Early Christianity
Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:31 am
This is a question for Fortigurn, or anyone else that wants to chip in.
To what extent do you feel that Paul's experience and belief in Jesus and what he stood for, matched that of the eye witness apostles? (and actually, if you want to take it back further than that, one could wonder how much the 'eye witness apostles' beliefs matched those of Jesus...)
I ask this, because it's an issue that has always intrigued me.
I have also often wondered how much of the original Jesus has been retained within the four gospel accounts. There is evidence of redaction, change and addition according to later ideologies (the end of Mark for instance). There is evidence of dispute between Paul and the eye witness apostles.
Jesus to all intents and purposes was a Messianic Jew from a royal line (albeit he was from humble circumstances) with a very legitimate axe to grind against those who held priesthood authority in Jerusalem.
I appreciate that Paul did (and I also wonder how much we really know about Paul from the surviving biblical accounts, with the same arguments aimed at him) a great deed for the Jesus movement in bringing it to the gentiles, but I wonder how much of what we now have as christianity comes to us through Roman and Greek (and others such as Mithraic) influence that inevitably came when the Jesus movement was mixed in and made more pallitable to the Gentile world, rather than that small Messianic Jesus (and John) movement that began in Galilee.
What do you think Fortigurn?
Mary
To what extent do you feel that Paul's experience and belief in Jesus and what he stood for, matched that of the eye witness apostles? (and actually, if you want to take it back further than that, one could wonder how much the 'eye witness apostles' beliefs matched those of Jesus...)
I ask this, because it's an issue that has always intrigued me.
I have also often wondered how much of the original Jesus has been retained within the four gospel accounts. There is evidence of redaction, change and addition according to later ideologies (the end of Mark for instance). There is evidence of dispute between Paul and the eye witness apostles.
Jesus to all intents and purposes was a Messianic Jew from a royal line (albeit he was from humble circumstances) with a very legitimate axe to grind against those who held priesthood authority in Jerusalem.
I appreciate that Paul did (and I also wonder how much we really know about Paul from the surviving biblical accounts, with the same arguments aimed at him) a great deed for the Jesus movement in bringing it to the gentiles, but I wonder how much of what we now have as christianity comes to us through Roman and Greek (and others such as Mithraic) influence that inevitably came when the Jesus movement was mixed in and made more pallitable to the Gentile world, rather than that small Messianic Jesus (and John) movement that began in Galilee.
What do you think Fortigurn?
Mary