Malachi151

I never did get a satisfactory answer to this question. The only mention of "Christian" in the New Testament comes from Acts and 1 Peter, both works written well after 64 CE, so how do we explain the fact that these people were supposedly identified as "Christians" in 64 CE?

Josephus never wrote about the Christians (aside from the one fraudulent passage), and the Christians themselves apparently didn't even use this term this early that we know of, so how does this term appear here and how could they have been identified as Christians at this early stage?

jgibson000

I suspect the reason you haven't received an answer is that your question is fallacious.

Why should the question of how many times a word appears in the NT be in any way relevant to the questions of whether members of the Jesus movement -- were known to non-christians by the name "Christians" name before 64 CE or were identified as such in Rome in 64?

Isn't the term "Christians" something that gets applied to members of "the way" by non Christians in Antioch rather early on in the movements' history? If so, why wouldn't a "pagan" generated term for Jesus people be applied "here" and why wouldn't they be identified as such in Rome by 64? And wouldn't the trial of Paul before Nero have clarified to Roman officialdom just who these "christ believers" were (so says Robin Lane Fox)?

The Dunkers (members of the Church of the Brethren) and the Quakers (members of the Society of Friends) did not use these hostility engendered names of themselves for quite some time after their movement was founded. But that hardly means that they were not known, to or identified by, those outside of their fellowships by/with these names quite early on in their history.

Jeffrey Gibson

Vorkosigan

It's possible. But one thing that strikes me is that an awful lot of Jews would have been caught up in any round up...also, you don't round up people overnight and give them trials and interrogations. It would have taken months, minimum. -- yet that is not mentioned in Josephus, who had just recently been in Rome. It is not mentioned in other Jewish sources either, as far as I know.

Vorkosigan

spin

Naaa, this is always wishful thinking. You can't date Acts so you can't use this as serious evidence. Worse though is the name "christians" (xristianous), based on the assumption that "christ" was then a name (improbable in itself due to the gospel presentation of xristos, with the article, or in apposition with ihsous), but it also bears the bound morpheme -ian-, the Latin gentilic, making "christian" a hybrid Greek-Latin term, supposedly first engendered in Antioch of all places, which assumes a Latin speaking community to spawn it, for -ian- was not a productive suffix in Greek. What Latin community? There were four legions, but they were stationed around Syria. Then, the Romans were not noted philosophers of religion, so the coining of the term "christian" for a member of an obscure Jewish messianic sect seems a little incredible. If we are dealing with Latin speakers who were bilingual Greek speakers as well, the term xristos would make one think of "oil/ointment" (from xriw) and not be a suitable root for a gentilic. Otherwise "christ" must be accepted as is as a name. We thus have a phantom Latin speaking community in Antioch which knew enough about the religion to call them xristianous, under the impression that christ was a name, and then that gentilic jumped language into Greek. It all seems rather farfetched. I think it is easier to see the name retrojected into the Antiochene context by a much later Acts writer, after it was formed in a Latin community, which probably means Rome, where the gospel of Mark was written, obviously for a Roman Greek-speaking christian community.


spin