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Related: About this forumThe Death of Jesus and the Rise of the Christian Persecution Myth
Mar 31, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
There is an overpowering myth that Christianity was built on violent persecution but historian Candida Moss says thats bad historyand sets a dangerous precedent for hyperbolic accusations of war on Christians today.
For Christians, the crucifixion is the event that changed everything. Prior to the death of Jesus and the emergence of Christianity most ancient people interpreted oppression, persecution, and violence as a sign that their deity was either irate or impotent. The crucifixion forced Jesuss followers to rethink this paradigm. The death of their leader was reshaped as triumph and the experience of persecution became a sign of elevated moral status, a badge of honor. The genius of the Jesus movement was its ability to disassociate earthly pain from divine punishment. As a result Christians identified themselves as innocent victims; they associated their sufferings with those of Jesus and aligned the source of those sufferings with the forces that killed Jesus. From the very beginning, victimhood was hardwired into the Christian psyche.
The enduring impact of this idea is evident in the rhetoric of modern-day Christians. In the weeks that followed the recent papal resignation, Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, who was accused of participating in the coverup of sexual abuse by priests, described himself in terms appropriate to a martyr: as a scapegoat who suffered like Jesus. Because of the nature of the crimes for which he is suspected, Mahonys claims that he is being persecuted have been universally dismissed, but other similarly hyperbolic instances of American Christians crying persecution slip into the public square.
The belief that Christians are continuously persecuted has a basis in Scripture. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus instructs his followers to take up their cross and follow him and predicts that his followers will be persecuted for his name. Then again, in the very same passage he predicts that some of those standing before him will not taste death before the arrival of his kingdom in glory. Why do we accept the prophecy of persecution when the statement about the disciples living until the last judgment clearly failed? The reason why Jesuss statements about persecution have had such a pronounced impact on the formation of Christian identity is that this prophecy is believed to have been proven in the experiences of the early church. The Church has suffered since the beginning, the argument goes, and we are persecuted now as we have always been.
But what if Christians were not always persecuted? What if there never was an Age of the Martyrs? When we look at the evidence, it becomes clear that the stereotype of cruel Roman emperors persecuting innocent Christians is a myth. From the Roman side, there is scant evidence for the persecution of Christians. It is not even clear that the Romans knew about the existence of Christians until the early second century. Even then they didnt see Christianity as a religion. They describe it, rather, as a foolish superstition that could potentially harm local economies. Christians undoubtedly died as a result of legislation passed during the reign of the emperor Decius (ca. AD 250), but not because he was targeting them. Intriguingly, not a word of our Roman evidence for his legislation refers to Christians.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/31/the-death-of-jesus-and-the-rise-of-the-christian-persecution-myth.html
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The Death of Jesus and the Rise of the Christian Persecution Myth (Original Post)
DonViejo
Mar 2013
OP
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)1. This has already been discussed to some extent here