Why Didn't Christianity Replace Judaism?

[MineralMan]

That's not a simple question to answer, but it's a good one. If Jesus was the Messiah, you'd think Judaism would be gone already, and that Middle-eastern Jews would have become Christians in a wholesale way. Instead, Christianity got co-opted by the Romans and other non-Jews and subtly shifted to be a "universal" or "catholic" religion. The New Testament, which was assembled in Rome, leaned heavily on letters written by Paul, a Roman who actually never met the historical Jesus in the flesh. That made Christianity more palatable to Gentiles than to Jews, and the religion shifted to become a European religion, primarily, in its formative years. Rome was the location of its primary hierarchy, although other Christian centers competed, too. Rome, however, had the power needed to spread the new religion throughout Europe and beyond, as the centuries rolled by.

The bottom line for Judaism is that Jesus was not the Messiah they were looking for. He didn't make much of a splash in Jerusalem, really, and the local Jewish hierarchy didn't like the message he brought, so they turned him over to the Romans for execution. Really, Christianity didn't have much of a chance to grow in Roman-controlled Judea. Had it not been politically convenient for Rome, it would have simply shriveled and died. Jesus wasn't the only person who was touted as the Messiah. We don't remember the others, and we would not remember the man we call Jesus, either, were it not for Paul's letters and the Roman Church.

Christianity is a Gentile religion, not a Jewish one. As a religion, it had its roots in Rome, not Jerusalem.

[msongs]

1. maybe the israelites resisted fake news? nt

[MineralMan]

3. Well, at the time, news was word of mouth, almost entirely.

Christianity didn't really start to expand until writings were collected, edited, and grouped together to create the New Testament canon.

How many people would have actually heard Jesus speak, really, assuming that he is real and did speak?

[elleng]

2. 'Wholesale way' doesn't happen in human relations.

[MineralMan]

4. I don't know about that. The Romans managed to market

Christianity pretty darned effectively, I think, and on a wholesale basis.

[still_one]

5. and the crusades did a masterful job of marketing Christianity

[hueymahl]

71. Different kind of marketing

Effective, however!

[marylandblue]

6. It was strictly retail until Constantine bought the company

After him, the Preferred Customer program made it advantageous for people to shop for gods only at government-approved stores. And unlike competitors, Constantine's Preferred Customers had to promise not to shop elsewhere.

[Voltaire2]

12. It did with the destruction of the Greco-Roman religions

from the 4th through 6th centuries. Wholesale deliberate systematic repression and destruction across the empire was carried out by religious and secular authorities.

It is an interesting question how Jewish faith and culture survived.

[Cartoonist]

7. What's really bugging you?

You seem to be on an anti-Paul wagon this morning.

[MineralMan]

8. It all started with Sessions quoting from Romans to justify

separating migrant children from their parents. That reminded me of the Paulian influence on Christianity, often to the point of forgetting that other guy most of the time.

I like to look at the history of Christianity. It explains a lot about what it has become and why. Since this is the Religion Group, it seems a perfect place to have such a discussion.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. One reason might be because the early writings were in Greek, not Hebrew.

Another might be that Judaism already had a number of sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots Christianity, which at the time and in that area was just a small apocalyptic Jewish sect, would have had a lot of competition. Also, after Jesus' death the disciples dispersed throughout the Middle East and into Rome and Greece and possibly as far as India, but this dispersal probably diluted the "brand" considerably. Paul, whose writings were in Greek, not Hebrew, was the most influential of the later apostles, and his mission was to convert the gentile Greeks, not Jews. Even so, Christianity didn't really catch on until the conversion of Constantine in the 4th century, when it was decreed to be the state religion. That's never good for a religion.

[unblock]

10. Romans killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Jesus among them

Please don't spread the anti-Semitic bullshit that Jews are in any way responsible for the death of Jesus.

Jews were victims on a massive scale, Jesus was just another one of them.

Christian theology requires that Jesus die and that he went to his death willingly, so what's the point in blaming anyone anyway?

[Voltaire2]

11. Wtf?

Every gospel account of the execution has the Jewish authorities demanding the execution of Jesus by the Romans. You can argue that the whole story is fiction and never happened, I’m fine with that, but the story is as MM stated. Calling that anti-semitism is really over the top.

[unblock]

13. that some elements of this are written into the gospels doesn't make it any less anti-semitic

yes, it's possible that the whole thing is fiction.

it's also possible that some elements are real but that the story (written by people who weren't eye witnesses) was modified to point the blame on jews, rather than on the romans who they were trying to win over.

regardless, the whole notion is most definitely anti-semitic, and has been used to rationalize anti-semitic violence against jews ever since.

it should not continue here on du.

[MineralMan]

14. And yet, you see, the story as told in the Gospels is the only one we have.

Do you have a different account? In each of the four Gospels, Jesus was handed over to the Romans for trial and possible execution by some Jewish leaders. They didn't represent all of Judaism, of course. That is the story we have. There is no other story on record.

You are, I think, misunderstanding my point, which has nothing to do with that story at all, really. I'm talking about the growth of Christianity. It has more to do with politics than religion, really. I'm not blaming the Jewish people for anything. I doubt that the story ever really happened, in fact. However, it is that story that led to the development of Christianity, yet another religion I do not believe.

Christianity is based on that story. I'm not a big fan of Christianity. I'm not a fan of religion in general. I think it has done more harm in the past 2000 years than any other human endeavor. I'm discussing its history and development.

[unblock]

16. i like what you were trying to accomplish in the post overall.

i just wish you hadn't chosen to include, in a post that is otherwise positioned as reasonable historical analysis, an element of early christian mythology that is not historically verified and has been abused over the centuries at the expense of jews.

i don't have an alternative account, but i can say that blaming jews in general or some jewish leaders in particular doesn't make much sense, either historically or theologically, from the christian perspective. it hardly changes matters much who handed jesus over to the romans. theologically, he had to die, he had to accept death, in order to "die for our sins" and to be resurrected. if anything, christians should thank those responsible for his death for bringing about the essential elements of their religion. however, that's not the way things have played out historically since then.

historically, it doesn't make much sense either, as jews were victims of the romans on a massive scale. it's possible, but not particularly easy to accept, that some jews, particularly jewish leaders, would sometimes turn in other jews for execution by the romans. one would presume that the jewish leaders were largely trying to stop such executions.

an alternative theory that the romans were concerned that jesus presented a problem for the security of rome by inciting jews to object to their treatment by the romans makes much more sense, in no small part because they executed many other jews for exactly that reason.

i have no proof of this theory, but then i have no proof that jesus existed at all.

[dhol82]

28. I think that the early Christians needed a bogeyman

Every political group has to have someone to despise so as to engender the cohesive nature of the select people.
The Jews were a monotheistic religion also, ergo competition which needed to be destroyed.

[Igel]

36. The rationale is simple.

The kind of thing from the bar Kochba rebellion was completely predictable. And the Jewish leaders wanted to avoid it.

The way to avoid mass slaughter and destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem was to turn over those who might bring ruin upon Israel. So having the sanhedrin turn over somebody made perfect sense.

As for responsibility, we need to separate out fear of anti-Semitic reprisals from understanding what's in the account.

The sanhedrin laid a bill of charges against him and found him guilty. But it had no authority to execute him.

When he was sent back to Herod, Herod offered him up to the crowd. Release him or a thief? The crowd was Jewish; it was just before the first high day of the year when every family or clan was to have a representative at the Temple. If any crowd could be representative, it would be that one or the one at Succoth in the fall. But if a thief is released, then some people will be robbed; if a nationalist who might cause the Roman Army to level the city is released, they may all perish. So metaphorically the crowd placed its hand on the head of Jesus and had Bar Abbas sent off. In a sense, they owned his death. And it was the most reasonable option, and if it wasn't done then all those anti-Semitic Xians would have no savior.

The Romans did the killing, of course. But nobody blames them.

And 40 years later nationalist rabble rousers caused exactly the events that the Jewish leaders had tried to avoid. The sicarii were a problem for years before that. Was it better for one man to die or for Jerusalem to have been leveled and its inhabitants slaughtered or under seige decades earlier?

Roman anti-Semitism existed before Rome became Xian. And when it became Xian, the hatred had already been inbred and well rooted and was just looking for an excuse. Get rid of the excuses, you maim Xianity and you know what? You still have the hatred looking for any other excuse. Oh, I know. They're not Christ-killers, they're bankers. They're behind a world government. Blood libel. There are lots of stupid, hateful excuses.

[Voltaire2]

15. So you are suggesting that the gospels be revised

for DU to erase the standard account of his execution and replace it with one in which the Roman authorities acting entirely on their own decided to execute a Jewish religious leader?

Do you have any evidence that the gospel accounts were rewritten to be more palatable to Romans? When did this rewriting occur? It must have been pretty early on otherwise it would be hard to explain how all the various sects in all parts of the region got the same revision.

What was the motivation for the Roman governor to execute Jesus? Generally the empire left local religions alone, let them handle their own affairs. So why did they go after this guy?

[MineralMan]

17. Almost 2000 year old stories are not going to change.

It is the story we have. It is the story upon which Christianity is based. It will not be changed by anyone at this point.

Things were not calm in Jerusalem at that time. My theory about it would be that the Romans did the bidding of the leaders who wanted rid of that Jesus character, and gave them what they wanted to shut them up. Besides, they didn't really relish the idea of a Messiah figure anyhow. They had enough backlash going on against their rule.

I think the story was highly romanticized in its written form, some time after the events occurred. I think we have only a dim view of life at that time and what really was going on.

I have no trouble believing that an established priesthood would want to be rid of a troublesome figure. Such has happened again and again. The rest is a story, which may or may not have little, some, or a great deal of truth in it, so far as what physically happened goes. Nobody knows. Every witness was dead before it was written.

And yet, we have a religion with billions of followers who believe the story, more or less. That's a remarkable thing, and worthy of study. It is a story that should have vanished not long after it was told, but didn't. That's a great puzzle, worth discussing.

[unblock]

20. i think people make more of jesus in real time than he was.

there were many would-be leaders of jews at the time, many messiah figures. the romans didn't single out jesus, and there's no particular reason to think he towered over any other messianic figures of that time either.

nor is there any particular reason to imagine that jewish leaders had any particular problem with him. for the most part, he though of himself as a jew all his life and lived as a jew all his life and encouraged others to be good jews. he wasn't particularly a threat to established judaism. he *was* perceived as a potential security threat to rome, however, so it makes sense that they would want to execute him, as they had executed many other jews as well.


historically, what should have gone away ages ago was this notion that jews today are somehow due ill treatment based on this. it was perhaps understandable that the writers of the gospels might include a dig at jews in order to differentiate their new religion, but once christianity was established, this should have become a matter of trivia. sadly it has not.

[MineralMan]

51. Yes, I think you're right. Apparently, there were a number of

messianic movements around that time. We have a very limited picture of what was really going on in the Holy Land back then. We'd know even less had the writings that make up the New Testament not been collected, curated, and edited into the canon.

The world was a very, very different place a couple of millennia ago. We see only glimpses of it, really, and some of those are inaccurate and are viewed as in a distorted mirror.

[unblock]

18. romans executed hundreds of thousands of jews.

they did not leave jews alone, and jesus wasn't singled out.

yes, the early gospels included this story, i'm not suggesting that it wasn't a part of early christianity.
that doesn't mean it isn't anti-semitic.

if one has to repeat this story, best to leave it to liturgical discussions. this post was otherwise a historical account and historical analysis, and this story doesn't belong there.

romans executed many jews (and others) in the name of the law and in the name of the security of rome. jews were viewed as one of the groups that could potentially revolt with the right leader, so many would-be leaders were executed.

[Voltaire2]

19. Yes they did, long after this Jesus guy got killed.

The rebellions started in 67. You are using an anachronistic argument.

Can you cite any serious historical research that claims your position is valid?

[unblock]

21. i've mentioned a lot of things. volume and timing of executions is only part of it.

i don't have a ready list of the timing of jewish executions at the hands of romans.
yes, the major wars didn't happen until well after the death of jesus, that doesn't mean there weren't plenty of executions prior to that.

[marylandblue]

23. Claiming to be "the messiah" in those days

meant you were claiming to be the rightful king of the Jews and that therefore Roman rule was illegitmate. Romans would regard any such claim as rebellious. Hence the words "King of the Jews" were written on his cross. This may have been his actual crime in the eyes of the Romans.

[Mariana]

24. And yet, the gospels have Pilate and Herod finding no fault with Jesus

and wanting to let him go. In the stores, he chose his words carefully to avoid incriminating himself when he was examined by them, and he succeeded.

[marylandblue]

25. Well, as I said in post 22, theories are all over the map

If you don't take the stories exactly as written, then they are a wide variety of historical reconstructions that can be made. The reconstruction I am suggesting is that the Romans thought he was a revolutionary and Pilate's absolution was a later addition to absolve the Romans and blame the Jews.

Feel free to come up with your own reconstruction. Whatever you come up with has probably already been published by a legitimate historian somewhere. If you do come up with something new and interesting, someone will publish it.

[Voltaire2]

30. Fine but again the rebellions started more than

30 years later. At the time the situation in the province was peaceful. There were minor uprisings 10-15 years later, and then in 67 the huge uprisings started that resulted in the diaspora Conflating the later rebellions with the execution story seems dubious.

[marylandblue]

34. There was unrest for many decades prior to the revolt

Josephus records a minor uprising in 6 CE led by Judas of Galillee. He is said to be the founder of the Zealots who Josephus blames for the revolt in 66 CE. Judas's own sons were executed in 46 CE.

Calling Judea "peaceful" is a relative term only. The Judeans were quite restive at all times. They demanded special treatment from the empire and got very upset when they didn't get it. The Romans did not understand this jealous god and his inflexible demands.

It's not out of the question that the Romans thought Jesus was about to start a new uprising. It's also not out of the question that the Jewish leaders told Pilate he was starting an uprising and Pilate believed them. All we really know is that, if it were an abortive uprising, it wasn't big enough for Josephus to take note of. That doesn't mean the Romans of his didn't know what "Messiah" meant to the Jews. It's also telling that Jesus other title, "Son of God" was, prior to Christianity, used by kings and emperors.

[Voltaire2]

38. But not during the period in question.

So it seems unlikely that the Roman authorities would be off killing people for rebellion when there weren’t any.

[marylandblue]

41. So basically you are saying the whole book is full of bullshit

Last edited Sun Jun 17, 2018, 11:23 PM - Edit history (1)

But the Jews must have turned Jesus over to the Romans because we have no record of an itinerate firebrand preacher getting the Romans mad at him in 30 CE? And what are people going to know or not know about David Koresh 2000 years from now?

[Voltaire2]

43. Er no I am saying that the only evidence of the events

either has the Jewish religious authorities demanding the execution or doesn’t contradict that account. So sure something else might have happened (if it all wasn’t just made up to begin with) but there is no evidence for alternate theories.

[marylandblue]

44. The Bible is the only evidence we have for almost all of Jesus life

And I trust you don't accept it as literal history. If not, how do you decide which parts are true and which are not?

[Voltaire2]

47. So, once again, the only accounts are all

consistent, either they have the religious authorities demanding the execution, or they do not contradict that account.

If you want to claim that an alternate theory is plausible you have to come up with at least as much evidence as the standard accounting.

The historicity of Jesus is an independent issue. We could both agree that the whole story is a myth with no historicity. I in fact think that is quite likely. We are then discussing a work of fiction and you have even less grounds for your alternate account as the gospel versions are now authoritative.

[marylandblue]

49. That's a false dichotomy

It's not all or none. We can doubt any part of it we like. In fact historians often do that with all ancient accounts, even the most reliable.

[Voltaire2]

52. Yes but if they propose alternate theories they

do so with evidence rather than mere speculation. Doubting is fine. Just back it up with evidence and you have a credible theory.

[marylandblue]

22. There are lots of theories about how the story may have been revised

There were many competing gospels other than the four in the Bible. Most are lost to history. Historians are all over them map as to what really might have happened, but there are plausible versions that make Jesus just as much of a threat to the Romans as to the Jewish leadership. So you can takenyournpick, everything from Jesus never existed at all, to it happened exactly as described.

[Voltaire2]

31. Which historians claim that the execution was entirely

initiated by the Romans?

[marylandblue]

35. Tacitus

"Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus."

Did he leave the Jews out because they were unworthy to mention, because he didn't know the whole story, or because they really had nothing to do with it? Take your pick.

By the way, my position is not that the Jews had nothing to do with it. My position is that Jesus actually did want to start an uprising but the Jewish leaders didn't, so they handed him over to the Romans for execution. I don't believe Pilate really thought he was innocent. Or maybe Pilate just thought it best to take no chances.

[Voltaire2]

37. That is a misreading of Tacitus.

Or more specifically you are reading into that text that Pilate acted alone and not at the urging of Jewish religious authorities. It says no such thing.

Oh wait- never mind you are now arguing a completely different point, one that I don’t disagree with, that is not at all what the original assertion I objected to was, that it is anti-semitic to refer to the gospel accounts of the execution.

[marylandblue]

39. I didn't say that was my position

I said it's a position you could take. I've seen a lot of positions, I don't remember them all. Some historians (not many as far as I know) have said Jesus didn't exist at all. I don't take that position, but I am not particularly bound to any particular one. All of the events of Jesus life are, in my view, subject to doubt. So why do I need to find a historian to say that a particular event with limited evidence that may be wholely or partly fictional, but certainly didn't happen exactly as described, is fictional in one particular part. Again, not necessarily my position, but historical information is so sparse on this, nobody knows what really happened.

[Igel]

33. Christian theology is really quite clear.

If Jesus died, it was because it was to pay the sacrificial price for their sins. Not his own. Lose the bulls and sheep, the blood's already been spilled. That's Paul. That's even quite deducible from the "red letters."

If the Jews were his people, it was their sins that killed him. If Christians are his people, it was their sins that killed him.

If it was just the Romans, then that's it for everybody else. Eat a shrimp, kill 6 million Jews, whatever ... Sin is sin and you have no recourse but death. Everything else is exegesis derived from Papal interpretation and edict. Almost every Xian I know is, ultimately, Catholic. Even the Lutherans, Methodists, and, oddly, Baptists.

For the first 20 years or so, the Xian population was Jewish. After that, it shifted to be majority Gentile.

It was after the shift, as a result of the rampant anti-Semitism in Rome and elsewhere (those uppity Jews didn't do what was expected in terms of worship, and even had the gall to stage an uprising or two). And there was that whole "let's flatten Jerusalem" thang.

[dhol82]

26. From what I recall, Mithraicism was actually the more popular religion until Constantine

Got his mitts on the concept of population mind control.

[KCDebbie]

27. Because for many centuries Christianity was viewed

In the same way as most people currently view Scientology... Christianity was the newest thing and therefore just a fad...

[dawg day]

29. Actually, talk to many fundamentalist "Christians," and they are pretty old-testament

They are far more interested in quoting from the Old Testament (which is connected to the Torah-- I don't think it's identical in all ways), than they are in quoting all those liberal things that Christ guy kept saying.

They're all "eye for an eye" (Leviticus- OT) and not "turn the other cheek" (Matthew - NT), even as Christ specifically prohibits the OT way:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." (Matthew)

So maybe the old way actually still rules, though I bet all those Southern Baptists would resist the idea that they are actually UN-Christian.

[JNelson6563]

32. Take a look at this

Interesting reading cited in that as well as what it presents on its own.

[Act_of_Reparation]

40. For the same reason Mormonism didn't replace Christianity.

It was transparently crazy to almost everyone raised within the parent religion.

[DetlefK]

42. Because Judaism is the religion of Israel and Christianity is a religion of foreigners.

Judaism is deeply rooted in the history and culture of Israel.

Whereas Christianity began as a jewish cult and then then spread to Greece, Armenia and Rome.
Christianity didn't mature in Israel. It matured and became a religion in its own right while separated from the jewish community.

If the Jews were to convert to Christianity, they would have to convert to something distinct from their own heritage.

[Voltaire2]

45. And yet across the empire the old religions

were eradicated. Across many different cultures, many different religions. Very few of the old religions within the empire survived.

[DetlefK]

46. Because the roman military wiped them out. Not because they converted.

[Voltaire2]

48. No that isn't what happened.

The Roman Empire, prior to Constantine, pretty much let conquered people carry on with their religions. After Constantine the state and religious authorities systematically destroyed the old religions and coerced the conversion of the population of the empire to Christianity.

[MineralMan]

50. Yes, exactly. Christianity simply didn't flourish among

Jewish people. As others have pointed out, Constantine really was the one who made today's Christianity begin to spread outside of the Holy Land.

[Voltaire2]

55. However by the 300s the diaspora was long past.

The Jewish people were scattered across the empire, and while some remained in what was now Palestine, the vast majority of the Jewish people were living outside of the region.

[MineralMan]

56. True, where they were persecuted almost universally at

one time or another. How Judaism survived is a testament to a culture with enormous strength.

[Voltaire2]

57. It is interesting.

There were a few other groups who managed to retain their culture through the onslaught of first Christianity and then Islam. Very few.

[Gothmog]

53. Jews are still waiting for the coming of the Messiah

As far as Judaism is concerned, the Messiah has not yet come

[MineralMan]

54. Yes. I'm aware of that.

[WhiteTara]

58. Because the books about Jesus say love one another

and the old books say revenge and hate and kill and those base emotions ooze from the limbic system.

I read that a few thousand years ago, there was a "bottleneck" in male genes because of all the wars and killing. Womens' gene pools remained diverse however. So the hypothesis is that only the crudest, grossest, cruelest, manliest, strongest male genes feed the pool today.

[Act_of_Reparation]

59. You are mistaken.

The y-chromosome bottleneck is explained by class. Wealthy men took multiple wives and produced more sons than poor men. This reduced the overall number of y-chromosome lineages surviving into the modern era.

As for "crudest, grossest, cruelest, manliest, strongest male genes"... I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. Most genes on the y-chromosome are analogs of x-linked genes. Those specific to the y-chromosome are involved in determining sex and the ability to produce sperm. Sadly, there are no genes directly linked to generally dickish behavior. Methinks the problem is social, not genetic.

And lastly, the books about Jesus say a lot of things, of which "love one another" is merely one. They also say you can own slaves, and that unbelievers are condemned to burn in hell.

[NeoGreen]

60. Don't forget...

...that the "books about jesus"...that purportedly quote jesus directly have him saying the exact opposite of "love one another" i.e. hate your family:

Matthew 10:

36: man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
37: Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me;

Me...me...me...

[WhiteTara]

67. You may be quite right. However,

here is the article I was talking about.
https://www.livescience.com/62754-warring-clans-caused-population-bottleneck.html
Modern men's genes suggest that something peculiar happened 5,000 to 7,000 years ago: Most of the male population across Asia, Europe and Africa seems to have died off, leaving behind just one man for every 17 women.

This so-called population "bottleneck" was first proposed in 2015, and since then, researchers have been trying to figure out what could've caused it. One hypothesis held that the drop-off in the male population occurred due to ecological or climatic factors that mainly affected male offspring, while another idea suggested that the die-off happened because some males had more power in society, and thus produced more children.

Now, a new paper, published May 25 in the journal Nature Communications, offers yet another explanation: People living in patrilineal clans (consisting of males from the same descent) might have fought with each other, wiping out entire male lineages at a time. [Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor]

That ratio of 17 females for every one male "struck us as being very extreme, and there must be another explanation," said senior study author Marcus Feldman, a population geneticist at Stanford University in California. According to their new explanation, the male population didn't take a nosedive, but rather the diversity of the Y chromosome decreased due to the way people lived and fought with each other. In other words, there weren't actually fewer males, just less diversity among the males

As for the Jesus quote; I never read that Jesus said you could own slaves; maybe someone else in the bible, but not Jesus, I don't think.

[Act_of_Reparation]

68. Read a ilttle closer.

Matthew 18:23-25

Luke 12:41-48

Matthew 24:45-51

[WhiteTara]

69. Okay, you got me.

I'm not christian and what I remember from my childhood said love love love. Now about the other, which is really what the post was about, it clearly states war was responsible, but I'll go with class too.

[Act_of_Reparation]

70. Kinda sorta.

The post was about modern men inheriting bad traits from their asshole forebears. But behavior is more complicated than that. It's genetic, epigenetic, and environmental. How my Wotan-worshipping, battle-axe-swinging, ancient ancestor conducted himself in Iron Age Europe should bear little resemblance (I hope) to how I conduct myself today.

[Major Nikon]

61. Jesus' messianic claim is extremely weak

There are a number of requirements which have to be met in order to make a legitimate messianic claim and Jesus missed pretty much all of them. The most obvious is a bloodline back to King David. The synoptic gospels list two different bloodlines, both contradictory and both broken neither of which is explained. Also not explained is how Jesus can possibly have a paternal bloodline back to King David when Joseph isn't his biological father (allegedly). Also there are prophecies which must be fulfilled that Jesus did not.

Early Christians realized these glaring problems, which is why they turned Christ into a god as an afterthought. The problem is Jews don't worship the messiah as such would be an obvious violation of idolatry laws.

So basically lots of reasons why most Jews rejected Jesus as anything they wanted to follow. Kind of ironic how Jesus was rejected by his own religion, yet was embraced by pagans.

[Act_of_Reparation]

62. Basically everything we've come to know and love about Christianity was an afterthought.

Early Christian: You should follow Jesus Christ!

Jew: Why?

EC: Because he is the messiah!

J: You mean the savior of the Jewish people?

EC: Yep.

J: Sent by God to deliver us from bondage?

EC: Yep.

J: Guess someone forgot to tell Romans. I ran into three of them between my bedroom and the shitter this morning.

EC: Well... uh... it's metaphorical.

J: Metaphorical?

EC: Yes. He didn't deliver us from literal bondage. He delivered us from metaphorical bondage. Bondage to sin, you see?

J: Seems to be a lot of sin still lying around.

EC: Well... uhhhhhh... you have to accept Jesus to be freed from sin!

J: So there's a catch. Fascinating. Now, if I accept Jesus, no evil may do me harm?

EC: Well, no. Evil can still do you harm. But you don't have to sin anymore, if you so choose, and as a reward will be received into the Kingdom of Heaven!

J: This might surprise you, but I can choose not to sin without believing in Jesus.

EC: Not believing in Jesus is a sin.

J: That's convenient.

EC: Yae, verily.

J: Anyway, why should I buy this at all? Your son of an omnipotent God somehow managed to get himself killed. You wanna explain that?

EC: Ummmm.... I think it was God's plan.

J: God's plan?

EC: Uh, yeah. It was his idea all along! He meant to die, see.

J: Go on...

EC: God sacrificed himself to deliver us from the taint of our original sin!

J: He didn't really die...

EC: Yes he did!

J: Let's meet in the middle and say he didn't. Besides, you have one last problem to deal with.

EC: Ha! Give me your best shot.

J: I went to the corner store to get a coffee this morning and ran into three Messiahs playing some three-on-three with a centurion and two velites. How do you know yours is the real deal?

EC: Ah... ok... well... that's, like, really easy man. Jesus was born of a virgin!

J: A virgin?

EC: Yep. A miracle birth.

J: And you have proof?

EC: You can't prove it didn't happen.

J: Oh, fuck off.

[trotsky]

63. So you're saying that Christians invented retconning, eh?

Interesting...

[Act_of_Reparation]

64. Nah. The Old Testament was retconned, too.

Hell, Genesis gives us the creation myth and then retcons it immediately in the succeeding chapters.

[MineralMan]

66. Cool. New word for me. That's rare.

Thanks!

[MineralMan]

65. Good points!