Quote: (10-12-2013 07:37 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:____________________
Quote: (10-11-2013 10:42 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:
The only reference to Jesus by a pre-Christian author is found in Tacitus (Annales 15.44). It's not a flattering reference. See what he says:
"Consequently, to get rid of the report, 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, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."
Basically, Jesus was viewed as an upstart trouble maker by the Hebrew and Roman authorities, and they moved swiftly to get rid of him before he became a bigger nuisance. But it just happened that, after his death, all the conditions were right for a mass movement to take off. Other men (especially Paul) turned him into a major prophet, and transformed the legend into a deity. But so what? This is how all religions take off....all religions need a symbol.
D00D!! this kind of fascinating background information about history would take someone hundreds of hours to find. Feel free to rant, muse and speculate at length about all this interesting stuff.
If you want to collaborate on a pop history book along the lines of "The Schizophrenic Genius Jesus" I'm down and have somewhat marginal but real academic credentials including published research, PM me! I kan write lik a real smert guy too.
Although the effect of nearly-illiterate con-man/Mormonism founder Joseph Smith on millions of otherwise intelligent Mormons is evidence to the contrary, I believe Jesus's effects on history are prima facie evidence of his genius. I also think the particular disorganized flavor of quotes attributed to him have similarities to the speech of schizophrenia-spectrum individuals, as well as of the deliberately disruptive phrasing used in hypnosis as done by Milton Erickson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson
The combination of a radically new positivism about the individual, expressed with brilliant turns-of-phrases born of something like a mental disorder, and a hyper-dramatic martyrdom story, combined to make him the most influential person in history.
"Jesus Was A Schizophrenic"
As always when an idea has legs, the Rate-a-Hate meter on this one could be high, thereby briefly gaining FacewhoreMatrixCombineBigBrother focus and gaining Fame+Money=YoungCunny.
This is a great point.
Religion in ancient Rome before Christianity was actually a virile, masculine affair. It was basically a state-sponsored religion, in which each family kept its "Penates" (household gods) and a small shrine to its ancestors. There were public temples, dedicated to this or that god in the Greco-Roman pantheon, and there were public festivals for ceremonies related to solstices, fertility rites, harvests, coming-of-age, and things like that.
It was not a messianic religion like Christianity or Islam. It looked a lot like (in my uninformed opinion) Japanese shinto, in that worshiping ancestors and the emperor as the head of state was part of the overall program.
And yes, religious fanaticism was not part of the Roman psyche. They may have been nationalistic and miltaristic, but they were not religious zealots.
One interesting final note: believe it or not, public temples in the ancient world were often places of congregation for prostitutes and debauchery. This tradition seems to have started in ancient Egypt and Babylonia. There were women specifically designated to serve in that capacity, who could be found in temples to Venus (Aphrodite) or Diana.
No wonder the early Christians were so scandalized by the pagan rites of Greece and Rome.