I think a mistake that is easy to make when trying to determine the origins of christianity is to assume that at its origin you will find a religion that was logically coherent that made theological sense that was later corrupted into the nonsense that it is today. I think this is why marcionite priority is so popular on this forum, even though I think it's incorrect. Marcionite theology makes a certain amount of logical sense, whereas orthodox theology doesn't.
However from Paul's letters and the gospel of Mark it seams pretty clear to me that Paul and Mark did in fact belive that Jesus was the son of the Jewish God. If Paul's original letters were marcionite in nature, then a crazy amount of editing would have had to be done to turn them into the letters that we have. I'm not really buying it.
Pre-Pauline proto-christianity was probably not a unified movement and it's near impossible to say what it might have looked like. But my best guess is that the dominant view went something like this: The archangel Jesus, firstborn son of God, transfigured himself into a man and suffered and died and was resurrected. By eating Jesus divine angelflesh and divine angelblood, through an act of magical imitation, the belivers would also be resurrected as angels at the great day of the resurrection, which is going to happen real soon, trust us bros. So the purpose of the mystery of Jesus death and resurrection was to grant resurrection and eternal life to the initiates in the mystery cult. The idea of Jesus also somehow being God himself was a loophole to get around "Thou shalt have no other gods before me".
To be resurrected you needed not just to belive in the mystery of christ's death and resurrection and partake in the eucharist, but also to uphold Jewish law, get circumcised etc. But they probably argued on what exactly upholding the law meant. Some people wanted to market the mystery cult to god-fearing gentiles and thought that it would be easier to do if we did away with most of these oppressive Jewish laws.
This is where Paul comes in. Paul's big theological innovation seams to be his view that Jesus sacrifice also freed mankind from the law of Moses. I think this is why Paul is so important. Part of Paul's motivation for claiming this is that it made it way easier to market the cult towards judaism/monotheism-curious gentiles who were not enthusiastic about getting their sausage snipped. The other part is that Paul himself was frustrated with how obscenely complicated and convuluted it was to follow Mosaic law by the letter. However Paul was too much of a good jewish boy to ditch the Jewish God himself.
I think the trick to understanding Paul and Mark is that they were the two most self-hating jews of all time. And due to the popularity of Mark's story, billions of humans have essentially been forced to live inside of the neurotic heads of these two self-hating jews. Paul wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to keep claiming that he was a jew worshipping the jewish God, while also being released from the oppressive Mosaic law and hopefully soon be released from the awful material realm that the very God that he worshipped had created. Jesus sacrifice was Paul's psychological loophole to square the circle.
It's easy to see how marcionism developed from this and how the marcionites used Paul's letters to argue in favor of their position. Paul was a crucial stepping stone between jewish christianity and marcionism. So even though Paul himself was not a marcionite, he was a major influence on the movement.
Jesus sacrifice does indeed make more logical sense if it was done to purchase the souls of mankind from cruel and vindicative Yahweh on behalf of the compassionate and loving Father, thereby freeing mankind from Mosaic law. But the more logically coherent christology probably devoloped as a reaction to how nonsensical Paul's "God sent his son as a sacrifice to himself to free us from the laws that he himself made and the world that he himself made because he loves us" christology was. The marcionites were trying to make sense of something that didn't make much sense.
Even though the orthodox misunderstood Mark's allegorical story as literal history and the early history of the church with the 12 disciples etc is an orthodox fairy tale, I do actually think that the orthodox mostly understood Paul's sin theology correctly.
A big reason why modern christianity makes little logical sense is because Paul's letters make little logical sense. Paul's views only make sense given his historical context. Paul was trying to market a judaism light mystery cult to gentiles. VIP tickets to the Paradise club are guaranteed for initiaties. I know the son of the owner, trust me bros, I speak to him in visions and shit.
As for Satan, I don't think early christians ever quite agreed on what Satan's role was. The vibe I get from Matthew is that he probably belived that the jewish God created the world, but man's sins empowered Satan and allowed him to take control of it making him "lord of this world". Jesus by atoning for man's sins defeats Satan and reasserts God's dominion over the world. My guess is that this was probably a normal view. Satan didn't create the world, but he had become lord of it because of man's susceptability to sin. Jesus by defeating Satan then becomes the new "lord of this world".
However from Paul's letters and the gospel of Mark it seams pretty clear to me that Paul and Mark did in fact belive that Jesus was the son of the Jewish God. If Paul's original letters were marcionite in nature, then a crazy amount of editing would have had to be done to turn them into the letters that we have. I'm not really buying it.
Pre-Pauline proto-christianity was probably not a unified movement and it's near impossible to say what it might have looked like. But my best guess is that the dominant view went something like this: The archangel Jesus, firstborn son of God, transfigured himself into a man and suffered and died and was resurrected. By eating Jesus divine angelflesh and divine angelblood, through an act of magical imitation, the belivers would also be resurrected as angels at the great day of the resurrection, which is going to happen real soon, trust us bros. So the purpose of the mystery of Jesus death and resurrection was to grant resurrection and eternal life to the initiates in the mystery cult. The idea of Jesus also somehow being God himself was a loophole to get around "Thou shalt have no other gods before me".
To be resurrected you needed not just to belive in the mystery of christ's death and resurrection and partake in the eucharist, but also to uphold Jewish law, get circumcised etc. But they probably argued on what exactly upholding the law meant. Some people wanted to market the mystery cult to god-fearing gentiles and thought that it would be easier to do if we did away with most of these oppressive Jewish laws.
This is where Paul comes in. Paul's big theological innovation seams to be his view that Jesus sacrifice also freed mankind from the law of Moses. I think this is why Paul is so important. Part of Paul's motivation for claiming this is that it made it way easier to market the cult towards judaism/monotheism-curious gentiles who were not enthusiastic about getting their sausage snipped. The other part is that Paul himself was frustrated with how obscenely complicated and convuluted it was to follow Mosaic law by the letter. However Paul was too much of a good jewish boy to ditch the Jewish God himself.
I think the trick to understanding Paul and Mark is that they were the two most self-hating jews of all time. And due to the popularity of Mark's story, billions of humans have essentially been forced to live inside of the neurotic heads of these two self-hating jews. Paul wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to keep claiming that he was a jew worshipping the jewish God, while also being released from the oppressive Mosaic law and hopefully soon be released from the awful material realm that the very God that he worshipped had created. Jesus sacrifice was Paul's psychological loophole to square the circle.
It's easy to see how marcionism developed from this and how the marcionites used Paul's letters to argue in favor of their position. Paul was a crucial stepping stone between jewish christianity and marcionism. So even though Paul himself was not a marcionite, he was a major influence on the movement.
Jesus sacrifice does indeed make more logical sense if it was done to purchase the souls of mankind from cruel and vindicative Yahweh on behalf of the compassionate and loving Father, thereby freeing mankind from Mosaic law. But the more logically coherent christology probably devoloped as a reaction to how nonsensical Paul's "God sent his son as a sacrifice to himself to free us from the laws that he himself made and the world that he himself made because he loves us" christology was. The marcionites were trying to make sense of something that didn't make much sense.
Even though the orthodox misunderstood Mark's allegorical story as literal history and the early history of the church with the 12 disciples etc is an orthodox fairy tale, I do actually think that the orthodox mostly understood Paul's sin theology correctly.
A big reason why modern christianity makes little logical sense is because Paul's letters make little logical sense. Paul's views only make sense given his historical context. Paul was trying to market a judaism light mystery cult to gentiles. VIP tickets to the Paradise club are guaranteed for initiaties. I know the son of the owner, trust me bros, I speak to him in visions and shit.
As for Satan, I don't think early christians ever quite agreed on what Satan's role was. The vibe I get from Matthew is that he probably belived that the jewish God created the world, but man's sins empowered Satan and allowed him to take control of it making him "lord of this world". Jesus by atoning for man's sins defeats Satan and reasserts God's dominion over the world. My guess is that this was probably a normal view. Satan didn't create the world, but he had become lord of it because of man's susceptability to sin. Jesus by defeating Satan then becomes the new "lord of this world".
Statistics: Posted by TheCourier — Wed May 22, 2024 12:04 pm