chrysalis

It's possible that the impact of groupthink has been overlooked. Were safeguards installed to prevent a collective unwillingness to allow disent? The apostles needed unity and conformity for survival. It's possible that one or more may have not believed in the physical resurrection yet felt powerless to voice this for fear of offending other group members.
:huh:

mikem

None of the apostles were killed for believing in the resurrection were they? If you take the tradition at face value, James the apostle was killed by Herod Agrippa - but no reason is given, James the "brother of the Lord" is executed by a High Priest as a result of jealousy. Peter and Paul were executed as a result of Nero's pogrom, probably as scapegoats for the Great Fire. None of these deaths are likely to have involved great theological debate about the nature of the resurrection. And as has already been ponted out, failure to do one's civic duty of showing loyalty to the emperor by burning incence on an altar would have been sufficient excuse for officious local Roman rulers. Add to that charges of cannibalism and sacrificing children...

The Xtians didn't die for a lie. They did believe in the resurrection, but that was never the issue. They were just a new religious movement that proved itself to be antisocial, in an age where civic conformity was de rigeur.

Steven Carr

No Christian died for a lie?

I guess they really did set fire to Rome then.

And all the people in Stalin's show trials really did do the things they confessed to.

Diogenes the Cynic

There is actually no evidence for the martyrdom of Peter or Paul outside of Christian tradition. In the case of Paul, that tradition is very late indeed. The claim first appears in Eusebius. The claim for Peter first explicitly appears in Clement, although GJohn (21:18) vaguely hints at it. GJohn doesn't say anything about Rome or Nero, though.

mikem

I'm afraid I don't understand what your point is. As far as I am aware, the early Xtians did believe in a resurrection. In my view that belief was erroneous, but that is not the same as making the thing up.

mikem

That is right. In my earlier post I said if you take the tradition at face value. This is because this is the only evidence we have of Paul and Peter's martydom, and appear to have been accepted by christians generally as being historical, the point is that even using evidence they would accept, Xtians have no grounds for arguing that the early believers died because they believed in the resurrection.

Llyricist

Actually his point was that the lie they died for in the first case was Nero's lie that they started the fire in Rome.
And similarly for Stalin.

Edward Gorey

What do you mean by "Direct"? Do you mean any person who met Jesus, or any person who was a follower of Jesus within a certain time frame.

I don't think anyone can speak with such certainty over the authenticity of the documents we have.

Once again I don't think the matter can be dismissed so easily. There are still to many gray areas. I just think that you are being to cavalier in your dismissal of alternate points of view.

Steven Avery

Hi Llyricist .. do you think this is really meant as an analogy (from StevenC) ?

It sounds more like reverse word-spinning ... superimpoising an alternate concept of "die for a lie", where a person dies for the false accuser's lie. In that construct of cause, many men do die for a lie.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Llyricist

I have no idea what this even means

That is exactly what I was saying. What did you think I meant? (worded differently than you did above)