Jesus.
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” Ethiopia officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century (around 330–341 AD) under King Ezana of the Kingdom of Aksum, making it one of the oldest Christian nations in the world.The Conversion ProcessEarly Introduction: Biblical tradition notes the conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch by Philip the Evangelist in the 1st century, but this did not establish a national church.Frumentius: A shipwrecked Syrian youth named Frumentius was taken to the royal court at Aksum and gained the trust of the royal family.Appointment as Bishop: Frumentius traveled to Alexandria and was consecrated as the first bishop of Aksum by Pope Athanasius of Alexandria.State Religion: Upon his return, Frumentius baptized King Ezana, who then declared Christianity the official state religion.”
How can US MacChristianity know anything of Christianity and its history?
I can imagine slick US Jesus jazzers with designer trainers, MAGA caps and backpacks going there and telling him “You need faith in Jesus! We can help.” And handing out the Trump Bible. 😀
Slaughter: Why Do God and Guns Often Go Together in U.S. History? – CSGS | Center for the Study of Guns & Society https://share.google/pE53cP6rMqEhXbkq0
Wonder if they were told to choose between their Bibles or their guns, we would see massive garbage collections of Bibles.
The USA was founded on genocide, and the Bible was its constant companion.
Religio: Religion. The Roman word meant rituals (performance of rites) cementing social cohesion. It served the same purpose as Shintō in Japan, Confucianism in China and Hinduism in India.
Christianity was not called a religion, but a superstition.
Ciudanado – the virgin birth, the god dying and resurrecting, these were typical not only of ancient Egypt and of Horus and Osiris, but of all the mystery cults of the Empire and beyond, and early Christians, like everyone else, would have known them well. The closest was the Mithraic cult. The god is the sun, who dies and is buried and after a few days rises anew. The 12 are the sun’s rays, symbolised by Samson’s (the sun’s)
plaits of hair. All is tied in with the Saturnalia and the legends were universal.The Gospel writers indeed would have copied these legends and Christianised them, just as Christians would also Christianise the life of the Buddha and manufacture Christian saints who never existed but are still venerated Catholic saints.
But the Gospels were late, probably much later than credited. Christianities predated them, as did Paul’s epistles.” Judaism and Christianity did not originate in Africa; instead, both faiths developed in the Levant region of the Near East (the historic lands of Israel, Judah, and Judea). While Africa holds a deep and ancient place in biblical history and early church development—hosting thriving communities in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia by the 1st and 4th centuries—the foundational roots of both religions are firmly Middle Eastern.Geographic OriginsJudaism: Emerged in the southern Levant (Canaan/Israel/Judea) over 3,000 years ago as the indigenous faith of the Israelite people.Christianity: Started in 1st-century Judea and Galilee as an offshoot of Second Temple Judaism centered around the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.The Levantine Context: Original figures, patriarchs, prophets, and disciples were native to the Western Fertile Crescent and Near East, not the African continent.Early Presence in AfricaEgypt and North Africa: Christianity and Jewish diaspora communities arrived in North Africa very early (1st century AD), establishing major theological centers in Alexandria and Carthage.The Kingdom of Aksum: Located in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, Aksum officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century under King Ezana, making it one of the earliest Christian states globally.Distinction: Establishing deep, early roots and vital historical centers on the African continent is historically distinct from the original geographic genesis of the religions.”
Engels wrong too:
” In The Myth of Persecution, historian and theologian Candida Moss argues that the traditional Neronian persecution of Christians in AD 64 is largely a second-century anachronistic projection.Problems with the Nero Persecution MythTerminology mismatch: The specific label “Christian” was not widely used or recognized as a distinct religious identity during Nero’s reign (he died in AD 68), as believers in Rome were still largely viewed as a part of Judaism.Late sources: The famous account of Nero blaming Christians for the Great Fire of Rome comes from the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote and published his work (Annals) around the end of the first or early second century—decades after the event.Projected hostility: Moss contends that Tacitus and later writers projected the anti-Christian sentiments and legal tensions of their own contemporary second-century world back onto the reign of Nero.Implications for the Date of RevelationChallenging late-first-century context: Because the systemic scapegoating and targeting of an independent group called “Christians” under Nero does not hold up to strict historical scrutiny, arguments that tie early apocalyptic literature (like the Book of Revelation) directly to a mid-60s Neronian terror require re-evaluation.Shifting timelines: Moss’s broader thesis questions the existence of a sustained, empire-wide “Age of Martyrs” in the first three centuries, pushing the historical crystallization of intense, targeted Christian persecution and its corresponding literature further into later periods of the Roman Empire.”
” Karl Kautsky characterized the Roman proletariat as a non-productive, parasitic class that lived off state-provided grain and public charity rather than a revolutionary, wage-earning workforce. Key aspects of his analysis include:Economic and Social NatureParasitic existence: Unlike the modern industrial working class that drives production, the free citizens of Rome survived on state largesse, slave-labor spoils, and provincial plunder.Political reliance: They used their democratic voting power in the capital to extract luxury goods and enjoyment shares from the ruling state rather than transforming the mode of production.Relation to Slavery and ChristianityIsolation from slaves: Kautsky noted that a true revolutionary overthrow of ancient slavery failed because the Roman proletariat never united with enslaved laborers; instead, they sat above slaves in the social hierarchy as propertyless free citizens.Roots of early religion: In works like Foundations of Christianity, he argued that early Christian movements reflected the broader plebeian and downtrodden mix of both this urban proletariat and exploited slaves.”
Celsus, Porphyry and Julian: writings against the Christians.
Not been following this thread as I thought that the question had been resolved ages ago — “Jesus” was not a historical person but either an idea or ideal or an amalgam of dozens of freaks calling themselves Jesus and the Jewish Messiah and proclaiming that “the end of the world is nigh”. And that it was Paul who was the historical figure who thought up Christianity.
But a newsletter from the South West London Humanists just landed in my intray. Which contains the following which might be of interest to those who are following this thread:
“ The New Testament: Jewish or Gentile?
For anyone interested in these things, this piece by Ann Conway-Jones, The New Testament: Jewish or Gentile? is worth reading: “A recent phenomenon in New Testament research is the involvement of Jewish scholars. They perform the vital task of correcting Christian misunderstandings, distortions, stereotypes, and calumnies, with the aim of recovering the various Jewish contexts of Jesus, Paul, and the early Christian movement”. It seems a lot of people forget that Jesus was Jewish, and so was St.Paul, even after his famous vision on the road to Damascus. As well as thinking that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, Paul was convinced that it all meant that the End Time was imminent. He even said in one of his letters – the earliest texts in what much later became the New Testament – that he expected to live to see it. The Jesus Movement was just a strand in what’s known as ‘2nd Temple Judaism’ – all part of a creative process at a time when just about everyone believed in the supernatural.”Link to the book here:
Thanks, but don’t you know I said Engels was mistaken about the date of the Book of Revelation, which makes me a Bernsteinian revisionist?
Actually, to be honest, I think you have more in common with Bruno Bauer who was among the first to argue that Jesus wasn’t a historical person and was one of the group Marx and Engels fell out with and polemicised against in The Holy Family.
Marx argued that the criticism of religion should lead on to the criticism of the conditions that gave rise to religion. Bauer didn’t get beyond criticising religion.
On this forum we are restricted to threads and can’t expand beyond the immediate topic.
Ciudanado, whom I like, seems to take umbrage even when agreed with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed
This book has placed the last nail to bury the complete Bible. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are based on mythologies. It is all based on lies, mythologies, and legends taken from the Babylonians, Sumerians, Persians and Egyptians; there is no evidence of any of those events. Every religion has been born attached to a mode of production, and the Bible is a product of a slave society.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/keracher/1929/how-gods-made.htm.
The book the bible unearthed is based on archaeology and palaeontology; they did not find any evidence that any of the personalities of the bible ever existed. The only one that existed was Paul, and he was not a Hebrew; he was Syrian, and he never met Jesus,s and some innovators want to deny his existence, which is totally false.
He is just a liar because Jesus and his apostles never existed, Jesus’ mother never existed, the annunciation never took place, there was no Messiah, they never went to Egypt, if they went to Egypt there were black Africans, the Hebrews were never in bondage in Egypt, and they did not build the pyramids.
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Paradise did not exist; the Exodus never took place; Moses never existed, and he did not write the Torah; original sin did not take place; therefore, everything about the Messiah falls apart. The Hebrews lived in Canaan, and the original Hebrews were black Africans; the ones living in Israel are white Europeans.God did not promise any land to the Hebrews; Sinai was located in Africa. The whole thing about Jesus is just African mythology. The white Europeans were not going to accept a black African god either, and they have always tried to undermine the contributions of the African peoples to world history.
I prefer the historical analysis made by Engels, Marx and Kautsky based on the materialist conception of history, and religion still exists because the original condition that motivated them to exist in human history is still prevalent. All religions had a materialistic origin; I do not care about dates or small details
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