Monotheistic Judaism of the First Century – Part Three
In arguing against the theories of “Zeitgeist, the Movie”, I have been presenting a three-part series of posts relating to the first century Jewish culture from which Christianity was birthed. This is the final part of that series. Though I have not directly countered specific points in the movie in these posts, I have established a historical case to demonstrate that first-century monotheistic Judaism was not doctrinally influenced by the cultural worship of various pagan deities.
Devotion to Jesus Emerged from Jewish Monotheism
The earliest Christians’ devotion to Jesus should be understood as emanating from first-century Jewish Monotheism.[1] In 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul applauds the church in Thessalonica for her commendable faith and discusses these believers’ conversion from the worship of pagan idols to “serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (v.9b – 10). This stark contrast between the pagan gods and the one true God (also in association with Jesus) is also seen in 1 Corinthians 8. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul warns believers not to knowingly partake in food that has been offered to pagan idols. According to Hurtado, “Paul is pointing out the sharp distinction between the Gentile polytheistic environment of the Gentiles and the exclusivist monotheistic stance; look at the language used ‘idols’ versus ‘a living and true God.’”[2] Paul uses the term, eidōlothyta, “things offered to idols,” which is clearly a contemptuous characterization of the pagan’s offering.[3] This disdain of all other deities lines up with the exclusivism of first-century Judaism.[4]
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul further demonstrates the exclusivity of Judaism by admonishing believers to “flee from idolatry.”[5] His language takes on a stronger contempt for the polytheistic environment of the Roman gods. Paul compares the partaking of pagan rituals as participating with ‘demons.’ He emphatically demands that a believer participating in drinking from the cup of the Lord, cannot also drink from the cup of demons. Clearly, Paul is demonstrating that, although he was raised in a polytheistic culture (Tarsus), and would have been aware of the mystery-religion culture of his time, he emphatically refused to adopt or allow any of the pagan practices into his monotheistic view of God or into the fellowship, at all.[6] “Essentially, Paul directs his converts to shun any overtly pagan religious activity and practice, and he does so in the strongest kind of terms.”[7]
Conditions in the Early Church: Ritual, Law, and Paul
The early church apparently struggled with adherence to the rituals (including the Temple cult), customs, and other traditions of their Judaism.[8] In Acts 21, the news of Paul’s preaching reaches the church in Jerusalem. The report on Paul’s mission work is that he is misleading full Jewish converts by instructing them not to observe the Judaic rituals in obedience to the Law. Upon Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem, James and the brethren required Paul to answer for his instruction.[9] The brethren “demanded that because of this suspicion he undergo the usual purity probe in the Temple and that four oath-bound penitents be called in.”[10] Paul accepted their demands, however when numerous of the Diaspora[11] saw Paul in the temple, they grew furious and sought to lynch him because he: “(1) allegedly agitated against the law and Temple cult, hence, preached apostasy toward the law (among Jews!) and because he (2) had brought a non-circumcised (Trophimus) into the Temple (which Luke disputes).”[12] An exclusivist, ritualistic environment is clearly demonstrated in this passage, even among the Christian believers, as evidenced in James’ request of an explanation for Paul’s ‘defiant’ teachings towards the rituals of the Law. Obviously, the early believers still identified themselves with the rituals and practices of Judaism.
Further, in the second chapter of the book of Galatians, Paul confronts Peter for alleged hypocrisy in dealing with Jewish versus Gentile believers. Paul’s accusation is founded on Peter’s actions of eating with the Gentiles and then drawing away from them when the brethren associated with James arrived. The word used by Paul to describe Peter, kategnōsmenos, is translated “clearly in the wrong.”[13] The main problem was most likely Peter’s adherence to the Jewish food-laws that forbade social interaction between Jew and Gentile.[14] In this passage, again, we have an example of an early believer (another one of the leaders of the Christian Church) struggling with issues arising from a strong adherence to their Jewish faith. As has previously been shown, this first century Jewish faith entailed a strict adherence to the one true God and abhorred the pagan deities. Therefore, it is an illegitimate argument to say that these Jewish men allowed Hellenistic pagan religion influences to guide any formation of their Christology.
CONCLUSION
From the historical evidence, a picture emerges of first-century Judaism that is adamantly monotheistic and, in its core doctrine, immune to the influences of the Hellenized culture surrounding it. The Jewish separatist attitude is noted in their Scriptures, their religious practices, and in the writings of foreigners. Emerging from this first-century Judaism are the earliest followers of Christ, who then become leaders of this fledgling faith. These leaders evidence their adherence to a strict monotheistic Judaism in their writings (Galatians 1; 1 Corinthians 8, 10; 1 Thessalonians 1) and in their struggles deciding to maintain or free themselves from the Jewish rituals of the Law and Temple cult (Acts 21, 22; Galatians 2). These are not men who are readily adapting the influence of pagan mysteries to exalt Jesus into an apotheosis figure or mold him into a pagan religious pattern of a dying and rising god. Rather, these are men grappling with their own exclusively monotheistic past, while incorporating Jesus into their understanding of the one true God; who alone is worthy of the act of worship. As stated by Joan E. Taylor, in her article, The Phenomenon of Early Jewish-Christianity: Reality or Scholarly Invention?, “The Jewish-Christians of the first century would not have considered themselves to be combining two religions, for they never accepted that Christianity was anything but the proper flowering of Judaism.”[15]
Thus, the influence of Roman Hellenism, though a cultural reality, to be sure, did not however touch the ultimate tenet of first-century Judaism or Christianity: monotheism.
MJ
Footnotes
[1] Hurtado, Larry. How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Publishing Company: 2005. pg. 42.
[2] Ibid. pg. 43. See also: Grant, Robert M. Gods and the One God. Philadelphia, The Westminster Press: 1986. pp. 46-49.
[3] Ibid. pg. 44.
[4] Ibid.
[5] 1 Corinthians 10:14
[6] Hooke, S.H., “Christianity and the Mystery Religions,” Vol. 1, Judaism and Christianity. W.O.E. Osterley, ed. New York, KTAV Publishing House: 1969. pg.241.
[7] Hurtado. pg. 44.
[8] Weber, Max. Ancient Judaism. Glencoe, The Free Press: 1952. pg.421.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Jewish believers who lived in the areas surrounding Jerusalem as a result of the exilic period in Jewish history.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Cole, R. Alan. Galatians. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans: 1984. pg. 74.
[14] Ibid. pg. 77.
[15] Taylor , Joan E. “The Phenomenon of Early Jewish-Christianity: Reality or Scholarly Invention?” Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 44, No. 4. (Dec., 1990), pg. 315.
To receive a full bibliography from this three part series, please email me with “bibliography” in the subject line.
© Mary Jo Sharp 2007
Zeitgeist, the Movie – Christianity versus the Pagan Mystery Religions
The Zeitgeist Movie has taken up the task of comparing Christianity to the pagan mystery religions. The movie attempts to prove Christianity is just another myth, like these mystery religions, through comparing alleged similarities between these religions and Christianity. There is much work to be done on demonstrating the problems with these comparisons. I will begin with a quick look at a couple of the alleged similarities between Christianity and the pagan mystery religions stories. I am going to focus on the virgin birth, sacrificial death, and resurrection stories of four of the mystery religions (which I covered a little bit in previous posts).
Virgin Birth Stories:
Adonis: born from a myrrh-tree, the bark of which burst after ten months’ gestation, allowing the infant to come forth.
Osiris: the offspring of an affair between the earth god Seb (Keb or Geb, as the name is sometimes transliterated) and the sky-goddess Nut
Mithras: born out of a rock on the banks of a river under a sacred fig-tree, came forth clenching a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other hand; which he used to illumine the depths from which he came
Dionysus: Zeus, in the form of a serpent, visited Persephone and she bore him Zagreus, that is, Dionysus, a horned infant
Sacrificial Death Stories:
Adonis: Ares takes on the likeness of a boar in order to attack Adonis, Adonis is torn to pieces by the wild boar while hunting
Osiris: his brother, Set (or Seth), coaxed Osiris into a coffin, which he soldered shut with lead
– Osiris was then set adrift in the Nile to die
– later was found by his sister, Isis, who brought him back with her
– when Set discovered Osiris’ body, he chopped Osiris up into 14 pieces and spread him out all over the land
Mithras:– the sacrifice was a bull who contained all the “germs” of life, there is no recorded death of Mithras
Dionysus: the Titans attacked him while he gazed at himself in a mirror, he took on many shapes to evade attackers, he was cut to pieces by the murderous knives of his enemies while in the form of a bull
Resurrection Stories:
Adonis: after his death, Adonis was raised to the underworld for half of every year and to the upper world for half of every year
– He was supposedly given to Persephone, the goddess of death, for part of the year, and to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, for part of the year
– this representation of Adonis residing with death for part of the year and with love and fertility part of the year coincides with the seasons and crop cycles
Osiris: pieced back together and revived by the power of several gods, revival entailed rites which the Egyptians perform over the bodies of the departed, reigned as king over the dead in the other world
Mithras: no clear resurrection story, ascends to heaven in the sun’s chariot
Dionysus: his mother pieced together his mangled limbs and made him young again
– or shortly after his burial he rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven (only possible similarity..but nothing said of bodily resurrection)
– or that Zeus raised him up as he lay mortally wounded
– or that Zeus swallowed the heart of Dionysus and then begat him afresh by Semele
– or his heart was pounded up and given in a potion to Semele, who thereby conceived him
– so many stories, which one is the correct one?
The alleged similarities here are strained. These stories are not the same as the Biblical stories of Jesus’ birth by the virgin Mary, Jesus’ willing sacrifice to deal with sin and death for all mankind, and Jesus’ triumphant bodily resurrection as the “first born” of the resurrected. Of course, it may be argued that I am taking the stories at face value. But what I am showing is that a person needs to examine these similarities for what they are, which is really not that similar. Jesus birth by a virgin does not equal Adonis’ birth from a myrrh tree or Mithras’ birth from a rock.
But the arguments for the alleged similarities get much more problematic. In my next post(s), I will look at the following in more detail: the alleged similarities do not pre-date Christianity (who is influencing who), the argument ignores basic Christian history and doctrine (Christianity does not claim Christ was born on the 25th of December), the argument is not substantiated by a consensus of scholarship (a checks and balances system on ideas), the alleged similarities lack historical evidence, all reports about Jesus’ death and resurrection infer a dated experience concerning a historical person, and none of the pagan mystery religions attempt to undergird the stories of their rising gods with historical evidence.
MJ
References:Carnoy, Albert J. “Iranian Mythology,” Volume Six, Mythology of All Races. New York, Marshall Jones Company: 1917.
Parrinder, Geoffrey. Ed. The Illustrated Who’s Who in Mythology. New York, MacMillan Publishing Company: 1985.
Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press: 1987.
Willis, Roy. Ed. “Persian Myths.” World Mythology. Richmond Hill, Duncan Baird Publishers: 1993.
Weston, Jessie. From Ritual to Romance. Chapter IV: Tammuz and Adonis. Available from: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/frr/frr07.htm#fn_39texts.com/neu/frr/frr07.htm#fn_39. The Internet Sacred Text Archive. Accessed May 22, 2007.
Yamauchi, Edwin M. Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History. Available from: http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html. Accessed January 22, 2007.
Habermas, Gary. Mike Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids, Kregel Publications: 2004. pg. 90.
Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough. Available from: http://www.bartleby.com/196/79.html. Accessed May 22, 2007.
McDowell, Josh. “Is The New Testament Filled With Myths”. Chapter 14 of A Reasoned Defense. Available from: http://www.greatcom.org/resources/areadydefense/ch14/default.htm. Accessed January 22, 2007.
Metzger, Bruce. “Methodology in the Study of Mystery Religions and Early Christianity.” From Historical and Literary Studies:, Jewish, Pagan, and Christian. Available from http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/mystery_religions_early_christianity.htm. accessed January 22, 2007
© Mary Jo Sharp 2007