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There is a theory that there were two competing early Christian factions: one, led by Jesus’s brother (or kin), viewed the movement as a continuation of Judaism

There is a theory that there were two competing early Christian factions: one, led by Jesus’s brother (or kin), viewed the movement as a continuation of Judaism; the other following the vision of Paul who wanted to proselytize the gentiles. The theory goes Paul made the religion decidedly not Jewish to increase its appeal. I guess adult males did not want to get circumcised. Paul’s Hellenized vision was clearly the one that won out in this scenario. I couldn’t tell you how widely accepted this theory is however (or the motivations of its progenitor). Biblical studies seems like an area where the orthodoxy is constantly shifting.

Amezarak 4y ago
Yes, historiography is unfortunately a little fad-driven. The essentials of what you're saying are largely correct based on our historical understanding and the evidence of the epistles - "competing" is probably not the right word, but James certainly appears to have focused on converting the Jewish community, while Paul considered himself (and was by others) the apostle to the gentiles, and they had at least one documented disagreement. But what the GP is suggesting, in this context, would be that decades after the events, but still while eyewitnesses were around, what you would call the Pauline faction redacted all the earliest texts (canonical and non-canonical!) to be antisemitic and the almost certainly majority Jewish following just...accepted it. Actually, redacted wouldn't even be the right word; it's the only ones ever written down, as far as we know. And although historiographers argue about it, the earliest secondary sources (c 100AD) credit the gospels as written to the apostles or those working with them. (According to Papias, Peter's disciple wrote down what Peter preached as Mark; the book of John itself and other early sources claim it was written by the apostle John, Matthew was supposedly the apostle Matthew, and Luke allegedly worked with Paul; even if you don't buy the authorship as believed by people in the first century, they were all still written in the first century and had to survive criticism by people who knew what they were about.) And moreover, they edited the whole story, not just the account of his arrest and crucifixion, because all the gospels have Jesus repeatedly claiming the Jewish authorities are going to kill him, that they kill the prophets sent to them, etc. It seems like a more parsimonious explanation is simply that the non-supernatural events simply played out approximately as written. And well, if they didn't, we don't have any evidence of it, so speculating about it can be fun but isn't really doing anything but generating conspiracy theories.

Amezarak 4y ago

Yes, historiography is unfortunately a little fad-driven. The essentials of what you're saying are largely correct based on our historical understanding and the evidence of the epistles - "competing" is probably not the right word, but James certainly appears to have focused on converting the Jewish community, while Paul considered himself (and was by others) the apostle to the gentiles, and they had at least one documented disagreement. But what the GP is suggesting, in this context, would be that decades after the events, but still while eyewitnesses were around, what you would call the Pauline faction redacted all the earliest texts (canonical and non-canonical!) to be antisemitic and the almost certainly majority Jewish following just...accepted it. Actually, redacted wouldn't even be the right word; it's the only ones ever written down, as far as we know. And although historiographers argue about it, the earliest secondary sources (c 100AD) credit the gospels as written to the apostles or those working with them. (According to Papias, Peter's disciple wrote down what Peter preached as Mark; the book of John itself and other early sources claim it was written by the apostle John, Matthew was supposedly the apostle Matthew, and Luke allegedly worked with Paul; even if you don't buy the authorship as believed by people in the first century, they were all still written in the first century and had to survive criticism by people who knew what they were about.) And moreover, they edited the whole story, not just the account of his arrest and crucifixion, because all the gospels have Jesus repeatedly claiming the Jewish authorities are going to kill him, that they kill the prophets sent to them, etc. It seems like a more parsimonious explanation is simply that the non-supernatural events simply played out approximately as written. And well, if they didn't, we don't have any evidence of it, so speculating about it can be fun but isn't really doing anything but generating conspiracy theories.