I welcome people of many perspectives to post their view on this thread's title.
From the perspective of Romans and Hebrews at the time, was Jesus a cult leader?
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30
Of course he was.
He was crucified for sedition and les majesty and member's of his cult following were hunted down and also crucified.
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@Stephen
Why/how did Romans then end up founding one of the oldest forms of Catholicism?
1. Do we have contemporary writing from either Romans or "Hebrews" which would give an opinion?
2. What do you mean by "cult"? A religious sect, or a cult of personality?
As a younger person, I enjoyed reading "The Court Martial of Jesus" (https://www.amazon.com/Court-Martial-Jesus-Christian-Defends-Against/dp/0802110940) which makes the case that Jesus was a political threat, not a religious one, and was punished using a political execution style.
Why/how did Romans then end up founding one of the oldest forms of Catholicism?
Yes, 300 years after the crucifixion. Are you pretending that you have never heard or read about of the Battle of Milvian Bridge between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius and Constantine's "vision". It all came about because of politics, as they all do.
It's interesting that Constantine didn't covert to "Christianity " until he was on his deathbed.
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@Stephen
What is that battle something I have to have read about?
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@RationalMadman
From the perspective of Romans and Hebrews at the time, was Jesus a cult leader?
Well certainly from the religious leaders perspective of that era Jesus was treated as a rebellion or a threat to their institutions and they plotted to kill him from the time he began to really touch society in a powerful way. I'm sure they labeled Jesus all sorts of things, and he was fully aware that to bring about any change he was destined to be murdered, as was foretold even by him.
We see a common theme throughout history where heroic figures make political, racial and religious stances to usher in change of consciousness and we see them persecuted and even killed, but then their effect upon the world extends beyond their death. I don't know what it is about this planet and the souls that inhabit it....it's like they have to be forced to change, or some really bad things have to happen before something positive takes place. It's literally a continuous battle between the positive and negative forces of duality present here in this part of creation.
Religious systems which gain too much power will always eventually try and control through manipulation and force, it's really quite sad and pathetic because true spirituality is about freedom and independence. There's some decent qualities within the religious square at times, they gain good insights and wisdom but in the wrong hands what was once a good thing can quickly become something deadly.
If you follow the gospels it was obvious that the religious system and its leaders during that time had fallen away from the truth, fell astray from the good qualities meant to tie society together as a useful and healthy force. They had become corrupt, probably more than anyone was fully aware of. Jesus had a lot of courageous, ethical and intellectual qualities to stand up to that, and essentially being alone. Basically he was putting the power back into the hands of the people, supporting the outcasts and poor folk who stood no chance. As the story goes he was then followed, taunted and betrayed to find a way to end his life.
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ETRNLVW, who is pretending to be a Christian upon this forum,
YOUR QUOTE THAT YOU DO NOT FOLLOW, WHICH IS BLASPHEME TOWARDS JESUS: "Basically he was putting the power back into the hands of the people, supporting the outcasts and poor folk who stood no chance."
Relative to Jesus and the poor, and what He says even an inept pseudo-christian like you should do, is the following: Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21-23)
Have you sold ALL of your possessions to be able to give to the poor to be a true follower of Jesus the Christ? NO, YOU HAVE NOT! Therefore you are nothing but a hypocrite to TRUE Christianity, where you exemplify the term "pseudo-christian" to the letter!
Your response to this godly and truthful post will be ..."
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You regularly post on the religion forum about religion and you are telling us that you have never heard of the battle of Milvian Bridge which began the creation of the Roman Church 300 years after the crucifixion?
What is that battle
See highlight in bold underlined above.
A quick summery
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@BrotherDThomas
Relative to Jesus and the poor,
Jesus surrounded himself with rich and influential people. Not once will you read of Jesus telling his secret rich disciples Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus to go sell all they have.
But you will read that Jesus had no problem about sponging and mooching off the rich women of substance in his "cult".
But keeping on topic. It is noticeable that Jesus was up in front of Pilate along with other insurrectionists , isn't it?
And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him,who had committed murder in the insurrection.” Mark 15:7 KJV.
“That had made insurrection with him”. Is Mark’s gospel is telling us that Jesus AND Barabbas had committed insurrection, i.e. Jesus committed insurrection with them and him;Barabbas?
I think yes.
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@Stephen
Stephen,
In reading your fine output regarding my serial killer Jesus, the more we delve into the scriptures without being "spoon fed" by the many divisions of the faith, it is becoming apparent that Jesus the Christ was a real SOB! :(
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Jesus never existed,I have previously posted this. You all should read the book by Joseph Atwell , Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus
Was Jesus the invention of a Roman emperor? The author of this ground-breaking book believes he was. "Caesar’s Messiah" reveals the key to a new and revolutionary understanding of the origin of Christianity, explaining what is the New Testament, who is the real Jesus, and how Christ's second coming already occurred. The clues leading to these startling conclusions are found in the writings of the first-century historian Flavius Josephus, whose "Wars of the Jews" is one of the only historical chronicles of this period. Closely comparing the work of Josephus with the New Testament Gospels, "Caesar’s Messiah" demonstrates that the Romans directed the writing of both. Their purpose: to offer a vision of a “peaceful Messiah” who would serve as an alternative to the revolutionary leaders who were rocking first-century Israel and threatening Rome. Similarly, "Caesar’s Messiah" will rock our understanding of Christian history as it reveals that Jesus was a fictional character portrayed in four Gospels written not by Christians but Romans.
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@FLRW
This also occured to me, the Romans ran everything back then, there is no way they simply let the disciples keep an unscathed, unaltered series of scriptures to pass down generations and have rewritten verbatim. That's not Roman Modus Operandi at all.
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@RationalMadman
Jewish heretic.
Street magician.
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@RationalMadman
Romans though Jews were a little weird, and vice versa, so along comes Jesus, who can speak as a Jew, and he tells Rome [via Pilate] that his [Jesus'] kingdom, a subject in which Romans are well versed, is not of this world. Yeah, I can see how both Roman and Jew would find Jesus a heretical cult figure. After all, we may strain the definition of "cult' to imagine there is heresy in its practice, but the definition is really just one of identifying a small religious group with strange practices unfamiliar to the one drawing the conclusion.
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@FLRW
One kind of needs to play along with a proposition as given. Sure, anyone can poke holes in the theory, but, at the same time, such theories as "Jesus never existed" can be easily ignored. After all, what proves you exist to one who has never met you? You present your birth certificate to a gov't agency to secure your driver license. But who said the B.C. was legit? You parents? Legally, that can be considered as heresay testimony. What and who authenticates them? What of your driver license? Also, heresay. Your passport? the same. What, it isn't because it has your signature? Prove it, with the foreknowledge of the existence of competent forgery. You see, RM has established a what-if. So, play along.
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@fauxlaw
How is this a 'what if' scenario? It's more asking about history (especially as you believe Jesus was real and in the flesh).
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@RationalMadman
The what-if is not the relevance of Jesus, but if Romans and Jews may have perceived him as a cult figure, given the assumption that Jesus was a historic figure.
From the perspective of Romans and Hebrews at the time, was Jesus a cult leader?
No. There is no evidence, Roman, Hebrew, or otherwise of any contemporary analysis of Jesus. Certainly, Paul and some apostles seemed to be perceived as leaders of a Jesus cult within Judaism, of which there were at least fifty similar apocalyptic cults that rose and fell in Palestine in the first century. Remember that Hebrews in Jerusalem distinguished themselves from Hellenes- the cosmopolitan Greek speaking Jews of Alexandria, Antioch, etc. Hellenic Jews did not worship at Temple, did not read or speak Hebrew, considered themselves Jews unbound by Jewish tradition and almost all of early Christianity comes out of this sort of marginalized group.
Let's keep in mind that most cult leaders- a Dionysian priest or an priest of Isis- were not contradicting the official Imperial cult and posed no threat to popular religion. Temple Jews would have considered Christians apostates and a threat but a Roman governor would have seen any Christian as a Jewish Christian. Imperial Rome did not really distinguish Christians as non-Jews until after the Bar Kokhba uprising.
Why/how did Romans then end up founding one of the oldest forms of Catholicism?
A favorite historical question with many answers. I think one of the most compelling is that Christians, coming out of Jewish tradition, were highly socially active. Jews, then as now, tended to create Jewish enclaves in the center of the most populous Imperial cities and early Christians carved out smaller (sometimes secret) enclaves within those communities. Even before the Bible, Christianity was big on literacy- letter writing, gospel writing, proselytizing mostly in the lingua franca of Imperial Rome, Greek. Christians as a group were more literate than Roman aristocracy. As Roman civilization expanded in the East, so did Roman bureaucracy and the highly literate Christians began to get all the good bureaucratic jobs which created increasingly better known, increasingly wealthy and successful communities at the heart of all the influential major Roman cities. By 300 CE, in places like Egypt and Greece, the words Roman and Christian essentially meant the same thing.
unaltered series of scriptures to pass down generations and have rewritten verbatim.
No manuscript in the Roman world avoided frequent alteration from one copy to the next- mistakes, unintended omissions, intended omissions, re-writes, bad translations. But let's also recall that one of the rites of Christian initiation in the early days was the reading of the Apocrypha, the secret beliefs, gospels, testimonies kept hidden by each church from all but the most inner members- like a masonic lodge. A few hundreds of these have endured to demonstrate that every Christian church's core literature was substantially different than the next church.
You are agreeing with FLWR that the four Gospels were written not by Christians but Romans. In truth, thousands of wildly different versions were written for local audiences for increasingly divergent reasons, many by non-Romans, many by Romans. Of these, the emperor Constantine (a Roman and not a Christian but who would convert just before death) chose Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as canon and outlawed all the rest. The Bible itself was assembled, approved, edited, and promulgated at the Roman Emperor's command in 325. So, yeah. The Bible itself is an entirely Roman manuscript.
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@Stephen
You regularly post on the religion forum about religion and you are telling us that you have never heard of the battle of Milvian Bridge which began the creation of the Roman Church 300 years after the crucifixion?
Agreed. Every student should have some sense of the significance of the Battle of Milvian Bridge. If you had to set a starting date for Western Civilization and Christianity as a major world religion, Milvian Bridge serves pretty well in that capacity. The history of Europe without Christianity, without the Eastern Empire, without a Bible is entirely unknowable so significant was Constantine's promotion.
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@BrotherDThomas
Stephen,In reading your fine output regarding my serial killer Jesus, the more we delve into the scriptures without being "spoon fed" by the many divisions of the faith, it is becoming apparent that Jesus the Christ was a real SOB! :(
"spoon-fed" indeed Brother.
I have never hidden the fact that I believe Jesus was an historical figure that believed himself to be the rightful heir to throne of Kind David - aka A son of god - as Solomon was also known as A - son of god.
The difference is, is that Christians don't or refuse to understand that this didn't mean a biological relationship. The meaning is simply that God has a special relationship with his chosen king and nation, but the bond is not physical but emotional. The bible makes this perfectly clear many many times.
If Jesus' mission hadn't failed he too would maybe have been accepted king by all the tribes that made up all the nation of Israel and maybe also recognized as A - son of god.
I have found that Christians in my personal experience don't even realise that there were other human " sons of god" in the scriptures. Indeed , are not all of the 12 tribe nation of Israel called the "sons of god"?
Deuteronomy 14:1: "You [Israel] are sons to the Lord your God,". Exodus 4:22, where God tell Moses to tell Pharaoh "My son, My firstborn Israel" (Exodus 4:22).
And didn't Jesus promise his chosen twelve that they would be "judges of Israel". Well of course he did.
"you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" .Matthew 19:28. With king Jesus -son of god, at its head. And not a single word about Christians!
Christians need to face some cold hard facts that Jesus played no part in the creation of Christianity Brother, And he would have been absolutely appalled that a whole new religion had sprang up in his name.
But they won't accept these facts because as you mention above , they have been "spoon-fed" only what it is their Pastors, Preachers and Priest want them to hear and then, as one Pastor here informs me, they simply "pass it on". Bottom of page last two lines. #20
And as oromagi above indicates, Christianity is very much a western thing ,and not and never was a Jewish middle eastern thing.
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@oromagi
wow.
same offering of my #16 to FLRW to you. ever hear of suspension of disbelief? of course, you have. apply it.
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@Stephen
Christianity is an evolved Middle Eastern religious thingy, relative to human demographics and the distribution and movements and development of information and ideas thereof.
Judaism is a similar alternate derivation of the same folklore.
As is Catholicism.
And the Christ/Jesus organisation, would undoubtedly have been seen as a threat to the Roman empirical establishment.
As such and as ever, the threat to established power and wealth would have been of primary consideration. The Jesus movement would undoubtedly have been regarded as such a threat.
Cultus Dux...May well have been one accusation put forward.
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@zedvictor4
As is Catholicism
Which only came about as a result of the impending battle at Milvian Bridge between European leaders and not Jewish leaders. There well may have been some Jews"lost" to the early Paulian doctrine a hundred years or so after the crucifixion and before Milvian Bridge just as there were many "lost" Jews that began to worship Greek deities - gods or goddesses -a generation or so into the Greek conquest/occupation. << It was these "lost sheep" that Jesus said he had "only been sent to"Matthew 15:24. Which is something else Christians cannot seem to accept.
It is my own understanding that the very term - "Judeo Christian "- was also introduced by western leaders after WWII /cold war as some kind of attempt to show shared values between the Jewish and Christian religions.
As it turns out, according to some it appears to have had the opposite effect and Jews don't like or even recognise the term, Judeo-christian and I am not sure that Christians like or even use the term themselves? Christians call themselves Christians don`t they? I have never heard one asked to be addressed as or claim to be a "Judaeo-Christian..... yet.
But if they don't accept the term , I am not sure why it should bother them considering they have adopted an ancient god they understood nothing about. From a time they understood nothing about. And from a ancient superstitious culture that understand nothing about.
If you can't prove Jesus existed he could not have been a cult leader. If he did exist he was as much as one as Buddha
The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify. Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein.
Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.” Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).
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@FLRW
The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity – which gives us reason to question them. The authors of the Gospels fail to name themselves, describe their qualifications, or show any criticism with their foundational sources – which they also fail to identify. Filled with mythical and non-historical information, and heavily edited over time, the Gospels certainly should not convince critics to trust even the more mundane claims made therein. Paul’s Epistles, written earlier than the Gospels, give us no reason to dogmatically declare Jesus must have existed. Avoiding Jesus’ earthly events and teachings, even when the latter could have bolstered his own claims, Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.” Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).
NOT TO MENTION THIS.
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@FLRW
The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith.
Remove the " miracles and wonders" and we are left with a character involved in a typical political power struggle between the many factions of the time
Paul only describes his “Heavenly Jesus.”
Paul doesn’t mention the miraculous ascending into heaven event either, no empty tombs, no disappearance from the grave of the physical body,no physical resurrection, no physical appearances of a Christ who would eat and invite people to poke his wounds, or that Jesus was elevated physically into heaven after a given time. To Paul the body of Jesus who died was degradable,weak, and physical.