aa5874

There is no corroborative evidence whatsoever from antiquity that Jews worshiped a Jewish man as a God and no evidence whatsoever that the Jesus cult of Christians was ever known in Judea before the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.

We have the writings of Philo, Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius.

Vespasian was the Prophesied Messianic ruler, Healer and Savior in the Roman Empire.

See Wars of the Jews 6.5.4, Wars of the Jews 7, Tacitus Histories 4, Tacitus Histories 5 and Suetonius "Life of Vespasian".

J-D

Even if that is an accurate description of what happened at the start of Christianity, it doesn't explain what made it happen.

J-D

I don't see how that can be right, since military resistance continued to be attempted even after the destruction of the Temple.

outhouse

You mean like when the Romans come in and take over a nation with brutal force, and milk it dry through severe taxation?




False, on both counts.

Not only do you not explain how Christianity started, it started prior to the fall of the temple.

Romans ruled with the sword, and crushed Jews time and time again. The fall of the temple was not a demonstration at all, Jews knew all to well the might of the Roman sword.


Fact is Jews knew all to well, and fought anyway, its why they sent a backwater character like Pilate to deal with these stubborn people.

outhouse

Its not right, as you say.

Its a case of forcing evidence to fit his hypothesis.

Robert Tulip

The ongoing miltary resistance failed. The spiritual warfare succeeded, and eventually brought down the Roman Empire.

The demonstration of Roman temporal power was a primary cause of the rise of Christianity, with the recognition by Christians that they could not fight Rome using swords and had to use words. The small number of Jews who kept fighting were easily suppressed.

Robert Tulip

No. My point is that such coercion requires consent in order to be sustained. The fall of the Roman Empire showed that it eventually failed to achieve the consent it needed to continue.

The core of an empire does not require universal consent at the periphery, but it does require that the conversation occurring in the belly of the beast accepts that the imperial actions are legitimate. So the trust required is among Romans, and the lack of trust felt by subjugated people is a secondary factor, easily explained away by those who buy in to the imperial story. By comparison, the USA lost its imperial war in Vietnam in large part because of a loss of faith within the USA.outhouse, the issue here is how Christianity transformed from a obscure secret cosmic myth into a universal faith. The reason is that it keyed in to mass political currents regarding moral legitimacy, grounded in the view at the periphery, as you point out, that Rome was evil. As I said in my initial post, kindly referenced above by J-D, the political growth has to be considered within the framework of the cosmological origin.

Your comments about Pilate and the temple confuse me. Of course the fall of the temple demonstrated Roman power. The subsequent Jewish military resistance failed, while the Christian spiritual resistance succeeded.

James The Least

I have a copy of that article.

Schwartz is reacting to the Brill Josephus Project's editorial team (Mason, et al.) using "Judean" throughout their translation of Josephus's works, rather than "Jew." In his view, it is "political correctness" that made the team choose "Judean." Because it sounds remote, unfamiliar, and historical, unlike "Jew" --- and we've seen what can happen when dumb Christians read stories about ancient Jewry and translate it to the immediate present.

(10) There is no good reason not to treat Ioudaios just like Rhomaios. All "Romans" were Roman regardless of whether they were in or from Rome or not.

Yes there is, actually. Rhomaios, as far as I know, never carried any intrinsic religious connotation. Ioudaios did.

It was probably only within the Jewish religious community that technical terms like "proselyte of the gate," Ger tzedek, Ger toshav, theosobei, and so forth, were used. The outside world made little to no distinction between theosobei who worshipped in synagogues and ethnic Joudaioi.

Jaybees

Would that history unrolled that simply. Despite Gibbon, there was far more than Xtianity involved in the Roman Empire's demise, ranging from barbarians to lead in food vessels.

outhouse

At every turn your failing to make a credile statement.


You have not demonstrated there was even a spiritual warfare, let alone something that succeeded.


That is why I called it forcing the evidence to fit the hypothesis.