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jschroeder wrote:"You [Peter H.] state, "There is no
comparison between New Testament ( Covenant) Christianity and all other
religions including many that use the name
'Christian'."
I couldn't
agree more, and this is why Douglas said, "It is not too much to
say that one
of the root ideas through which Christianity comes into
conflict with the
conceptions of the Old Testament and the ideals of the
pre-Christian era, is
in respect of this dethronement of abstractionism.
That is the issue which is
posed by the Doctrine of the Incarnation. "
I mightily agree. The Judaism of today can hardly be
considered Israel's normative religion. We cannot look upon the Judaism of
today much less the Judaism following the 70 A.D destruction as a
direct ancestor of Christianity. Christianity emerged from Israelite
religion as it existed in the world Jesus lived in...and it would appear
that while Jesus must have been an insider in a particular Israelite tradition
he was certainly on the outside of Pharisaical or Sadducean
fellowship.
There are several papers of hers, all of which are included in her book
"The Great High Priest" available at http://www.marquette.edu/maqom
which is an online seminar called "Jewish Origins of Early Christian
Mysticism."
To get a clear view of how different a place the early Christians and
post-Jerusalem destruction Jewry were coming from, one need consider only
what the early church fathers were reading in the way of Israelite
scripture...and they were reading books not now included in the canon of either
the Church or Judaism today. Of those books that are now included in the
canon they were reading versions that were at very significant variance to the
texts we now read. We know about the variants only because they are quoted in
the course of debates with Jews using revised texts. Most of the
older pre-revisionist variants had direct bearing on the Messiah, the
manner of his coming, the manner of his death etc. Later on Christian
apologists such as Origen would adopt the revisions...a first order
disaster to understanding of the origins of Christianity if there ever was one.
The first Christians, like the Qumran community, were
likely descendants of the Israelite priests who rebelled against King
Josiah's reforms of Israel's temple cult shortly before the northern
tribes were taken into Assyrian exile. These tribes were later expelled from
Assyrian territory.
Christian evangelism was aimed at regathering
(re-council-ing) the scattered descendants of the exiles. This was
something that Paul was most conscious of in his own work when he explains that
among the 'gentiles/nations' he is ministering to in Romans are
the same 'gentiles/nations' that the northerners became once God "divorced"
them in the Book of Hosea.
Having several hundred years to migrate from both their
homeland and Assyria before Paul's tours of duty the Israelites
were now likely just about everywhere in Europe and particularly throughout
the Roman Empire. Whoever struck out East on the central asian
trading routes setting foot to the trails for China would likely have
met descendants of Israel on the way as well. Now Israel is spread
throughout the entire world. Abraham is indeed the 'father of many
nations.'
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