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Christianity started as a sect of Judaism by the followers of Yeshua. The faith which emerged after his death was built sadly upon a mixture of two different religions: Judaism and Hellenism. The former provided the scripture and legitimacy for the new religion. The latter furnished new interpretations to that literature and its symbols. Even a cursory glance at the books of the New Testament reveals the copious use of quotations and references to the Tanakh (many of which are not correctly quoted on purpose). Subsequently, disparate meanings, which were ascribed to those Hebrew Scriptures, sanctioned the new tenets which helped create the new religion which shunned its mother…Biblical Judaism. These novel beliefs stemmed from Hellenism. As the famous Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, put it,...
"The Christian faith is an amalgam of Hebraic and Hellenistic elements" (Reinhold Niebuhr,Pious and Secular America, p. 108).
Gentile Christianity inherited much of the philosophy, customs, and flavor of the pagan Hellenistic world. Hellenism itself absorbed religious beliefs from other nations. Mystery-cults and Gnosticism were pagan ideas imported into Hellenism where they were further developed and expanded. Many of these concepts in turn were accepted into Christianity as it spread to the Greek and Roman world.
"The concept of the incarnation of a divine being in human form appears in various pagan cults, Greek, Egyptian, and oriental, which were current in Paul's day in the Near East, and which environmental influences predisposed the Apostle to think in terms of incarnation in interpreting his new faith to pagan peoples" (S.G.F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem, pp. 67-68).
The Gentile pagan's mystery cults were based on death and resurrection of a God and the object was to enable the initiate to take part in this death and resurrection and so attain eternal life. In a typical cult an animal was killed which represented the slain God. In some of the rites the animal's blood was poured over the initiate. In others, the flesh was eaten and the blood drunk by initiates into the cult (the beginning of the eucharist). The rite was practiced in the spring corresponding to Easter time (H. Maccoby, Revolution in Judea, pp. 87-88). The Bacchus rites involved eating raw meat as a way of sharing in the life of the God. This concept is not too remote from the Eucharist (Howard C. Kee, Understanding the New Testament, Fourth Edition, pp. 27-28). Some cults developed a belief in the advantages derived from a God's death which went beyond the immediate benefits of agricultural fertility. The death of the God brought spiritual redemption to all mankind. The evil forces of the people causing the God's demise were transformed, against the killers' will or knowledge, into the means of salvation. Thus the God's death became a sacrifice as a means of bringing good into the world.
Gnosticism was another Hellenistic movement whose ideas influenced Christianity thanks to Paul and Marcion (http://paulproblem.faithweb.com/) It is a system of belief combining ideas from Oriental mysticism and Greek philosophy. It stresses salvation through gnosis or intuitive knowledge in spiritual matters. Gnosticism has a dualistic view of life in that the world is seen as containing two opposing forces, good and evil. The Jewish God, Jehovah, was considered to be a demon or devil who created this evil world. The good was represented by a Savior, Soter in Greek. Soter was also called the "Son of God " and was one of a trinity of gods. He would redeem mankind by his suffering and release it from the evil Demiurge. Many of the Gnostic writings were anti-Jewish, reflecting the Jewish-Greek cultural rivalry. The dichotomy in Gnosticism was further seen in the conflict between body and soul and the contempt it expressed for sexuality in human nature (Maccoby, The Mythmaker: Paul And The Invention Of Christianity, p. 88-89).
Greek and Roman mythology included a pantheon of gods who regularly had relations with humans. The resulting offspring of a heavenly deity and a human female was considered a God. Zeus, the supreme deity of the Greeks, procreated with mortal women who were other men's wives. To give but one example: Apollo, God of light and truth, medicine and prophecy, was the offspring of a union of Zeus and the mortal Leto or Latona (Edith Hamilton, Mythology, p. 30).
Many of the ideas found in mystery-cults, Gnosticism, and Greco-Roman mythology contain elements which are found in Christian theology. For example, just as there is a dying and resurrection in the mystery cult, so Yeshua was transformed from a mortal into a deity after his "sacrificial" death on the cross. The God in the mystery religion was resurrected, as was Yeshua according to Christian theology. After he was resurrected, the pagan God was worshipped. Following Yeshua's resurrection, his apostles began to venerate him. Finally, the death of the heathen God in the mystery-cult brought spiritual benefit to his followers. Yeshua's death has been viewed as the source of salvation by and for his adherents.
Gnosticism postulates the doctrine of a good God and a bad God. Christianity reflects this dualism in its concept of the harsh Jewish God and the loving, kind divinity, Yeshua. The Gnostic Savior or the Soter, brought salvation to mankind as did Yeshua to his believers. Yeshua, like the Soter, was called the son of God and was one of a trinity. The redemption of mankind through the suffering of Yeshua is another doctrine paralleling the Gnostic belief that the Soter released humanity from evil through his suffering.
The mythological concept of a heavenly deity fathering the offspring of a human woman resembles the Christian credo of God as father of Yeshua and the mortal Mary as his mother.
The similarity between Hellenistic religious beliefs and Christian theology was expressed by Hugh Schonfield as follows:
"It was upon an image of God partaking strongly of the characteristics of ancient heathenism that the Christian faith was founded" (Hugh Schonfield, Those Incredible Christians, pp. 205-207). It is those features which irrevocably divorced Christianity from its parent religion and created a chasm between them.
The religious philosophies of the Hellenistic world were rejected by most Jews just as they had spurned other pagan religions in the ancient world; therefore they reject Christianity today because it is pagan to the core (but you have to study to see this)! This does not mean that over the centuries Jews were never attracted to the religious practices of other people. At the eve of Biblical prophecy was condemnation and rebuke of the nation for imitating its neighbors and their heathen customs. From antiquity assimilation has been a Hebrew or Jewish problem.
However, the vast majority of Jews repudiated such beliefs as human sacrifice, polytheism, and deification of a human into a God. These beliefs were as much a part of Hellenism as were the magnificent Greek art and sculpture. Jews had progressed beyond idolatry and paganism long before Hellenism became dominant. By the time the Judeans returned from Babylonian exile at the end of the sixth century B.C.E. (after 538), they had purged themselves of heathenism. Later books in the Hagiographa (Sacred Writings, the third part of the Tanakh), as well as apocryphal books, indicate that the idolatry which had so plagued the Israelites during the Prophetic period no longer posed a problem to their religious integrity. Even the Essenes whom Josephus characterized as worshipping the sun (http://bennoah1.freewebsites.com/) and (http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/) apparently did this as a manifestation of God. This custom was not found at Qumran. No group or sect postulated a duality in its concept of God.
When Judaism and Hellenism squared off on the battlefields in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee in the Maccabean Wars, the battles were fought as much for religious freedom from the forced paganism of the Greeks as for political independence from them. The Jews won. They maintained their religion and held on to their national independence for a century until their confrontation with Rome.
Although Jews fought arduously for their religious and political freedom against Greek encroachments on it, they were open to some elements of Hellenistic culture and influenced by it. This was true of the Talmudic rabbis as well as the upper and middle classes. Gamliel, who is mentioned in the New Testament, headed an academy in which, according to his son, Simeon, as many young men studied Greek wisdom as studied Torah (Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, pp. 1, 20). Greek words appear in the Jerusalem Talmud and the Midrash in Hebrew letters. Greek proverbs and stories are found in the rabbinic literature of the Talmud, Midrash, and Tosefta. The Tosefta is rabbinic literature written during the tannaitic period which was approximately the first two centuries of the common era. The Midrash is a method of interpreting the Hebrew Bible to elucidate legal points (halakha) or homiletics (aggada). This genre of rabbinic literature extended from the fourth to the thirteenth century, or even beyond. The rabbis even accepted Greek forms of behavior and adapted them to Judaism such as participation in athletics and interest in astrology (S. Liberman, op, cit., pp. 92-114).
Most of the Greek culture and language which penetrated into Jewish society in Judea, outside of the aristocracy, occurred after 70 C.E. The Hasmonean dynasty had absorbed Greek culture over a century earlier. The upper and middle classes were quicker to assimilate the Hellenistic idiom than were the lower classes.
Greeks resented Jews for not adopting the Greek religion along with other parts of Hellenistic culture. Perhaps the persistence of Jews in sticking to their beliefs and refusing to go along with the popularly accepted values, "the idols of the marketplace," contributed to their unpopularity. Strength of character combined with sincere attachment and stubborn commitment carry a heavy price.
There was intense rivalry between Jews and Greeks in the Roman Empire for cultural dominance. Jews had a higher proportion of literacy. They had an older culture and while Jewish art could not match that of the Greeks, their literature was in many ways superior. The Greeks controlled the cultural policies of the Empire and afforded no recognition to the Hebrew language and culture. They ignored it or distorted it.
In short, the Greeks considered their culture superior to that of the Jews--or of any other people. Traditional Greek anti-Semitism derived from a conviction of the superiority of their culture to that of the Jews with which they were unfamiliar. They were surprised and repelled by the stubborn persistence of Jews in adhering to the religion and ethical values of their faith. Other nations, upon contact with Hellenism, had succumbed to it, thus acknowledging its cultural superiority to theirs...but not the Jews...they had the truth!
The Jews, while impressed with Greek literature, art, and philosophy, did not find its social institutions and theological beliefs worthy of emulation. The Greeks ridiculed such Jewish religious practices as observing a day of rest each week (Sabbath), dietary restrictions, and circumcision, as well as ethical values to which Jews clung . Until the Maccabean Wars there was no anti-Jewish Greek writings or expression of hostility to the Jews. Nevertheless in later antiquity such manifestation of Hellenistic animosity to Jews did exist. The malice which many Greeks bore to the Jews was well illustrated in Apion’s writing to which Josephus responded. Infanticide and widespread slavery within their own population were accepted practices in Greek society. They had been forbidden in Jewish law since it was given at Sinai about 1400 years earlier.
Jewish and Greek communities lived together with varying degrees of harmony and disharmony. In Sardis there seems to have been no evidence of conflict; in Antioch cultural rivalry was strong; in Alexandria there was a great deal of hostility between the two peoples. The Egyptian metropolis had large Jewish and Greek populations. There were periodic clashes between them. Unfortunately, the repeated outbreaks against the Jews in Alexandria speak more clearly of the Greek attitude toward the Jews than most books. The rioting lasted from 38 to 41 and Claudius described it as wars against the Jews. The violence broke out because the Jews requested citizenship in a city in which they had lived for centuries. So strong was Greek opposition to the granting of equality to Jews that they formed delegations to Rome to oppose it. In 38 C.E. Greeks led anti-Jewish riots which persisted for three years. Jews had lived in Alexandria for centuries where they were legal residents but not citizens. The riots were precipitated when Jews requested Roman citizenship which the Greek residents had. The Greeks sent an embassy to Emperor Claudius led by Apion to protest the granting of that citizenship. The Jewish embassy to the emperor was led by Philo of Alexandria, the great Jewish philosopher and Biblical commentator. Claudius mediated between the two conflicting parties. He assured the rights of the Jews to religious freedom and protection against Greek harassment but did not grant them citizenship (Josephus, Antiquities, 19:5).
The attacks on Jews in Alexandria were renewed in 66 at the time of the outbreak of the First Roman-Jewish War in Judea. The Greeks jumped on this opportunity to assault the Jews of their city knowing that their brethren were at war with Rome and thereby less likely to receive Roman legal protection. The Greeks brought to Christianity a residue of pagan anti-Semitism.
While the rivalry between Judaism and Hellenism was founded on deep cultural and religious differences, there were also other factors. Both nations, Judea and Greece, had enjoyed independence and both lost it to Rome. The Greeks submitted. The Jews fought. In Judea they engaged in two wars. The First Jewish Revolt lasted from 66 to 73; the Second Jewish War or Bar Kokhba Revolt continued from 132 to 135. Between 115 and 117 there was a Diaspora Revolt in which Jews of Cyprus and North Africa rose against Rome. The Greeks resented the Jews for their courage in standing up to the might of Rome while they had yielded. Jewish bravery was a painful reminder of their own subservience and a blow to their pride.
The Roman government treated the Jews relatively well even after their wars of rebellion. They reviled the Jews for rebelling against them, but they did not represent them as the incarnation of evil. Religious privileges and civil rights of Jews were protected by Rome against Gentile infringements and continued unaffected by the revolt of 66- 73 (Oxford Classical Dictionary, p. 564). Despite three bitterly fought Roman-Jewish wars, the Romans did not abandon the policy of protecting the rights of the Jewish communities. The Romans treated the Jews in their empire with respect until Christianity became the state religion. Prior to that time the Roman emperors had resisted efforts by church authorities to dissolve the status of Judaism as a protected religion. The official policies of Rome gave Jews religious freedom to observe their Sabbath free of civic duties, to send donations to the Temple at Jerusalem, and to settle disputes within their community by themselves. Although for the most part, they were not granted citizenship and were taxed as non-citizens, Jews were accepted in all levels of society including aristocratic, intellectual, and ruling circles. anti-Semitic voices, such as Juvenal, Cicero, Tacitus, and Seneca, were not the only ones heard. Among the elite there were defenders and admirers of Jews. Longinius, Dio, and Pliny were among sympathetic Roman writers (J. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, p. 75,80).
In 312 C.E. Constantine became emperor of the Roman Empire. In the following year he granted flavored status to Christianity. By 380 Christianity became the official stale religion and an endless night of despair and anguish descended on Jews.
"There was a dramatic reversal in the imperial policy towards the Jews. Christian emperors succumbed to ecclesiastical pressure by translating theological anti-Judaism into imperial legislation" (J. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism p. 97).
It was this clerical pressure to which the Roman emperor acceded in 429 when he disbanded the Sanhedrin. And we as non-Jewish believers are the inheritors of such in the Gentile Christian Church today. It is no wonder that Christianity, as it is practiced today, bears little resemblance to the faith and religion of Yeshua. Shalom.
