Gentiles as evidence for Christ

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Sherlock Holmes

Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #1

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

It has always struck me as just too bizarre that Christianity invited Gentiles to share the God of the Jews. I cannot understand how that could have developed unless the Gospel is true, Christ did perform miracles and was resurrected. I just cannot see how Jews would ever share their religion with Gentiles under any imaginable ordinary circumstances, it strikes me as the last thing we'd expect unless this really was a true an momentous event that took place.

So - is the fact that Christianity arose from Jews, from Judaism (the "chosen people") yet openly embraces Gentiles as equals - indirect evidence for the truth of the Gospel?

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Difflugia
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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #2

Post by Difflugia »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 3:24 pmI just cannot see how Jews would ever share their religion with Gentiles under any imaginable ordinary circumstances, it strikes me as the last thing we'd expect unless this really was a true an momentous event that took place.
Hellenist Jews already did so prior to and independent of Christianity.
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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #3

Post by theophile »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 3:24 pm It has always struck me as just too bizarre that Christianity invited Gentiles to share the God of the Jews. I cannot understand how that could have developed unless the Gospel is true, Christ did perform miracles and was resurrected. I just cannot see how Jews would ever share their religion with Gentiles under any imaginable ordinary circumstances, it strikes me as the last thing we'd expect unless this really was a true an momentous event that took place.

So - is the fact that Christianity arose from Jews, from Judaism (the "chosen people") yet openly embraces Gentiles as equals - indirect evidence for the truth of the Gospel?
Perhaps you should backtrack to Genesis 1, when the mantle of rule was given to humankind in general. (Not to one person / people.)

That original mandate and human calling was never revoked, and so it makes sense that it would one day be fulfilled. (Despite narrowing down for a time to individual people / peoples like Israel -- the reason for which was not to exclude the other nations but for Israel to be a light to them.)

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #4

Post by TRANSPONDER »

At the risk of peddling my own Pet Theory (...let's find a suitable smiley.... :chew: that'll do...) however many OT quotes we may mine, The Jews were God's people and the gentiles weren't. From what cautious clues Jews may have dropped (We Goyyim know there is Something they ain't telling us :D ) I gather that Gentiles who believe in God and observe a few rules (Noahide laws) will share in the life to come, but as just What they ain't sayin'.

However, my Pet Theory is that Paul for some reason...well my hypothesis is that as a Roman Citizen he wanted the Romans to be saved when the Last Days hit the fan, but he knew they'd never accept the Law. So he used the resurrection and saving Faith to get salvation without Judaism. We know for sure that the followers of Jesus were observant Jews and there was disagreement over this. Just how much and with whom Paul was in dispute is open to debate (his sneering reference to 'super - apostles' tells me who they were). So my Theory is that it is not the fact of resurrection or the reliability of the Gospels that led to Christianity but Paul, all by himself, it seems, inventing a new religion out of Gentilised Judaism. And that it took off like wildfire (eventually) and ate the whole Roman world is no more evidence that Gospel Jesus and the resurrection -claims are true than Paul's invention of Christianity is.

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #5

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #2]

Thank you, I wasn't aware of that. It does seem though that was not initiated by Jews, but by Gentiles (the article states "... were a numerous class of Gentile sympathizers...") who had some kind of affinity for Judaism, so that's a difference that might be important, also we can't forget that it was Jews who as well as welcoming Gentiles, were prepared to disregard circumcision in Gentiles.

This just strikes me as too great a deviation to have developed unless something truly dramatic (like the resurrection, miracles etc) had taken place.
Last edited by Sherlock Holmes on Sun May 15, 2022 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #6

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

[Replying to theophile in post #3]

Yes I agree and was not referring to why Gentiles became welcomed in early Christianity only that the fact that they were seems like indirect evidence for the truth, if Christianity was a manufacture sect, a political/theology outgrowth from Judaism and nothing more, then the whole Gentile thing would have been self defeating.

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #7

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

What do people think would be the chances of success if a movement developed within Islam that espoused that circumcision was no longer important? I suspect it would die out and rather quickly, it would be intolerable to Muslims and I think the same is true of Jews, so therefore something truly astonishing must have happened two thousand years ago.

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #8

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 10:47 am What do people think would be the chances of success if a movement developed within Islam that espoused that circumcision was no longer important? I suspect it would die out and rather quickly, it would be intolerable to Muslims and I think the same is true of Jews, so therefore something truly astonishing must have happened two thousand years ago.
It isn't the same situation. Islam is a huge and resolute religion, It is not a minority in a state that had just been smashed in a revolt, and a diaspora that could be stomped on by passing a law. Rather compare LDS and polygamy. Since acceptance and not being treated as a social outsider depended on giving it up...it was given up.

I might note in passing your efforts to postulate all kinds of events in early Christianity as the rather familiar 'Rationalism can't explain this so it must be a supernatural miracle' kind of argument. No. Other religions had become very popular in Rome aside from the Emperor cult to which people paid lip service. It only needed one person (Paul) and a few devotees to spread the new creed like LDS or scientology and quite a few others. damn it even the Moonies are apparently considered a legitimate and respectable religious community, these days.

And Christianity had a lot of appeal, no denying. A historically rooted back story and an appeal to those rather excluded by the swanky religions or state cult. That doesn't make it true. The effort to appeal to wild success of Christianity as evidence that it must be true is a failure even if it is a Starter. :D

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #9

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

TRANSPONDER wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 11:10 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 10:47 am What do people think would be the chances of success if a movement developed within Islam that espoused that circumcision was no longer important? I suspect it would die out and rather quickly, it would be intolerable to Muslims and I think the same is true of Jews, so therefore something truly astonishing must have happened two thousand years ago.
It isn't the same situation. Islam is a huge and resolute religion, It is not a minority in a state that had just been smashed in a revolt, and a diaspora that could be stomped on by passing a law. Rather compare LDS and polygamy. Since acceptance and not being treated as a social outsider depended on giving it up...it was given up.

I might note in passing your efforts to postulate all kinds of events in early Christianity as the rather familiar 'Rationalism can't explain this so it must be a supernatural miracle' kind of argument. No. Other religions had become very popular in Rome aside from the Emperor cult to which people paid lip service. It only needed one person (Paul) and a few devotees to spread the new creed like LDS or scientology and quite a few others. damn it even the Moonies are apparently considered a legitimate and respectable religious community, these days.

And Christianity had a lot of appeal, no denying. A historically rooted back story and an appeal to those rather excluded by the swanky religions or state cult. That doesn't make it true. The effort to appeal to wild success of Christianity as evidence that it must be true is a failure even if it is a Starter. :D
Yes I agree it isn't the same, its probably impossible to find an identical analogy for such a thing though.

Circumcisions is core to Judaism, the very suggestion that God is fine with a sudden cessation of the practice for both Jew and Gentile alike strikes me as unlikely to develop and grow under ordinary circumstances.

I doubt artificial Christianity would have had much broad appeal to Jews back in the earliest days, the rejection of long held deeply symbolic practices surely would have led to its early demise.

To artificially develop and grow a religion based on Judaism by proudly abandoning key precepts seems like not the way to go, the way that the abandoning of Circumcision is articulated too strikes me as far too deep, far too analytical, requiring a complete reframing of God to something likely unrecognizable as God to any Jew back then.

Judaism was and is hugely about maintaining and preserving traditions, once these are questioned and abandoned there's nothing left - that's how A Jew then and I suspect a Muslim today, would see this kind of thing.

If you were going to invent a new religion based on an existing dominant (in the community) one, you surely wouldn't begin by abandoning the very things that define the original religion, you'd likely perpetuate traditions, perhaps add some new stuff that furthered one's agenda but the first rule of influencing people is to not alienate one's audience - yet Christian theology does precisely that, only a fool would attempt such a thing unless there was more to it all.

This is all simply how I see things, not a formal argument.

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Re: Gentiles as evidence for Christ

Post #10

Post by TRANSPONDER »

Good observations, and my answer to this is that looking to a Jewish change in Law, rite and custom is not the clue. The clue is in the huge Gentile population that already didn't accept Jewish rites, and they only needed to be sold the promise of salvation through Faith in Jesus without any of the Jewish stuff and you had a whole populace ready to be converted.

I'd suggest that it would have been even quicker but for two things - Jews shouting that they had to pay more attention to Jewish teaching (if not actually convert) in order to have any share in the Life to Come even as yard -sweepers, and the role of Jesus as 'king' and not the Roman Emperor made them not only rebels but atheists and that prevented them from being an accepted cult (religion) for a long time.

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