Thanks much for this, it is a topic that I have given a lot of thought to of late.
Regarding the Jamesian attitude towards the resurrection, looking at the Ebionites, there doesn't seem to be any single agreed upon belief, which is not surprising as we only know of the Ebionites from their detractors. That Jesus appeared to the apostles in visions seems the most likely to me.
I also wonder whether someone like Paul was bound to come along regardless, or was he a completely unique individual, and no other person could take his place. Certainly just pure speculation at this point.
Paul uses the same Greek verb for every appearance in 1 Corinthians 15: Peter, the twelve, the five hundred, James, and himself. His own experience was a vision on the Damascus road, and he files it right alongside the others with no hint that his was a lesser kind of seeing. So the earliest witness we have puts James’ experience in the same category as Paul’s, which points where you’re leaning. There’s also a Jewish-Christian scrap preserved by Jerome from the Gospel of the Hebrews. In it, the risen Jesus appears to James, who’d sworn not to eat until he saw him, and breaks bread with him. That’s a community remembering James as a resurrection witness in his own right, in a scene built around food and a vow. It sounds a lot more like Jerusalem than like Corinth.
On whether Paul was inevitable, the Gentile mission was already moving without him. Acts 11 has unnamed believers from Cyprus and Cyrene preaching to Greeks in Antioch before Paul arrives, and there was a church in Rome before he ever wrote to it. Synagogues all over the empire had Gentile hangers-on who liked the God of Israel and balked at circumcision, and somebody was going to try to bring them in on easier terms. Paul added the argument that the Law itself was finished, and he wrote letters that got copied and kept. A century later Marcion went further than Paul ever did, so the pressure to cut the Jewish ties came from more than one man. Paul was the one who wrote it down early enough, and well enough, to land in the canon.
Just about all scholars agree that Jesus was not a Nazirite.
While I am far from a scholar, I think it bears consideration.
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus clearly knew him, and even in the Gospels John fits as a Nazirite.
The Ebionites said (according to Christian leaders) that Jesus was a vegetarian and did not drink wine. This fits as well.
The scholars say that Jesus partakes of meat and wine in the Gospels, so he could not be a Nazirite. Yet they have no issues declaring other parts of the Gospels as later additions. I know I am in the fringe here, but the concept appeals to me. I have yet to read a scholar who supports it.
Numbers 6 gives a Nazirite three rules: no wine or anything from the grape, no razor, and no contact with a corpse. Meat isn’t on the list, so the vegetarian piece comes from somewhere else. The corpse rule is where Jesus runs into trouble, since he takes the dead girl by the hand in Mark 5 and touches the bier of the widow’s son at Nain in Luke 7. The wine problem comes from a saying in Matthew 11 and Luke 7 that contrasts him with John. John came neither eating nor drinking, the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and people called him a glutton and a drunk. No follower invents that insult about his own Messiah, which is why that saying gets treated as early when plenty of other passages don’t.
The Ebionite vegetarianism leaves a trail you can follow. Epiphanius quotes their gospel, and in it John the Baptist eats honey cakes instead of locusts (the two Greek words differ by a single letter), and Jesus says he doesn’t want to eat meat with the disciples at Passover. That’s a community editing its gospel to match its own diet.
What you’re picking up on may be James. Hegesippus, a second-century writer whose account survives in Eusebius, describes James the way you’re describing Jesus: no wine, no meat, no razor on his head. And in Acts 21, James asks Paul to pay the costs for four men completing a Nazirite vow. The Nazirite piety sits with James and the Jerusalem church, and the Ebionites, who looked to James, seem to have read it back onto Jesus. If you want something on Jesus’ side, Mark 14:25 has him swearing off wine at the Last Supper until the kingdom comes, which reads a lot like a short-term vow. Temporary vows were common, and that version of your idea fits the texts.
Thanks, Anders. Compressing it was the hard part, since nearly every section could’ve been its own piece, and a few of them already are or soon will be.
Kind of makes me wonder if there is a single all-knowing god in charge of things. Your history is so much more Christian that the actual one.
Thanks, Fredy! Sorry for the delayed response. ☺️
Thanks much for this, it is a topic that I have given a lot of thought to of late.
Regarding the Jamesian attitude towards the resurrection, looking at the Ebionites, there doesn't seem to be any single agreed upon belief, which is not surprising as we only know of the Ebionites from their detractors. That Jesus appeared to the apostles in visions seems the most likely to me.
I also wonder whether someone like Paul was bound to come along regardless, or was he a completely unique individual, and no other person could take his place. Certainly just pure speculation at this point.
Paul uses the same Greek verb for every appearance in 1 Corinthians 15: Peter, the twelve, the five hundred, James, and himself. His own experience was a vision on the Damascus road, and he files it right alongside the others with no hint that his was a lesser kind of seeing. So the earliest witness we have puts James’ experience in the same category as Paul’s, which points where you’re leaning. There’s also a Jewish-Christian scrap preserved by Jerome from the Gospel of the Hebrews. In it, the risen Jesus appears to James, who’d sworn not to eat until he saw him, and breaks bread with him. That’s a community remembering James as a resurrection witness in his own right, in a scene built around food and a vow. It sounds a lot more like Jerusalem than like Corinth.
On whether Paul was inevitable, the Gentile mission was already moving without him. Acts 11 has unnamed believers from Cyprus and Cyrene preaching to Greeks in Antioch before Paul arrives, and there was a church in Rome before he ever wrote to it. Synagogues all over the empire had Gentile hangers-on who liked the God of Israel and balked at circumcision, and somebody was going to try to bring them in on easier terms. Paul added the argument that the Law itself was finished, and he wrote letters that got copied and kept. A century later Marcion went further than Paul ever did, so the pressure to cut the Jewish ties came from more than one man. Paul was the one who wrote it down early enough, and well enough, to land in the canon.
Thanks, this helps to clarify the points
nice well written
Thanks, Shib!
Something else I have been pondering lately.
Just about all scholars agree that Jesus was not a Nazirite.
While I am far from a scholar, I think it bears consideration.
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus clearly knew him, and even in the Gospels John fits as a Nazirite.
The Ebionites said (according to Christian leaders) that Jesus was a vegetarian and did not drink wine. This fits as well.
The scholars say that Jesus partakes of meat and wine in the Gospels, so he could not be a Nazirite. Yet they have no issues declaring other parts of the Gospels as later additions. I know I am in the fringe here, but the concept appeals to me. I have yet to read a scholar who supports it.
Numbers 6 gives a Nazirite three rules: no wine or anything from the grape, no razor, and no contact with a corpse. Meat isn’t on the list, so the vegetarian piece comes from somewhere else. The corpse rule is where Jesus runs into trouble, since he takes the dead girl by the hand in Mark 5 and touches the bier of the widow’s son at Nain in Luke 7. The wine problem comes from a saying in Matthew 11 and Luke 7 that contrasts him with John. John came neither eating nor drinking, the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and people called him a glutton and a drunk. No follower invents that insult about his own Messiah, which is why that saying gets treated as early when plenty of other passages don’t.
The Ebionite vegetarianism leaves a trail you can follow. Epiphanius quotes their gospel, and in it John the Baptist eats honey cakes instead of locusts (the two Greek words differ by a single letter), and Jesus says he doesn’t want to eat meat with the disciples at Passover. That’s a community editing its gospel to match its own diet.
What you’re picking up on may be James. Hegesippus, a second-century writer whose account survives in Eusebius, describes James the way you’re describing Jesus: no wine, no meat, no razor on his head. And in Acts 21, James asks Paul to pay the costs for four men completing a Nazirite vow. The Nazirite piety sits with James and the Jerusalem church, and the Ebionites, who looked to James, seem to have read it back onto Jesus. If you want something on Jesus’ side, Mark 14:25 has him swearing off wine at the Last Supper until the kingdom comes, which reads a lot like a short-term vow. Temporary vows were common, and that version of your idea fits the texts.
Excellent, compact review of a very complex, consequential, and controversial subject. Probably as close to the truth as we are ever likely to come.
Thanks, Anders. Compressing it was the hard part, since nearly every section could’ve been its own piece, and a few of them already are or soon will be.
Looking forward to seeing "decompressed" versions of the pieces!