Did Christianity come from Judaism? - for Helen Willis.

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Christianity Not Based on Judaism? - for Helen

Dear Helen:

Right now, I doubt I could refute all your assertions about Christianity
being based on pagan myths to your satisfaction. I don't have time to
become an expert on the history of all pagan mythologies. But I think
that superficial resemblances between Mary and some pagan goddesses
don't prove that Christianity is based on pagan myths. Why not say that
flying insects and birds are the same because they both have wings? I
don't mean to be hostile here; I just don't think that you have proved
your case. 

Also, I still think that some Christian beliefs about Mary may have
originated from the passages about the woman giving birth to the Messiah
in Revelation. The beliefs would at least be Biblical, and the author of
the Book of Revelation took much of his inspiration from Jewish
apocalyptic literature.

[From a discussion on the TOPICS: COUNTERING CONTRADICTIONS Board]

I am reproducing the following message here with permission of its
author, Jono. He is a literal 7-day young-earth creationist, so he and I
have disagreed sharply about some things. However, I think he is on
target with this particular posting.

From: (Jono to Claire & Rick <this one>) ts0113.powerup.com.au

Date: Sat Nov 15 19:50:43 PST 1997 

"Rick's advice is very sound. The following might help a bit too: 

Alleged Pagan Derivation of the Virginal Conception

"Anti-Christians like Bishop John Shelby Spong raise a common objection
to the Virginal Conception: that there are supposed parallels in pagan
mythology, e.g. the Medusa-slayer Perseus, born of the woman Dana_ and
sired by Zeus, the chief god of the Greek pantheon. Zeus also fathered
Herakles from Alkmene and Dionysus from Semele. Opponents of
Christianity from Trypho and Celsus, who was refuted by Origen's Contra
Celsum (Against Celsus), till the present, have used this objection, but
it has many flaws:

"First, this objection commits the genetic fallacy, the error of trying
to disprove a belief by tracing it to its source. For example, Kekule
thought up the (correct) ring structure of the benzene molecule after a
dream of a snake grasping its tail; chemists don't need to worry about
correct ophiology to analyse benzene! Similarly, the truth or falsity of
Christianity is independent of the truth or falsity of its alleged
parallels.  Second, the so-called parallels are not. Perseus was not
really virginally conceived at all, but was the result of sexual
intercourse between the lecherous god Zeus and Danae. Zeus had
previously turned himself into a shower of gold to reach the imprisoned
damsel. Other alleged parallels are just as worthless, so it is
pointless for sceptics to multiply examples — zero times hundreds is
still zero. Third, Christ was a historical figure written about by
people who knew him - quite different from the mythological
'parallels'.  Fourth, the earliest Christians were Jews who abhorred
paganism (see Acts 14:8-18), so would be the last people to derive
Christianity from paganism. 

"It would also be nice if atheists didn't misrepresent the Trinity as
belief in three Gods. They also provide no evidence that the Trinity is
taught in paganism — no pagan religion taught it, although these
atheists might be able to list triads of gods. 

(Other comments snipped)

"Another thing: these dying and rising gods in paganism were quite
different from Christ. The pagan gods died, rose, died again in a cycle.
Jesus died and rose once for all time. See Josh McDowell's _He Walked
Among Us_ for answers to many modern attacks on Yeshua." 

~Jono


Now I'll go to a (possibly) atheist source....

I'd like to recommend an excellent book that discusses the conversion of
Jews to Christianity during the early years of the Church: _The Rise of
Christianity_ by Rodney Stark (Harper Collins, 1996). Stark is a
sociologist. He does not claim any religious affiliation; in fact, I get
the impression that he is an atheist. I don't necessarily agree with all
his conclusions, but I think he has been very thorough in his research.
Some of his ideas about the spread of early Christianity are based
partly on his observations of the spread of new religions in the modern
area.

He demonstrates that many Jews (especially Hellenized Jews) were
attracted to Christianity, and that Jews continued to convert to
Christianity for several hundred years. If Christianity was a total
misunderstanding of Judaism and / or was based on pagan mythology, it is
highly unlikely that monotheistic Jews would have been attracted to it
for so long.

I quote (and paraphrase) from Chapter 3 - The Mission to the Jews: Why
it Probably Succeeded.

"Nothing seems more self-evident than the proposition that the rise of
Christianity was accomplished despite the failure of the mission to the
Jews. The New Testament says so, and so does the uncontested weight of
historical and scholarly opinion. Granted, the received wisdom
recognizes that Jews made up the bulk of very early converts, as phrases
such as "Jewish Christianity" and "the Christian synagogue" acknowledge.
But it is generally assumed that this pattern ended abruptly in the wake
of the revolt of 66-74, although some writers will accept a substantial
role for Jewish conversion into the second century, regarding the
Bar-Kokhba revolt as the ‘final straw' in Jewish-Christian sympathies.

"Perhaps only a sociologist would be foolish enough to suggest that,
contrary to the received wisdom, Jewish Christianity played a central
role until much later in the rise of Christianity - that not only was it
the Jews of the diaspora who provided the initial basis for church
growth during the first and early second centuries, but that Jews
continued as a significant source of Christian converts until at least
as late as the fourth century and that Jewish Christianity was still
significant in the fifth century. In any event, that is the argument
that I shall make in this chapter.

"Initially, I will base my argument on a number of sociological
principles and insights about how movements grow and how people have
reacted to religious movements when faced with circumstances very like
those faced by millions of Hellenized Jews.

....

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE JEWS REJECTED CHRISTIANITY?

"Everyone ‘knows' that the Jews rejected the Christian message. But how
do we know this? The most compelling and solid evidence is that after
the triumphant rise of Christianity there still existed a large and
obdurate Jewish population. Moreover, the archaeological evidence shows
that large synagogues continued to function in various parts of the
diaspora during the critical time-the second through the fifth
centuries. Thus, it appears to follow that, while Romans and Greeks
flocked to the church, the Jews must have stood firm, because they
survived to confront the church in later, more fully documented eras.

This leads to the second basis for knowledge that the Jews did not
convert: hostile textual references from both sides. Beginning with
parts of the New Testament, we find the early Church fathers depicting
the Jews as stubborn and eventually as wicked. It is also known that at
some point a curse against Christians (Nazarenes) was inserted into the
Jewish Eighteen Benedictions- presumably as a method to prevent Jewish
Christians from acting as presenters in the synagogue (Katz 1984;
Horbury 1982). The date of this insertion is in doubt. But whenever the
curse came into use, the assumption is that reciprocal condemnations
reflect bitterness rooted in the failed mission to the Jews."

Stark then says "that is the evidential base I now attempt to
reappraise".

PERTINENT SOCIOLOGY

"During the 1960s, sociologists radically revised the conventional
wisdom about the assimilation of ethnic groups in American society.
Among the leaders were Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan (1963) who
demonstrated that eastern and southern European ethnic [groups] had
failed to assimilate into American society- that the melting pot was
romantic nonsense. What was their proof? Look around, they said. Look at
all the Little Italys and Little Polands. Solidly ethnic communities
abound in American cities and hence confound the melting pot thesis.

"...[But] when good data became available, it was discovered that the
vast majority of these ethnic groups already had assimilated-most had
married outside the ethnic group, for example The new myth was a product
of the method. As Richard Alba pointed out, if one used Glazer and
Moynihan's method, one would always find proof that Italians, for
example, do not assimilate as long as SOME have not yet done so-until
Little Italy stands empty. The lesson here is that it is possible for
Little Italy to seem to thrive while at the same time massive
assimilation goes on. The implication is, of course that active
synagogues need not be evidence that large numbers of Jews of the
diaspora did not convert. The synagogues of the third and fourth
centuries could be the equivalent of Little Italy in the twentieth
century. Granted, of course, Little Italy may one day stand empty while
some of the synagogues of the diaspora never did. But this does not
alter the cautionary lesson."

[Stark then discusses the emancipation of the Jews in most European
nations during the nineteenth century; this allowed them to move out of
the ghettos. However, some who moved out experienced a religious crisis
because it was often very difficult to remain an observant Jew outside
of the ghetto. He then shows how these difficulties helped lead to the
Reform movement in Judaism.]
....

"People are more willing to adopt a new religion to the extent that it
retains cultural continuity with conventional religion(s) with which
they are already familiar. As Nock so aptly put it, ‘The receptivity of
most people for that which is wholly new (if anything is) is small...The
originality of a prophet lies commonly in his ability to fuse into a
white heat combustible material which is there, to express and appear to
meet the half-formed prayers of [at least some] of his contemporaries.
The teaching of Gautama the Buddha grows out the eager and baffled
asceticism and speculation of his time, and it is not easy even now to
define exactly what was new in him except his attitude. The message of
John the Baptist and of Jesus gave form and substance to the dreams of a
kingdom which had haunted many of their compatriots for generations.'

"The principle of cultural continuity captures the human tendency to
maximize - to get the most for the least cost. In the case of adopting a
new religious outlook, cost can be measured in terms of how much of what
one already knows and more or less accept that one must discard in order
to make the shift. To the extent that potential converts can retain much
of their original cultural heritage and merely add to it, cost is
minimized. For example, when persons familiar with the culture of
Christianity confront the option of becoming Mormons, they are not asked
to discard the Old and New Testaments but to add a third testament to
the set. Mormonism does not present itself as an alternative to
Christianity, but as its fulfillment. Joseph Smith did not claim to
bring revelations from a new source, but to bring more recent tidings
from the same source....

"Social movements grow much faster when they spread through preexisting
social networks. This is simply an application of the attachment
proposition about conversion developed in chapter 1. For the fact is
that typically, people do not seek a faith, they encounter one through
their ties to other people who accept this faith...accepting a new
religion is part of conforming to the expectations and examples of one's
family and friends."
......

"Christianity offered twice as much cultural continuity to the
Hellenized Jews as to Gentiles. If we examine the marginality of the
Hellenized Jews, torn between two cultures, we may note how Christianity
offered to retain much of the religious content of both cultures [Greek
and Jewish] and to resolve the contradictions between them. Indeed,
Theissen described Pauline Christianity as ‘accommodated Judaism'.

"Little need be said of the extent to which Christianity maintained
cultural continuity with Judaism. Indeed, much of the New Testament is
devoted to displaying how Christianity extends and fulfills the Old
Testament. 
....

[The first missionaries concentrated on the Hellenized Jews.] "And
virtually all New Testament historians agree that they [concentrated on
these Jews] and were successful, but only in the beginning. These facts
are agreed upon: 1. Many of the converts mentioned in the New Testament
can be identified as Hellenized Jews; 2. Much of the New Testament
assumes and audience familiar with the Septuagint; 3. Christian
missionaries frequently did their public teaching in the synagogues of
the diaspora - and may have continued to do so far into the second
century; 4. Archaeological evidence shows that the early Christian
churches outside Palestine were concentrated in the Jewish sections of
cities.."

"[A] critical issue comes into view. What justifies the assumption that
the powerful social forces that initially achieved such a favorable
response in diaspora communities suddenly become inoperative? Frend
asserts that between 145 and 170 there was a major shift in which
Christianity abandoned its Jewish connections (1984:257). But he does
not say how he knows, nor does he explain why such a shift should have
occurred or did occur. .....

"I find no compelling case in the sources that the mission to the Jews
ended in this way. To the contrary, the pertinent texts seem supportive
of my revisionist views...[Stark then asks why we should assume that the
"Jewish war" of ~70 AD or the Bar-Kokhba revolt would have severed
connections between the Christian and Jewish communities.]

"Moreover, I think examination of the Marcion affair reveals that a very
Jewish Christianity still was overwhelmingly dominant in the mid-second
century. The Marcion movement was very much what one would have expected
Christianity to become if, from very early on, the church in the West
had been the Gentile-dominated movement, increasingly in conflict with
the Jews of the diaspora, that it is alleged to have been.

[Stark then points out that the fit between the Old and New Testaments
seems awkward. That would appear to discredit an inerrantist view, of
course, but I am not an inerrantist.]

"In the face of [this awkward fit], what would be the most parsimonious
and obvious solution for a religious movement consisting overwhelmingly
of ‘Gentile' Christians? I think it would be the precise solution
Marcion [wanted]: to strip the New Testament of all those parts
concerned with justifying Christianity to the Jews, and then to drop the
Old Testament from the canon entirely. If we are Christians, why should
we worry about non-Christians or pre-Christian doctrines? If Jewish
texts do not jibe with the Pauline tradition, why not simply complete
the break with Judaism?...the speed with which Marcion built a
substantial movement suggests that his solution pleased many. But the
crucial point is this: the traditional Christian faction seems to have
easily ousted Marcion and successfully condemned [his] ‘Antitheses' as
heresy."

"...the whole affair suggests to me that in the middle of the second
century the church still was dominated by people with Jewish roots and
strong current ties to the Jewish world. Notice that this was after the
Bar-Kokhba revolt and at the very time Frend (1984) suggests that the
Jewish influence in the church rapidly waned. To me, the Marcion affair
suggests that the mission to the Jews remained a very high priority far
later than has been recognized.

"Since ‘everyone' has known that Christian-Jewish connections were
insignificant by the mid- second century, it is understandable that no
one has drawn the obvious [to Stark] conclusions about the persistence
well into the fifth century of ‘Judaizing' tendencies within
Christianity. The facts are clear. In this period large numbers of
Christians showed such an affinity for Jewish culture that it could be
characterized as ‘a widespread Christian infatuation with Judaism'
(Meeks and Wilken 1978:31). This is usually explained on the basis of
lingering attractions of Judaism and renewed conversion to Judaism
(Simon 1964; Wilken 1971, 1983). Perhaps so. But this is also exactly
what one would expect to find in Christian communities containing many
members of relatively recent Jewish ancestry, who retained ties of
family and association with non-Christian Jews, and who therefore still
retained a distinctly Jewish aspect to their Christianity. Indeed, it is
quite uncertain just when it became unacceptable for Christians to
observe the Law. 

"Put another way, what was at issue might not have been the Judaizing of
Christianity, but that in many places a substantial Jewish Christianity
persisted. And if this is the case, there is no reason to suppose that
Jewish Christians had lost the ability to attract new converts from
their networks of Hellenized [Jewish] families and friends. Hence,
rather than seeing these affinities as signs of renewed conversion to
Judaism, I suggest that a more plausible reading is to see them as signs
that Jewish conversion to Christianity continued."

[Stark then uses the anti-Jewish polemics of John Chrysostom (~5th
century) to show that there were still significant numbers of Christians
who had recently converted from Judaism.]

"Rather than dismiss Chrysostom as merely a raving bigot or as an
unscrupulous manipulator of Jewish scapegoats, why not see him as an
early leader in the movement to separate a church and synagogue that
were still greatly intertwined?

"Postulate a world in which there are a great many Christians with
Jewish friends and relatives and who, therefore turn up at Jewish
festivals and even in the synagogues from time to time. Moreover, this
has gone on for centuries. Now suppose you are a newly appointed bishop
who has been told that is time to get serious about making a Christian
world. How can you convince people that they ought to avoid even the
appearance of dabbling in Judaism? By confronting them with the need to
choose, not between Gentile and Jewish Christianity, but between
Christianity and traditional, Orthodox Judaism - a Judaism whose
adherents could be attacked as "Christ-killers" who consorted with
demons (as Jewish Christianity could not). In this fashion Chrysostom
could stress that it was time for Jewish-Christians to become
assimilated, unhyphenated Christians. Seen this way, the increasingly
emphatic attacks on Judaism in this later period reflect efforts to
consolidate a diverse and splintered faith into a clearly defined
Catholic structure. I find this a more plausible interpretation than the
thesis that the attacks were reactions against a new wave of conversion
to Judaism. Why should the ‘ethnic' burden of Orthodox [Judaism]
suddenly have ceased to matter to potential converts?"
......

RECENT PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

"There is recent physical evidence suggesting that the Christian and
Jewish communities remained closely linked - intertwined, even - until
far later than is consistent with claims about the early and absolute
break between church and synagogue...
 
"Eric Meyers (1983, 1988) reported that a wealth of archaeological
findings in Italy (especially in Rome and Venosa) show that ‘Jewish and
Christian burials reflect an interdependent and closely related
community of Jews and Christians in which clear marks of demarcation
were blurred until the ~ 4th century C.E. Shifting to data in Palestine,
Meyers noted excavations in Capernaum (on the shores of the Sea of
Galilee) that reveal ‘a Jewish synagogue and a Jewish-Christian house
church on opposite sides of the street...Following the strata and the
structures, both communities apparently lived in harmony until the
seventh century C.E. (1988:76). Finally, Meyers suggested that only when
a triumphant Christianity began, late in the fourth century, to pour
money into Palestine for church building and shrines was there any
serious rupture with Jews. 

"Roger Bagnall reported a surviving papyrus from the year 400 wherein a
man ‘explicitly described as a Jew' leased a ground-floor room and a
basement storage room in a house from two Christian sisters described as
apotactic monastics: ‘The rent is in line with other lease payments for
parts of the city known from the period, and the whole transaction is
distinguished by its routineness. All the same, the sight of two
Christian nuns letting out two rooms in their house to a Jewish man has
much to say about not only the flexibility of the monastic life but also
the ordinariness of (Christian-Jewish) relationships. (1993:277-278)

"These data may strike social scientists as thin, but they seem far less
ambiguous and far more reliable than the evidence with which students of
antiquity must usually work."

~Claire O'Connor

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