The First Christians / pt. 1
Most of the posts on this website depend on an alternative chronology in which the founding prophet of Christianity lived in the time of Alexander Janneus. The massive reorientation on the part of the reader that this alternative chronology requires involves a breathtaking time shift of one hundred years, something no New Testament scholar considers or even can consider—for the alternative chronology gives the lie to the New Testament itself. “Moving” the founding prophet back one hundred years in time requires one to deny the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth—which is Jesus mythicism.
At the same time, the alternative chronology solves intractable problems that have bedeviled as well as astonished scholarship for generations. Among them are the following:
(1) Epiphanius. The Church Father dated Jesus to the time of King Alexander Janneus (Pan 29.3.3). Not only that, but he makes other revealing “blunders”:
(a) Epiphanius writes that “the Nasaraean sect was before Christ, and did not know Christ” (Pan 29.6.1). How can this be? For the Nasaraeans (Nasarenes/Natsarenes) were related to Christian heretical sects such as the Ebionites, Ossaeans and Nazarenes, they “made use of” Elxai, etc. (Pan 19.5.1 & 4; 29.6.1; 30.1.3). However, the mystery is solved when “Jesus” is moved back one century to the time of Janneus. In this case, the Nasarenes indeed emerge “before Christ” (that is, before the formation of New Testament Christianity in mid-II CE).
(b) Epiphanius writes that the “Jessaeans” (= Essenes, see next entry) were “derived from Jesus” and “came to faith in Christ… before they were called Christians” (Pan 29.4.9). Again, this problem is solved when “Jesus” is moved back one century to the time of Janneus—and it also sheds new light on the nature of the Essenes.
(c) Epiphanius writes (Pan 29.5.1) that Philo “described none other than Christians” in the latter’s treatment of the Therapeutae of Alexandria (Philo, De Vita Contemplativa). But the Therapeutae were contemporaneous with Jesus of Nazareth (Philo wrote in the first half of I CE). This, of course, makes it chronologically impossible for the Therapeutae to have been “Christians” in any conventional sense—a problem that has long bedeviled scholars. With the alternate chronology, however, the enigma vanishes when “Jesus” is moved back one century to the time of Janneus. The Therapeutae then emerge as pre-Catholic Christians. (In fact, the Therapeutae were considered to be “early” Christians as late as the 19th century.)
Incidentally, Epiphanius considers that Philo dealt with the Therapeutae (“they live in monasteries in the vicinity of the Marean marsh”) in what he calls a “book entitled ‘Jessaeans’” (Pan 29.5.1). This is convincing evidence that, for Epiphanius, Jessaean/Essene = Therapeutae. (It seems that Epiphanius simply keyed onto the first words of De Vita Contemplativa: “Having mentioned the Essenes…”) See (b) above.
(2) Apollos. Acts describes the curious situation of Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria who “had been instructed in the way of the Lord” and “taught accurately the things concerning Jesus” (18:24–25) yet had received only John’s baptism (19:4). Apollos is then re-baptized (19:6). Here we see that “the way of the Lord” (which was associated with “John’s baptism”!) preceded Catholicity. The chronological impossibility is solved when “Jesus” is moved back one century to the time of Janneus. Apollos then emerges as a pre-Catholic Christian follower of Yeshu haNotsri (whose given name was probably John/Yuchannan), converted to Catholicism by Priscilla and Aquila (18:26) and then re-baptized by Paul.
(3) The Talmudic Yeshu. Scholars have long known (and simply ignored) that multiple, unrelated Jewish writings describe a prophet Jesus the Nazarene (literally: Yeshu ha-Notsri) who lived in the time of Alexander Janneus one century before the Christian Jesus, a prophet who was excommunicated, tried by the Sanhedrin, and then crucified—just like Jesus of Nazareth. The astonishing nexus of coincidences (identity of name and history) is resolved when Jesus of Nazareth is considered fictive and Yeshu haNotsri considered historical. The two pertinent endpoints of the alternative chronology then become:
100 – 64 BCE The life of Yeshu ha-Notsri
Ca. 140 – 150 CE The writing of the New Testament gospels, in which the fictive figure Jesus of Nazareth is furnished with a historical setting in Herodian times.
Besides the proposition that the Talmudic Yeshu ha-Notsri was the actual founder of the Christian religion, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the alternative chronology is that an entire century (ca. 65 BCE to ca. 35 CE) previously considered pre-crucifixion suddenly becomes post-crucifixion, for Yeshu haNotsri was crucified around 64 BCE—just before the Romans conquered Palestine and brought an end to the Hasmonean dynasty.
One can now appreciate that, according to the alternate chronology, Philo’s Therapeutae and the Dead Sea Scrolls may have been affected by Yeshu’s career. In fact, the entire library of intertestamental literature must be reconsidered, for these works were also potentially affected by the ministry and teachings of Yeshu haNotsri. While they cannot be considered Christian in a Catholic (Pauline) sense, they may be “Christian” in ways later denominated heretical—including the Gnostic Way, and the view that “Jesus” was a spiritual entity that entered into a worthy individual (such as Yeshu haNotsri himself).
In the next post I begin investigating intertestamental “Jewish” literature with the foregoing in mind. That literature may be more “Christian” than we have heretofore suspected. A re-examination of intertestamental texts is illuminating and clarifies many riddles—including, for example, the figure of Enoch, who (we shall see) provided a nuanced template for the invented figure Jesus of Nazareth.
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