I'm sure alert listeners will have noticed the parallels between Josephus' back story/self-mythologizing and both the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels and Paul. I am referring of course to Jesus pwning and out-Jewing the Jewish scholars in the Temple after going missing from his family (Luke 2:41-52). If Josephus is involved, is this perhaps the earliest known Mary Sue story?
As for Paul there are his claims to be a "Hebrew of Hebrews," or as Alex would say, a super-Jew. Also like Josephus, Paul displays an astonishing ignorance/misunderstanding of Jewish law and lore for someone making such lofty claims. This is laid out in detail in Hyam Maccoby's The Mythmaker.
By the way, I am curious what Strieber had to say in his book, but I guess I will have to go elsewhere for that or actually read it.
great stuff. I had not made this connection... but now that you pointed it out it does seem rather obvious. this is very joe atwill-esque :)
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What does Philippians 3:5 mean? [⇑ See verse text ⇑]
Verses 5 and 6 provide a list of seven important traits found in Paul's life as a devout Jew. His reason for listing these is to prove that he, of all people, has the right to comment on the futility of works. Paul is not claiming salvation by faith as an escape attempt. His message is not an excuse for personal failure—that he cannot, or will not, meet some requirement of the Old Testament law. On the contrary, Paul has fulfilled it better than those who criticize him for preaching saving faith!
Paul's birth and ancestry were impeccable, according to Jewish standards. Paul had been circumcised on the eighth day. His parents did this in accordance with God's command given to Abraham (Genesis 17:12). Paul was truly, naturally, of the "people of Israel." In other words, he was born Jewish rather than being a convert to Judaism. Specifically, he was from the tribe of Benjamin.
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Philippians 3:5,
NLT: "I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin--a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law."
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also:
Maccoby considered Paul's claims to an orthodox
Pharisaic Jewish education to be false, asserting that while many of Paul's writings sound authentic to the uninitiated, they actually betray an
ignorance of the original Hebrew scripture and the subtleties of Jewish Law.[6] Maccoby claimed that an examination of the New Testament indicates that Paul
knew no Hebrew at all, and relied entirely on Greek texts that no actual Pharisee would ever use because they were not properly translated from the Hebrew originals.
According to Maccoby, Paul fused the historical story of Jesus' crucifixion with elements of contemporary mystery religions and Gnosticism, developing such new non-Judaic mythic ideas as the
Trinity and the
Last Supper. Paul also made an attempt to find prophetic justification for his newly created myth in the
Old Testament. Paul came to present Jesus as a dying and rising saviour deity similar to those from the Hellenistic mystery cults, fused with the historical pedigree of Judaism, thus giving birth to a powerful new myth whose preaching gained him a large following. As the Jerusalem group of the original disciples of Jesus gradually became aware of Paul's teachings, bitter hostility ensued between them.
Maccoby interpreted certain
New Testament passages (for example Paul's account of his quarrel with
Peter in the
Incident at Antioch) as remnants of authentic accounts of this hostility. However, the
Jewish Rebellion of 66–70 soon brought a violent end to the Jerusalem sect, and the Gentile Church founded by Paul emerged as the winner by default. Maccoby viewed the
Book of Acts as a later attempt by the Pauline Church to present the relations between Paul and the Jerusalem disciples as harmonious, thus presenting the Pauline Church as legitimised by the chain of
apostolic succession reaching back to the original disciples of Jesus. Maccoby also conjectured that the Jewish-Christian sect of
Ebionites may have been an authentic offshoot of the original Jerusalem community.