WI: Early Christianity diverges

Max Rakus

Banned
What if christianity around the time of Jesus had seperated creating a new branch known as what we will know call as Zachealisim with no mention of a son of god with clearer defined rules of the commandments such as Homosexuality. Could this happen? please tell me if you think it is possible for a new branch to form this early and also where in the middle east would it happen?
 
Why that name?

I don't think it's possible for a new branch to emerge so early, but in the second and third centuries AD all manner of odd groups sprang up, influenced by Jesus' teachings. You can quite easily get one of these to expand somewhere in the Near East, though "mainstream" Christianity with its networks of bishops is always more likely to break through than any of the small daughter cults.
 

Max Rakus

Banned
Well Zacheal sounds biblical and most people had bibilical names i think. would this Zachealisim succed to today even not with more than 15,000 People. The reason I bring this up is because im writng a book set in the 1920s in a middle eastern city state that has a mostly althist religon population
 
Well Zacheal sounds biblical and most people had bibilical names i think. would this Zachealisim succed to today even not with more than 15,000 People. The reason I bring this up is because im writng a book set in the 1920s in a middle eastern city state that has a mostly althist religon population

You can easily have a heretic group or two persist in isolation, in Turkish or Persian mountains. Problem is, if Christ isn't the Son of God, then this group is just going to be Judaism +Crucified Rabbi.
 
They'd be treated like heretics or infidels by other Christians, and like infidels when Islam spreads. The middle east during this time period is a bad place for small religions to thrive.
 

karikon

Banned
In early cults doctrinal matters are often not set in stone so yes,
considering there was not much of a theological orthodoxy to go against.
 
You can easily have a heretic group or two persist in isolation, in Turkish or Persian mountains. Problem is, if Christ isn't the Son of God, then this group is just going to be Judaism +Crucified Rabbi.

It wouldn't just be Judaism +Crucified Rabbi. It would be Judaism + stuff said by Crucified Rabbi. This doesn't actually seem to strange, most Jews I know think that Jesus was a pretty nice person though not the Son of God or anything. Honestly "Zachealisim" might work out as a sect of
Judaism that believes Jesus to be a prophet who's words are as valid as Isaiah, Ezekiel and all the other Jewish prophets. The Zachealist Jews would probably be treated like Jews by Muslims and Christians, though be somewhat mistrusted by other Jews.
 
There is (was?) a sect that claimed that Jesus was a disciple of John the baptist with delusions of grandeur
 
They'd be treated like heretics or infidels by other Christians, and like infidels when Islam spreads. The middle east during this time period is a bad place for small religions to thrive.
Also this POD elimates islam from the scene.
 
It wouldn't just be Judaism +Crucified Rabbi. It would be Judaism + stuff said by Crucified Rabbi. This doesn't actually seem to strange, most Jews I know think that Jesus was a pretty nice person though not the Son of God or anything. Honestly "Zachealisim" might work out as a sect of
Judaism that believes Jesus to be a prophet who's words are as valid as Isaiah, Ezekiel and all the other Jewish prophets. The Zachealist Jews would probably be treated like Jews by Muslims and Christians, though be somewhat mistrusted by other Jews.
There was a sect sort of like that: the Ebionites, who revered Jesus as the Messiah but not the Son of God, rejected most of the New Testament, and anathematized the Apostle Paul. We've got several polemics against them written by the Church Fathers. We don't know much about their history; they seem to have evaporated over time.
 
OTL Christianity DID diverge.

Gnostics, monophysites, nestorians, arians, donatists, marcionists, paulicians, all these plus chalcedonians (othodox and catholic) Just to name a few of the more prominent ones.

Early Christianity was a very muddled and messy brew.
 
OTL Christianity DID diverge.

Gnostics, monophysites, nestorians, arians, donatists, marcionists, paulicians, all these plus chalcedonians (othodox and catholic) Just to name a few of the more prominent ones.

Early Christianity was a very muddled and messy brew.

Definitely.

Most of those divisions only came about once you start to apply a sophisticated set of bishops who've enjoyed an education in Greek philosophy to the mix, though. Before about AD150, the potential for hair splitting is much, much smaller- at this stage it's still all about "is Jesus divine, or is Jesus a prophet?"- a fairly crude division as of yet.
 
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