sotto voce

'"My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But my kingdom is not from here."' Jn 18:36

"Stand easy, men."

Nobody seems to notice that this is from a parable:

'He went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return."' Lk 19:11-12 NIV

It describes the last judgment, not praxis in this world. The praxis of Christ's followers conforms with "Do not resist an evil person. Turn the other cheek." Not the Roman ideal.

This was not about taxes. It was about whether Jesus was to promote insurrection, which would have solved the Sanhedrin's problem by getting him arrested and executed by the Romans, or to support its own complicity with Rome, which would have fatally compromised his message. But Jesus answered them in their own terms, and merely confirmed that taxes should be paid to whomever they were due; which had not the least bearing on his own divine demands on them. This was saying, "My kingdom is not of this world, though it is certainly in it."

I'm not sure whether we're supposed to laugh.

The Romans just happened to be there. They just wanted a bit of peace and quiet.

mountainman

"If it were hence, you will need to be prepared, and get swords. I bring not peace but a sword, when the time is right. Trust in the Roman Emperor at that time when my kingdom arises within the Roman Empire, and when - at that time - my servants will fight the pagans and the Greeks and other barbarians and heretics and kill them all with great persecution and intollerance, and very little if any mercy".




The meaning of the parable is pretty barbarically clear.

The Romans were not averse to genocide.





It was about paying tribute to the Lord God Caesar.

Jesus says its OK so it must be OK.




THOU SHALT NOT LAUGH !!!! See (5)



Too bad for everyone else.



(5) The Humorless New Testament is saturated with Roman seriousness

A fifth item that tends to support the value of the Flavian hypothesis is that the new testament is a humorless series of books - there are no jokes in them and it is absolutely FORBIDDEN to laugh in church or about these books. The Romans were very serious people, who took themselves seriously and expected everyone else to take them seriously. Such a serious non humorless new testament has a Roman gloss about it.

The Christian religion is SERIOUS SHIT.

No laughing will be permitted.

sotto voce

:hysterical:

jdboy

Keeping in mind that Josephus claimed it was the zealous jews that were responsible for these wars. Here we see that the term Christian is being used for the jews that started the Jewish Revolt. It wasn't followers of Jesus it was the followers zealous for the law of Moses that were called christian.

Domitian was initially persecuting the zealots

"When the Acts of Nero's reign were reversed after his death, an exception was made as to the persecution of the Christians (Tertullian, Ad Nat., i, 7). The Jewish revolt brought upon them fresh unpopularity, and the subsequent destruction of the Holy City deprived them of the last shreds of protection afforded them by being confounded with the Jews. Hence Domitian in his attack upon the aristocratic party found little difficulty in condemning such as were Christians."

Now we can see again the separation between christian and jesus; the martyrs are followers of jesus the christians are the saints. Domitian was persecuting his own family that had been loyal to jesus(his brother titus).

"Among the more famous martyrs in this Second Persecution were Domitian's cousin, Flavius Clemens, the consul, and M' Acilius Glabrio who had also been consul. Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Flavius, was banished to Pandataria. But the persecution was not confined to such noble victims.

The martyrs were followers of jesus the christians were zealots for the law(saints)

"We read of many others who suffered death or the loss of their goods (Dio Cassius, LXVII, iv). The book of the Apocalypse was written in the midst of this storm, when many of the Christians had already perished and more were to follow them (St. Irenæus, Adv. Hæres., V, xxx). Rome, "the great Babylon", "was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus"

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05114b.htm

Adam

The quotes are correct from the old (1913) Catholic Encyclopedia (the paragraph beginning "Among" unfortunately is missing its end-quotes after "victims"), but all the surrounding commentary seems to be deliberate misrepresentation of the source. The link of course has martyrs and Christians as the same people, not the latter as zealot Jews.