Textual analysis of Old Testament

Quote: Pacomartin

Writers of the early Hebrew Scriptures looked upon Jehovah as performing both good and evil deeds.

That's normal for the time. The gods are capricious, petty and powerful. People worshipped the gods to remain on their good side, it was like buying into a protection racket.

Quote:

During the last three centuries before Christ's birth, the portrayal of Satan underwent a major change. The Zoroastrian / Persian dualism concept appeared in Jewish writing: God was now looked upon as wholly good; Satan as profoundly evil. History was seen as a battle between them. No longer was Satan simply God's prosecuting attorney, helper, or lackey. Satan, and his demons, were now humanity's greatest enemies.

That fits, too.

The Hebrew kingdoms, Judah and Israel, were conquered by just about every major power in the area. In general the conquerors were brutal. The latter Babylonian empire went one step further and removed large numbers of Hebrews from their lands in Judah, then resettled them elsewhere in the empire (the Babylonian captivity). When Cyrus the Great of Persia defeated the Babylonians, he allowed the Jews to return to their homes.

Cyrus was, by the standards of the time, a benevolent ruler. Add this to the above, and you can see the Hebrews really loved him. In the Bible he's called "messiah." Little wonder, then, Persian beliefs found their way into Judaism.

To me, this shoots down the interpretation that Satan was doing snake drag at Eden. Back then, Jehovah was the evil god.

Quote: Nareed

To me, this shoots down the interpretation that Satan was doing snake drag at Eden.

Well, by tradition the entire New Testament was written by 100AD, and with the exception of one author (Luke who wrote Luke and Acts), it was written entirely by Jews. In that sense the entire book is a Jewish book where Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.

By tradition the origin of Christian anti-semitism was the "Council of Jamnia", a hypothetical late 1st-century council at which the canon of the Hebrew Bible was formerly believed to have been finalized. Before that Christianity was basically considered a Jewish sect. Theologically the belief that Christians has superceded Jews as God's "chosen people goes by various names: (Supersessionism, also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism

While obviously not all Christians have been believers of "replacement theology", the majority were for most of history. Obviously anti-semitism was very common for much of history. Since WWII, large numbers of Christians have rejected supersessionism and have returned to the belief that Jews are God's chosen people, even if many Jewish people are not religious.

Quote: Pacomartin

Well, by tradition the entire New Testament was written by 100AD, .

Cutting edge technology applied in forensic
science is now being done on the origins of
the NT by Bart D. Ehrman, and others. They
claim the some of the NT was written right
up to the 3rd century and at least 6 of the
13 letters attributed to Paul are forgeries.
His books go into excruciating detail of how
and why this was done.

Quote: Evenbob

Cutting edge technology applied in forensic science is now being done on the origins of the NT by Bart D. Ehrman, and others.

I realize that there are all kinds of theories and research.

These gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were traditionally thought to have been written by
Matthew, a disciple who was a tax collector;
Mark, the secretary of the disciple Peter;
Luke, the traveling companion of Paul; and
John, the "Beloved Disciple" mentioned in the Fourth Gospel.

These traditions can be traced back to about a century after the books were written. Much of scholarship questions the writers today.

Quote: Pacomartin

Well, by tradition the entire New Testament was written by 100AD, and with the exception of one author (Luke who wrote Luke and Acts), it was written entirely by Jews. In that sense the entire book is a Jewish book where Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.

That's an interesting take.

But given the vast differences in belief between Christianity and Judaism, I think it's fair to say the NT was written by Christians, or at best by heretical Jews far from the mainstream.

See, when I hear Christians talk about their religion, it's all about Jesus, sin and salvation. You never hear anything about that from Jews, in particular sin is not that prominent, and there's no concept or even a vague notion of original sin.

Quote: Nareed

But given the vast differences in belief between Christianity and Judaism, I think it's fair to say the NT was written by Christians, or at best by heretical Jews far from the mainstream.

But as far as I know there wasn't a deep seated animosity between the groups. About 20 years after the death of Jesus there was a Council of Jerusalem to settle the difficult problem of whether gentile converts would be required to get circumcised. The decision was they did not have to be circumcised, however, the Council did retain the prohibitions against Gentile converts eating meat containing blood, or meat of animals not properly slain. It also retained the prohibitions against "fornication" and "idol worship".

So the differentiation of the Christian Church from its Jewish roots began fairly early. But most people believed that Jesus' death was necessary to take away the collective sin of the human race as an example eternal love for mankind and as a self-sacrifice on the part of God for humanity. The responsibility for his death could be blamed on any number of people (including Romans), but theologically all of humanity is responsible.

But the so call "blood curse" stems from Matthew 27:24–25:
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. 'I am innocent of this man's blood,' he said. 'It is your responsibility!' All the people answered, 'His blood is on us and on our children!'

This single bible passage is probably the source of more persecution of Jews than any other piece of writing, because the theology began to change so that the Jewish people became responsible as a race for the death of Jesus.

As most people know, Martin Luther was a violent anti-semite, but a formal apology, "Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community" was only issued relatively recently (April 18, 1994)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/lutheran1.html

Pope John Paul II shortly after he became pope (in 1979)knelt and prayed at Auschwitz. Seven years later, on April 13, 1986, he made an even more dramatic trip, this one just across the Tiber River, to Rome’s Great Synagogue, becoming the first pope to visit a Jewish house of worship.

JPII visit to Jerusalem where he put a note in the Wall and apologized to Jews for centuries of hatred did not occur until the year 2000

Quote: Pacomartin

So the differentiation of the Christian Church from its Jewish roots began fairly early. But most people believed that Jesus' death was necessary to take away the collective sin of the human race

How would 'most people' know this. It was all
Jews and like Nareed said, sin was not a big
deal to Jews and the silly idea of original sin
didn't even exist to them. Why would most
Jews believe Jesus died for anything at all
when sin was barely on their radar and
original sin was unknown.

Quote: Evenbob

How would 'most people' know this.

I should have said 'most believers'. Adherents to Christianity in the early years did not blame Jews for killing Christ.

During a discussion on the celebration of Easter during the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, Roman emperor Constantine said,
...it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. (...) Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.


Prejudice against Jews in the Roman Empire was formalized in 438, when the Code of Theodosius II established Christianity as the only legal religion in the Roman Empire. The Justinian Code a century later stripped Jews of many of their rights, and Church councils throughout the 6th and 7th century, including the Council of Orleans, further enforced anti-Jewish provisions. These restrictions began as early as 305, when, in Elvira, (now Granada), a Spanish town in Andalucia, the first known laws of any church council against Jews appeared. Christian women were forbidden to marry Jews unless the Jew first converted to Catholicism. Jews were forbidden to extend hospitality to Catholics. Jews could not keep Catholic Christian concubines and were forbidden to bless the fields of Catholics. In 589, in Catholic Iberia, the Third Council of Toledo ordered that children born of marriage between Jews and Catholic be baptized by force. By the Twelfth Council of Toledo (681) a policy of forced conversion of all Jews was initiated . Thousands fled, and thousands of others converted to Roman Catholicism.

Right up to WWII the Church was outspoken
against Jews. Hitler learned his hatred for
Jews from the strict Catholic upbringing he
had. At the end of the 19th century the
Church was on a tear to get the Holyland
back from the Jews and made no bones
about. Hitler had it pounded into his head
that Jews were the cause of every thing
wrong with society.

Quote: Nareed

That's an interesting take.

But given the vast differences in belief between Christianity and Judaism, I think it's fair to say the NT was written by Christians, or at best by heretical Jews far from the mainstream.

See, when I hear Christians talk about their religion, it's all about Jesus, sin and salvation. You never hear anything about that from Jews, in particular sin is not that prominent, and there's no concept or even a vague notion of original sin.

Christianity and Judaism are very similar. Think of the Passover and the atonement sacrifices for sin done over and over in the temple. Christ is just the eternal and perfect sacrifice, the spotless Lamb of God, that fulfills the covenant for all people. The Old Testament is one story after another of people striving to follow the law of God but always falling short so they offer atonement sacrifice for forgiveness and God forgives and reestablishes the covenant or creates a new one. Finally this rinse and repeat cycle was put to an end with the Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who fulfilled the Old Covenant, atoned for our sins by the shedding of His blood, and established the new and eternal covenant now open to all people not based on fulfilling the law, but rather on loving God and our neighbor.