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Christianity a Roman Counter-insurgency Ploy?


Weeping Sore

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So even if this research doesn't hold up, it's an interesting idea. The contention here is that in the first century, Jews in Palestine were rebelling violently against the Empire so the thought was to co-opt their Messiah narrative and say he already came, and btw he said it was better to be non-violent and "give to Caesar what is Caesar's".

http://www.corespirit.com/ancient-confession-found-invented-jesus-christ/

If it turns out Christianity was a cynical fiction invented by the Romans, does it mean Christians should discard it? Or does it just legitimize worshipping other fictional characters?

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Well, from a quick read through, he will run into trouble with the letters of Paul. After all, if the Gospels are based on Josephus (AD 70), Paul's letters (AD 48-60 (?)) will kneecap his discovery before it even started. 

Also, the vagueness of the likeness will be problematic. But if the link is something to go by, Paul killed his - interesting - idea before it was concieved.

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7 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Well, from a quick read through, he will run into trouble with the letters of Paul. After all, if the Gospels are based on Josephus (AD 70), Paul's letters (AD 48-60 (?)) will kneecap his discovery before it even started. 

Also, the vagueness of the likeness will be problematic. But if the link is something to go by, Paul killed his - interesting - idea before it was concieved.

Paul was Saul first, right? A Jewish Roman apparatchik who (literally) saw the light, changed his name and started preaching for Jesus? Wouldn't he be an ideal person to catapult the propaganda?

And I think the author was finding parallels between events described as history by Josephus and the narrative of the bible, so there's not really a chronological conflict there.

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It's a fairly long con if you have to set it up 20 years in advance, having Saul first play his part, write his epistles, invent a lot of people, and then be killed off - all this before Josephus wrote The Jewish War. 

Basically, nothing to see here.

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Regardless of whether Christianity was created by the Romans, it was clearly adopted and co-opted as a political tool: it preached acquiescence by slaves and promised rewards in the afterlife in return for faithfulness; no call to arms, no need for justice or retribution on this earth.

The entire Christian ethos was clearly a new influx of eastern philosophy, but it was also very useful for political elites and it offered a non-military option for the Roman empire to survive quite successfully until today -- in the form of the Catholic church -- in symbiosis with host states.  It effectively colonized most of Latin America too.

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making judas iscariot a villain is useful in the 'political tool' argument.  asimov argues that iscariot is not a geographical marker, but rather a reference to the sicarii, the radical wing of the zealots that arose later in the first century. the anachronism is bad history, of course, but standard political mythopoesis.

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24 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Regardless of whether Christianity was created by the Romans, it was clearly adopted and co-opted as a political tool: it preached acquiescence by slaves and promised rewards in the afterlife in return for faithfulness; no call to arms, no need for justice or retribution on this earth.

The entire Christian ethos was clearly a new influx of eastern philosophy, but it was also very useful for political elites and it offered a non-military option for the Roman empire to survive quite successfully until today -- in the form of the Catholic church -- in symbiosis with host states.  It effectively colonized most of Latin America too.

IP,

If Christianity was created by the Romans why mayrtr the Christians later on?  By your own analysis the Christians were less of a threat to Roman power than the Jews who were tolerated by Rome.

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But early christianity was not co-opted as a "political tool" before the 3rd century. The idea that the Romans would have needed a counterinsurgency plot when they simply crushed the insurgency in 70 AD is fairly ridiculous. It would also be really strange to spawn a religion that (at least as soon as Paul) had its expansion beyond judaism as a central element to pacify a tiny unimportant province.

This is really a non-starter, about as plausible as Dan Brown's historical conspiracies with Mary Magdalene, the Grail etc.

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As regards the Catholic Church and Rome, one shouldn't forget the Orthodox Church and Byzantium. 

Still, there is the slight problem of the time difference again - Christianity became state religion around AD 300. Prior to that, it was a relatively small religion, and often persecuted.

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6 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

This is really a non-starter, about as plausible as Dan Brown's historical conspiracies with Mary Magdalene, the Grail etc.

More or less plausible than magic guy who rises from the dead and can cure blindness and leprosy?

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16 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

IP,

If Christianity was created by the Romans why mayrtr the Christians later on?  By your own analysis the Christians were less of a threat to Roman power than the Jews who were tolerated by Rome.

I don't support at all the conspiracy theory that the Romans created Christianity.  I'm sure the Romans were initially very concerned by a new belief system spreading rapidly out of a troublesome corner of the empire and particularly embraced by the slave population.  They definitely did not want any organizing force that might compete with their political authority, nor would they have appreciated the associated culture war.

But eventually co-opting it as a state religion and taking control of the doctrine was clearly a political move that they embraced when they realized it's potential influence in an empire built on slaves and that the the faith effectively preached acquiescence in temporal politics.

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55 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

But early christianity was not co-opted as a "political tool" before the 3rd century. The idea that the Romans would have needed a counterinsurgency plot when they simply crushed the insurgency in 70 AD is fairly ridiculous.

just for the sake of argument: why not two mutually exclusive schools of thought within the principate?  

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If Christianity was created by the Romans why mayrtr the Christians later on?  

nero and domitian are ineffective, not on the same page as priors?  also, again for the sake of argument: frankenstein monster gets away from roman creators?  or, as in the RSB, viramsata is the lie that becomes real?

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If Rome was going to do something like this, wouldn't they have also done it in far more important provinces that sometimes liked rebelling? Like Gaul? Or equally kinda unimportant places like Britannia? Or out into neighboring territories like Germania? 

Seems weird that they'd hatch a scheme like this and only ever do it once.

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32 minutes ago, Fez said:

If Rome was going to do something like this, wouldn't they have also done it in far more important provinces that sometimes liked rebelling? Like Gaul? Or equally kinda unimportant places like Britannia? Or out into neighboring territories like Germania? 

Seems weird that they'd hatch a scheme like this and only ever do it once.

If I should hazard a guess, it is because those regions mentioned are bigger in terms of space, more spread out population, and less preachers with a following. 

Remember that the Middle East really has a long history wrt religion.

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1 minute ago, Fez said:

If Rome was going to do something like this, wouldn't they have also done it in far more important provinces that sometimes liked rebelling? Like Gaul? Or equally kinda unimportant places like Britannia? Or out into neighboring territories like Germania? 

Seems weird that they'd hatch a scheme like this and only ever do it once.

It seems like they'd try to sell Pagans on the Roman pantheon, but they needed to try a different tack with monotheists?

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While "People's Front of Judea" etc. in Life of Brian was a joke on leftist splinter groups in the 1970s, it was probably not too far from the situation in 1st century Palestine. There was certainly no need for the Romans to make up another group in addition to those that already existed.

And as someone wrote the chronology is completely off. Paul was in Rome in the late 50s or early 60s (and probably Peter as well), so christianity had spread to Asia minor and Greece and even Rome when the Jewish uprising was crushed in 70 AD. It would have been completely superfluous to make up a Messiah story and a new sect after 70 AD and it also would not make sense to make this up in the 30s and spread it in the 40s to Asia minor and Greece. If the story about Paul getting into trouble with the Ephesians because of his preaching against their beloved Artemis is true was at least some likelihood that the new sect would spread unrest into formerly quiet provinces.

From another article on that website it becomes clear that this is obviously an esoteric nonsense site:

"Studies conducted on rhesus negative blood types show that they are missing the Rhesus factor, a protein substance present in the red blood cells of other humans.

Theories suggest that people with Rhesus (RH) negative blood may be from outside this world.

Others suggest they are fallen angels from the heavens above or they belong to an alien race from somewhere in the vast darkness of space."

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