Jeannot
Jeannot
"The disciples said to Jesus, 'We know you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?
"Jesus said to them, 'No matter where you are, your are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."
It is unlikely that this passage from the Gospel of Thomas is something that Jesus actually said, nevertheless, the saying about James illustrates that there was a tradition exalting James the Just and his role. In the letter of James, he speaks of his "church" as a synagogue. Presuming that the author is Jesus' brother, this tells us that the religion that Jesus' immediate followers, like James, Peter, and John practiced was Judaism -- NOT Christianity. Passages in Luke and Acts confirm this.
James was apparently a leader of the group known as the Ebionites (from the Hebrew "Ebionim," the poor). We know about them from hostile writers like Irenaeus. He says that they had only one gospel, that of Matthew. But it could not have been canonical Matthew, since most Ebionites did not accept the Virgin Birth. Perhaps it was the "Hebrew" (probably Aramaic) Matthew spoken of by Papias (as reported in Eusebius).
Perhaps it was also the reputed (and disputed) "Q" document. The Ebionim seem to have taken their name from a passage found in Luke, "Blessed are the poor (actually the Greek means "destitute") This may well have been the form of the saying in "Q" (or Aramaic Matt), and canonical Matt added "in spirit."
In Mark and Matt, Jesus makes a date with the disciples to meet them in Galilee after the Resurrection. Mark, of course, concludes with the empty tomb. And in Matt there IS an appearance on some mountain in Galilee, but the location is completely perfunctory; it could have been anywhere.
In short, the arranged meeting in Galilee may go back to an authentic saying of Jesus. Two of the criteria for establishing the likelihood of authenticity are 1) Embarrassment; and 2) Discontinuity. This saying is embarrassing because of its discontinuity. That is, there is nothing in Mark or Matt that leads up to it or follows from it (except the perfunctory appearance in Matt). IOW, WHY would Jesus have arranged a meeting in Galilee, unless he saw that as an important venue for his mission?
Now note that Luke has no meeting, either promised or actual. And in Luke's Acts, the action is in Jerusalem, and later in the Diaspora. So we have a gaping hole in early Christian history regarding the "church" (actually, synagogue) in Galilee.
I mean, after all, most of Jesus' activity -- preaching and healing -- was in Galilee. There had to be thousands of his followers there. But we hear nothing about them. Luke is too smitten with Paul.
We do, however, get some hints in the various missions in the Synoptics (Mark 6:7-13; Matt 10:5-23; (Luke 9:1-6 & 10:1-20). It is likely that there were a number of missions, and this is how the "apostles" got their name -- Greek APOSTOLOI means "those who are sent." They were sent to announce the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
Jesus seems to be sending out destitute, itinerant prophets to the homes of poor farmers, (Crossan’s thesis) etc. "Do not worry about what you shall eat, what you shall wear .... Rather, seek first the kingdom of God and these things shall be added to you." And indeed they were, as we read in Luke 10:17-20.
My thesis is that these apostles/prophets were the original Ebionim.
Another tidbit, BTW, is that later Ebionites told the 3rd-century Bishop Epiphanius that their economic practice went back to that recorded in Acts 4:32-37, the practice of holding everything in common, as monks continue to do. The practice of destitute, barefoot apostles was briefly revived by St Francis in the 13th Century.
"Jesus said to them, 'No matter where you are, your are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."
It is unlikely that this passage from the Gospel of Thomas is something that Jesus actually said, nevertheless, the saying about James illustrates that there was a tradition exalting James the Just and his role. In the letter of James, he speaks of his "church" as a synagogue. Presuming that the author is Jesus' brother, this tells us that the religion that Jesus' immediate followers, like James, Peter, and John practiced was Judaism -- NOT Christianity. Passages in Luke and Acts confirm this.
James was apparently a leader of the group known as the Ebionites (from the Hebrew "Ebionim," the poor). We know about them from hostile writers like Irenaeus. He says that they had only one gospel, that of Matthew. But it could not have been canonical Matthew, since most Ebionites did not accept the Virgin Birth. Perhaps it was the "Hebrew" (probably Aramaic) Matthew spoken of by Papias (as reported in Eusebius).
Perhaps it was also the reputed (and disputed) "Q" document. The Ebionim seem to have taken their name from a passage found in Luke, "Blessed are the poor (actually the Greek means "destitute") This may well have been the form of the saying in "Q" (or Aramaic Matt), and canonical Matt added "in spirit."
In Mark and Matt, Jesus makes a date with the disciples to meet them in Galilee after the Resurrection. Mark, of course, concludes with the empty tomb. And in Matt there IS an appearance on some mountain in Galilee, but the location is completely perfunctory; it could have been anywhere.
In short, the arranged meeting in Galilee may go back to an authentic saying of Jesus. Two of the criteria for establishing the likelihood of authenticity are 1) Embarrassment; and 2) Discontinuity. This saying is embarrassing because of its discontinuity. That is, there is nothing in Mark or Matt that leads up to it or follows from it (except the perfunctory appearance in Matt). IOW, WHY would Jesus have arranged a meeting in Galilee, unless he saw that as an important venue for his mission?
Now note that Luke has no meeting, either promised or actual. And in Luke's Acts, the action is in Jerusalem, and later in the Diaspora. So we have a gaping hole in early Christian history regarding the "church" (actually, synagogue) in Galilee.
I mean, after all, most of Jesus' activity -- preaching and healing -- was in Galilee. There had to be thousands of his followers there. But we hear nothing about them. Luke is too smitten with Paul.
We do, however, get some hints in the various missions in the Synoptics (Mark 6:7-13; Matt 10:5-23; (Luke 9:1-6 & 10:1-20). It is likely that there were a number of missions, and this is how the "apostles" got their name -- Greek APOSTOLOI means "those who are sent." They were sent to announce the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
Jesus seems to be sending out destitute, itinerant prophets to the homes of poor farmers, (Crossan’s thesis) etc. "Do not worry about what you shall eat, what you shall wear .... Rather, seek first the kingdom of God and these things shall be added to you." And indeed they were, as we read in Luke 10:17-20.
My thesis is that these apostles/prophets were the original Ebionim.
Another tidbit, BTW, is that later Ebionites told the 3rd-century Bishop Epiphanius that their economic practice went back to that recorded in Acts 4:32-37, the practice of holding everything in common, as monks continue to do. The practice of destitute, barefoot apostles was briefly revived by St Francis in the 13th Century.
