Rome Created Christianity?

[Tart]

There are a number of people who claim the Roman Government created Christianity to control the masses... Yet I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that supports this... Does anyone have anything?

The question for the debate: What are people thinking when they claim Rome created Christianity? What led them to believe this?


Answer: I dont think anyone who honestly takes the subject seriously, and has studied the evidence, would claim such a thing.

It is kind of crazy... You would think that any obvious truth should spread throughout society, like a wildfire. But it sees to be, that Christianity, and the obvious facts, seem to be suppressed by the masses, and misconceptions are asserted and supported by people even though they are obviously false... One of those misconceptions is Rome Created Christianity...

Does anyone have any evidence?

(And note, the compiling of the Bible is not creating Christianity, but that should be obvious for anyone who takes this subject seriously and has studied the evidence)

[Jubal]

Well,
here are some thoughts along that line ...

The bulk of the Jesus of Nazareth story comes from the gospels. Paul gives few hard details about his Jesus Christ, nor do the other later epistles. The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written, both Matthew and Luke depend on Mark. John is much later, and the least historical.

The Gospel of Mark is essentially the single source for the Jesus story.

'Mark' was apparently a Roman - supposedly the secretary of Peter in Rome - who wrote down what Peter said, in Rome.

The G. of Mark shows clear signs of being written for a Roman audience - by explaining Jewish traditions, and converting Aramaic terms into Roman words.

Rome was the centre of the earliest recorded Christian history.

Rome was the centre of the Western manuscript tradition.

The earliest layers of Christianity are lost to history - we have no idea who really wrote any of the NT books. (Early Christianity is rife with forged documents.)

Notably - we have no idea who wrote the critical seminal Gospel of Mark, which was obviously written by a very well educated person who knew both the Greek and Jewish religious writings.

So there is indeed a variety of evidence to suggest the Gospel of Mark was manufactured by unknown Romans for some religious project. Religious history is full of such shenagigans.

What Miles Mathis would call a spook project.

Jubal

[Jubal]

A classic example of religious documentary shenanigans would be the book of Deuteronomy.

The name means 'Second Book'.

It turned up fortuitously and mysteriously during the reign of great King Josiah - second only to Moses in Jewish respect - a great reformer who changed many rules and came just after the evil king Mannaseh (late 600s BC.)

Josiah's high priest found this alleged book of Moses hidden inside the temple for all those centuries, apparently. A book all about the powers of priests etc.

Jubal

[showme]

There are a number of people who claim the Roman Government created Christianity to control the masses... Yet I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that supports this... Does anyone have anything?

The question for the debate: What are people thinking when they claim Rome created Christianity? What led them to believe this?


Answer: I dont think anyone who honestly takes the subject seriously, and has studied the evidence, would claim such a thing.

It is kind of crazy... You would think that any obvious truth should spread throughout society, like a wildfire. But it sees to be, that Christianity, and the obvious facts, seem to be suppressed by the masses, and misconceptions are asserted and supported by people even though they are obviously false... One of those misconceptions is Rome Created Christianity...

Does anyone have any evidence?

(And note, the compiling of the Bible is not creating Christianity, but that should be obvious for anyone who takes this subject seriously and has studied the evidence)

It was Constantine in 325 AD who convene the Council of Nicaea which instituted the Roman Catholic Church in order to unify his empire. He was the Pontifex Maximus of the pagan church, and as such he convened the Council of Nicaea to hammer out the divisions in the "Christian" church, and in the process, insert the pagan rituals into his Roman church. An example being Easter, the feast of Astarte, substituted for PassOver. The Roman Church was not officially incorporated into the Roman empire until Theodosius did so in 380 AD. He then convened a Council, the First Council of Constantinople, to have the bishops rubber stamp his eviction of non Nicene Trinitarians, in favor of Nicene Trinitarian Christianity.

A good book on the subject would be "Constantine the Great: the man and his times by the early 20th century English historian, Michael Grant

Wikipedia on Theodosius:
On 27 February 380, together with Gratian and Valentinian II, Theodosius issued the decree "Cunctos populos", the so-called "Edict of Thessalonica", recorded in the Codex Theodosianus xvi.1.2. This declared the Nicene Trinitarian Christianity to be the only legitimate Imperial religion and the only one entitled to call itself Catholic. Other Christians he described as "foolish madmen".[14] He also ended official state support for the traditional Polytheism religions and customs.[15]
On 26 November 380, two days after he had arrived in Constantinople, Theodosius expelled the non-Nicene bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and appointed Meletius patriarch of Antioch, and Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian Fathers from Antioch (today in Turkey), patriarch of Constantinople. Theodosius had just been baptized, by bishop Acholius of Thessalonica, during a severe illness, as was common in the early Christian world.[citation needed]
In May 381, Theodosius summoned a new ecumenical council at Constantinople (see First Council of Constantinople) to repair the schism between East and West on the basis of Nicean orthodoxy.[16] "The council went on to define orthodoxy, including the mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who, though equal to the Father, 'proceeded' from Him, whereas the Son was 'begotten' of Him."[17] The council also "condemned the Apollonarian and Macedonian heresies, clarified jurisdictions of the state church of the Roman Empire according to the civil boundaries of dioceses and ruled that Constantinople was second in precedence to Rome."[17] The death of Valens, the Arians' protector, probably damaged the standing of the Homoian faction

[Willum]

Proof, yes proof.

For proof you need only look at the New Testament, and its support of Rome.
I have posited these many times (in addition to 'showme's' observation) before, and you have claimed they do not constitute proof.

They do:
We have someone claiming to be Matthew claiming Jesus said to render to Caesar his taxes, when Caesar was a foreign god. This would be a violation of the Commandment, that support of Rome.
That the coins to pay the tax had the graven images of other gods on them is another Commandment violation.

The we have the verses in the Book, Romans, supporting Rome's pagan government.

Jesus' scriptures were pro-Rome and violated the Commandments, how much more proof do you need?

[rikuoamero]

There are a number of people who claim the Roman Government created Christianity to control the masses... Yet I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that supports this... Does anyone have anything?

The question for the debate: What are people thinking when they claim Rome created Christianity? What led them to believe this?


Answer: I dont think anyone who honestly takes the subject seriously, and has studied the evidence, would claim such a thing.

It is kind of crazy... You would think that any obvious truth should spread throughout society, like a wildfire. But it sees to be, that Christianity, and the obvious facts, seem to be suppressed by the masses, and misconceptions are asserted and supported by people even though they are obviously false... One of those misconceptions is Rome Created Christianity...

Does anyone have any evidence?

(And note, the compiling of the Bible is not creating Christianity, but that should be obvious for anyone who takes this subject seriously and has studied the evidence)

I'd like to ask the OP what evidence he would accept as showing the claim to be true (the claim being that Rome created Christianity), and is that hypothetical evidence of the same level and quality as the evidence that purportedly convinced him that Christianity's claims are true?

[marco]

The question for the debate: What are people thinking when they claim Rome created Christianity? What led them to believe this?

Christianity as we know it today came about through Rome's adoption of Christian beliefs as state beliefs. Christianity wasn't created there and then, for Christians had been around for a few centuries, but undoubtedly this caused Christianity to rise from humble beginnings to the state religion. The Christianity we have now is probably not the christianity that the apostles knew. The instigator of the various Christian practices was of course Jesus. Rome was initially contemptuous of the faith.

[Elijah John]

Proof, yes proof.

For proof you need only look at the New Testament, and its support of Rome.

Support of Rome? Isn't it more likely that Christians of the era were only trying to appease Rome, accomodate Rome and not alienate Rome needlessly?

Accomodation should not be confused with endorsement. It was a matter of survival.

Jesus makes a passing reference to Roman coinage and you consider that worship of another God?

If so, why didn't Jesus teach "Our Father Caesar, who art in Rome..."??

[Willum]

[Replying to post 8 by Elijah John]

Support of Rome? Isn't it more likely that Christians of the era were only trying to appease Rome, accommodate Rome and not alienate Rome needlessly?

"Christians of the era,"? There were no Christians in Jesus' audience. There were Hellens and Judists.
The Hellenes saw the wisdom, as you do, of appeasing Rome.
The Judaists saw blasphemous coins and foreign gods, concepts unacceptable.

So quite impossible.
Even touching coins with a foreign god's image on them would make a Judaist unclean. Using them to pay homage to a foreign god, would be impossible. Why do you think the issue was so contentious? If it were no problem, then it'd be: No problem.

[Divine Insight]

The question for the debate: What are people thinking when they claim Rome created Christianity? What led them to believe this?

Christianity as we know it today came about through Rome's adoption of Christian beliefs as state beliefs. Christianity wasn't created there and then, for Christians had been around for a few centuries, but undoubtedly this caused Christianity to rise from humble beginnings to the state religion. The Christianity we have now is probably not the christianity that the apostles knew. The instigator of the various Christian practices was of course Jesus. Rome was initially contemptuous of the faith.

This is my view as well.

The Romans didn't "create" Christianity from scratch. Clearly there were rumors about some guy named Jesus who was crucified and was rumored to have risen from the dead. That much was most likely already circulating as a superstitious rumor.

After all, people in those days were quick to believe these kind of religious rumors. So this was one of many demigod rumors that was floating around. However, because Jesus was a Jew and was being associated with the Old Testament rumors of Yahweh, this gave the rumors of Jesus added "religious authority".

Prior to Roman intervention the religion was based on word-of-mouth rumors. It was then the Romans who took over the job of writing this religion up as formal scriptures. In fact, the writings of Paul may have indeed been the major thrust of Roman influence, as well as the later writings of John.

So the Romans didn't create Christianity from scratch, but they did create, edit, or modify, the formal scriptures that have become the foundation of Christianity today.

Also once these scriptures had been collected into an official "Holy Book" dubbed "The New Testament". It was then also decreed that anyone challenging these authoritative scriptures would face dire consequences from serious social chastisement to possible bodily harm or even death.

In this way the Romans created their "version" of these rumors which have become the Christianity we know today.

In fact, this originally became the Catholic Church. Until later there was a protest against this absolute authority and the Protestants rose up with their many different rebellious creations of the religion.

And of course, Islam was also another spin-off. In Islam Jesus was seen merely as a prophet and not as the "Son of God".

So we have the Roman Catholic Church <--- who could deny that this was created by the Romans?

Then we have Islam being created

Then we have the many disagreeing individual sects of Protestantism rising up and arguing with each other.

It should be pretty obvious that there is no single coherent religion in any of this. The Roman Catholic Church was the best shot for this religion to become anything consistent, but even the RCC has lost all credibility. So there's really nothing to see here anymore.