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We know Jesus was executed for insurrection due to the Bible, which is also what tells us that this was just a legal pretext. Guessing at what you think the most likely alternate hypothesis is--it's common knowledge that Jesus was executed for insurrection, but the authors of the Bible constructed an alternate story where that was just a legal pretext? I find this highly unlikely--the Bible basically says nothing at all about independence from the Romans. I think anyone likely to know Jesus was executed for insurrection, and need an explanation for that, would also have some inkling that he actually was a rebel if that was what he was.
Also, all of those people actually ran rebellions, complete with military action. I really don't think they're in the same reference class as Jesus, barring totally baseless conjecture.
The Bible says they were worried about the response from the people. They did have to maintain power after all, which means maintaining popular support.
It also does mention a few lynch mobs which Jesus manages to escape from, such as in Luke 4:28-30. Since this actually did happen, by your logic, Jesus' Jewish enemies did want him dead.
They couldn't stone him--capital punishment was restricted to the Romans.
This is early Christianity, citing someone by name would mean threatening their life. I don't think irreconcilable differences are incompatible with eyewitness accounts--these were written possibly decades after the fact and people may simply misremember the details. Eyewitness accounts are not infallible of course, especially back when mass hysteria was more of a thing.
I strongly disagree that irreconcilable differences between the accounts "[preclude] them from being accurate and mostly reliable accounts of historical events." At worst this means they cannot both be accurate accounts.
As far as the rest, what you say sounds perfectly logical. I can't trust it though, because when you talk about stuff I know anything about it seems obviously wrong to me. Clearly I have a lot to learn though.
Jesus’ death by crucifixion is also recorded by several Jewish and pagan authorities, some quite early (Josephus and Tacitus).
The gospels have a vested interest in placing as much of the guilt for Jesus’ death onto the Jews rather than the Romans, especially as the church became overwhelmingly gentile in ethnic composition.
At least one recorded rebel (I think “the Egyptian”) seems to have only claimed he was going to replicate Joshua’s miracle of splitting the Jordan. His followers came out into the desert to watch, and they were all massacred by Roman cavalry.
I don’t think Jesus ACTUALLY led a military revolt against Rome, though that’s what IMO he probably thought that’s what he was doing.
To elaborate, the Bible DOES talk about independence from Rome, though obviously not in those terms. The whole point of Jesus’ ministry is the imminent consummation of history, and the need to repent before judgment. It’s all over the gospels and Paul’s letters, the ‘Day of the Lord’ where God is finally going to destroy/subject the nations and vindicate Israel/God’s people. Obviously, this meant the destruction of Rome, which was the great gentile power. To see the ubiquity of this expectation see also Revelation, which is entirely a screed promising the imminent divine judgment of the great city that sits on seven hills and rules over the kings of the earth and is drunk with the blood of saints (who could that be?) According to Matthew, Jesus also said that he was going to be made king after this divine intervention, and that his disciples were going to “sit on twelve thrones” with him. So Jesus was going around preaching the imminent downfall of Rome/the nations and calling himself a king. He apparently didn’t mean for this to come about by him and his followers attacking Roman soldiers with iron swords; he was going to let the Heavenly armies do the work for him. But Pilate probably wouldn’t have bothered to make the distinction.
Sure, but they’re not the ones who actually killed him.
In Acts Stephen is tried before the Sanhedrin and then taken out and stoned. There’s no reason the same could not have been done to Jesus.
The idea that early Christians were huddling in attics hiding from the secret police is not really accurate. For the first few decades of the church's existence there's not much evidence the Romans particularly cared what Christians were doing, or that they were even much on the radar. Even 100 years later, Pliny the Younger barely knows what Christians are and has to write a letter to the Emperor asking what should be done about some in his jurisdiction. The first and only actual top-down, concerted, empire-wide push to persecute and stamp out Christians qua Christians didn't come until Dicoletian, almost three hundred years later. Early persecution was more like "you won't shut up about Jesus outside the temple of Apollo so finally a mob beats you to death." There wasn't like a Roman Gestapo in charge of scrutinizing obscure Christian documents looking for the names of potential dissidents to arrest.
I think there are reasons the resurrection narratives probably don't go back to eyewitnesses but at a certain point, if the details aren't reliable, then all that can be recovered is the core fact that at some point, some person or persons claimed to have experienced some kind of vision of Jesus after his death, which I don't find very compelling.
I don't think I've said anything particularly "trust me bro" - ish. It's easily verifiable for example that Matthew has nativity and resurrection narratives and Mark doesn't.
Sorry, I worded that much too strongly. In the past when I've looked into these matters, I find good evidence mixed seamlessly with conjecture, and it takes deep and thorough study to find which things are well-supported and which are conjecture. I have quite a few alternate hypotheses in mind which seem quite reasonable at first glance (Matthew simply cared about consistency more than about sharing his own account of his calling, Mark was based on an earlier or fragmented version of Matthew, both are based on the apostles' actual writings, etc.) but will take probably at least a hundred hours to investigate to my satisfaction. I'll put the time in eventually but not now. If I was more convinced by your other points then I'd be more willing to put that time in sooner.
On the surface this sounds plausible, but if you dig into it it doesn't make too much sense for a number of reasons.
Going by your logic, the gospels had a vested interest in blaming the Romans for Jesus' death at the time they were written. Before then, nearly all Christians were Jewish, to the point that Christianity was seen as a Jewish religion. The Pharisees had a lot of popular support and, well, generally, saying that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ would be utter anathema to a Jewish crowd. Blaming Jews also has an asymmetrical effect--it will alienate Jews much more than it attracts Gentiles.
The Romans were vilified plenty in the Gospels. If the authors were willing to insert fabrications about Sanhedrin conspiracies to kill Jesus, discourse from Pontius Pilate about how innocent Jesus is, mobs working to take Jesus' life, etc., then surely they would also have been willing to remove anything about Herod's reign.
The Gospels were centered around the idea that the Jews would eventually sacrifice their own Savior. This isn't just some random thing added in to please a Roman audience; it's arguably the central theme of the entire story. There were plenty of Jewish Christians around who would notice if their religion's main focus suddenly changed. Jews had ritually sacrificed lambs for centuries beforehand to symbolically cleanse themselves from sin; now they had sacrificed the Lamb of God for the same purpose. Given that Christianity existed before the Gospels did, this isn't the kind of thing that can be added into an existing faith tradition seamlessly.
The Egyptian meant to start a rebellion, and brought people to the Mount of Olives with the claim that he'd tear Roman walls down. You're probably thinking of Theudas, who did pretty much exactly that. Based on other sources though it sounds like he was explicitly a rebel in other ways as well, including leading armed forces.
The point we're arguing over is whether Jesus was executed for being a Roman rebel, or for being a heretic. Whether the Sanhedrin held the weapons in their hands is immaterial.
What a way to word this! You strongly imply that he was sentenced to be stoned, which is not what happened at all. He was being tried when he angered the Sanhedrin so much they stoned him as a mob. This was illegal and probably not the course of action they would have taken if they were not overcome with rage.
Jesus had much more popular support, and explicitly mentioned a few times that he was careful what he said to them in order to ensure he didn't die before his time. He still had to escape a mob of his own that was seeking to kill him.
So no, there are quite a few reasons the same could not have been done to Jesus.
Persecution really started with the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, certainly within "the first few decades of the church's existence." 50 years later Tacitus mentions Christians by name as the group blamed for the fire. This is generally believed to be accurate. It appears that Peter and Paul were both killed as part of this persecution, so it's not exactly a minor event.
Pliny explicitly put Christians to death solely for the crime of being Christian. This was 100 years later, long before what you describe as "the first and only actual top-down, concerted, empire-wide push to persecute and stamp out Christians qua Christians." I'd be interested in hearing why you think he "barely knows what Christians are" because from what I have read about it he was quite familiar with them.
They do go back to eyewitnesses though. The two Marys are mentioned by name. What they describe sounds like an actual tangible thing, not a vision (thought the distinction seems to have been less clear back then). I don't think the resurrection narrative in particular necessarily has contradictions at all between the books.
This opens another debate of when the gospels were written. I don't think Mark was written earlier than the 60s, and the rest of the gospels between then and the first decades of the 2nd century. The primarily Jewish era of the church does not seem to have lasted very long, as it did not make much headway among the Jews. It was certainly over by AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem.
If the gospel authors are trying to redirect blame from the Romans to the Jews, why would they remove details of Herod's reign?
The main focus of the early Christian belief is that Jesus died "for our sins" and was raised. Who killed him and why, while not immaterial, is of secondary importance I think. Furthermore, the early years of a new religious movement are often when it undergoes the most extensive doctrinal developments, before calcifying. You can see this in the much-better documented example of Mormonism in the 19th century.
If Jesus was stoned by Jews then it would be obvious he was killed for some crime under Jewish law, and there wouldn't be any debate at all. The fact that he was crucified instead, unlike his brother James or Stephen, is what makes it interesting.
I'm pretty sure Theudas is only mentioned in Josephus and Acts, and neither refers to him leading an armed revolt.
My point isn't that it was legal, but that they evidently didn't have much of a problem doing it one way or the other, and I don't think there's any indication anybody got in trouble with the Romans for killing Stephen, nor for any of the other stonings mentioned in the NT.
The main point is that what Jesus was doing (calling himself 'king' and preaching the imminent downfall of the gentile powers) was enough to get him crucified on its own, so him having Jewish enemies who also wanted him dead is almost besides the point. If all the Jews loved Jesus, would the Romans not have killed him? Actually they probably would have killed him even sooner.
Pliny was a regional governor, and the Emperor even advises him in the answer to his letter to try any Christians who are brought before him, but not to expend any energy actually hunting them down. I say it doesn't seem like Pliny knows much about them because he describes their rituals/customs as if he's unfamiliar, and says he actually tortured two deaconesses to find out more, but only discovered "depraved superstition." What I meant was that Diocletian's edict was the only time in Roman history where the Emperor apparently said "we're getting rid of all the Christians in the empire," and empire-wide steps were taken to enforce this. Even the Neronian persecution appears to have been an attempt by Nero to take the heat off of himself rather than a principled attempt to uproot the whole faith. Before this, persecution was mostly sporadic and on the initiative of local mobs and magistrates. While most of the Church fathers were (if you take traditions at face value) eventually martyred, most of them apparently lived and preached openly as Christians for many years before they crossed the wrong governor or priest. There wasn't a "shoot on sight" order.
What I mean is nowhere except in the gospels, except at the end of John, is there anything like "I was told this by X son of Y," or even (with no specific names attached) "I know this because I saw myself" or "I know this because I spoke to those who were there" which was extremely common in ancient biographies, whenever the author actually had access to eyewitness sources.
Matthew has the first post-resurrection appearance to the disciples take place on a mountain in Galilee, while Luke tells us that the first appearances were in Jerusalem, and what's more leaves little room for Galilean appearances by having Jesus explicitly tell the disciples (in the first chapter of Acts) that they are not to leave Jerusalem until Pentecost, to name one of the biggest differences. The differences can be reconciled with some work, like all differences, but I don't find the harmonizations compelling.
Right, the consensus is that Mark was written around 60-70 AD, which is consistent with my point. Q, the theorized other source of Luke and Matthew, would probably have been written around or before the same time.
I disagree with this--contextual evidence, especially how we both seem to agree that before 70 AD Christianity was essentially seen as a branch of Judaism, suggests that it did make plenty of headway among the Jews. This is a good place to mention my problems with researching these things. The first source found points to this paper which says:
This is an utterly absurd analysis, basically pulled out of a hat. Acts mentions in the first few chapters nearly ten thousand people in Jerusalem (we can assume Jews) who converted; the rest of the analysis is devoted to casting doubt on those numbers because it would be a sizeable proportion of Jerusalem. The numbers mentioned specifically refer to pilgrims, though, not to the normal Jewish population. It's very clear about this:
...
...
The whole field is just a cesspool of speculation. There are many arguments for/against how many Jewish converts there were in the early Christian church but I find the arguments for large numbers more convincing. I find it more likely that Jewish converts married into the Gentile church and thus mostly disappeared, ethnically and culturally, within a few generations. The book of Matthew wasn't directed towards the Jews on a whim--they were the foundation of early Christianity.
Because he was appointed by the Romans. Anyone who would fabricate events wholesale just to blame Jews would also obviously treat Herod and the Roman occupation more positively. You'd probably have all sorts of examples of Romans miraculously being converted because there faith was so much greater than that of the Jews, or of Romans protecting Jesus from the wicked Jewish leaders.
I can't imagine anyone would fabricate such events just to blame the Jews without going further anywhere else. Why not say the Sanhedrin stoned Jesus? Why not allow Jesus to say something about how great the Romans are and we should all be like them? Why not write in a single Roman convert or apostle?
Generally the idea that these things were inserted just to make the Gospel more palatable to the Romans seems really far-fetched.
My bad, I thought I read that somewhere but now I can't find it. Still--the popular conception of the Messiah as one who leads a revolt against Rome, combined with the wording that he had a group of about four hundred men, to me strongly implies he was an anti-Roman rebel, not just a prophet.
Also, I believe those are different Theudas's, or one of the mentions is incorrect.
There may not have been a shoot on sight order, but Christians were executed just for being Christians. My original point was that mentioning eyewitnesses by name might be dangerous for them; the fact that a tipoff (even an anonymous one, as of the letter) that you were Christian could get you executed more than qualifies as dangerous.
Pliny's letter was written nearly fifty years after the Neronian persecutions so it's fairly weak evidence for the state of Christian persecution at the time the Gospels were written.
This assumes the gospels were not actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which is highly debatable. There's little need to explicitly say "I know this because I saw myself" if it's clear from the format that you're speaking from firsthand experience.
No, they don't. Matthew describes a post-resurrection appearance, as does Luke. Neither asserts that these appearances are his first. Acts mentions that Jesus visits the apostles many times over a 40 day period.
Sure, all differences can be reconciled with some work, but the amount of work necessary is crucial. I think the account of Judas' death is contradictory and probably indicates missing/altered text, while the Resurrection accounts are decently compatible with each other.
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