[Please forgive my lack of posting. I shall attempt to get back to regular posting. I found that I lost some dear friends in 2023 (when I first went ‘radio silent’) and now have lost both parents just late last year. I have been out of sorts, but I am adapting. Please bear with me.]
I keep a lot of notes, both handwritten and in my Notes app on my Apple devices. I was just cleaning up my Notes app—I had scattered grocery lists, several To Do lists, and lots of duplicaation—and found a note that was much longer than I typically commit to Notes. I present it here in full, just as I found it.
On earliest Christianity
At what point do patristic writers move from expressing beliefs in Jesus as Davidic Messiah endowed with rulership of creation as [supposed] firstborn/scion in the line of Adam and David? They used ‘Lord’ thus is the sense of ‘our King’ or ‘Your Majesty’, rather than ‘the Lord God’ (thanks, Septuagint!). That is, when does his being described as God take over? I’m leaning toward sometime in the later second century, and that our NT texts were adapted towards that later position sometime then. What traces remain in the NT of that earlier conception? James and Jude seem unaltered. Perhaps even Revelation: the heavenly Jesus stands not as God but as the transcendant Son of David, King of all creation. Essentially, there is no way a Pharisee-adjacent potential rabbi and claimant to the Davidic throne in the first century would have been accepted as a divine or semi-divine figure amongst the various groups who are depicted to have received him, even, or especially, the populace. But, developing that further into a particular ‘Son of God’ not in the Davidic sense but in a Greco-Roman paganistic sense (one who is actually somehow begotten by God, rather than acknowledged as the legitimate Davidic King) is a later stage, and what we have ended up with: another syncretistic Eastern religion adapted to the needs/desires of Greco-Romans, like that of Mithras, Serapis, and Isis. Joseph, as a descendant of David, must have been his biological father in order to be Scion of David legitimated by thunder and lightning [lightning because there was thunder, but also found in Diatessaron and required as the origin for light-related terminology in Holy Saturday hymnography: all assigned for the ancient baptism ceremony that was scheduled that night for catechumens—heavenly approval (see the Qumran Brontology for such beliefs being contemporary)—as Mary was apparently of a priestly family.
I found that such questions are generally gently yet firmly dismissed even in academic settings—at least in my graduate school experience which likely should have been at Hebrew University—due to the Christian confessional membership of academics. This was not a problem at Berkeley for my undergraduate studies, with the program being led by Milgrom, but also with a ‘no religion department’ perspective at that state institution and by the preference of the scholars there—a very refreshing approach and an academically honest approach. It remains a given in scholarship that the NT is largely a compilation of 1st century CE documents, with a few occasionally-claimed outliers: 1Pt–2Pt and Jude (due to presumed later concepts expressed and reliance, one way or the other) and sometimes Acts (as Mason suggests reliance on Josephus). These professors are Christian believers as well as believers in the nineteenth century German-based ‘higher criticism’ rooted in antisemitism. Ugh. Whatever.
In any case, a new approach is—or should be—always welcome. How about returning to how the transitional stage of earliest Christianity approached interpreting the biblical texts? These were Jews, not Chrisitans, and their acceptance of Jesus as Christ was not as a new god—however attenuated—but as the Scion of David, rightful heir to the throne of Judea, Israel, the entire world, and all creation beyond. They would ‘search the writings’ for information hinting at or more explicitly describing the Davidic king. Now, as I believe a first edition of Hebrew writings, a sort of Ur-Bible, was written as a Davidic Dynastic Apology, or Succession Justification, or somesuch (it needs a snappier descriptor) leading from creation, through the former prophets, ending early in 1 Kings with the crowning of Solomon and how well things were in the Land, with everyone praising him for wealth and wisdom. Later ages added to that material, expanding it immensely. Isaiah contributes some moving commentary on hopes for the Davidic dynasty just when it seemed about to go extinct, when Hezekiah was ill and had not yet produced an heir. Haggai and Zechariah are quite clear on their opinions on a Davidic scion in the person of Zerubbabel. Later, with the focus on Law—much of it later additions to the core document—that Davidic focus was lost. The Persians would brook no claimants, and Zerubbabel was likely eliminated by them, either by demotion, transfer, or execution, leaving his descendants as mere citizens; they bore an interesting genealogy but no power. In the later Persian and into the Hellenistic period, the priest rose in power, leading ultimately to the Hasmonean priestly dynasty, and then the converted Jew Herod’s Herodian dynasty. Neither of those would brook any Davidic claims at the expense of their own power. With the death of Herod and the mess of Antipas, the Romans stepped in to administer Herod’s kingdom, dividing it into various smaller administrative regions suited to the ethnic makeup of the populace. Josephus reports how the Romans dealt with Davidic pretenders, included a much-altered description of the death of Jesus in their midst. As in the case of the Bar Kokhba rebellion, there may have been a Davidic element involved in the First Revolt (and Second/Diaspora?—need more info on that one), leading to the end of the Jerusalem Temple. As Josephus gains status by telling Vespasian that he is the prophesied ruler of the world, this may imply that one or more of the rebel leaders had considered themselves the same, namely the Davidic Scion. Was there a Messianic inspiration in the Second/Diaspora?—need more info on that one. After that the proto-Rabbinic Jews turned altogether from Davidic Scion (=’Messiah’, the ‘anointed successor’) expectations. Christians took it and ran with it, turning the King into God, likely in the second century. Certainly the NT Gospels as they are would have scandalized any auditors in the first generation of Christians, as would many of the Epistles.
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So, anyhow, the earliest approach of those who would later be termed ‘Christians’ was to search through the writings—the ‘Old Testament’ especially, but even those other parabiblical writings known now variously as hagiographa or deuterocanonicals, and apocrypha or pseudepigrapha. Early on, it was taken for granted that the origins of these works were accurately described by their titles and narrative, and so were collected. Different books were more widespread, others less so, leading to the variations in local biblical canons over the centuries.
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That early search for meaning may be what led to the seldom-noticed equation of Jesus’ resurrection timing and the Wave Sheaf ritual early in the Pascha octave.
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Genesis written to correct various traditional notions of who is the chosen Heir, the Firstborn of Adam, which in the author’s mind and their reality was David, followed by Solomon, son of a wife not a concubine. This explains all the various gymnastics: Ishmael firstborn but of a slave and exiled; Esau/Edom first but Isaac stole the right; Simeon and Levi were violent, so Judah gets it; etc. I’m sure the various nations around Israel had different tales for all of these, as did tribal groups in Israel itself. ALWAYS these were verified in a manner prophetic, suggesting the Sons of the Prophets—one of whom delivered and the rest held to the Davidic promise from Y ‘your dynasty shall never fail’—were involved. Note the nearly ubiquitous depiction of priests as dilatory, most notably Aaron and Eli due to the lengthier accounts accorded them, likely a reaction against their veneration in other circles.