Did Rome invent Christianity?

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emtyeye
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28 Feb 2011, 11:39 am

MCalavera wrote:

emtyeye wrote:

All of the historians referred to in the above posts, who mention the persecution of the Christians, wrote what they wrote near the year 100 or later, talking about a time before the were alive. They were also employees or members of the Flavian or later emperors. None of the historians who wrote between the alleged time of Jesus Christ (AD 30) and the sack of Jerusalem (AD70), and there were quite a few, mention anything about Jesus or Christians or their persecution and neither do the Dead Sea Scrolls which contain writings from this period as well. The only exceptions are the Gospels (the word in Greek means "the good news of military victory") and Josephus. Josephus is the earliest extra-biblical reference to Jesus, but his works are chock full of clues that it was written in tandem with the gospels in a literary style popular at the time. It was like a three D movie where you have to wear special glasses to really see what's going on, but in this case it's two works of literature that have to be read together to get the whole picture.

You don't know sh** about what you're saying, son.

Gospel means Good News, nothing more.

And you keep ignoring the fact that it was the Messianic Jews who came up with the Christian theology.

My source on this is a Biblical scholor who is fluent in Greek. It means "good news", yes, but of a very specific type: The "good news" of a military victory.

What is your source for believing that Messianic Jews wrote the NT? There is no evidence for that that I have ever seen. And the story in the NT is the antithesis of what the messianic jews were alll about: that a militaristic messiah would come and help them defeat the Romans, not "give unto ceasar".

Awesomelyglorious
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28 Feb 2011, 12:37 pm

MCalavera wrote:

Little disagreement doesn't mean full agreement. I choose to agree with the scholars who disagree with Bart Ehrman in certain issues.

The problem is that the disagreers are almost certainly the non-secular scholars or ones secular in name only.

Quote:

And you sure like to talk big but you really don't know where I'm coming from.

Well, I am not exactly sure, but I do think that the general trends match my perceptions.

Awesomelyglorious
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28 Feb 2011, 12:54 pm

emtyeye wrote:

My source on this is a Biblical scholor who is fluent in Greek.

No it isn't. Your source is a hack. Too many speculations.

Quote:

What is your source for believing that Messianic Jews wrote the NT? There is no evidence for that that I have ever seen. And the story in the NT is the antithesis of what the messianic jews were alll about: that a militaristic messiah would come and help them defeat the Romans, not "give unto ceasar".

Umm... I think he really meant a certain subset of Messianic Jews. That being said, the NT was really written by Paul and Christians after the fact. The Gospels were not written by witnesses.

Philologos
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28 Feb 2011, 1:05 pm

Interesting.

I will not be my Grandfather; moving along:

Do you buy into the Q hypothesis? And if so, what would you hypothesize as the source, the same kind of collection as we are told happened with the Qur'an? Or traditions further removed?

Now it is fairly standard in some circles to assume Mark is a transcript with Peter as principal contributor - rather dubious as to how literate even in Jewish society Peter would have been, as an upcountry fisherman. And Luke of course is explicitly a journalist using multiple source interviews.

Matthew is hard, attributed to a witness but very much drawing on Mark and / or Q.

But what about John, being outside the Synoptics? Evidence for saying the fourth gospel authorship is not eyewitness? He adopts the persona and viewpoint of a witness much more than the other gospels.

naturalplastic
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28 Feb 2011, 5:46 pm

MCalavera wrote:

You're arguing semantics. The New Covenant is preached in the New Testament. Your ignorance of this isn't evidence for your misunderstandings.

And Testament basically means Covenant.

I'm not going to admit I'm wrong when I'm clearly not.

Huh?

I thought a "Testament" was a statement made by someone "testifying".

I thought a "convenant" was an agreement between two or more parties to form an association.

( the ancient Hebrews had a convenant with god, Wiccans form a "coven", Marriage is described as a "sacred convenant".)

How the H do they mean the same thing?

MCalavera
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28 Feb 2011, 5:57 pm

leejosepho wrote:

Why do you presume "verses" make him say anything?

Is there evidence outside of the Epistles that support what he says about the Apostles?

MCalavera
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28 Feb 2011, 6:01 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

MCalavera wrote:

Therefore, Testament => Covenant.

JakobVirgil
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28 Feb 2011, 6:20 pm

MCalavera wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

MCalavera wrote:

*
[Therefore, Testament => Covenant.

Just thought I would help you out.
* argument goes here -Jake

naturalplastic
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28 Feb 2011, 6:49 pm

MCalavera wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

MCalavera wrote:

Therefore, Testament => Covenant.

Is that a mistyped equal sign, or an arrow?
One thing might lead to another, but the words are hardly synonymous.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 28 Feb 2011, 6:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

leejosepho
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28 Feb 2011, 6:54 pm

MCalavera wrote:

leejosepho wrote:

Why do you presume "verses" make him say anything?

Is there evidence outside of the Epistles that support what he says about the Apostles?

Please correct me where I might be wrong here ...

You had said something about "the Apostles" ...

MCalavera wrote:

The Apostles of Jesus Christ ... may have disagreed on ...the practical issues.

... then Ruveyn suggested some possibilities ...

ruveyn wrote:

Such as whether Jesus was God or Man or Both. Practical.
Such as whether faith trumps works or works trump faith. Practical.

So then, are you asking Ruveyn where he got those ideas? If so, I would guess those ideas only appear in relation to today's Christianity.

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Tensu
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28 Feb 2011, 7:36 pm

Asking if the romans invented Christianity is a lot like asking if the nazis invented Judaism.

JakobVirgil
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28 Feb 2011, 7:40 pm

how about the Christians (re)invented Rome.

-Jake

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ikorack
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28 Feb 2011, 7:40 pm

GODWIN where art thou Godwin.

JakobVirgil
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28 Feb 2011, 7:41 pm

Godwin is a Nazi.

Natty_Boh
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28 Feb 2011, 7:43 pm

Godwin gets invoked on page 5...what happened on page 4...

...oh.

The analogy's not that far off the mark, though.

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ikorack
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28 Feb 2011, 7:45 pm

Judaism wasn't founded during nazi Germany. Analogies are never very far off the mark if you never question them.

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