This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I do love an opportunity to relive my atheist debater glory days.
Jesus was put to death as an insurrectionist against Rome. This is why the sign over his head said "King of the Jews" and not "son of God."
According to the books written by his followers, yes. In a lot of places you can see how the Gospel authors are working overtime to fit prophecy to reality, like Matthew's story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on both a colt and a donkey, to fit the prophecy of Zechariah. Or the two very different nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. And a lot of the supposed prophecies fulfilled by Jesus aren't even prophecies, like Psalm 22.
Even by Christian tradition, neither Luke nor Mark was an eyewitness to the ministry, death, or resurrection of Jesus. Matthew was very clearly not written by the Apostle Matthew, since it plagiarizes about 90% of its content from the Gospel of Mark (a non-eyewitness), including and most inexplicably, the story of Matthew's own call to be Jesus' disciple.
Paul refers, in an offhanded comment in 1 Corinthians, to an episode which is elaborated upon nowhere else in Paul's writings, nor elsewhere in the early Christian canon, in which the risen Christ was supposedly seen by 500 people at once. No details are presented, nor does any account of this appearance exist. It's no more convincing than that video from like 2010 where a crowd in Alabama believed they'd seen a leprechaun. Actually less so, because there's video evidence of the leprechaun crowd. The resurrection narratives in the gospels contradict with other on a number of points which makes their historicity doubtful at best.
IMO the empty tomb story is probably a later fiction. "Translation fables" in which bodies went missing from tombs were extremely common in the Mediterranean literature of the time. It was a literary shorthand to indicate that a righteous person had been assumed to heaven and been deified. It would be special pleading to assert these other contemporary stories are false but the story in the gospels is true.
I feel like I'm back in 2012 just typing out the words, "you can't use the Bible to prove the Bible," but...it's true. Yes, this is what happened according to a story in the gospel of John, and the reliability of the gospels is the issue in question.
For a lot of these you are misrepresenting @Cirrus's points in order to rebut a weaker and less evidence-based claim than the one he actually made.
Notice you said "as" rather than focusing on the actual "why", because the "why" (which was the claim in question) is a much softer and more difficult point to rebut. There were many insurrectionists; few were put to death. Jesus was betrayed by the Jewish leaders because he claimed to be the son of God, and this is why he was executed. The legal pretext is a separate matter.
I wouldn't say this is "very clear" at all--it seems to have been written decades after the actual events, with an eye to maintaining consistency. Also, "a few people were not eyewitnesses" is not exactly a very strong counterargument for "there were eyewitness accounts."
I find it funny that you focused on this rather than "There are no contradictions in the Bible" which is so much easier to counter.
I agree here, the only reason to trust a one-off mention like this is if you have strong prior reason to trust the author's original account, and trust that nothing has been warped/miscopied/mistranslated/deliberately altered from the original account.
That’s not true. The Romans crucified rebels all the time. They crucified two right next to Jesus. Jesus would not have been crucified if the Romans didn’t want him dead, because the Romans were the power in Judea. The Sanhedrin were handpicked puppets.
Huge swathes of Matthew are copied word for word from Mark.
If the gospel authors weren’t eyewitnesses, then we have no eyewitness accounts.
I didn’t address this precisely because I didn’t think it was with addressing. Yes there are a lot of contradictions in the Bible, but arguing about them is usually fruitless.
What I said was that there were many insurrectionists and few were crucified; this is compatible with the claim that they were crucified all the time. The point is that only a small proportion were crucified.
The two crucified next to Jesus were thieves according to the Bible; do you have some other source of information on that?
The Romans can obviously want him dead for many reasons, one of which being that their handpicked puppets were whining about him. It's not like those puppets are literal puppets--they were still Jews, chosen for (among other things) their ability to lead other Jews.
I thought it was clear I was aware of this based on my response. You are vastly overstating scholarly consensus on this. Many think Matthew was written before Mark and Mark copied Matthew; others think they both copied some other Gospel. Given how long ago this happened, our strongest evidence either way is still pretty weak. Even if Matthew did copy Mark though, as I mentioned, it's really not too strange to just imagine Matthew, the apostle, copying Mark's account to maintain consistency about events he may not now remember in quite as much detail decades after the fact.
John appears to be an eyewitness account, Mark and Luke are based on eyewitness accounts, and Matthew appears to be an eyewitness account.
First century Palestine is not especially well-recorded, but even so a number of rebel leaders are known (Judas the Galilean and his sons, Simon son of Giora, Theudas, “The Egyptian,”). All of them were killed by the Romans, though they weren’t all crucified.
I don’t read Koine Greek but my understanding is that the word usually translated as “thief” is more like “bandit,” and it has a political connotation. Crucifixion was not normally a punishment meted out for run of the mill robbery or even murder, but generally for sedition or treason. Barabbas, who is part of the same ‘batch’ of prisoners slated for crucifixion before his pardon, is explicitly identified as being one of a group of rebels arrested for having participated in “the uprising”
If Jesus’ Jewish enemies had wanted him dead for breaking some Jewish law, they could have disposed of him on their own terms, whether through stoning or just whipping up a lynch mob. There would have been no need to get the Romans involved. The fact that he was crucified at all suggests the primary instigators of his execution were the Romans, regardless of whether or not a lot of Jews also wanted him dead (I’m sure they did) and that the main reason for his death was that he was perceived as having committed some anti-Roman act. Claiming to be the son of some obscure regional deity, or even the deity himself, was not, but claiming to be a king would have been.
Markan priority is about as established as anything in the field. I can’t call to mind any currently active scholar, even in the most conservative institutions, who hold that Mark is dependent on Matthew. There may be two or three. I do know there are a lot of Bible-believing, Nicene affirming, “Jesus-is-the-only-way,” even inerrantist, conservative scholars who still won’t defend Matthean priority, which IMO says something in itself.
In almost every instance of a deliberate difference between Mark and Matthew, the change is one that would make a lot of sense for Matthew to add to Mark, but none the other way around. For example, it makes a lot of sense that Matthew would add birth and resurrection narratives to Mark, which lacks them, but it’s hard to see why Mark world cut them out of Matthew.
It doesn’t make any sense that Matthew, an eyewitness, would copy most of his gospel from a second-hand source (including, again, the story of Matthew’s call, surely the most important moment of his life). Cross-checking a thing or two, sure. Copying most of it wholesale? Highly unlikely.
The internal anonymity of the gospel of Matthew is also a problem. Ancient authors rarely failed to cite firsthand knowledge of the events at hand if they had it (why would you?), but nowhere in the gospel does the author even claim eyewitness status.
John is the only gospel for which I think one could, in principle make an argument for eyewitness testimony.
I doubt it, primarily for the reason that neither bothers to cite the eyewitnesses they consulted by name, which there would be little reason not to do. There are also significant and (in my view) irreconcilable differences in the narratives, particularly in the resurrection narratives, the most important part of the story, which precludes them from being accurate and mostly reliable accounts of historical events.
I doubt it, for the reasons above.
We know Jesus was executed for insurrection due to the Bible, which is also what tells us that this was just a legal pretext. Guessing at what you think the most likely alternate hypothesis is--it's common knowledge that Jesus was executed for insurrection, but the authors of the Bible constructed an alternate story where that was just a legal pretext? I find this highly unlikely--the Bible basically says nothing at all about independence from the Romans. I think anyone likely to know Jesus was executed for insurrection, and need an explanation for that, would also have some inkling that he actually was a rebel if that was what he was.
Also, all of those people actually ran rebellions, complete with military action. I really don't think they're in the same reference class as Jesus, barring totally baseless conjecture.
The Bible says they were worried about the response from the people. They did have to maintain power after all, which means maintaining popular support.
It also does mention a few lynch mobs which Jesus manages to escape from, such as in Luke 4:28-30. Since this actually did happen, by your logic, Jesus' Jewish enemies did want him dead.
They couldn't stone him--capital punishment was restricted to the Romans.
This is early Christianity, citing someone by name would mean threatening their life. I don't think irreconcilable differences are incompatible with eyewitness accounts--these were written possibly decades after the fact and people may simply misremember the details. Eyewitness accounts are not infallible of course, especially back when mass hysteria was more of a thing.
I strongly disagree that irreconcilable differences between the accounts "[preclude] them from being accurate and mostly reliable accounts of historical events." At worst this means they cannot both be accurate accounts.
As far as the rest, what you say sounds perfectly logical. I can't trust it though, because when you talk about stuff I know anything about it seems obviously wrong to me. Clearly I have a lot to learn though.
Jesus’ death by crucifixion is also recorded by several Jewish and pagan authorities, some quite early (Josephus and Tacitus).
The gospels have a vested interest in placing as much of the guilt for Jesus’ death onto the Jews rather than the Romans, especially as the church became overwhelmingly gentile in ethnic composition.
At least one recorded rebel (I think “the Egyptian”) seems to have only claimed he was going to replicate Joshua’s miracle of splitting the Jordan. His followers came out into the desert to watch, and they were all massacred by Roman cavalry.
I don’t think Jesus ACTUALLY led a military revolt against Rome, though that’s what IMO he probably thought that’s what he was doing.
To elaborate, the Bible DOES talk about independence from Rome, though obviously not in those terms. The whole point of Jesus’ ministry is the imminent consummation of history, and the need to repent before judgment. It’s all over the gospels and Paul’s letters, the ‘Day of the Lord’ where God is finally going to destroy/subject the nations and vindicate Israel/God’s people. Obviously, this meant the destruction of Rome, which was the great gentile power. To see the ubiquity of this expectation see also Revelation, which is entirely a screed promising the imminent divine judgment of the great city that sits on seven hills and rules over the kings of the earth and is drunk with the blood of saints (who could that be?) According to Matthew, Jesus also said that he was going to be made king after this divine intervention, and that his disciples were going to “sit on twelve thrones” with him. So Jesus was going around preaching the imminent downfall of Rome/the nations and calling himself a king. He apparently didn’t mean for this to come about by him and his followers attacking Roman soldiers with iron swords; he was going to let the Heavenly armies do the work for him. But Pilate probably wouldn’t have bothered to make the distinction.
Sure, but they’re not the ones who actually killed him.
In Acts Stephen is tried before the Sanhedrin and then taken out and stoned. There’s no reason the same could not have been done to Jesus.
The idea that early Christians were huddling in attics hiding from the secret police is not really accurate. For the first few decades of the church's existence there's not much evidence the Romans particularly cared what Christians were doing, or that they were even much on the radar. Even 100 years later, Pliny the Younger barely knows what Christians are and has to write a letter to the Emperor asking what should be done about some in his jurisdiction. The first and only actual top-down, concerted, empire-wide push to persecute and stamp out Christians qua Christians didn't come until Dicoletian, almost three hundred years later. Early persecution was more like "you won't shut up about Jesus outside the temple of Apollo so finally a mob beats you to death." There wasn't like a Roman Gestapo in charge of scrutinizing obscure Christian documents looking for the names of potential dissidents to arrest.
I think there are reasons the resurrection narratives probably don't go back to eyewitnesses but at a certain point, if the details aren't reliable, then all that can be recovered is the core fact that at some point, some person or persons claimed to have experienced some kind of vision of Jesus after his death, which I don't find very compelling.
I don't think I've said anything particularly "trust me bro" - ish. It's easily verifiable for example that Matthew has nativity and resurrection narratives and Mark doesn't.
Sorry, I worded that much too strongly. In the past when I've looked into these matters, I find good evidence mixed seamlessly with conjecture, and it takes deep and thorough study to find which things are well-supported and which are conjecture. I have quite a few alternate hypotheses in mind which seem quite reasonable at first glance (Matthew simply cared about consistency more than about sharing his own account of his calling, Mark was based on an earlier or fragmented version of Matthew, both are based on the apostles' actual writings, etc.) but will take probably at least a hundred hours to investigate to my satisfaction. I'll put the time in eventually but not now. If I was more convinced by your other points then I'd be more willing to put that time in sooner.
On the surface this sounds plausible, but if you dig into it it doesn't make too much sense for a number of reasons.
Going by your logic, the gospels had a vested interest in blaming the Romans for Jesus' death at the time they were written. Before then, nearly all Christians were Jewish, to the point that Christianity was seen as a Jewish religion. The Pharisees had a lot of popular support and, well, generally, saying that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ would be utter anathema to a Jewish crowd. Blaming Jews also has an asymmetrical effect--it will alienate Jews much more than it attracts Gentiles.
The Romans were vilified plenty in the Gospels. If the authors were willing to insert fabrications about Sanhedrin conspiracies to kill Jesus, discourse from Pontius Pilate about how innocent Jesus is, mobs working to take Jesus' life, etc., then surely they would also have been willing to remove anything about Herod's reign.
The Gospels were centered around the idea that the Jews would eventually sacrifice their own Savior. This isn't just some random thing added in to please a Roman audience; it's arguably the central theme of the entire story. There were plenty of Jewish Christians around who would notice if their religion's main focus suddenly changed. Jews had ritually sacrificed lambs for centuries beforehand to symbolically cleanse themselves from sin; now they had sacrificed the Lamb of God for the same purpose. Given that Christianity existed before the Gospels did, this isn't the kind of thing that can be added into an existing faith tradition seamlessly.
The Egyptian meant to start a rebellion, and brought people to the Mount of Olives with the claim that he'd tear Roman walls down. You're probably thinking of Theudas, who did pretty much exactly that. Based on other sources though it sounds like he was explicitly a rebel in other ways as well, including leading armed forces.
The point we're arguing over is whether Jesus was executed for being a Roman rebel, or for being a heretic. Whether the Sanhedrin held the weapons in their hands is immaterial.
What a way to word this! You strongly imply that he was sentenced to be stoned, which is not what happened at all. He was being tried when he angered the Sanhedrin so much they stoned him as a mob. This was illegal and probably not the course of action they would have taken if they were not overcome with rage.
Jesus had much more popular support, and explicitly mentioned a few times that he was careful what he said to them in order to ensure he didn't die before his time. He still had to escape a mob of his own that was seeking to kill him.
So no, there are quite a few reasons the same could not have been done to Jesus.
Persecution really started with the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, certainly within "the first few decades of the church's existence." 50 years later Tacitus mentions Christians by name as the group blamed for the fire. This is generally believed to be accurate. It appears that Peter and Paul were both killed as part of this persecution, so it's not exactly a minor event.
Pliny explicitly put Christians to death solely for the crime of being Christian. This was 100 years later, long before what you describe as "the first and only actual top-down, concerted, empire-wide push to persecute and stamp out Christians qua Christians." I'd be interested in hearing why you think he "barely knows what Christians are" because from what I have read about it he was quite familiar with them.
They do go back to eyewitnesses though. The two Marys are mentioned by name. What they describe sounds like an actual tangible thing, not a vision (thought the distinction seems to have been less clear back then). I don't think the resurrection narrative in particular necessarily has contradictions at all between the books.
This opens another debate of when the gospels were written. I don't think Mark was written earlier than the 60s, and the rest of the gospels between then and the first decades of the 2nd century. The primarily Jewish era of the church does not seem to have lasted very long, as it did not make much headway among the Jews. It was certainly over by AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem.
If the gospel authors are trying to redirect blame from the Romans to the Jews, why would they remove details of Herod's reign?
The main focus of the early Christian belief is that Jesus died "for our sins" and was raised. Who killed him and why, while not immaterial, is of secondary importance I think. Furthermore, the early years of a new religious movement are often when it undergoes the most extensive doctrinal developments, before calcifying. You can see this in the much-better documented example of Mormonism in the 19th century.
If Jesus was stoned by Jews then it would be obvious he was killed for some crime under Jewish law, and there wouldn't be any debate at all. The fact that he was crucified instead, unlike his brother James or Stephen, is what makes it interesting.
I'm pretty sure Theudas is only mentioned in Josephus and Acts, and neither refers to him leading an armed revolt.
My point isn't that it was legal, but that they evidently didn't have much of a problem doing it one way or the other, and I don't think there's any indication anybody got in trouble with the Romans for killing Stephen, nor for any of the other stonings mentioned in the NT.
The main point is that what Jesus was doing (calling himself 'king' and preaching the imminent downfall of the gentile powers) was enough to get him crucified on its own, so him having Jewish enemies who also wanted him dead is almost besides the point. If all the Jews loved Jesus, would the Romans not have killed him? Actually they probably would have killed him even sooner.
Pliny was a regional governor, and the Emperor even advises him in the answer to his letter to try any Christians who are brought before him, but not to expend any energy actually hunting them down. I say it doesn't seem like Pliny knows much about them because he describes their rituals/customs as if he's unfamiliar, and says he actually tortured two deaconesses to find out more, but only discovered "depraved superstition." What I meant was that Diocletian's edict was the only time in Roman history where the Emperor apparently said "we're getting rid of all the Christians in the empire," and empire-wide steps were taken to enforce this. Even the Neronian persecution appears to have been an attempt by Nero to take the heat off of himself rather than a principled attempt to uproot the whole faith. Before this, persecution was mostly sporadic and on the initiative of local mobs and magistrates. While most of the Church fathers were (if you take traditions at face value) eventually martyred, most of them apparently lived and preached openly as Christians for many years before they crossed the wrong governor or priest. There wasn't a "shoot on sight" order.
What I mean is nowhere except in the gospels, except at the end of John, is there anything like "I was told this by X son of Y," or even (with no specific names attached) "I know this because I saw myself" or "I know this because I spoke to those who were there" which was extremely common in ancient biographies, whenever the author actually had access to eyewitness sources.
Matthew has the first post-resurrection appearance to the disciples take place on a mountain in Galilee, while Luke tells us that the first appearances were in Jerusalem, and what's more leaves little room for Galilean appearances by having Jesus explicitly tell the disciples (in the first chapter of Acts) that they are not to leave Jerusalem until Pentecost, to name one of the biggest differences. The differences can be reconciled with some work, like all differences, but I don't find the harmonizations compelling.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Metatron did a video about the arrest of Christ, looking at the 'original' Greek text of the bible. Very interesting look on the matter, and going by the various gospels, it's heavily implied if not out-right stated that Jesus was crucified as an insurrectionist/rebel, alongside the other two.
This I would disagree on. My interpretation of the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate is very much a case where Pilate is having to deal with politically charged Pharisees hell-bent on seeing Jesus killed due to his teachings. Going by the Gospel, Jesus literally argued his case with Pilate so well that Pilate was begging the Pharisees to allow Pilate to declare Jesus guilty, so much so that he offered them up the choice between Jesus and a man accused of murder.
And we know who they picked.
Right I was already aware of this, that's the legal pretext I was talking about. If you're talking about WHY he was executed, I think it makes the most sense to talk about the proximate cause, i.e. the reason he was executed when others in the same reference class were not. Many others who were about equally anti-Roman were not executed. He was executed, not for insurrectionist beliefs, but for claiming to be the Son of God, which earned him the enmity of the Jewish leaders, who created the legal pretext of insurrection in order to execute him.
Interesting that the other two were also possibly executed as insurrectionists. Honestly not the sort of thing that is very significant to me, so I won't be looking into it too much, but I wish that kind of info was easier to find.
I think I'm missing something here; this sounds like you're agreeing with me. The Pharisees can exert some pressure on the Romans to execute specific people.
Did you miss a word? Pilate wanted to declare Jesus innocent.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link