Blood wrote:

Good points, but as you know, I think you're reading the NT too literally.

Thanks, but all I said was even in the book of Acts, I did not say whether it was 100% historical or not.

There was no persecution of Christians by Jews as portrayed in the NT.

Now I feel you are simply dismissing the NT as historical sources wholesale which is a nono as well as taking it 100% as fact. It would be a crime to blaspheme against God, and a Christian who pronounced Jesus as Lord would be considered a Blasphemer. The Sanhedrin did hold trials, and it is no far stretch to think that Christians were tried before it in regards to blasphemy. Even Paul in Galatians mentions he persecuted Christians, so we know the Jews did indeed persecute members of the sect. In 2nd Corinthians Paul lists a giant list of the trials he faced by the Jews against him. (and no, I am not going to debate the historicity of Paul here, since the historical opinion and consensus is Paul was a historical individual and he actually wrote Galatians, I am sticking with that. Any discussion on this point would be off topic, and belongs in the never ending thread.)

There was some sort of conflict c. 49 in Rome, which resulted in the Jews' temporary expulsion. But the NT gives away the plot when it pretends that there was no Roman persecution, and all their troubles were because of Jews.

Well seeing how the author of Luke/Acts was probably a Roman citizen (i.e. a non Jew), there is good reason to suggest why the focus of persecution is on the Jews, and no it was not to create hatred for the Jews. If the audience of Luke/Acts is intended to be Gentile readers (which it was most likely) then portraying Jewish leadership as antagonistic is a good way to bolden the new converts. Gentile converts in second temple Judaism were not treated like wholesale Jews, and by some sects were despised. Luke/Acts is written to demonstrate they are wrong and the persecuted are righteous. Yes, it's biased and impassioned and the author manipulated stories to say something that probably didn't happen. Welcome to first century journalism.

This is clear evidence of serious ideological and racist axe-grinding, not history writing.

You've read Suetonius' works, yes? How can you say that is not ideological or axe grinding? Yet, I doubt you have a problem with the works of Suetonius? Josephus is also CLEARLY biased and yet, despite the one or two discrepancies, I am positive you also accept his historical work. The same is said in regards to the New Testament. Yes, it deserves critical analysis and yes, there are clear manipulations within the text to tell a story in a certain way as to bias one group over another. That is expected in the histories of antiquity.

The point was to destroy and demonize the Jews in order to justify stealing their religion. It was the most effective propaganda of all time.

Now that is a claim which has 0 evidence to support it. If Luke/Acts was written after the Fall of Jerusalem then it would have no reason to destroy or demonize the Jews, nor need to justify anything. Unless you are arguing for an early authorship of Luke/Acts?

As for it being propaganda, propaganda is still heavily based in historical fact. It just presents one side of the argument/position.

Anyways, back to persecution by the Jews, we know from 4th-5th century scholars that claims of Jewish persecution were largely exaggerated by the early Christian church to distance themselves from the Jews, who were at the time not favored by Rome at all (3 major revolts would do that for sure). As Christianity fell under Gentile leadership after 70 AD, it came into conflict with Rabbinical Judaism and thus it distanced itself from it. This is why Matthew portrays the Pharisees in such a negative way, and why Luke panders towards a Gentile audience. Mark is the only gospel which does not negatively portray the Jewish community (which is why Mark is dated earlier by scholars), but even Mark mentions persecution (but vague and non-specific) and seeing how Mark was most likely written in the wake of Nero's open persecution of Christians this sense of fear of persecution makes sense.

jamest wrote:

MS2 wrote:

jamest wrote:

MS2 wrote:
No it doesn't. It leads to me saying: 'There is no evidence of people claiming he was God at the start of the movement. This idea developed later, when the movement had already grown significantly and acquired some status and power.' And that is correct.

What is the evidence for this claim?

Since it is a claim that 'There is no evidence ...', my 'evidence' is that you (and no modern non-fundamentalist scholar) have not provided any of the evidence which I say is lacking.

Hold on. You're the one making a claim here

Nope, the claim was yours. You said: 'Further, consider the people through which this 'myth' spread - the Jews & Romans themselves. How could this happen without any evidence? When a man simply tells a 1st century Jew that a bloke from Nazareth was God, we should expect that man to get a skewar through his skull.' To which I responded 'There is no evidence of people claiming he was God at the start of the movement. This idea developed later, when the movement had already grown significantly and acquired some status and power.' (http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... l#p1556245)

You're saying that the writers of the gospels didn't have the same beliefs as the instigators of Christianity.

By saying this, you are smuggling in the implication that the writers of the gospels did believe he was a deity. But you haven't even established that. It's arguable that the latest gospel-writer, John, was getting toward thinking that (as I noted earlier), but not Mark, Luke or Matthew.

So, where is the evidence for this claim? The onus is upon you.

Once again, it is your claim, not mine. You say that the very first Christians told their first hearers that Jesus was a deity. That is not my claim. My claim is that the very first Christians told people he was the messiah. There is plenty of evidence for this.

Interpretations vary. The one you choose to go for is something like: "There is no direct claim, by Jesus, in Mark/Paul that Jesus was 'the son of God'. Therefore, Jesus was not the son of God."

Sometimes you have to read between the lines. Inference. I mean, for example, in any conversation I've had with you have I told you that I'm human? I don't think so. Therefore, does this then mean that I'm not human?

Certainly, from memory, I don't recall either Paul or Mark depicting Jesus as merely a 'normal man'.

I put 'normal' in quotes to signify that by 'normal' I meant something like 'no suggestion he was a deity'. Clearly they don't depict him as a 'normal man' in the sense of something like 'ordinary like everybody else'. They regard him as special, unique, chosen by Yahweh, or to put it another way 'the messiah'. But nevertheless there is no assertion in Paul or Mark that he was a deity.

So, reading between the lines, wouldn't you say that a man "special, unique, chosen by Yahweh, or to put it another way 'the messiah'", could be equated as being the 'son of God'?

Certainly. The title 'son of God' did indeed signify someone specially chosen by God, and this is why Christians assigned it to Jesus. Your error is in thinking it also signified the one given that title was God. It may have begun to take that meaning as time went by, but it did not have it at the start. In any case, if Jesus did use any title of himself it was (the aramaic version of) 'son of man' not 'son of God'.

Well there are discrepancies amongst the gospels, but mainly in the details. I think the significant aspects of the story are embraced by all.

What aspects are you thinking of? The significant aspects they share it seems to me are things like he was reputed to be a teacher, a healer and occasional miracle-worker - these are not aspects (such as him being divine) which are needed to make your argument work (unless you want to provide evidence to the contrary?).

What does the divine have to do to prove that 'he' is divine? Miracles? (Yep). Teach? (Yep). Bring a new message to the people? (Yep). So, what else do you want?

There were plenty of supposed-healers and miracle-workers around at the time. Nobody thought this made them divine - rather it was taken as indicating they were working on Yahweh's behalf, which is a different thing entirely.

The point is debatable. I don't have time to search for evidence right now, but there's plenty which counters your opinion.

Not very debatable at all I'm afraid. Mark and Luke have never been claimed to have been written by 'the instigators of Christianity' and always have been claimed as second generation at best. Matthew and John were thought in early centuries to be by the disciples of those names, but hardly anybody (outside of fundamentalists) thinks that now.

Why? Do you have a link to support your claim? I'd like to read it.

It's common knowledge. I'm surprised you question it. Read any standard text book on the Bible. Try the wiki entry on New Testament and the subsection on the authorship of the gospels if you want a link.

willhud9 wrote:

The point was to destroy and demonize the Jews in order to justify stealing their religion. It was the most effective propaganda of all time.

Now that is a claim which has 0 evidence to support it. If Luke/Acts was written after the Fall of Jerusalem then it would have no reason to destroy or demonize the Jews, nor need to justify anything.

I'm continually amazed to be told that the NT doesn't demonize Jews, when nearly every page is dripping with vile, venomous slander and hatred for "the Jews," an alien outside race who "killed all their prophets."

This gross misconception is apparently based on the old apologist's need for the NT documents to be early and therefore composed by the Jewish followers of Jesus, and so therefore -- although they sound extreme to modern ears -- they couldn't be anti-Jewish. I say bullshit. They are the most extreme anti-Jewish documents written until modern times, and there's "0" evidence to think they were written by Jews. KKK manuals are not written by black people.

willhud9 wrote:
As for it being propaganda, propaganda is still heavily based in historical fact. It just presents one side of the argument/position.

Except in religious contexts, where historical fact is there (if at all) only to lend verisimilitude to the priest's moral lessons.

willhud9 wrote:
Anyways, back to persecution by the Jews, we know from 4th-5th century scholars that claims of Jewish persecution were largely exaggerated by the early Christian church to distance themselves from the Jews, who were at the time not favored by Rome at all (3 major revolts would do that for sure). As Christianity fell under Gentile leadership after 70 AD, it came into conflict with Rabbinical Judaism and thus it distanced itself from it. This is why Matthew portrays the Pharisees in such a negative way, and why Luke panders towards a Gentile audience. Mark is the only gospel which does not negatively portray the Jewish community (which is why Mark is dated earlier by scholars), but even Mark mentions persecution (but vague and non-specific) and seeing how Mark was most likely written in the wake of Nero's open persecution of Christians this sense of fear of persecution makes sense.

Mark also portrays the Pharisees in a negative way. This didn't originate with Matthew. True, Mark is a less of a Jew-basher than the other mythologists, but the point of the story is the same: the Jews killed Lord Jesus. The Romans were innocent.

jamest wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

jamest wrote:

Animavore wrote:Must have a gander at this. My recent reading of Ehrman and also a documentary he made an appearance in of Christianity about the history pointed to this but didn't dwell on it.

It flies in the face of jamest's recent argument about why Christianity must be true (and nothing like what happened with Dorothy Martain's cult, oh no) because it would've been too dangerous for Christians to believe what they did based on nothing at that time (I can't find it because the search function is borke).

That argument was focussed upon the birth of Xianity, so was just concerned with its origin and the outrage it would have fueled within the Jewish authorities at that time. What happened years after that isn't relevant to my argument.

It is relevant, because the same point that is being made here refutes your argument.
Namely that Christians, in the first two centuries, were considered Jews, both by the Romans and by a lot of Jews/Christians themselves.

What label we give to the earliest Xians is besides the point. It's their claims/story which distinguishes them from [other] Jews. There can be no doubt that the claims about the man Jesus and the message he was spreading (assuming such were the same we have discerned from the new testament and other such sources) would have been considered to be outrageous, blasphemous and a threat to contemporary Jewish beliefs, by the Jewish community - especially the Jewish religious authorities, since said 'authority' (power) was also being undermined by such claims.

These guys were God's representatives and were as bigoted as can be about their beliefs. How do you imagine they would have reacted to a guy (or small group of guys) who had the serious potential to undermine their beliefs and position?

They probably didn't really give a shit because they didn't really notice the damn thing until christians existed in sufficient numbers, a point at which it would be too late to try to eradicate the whole thing. Of course, we've been over all the crap before, and you keep clinging to this paranoid delusion about hooded figures being chased around with dogs under the cover of night, braving SWAT teams of legionnaires and murderous fanatical jews so they could knock on doors and produce instant converts simply through emphatically preaching their miraculous stories in incomprehensibly convincing ways. Thus, christianity is proved true through the miracle that it happened to spread at all. Such was the sheer adversity of the religion.

One wonders how you'll be able to explain the coexistence of multiple jewish sects, not to mention countless completely different religions all throughout the roman empire. You can't, of course, because your imagined story is a nonsensical attempt at apologetics and has nothing to do with history or culture.

At some point what became known as 'christianity' became enamored of the martyr mythology - already existent in judaism (witness Maccabbees, Daniel, the 1st century Jesus, etc) - and made it part and parcel of their whole scheme.

People persecuted jews, jews persecuted jews, jews persecuted 'pagans', etc.

None of it proves any of them had a Hot Line to any magical ghosts.

It looks like Moss's book is full of material familiar to anyone with an interest in the history of the period, but the 'myth of persecution of christians' is indeed virulent among the ignorant - it is an evangelical tool and nothing more.

(Surprisingly there's no reviews yet. It seems typical of controversial books to get their reviews before they're read.)

Relevant quotation:

[M]ost of the pagan opposition to Christians during the church's first two centuries happened on the grassroots level rather than as a result of organised, official Roman persecution...[T]here was nothing 'illegal' about Christianity, per se, in those early years. Christianity itself was not outlawed, and Christians...did not need to go into hiding. The idea that they had to stay in the Roman catacombs in order to avoid persecution and greeted one another with secret signs...is nothing but the stuff of legend. It was not illegal to follow Jesus, it was not illegal to worship the Jewish God, it was not illegal to call Jesus God, it was not illegal...to hold separate meetings of fellowship and whorsing, it was not illegal to convince others of one's faith in Christ as the son of God.

[...]

Only rarely did the Roman governors...,let alone the emperor himself, get involved in such local affairs. When they did, however, they simply treated Christians as a dangerous social group that needed to be stamped out. Christians were usually given the chance to redeem themselves by worshipping the gods in the ways demanded of them...;if they refused, they were seen as recalcitrant troublemakers and treated accordingly.

Ehrman, B, D., 2009. Misquoting Jesus. [Kindle Version]. HarperCollins e-books.

I think the Christians were persecuted by the Jews (and Paul) because they threatened the destruction of the temple and their whole nation at the coming of the son of man (identified as "Jesus"). The Christians were preaching:
1) The son of man was coming with 10 thousands of his saints and legions of angels.
2) The righteous dead would be raised and changed to spirit beings.
3) The kingdom of God would then be established.
4) This kingdom would conquer all other kingdoms and bring them into submission and the saints would rule with a rod of iron.
5) Every knee would be forced to bow to Jesus as king of kings (including all kings and emperors).

To which the Romans (and Jews) replied something like this, "So, you are going to destroy our empire and reign over us with a rod of iron, eh? Well, we're going to see what you say when we nail you to this post and set you on fire".

HomerJay wrote:Sounds like an interesting book, but the author's name sounds like something in need of yogurt, Candida Moss.

No kidding. Her parents must have hated her.