I have been doing some reading on Jesus

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[–]bootylicious 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Jesus was almost certainly not real

Good arguments about this (in agreement) are by Rudolph Bultman, summarised in his, 'Jesus Christ and mythology':

https://archive.org/details/jesuschristmytho00rudo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Bultmann

There are also very good books on the historical Jesus. I like Bultman's approaches as well as the assessments of the historical Jesus, as we can consider that there were various preachers tortured to death for heresy (sometimes against the Scribes and Pharisees) c. 1 c. BCE - 3 c. CE.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

we can consider that there were various preachers tortured to death for heresy (sometimes against the Scribes and Pharisees) c. 1 c. BCE - 3 c. CE.

Sure. Whether they were tortured for some sort of heresy against the old testament god or for simply being anti-establishment would be an important distinction. I doubt that Philo's logos had made it to Jerusalem that quickly, and personally believe that the early gospels represent the first canonization of such, albeit after 80CE.

I think a lot of troublemakers would have motivated gnostics in Jerusalem towards a more literal interpetation of the logos. In terms of interesting people who were actually persecuted and actually maintained literal gnosis of the logos - Cerinthus was far and away the most impactful, especially on Ignatius.

[–]bootylicious 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think Jewish merchants in Alexandria, Jerusalem, Damascus, and around Mediterranean provided opportunities for the sharing of ideas and literature before and during the Roman empire, and that Philo's approaches were known especially among Hebrew scholars. Philo and some others at the time addressed the moral significance of one's logos and ingenium (root of 'genius') because these were intermediaries between the divine and human, and were part of the soul. Applying a moral purpose to one's ingenium (to beget, to begin) in this way would foreshadow Christian claims that there were good and bad angels. One's logos and ingenium in this new hermeneutic had a moral dimention that could be used to control what was considered one's legitimate logos or ingenium, thereby potentially controlling information on religious terms. (Part of this is discussed very briefly in the book, 'Logodaedalus' (Pittsburgh, 2018)).

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Perhaps they were aware, but I doubt Philonic thought was anything more than a curiosity. Pauline effort would have been the only sufficient motivation to have sustained the logos for two to three generations before it even became relevant - and they obviously did this without foreknowledge of the bar khoba revolt.