For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Minimalist]

But the question remains, how much of this alleged "persecution" really happened and how much was made up later on by those same church "fathers" who amended their holy horseshit to make it say what they needed it to say?

Fortunately, Candida Moss' book on the subject is due out in a couple of weeks.

[Confused Ape]

[Minimalist]

[Confused Ape]

[Minimalist]

Unknown...and probably unknowable. I have seen speculation that xtians made themselves unpopular and attracted the enmity of fellow citizens in much the same way as "witches" did in Europe. The problem with that is that xtians did not become numerous enough to be noticeable until the later 2d century and into the 3d and it was in the 3d century that official persecution did begin on a hit or miss basis. So, yeah, what you are saying is possible but there is not a long time frame for it.

My guess is that most of this shit grew out of the relative handful of executions that were carried out during the reign of Diocletian in the early 4th century and was still fresh in people's minds.

[Minimalist]

Speaking of Candida Moss - here is a little promo.

In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors.

According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity’s inspirational heroes, are still venerated today.

Moss, however, exposes that the “Age of Martyrs” is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.

The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.

Picked this up from Jim West's blog.

[Confused Ape]

[EGross]

While they may not have listed every criminal (well, they did note the most nortorious ones), there is no record that they had ever had a tradition to release a Jewish prisoner on Passover, and the Christian texts calls it a normal thing. The Jews make no mention of such a thing ever happening (they do list the horrible things that Pilate did), nor do the Romans who finally called him in and took him to task for the troubles that he was making.

"You want Wahjew weleased? Alwight! Release Wahjew!"

[Confused Ape]

[EGross]

Well,l they don't call it "The Passion" for nothing (rile up their passions)