When Does Christianity Begin? Prof. Paula Fredrikson
Estimated read time: 1:20
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