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Loading...Most of us have never reflected on how awful, difficult, and heart-breaking it must have been for many, many people in the Roman world see their cherished and meaningful religions destroyed in front of their eyes by the ongoing triumph of Christianity. But it’s worth thinking about. Here is how I discuss it in the final part of the Introduction to my book The Triumph of Christianity (Simon & Schuster, 2018).
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Nowhere in modern times have the losses occasioned by clashes of religions and cultures crystalized more dramatically than in the city of Palmyra, Syria, where, in 2015, representatives of ISIS captured the city, executed a number of its inhabitants, destroyed archaeological remains, and ravaged its antiquities, torturing and beheading their chief conservator. Nothing of equal savagery has ever affected the site. But this is not the first time Palmyra endured an assault by religious fanatics who found its sacred temples and the holy objects they contained objectionable. For that we need to turn the clock back seventeen hundred years.
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Dr Ehrman: I’m sure you are aware of the painful sense of loss felt by those like myself (raised in both evangelical and mainstream churches) who can no longer believe. The essence of Christianity will always resonate within me, especially at Christmas and Easter. I still rejoice at the sound of children singing carols and the majesty of choral evensong at an Anglican cathedral. I find myself saying the prayer “Lord I believe; help Thou mine unbelief”. I cannot criticize the simple faith of friends who are devout Christians (my father was a minister until he retired and never lost his faith); at times I envy them. But my agnosticism is unshaken–and I don’t blame you, though you did put a big final puncture in the balloon!
I need to re-read the Triumph of Christianity. I’m most interested in the feelings, i.e. angst, actions of rebellion, etc. of those who worshiped other gods but were then told they could no longer.
Reminds me of the Spanish monks who traveled with Cortez to the ancient Aztecs and told the Aztec priests that they needed to tell their people they now had to worship another god. Did not go over well. My reference is Charles Mann’s 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.
In some sense I relate to the grief of having my religious system invaded and my gods destroyed. In my case, the armies of evidence and truth marched through the solid walls of faith and “the agony of that era’s destruction was even more profound, since these temples and statues were (are) still then part of a living, vibrant culture. The very core of (my) people’s personal and spiritual lives was under assault, mocked, mutilated, and destroyed before (my) their very eyes. The books, art and music which soothed and comforted me for a lifetime are left in ruins. I miss the misguided glory days sometimes.
I have an off-topic question. Why do you think Pilate and his soldiers went to Jerusalem for the Passover feast? If it was to prevent any unrest, then what type of unrest were they trying to prevent? Thanks in advance for your answers.
YEs, we have good informatoin about the situation from Josephus. Since the Passover feast commemorated God’s act of savlation where he brought Israel out from their domination by a foreign power, Romans knew that it may well be a time of disruption as Jews thought of it not only as a past event but a possibly future one. The Roman governor and soldiers came to make sure there were no incendiary events during the festival. Josephus recounts several instances where riots did break out at the festival over the decades, leading to many deaths.
So, Pilate feared an Israeli uprising that might attempt to free Israel from Roman rule the way the exodus allegedly freed the Israelis from Egyptian rule. Do you think that is why the Romans were crucifying would-be messiah’s (i.e. any would be messiah creating a revolt thereby forcing the Roman army to come in and demolishing the place)? Do you think that is one reason why Pilate crucified Jesus? Do you think the emperor expected Pilate to prevent such a revolt so that he would not have to send the Roman army into Judea? Because, if that is the case, then it makes sense that Pilate crucified any would-be messiahs to show the emperor he could keep order throughout Judea by preventing any attempt at Israeli independence. Thanks in advance for your answers.
Yes, the “messiah” was the Jewish version of most any other provincial “future king” who would destroy the Roman enemies.
That was my understanding, thanks for confirming it. So, do you think that the Jerusalem authorities, both Roman and Israeli, were keeping tabs, monitoring and interrogating various religious groups to ensure that no such revolt by a messianic group would take place? Thanks again for your answers.
No, not really. But they probably noticed if there were any public events of suspicion.
Why wouldn’t they be monitoring those groups since so much is at stake? A rebellion or insurrection would result in the Roman army destroying Israel.
I think it’s hard to remember just how difficult “monitoring” would have been in antiquity.
Yeah, monitoring would involve periodically rounding up people and interrogating them as to what their organizations are up to. Sometimes that would involve arresting people, putting them in chains, and taking them away and even sometimes imprisoning them. Maybe in extreme cases, if somebody is a threat, stone them to death. It would also involve the authorities sending in spies: people claiming to be Essenes, Christians, Zealots, etc. to see what is going on in those organizations and identifying people who could be potential insurrectionists. The spies then contact Israeli or Roman authorities who then have those potential insurrectionists arrested and maybe even crucified.
The leaders in those movements, Essene leaders, Christian leaders, Zealot leaders, would agree with Roman and Israeli authorities that the destruction of Israel by Rome’s army is such a threat that they would agree to send any troublemakers within their own organizations to those authorities. To Essenes, Christians, Zealots, etc., this kind of “monitoring” could be thought of or remembered as “persecution”. Don’t you think it’s possible that the so-called persecution outlined in the book of Acts wasn’t really a persecution but the type of hard monitoring you pointed out?
I don’t know of any records of anything like this kind of monitoring, or anything analogous to it in the empire. When the authorities found out about the Dionysiacs in Rome, according to Livy, it was definitely not through monitoring of potentially dangerous groups.
As you know, throughout history, various types of monitoring were performed in communist countries, for example. People being roughed up, infiltrated, and so on. The kind of monitoring that I was suggesting is more from the Temple authorities in Jerusalem than from the Romans so much. Nowhere else in the Roman empire, that I know of, had the looming threat of the Roman army coming in and decimating the place. If that kind of monitoring wasn’t going on, then that makes what `persecution’ the Jerusalem church underwent much more mysterious. If the authorities weren’t worried about an insurrection from the Jerusalem church, then why the mistreatment? For me, I’m just trying to make sense of whatever mistreatment the Jerusalem church endured. For example, I don’t understand why Stephen was stoned, Peter jailed, Paul putting people in chains, Paul himself being mistreated once he joined the Jesus movement, etc.
We didn’t drop The Bomb on Kyoto because of all the “pagan” temples and shrines; so I suppose we’ve made some progress. It’s too bad the human temples in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be vaporized though.
Hello Dr. Ehrman,
Forgive me for asking about a topic unrelated with this article, but i had stumbled upon something new and so far i haven’t found any info elsewher about what i’m looking for.
I ‘ve met a person that in a recent discussion about Genesis chapter 2 and 3 told me that he claims that during conversation between Eve and Serpent Eve lies to serpent.
He’s explanation goes as follows: In 3,3 Eve says that God told Her and Adam: “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden” – and the person i spoke to claims that that is a lie because the tree od knowledge was not in the middle of the garden. In Genesis 2,9 only the tree of life is mentioned to be in the midle of it.
Where in Your opinion was the tree of knowledge situated and do You think that Eve lied to serpent?
Have a nice day and thank You for Your work!
I think it’s important to distinguish between a “lie” and an “untruth” and an “unknown feature.” Someone lies when they know, or even just think, that what they are saying is false, but say it anyway; an untruth is when something spoken simply is not correct, whether the speaker knows it or not; an unknown feature is when someone says something that may or may not be established as true by someone hearing what they say (it may be true, or may not) and in that case it is not necessarily an untruth (they may be right about what they’re saying) let alone a lie. I don’t think there’s is antghing to suggest Eve is “lying” here. But the best way to evaluate a claim like this is just to read the text itself carefully and decide based on what you read. In this case, look at the entire sentence of 2:9 (including its ending) to decide what you think.
The Gospel of John is causing me to lose my religion since my religion didn’t seem to mind canonizing the gospel of John despite the differences with the synoptic gospels.
1. The resurrection of Lazarus is missing in the synoptic gospels.
2. The woman caught in adultery is in the gospel of John but not in the synoptics, but you, Bart, said it wasn’t original to the gospel.
3. Before the last supper, Jesus insists this bread is his flesh which he will give for the life of the world. (Jn 6:51). The Synoptics does not show Jesus teaching about his flesh is bread before the Last Supper.
4. Before Abraham, I AM (jn 8:58) and I had glory with God before the world existed (Jn 17:5)
5. The Synoptics are happy during the first parts of the gospel: tell John the blind see the lame walk but Gospel of John shows early Jesus is the sacrificial lamb that takes away sins.
6. You must be born again before you see the kingdom vs You will see the kingdom coming on clouds.
What good scholarly books have you found on the differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels?
I give a fairly long disacussion of it in my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction. I would say, though, that a religion that requires every book of the Bible say exactly the sme as every other book, or even to agree on every point, is more like a kind of fundamentalism than like historical Christianity.
Hi, Dr. Ehrman. I hope your blog dinner went well a few weeks ago! I just had a question about the Jews and monolatry, as I have heard from various people that the Jews originally practiced monolatry, and then when it comes to the book of Isaiah, they have evolved into monotheists. However, how are we able to be sure that passages like Exodus 12:12 and Exodus 15:11, etc. aren’t referring to gods that others have sinfully (according to the writers of the Old Testament) succumbed to worshipping but that the writers still think are fake (i.e., a monotheistic view) as opposed to them actually believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one?
I suppose you just have to read the passages closely in their context to see if they appear to be presupposing the existence of other gods or not. When the Ten Commandments orders Israelites not to “have other gods before me,” it does seem to me that it presupposes other gods exist, but are not to be worshiped ahead of God.
I have always felt that we lose an important part of our heritage when we dismiss ancient works of art whether physical, philosophical or literary as ‘pagan’. The ancient world fascinates many people and just because it wasn’t ‘christian’ doesn’t mean it has no value for us. Even the ancient Greeks had a rule of welcoming the stranger and showing the stranger hospitality. This is pretty close to the christian teaching of ‘loving your neighbour’ with neighbour being another term for stranger. Pagan is no worse or better than Christian, just different.
Yes, when historians use the word “pagan” it is as a descriptive term only, with nothing derogative about it.
ICONOCLAST
in high school I was attracted to that word & thought I would be doing that all for the glory of God! Thy Kingdom Come thy will be done!
During the last year of my undergrad, the cult college group I joined in my 1st year imploded. I was glad that I wasn’t part of that as those fellow students, truly believed in doing that they were doing God’s Will on earth as they had to succinctly follow the direction of the leadership.
Well for the next 30 years, I further deepened my relationship with this religion developed by Europeans & N Americans. Despite my relocating majorly to China. Where I lived the super modernization & social transformation of San Francisco’s sister Municipality Shanghai [under direction of that local government & police before 2010 World Expo].
My Uncle pointed me to Dr Ehrman & Dr Levine. As I was totally cleaving onto God so I wouldn’t screw up my walk! Last decade, for my biblical education except from one retired firefighter, I sought scholarly academics.
Thank you, Dr Ehrman & now rather than thinking Pagans evil, I think otherwise!
Hi Bart. Do you think the Sadducees collaborated with the Roman authorities?
They served as the city council and so were the liaison wiht the Romans, but principally, apparently, through the head of the council, the High Priest. And they do appear to have favored appeasing the Roman authorities in exchange for being allowed to continue with their distinctive worship practices in the temple, which appears to have been their principal religious concern. So if that’s considered “collaborating” then I suppose my view is yes.