Toto

Fall 2008 Program

The first thing to notice is that the Jesus Seminar has finally taken notice of the idea that their Jesus might not have existed.

The second is the word "lampoon." Do we in fact know that the Romans were not laughing, and if not the Romans, maybe the people who wrote the gospels? Lucian was laughing at his Peregrinus.

But why is the alternative to lampoon treason, let along high treason?

makerowner

It does seem pretty unlikely that the Romans would have regarded the ravings of a madman in a distant backwater as "high treason", especially considering the wide variety of religions practiced in the empire.

Casper

I don't think it was meant as a contrast so much as a scale; ie, at best tasteless comedy, at worst serious felony.

Or that's the way it spoke to me.

bacht

Yes, but the refusal of Jews to worship the emperor was not considered trivial. Caligula was ready to crush Jewish dissent over his insistence on placing a statue of himself in their sanctuary. Only his early death prevented bloodshed (I finally picked up BJ )

bacht

Is it commonly believed that the title "Son of God" used for Christ came from the Romans?

andrewcriddle

I don't think that that is what the Jesus Seminar is saying.
I think they just mean that even in an alternate universe in which Jesus never existed these apparently Christian titles would still have been used, not of Jesus, but of Caesar.

It is the equivalent of saying "even if Watergate had never happened there would still be widespread cynicism about the integrity of American politics and politicians" ie it is not doubting an alleged event but reducing the events' significance.

Andrew Criddle

credoconsolans

Agree. It was quite common for famous generals, rulers etc., to claim descent of their families from gods, so that they were all "sons of gods". Julius Caesar in particular claimed his family's descent from Venus, Cleopatra claimed to be the incarnation of Isis. It was not unusual at all for a legendary person to be claimed the 'son of the gods'.

Jeffrey Gibson

To find your answer, see the review of Jewish and Graeco-Roman uses of Son of God that is set out by Adella Collins in the following two articles:

Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Jews

Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Greeks and Romans

Jeffrey

jbarntt

In the Roman empire of the first and second centuries the emperors were not considered deities. Note that Augustus considered himself "princeps", i.e. first citizen. "Emperor" was an honorific bestowed on a great general by his troops, for instance Scipio in the second Punic war. In imperial times it came to mean something like "commander in chief".

Deification of an emperor was a formal matter after the emperor's death. The senate decided the issue. It did not imply that the emperor was actually a god, but rather relates to the ancient and customary Roman religion which revolved around the family and its history.

It is true that in the eastern parts of the empire the people were accustomed to seeing their king as a god, and emperors didn't discourage that, for obvious reasons.

Jeffrey Gibson

Of course, this depends on how one defines "deity". If a deity is a being for whom temples were built, then I wonder how solid your claim is.

When we are speaking of how Augustus was regarded by others, and whether or not part of this regard involved him being seen as a god (= supreme benefactor), what "Augustus" considered himself to be is irrelevant.

I wonder if you've seen the Priene inscription or read Suetonius' account of Caligula. Have you done any work in SRF Price's Rituals and power: the Roman imperial cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, 1984) or Duncan Fishwick's The Imperial Cult in the Latin West. Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire (Leiden: E. J. Brill 2004) or if you've ever had a look at C.S. Evans' "Mark’s Incipit and the Priene Calendar Inscription: From Jewish Gospel to Greco-Roman Gospel".

I think you will find several studies here -- THE ROMAN IMPERIAL CULT: A Bibliography that would call the validity of you assertion into question.

Jeffrey