious figures who in the name of
• 46:00 - 46:30 religious authorities start exercising political power anything can happen don't get me started about the current administration in the states I think that Summerfest will have to spend a sleepless night not knowing exactly what happened and others I don't know perhaps we'll live with what we have
• 46:30 - 47:00 thank you very much present