Would They Die for a Lie?

[The Grand Nudger]

The Wemstroms: How words turn from innocent to negative

There are mounds and mounds of the faithful who take comfort in the idea that there is some critical mass of historical information regarding their faith..but, if they knew the contents of that mass, they'd be utterly disappointed.

I half agree with this. A lot of Christians know little about things like redaction criticism or who didn't write the pseudepigrapha etc. But go below the problems with the NT as a collection of sources, and apply historical methods, and I honestly do believe it strengthens the case for Xianity immeasurably.

This is what writers like N.T. Wright and J.P. Meier are doing- proper historical process applied to NT history. When you do this, you see things in a totally different light; you understand why it makes sense to believe.

And as I said, following proper historical method, with all the different sources and types of reference in the NT, tells us that those disciples paid a heavy price for their beliefs. Whatever else might have been the case, the reality is that those disciples believed in Jesus strongly enough to pay whatever price it took.

And other thoughts of that ilk.

Have a good Xmas, everybody!

No amount of a historical jesus would provide sense to believe in a mythical christ, Vicki. No one paid a heavy price for their beliefs, in early turn rome. They paid a heavy price for sedition and stupidity. Burn some incense to a fake god..and you live. Refuse, you die. The christians went the same route for centuries.

The historical truth of roman persecution of christians..is that it didnt begin in earnest until christians were in control of the levers of persecution. They were driving out competitor christianities. Pagan rome didn't give a fuck about a bunch of heathens superstitions. Their entire world was full of them. If you want an accurate picture of how a legit roman saw christianity, try Julian. It was his successors political need to end that dynasty and separate himself from the julio claudian culture and apparatus that created modern christer belief.