Jesus the Roman God on BYP

[Kishkumen]

This means the staff at Interpreter are going to be watching to make sure we don't teach any false doctrine Kish... we have to mind our p's and q's......

Hahaha!!!

I doubt it! I would guess that they are sublimely disinterested in viewpoints they see as fundamentally wrongheaded.

[huckelberry]

a question which might be considered.

Is an Etheopian Jesus a Roman Jesus or a Roman God?

I suppose that might be seen different ways but might clarify what you mean saying Jesus, a Jew, is a Roman god. Does he become that with the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon.

After all to the east folks spoke Greek and further east there were monophysites who spoke other languages.

[Philo Sofee]

a question which might be considered.

Is an Etheopian Jesus a Roman Jesus or a Roman God?

I suppose that might be seen different ways but might clarify what you mean saying Jesus, a Jew, is a Roman god. Does he become that with the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon.

After all to the east folks spoke Greek and further east there were monophysites who spoke other languages.

Heh.....great points Huck, as usual!

[Kishkumen]

a question which might be considered.

Is an Etheopian Jesus a Roman Jesus or a Roman God?

I suppose that might be seen different ways but might clarify what you mean saying Jesus, a Jew, is a Roman god. Does he become that with the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon.

After all to the east folks spoke Greek and further east there were monophysites who spoke other languages.

I am saying, among other things, that Jesus’ life and death unfolded in the Roman Empire because of the Roman Empire, that he was a god because of the Roman Empire, that he was worshiped as a god by Romans, and that Romans made his cult the state religion. Judaism without the Roman Empire would have never resulted in the divine Jesus worshiped as the god of the Roman state. Indeed, Christianity itself would have never happened, never taken off, and never have become the major spiritual current of Western civilization without the Romans.

[huckelberry]

kishkumen, I am giving you a bit of push back not because I think you are wrong but wondering if some clarification is possible of what the implications might be . My query may or may not be useful. On the simplest level Jesus was surrounded by the Roman empire, it is not as though Christianity could escape it or claim a staring point outside of it. Of course it is Roman. Might be why the Pope stays in that city.

Some folks have seen the influence of Zoroasteran thought on Judaism as part of the development toward Christianity. Christianity has connection east as well to Rome.
An article on early Christianity in Iran:
https://www.iranchamber.com/religions/a ... arthia.php

The details for this early period of the development of the Christian communities are few and scarce. However, they give valuable material for the creation of an aspect about the number of these communities and the regions of their development. The result of this whole missionary effort of Christians was the creation of a wide system of communities in the region of the Fertile Crescent. These communities were organised as bishoprics with their own clerical and administrative hierarchy.

In the second half of the 2nd century (about 150) Eusebios is referred to an internal Christian conflict during Easter Celebration. Many bishops (Victor in charge of the Roman Church) of the Mesopotamian cities took part in this conflict, some of them were from bishoprics of the Parthian Empire, like Osrhoene (20). The connection of the King Abgar VIII of Edessa with the Christian religion was the element that made Edessa the most important Christian center of the Parthian Empire (21).

In 224/6 the number of Christian communities was more than 20 and they were spread mainly on a large part of the Fertile Crescent, including the cities of Bet Zabdai in the north, Karka de Bet Selok and southern to the destination of Susiana with the cities of Bet Lapat, Hormizd-Ardashir and Mesene (Peret de Maisan) (22).

The sources agree that these communities of Mesopotamia were founded in an organised form from the first years of the 2nd century. However, this does not mean that Christians were numerous at that time. On the contrary, the Christians created a type of closed community with very few members for security reasons. Gradually the positive-tolerant attitude of the Parthian State gave the chance to these communities to increase their members. Bishoprics were founded which gave an official character to the existence of these communities and became the administrative organ for the communication with official Parthian authorities (23). The contact of the several bishops must have been especially intimate and had in view the further strengthening of the Christian element in the Parthian Empire (24). This gradual development and process was maintained until the defeat and the fall of the last Arsacid King, Ardavan V, by Ardashir I, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, in Hormuzdgan (224 A.D.).

During the Sassanian period of Iran, Christianity would expand further in the Iranian plateau and, as a result of this expansion, the power of the Zoroastrian religion and its clergy would be threatened. The struggle of Christianity and Zoroatrianism in the land of the Iranians had just begun and would last throughout the Sassanian era (to 651). This struggle would become a part of the political opposition between the Sassanians and the Romans at the same period of time (25).

[huckelberry]

Kishkumen, Implication that I have been able to see, Primarily that a human divine transition was the sort of idea which any a variety of forms or meanings was just part of the cultural mix that could be drawn upon. I have some uncertainty just how exclusive that would be. I can imagine that a more Judaic Christianity could have decline the step to Trinitarian thinking and stayed with some bit more modest version like adoption,divine king, perhaps Arian version of specially created high angel to picture who Jesus is.

One probably should not forget that the Roman empire dissolved much of the local independent power and thus weaken all local gods. A search for more universal divine authority we be natural.

I am inclined to think of the force of Roman brutality causing a desire for some reaction to reestablish the rights of ordinary folks that rulers were supposed to protect.

[Kishkumen]

kishkumen, I am giving you a bit of push back not because I think you are wrong but wondering if some clarification is possible of what the implications might be . My query may or may not be useful. On the simplest level Jesus was surrounded by the Roman empire, it is not as though Christianity could escape it or claim a staring point outside of it. Of course it is Roman. Might be why the Pope stays in that city.

Some folks have seen the influence of Zoroasteran thought on Judaism as part of the development toward Christianity. Christianity has connection east as well to Rome.
An article on early Christianity in Iran:
https://www.iranchamber.com/religions/a ... arthia.php

The details for this early period of the development of the Christian communities are few and scarce. However, they give valuable material for the creation of an aspect about the number of these communities and the regions of their development. The result of this whole missionary effort of Christians was the creation of a wide system of communities in the region of the Fertile Crescent. These communities were organised as bishoprics with their own clerical and administrative hierarchy.

In the second half of the 2nd century (about 150) Eusebios is referred to an internal Christian conflict during Easter Celebration. Many bishops (Victor in charge of the Roman Church) of the Mesopotamian cities took part in this conflict, some of them were from bishoprics of the Parthian Empire, like Osrhoene (20). The connection of the King Abgar VIII of Edessa with the Christian religion was the element that made Edessa the most important Christian center of the Parthian Empire (21).

In 224/6 the number of Christian communities was more than 20 and they were spread mainly on a large part of the Fertile Crescent, including the cities of Bet Zabdai in the north, Karka de Bet Selok and southern to the destination of Susiana with the cities of Bet Lapat, Hormizd-Ardashir and Mesene (Peret de Maisan) (22).

The sources agree that these communities of Mesopotamia were founded in an organised form from the first years of the 2nd century. However, this does not mean that Christians were numerous at that time. On the contrary, the Christians created a type of closed community with very few members for security reasons. Gradually the positive-tolerant attitude of the Parthian State gave the chance to these communities to increase their members. Bishoprics were founded which gave an official character to the existence of these communities and became the administrative organ for the communication with official Parthian authorities (23). The contact of the several bishops must have been especially intimate and had in view the further strengthening of the Christian element in the Parthian Empire (24). This gradual development and process was maintained until the defeat and the fall of the last Arsacid King, Ardavan V, by Ardashir I, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, in Hormuzdgan (224 A.D.).

During the Sassanian period of Iran, Christianity would expand further in the Iranian plateau and, as a result of this expansion, the power of the Zoroastrian religion and its clergy would be threatened. The struggle of Christianity and Zoroatrianism in the land of the Iranians had just begun and would last throughout the Sassanian era (to 651). This struggle would become a part of the political opposition between the Sassanians and the Romans at the same period of time (25).

Greetings, huckelberry! I welcome your observations! Persia is immeasurably important in the history of Judaism and Christianity, no doubt. Persian influence on Judaism predates Rome’s contribution to the formation of Christianity. The Roman contribution, however, was key to the birth of the religion in very specific and irreplaceable ways. Jesus was born into Roman Palestine. The conditions of Judaism and daily life in Palestine were very much shaped by Roman rule, and resistance to that rule shapes charismatic leadership among the Jews. Roman authorities were responsible for Jesus’ execution, and Roman misrule of Palestine in the person of Pontius Pilate was a major factor. The conception of Jesus divinity was shaped in no small part by the cult of the Roman emperor, who was both the son of god and one who ascended to join the gods after his death.

I just don’t see Christianity starting in any other place than the Roman Empire, but by no means do I believe that Rome was the only cultural influence on Judaism and Christianity. My focus, however, is on the continuity of Roman Christianity (Western and Byzantine) from antiquity to the present. Obviously other branches of Christianity spread even further eastward, but Christianity as WE know it is really a Greco-Roman phenomenon. Indeed, I would go further and say that Christianity was Judaism for Gentiles of Greco-Roman background. It allowed non-Jews of Greek and Roman background to embrace what they liked about Judaism in a package that was appealing to them. Jewish myths, writings, morals, and monotheism through a Greco-Roman framework.

[Kishkumen]

Kishkumen, Implication that I have been able to see, Primarily that a human divine transition was the sort of idea which any a variety of forms or meanings was just part of the cultural mix that could be drawn upon. I have some uncertainty just how exclusive that would be. I can imagine that a more Judaic Christianity could have decline the step to Trinitarian thinking and stayed with some bit more modest version like adoption, divine king, perhaps Arian version of specially created high angel to picture who Jesus is.

I agree up to a point. Humans becoming divinized in some way, even in monotheistic Judaism, was part of the cultural matrix. But Jesus came into a world in which Greek kings, and those who emulated, had played the part of living gods and received cult as such. The Romans take up their own version of these practices, leading to the worship of the emperor as a god, and of dead emperors as gods. Augustus in particular was identified as the son of Apollo. So, the idea of Jesus, a man of recent historical memory, being identified as the son of God who ascended to God to be God is too close to the biography of Augustus in particular to be a coincidence, in my view.

The evidence for these beliefs in the first century A.D. is too good to attribute them to a later date. The arguments between later theologians are between Greek educated elites of the Roman Empire. There is not some hidden group of systematic theologians who were not educated in Classical rhetoric and theology. All the heavy hitters were Classically educated. It is, in other words, a Greco-Roman conversation.

One probably should not forget that the Roman empire dissolved much of the local independent power and thus weaken all local gods. A search for more universal divine authority we be natural.

I am inclined to think of the force of Roman brutality causing a desire for some reaction to reestablish the rights of ordinary folks that rulers were supposed to protect.

Hmmm. The Roman Empire oversaw a renaissance of local Greek cults and festivals. If anything, religious choices increased. One thing we should do here to appreciate what is actually happening is to view Christianity as one of the many varieties of cults competing for attention, not as the inevitable solution to a problem. Christianity took some time to take off, but it succeeded well in the religious marketplace and eventually dominated the halls of power, partly because by the time it did, it was very close in some ways to the prevailing religious fashions.

Two major developments of the third century really helped Christianity: the rise of new super cults in the imperial court, and the maturation of Late Platonism as a spiritual system. I will take them in order. On the first point, I am thinking primarily of Helios or Sol Invictus. Yes, you are right that rulers were seeking new high gods as a unifying political force, and that this seems at odds with older traditions. This was not, however, because of Christianity. Nevertheless, Christianity benefited from that spiritual change in style. Constantine was very big on Apollo and Sol Invictus before he embraced Jesus, and these options were, in some ways, not that far apart intellectually. This was partly because of the third century’s other big development: the maturation of Late Platonism as a spiritual system. Without Late Platonism, Christian theology would not be what it became.

As for the brutality of Rome causing people to desire other things, well, that is tough to say. To speak of rights in the way you are is anachronistic. Roman citizenship offered rights and it was seen as a desirable thing for that reason. Christianity did not confer legal rights on anyone. As an informal mutual help society, however, I have no doubt that it was enriching and nourishing. Christianity partly succeeded because of what it provided regular people that Rome really didn’t see or care too much about. But I am not an apologist for Rome, or of the mindset to prove that Christianity was bad and that everyone was better off as a Roman. I don’t want to live in a world of gladiatorial contests, slaves, and brutal autocrats.

[huckelberry]

......... . Augustus in particular was identified as the son of Apollo. So, the idea of Jesus, a man of recent historical memory, being identified as the son of God who ascended to God to be God is too close to the biography of Augustus in particular to be a coincidence, in my view.

The evidence for these beliefs in the first century A.D. is too good to attribute them to a later date. The arguments between later theologians are between Greek educated elites of the Roman Empire. There is not some hidden group of systematic theologians who were not educated in Classical rhetoric and theology. All the heavy hitters were Classically educated. It is, in other words, a Greco-Roman conversation.

One probably should not forget that the Roman empire dissolved much of the local independent power and thus weaken all local gods. A search for more universal divine authority we be natural.

I am inclined to think of the force of Roman brutality causing a desire for some reaction to reestablish the rights of ordinary folks that rulers were supposed to protect.

Hmmm. The Roman Empire oversaw a renaissance of local Greek cults and festivals. If anything, religious choices increased. One thing we should do here to appreciate what is actually happening is to view Christianity as one of the many varieties of cults competing for attention, not as the inevitable solution to a problem. Christianity took some time to take off, but it succeeded well in the religious marketplace and eventually dominated the halls of power, partly because by the time it did, it was very close in some ways to the prevailing religious fashions.

Two major developments of the third century really helped Christianity: the rise of new super cults in the imperial court, and the maturation of Late Platonism as a spiritual system. I will take them in order. On the first point, I am thinking primarily of Helios or Sol Invictus. Yes, you are right that rulers were seeking new high gods as a unifying political force, and that this seems at odds with older traditions. This was not, however, because of Christianity. Nevertheless, Christianity benefited from that spiritual change in style. Constantine was very big on Apollo and Sol Invictus before he embraced Jesus, and these options were, in some ways, not that far apart intellectually. This was partly because of the third century’s other big development: the maturation of Late Platonism as a spiritual system. Without Late Platonism, Christian theology would not be what it became.

As for the brutality of Rome causing people to desire other things, well, that is tough to say. To speak of rights in the way you are is anachronistic. Roman citizenship offered rights and it was seen as a desirable thing for that reason. Christianity did not confer legal rights on anyone. As an informal mutual help society, however, I have no doubt that it was enriching and nourishing. Christianity partly succeeded because of what it provided regular people that Rome really didn’t see or care too much about. But I am not an apologist for Rome, or of the mindset to prove that Christianity was bad and that everyone was better off as a Roman. I don’t want to live in a world of gladiatorial contests, slaves, and brutal autocrats.

Kishkumen, I see your comments are good clarification for the two overly simple comments I made about hopes for a more just society and resorting of religious possibilities in the reworking of order in the empire.

As a Christian believer I am going to resist the idea that the similarity to Augustus is the primary causal factor in the development of the idea of Jesus being raised from the dead. I can see that the observation of parallels in the conception has some importance. It could have had an effect on the path of Christian interpretation of the experience and report of Jesus being raised from the dead. I think that may be the center of your proposal.

///
adding from the hip, I wonder if there is some connection and cross fertilization between the aspiration of empire and the idea of Messiah. Well that should be pretty likely. That could go back to that Greek conqueror of the world setting up the question for people.

[huckelberry]

Well I am being a bit slow of thought. Another point which should be fairly obvious came to my mind.It is at least context to this Roman god.

I have heard it said by enough sources I do not remember them that the Jews at the time of Jesus expected a military messiah who would conquer and set up a correct political power but instead Jesus came to change hearts and create a spiritual kingdom. I am fairly sure the observation is a simplification. There is an irony in the fact that the idea of Jesus returning and militarily or violently setting up the divine kingdom enjoys a lot of popularity these days. The idea of Gods annointed being of the Alexander type and hope keeps coming back. It could also be considered that as Christianity become part of imperial power then messiah as conqueror found a new version, church as conqueror. (and becoming violent and oppressive)

Perhaps Roman culture would not be what it was without Alexander and Alexander having become a pat of Jewish concepts of messiah was a link smoothing the path for Jesus to became a Roman God.

I think there may be unfortunate limitations on Christian possiblities created by Roman culture, but it is not really possible to remove the Roman contributions to Christianity. Perhaps awareness can help rethink some ideas.

I think the idea that Jesus is returning to destroy people seizing an imperial sort of power should definitely be rethought.