Vorkosigan

http://thecosmiccontext.de/christianity.html

This sees Christianity as a subversive political/social movement much like Communism that sought unlimited power to accomplish its goal: imperial rule and authoritarial control.

"And it was at the very center of the empire, at Rome, as the reading of Walter Bauer's "Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im Ältesten Christen" makes more than plausible that a small group of power-hungry men, calling themselves `Christianoi,?conceived the idea of assuming control over and spreading their `odium humani generis?(= plague for the entirity of mankind) throughout the innumerable nations under the emperor’s control. If the city of Rome was the center of the imperator’s mundane realm, then it should be - that much more - the pivot of a still greater kingdom, not only of this world. The prescript to Ignatius' letter to Rome immediately strikes the right tone: `prokathemene tes agapes,? endowed with pre-eminence in love, adding `ez arches,?from the beginning. The first christian community to pay a fixed salary to an official, the confessor Natalius, for the assumption of a full-time, church job was, according to Eusebius, (6) the city of Rome. Natalius assumed his office with a salary of 150 denarii. If not he, then succeeding `episkopoi romaiou?- some time during the last quarter of the first century - soon revealed their determination to control the Mediterranean basen."

Vorkosigan

It contains this observation on the TF......

"But we are examining the wrong text, the protest rings out. Let us turn our attention to the eighteenth book, 3rd chapter, ?3 of Flavius Josephus' "Jewish Antiquities." There we find some eighteen lines of text on the person of Jesus. It is even suggested in passing that he might possibly have been much more than a human being. Let us not be too quick to alter course, but rather examine the passage more carefully.
In it, the Christians are presented in an entirely a-historical fashion as a single, thoroughly integrated, homogeneous group. Though they number among themselves both Jews and pagans - as is specifically pointed out - they are pictured as single-minded in their purpose and unacquainted with either internal bickering or contending factional strife. Quite in contrast with the situation sketched in the three synoptical gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we are encouraged to believe that unchallenged unanimity rules. Again, they are made to identify Jesus, all quibbling to the side, as `the Messiah,' though the literary sources of the period make it quite clear that the term meant very different things to the various, contending groups in the Jerusalem of the earlier first century C.E. And the brief statement is made to conclude that "To this very day, the Christians who identify themselves by using `His' name, continue their way as a coherent folk."


.........which I found very interesting.

Iasion

Greetings Vorkosigan et al,

yah,
this is a very interesting take on the problem - it would be great if the brains here could look over his thesis.

In fact, Dr Conley asked for our opinions here a while back - I'm not sure his page got the attention it deserves.

His theory is unusual, but his argument is worked out in some detail - one thing that rang a chord with me is his view on the Ignatiana - such a strange bunch of writings...

Definitely worth a read.

Iasion