Did Jesus ever exist?

[Baruch]

It's also feasible that an alien race planted life on this planet and has secretly been observing us ever since. Just because it's possible doesn't make it true, and the possibility that real evidence once existed but was destroyed does not substitute for observable evidence.

That would be a piss-poor excuse for an almighty god.

[popsthebuilder]

It's also feasible that an alien race planted life on this planet and has secretly been observing us ever since. Just because it's possible doesn't make it true, and the possibility that real evidence once existed but was destroyed does not substitute for observable evidence.

Possible isn't the right word. Probable is better

[Mike Cl]

More likely wasn't written about due to fear of the Romans. Documents could have been written in nominal amount due to fear and the rest gathered and destroyed either intentionally or not.

It is feasible.

As always you prefer to go with a fiction.  It is not possible that all of the historians of that era were afraid of the Romans.  That is called, at best, a stretch, and there is no proof that that is even a consideration.  Consider that your fictional god was supposed to deliver the word to the world and live his life as THE example of how and what to do, to have it squelched by the big, bad Romans is beyond consideration.  God is afraid of the Romans???? 

[Mike Cl]

That would be a piss-poor excuse for an almighty god.

Yeah, it would.  But name me an excuse that isn't piss poor????

[Blackleaf]

Possible isn't the right word. Probable is better

Nothing in your paragraph suggests that it is probable. We have no reason to think that any historians wrote about Jesus, and the Romans managed to destroy every single document they wrote about him. In fact, I'd call that quite a leap.

[SGOS]

Possible isn't the right word. Probable is better

Maybe someone can explain to me why it is probable that an alien race planted life on this planet and has secretly been observing us ever since.

[SGOS]

I was having dinner at a friend's house.  Why he was a good friend were for reasons that aren't really germane to this post.  He would jump from one job to another and one obsession to another.  He lived 500 miles away, so I only saw him once or twice a year.  Every time I visited him, I had no idea what obsession would be dominating his thoughts from one visit to the next.  During dinner, he directed the conversation to his belief in alien seeding.  He had recently discovered the "theory" and had been reading books on it and advised me to do the same.  He was married to a devoted wife, who never objected to his job changing and always seemed to gracefully take his obsessions in stride.

While he was going on and on about alien seeding, I'm starting to reach the limits of my ability to avoid voicing objections and was trying to maintain the impression of being the perfect guest.  His wife was refilling my coffee much as a waitress would do.  She was standing next to me and with a pleasant smile openly observed, "You can tell him to stop anytime, and he probably will."  He quietly dropped the subject after finishing his next couple of comments.

[widdershins]

Maybe someone can explain to me why it is probable that an alien race planted life on this planet and has secretly been observing us ever since.

I think he was saying that it was probable that evidence to support his religious beliefs either existed and was destroyed or was never created out of fear.  In that case he is saying it is probable because his beliefs are real, therefore there must have been evidence at some point and since there was evidence at some point, that proves his beliefs are real.  Standard circular reasoning.

[Unbeliever]

Nothing in your paragraph suggests that it is probable. We have no reason to think that any historians wrote about Jesus, and the Romans managed to destroy every single document they wrote about him. In fact, I'd call that quite a leap.

popsthebuilder wants it to be true, so that's enough for him to believe it is true...and to hell with evidence or lack thereof.

[SGOS]

I think he was saying that it was probable that evidence to support his religious beliefs either existed and was destroyed or was never created out of fear.  In that case he is saying it is probable because his beliefs are real, therefore there must have been evidence at some point and since there was evidence at some point, that proves his beliefs are real.  Standard circular reasoning.

I assumed that.  I didn't read far enough back into the thread, but in the isolation of that one post (which doesn't even make sense as a response to Blackleaf), I couldn't help myself.

[popsthebuilder]

I don't want anything from anyone. I need no material proof for what I know to be true.



According to Tacitus, Nero targeted Christians as those responsible for the fire. The Great Fire of Rome was an urbanfire that started on the night between 18 and 19 July in the year 64 AD. It caused widespread devastation, before being brought under control after six days.

Anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire

Anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire occurred intermittently over a period of over two centuries until the year 313 AD when the Roman Emperors Constantine the Great and Licinius jointly promulgated the Edict of Milan which legalised the Christian religion. The persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was carried out by the state and also by local authorities on a sporadic, ad hoc basis, often at the whims of local communities. Starting in 250, empire-wide persecution took place by decree of the emperor Decius. The edict was in force for eighteen months, during which time some Christians were killed while others apostatised to escape execution.

These persecutions heavily influenced the development of Christianity, shaping Christian theology and the structure of the Church. Among other things, persecution gave rise to many saints' cults which may have contributed to the rapid spread of Christianity and sparked written explanations and defenses of the Christian religion.

Duration and extentEdit

Anti-Christian policies directed at the early church had occurred sporadically and in localised areas since its beginning. The first persecution of Christians organised by the Roman government took place under the emperor Nero in 64 AD after the Great Fire of Rome. With the passage in 313 AD of the Edict of Milan, anti-Christian policies directed against Christians by the Roman government ceased.[1] The total number of Christians who lost their lives because of these persecutions is unknown; although early church historian Eusebius, whose works are the only source for many of these events, speaks of "great multitudes" having perished, he is thought by many scholars today to have exaggerated their numbers.[1][2]:217â€"233

There was no empire-wide persecution of Christians until the reign of Decius in the third century.[3] Provincial governors had a great deal of personal discretion in their jurisdictions and could choose themselves how to deal with local incidents of persecution and mob violence against Christians. For most of the first three hundred years of Christian history, Christians were able to live in peace, practice their professions, and rise to positions of responsibility. Only for approximately ten out of the first three hundred years of the church's history were Christians executed due to orders from a Roman emperor.[2]:129

ReasonsEdit

See also: Religio licita and Religion in ancient Rome



Roman Hall of Justice,Young Folks' History of Rome,1880

Public interestEdit

Without agitation from the public, the Roman government had little motivation to persecute local Christians. However, because of the secrecy of their rituals, Christians frequently aroused suspicion among the pagan population accustomed to religion as a public event; beliefs developed that Christians committed flagitia, scelera, and maleficiaâ€" "outrageous crimes", "wickedness", and "evil deeds", specifically, cannibalism and incest (referred to as "Thyestian banquets" and "Oedipodean intercourse")â€" due to their rumored practices of eating the "blood and body" of Christ and referring to each other as "brothers" and "sisters".[4][5] Christians' refusal to participate in public religion was as problematic to the populace as it was to the elites, and contributed to the general hostility toward Christians. Much of the pagan populace maintained a sense that bad things would happen if the established pagan gods were not respected and worshiped properly.[6][7] Edward Gibbon wrote:

"By embracing the faith of the Gospel the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or had reverenced as sacred."[8]

Gibbon argued that the seeming tendency of Christian converts to renounce their family and country, their dislike for the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending disasters instilled a feeling of apprehension in their pagan neighbours.[9] As Christianity became more widespread and better understood, however, these suspicions faded away.[10]

Legal basisEdit



The trial of Justin Martyr

Due to the informal and personality-driven nature of the Roman legal system, nothing "other than a prosecutor" (an accuser, including a member of the public, not only a holder of an official position), "a charge of Christianity, and a governor willing to punish on that charge"[11] was required to bring a legal case against a Christian. Roman law was largely concerned with property rights, leaving many gaps in criminal and public law. Thus the process cognitio extra ordinem ("special investigation") filled the legal void left by both code and court. All provincial governors had the right to run trials in this way as part of their imperium in the province.[12]

In cognitio extra ordinem, an accuser called a delator brought before the governor an individual to be charged with a certain offenseâ€"in this case, that of being a Christian. This delator was prepared to act as the prosecutor for the trial, and could be rewarded with some of the accused's property if he made an adequate case or charged with calumnia (malicious prosecution) if his case was insufficient. If the governor agreed to hear the caseâ€"and he was free not toâ€"he oversaw the trial from start to finish: he heard the arguments, decided on the verdict, and passed the sentence.[13] Christians sometimes offered themselves up for punishment, and the hearings of such voluntary martyrs were conducted in the same way.

More often than not, the outcome of the case was wholly subject to the governor's personal opinion. While some tried to rely on precedent or imperial opinion where they could, as evidenced by Pliny the Younger's letter to Trajan concerning the Christians,[14] such guidance was often unavailable.[15] In many cases months' and weeks' travel away from Rome, these governors had to make decisions about running their provinces according to their own instincts and knowledge.

Even if these governors had easy access to the city, they would not have found much official legal guidance on the matter of the Christians. Before the anti-Christian policies under Decius beginning in 250, there was no empire-wide edict against the Christians, and the only solid precedent was that set by Trajan in his reply to Pliny: the name of "Christian" alone was sufficient grounds for punishment and Christians were not to be sought out by the government. There is speculation that Christians were also condemned for contumaciaâ€"disobedience toward the magistrate, akin to the modern "contempt of court"â€"but the evidence on this matter is mixed.[16] Melito of Sardis later asserted that Antoninus Pius ordered that Christians were not to be executed without proper trial.[17]

Given the lack of guidance and distance of imperial supervision, the outcomes of the trials of Christians varied widely. Many followed Pliny's formula: they asked if the accused individuals were Christians, gave those who answered in the affirmative a chance to recant, and offered those who denied or recanted a chance to prove their sincerity by making a sacrifice to the Roman gods and swearing by the emperor's genius. Those who persisted were executed.

According to the Christian apologist Tertullian, some governors in Africa helped accused Christians secure acquittals or refused to bring them to trial.[18] Overall, Roman governors were more interested in making apostates than martyrs: one proconsul of Asia, Arrius Antoninus, when confronted with a group of voluntary martyrs during one of his assize tours, sent a few to be executed and snapped at the rest, "If you want to die, you wretches, you can use ropes or precipices."[19]

During the Great Persecution which lasted from 303 to 312/313, governors were given direct edicts from the emperor. Christian churches and texts were to be destroyed, meeting for Christian worship was forbidden, and those Christians who refused to recant lost their legal rights. Later, it was ordered that Christian clergy be arrested and that all inhabitants of the empire sacrifice to the gods. Still, no specific punishment was prescribed by these edicts and governors retained the leeway afforded to them by distance.[20] Lactantius reported that some governors claimed to have shed no Christian blood,[10] and there is evidence that others turned a blind eye to evasions of the edict or only enforced it when absolutely necessary.

Government motivationEdit

See also: Military saint

When a governor was sent to a province, he was charged with the task of keeping it pacata atque quietaâ€"settled and orderly.[21]His primary interest would be to keep the populace happy; thus when unrest against the Christians arose in his jurisdiction, he would be inclined to placate it with appeasement lest the populace "vent itself in riots and lynching."[22]

Political leaders in the Roman Empire were also public cult leaders. Roman religion revolved around public ceremonies and sacrifices; personal belief was not as central an element as it is in many modern faiths. Thus while the private beliefs of Christians may have been largely immaterial to many Roman elites, this public religious practice was in their estimation critical to the social and political well-being of both the local community and the empire as a whole. Honoring tradition in the right way â€" pietas â€" was key to stability and success.[23] Hence the Romans protected the integrity of cults practiced by communities under their rule, seeing it as inherently correct to honor one's ancestral traditions; for this reason the Romans for a long time tolerated the highly exclusive Jewish sect, even though some Romans despised it.[24] Historian H. H. Ben-Sasson has proposed that the "Crisis under Caligula" (37-41) was the "first open break" between Rome and the Jews.[25] After the First Jewishâ€"Roman War (66-73), Jews were officially allowed to practice their religion as long as they paid the Jewish tax. There is debate among historians over whether the Roman government simply saw Christians as a sect of Judaism prior to Nerva's modification of the tax in 96. From then on, practicing Jews paid the tax while Christians did not, providing hard evidence of an official distinction.[26] Part of the Roman disdain for Christianity, then, arose in large part from the sense that it was bad for society. In the 3rd century, the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote:

"How can people not be in every way impious and atheistic who have apostatized from the customs of our ancestors through which every nation and city is sustained? ... What else are they than fighters against God?"[27]

Once distinguished from Judaism, Christianity was no longer seen as simply a bizarre sect of an old and venerable religion; it was a superstitio.[24] Superstition had for the Romans a much more powerful and dangerous connotation than it does for much of the Western world today: to them, this term meant a set of religious practices that were not only different, but corrosive to society, "disturbing a man's mind in such a way that he is really going insane" and causing him to lose humanitas (humanity).[28] The persecution of "superstitious" sects was hardly unheard-of in Roman history: an unnamed foreign cult was persecuted during a drought in 428 BCE, some initiates of the Bacchic cult were executed when deemed out-of-hand in 186 BCE, and measures were taken against the Druids during the early Principate.[29]

Even so, the level of persecution experienced by any given community of Christians still depended upon how threatening the local official deemed this new superstitio to be. Christians' beliefs would not have endeared them to many government officials: they worshipped a convicted criminal, refused to swear by the emperor's genius, harshly criticized Rome in their holy books, and suspiciously conducted their rites in private. In the early third century one magistrate told Christians "I cannot bring myself so much as to listen to people who speak ill of the Roman way of religion."[30]

Definatly reaching for predetermined biased outcomes and using circular thinking too. Absolutely no evidence of a great fire in Rome or extreme persecution of any even mentioning to be Christian.

I'm sure historians would be ecstatic about recording the life and times of the Christ of GOD.

Very linear and logical thinking.

peace

[Hydra009]

I need no material proof for what I know to be true.

Not having evidence and not needing evidence.  What a suspiciously convenient pairing...

Absolutely no evidence of a great fire in Rome or extreme persecution of any even mentioning to be Christian.

I'm sure historians would be ecstatic about recording the life and times of the Christ of GOD.

Did you read the part of what you posted where it says that Christian persecution was sporadic and not empire-wide until much later?

So this idea that Jesus was the talk of the town and historians were eager to write about him but those darn Romans torched everything comes across as one hell of a rationalization attempt.

[Mike Cl]

I'm sure historians would be ecstatic about recording the life and times of the Christ of GOD.

peace

I quite agree.  But god is a fiction, so being historians, there was nothing to write about.

[popsthebuilder]

Not having evidence and not needing evidence.  What a suspiciously convenient pairing...
Did you read the part of what you posted where it says that Christian persecution was sporadic and not empire-wide until much later?

So this idea that Jesus was the talk of the town and historians were eager to write about him but those darn Romans torched everything comes across as one hell of a rationalization attempt.

Only to the biased mind.

Try reading a little more, and, or again.

[popsthebuilder]

I quite agree.  But god is a fiction, so being historians, there was nothing to write about.

You remind me of an inapt hyper Calvinist I know of stuck on repeat regardless of how many times and how many different ways they are shown new things worth sincere consideration.


It's sorta sad.