What did the witnesses to the resurrection get from lying and proclaiming the resurrection? Did the get successful careers as television evangelists, with lots of Cadillacs to drive, and air conditioned dog houses for their animals?
They were proclaiming that a guy the powers that be were able to execute had risen from the dead. How do you think the powers that be are going to take that?
28 comments:
Not only that, the "powers that be" had ample opportunity to call them out. After all, Peter's Pentecost speech (Acts 2:14-36) was less than 6 weeks after the Crucifixion. In fact, he dares his hearers to check out his claims, pointing out "I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day." He's as much as saying, "Go ahead. Check out the tomb we laid Jesus in. Do you see anyone in there?"
Even if one were to accept the dubious claim that Christians were frequently targeted for persecution this objection holds no truck; by this logic, no person would ever enlist for the military, or become a firefighter, or test pilot, etc.
Presumably, if there was personal risk, this also came with rewards. The same rewards many in our society bestow on our military men.
Not to mention the real authority that leadership in any group awards.
"the dubious claim that Christians were frequently targeted for persecution"
Just curious, are you also a Holocaust denier? How about the Moon landing? Was it just staged on a Hollywood back lot? I'll bet you probably think there was a Second Shooter behind the Grassy Knoll.
Gimme a break! (But after you tell me where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, please.)
Prokop: "Just curious, are you also a Holocaust denier? How about the Moon landing? Was it just staged on a Hollywood back lot? I'll bet you probably think there was a Second Shooter behind the Grassy Knoll.
There's a whole world out there that you won't allow yourself to see. But we're never too old to learn new things, so here's a link to try and help you:: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062104526/the-myth-of-persecution
I'm familiar with such revisionists. They're no different than the other conspiracy theorists I mentioned above. I prefer going to the source material. There are enough first hand accounts to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christians were savagely persecuted for centuries.
I suggest you might start by reading the Letters of Saint Ignatius of Antioch or The Martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna by anonymous. And as to books, I'll see your and raise you Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett. (very readable, by the way)
Cal Metzger said...
Even if one were to accept the dubious claim that Christians were frequently targeted for persecution this objection holds no truck; by this logic, no person would ever enlist for the military, or become a firefighter, or test pilot, etc.
Presumably, if there was personal risk, this also came with rewards. The same rewards many in our society bestow on our military men.
Not to mention the real authority that leadership in any group awards.
why would those outweigh the persecution that came with it? To be really effective they would have to have conpired that puts the probability much lower,
There's a whole world out there that you won't allow yourself to see. But we're never too old to learn new things, so here's a link to try and help you:: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062104526/the-myth-of-persecution
that argument is is easily disproved. I Undergrad sociology major I studied with Ansen Shoupe who became a big name in sociology of religion.He was researching persecution of the early church and the sociological effects of it. He proved that the pattern was sporadic and allowed then organize effectively. But sporadic does not mean nill and the threat is always greater than the realty. So they were threat of persecution even when they had not been getting it.
Please learn to make links
Cal's link
Joe,
You are correct about the sporadic nature of the Roman persecutions. They'd be torturing and murdering Christians in one province, while in the neighboring one you'd see churches being built and the Faith openly practiced. And the same holds true chronologically. One emperor (e.g., Diocletian) would unleash ISIS-scale savagery against any and all Christians, while another (e.g., Trajan) would content himself with killing the leaders, and still another would turn a blind eye toward the whole issue. (Kind of a Classical "Let the States decide" sort of thing.)
But was there a centuries-long persecution of the Church by the Roman empire? Yes, indeed.
the book Myth of persection acadeic reviewrs have not been kind, I have a link to a review in First things,
"Despite the author’s considerable erudition, this is a deeply flawed book, a work of revisionist history. One might judge that conservative Christians in the West have sometimes overplayed the persecution card, but they have not created instances of cultural hostility out of whole cloth, and they certainly did not create the “Age of the Martyrs” out of thin air. More important, Moss largely overlooks modern Christianity in the two-thirds world, especially in the Middle East and in Communist states. Here we find not just cultural insensitivity but old-fashioned persecution: arrests, beatings, and decapitations. Exactly one week after the publication of Moss’s book, another book came out: Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians , authored by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea. They document persecution in about forty different countries. Moss’s opening story about the bombing of the Coptic Church in Alexandria is part of that reality, but the fact that Moss uses this story to launch a criticism, in effect, of the rhetoric of the Coptic victims rather than the actions of the jihadist perpetrators is grotesque."
there have been others,mread the article
Hinman: "He proved that the pattern was sporadic and allowed then organize effectively. But sporadic does not mean nill and the threat is always greater than the realty."
I agree with this. Please note that I didn't say that Christians did not face any persecution.
But academia moved on a long time ago regarding they overblown myth that Christians were consistently singled out as the only religious or other group to face persecution, and that the legends of wholesale martyrdoms in the face of relentless, state-sponsored repression are largely the product of Christian propaganda.
I'm always surprised how few apologists have ever heard of the account of St. Perpetua. I strongly recommend reading it -- it reminds me of nothing more than a woman who has been brainwashed by a cult, and who chooses her death despite the anguish of her father and entire family.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/perpetua.html
anothier review of Moss's book
I read an article buy Moss defended her book I see her as an idiot who argues dishonestly,Part of that is my prejudice she;against the resistance movement,but i can justify that finding based upon her article. All she does in relation to the classical historical literature of church persecution is criticizer framework in which the facts are analyzed but she never disputes the actual facts of persecution,Take the persecution of Christians that led to the alleged murder of Hypatia. She odes nothing to challenge the murder and torture of those particular Christians that led to the anger against hypatia. She i9s not actually disproving the persecution just it's PR job.
the only relovant facts to the issues at hand are the persecutions by
Saul of Tarsus and others around that era no others, Those are the one;s that woul impend upn the Apostles lying.
"it reminds me of nothing more than a woman who has been brainwashed by a cult"
Hmm.. Her story reminds me of a steadfast love of the Truth in the face of merciless opposition.
I suppose you think St. Maximilian Kolbe sacrificed his life for another as a result of cultic brainwashing?
By the way, how can you possibly say something like "I'm always surprised how few apologists have ever heard of the account of St. Perpetua"? Are you unaware of the fact that St. Perpetua's prayers are invoked every single day in the liturgy of the Mass - approximately 350,000 times a day all over the globe? Her story is certainly not unknown!
"I read an article buy Moss defended her book I see her as an idiot who argues dishonestly,Part of that is my prejudice she;against the resistance movement,but i can justify that finding based upon her article"
If you are going to call someone an "idiot," I would recommend that you don't do it in a sentence that contains so many grammatical and punctuation errors that it is completely unintelligible. I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say there.
it reminds me of nothing more than a woman who has been brainwashed by a cult"
your commentary is not proof that she wasn't persecuted. you are not establishing the no persecution thesis by mocking her death. the fact that are so many stories like hers (I read Ecclesiastes histories fill pf them) is evidence that there were any such cases,any particular story could be embellished but obviously people were persecuted.
If you are going to call someone an "idiot," I would recommend that you don't do it in a sentence that contains so many grammatical and punctuation errors that it is completely unintelligible. I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say there.
I recommend that you find out what intelligence is. Because it is not spelling or grammar. those are not matters of intelligence. They are highly dependent upon people's backgrounds. Then if you resist in being pedantic you find out the difference between spelling, punctuation and grammar.
But academia moved on a long time ago regarding they overblown myth that Christians were consistently singled out as the only religious or other group to face persecution, and that the legends of wholesale martyrdoms in the face of relentless, state-sponsored repression are largely the product of Christian propaganda.
I don't know of any apologist who ever argued that Christians were the only one's persecuted.I think inquiry only exposure to Christian thought is some real fundamentalist elements.
I'm always surprised how few apologists have ever heard of the account of St. Perpetua. I strongly recommend reading it -- it reminds me of nothing more than a woman who has been brainwashed by a cult, and who chooses her death despite the anguish of her father and entire family.
I've read her story many times and the first time was abouit 1980. I had been a Christian one year. Of corse I'm a histgorian so I'm going to know more history than most people,
Weather or not Pertetua was brainwashed is irrelevant to the point that she was persecuted,
I have followed the discussions surrounding Moss for a long time. I thought she was pointing out what I had known for years, that persecution of Christians was sporadic and not systematic or empire-wide. Golly gee, tell me something I didn't know already. Calling Perpetua (whom I heard of when I was 13) brainwashed is silly. She really does believe what she does, and given what she believes, she considers it her duty not to recant. If it really is true that God is the creator of the world and Jesus is our redeemer, is it really "brainwashed" to refuse to recant this belief even if one's family would rather we not do so? Would you recant your atheism if a Christian political leader were to demand that you do so? (You probably would, since you wouldn't be betraying anyone).
Perpetua is a cultist.
If you read the story of Perpetua only she belonged to a different cult (one led by David Koresh, or Jim Jones, etc.), a story in which she abandoned her child and shunned her father and preferred to have him beaten, you would recognize this.
Or do you think that those people who died in the fire in Waco performed their duty admirably, and their families should be proud of how they died? Did those who died in Jamestown perform their duty?
There are things worth fighting, and dying, for. None of them are imaginary.
"There are things worth fighting, and dying, for. None of them are imaginary."
And you are absolutely correct. So the One Thing in the world most worthy of dying for is the Author of Life and Truth Himself. The great "I Am Who Am" (i.e., being itself), the very opposite of "imaginary".
So you see, it is possible for us to agree on something!
I use Orwell's great article, "Politics and the English Language" to show Banonnon's fascism
Banonnon's Politics and The English Language
If you read the story of Perpetua only she belonged to a different cult (one led by David Koresh, or Jim Jones, etc.), a story in which she abandoned her child and shunned her father and preferred to have him beaten, you would recognize this.
she didn't have her father beaten, The people Koresh's cult did not have the chance to back out. She could have and she didn't. There is also the story of Domitillia and lot others.where is it said she had her father beaten? is that blaming the victim?
Or do you think that those people who died in the fire in Waco performed their duty admirably, and their families should be proud of how they died? Did those who died in Jamestown perform their duty?
the difference is they were in social stricture that was seabed. The law enforcement was totally wrong in the way they handled it because all the fear critics and sound and stuff tetchy were actually brain washed by the feds to stay,
all you are really saying is "if bad things happen to Christians it justifies my view that hteye are wrong,"
There are things worth fighting, and dying, for. None of them are imaginary.
God is not imaginary your childish insistence that he is, is nothing more than clutching at straws. it's equivocalness putting your fingers in your ears and going "I wont listenIwontlisteIwont loisten" you are just trying ot bully us into giving in
Scientific Evidence of Miracles
Well, all you fans of Dangerous Idea, you've got only one more day to rip into me. Ash Wednesday is the day after tomorrow, and as in every year, I go on a 40-day internet "fast" during Lent (with the sadly unavoidable exceptions of e-mail, my bank account, and the weather forecasts). So after tomorrow, no more comments from me until Easter Sunday (and I won't be reading yours).
I will be doing quite a bit of writing, however. Just not online. I've been working on and off for some weeks now on a book (my 5th) with a working title of Reflections on the Doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity (I did say it was a working title!), which I am purposefully writing longhand in a notebook.
It's amazing how much the technology we use affects our thought processes. I find myself thinking far more clearly when I step away from the computer screen, walk down to the nearest coffee shop (NOT Starbucks!), and set pen to paper. I hope to knock out one to two pages per day for the 40 days of Lent, and break the back of what I envision for this particular endeavor.
"Well, all you fans of Dangerous Idea, you've got only one more day to rip into me."
Okay Mr. Prokop,
As a bother who also practices Lent (Anglicans don't tell others what they are giving up), if I may give a short rip before Ash Wednesday...
Why is the United States so antagonistic toward Russia? I understand Putin is running a gangster type State (so are a lot of our so called friends), but what does that have to do with us? They are not our economic competitors, or our religious competitors (since the end of communism), our even (since the end of the Cold War) our military competitors. So why the animosity?
This paper was originally written as an answer to APhil Zuckerman;s arguments about Sweden as an exemplary society without God, but it serves a larger purpose in offering an important lesson that the Evangelicals need to learn right away,
this is directly relevant because i;'ts abouit a stupid thing the Christians in Sweden did involving politics and social issues, that set their society on the secular path,
Hstory social welfare statein Sweden
atonement and Solidarity and the basis for social justice
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