What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Nope]

Apparently, three hundred years after Jesus' supposed death, the early Christians weren't a peaceful lot.

http://www.luc.edu/roman-emperors/julian.htm

Julian the Apostate has always interested me because his way to defeat Christianity actually made sense. He didn't make them martyrs but refused financial incentives that they received under earlier Christian emperors and tried to point out that although Christianity came from Judaism it went against traditional Jewish thought.

One of the main results of Christian impiety that offended Julian was their propensity to cause disruptions in the communities they lived in. One such case was in Alexandria, where the citizens lynched the unpopular bishop George after he had threatened to destroy the temple to the emperor's Genius.Wiki: Julian wrote a scathing letter to the citizens of Alexandria in 362 in which he asserted that the actions of the citizens had threatened the welfare of the community. According to Julian, the perpetrators had forgotten their forefathers. Furthermore, because the gods had appointed him to rule the world, the citizens had acted immoderately in slaying George without consulting Julian.Wiki: Similarly, he wrote a letter to Hecebolius in which he denounced the Arian Christians in Edessa for causing public riots and disturbing the harmony. He threatened to withdraw his clemency from that region if such continue

So, George was lynched because he threatened to destroy the temple belonging to another faith and Christians rioted in Edessa. It doesn't sound as if Christians were very peaceful, law abiding citizens

I think that I read somewhere, and I can't find it now, that Julian also favored groups of Christians who had been thrown out of cities by other sects of Christians.

[DeistPaladin]

I didn't want to break his brain this early.

Sometimes, it's more merciful to do it all at once and get it over with. If a gangrenous patient had to have a limb amputated, would it be better to do it a little at a time or all at once?

[Cyberman]

That depends on whether I'd be doing it out of mercy or entertainment.

[DeistPaladin]

That depends on whether I'd be doing it out of mercy or entertainment.

Either way...

[Thumpalumpacus]

One wonders whether inshallah is the direct menifestation of preservation of a certain brutal fatalism that might have prevailed amongst the pre-Islamic Bedouin society with their marginal wondering existence and internecine tribal warfare. This would make it a different thing from Calvinism, which is a Christian theologically derived thing with tenuous connection to pre-Christian social and moral norms.

I agree that conceptually they're probably disparate, each with a unique origin.

I also think that the harshness of the desert probably did impose a harsh sociocultural outlook, including the idea thattaking care of someone who appears doomed might be a frivolous waste of the clan's limited resources. Whether that morphed into inshallah or not is beyond my reckoning.

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I didn't want to break his brain this early.

Forgive my impertinence, but it appears someone stole a march on you in that department.

[Anomalocaris]

I didn't want to break his brain this early.

So you think it within your capabilities to actually increase the entropy in that sack of substance occupying the small cavity inside his skull where, had his gene pool but experienced it, evolution from common ancesters with the chimpanzee would normally have placed a brain?

[Minimalist]

Read the NT it's recorded there.

And should your NT conflict with actual known history, what then? Which takes precedence?

Ooh. Ooh. How many guesses do I get?

[Drich]

Growing up as a Christian, I was taught that Jesus, the early Christians, and their early theology were the gold standard that modern Christians should follow.

Lately I've been wondering if they were all just a bunch of loony tunes, and anything positive in Christianity was added later after the religion became more respectable.

Any thoughts?

Who were the early christians you were taught to emulate?

[watchamadoodle]

@DeistPaladin, I'm sure you're familiar with the quote from Josephus about the stoning of James. How do you reconcile that quote with the idea that Jesus was not a historical figure?

IMO, it is suspicious that early Christians seemed to feel an entitlement to invent their own stories about the life of Jesus. Also I see elements of the non-canonical gospels within the canonical gospels (such as Mary Magdalene). And there is the example from Nag Hammadi where Hellenistic philosophical sayings from "Eugnostos the Blessed" were transformed into sayings of Jesus. It's all very suspicious, but how do you explain the quote from Josephus and other historical evidence?

[Mudhammam]

@DeistPaladin, I'm sure you're familiar with the quote from Josephus about the stoning of James. How do you reconcile that quote with the idea that Jesus was not a historical figure?

I know it's not addressed to me but three possibilities if one wants to take the Christ-myth route:

1) Josephus is just, in all likelihood, repeating what Christians thought about James: that he was a brother of Christ, whether biologically or spiritually.
2) James was part of a sect called "brothers of the Lord" or "brothers of Christ."
3. The identification with Christ is a later interpolation that was not originally written by Josephus.