Caustic Ramblings

Copypasting here my response to a very fascinating Magic Monday thread topic jprussell started. His original question:

I recently heard about a hypothesis that the Old Testament is consciously modeled on Plato and is essentially an attempt to do what he recommended in the /Republic/ and take the known myths of a people and rework them to create a body of belief that would help forge a unified and virtuous people. Advocates of this theory point to similarities in the content and ordering of the Old Testament and Plato's presentation of "the Law," to the fact that we have no textual record of the Old Testament earlier than the time of the Septuagint, and some of the archaeological and textual evidence we do have (like the Elephantine letters) that show the Hebrews being fairly normal eastern Mediterranean polytheists with multiple Gods, temples, harvest festivals and the like, with no mention of things that we now know to be central to the religion (Moses, the Law, the Exodus, and so forth). Have you, JMG, or anyone else here, heard of this theory, and what kind of credibility do you give it? I've heard it second hand from intelligent and knowledgeable people, but it strikes me as one of those theories that might appeal precisely because it is contrarian. Some sources the folks I'm talking to are drawing from: Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible by Russel Gmirkin and Biblical Interpretation Beyond Historicity edited by Ingrid Hjelm and Thomas Thompson

Here is my response (with some minor edits), which is actually to JMG's reply, but it very much expands on many of the things mentioned in the original question:

For starters, the Elephantine letters is slam dunk proof that polytheism was still quite normal among the Hebrews as late as the 400s BC. The letters even show friendly correspondence between the Elephantine community and the Jerusalem priesthood. So it seems Yahweh-only monolatry as a state-mandated policy in/around Judea would have been a rather late development, relative to the Hebrew Bible' internal chronology (which in the first place should be seen as legendary, rather than factual-historical).

The theory Jeff is referring to is a product of some rather recent developments in critical biblical scholarships, particularly the works of an academic by the name of Russell Gmirkin (as Jeff mentioned); he's published three extensive books so far which lay out his theory. In the first he makes a case, via comparative literary critique, that the Pentateuch has source dependency on the works of Berossus (Seleucid Babylonia), Manetho (Ptolemaic Egypt), and a number of Greek works. Now this is not to say that the stories within the Hebrew bible aren't ancient; many of them most certainly are. But the literary format and narrative those stories were encoded in are a product of the Hellenistic era, according to Gmirkin's thesis.

In his works he dated the penning of the Pentateuch to around 270-275 BC, and the whole affair was funded by the Macedonian-Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus; that he assembled all or most of the Jewish tribal elders in Alexandria and gave them access to the great library to help them compose their encyclopedic corpus. It was a known policy of the post-Alexandrian kings to employ local priests/scribes of newly conquered subject peoples to write extensive accounts of their own culture's history, lore, laws, and religious practices (see Berossus and Manetho I referred to above). So by this, the documentation Ptolemy wanted on his Jewish subjects is reflective of the same domestic policy other Macedonian Greek rulers implemented for their various other subject peoples. His other books (I only read his first so far) seem to go into extensive comparison between the Platonic corpus and the Hebrew bible.

Flavius Josephus in his histories of the Jews actually goes into vivid detail on how precisely the Septuagint was composed: in Alexandria and with the financial patronage of the Ptolemies, which coincides with Gmirkin's thesis (perhaps he got this idea from reading Josephus). I'll stop here because it would probably take me at least ten more paragraphs to fully flesh out the finer details of this theory.

From an esoteric standpoint, that 270s BC date seems quite interesting because this time period seems to coincide directly with the onset of the Age of Pisces. I believe this was also the approximate time of the Edicts of Ashoka in India (i.e. the first mass-deployment of religious missionaries). In the Middle East, this was also the time the first birth pangs of Magian religiosity, if we're to bring Oswald Spengler's theories into this equation.

Finally, I have to point out that the term "Judaism" needs careful consideration when used in the context of Greco-Roman antiquity. What we understand today as "Judaism" is merely one version of Hebrew religion dating to the Roman era. Particularly, it's a Roman-approved (after three failed revolts against the empire) form of Pharisee Judaism that later underwent considerable changes in the middle ages. There was actually a lot more ideological diversity in and around Hellenistic and Roman Judea/Palestine than most people today understand; the Gnostics, Essenes, and proto-Christians being prime examples (heck, we don't even know what the Sauducees actually believed). The Mandean religion that survives to this day may in fact be a preservation of older Judaic beliefs that have long been snuffed out everywhere else (perhaps an offshoot of the Essenes).

1700+ years of church propaganda asserting the Bible as a historical document (an infallible one at that!) has long made it politically incorrect to suggest that anything other than a literal reading of Biblical chronology is a historically-accurate version of the events that led up to the emergence and development of the Abrahamic religions. What the difference is today is that it's now finally permissible for researchers to propose and present alternative hypotheses.

I've been crisscrossing numerous theories in my head about how Christianity may have actually gotten its start; here I mean whatever was the real proto-Christianity that took root and spread around the Eastern area of the Roman Empire during the several centuries prior to its consolidation and codification as an official state doctrine with all the dogmas we recognize today as being mainstream Christianity.

Taking much inspiration from the so-called Mythicist school of critical Biblical scholarship, I'm pretty much now settled on the position that the personage of Jesus Christ, as depicted in the New Testament writings, was indeed a fictitious person and not a historical one. Now that is not to say that there were real people in and around 1st century CE Judea and the surrounding region that did not fit at least some aspects of the Jesus character. But that itself being true does not validate a literal, historical Jesus Christ.

So my basic working hypothesis now is that what we could today recognize as early forms of Christianity started during the early-mid second century somewhere in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. My best guess was somewhere in Asia Minor (Anatolia). And this first movement did not just emerge out of a vacuum, but rather it branched off from an existing continuum of religious sects. So this first proto-Christian church probably came about as a Hellenic-style mystery school for either Proselyte Jews (gentiles who converted to Judaism, which seemed to be a big thing at the time) or Hellenized Jews who had become somewhat lax on strict law-adherence. Either of those choices would point to a location where a Jewish diaspora community awash in Hellenic culture might have been. The Mystery School would have been the core inner-circle of this new church, and the outer outer would have been a lay community of congregants who most likely lacked much of any knowledge of the mystery rites and practices of the core group. And what set this group apart from similar off-Jewish sects of the time would have been the use of Jesus narrative of the Gospels that we would recognize today. Though the original gospel story would probably not have looked exactly like the 4 that got officially canonized during the post-Nicean era, it may have somewhat resembled Mark without the obviously-interpolated ending part. In fact, most critical Biblical researchers these days agree that the other two 'synoptic' Gospels, Matthew and Luke, were probably based on Mark (or a similar older version, like the supposed "Q" source text). In other words, Luke and Matthew have source dependency on Mark.

Now, what would have this group based their savior myth and other doctrines on? Most likely, on numerous sources, which would have been in abundance from within the existing religions of the time. Dying/rising vegetation deities had been a thing for quite some time all over the Mediterranean and Middle East for millennia. The concept of a savior-incarnate would have drawn from very old heroic myths, with perhaps a borrowing from the mystical traditions of India; the stories of Krishna and the Buddha would have certainly spread into the rather-cosmopolitan Roman Empire of the first several centuries CE. Secondly, in the great cosmopolitan hub of Alexandria, there had already been a number of Greco-Egyptian and Judeo-Hellenic syncretist movements underway; a lot of the Jews living there had become so thoroughly Hellenized that some of the intellectually and mystically-inclined among them would have started mixing the Greco-Egyptian hodgepodge doctrines into their own Hebraic beliefs. Proto-Christianity would have certainly drawn from something along these lines. In fact, it was probably Alexandria and Asia Minor that were the two main starting epicenters of the early Christian movements.

One thing that does seem clear from reading the Gospel narrative is the pro-Roman attitude oozing out of the text (in contrast to the virulently anti-Roman sentiment of Jewish messianic groups of the time). If not due to later redactions and interpolations, this attitude might suggest that the original Gospel writer favored a doctrine that was not antagonistic toward the Roman authorities. And if we accept an early-mid 2nd century CE time for the initial writing of the first gospel, this would overlap directly with the several Roman-Jewish conflicts of that time period. First the uprising that took place in Judea from 66-70, which the Romans totally crushed, under the command of Vespasian and Titus. And several decades after that was the diaspora rebellion of 115-117, which we today refer to as the Kitos War. And then finally was the Bar Kokhba revolt which took place from 132-136. In other words this period was one of intense conflict between a rather vocal Jewish minority and their Greek/Roman rulers and the all-but-ubiquitous Hellenistic culture. During the heat of these conflicts it might have very well been a death sentence in any of the diaspora communities to belong to any Jewish group or sect that was overtly-hostile to Roman authority. And conversely, it would have been advantageous for Jews of the period to adopt a Roman and Hellenic-friendly variant of their own religion. By the later portion of the second century we already see approach clearly reflected in the rather-Stoic writings of Justin Martyr, whom later Church authorities considered to be one of their founding fathers. Though whether or not Justin Martyr was in actuality someone we could classify as Chirstian is perhaps a mystery that will never be solved; as 4th century Church scribes with a penchant for memory-holing earlier writings which conflicted with the post-Nicene narrative, maybe have simply retconned Justin's writings to fit said narrative. Anyway, I digress.

So let's say this new Roman-friendly Jewish cult became quite the sensation during the period of Roman-Jewish conflicts. Surely, many diaspora Jews and gentile converts were quite averse to being seen as rebels or people hostile to Roman rule; yet at the same time they wished to practice a type of religiosity that at the core was quite at odds with the traditional Greco-Roman religion and pretty much every established "pagan" religion (Many Romans considered Jews to be atheists, owing to their disbelief and/or disregard of the Gods). What a tough position to be in. But here with proto-Christianity, these people found a balance of sorts. And this early cult may have had the patronage of wealthy Roman citizens, or at least a few affluent and literate Jews who were thoroughly Hellenized, culturally-speaking.

And now we get to one of the core reasons I consider the first Gospel document to have been composed during the 2nd century, at the earliest. In his book The Christ Conspiracy, author and researcher Joseph Atwill draws an undeniable number of parallels between the Gospel story and the historical account Flavius Josepus (the Jewish turncoat who became a fixture of the Flavian court after the war) of the Roman-Jewish War of 66-70. Now I don't go as far as Atwill and thus I refrain from jumping to the conclusion that proto-Christianity was a deliberate creation of the Flavian regime, but I do see the evidence he brings to the surface as supporting the hypothesis that whichever person or group wrote the first version of the Gospel narrative, probably used the works of Josephus as source material for at least composing the story's setting. No conspiracy theory is required to support this explanation. Any person or group with sufficient resources (like access to a major library) and basic literary acumen could have composed new religious texts using already-existent source works. (This is pretty much how all new religions come about anyway)

So by this we can speculate that the first wave of proto-Christian efforts had a wealthy sponsor or two. And now we arrive at the curious figure of Marcion of Sinope (Asia Minor), who was a very-wealthy shipping magnate said to have headed his own Church. Marcion was later disavowed and declared a 'heretic' by the post-Nicean state church. Anyway, a man like Marcion would have certainly had the resources to employ a few scribes and researchers; enough of an effort to throw together some new religious literature. From what little we know it seems that Marcion's variant of early Christianity took a rather anti-Torah approach and likely appealed to both Jews and Proselyte converts who had quite a zeal for Jewish-like religiosity, yet harbored little love for any pedantic approach to the Mosaic Law and the legalistic tradition built around it. By the 2nd century, the major cities of the Empire had become full of malcontents who were ripe to jump aboard any new social movement which postured itself as a rebuke to the established and decadent mainstream institutions of the time. Proto-Christianity would have been one among many movements of this type. Roman Mithraism, and the the Cults of Isis and Cybele, were among other examples of this type. As an overall trend, it seems there was a sort of "Orientalism" of late antiquity that took hold of the popular imagination.

We can see in the 'authentic' letters (epistles) of 'Paul' the forensic clues of how the first Christian groups likely spread around the map. I've seen Mythicist author and researcher Robert M. Price speculate that the 'Paul' of those epistles may have in fact been a pseudonym and alter-ego of Marcion himself; perhaps with the memory of a few authentic historical people tossed into this probable composite character of 'Paul'. We know from observing the ways new religious movements are formed in our current era, that contrived and concocted pedigrees and lineages is a common method of persuading new members of the religious group in question that the tradition is much older than it actually is. And we can easily apply this MO to the formation process of Christianity. Come to think of it, how are the supposed 'Apostles' any more real (in the literal sense) than HP Blavatsky's 'Mahatmas' or the 'Ascended Masters' of the various New Age groups which spawned from her fraudulent works?

So whomever this 'Paul' figure is supposed to represent, was the mean by which the Jesus story first spread around; it's evangelists started 'churches' in various locales and certainly after that there were a number of copycat movements purporting to be the original lineage. These various groups likely hit up the Jewish communities as their first targets of evangelizing and then after that, disaffected gentiles. The proto-Christian movement would have featured a wide spectrum of different beliefs, and most importantly, different approaches to interpreting and incorporating the Jewish Canon (i.e. the Old Testament) into their respective doctrines and practices. This would have run the gamut from outright Torah rejection (the Marcionites, various 'Gnostic' sects, among others) to full Torah adherence (Ebionites and similar groups). And somewhere in the middle would have been the approach of harmonizing the inclusion of the Torah and Tanakh and authoritative revelatory texts, while at the same time placing emphasis on and precedence of the new Christ revelation. This middle position seems to have been the basis of what would later evolve into the 'Orthodoxy' which the post-Nicean state church would champion. Another spectrum within Early Christianity to consider would have been the range of esotericism to literalism practiced within the group in question. Again, this differed a lot by group/sect. It very well may have been that the first proto-sect to spread the Gospel story around did indeed intepret it in a totally allegorical manner, and that the later literlization and historicization of that story was a corruption rather than something based on an authentic view of the earliest users of the Jesus myth.

Regarding the OT question, it's actually quite logical that the 4th century state Chuch would pick the middle approach, as it would be the most appealing to the greatest number of Christian. But as a result of this process, all the various Churches (and their differing doctrines) which would comprise early Christianity, would have to be harmonized, and thus homogenized, into a single unifying doctrine. And thus we see today why there are so many contradictions and plot holes on the NT canon when its looked at as a whole corpus.

So by this we can picture Early Christianity as being quite doctrinally-diverse, and not a homogeneous orthodoxy later Church historians would pretend it was. Much of what would have been authentic Early Christian belief and practice would have eventually been dumbed down or even lost as the state-sponsored orthodoxy both assimilated and snuffed out the earlier variants of Christianity. And thus, what we know today as Christianity should really be called Churchianity.