Koran older than Mohammed?

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

In the first place, the suggestion way back in post #30 was that "Christianity", incorporating a belief in the resurrection, was a Pauline invention, distinct from the original Jewish Christiantity, not incorporating that belief.

Nobody is saying that Paul invented the belief, it must have been already circulating. But he became one of its leading proponents, and with Peter, he took this heretical version of the originally Jewish Christian sect northwards to Greece and Rome where it caught on.

Bear in mind that this was before Jame's time as leader; Peter was the leader of the Jewish Christians. He was repeatedly arrested and arraigned before the Sanhedrin, along with other Christians, and eventually had to leave Jerusalem. Not much there to support your "living freely" theory, then.

Peter apparently fell in with the resurrection/son of god camp at some point. Its not clear that he had been the leader in Jerusalem though. Another James, "the son of Zebedee" may have been more influential. Anyway, the point is, Peter had to flee just like Paul because he subscribed to the heretical version of events.

I addressed it back in post #33. For the reasons pointed out there, it is absolutely impossible that James would ever have been allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, or that he could have survived any attempt to do so. Hegesippus knew this; his (Jewish) intended readership knew this; he knew that they knew this. I suggested back in post #33 that Hegisippus meant what he wrote allegorically; James was to the Christian community what the High Priest was to the Jewish people, and he underlines this by figuratively assigning to him the purity rituals and intercessory functions of the High Priest.

I see. It was just a metaphor then.
Funny how when all other arguments fail to explain something, the religious stance always resorts to "it was just a metaphor".

James lasted about 18 years to Peter's about 12. But, given the circumstances in which he came to office, and the circumstances in which he left, I really don't buy the picture you paint of bucolic harmony prevailing in between. We know that during this time the Christian movement formalised the admission of Gentiles (AD 50) and this was one of the major things that angered the Temple authorities.

18 years is a long time. Converting gentiles to Judaism without requiring them to be circumcised was about the most controversial thing James the Just ever got involved in. That's how he survived so long as a priest in Jerusalem.
Converting the gentiles was nothing compared to preaching that a dead prophet rose from the dead and was actually god. Now that's a real heresy, from a Jewish point of view. And a Muslim one too BTW.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Nobody is saying that Paul invented the belief, it must have been already circulating. But he became one of its leading proponents, and with Peter, he took this heretical version of the originally Jewish Christian sect northwards to Greece and Rome where it caught on.

If it was already circulating before Paul, then it’s a very, very early Christian belief, since Paul’s conversion is thought to have happened by, at the latest, AD 36. And if Peter, the first leader of the Jerusalem church, was one of the proponents of belief in the resurrection, your theory that the Jerusalem church did not hold this belief looks a bit shaky.

recedite wrote: »

Peter apparently fell in with the resurrection/son of god camp at some point.

Or, the parsimonious explanation, Peter was in that camp all along. You may be prepared to rule this out a priori, but I am not. Evidence, please.

recedite wrote: »

Its not clear that he had been the leader in Jerusalem though. Another James, "the son of Zebedee" may have been more influential. Anyway, the point is, Peter had to flee just like Paul because he subscribed to the heretical version of events.

That’s only the point if we assume without evidence that this version of events was “heretical”. Peter was at the very least a significant figure in the Jerusalem Christian movement but, even if we assume that James the son of Zebedee was more influential, have we any reason to think that he denied the resurrection? Can you, in fact, name a single Jewish Christian who did? I have yet to see you produce any evidence at all that the Jerusalem Christians denied the resurrection.

recedite wrote: »

I see. It was just a metaphor then.

Funny how when all other arguments fail to explain something, the religious stance always resorts to "it was just a metaphor".

Whereas the non-religious stance is apparently to insist on the literal truth of a claim which we know, historically, cannot be true. I had no idea that Hegesippus was your revealed scripture, rec, and that you approached his writings with the narrow mindset and unquestioning faith of a fundamentalist primitive Baptist.

I have never found fundamentalist literalism appealing. I am surprised to find you togging out, intellectually speaking, with some of the stupidest and most insecure people on the planet. Still, there we go. I suppose it at least puts the lie to the notion that atheism is more intellectually respectable than religious belief.

recedite wrote: »

18 years is a long time. Converting gentiles to Judaism without requiring them to be circumcised was about the most controversial thing James the Just ever got involved in. That's how he survived so long as a priest in Jerusalem.
Converting the gentiles was nothing compared to preaching that a dead prophet rose from the dead and was actually god. Now that's a real heresy, from a Jewish point of view. And a Muslim one too BTW.

Oh, that he was actually god, yes, definitely a heresy. But you’re confusing belief in the resurrection with belief in the divinity of Christ. Claiming that somebody rose from the dead is not heretical in Jewish terms; the OT contains several instances. If you want to argue that the Jewish church did not, in James’s time at any rate, preach the divinity of Christ, go for it. I will back you up. But the issue in this thread is whether they preached the resurrection of Christ. And so far I’ve seen you support your position on that with a lot of strong assertions, a fundamentalist biblical literalist interpretation of the writing of Hegesippus and, now, a convenient confusion of the notions of resurrection and divinity. You can see why I’m not convinced, rec. Or, at least, I hope you can.

Nodin

Really must have been a click bait article if we're back on the Bible this quick.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

If you want to argue that the Jewish church did not, in James’s time at any rate, preach the divinity of Christ, go for it. I will back you up. But the issue in this thread is whether they preached the resurrection of Christ.

If you're saying the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem must not have preached the divinity of Jesus, otherwise they could not have stayed there, then we are in agreement.
As for the resurrection of Jesus, you're right that its not necessarily a heresy if God did it. On this basis Jesus would just be an ordinary mortal who was the subject of an external miracle. But in the previous OT resurrections, the resurrectees just got up and resumed their lives, whereas Jesus disappeared. But allegedly he appeared to a few people before ascending into heaven. I think this is the heresy; if he had resumed his normal life, it would have been a miracle attributed to the Jewish god. If he ascended bodily to heaven, it implies that he was god.

Which takes us back to the start of this tangent; could the two brothers James and Jesus both have been buried in the family mausoleum? Yes, if James had not preached the combined resurrection/bodily ascension. James could have continued to live in Jerusalem as head of a sect which remembered his brother as a dead prophet. When James himself was killed much later under similar circumstances (denounced by the High Priest) James' epitaph could have been that he was the brother of the more famous martyr, because by then, those who preached the divinity of Jesus would have been quite numerous outside Jerusalem.

josephryan1989

Tom Holland's book The Shadow Of The Sword appears to suggest that with Byzantine and Persian on the wane that Arab mercenaries and rulers who fought as proxies one side or the other rival empire decided to go it alone and create their own empire.
Islam appears to be an Arab version of Judaism in the same way Roman Christianity stole the clothing of Judaism to create a pan European religion. Who Muhammad actually was is anybody's guess. Probably one of many Arab prophets just as Jesus centuries before was just one of many Jewish religious leaders who gained a following.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Which takes us back to the start of this tangent; could the two brothers James and Jesus both have been buried in the family mausoleum? Yes, if James had not preached the combined resurrection/bodily ascension. James could have continued to live in Jerusalem as head of a sect which remembered his brother as a dead prophet. When James himself was killed much later under similar circumstances (denounced by the High Priest) James' epitaph could have been that he was the brother of the more famous martyr, because by then, those who preached the divinity of Jesus would have been quite numerous outside Jerusalem.

But I think you and I are coming at this from opposite ends.

If Jesus, James and Joseph were all buried in the same tomb I would agree that (obviously) this is evidence against the resurrection but, more to the point, it's also evidence that the early Jesus movement did not preach the resurrection.

The thing is, there is no great evidence that Jesus, James and Joseph were all buried in the same tomb. You seem to be arguing that it's plausible that they would have been, because the early Jesus movement did not preach the resurrection. But in fact we have no evidence that the EJM did not P the R, do we? Such evidence as we have suggests strongly that they did - Acts records Peter preaching it pretty much from the get go, and the diverse strands of the Jesus movement that we know of all seem to have shared the belief - we have no record at all of a resurrection-denying Christianity. Hence, even if we do find a tom with a Jesus, a James and a Joseph in it, I'd think it improbable, in the absence of further evidence, that the was the Jesus, James and Joseph.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Acts records Peter preaching it pretty much from the get go, and the diverse strands of the Jesus movement that we know of all seem to have shared the belief - we have no record at all of a resurrection-denying Christianity.

Just as history is written by the victor, so the gospels were assembled by Christians who believed in the divinity and the resurrection of Jesus.
Those original followers of Jesus that existed in Jerusalem under James the Just (apparently Jesus' brother) considered themselves to be a sect within Judaism. Eventually they dwindled away, and we will probably never know exactly what they believed. But it was sufficiently Jewish to allow them to stay on in the holy city, while the more heretical types who believed that Jesus had become a god were forced to flee or be rounded up.

Wibbs

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Islam appears to be an Arab version of Judaism in the same way Roman Christianity stole the clothing of Judaism to create a pan European religion. Who Muhammad actually was is anybody's guess. Probably one of many Arab prophets just as Jesus centuries before was just one of many Jewish religious leaders who gained a following.

It makes sense alright, though I would suggest Islam like Christianity is Judaism rebranded, I'd call it more a rebranded Christianity. It has some commonalities with other "heresies" of the time(EG Jesus being a prophet not the son of god). Some early sources refer to it as a Christian heresy. There's even one report that says they used the cross as a symbol. Others claim(with more likelihood) that it sprang from a mishmash of Jewish and Christian beliefs filtered through a paganism in the area.

It's a very murky era though and virtually all contemporary sources are Islamic sources and most aren't very contemporary at all. Mecca a supposed great trade hub is mentioned on no maps or correspondence until much later. It's also really off the beaten track of any even halfway major trade routes. The earliest coins minted by the nascent Islamic empire make no mention of Mohammed. That came later. The stories of his life come later again. There is a much greater historical gap between Mohammed the possible man and Mohammed the legend than there is between Jesus the possible man and Jesus the legend. Even Mohammed's name is more like an honorific title(Praiseworthy).

Tar.Aldarion

Nodin wrote: »

Really must have been a click bait article if we're back on the Bible this quick.

Don't think it was up to much since it's not unheard of for paper to be much older than what was written on it and for paper to also be reused back then, you scrape off the old writing.