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From: Paul Trejo <pet@netcom6.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.gnostic
Subject: Is NT Jewish or Gentile?
Date: 20 Feb 2000 18:26:05 GMT
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Glenn (Christian Mystic) <gwebb@urjet.net> wrote:
: Hey! As Gnosticism has so much of its roots in Jewish thought, and so
: many of the sects were totally Jewish, anti-Semitism in Gnosticism
: makes as much sense as anti-Semitism makes within Christianity...
: NONE...
: <anti-Judaism is another matter><As we don't accept YHWH, Judaism's
: focal-point><Could be some are confusing Jewish with Judaism,,, just a
: thought>
: But that didn't stop the Christians from falling into it...
: Terrorfying thought.
:
: Glenn (Christian Mystic)

The error in your argument, Glenn, as I see it, is taking the tradition
at face value -- that Christianity is Jewish.  That is simply not the case,
and in fact Jewish readers have been denying this for 2,000 years!

For one thing, there is a Jewish rift between the Written Law of Moses
and the Oral Tradition of the prophets who came into the picture during
the Assryian, Babylonian and Persian captivity/restoration periods.  The
literature of that period is highly influenced by the foreign elements.
Doesn't every scholar know that?  Also, the Persians were Gentiles, the
first Gentile (Indo-European) world powers.  Jewish literature borrows a
great deal from Persian Religion, including the End of the World ideas,
the spirit world, and the Messiah (Mithra).  All that is Persian, that is,
Gentile. 

Bruno Bauer had it right -- the Gospel and the Epistles were ROMAN documents
that attempted to APPROPRIATE the Jewish Scriptures.

Even the so-called Re-Judaizing Gospel of MATTHEW, Bruno Bauer finds, was
ROMAN from top to bottom.  The issue in it between the Old Law and the New
Law is not a struggle between Jews and Jewish Christians, but a struggle
between the Old Roman Law and the budding Republican Law.

Look harder at the New Testament.  The Jews have been telling you for
centuries that it does not fulfill their prophecies AS THEY RECEIVE THEM.  
SGF Brandon (1953) for example, thinks the Romans wrote the New Testament
as a way to whitewash Pilate because of all the Zealots he crucified.

But in fact Bruno Bauer doesn't even care *that* much about the Jewish issues
in the Scripture of the NT.  The whole issue was the Roman Republic, and
this explains quite a lot.

Why, for example, are Roman Centurians praised in the New Testament?  That
would never happen in any properly Jewish Scripture!  Why would the NT say
that the Rule of Caesar was God's Will?  Only a Roman would say such a thing.
(See I Peter, et al.)

It is also possible that St. Paul's EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS was the first book
of the New Testament -- what does it do?  It JOINS the history of Adam & Eve 
to the history of Jesus and Pilate.  This history still affects historians in
our own day!  It dominated the previous 1800 years of scholarship!  WHY?

Because the Romans actually had NO HISTORY!  They stole what they could from
the Greeks -- but actually the Greeks had NO HISTORY either, to speak of. 
To tell ancient history the Greek Myths were frankly pathetic.  Greek Comic
writers made fun of the Myths all the time.

But the Semites -- THEY had a good grasp of world history!  The Jews, who 
were the youngest children of the ancient Semite World (starting with Ninevah
and Old Babylon of GENESIS), had collected histories from every nation in the
ancient world that had conquered her!  Israel exists in the smack dab center
of the Great Powers of the Old World (Babylon, Arabia, Egypt and Macedonia)
Whenever the great Semitic powers moved, Israel recorded it in their Bible.
They also borrowed whole sections from Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian and
Arabian lore for their Scriptures.

The Greeks and Romans had nothing like that.  They coveted such histories.
With the EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, the Europeans APPROPRIATED (stole) the books
of the Semitic World, and tied it all up with a silver bow.

The New Testament is GENTILE literature from beginning to end.  Thanks to
the great Hegel scholar, Bruno Bauer, we no longer need to doubt this approach
to Bible Study.  We live in exciting times.

Best regards,
--Paul Trejo