arnoldo

Considering that there were other messianic cults which didn't survive in the first century you raise a very legitimate question. In fact, according to Gamaliel, some expected this new cult to fade (see: Acts 5:34-39). According to Stark, there are also many sociological factors which also impacted the early church, including. . .

ApostateAbe

The things I listed--the afterlife doctrines of heaven and hell, the scripturalism, the emphasis on evangelism, then emphasis on unity and love, and the monotheism. Competing cults did not necessarily have those things. Christianity took the beneficial elements of Judaism and threw out the not-so-cool elements.

Julio

Agree. Also, they got another prototype Jesus, discarding the original one...
Do you think the Christian cult would survive with the original Jesus?

Joan of Bark

Only as another sect of Judaism. The 'original' Jesus (I'm assuming here the Jesus of the gospels), was preaching a new form of Judaism that had no room for gentiles. Paul made it into an all-incompassing movement.

Julio

Yes, I agree. Therefore, we can establish that the "original" Jesus failed in his enterprise, but a mercenary rescued him in time... is this acceptable?

IamJoseph

How would Jesus have survived Rome's heresy decree is a more interesting question.

Julio

"...Rome's heresy decree..."
Can you please clarify?
Thanks.

IamJoseph

This was a notorious decree initiated by Caligula, which mandated all conquered nations had to house a statue of the emperor in the temples or places of worship, and worship the emperor as a divine diety.

This posed a nasty problem for the Jews, who were strict Monotheists and forbid image worship. And Jesus was not a Chrstian but a Judean Jew. Some 3 million Jews were killed for rejecting this Roman decree between Caligula and Titus reigns, so how would Jesus have escaped?

wordy

I've vaguely remember that one theory was that it allowed rich widows to get a purpose in life. To house revolutionary young men who wanted to include woman in the club but as soon as it got institutionalized they excluded them.

This can be seen in secular revolutionary political movements too. They give woman meaningful roles in the guerilla movements but later when they have secured the political power then the percentage drop drastically.

Church tried to deal with it by allowing Nuns monestary and that way they could get some power while still being controlled. St: Bridget and many other strong women could get some influence that way but very seldom to the top. Margret Thacher type of power hungry woman. Mother Theresa types that are in for power games.

But why they survived. They burned the houses of those that didn't convert and killed off them if it didn't help to threaten them to submit. That is why it survived.

ApostateAbe

No. The original Jesus was very insistent that the conquest of the Son of Man and the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven would happen in the lives of his own generation. He was also very strict about following Jewish law. And he didn't originally claim to be God. You can imagine that future generations of Christians would not be happy with any of those things. The cult would be ridiculed out of existence. Those problems are still evident in the synoptic gospels, but they were corrected in the gospel of John and later Christian writings.