Jesus the Roman God on BYP

[Kishkumen]

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.

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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.

Hey, huckelberry. History is in some ways a poor substitute for faith. It can only hope to capture bits of what makes a religion compelling. It would be supremely arrogant of me to think that I could come anywhere close to explaining away Christianity. I am sharing what I am seeing about Christianity as it can be understood as a phenomenon in the Roman Empire. Nothing more. I think it is fun to think of Christianity as being part of the Roman world instead of the two things being alien to each other.