The Origins Of Christianity: A Radical Hypothesis

[poliphilo]

If Jesus died c. AD. 30 how come his name doesn't start appearing in the archaeological record until 100 years later?

There were two Jewish revolts during the reign of Hadrian. Evidence for Jesus  (mostly in the form of fragments of gospels) starts appearing at just this time.

It wasn't that easy to get published in the Roman world. If lots of

Comments

[sunfell]

Ooh, sounds interesting!

[poliphilo]

I find it quite persuasive.

[michaleen]

The deeper I dig into this the less certain I am of what is being claimed, despite being very open to those claims. I am unsure how we get from an early mixture of Judaic mysticism and asceticism, Alexandrian gnosticism, and Mithraism, to this alleged Hadrianic Christianity.

Or are the authors claiming that there was no native Judaic element in Christianity? I am unsure.

That the Jews were coerced or forced to convert to Christianity sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem seems entirely plausible. I have seen it suggested, based upon recent genetic evidence, that the Diaspora may have been largely a myth and that the Biblical Jews became Christians, under Roman rule, and later converted to al Islam under the Saracens.

[poliphilo]

The material is unsystematized and all over the place, but the central thesis- that Christianity was invented to combat Jewish nationalism- seems clear enough. A lot of the other stuff- how a lot of early "Christians" may actually have been "Chrestians"- and nothing to do with Jesus- is presumably there to undermine the case for a first century origin. There are things I remain unsure about- for example quite where Paul fits in- but I imagine there are more posts to come.

I'm hoping a book will come out of this- with the material presented in better order and the structure of the argument clarified.

[michaleen]

I think this fascinating and thanks so much for sharing.

"Unsystematized" is a very kind way of putting it. I think the central thesis, as you state it, is plausible at the very least. The difficulty for the authors and ourselves is that there is unlikely to be a smoking gun, somewhere, some piece of evidence proving that Hadrian was the force behind normative Christianity. The case for the claim is certain to be circumstantial, sort of defining the edges of the hole where the conclusive evidence should be but isn't -- if that makes sense.

As for Paul, there is a discussion of him on the site, somewhere. I bumped into it yesterday. I did not however come away with a clear idea of how he fits in, though.

There are other puzzlements, too. What of the gnostics, both Christian and otherwise? And what really became of Mithraism? Why does it not figure among heretical doctrines and why did Christianity take on so much of its symbolism and terminology?

[poliphilo]

You're right. The case rests on a negative- specifically the absence of Jesus of Nazareth from the archaeological record before the Second Century. The discovery of a single scrap of a gospel from the First Century would bring down the whole house of cards.

The Hadrianic Conspiracy

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