Easter "What If's"

[onager]

From What If 2? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been:

What if Cleopatra and Marc Antony, not Octavian/Augustus, had won the battle of Actium in 31 BCE? (Josiah Ober):

...Jesus of Nazareth, born just a short generation after the battle, would have come to manhood in a very different society - one administered by highly trained professional Ptolemaic bureaucrats, rather than nervous Roman amateurs like Pontius Pilate.

Those Ptolemaic bureaucrats would have had a much closer sense of how Jerusalem politics worked; they might well have found some solution to local concerns about a self-proclaimed Messiah that would not have required his crucifixion.

They might, for example, have arranged for him to move to Alexandria, where the sophisticated, hellenized Jewish population would not be scandalized by his audacious ideas.

So Jesus might have grown old, gathering to himself a following attracted by his socioreligous message rather than by a dramatic martyrdom...

Let us suppose, for a moment, that Caesarion, son of Julius Caesar, had succeeded his mother (Cleopatra VII) on the throne, and (keeping it all in the family, as the Ptolemies were prone to do) had married Cleopatra VIII Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. They in turn might have had a daughter...

This hypothetical Cleopatra IX might have comne to the throne at the time that Christianity was officially incorporated into the Egyptian state religion, a religion in which the queen of Egypt must of course be a central figure.

And so we imagine that a woman with a remarkable ancestry, granddaughter of Julius Caesar, of Marc Antony, and (twice over) of Cleopatra VII, would become Founding High Priestess - "Lady Pope" of the Universal Alexandrian Church of Jesus the Uncrucified.

What if Pontius Pilate had pardoned Jesus? (Carlos M.N. Eire)

But the crowd still called for crucifixion. Morons, all of them...

Over the roar of the crowd, Pilate shouted at the soldiers as loudly as he could: "Release the prisoner!...Release him now!"

...And so Jesus returned to Galilee, under escort. There, out in the hinterland, he continued to teach and preach...and astound the crowds that flocked to him like sheep...

Year after year, he preached the Kingdom, celebrated Passover in Jerusalem, and waited for the Kingdom to come...

Year after year, he received protection from the Roman authorities. They liked what he had to say, despite all his talk about a Kingdom to come.

The Romans knew that all of this Kingdom talk is like that of followers of Mithras, or Zoroaster, or even the Egyptian mother-goddess Isis. Spiritual talk, that's all.

He taught people to turn the other cheek and forgive their enemies. What a wonderful message to preach to a subject people! Anyone who preached docile submission must be protected, especially if he also encouraged people to pay their taxes. "Render unto Caesar..."

Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula and Nero will hear of this Jesus and heartily approve of having him protected and so will their immediate successors.

If only other subject nations could have such a prophet and teacher! So what if Jesus and his disciples refuse to worship the gods of the empire? There's plenty of room for that Jewish God in the pantheon of all divinities.

No one in their right mind would think that the Jewish God could totally displace all the other gods that exist and are worshipped.

So what if this sect balks at worshipping the Emperor? Better to allow these people to teach and practice submission than to insist on worship of the Emperor. Only that crazy Caligula really believed he was a god, anyway.

The others knew better. Any wise Roman knows that Jesus is a gift from the gods - a strange one, since he denies their existence, but a gift all the same. The gods have a strange sense of humor.

By the time he is 60 years old, Jesus has many more followers than he can handle or control. There are so many different ways in which his message and work are being interpreted...

Flash forward, about 230 years. The Emperor Constantine is seated on his imperial throne (in Rome)...

Constantine congratulates himself for having decided NOT to build that new capital city out east, on the site of that fishing village, Byzantium. What a dumb idea that was, in the first place. Good thing he didn't listen to those Greek advisers.

Constantine has put imperial muscle to work in unifying all the followers of Jesus. All of those wrangling sects. Too many of them. Too untidy for the religion of the state...

Calling all the chief rabbis together at Milan was one of the best ideas he ever had...

They came up with a list of beliefs and defined the truth for all time...Now that all of this has been defined, Constantine's troops can get busy closing down the synagogues of all those who don't believe the Truth as defined at Milan.

Now his troops can descend upon those few misguided souls who still believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and that he rose from the dead. Deluded fools, turning Jesus into the Son of God.

Now his troops can also go after those Jews who refuse to pay any attention at all to Jesus. Retrogrades, ignoring Jesus and following Moses instead.

Now all those who believe falsely can be wiped off the face of the earth, for the glory of God...

http://www.amazon.com/What-If-Eminent-Historians-Imagine/dp/042518613X

[villager]

1. Well, I like that first one...

Being a fan of things "Ancient Alexandrian," and all.. ;-)

[onager]

4. I lived in Alexandria for 4 years.

You'll often see me ranting about that, if you haven't already.

:hi:

[villager]

5. I regret that I have missed those rants!

But will keep an eye out for them now...

I guess things have changed since the old library burned down, eh? (About 1600 years ago!)

[onehandle]

2. What if the dinosaurs had not been wiped out?

We would still be smart little rodents hiding in the rocks.

[Lost4words]

3. quite a little read you sucked me into, Thought provoking!

so unless we can evolve beyond our base human instincts we are doomed in an endless cycle. Circular was the first word to come to mind as I finished your post.