The esoteric philosophical background of Jesus and early Christianity is obscure, but it’s not that complicated. Let me share a quick take—which might be interesting to people on this thread.
To start, as with esoteric Judaism, Islam and Platonism, God is conceived as an ineffable oneness. Not a person in the sky, but a divine perfect ”One god” or principle. Hard to talk about, but many books have been written on the topic. The diversity in the cosmos comes from the emanation of the One; this emanation is known as the logos. The logos is typically translated (very poorly, IMO) as “the word.” The logos, as eternal emanation of the one, is therefore metaphorically conceived as “the son of the father.” Jesus is the logos, or in some interpretations, he is the incarnation of the logos (ie, “the word” made flesh).
What’s important to realize here is that this belief in the one (god the father) and the emanation from the one (the logos) is completely orthodox across Catholicism, eastern orthodox and most Protestant interpretations. I think most Christians and nonChristians would find that surprising.
In Acts 18:24, Paul says that Apollos of Alexandria was able to preach this philosophy without even knowing about Jesus. That’s likely because of the massive influence of Philo of Alexandria (b. 25bce) who wrote extensively about the logos as “the son of god.”
Philo also wrote prolifically about the early preChristian communities around Alexandria, the Therapeutae, which Jesus likely encountered as a child—he also wrote about the Essene sect that most resembles the Judaism of Jesus. I’ve assembled and highlighted some of those texts here. At the end, there is also a text from Pope Benedict that formalizes the connection between Jesus and the Essenes.
I'm hoping that more pre Christian Jewish texts will be found. The dead sea scrolls and similar finds did so much to enrich our knowledge of second temple Judaism, helping to support or undermine existing conjectures.
I read recently an excellent discussion on the Samaritan penteteuch, a masters thesis from 2008 - the first direct to English translation ever done from Samaritan oral language. There are clearly an evolving set pre-masoretic texts in pre Christian antiquity and we can see some of the not-quite MT types being used in the vulgate and others.
I suspect, like how the dead sea scrolls illuminated some factional rivalries in second temple Judaism- if we can find more texts from this period it'll better flesh out when, how, and to what extent Greek philosophy influenced the various sets. there is an old idea that the synthesis of Logos and Judaism occurred in John's gospel but this seems undermined already...
Amen. The story continues to evolve. Did you hear about the discovery last year of THC/cannabis residues on an 8th century Jewish temple? It just about guarantees that the billowing smoke from the Mosaic tabernacle was psychoactive.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03344355.2020.1...
When I get more time, I want to invest in reading the Mandaen literature. They worshipped John the Baptist —and their religion still exists!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism
To start, as with esoteric Judaism, Islam and Platonism, God is conceived as an ineffable oneness. Not a person in the sky, but a divine perfect ”One god” or principle. Hard to talk about, but many books have been written on the topic. The diversity in the cosmos comes from the emanation of the One; this emanation is known as the logos. The logos is typically translated (very poorly, IMO) as “the word.” The logos, as eternal emanation of the one, is therefore metaphorically conceived as “the son of the father.” Jesus is the logos, or in some interpretations, he is the incarnation of the logos (ie, “the word” made flesh).
What’s important to realize here is that this belief in the one (god the father) and the emanation from the one (the logos) is completely orthodox across Catholicism, eastern orthodox and most Protestant interpretations. I think most Christians and nonChristians would find that surprising.
In Acts 18:24, Paul says that Apollos of Alexandria was able to preach this philosophy without even knowing about Jesus. That’s likely because of the massive influence of Philo of Alexandria (b. 25bce) who wrote extensively about the logos as “the son of god.”
Philo also wrote prolifically about the early preChristian communities around Alexandria, the Therapeutae, which Jesus likely encountered as a child—he also wrote about the Essene sect that most resembles the Judaism of Jesus. I’ve assembled and highlighted some of those texts here. At the end, there is also a text from Pope Benedict that formalizes the connection between Jesus and the Essenes.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JATMRSh4b6wlFlYWw8t1FdrG...
I hope some people enjoy this rabbithole. Happy to provide more refs.