onemessiah

Have a question that I really need help with. I was on another forum discussing ancient cultures (Roman and Greek in particular) with someone, and eventually the coversation swung around to religion, then finally, biblical events and such. In the interest of keeping this post short as possible, I'll just skip straight to the heart of the matter. This person claims that before the Romans converted to Catholicism, the events recorded in the Roman public record regarding Christ's crucifixion as well as testimony of people claiming to see Christ after his crucifixion all mysteriously disappeared. Now, this person is an agnostic, so I'm not sure what his purpose was of even bringing this up, but my questions are:

A) how would I be able to verify this claim on my own, because I would like to see if there is any credibility to this at all

B) has anyone else ever heard of this before?

Of course, I don't expect to find this to be true beyond doubt (else it would have already been done), but sometimes it seems that statements that aren't completely true are at least based in fact before getting twisted around.

Toto

You might get a better answer in BCH.

I don't have time to research this now, but off the top of my head - I suspect that there is some truth to the charge that Roman pagans burned Christian books. Before Christianity became an official religion there were emperors who persecuted Christians, and even after Constantine there was one emperor who tried to restore paganism.

And there are some references in Christian writings that claim that there were records of Jesus' crucifixion, although no one has ever seen them and most people suspect that the claims had no basis.

But I have never heard any claim that records of witnesses to Jesus' post resurrection appearances ever existed outside the NT, or were destroyed. It is not the sort of thing that the Romans would have kept records on.

And there is nothing mysterious about records disappearing. Most records from the Roman Empire have not survived.

onemessiah

You don't have to go through the trouble of doing all the footwork for me, I was just wondering if perhaps you or anyone else knew where I could look for answers. I'm sure there are some on this forum who are fimiliar with this.

Toto

Well, pick up a standard history of the Roman Empire and start reading. But you will have to read a lot before you are sure that there is nothing there. And I can assure you that there is no record of the claim that records of people who saw Jesus after his resurrection "mysteriously disappeared." The person who told you that probably made it up.

Tortie Cat

There is no public record of Jesus' execution. It must be remembered that the only detailed accounts of the death of Jesus occur in the four Gospels. It must also be remembered that these works were written many years after Jesus’ death and were used to disseminate the teachings of the early Gentile Christian Church and that Church’s interpretation of the life and death of Jesus.

Unfortunately, faith, fact, and politics often conflict when attempting to interpret such events.

The Passover Amnesty appears to be a apparent fabrication. There is no precedent for, nor evidence of, it from any extraneous Roman legal or historical source. Native organs of government had no power to execute capital sentences. The Romans removed all such rights and invested their Provincial Magistrates, with this jurisdiction.

The Roman Governor of Judaea was a military officer and the trial of Jesus would almost certainly have been conducted within the protective confines of the Antonia fortress to ensure maximum security. For most of the year the Governor resided at his official headquarters in Caesarea Maritima and only came up to Jerusalem at the time of major Jewish religious festivals, particularly at Passover, when the city would be swelled by thousands of Jewish pilgrims, which increased the possible risk of riot and disorder. For the purpose of quelling any such potential breaches of the peace the Governor brought extra troops with him to reinforce the garrison within the city.

Pontius Pilate was the Governor of Judea for some ten years from 26-36 CE The reason he maintained this post for so long was because he was very good at his job. He is noted by contemporary sources as being a stubborn and ruthless man who would have had no compunction about turning the troops out if he suspected trouble from the Jews.

Another startling gap occurs in what might have been one of the closest sources for independent information about the life and career of Jesus of Nazareth. Justus of Tiberias (in Galilee) a Jewish historian contemporary with Josephus (c.37-c.100) wrote a Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews from Moses to Agrippa II. This work along with all the other writings of Justus are now lost. However, in the 9th century Photius (c.810-c.895) the Patriarch of Constantinople read the Chronicle of Justus and recorded, in his still extant Bibliotheca, a summary of its contents. He states, “suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he (Justus) does not mention the coming of Christ, the events of his life, or the miracles performed by him.

As to the Romans becoming Christians. It took a long time.

It was not until the reign of Constantine the Great (mistakenly claimed to be a Christian Emperor – he wasn’t he only got converted on his deathbed) that Christianity got some sort of official recognition. Given the situation in the Empire at this time Constantine saw the need for some cohesion to restore political control and as Christianity in all its various forms had become the most popular religion Constantine decided to knock it into into some sort of orthodoxy and establish it as one orthodox religion but not THE religion. The First Council of Niceae in 325 CE dealt with the issues that Christians were arguing about including the nature of Jesus (Arian controversy). The whole issue raged over Jesus’ relationship to God. Eventually the term Homo-ousion (consubstantial) was agreed over the other interpretation Homoi-ousion (of like substance). The first definition was established as orthodox and anyone who disagreed was out – plus ça change!


TC