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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.
Right, the consensus is that Mark was written around 60-70 AD, which is consistent with my point. Q, the theorized other source of Luke and Matthew, would probably have been written around or before the same time.
I disagree with this--contextual evidence, especially how we both seem to agree that before 70 AD Christianity was essentially seen as a branch of Judaism, suggests that it did make plenty of headway among the Jews. This is a good place to mention my problems with researching these things. The first source found points to this paper which says:
This is an utterly absurd analysis, basically pulled out of a hat. Acts mentions in the first few chapters nearly ten thousand people in Jerusalem (we can assume Jews) who converted; the rest of the analysis is devoted to casting doubt on those numbers because it would be a sizeable proportion of Jerusalem. The numbers mentioned specifically refer to pilgrims, though, not to the normal Jewish population. It's very clear about this:
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...
The whole field is just a cesspool of speculation. There are many arguments for/against how many Jewish converts there were in the early Christian church but I find the arguments for large numbers more convincing. I find it more likely that Jewish converts married into the Gentile church and thus mostly disappeared, ethnically and culturally, within a few generations. The book of Matthew wasn't directed towards the Jews on a whim--they were the foundation of early Christianity.
Because he was appointed by the Romans. Anyone who would fabricate events wholesale just to blame Jews would also obviously treat Herod and the Roman occupation more positively. You'd probably have all sorts of examples of Romans miraculously being converted because there faith was so much greater than that of the Jews, or of Romans protecting Jesus from the wicked Jewish leaders.
I can't imagine anyone would fabricate such events just to blame the Jews without going further anywhere else. Why not say the Sanhedrin stoned Jesus? Why not allow Jesus to say something about how great the Romans are and we should all be like them? Why not write in a single Roman convert or apostle?
Generally the idea that these things were inserted just to make the Gospel more palatable to the Romans seems really far-fetched.
My bad, I thought I read that somewhere but now I can't find it. Still--the popular conception of the Messiah as one who leads a revolt against Rome, combined with the wording that he had a group of about four hundred men, to me strongly implies he was an anti-Roman rebel, not just a prophet.
Also, I believe those are different Theudas's, or one of the mentions is incorrect.
There may not have been a shoot on sight order, but Christians were executed just for being Christians. My original point was that mentioning eyewitnesses by name might be dangerous for them; the fact that a tipoff (even an anonymous one, as of the letter) that you were Christian could get you executed more than qualifies as dangerous.
Pliny's letter was written nearly fifty years after the Neronian persecutions so it's fairly weak evidence for the state of Christian persecution at the time the Gospels were written.
This assumes the gospels were not actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which is highly debatable. There's little need to explicitly say "I know this because I saw myself" if it's clear from the format that you're speaking from firsthand experience.
No, they don't. Matthew describes a post-resurrection appearance, as does Luke. Neither asserts that these appearances are his first. Acts mentions that Jesus visits the apostles many times over a 40 day period.
Sure, all differences can be reconciled with some work, but the amount of work necessary is crucial. I think the account of Judas' death is contradictory and probably indicates missing/altered text, while the Resurrection accounts are decently compatible with each other.
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