Note that Jesus was crucified partially because the Romans did not believe he was God or had any powers
(i get the joke)
Idk, I think he was crucified because he was a political activist that threatened the power of the state and forced people to question the authority of said power, just like the Romans crucified all political activists that were critical of the Roman Empire.
![[ElderCactus] There were worse outcomes(lemmy.world)](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5715508f-01e1-4e13-90ad-a098f1bb8f63.jpeg){kind=link}
Pilate did seem to be pressured by the Jews into crucifying Jesus. Even with the Barrabas incident where they freed a literal murderer to still have Jesus killed.
Roman leadership didn’t really care enough about crucifying Jesus and that they were just doing what the Jews told him to
And it’s complete bull. If the Jewish authorities wanted Jesus dead he would have been stoned to death - not crucified. The Romans only crucified people they wanted to crucify. This is not anti-Roman propaganda - it’s anti-Jewish propaganda by the Catholic Church to camoflage the fact that it was their imperial progenitors who was responsible for Jesus’ death.
Or he was crucified because he was gay (kisses the guy he put in charge of the group’s money around that time, had a beloved disciple reclining on him when feeding same disciple he kisses dipped bread at his last meal before being turned in). That was a capital charge under Jewish law.
In fact, it’s extremely sus that Peter is alleged in his own tradition to deny Jesus three times right around the time Jesus is going through ~3 trials, at least one of which Peter is acknowledged as going back to the guarded area where the trial was taking place to deny him in.
He could have also been killed for promoting atheist ideas at the time, given the earliest Christian ‘heresy’ was Simon Magus who after leaving the early church is talking about an “indivisible point” and later heretics and apocrypha have Jesus seeming to be quoting Lucretius’s naturalism and atomism. This is the same century Rabbi Elazar allegedly said “why do we study the Torah? To know how to answer the Epicurean.” So Jesus promoting Epicurean ideas might not have gone over very well (and might explain why Paul was so adamant Corinth ignore “other versions of Jesus” that they accepted saying things like “everything is permissible” or denying physical resurrection - very Epicurean statements).
Or it could have been the official story, though personally I don’t really buy it. If he was a threat to Rome it’s bizarre he gets such different treatment from the several other messianic upstarts in Josephus who are killed immediately without trial by Roman forces with their followers included. And why would the Sanhedrin be peeved about messianic claims when the other examples of messianic claimants were solely depicted as opposed by Rome?
But possibly gay Jesus teaching evolution and atomism while criticizing dynastic monarchy? Yeah, I can see that dude ending up dead pretty fast in that time and place by Sanhedrin demand and Roman hands.
I remember reading about how investigations into the translations of the Bible support the gay Jesus. (Disclaimer I’m not gay, so I have no affiliated interest in promoting gayness, I just find it historically interesting).
“Washing feet” was a actually a mistranslation of some kind of general “servicing” that had several meanings, including cock sucking or accepting being bottom. Jesus “washed a lot of feet”, but one thing is certain: It didn’t mean literally washing feet. That part was definitely made up according to the people who looked into it.
Anyway, it’s been thousands of years and learning of how cultures and acceptance of certain things can change rapidly, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Keep in mind that Romans were also at war with the Greek shortly before the alleged time of Jesus. We know that the ancient Greeks practiced gay sex not just casually, but even expectedly. The Romans did not. The empire had an expansion strategy that looked a lot like the Nazis Third Reich: Expansion by breeding.
Personally I find it likely that historical Jesus was killed for a whole lot of other reasons than for claiming to be the king of Jews or for betrayal of the state, and he sure as fuck did not die “for our sins”.
Idk about gay Jesus. lol. But I love the idea of that as a possiblity!
Him being killed for heresy makes sense to me. That said, my understanding is all the gospels about Jesus were written long after his death. It’s totally possible he was killed like all the rest and the majority of the narrative was written after and heavily romanticized. It was then updated, as needed, to advance different political goals.
I’d never heard anything about disagreements with Epicureans, or much about them in general. Any books/links you could recommend on the subject? I’m currently reading the Dark Side of Christian History by Ellerbe and it’s great! The lengths the Church went to solidify its political power is kind of hard to comprehend. It’s crazy how little most people know about something that’s still so influential.
Perhaps that was the historical perspective, but that doesn’t include Jesus definitely performing miracles either. In the perspective where he does do miracles, a.k.a. the Bible, at least according to Christianity.com (which sources itself inline to the bible) a ton of priests and people were angered by Jesus’s claim of being the messiah and son of God. They then invented a bunch of insurrection charges and took to the local governor, who initially refused but went through when they basically threatened to get him fired by questioning his loyalty.
So, I guess I stand corrected that it was not the Romans but the existing religion.
Of fucking course the website of the religion dedicated to worshipping a dead Jewish carpenter is going to say he definitely performed miracles. Dude… we don’t have any actual proof of him doing so though, just attestations from people who either worshipped him or claims from people who stand to benefit from the story being true