The Influence of some Ancient Philosophical and Religious Traditions on the Soteriology of Early Christianity by Jan Albert Gibson Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology in the subject Systematic theology atthe University of South Africa. Supervisor: Prof. Erasmus van Niekerk August 2002 Declaration I the undersigned hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis is 1ny own original work and has not previously in its entirety or in part been submitted at any university for a degree. - . Signature ~ llHl~ll~l~l~ll~ll~ll 0001807587 THE INFLUENCE OF SOME ANCIENT RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS ON THE SOTERIOLOGY OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY Summary When reading the Bible in an independent way, i.e., not through the lenses of any official Church dogma, one is amazed by the many voices that come through to us. Add to this variety the literary finds from Nag Hammadi, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, then the question now confronting many spiritual pilgrims is how it came about that these obviously diverse theologies, represented in the so­ called Old and New Testaments, were moulded into only one "orthodox" result. In what way and to what degree were the many Christian groups different and distinctive from one another, as well as from other Jewish groups? Furthermore, what was the influence of other religions, Judaism, the Mysteries, Gnostics and Philosophers on the. development, variety of groups and ultimately on the consolidation of "orthodox" soteriology? THE INFLUENCE OF SOME ANCIENT RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS ON THE SOTERIOLOGY OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY PAGE I. Stating the Problem I I. I Cultural and Religious Backgrounds, the Main Cause of Variety 5 1.2 Hermeneutics and Complexity 9 2. Soteriology and Conceptual Analysis of Relevant Concepts I 7 2.1 The Human Condition, Guilt and the Gods 19 2.2 Faith 22 2.3 Truth Criteria 25 2.4. Spirituality 26 2.5 Philosophy and Religion 29 2.6 Theories about God 34 3. An Introduction to Religion 3 9 3. 1 The Functions and Purpose of Myth 43 3.1.1. The Hero 45 4. The Genealogy of Religion 49 4.1 Primal and Ancient Religions 50 4.2 The Eastern Religions 53 4.2.1 Hinduism and Lord Krishna 54 4.2.2 The Buddha and Buddhism 57 4.2.3. Zoroastrianism and Related Religions 64 4.3. The Philosophers and the Gods 67 4.3.1. The Predominantly Scientific Philosophers 70 4.3. I. I Confucius 71 4.3.1.2 Aristotle 75 4.3.1.3 Socrates 80 4.3.2 The Predominately Metaphysical Philosophers 86 PAGE 4.3.2.1 Plato 86 4.3.2.2. Stoicism 92 4.3.2.3 The Middle Platonists and Plotinus 95 4.3 .2.4 Pythagoras 99 4.4 The Mystery Religions 104 4.4.1 Hermes Trismegistus 104 4.4.1.1. Symbolism 111 4.4.2 The Mysteries ofMithras 113 4.4 .. 3 The Universal Strategy of the Mysteries 116 4.5 Apollonius ofTyana 120 4.6 Gnosis, Gnostics and Gnosticism 125 4.7 Judaism 135 4.7.1 Jewish Soteriology 147 4.7.2 David the son of God 150 4.7.3 Creative Messianic Expectations 160 4.7.4 The Way of Solomon. 162 4. 8 Philo of Alexandria 171 4.9 Mysticism 173 5. Critique of Present Day Christianity as Introduction to the Problem of Historicity 175 6. Jesus of Nazareth. 184 6.1 Jesus and the Kingdom of God. 192 6.2 A Critical look at Important Moments in the Life of Jesus 195 6.3 Searching the Scriptures 197 6.4 A Summary, from Jesus to Christ 198 6.5 Jesus according to Thomas with inputs from John 202 6.6 The Spiritual Messages of the Aramaic Jesus 213 7. The Jey.ish Jesus Movements 220 8. Paul the First "Christian" Theologian 231 8.1 Paul and the Resurrected Christ 23 3 8.2 Paul on Salvation. 23 7 8.2.1 Sacrifice and Cults, to Metaphor and Spiritual Maturity. 23 8 8.2.2 An Old Model for Salvation Applied to a New Sacrifice 239 8.2.3 Wisdom's Opinion on Sacrifices 241 8.2.4 Paul's opinion on Sacrifices 247 8.3 Paul had many Arguments, but One Multi layered Message. 248 PAGE 9. Revisiting the Main Soteriological Arguments in Time and Arguing for a More Varied and Inclusive View on Salvation in Early Christianity 25 5 9.L God, Creation and Cosmos 256 9.2. The Human Dilemma 259 9.3. Another, Possible Interpretation of the Genesis Myth 260 9.4. The Process of Salvation 263 Bibliography 268 THE INFLUENCE OF SOME ANCIENT RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS ON THE SOTERIOLOGY OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY 1. · STATING THE PROBLEM To give meaning to life is an ageless and universal human quest Life starts with a struggle for survival, followed by efforts to understand life and our place and tasks in the cosmos, culminating in personal and perhaps shared, meaningful philosophical answers. Alternatively, for many, culminating in "salvation", which can be described as "the peace that passeth understanding" (Phil.4:7). Salvation can therefore be described as the ultimate goal in the process of human striving. However, many struggle to get beyond base one, for a variety of complex and mysterious reasons, which in itselfrepresents one of the difficult questions about the Mysteries of Life. This early capitulation of the personal quest to meaning is also one of the main reasons for resorting to other people or groups for a shorter, easier route to meaning and salvation. This proverbial "easy way out" through an uncritically adopted "faith only" solution within a "canned" total package approach to salvation seems to ignore very important human modalities in our development towards a fully integrated, mature human being. Personal experiences suggest strongly that in the process of becoming fully mature, one will have to master the "this­ worldly" questions to a fair degree of satisfaction in a predominantly rational modality of our humanness before the more advanced quest for spiritual development will be experienced as meaningful. From the perspective of the virtually infinite human differences, coupled to a bewildering number of likely family and social influences in a global and virtual environment, personal and philosophical-religious variety should be the expected norm; not generalized universal orthodoxy. Is this scenano valid only in our day and age? Did circumstances and humanity change that much from the time of Jesus or were there other factors in operation that made us believe that an extraordinarily unified orthodoxy 2 prevailed since his time? Personal spiritual discontent and the seemingly irrational dogmatic answers of the mainstream Christian churches do not seem to satisfy the modem spiritual seeker any more. However, did dogmatic, theological answers ever satisfy serious spiritual seekers? Furthermore, you do not have to be a theologian to notice that many different theologies are coming through to us from our current Bible, a fact which seems to be deliberately ignored by our present Christian theology in an effort to present a consensus theology. This thesis is essentially the provisional result of my own search to understand and to make sense of spirituality and religion in a broader inclusive context. In this process, I tried to get a grip on as many aspects that define and constitute our human spiritual experience as possible, while knowing that this is, from a human perspective, virtually impossible owing to complexity and interrelatedness. It also could lead to further confusion. Nevertheless, something within compels us, or seems to encourage us, to try, even if this effort could only lead to soliciting help from fellow seekers or facilitates higher insights. Then, at least our well doers would be able to know that help is needed and where it is needed. What then is the meaning of this mysterious concept called salvation? The means by which "salvation" might be achieved seems to be closely related to the manner in which spiritual meaningfulness has being conceived and to what has been deemed to be the cause of man's need ofit. Salvation as redemption from disease, misfortune and poverty also figures in religions, but is primarily part of ancient pre-scientific communities. Where it is present in modem religious systems, especially if it is posed as supernatural unilateral intervention, it is partly responsible for the science-religion controversy and therefore constitutes another philosophical issue. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (britannica.com/Salvation), the study of the relevant evidence shows the menace of death as the basic cause of soteriological concern and action. The idea that man finds himself in some dire situation is a complex issue. This dilemma, from which he seeks to be saved from, may or may not imply that superior forces are needed. This, again, depends on the cause and condition of his predicament, which could or 3 could not include the world and cosmos he lives in. The soteriological process and determinants, as well as the relevant concepts, are very important to clarify and analyse different variations of salvic theories that manifest in practice. Different individuals, groups and cultures will differ in their understanding of the human plight and their conceptualization of their preferred state of human well-being worth striving for in our present life and hereafter. Ideas of an ultimate fate of human existence and well-being may be linked to an idealised belief in an "afterlife" worth working for in the present life, or that a Saviour or Redeemer earned this immortal prize for us. In every variant of all possible belief systems, a specific concept of God, humankind and the cosmos will be part of the package.