Alea iacta est

In the Beginning, Man Created God, Part X

Previously on "YHWH's Excellent Adventure"

Part 1: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In which we learn that YHWH wasn't the first god to want to be alone.

Part 2: YHWH rules, Chemosh drools! In which we learn most of Biblical history was pulled out of King Josiah's backside.

Part 3: By the Rivers of Babylon. In which the Hebrews crib most of their afterlife from the Persians.

Part 4: Alex the Kid in Hellenic World. In which Alexander the Great conquers the known world and everyone learns to love, Greek-style.

Interlude: Danny Boy, the Lions, the Lions are calling. In which Daniel becomes a Prophet despite not knowing the first things about his own surroundings.

Part 5: I ♥ MACCABEES. In which the flame of cosmopolitan Hellenism is snuffed out by religious fundamentalists.

Part 6: Quacks, Kooks and Loons of the Roman Empire. In which we see that the early Roman Empire was a utopia for two bit religious frauds and crazy cults.

Part 7: Would the real Messiah Please Stand Up? - In which we began to example just how much we really know about Jesus.

Part 8: The Greatest Story Ever Made Up - In which we see as the four gospels progressively transform Jesus from Jewish messiah and adopted son of god into the ever-co-eternal Logos and saviour of mankind

Up next...

Part 9: Speaking in Tongues

Jesus is dead. The dream that he is the Jewish Messiah, destined to free Judea from the Romans, dies with him. The long awaited miracle of the Mount of Olives does not occur. What will his loyal followers do now?

Well, according to the Bible and most Christians, they, dedicated to a fault, never give up hope, are rewarded with visits from the resurrected Christ, experience the power of the Holy Spirit, then go about setting up the world-wide religion Jesus always intended they would, casting aside the outdated Levite laws to embrace Gentiles on their own terms. They were able to do that, of course, due to awesome experience of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit appears after spending most of eternity fairly quiet, pops some flames over peoples head, and miraculously makes them fluent in every language you can think of.

Above: Power....unlimited......POWAH!

Well, maybe. But probably not. As we've already seen, our information on very early Christian history is limited, and much has been embellished by later writers. There are lots of theories on how it was in the early days, including some detailing how a guilt-ridden Simon Peter hallucinated Jesus and then convinced others that they too had seen the risen Jesus, but there is one thing for certain about early Christianity.

It was a classic millenialist cult. Early Christians fully believed that there was going to be a second coming of Jesus that would precede the end of all things, and that second coming was supposed to occur before the last of Jesus' apostles succumbed to death. Even being generous, and taking John, allegedly a teenager at Jesus' death, as the youngest disciple, that would still mean that the second coming would be not far off 100 AD.

Most of the early Christian writings and beliefs make no sense without this context. This is the reason the Bible has Jesus saying "Behold, I come quickly!". This is the reason that that Anti-Christ is associated with Emperor Nero, this is the reason Paul tells Christians not to marry and stay celibate. There is no time for romance or any of that nonsense - the end is nigh!

Unfortunately, as we now know, that wasn't exactly true, and when the years rolled by and Jesus still failed to show up, it was explained away with the "well 1,000 of our years are like one to Jesus" dodge. Luckily, unlike many other religious sects (I'm looking at you, Jehovah's Witnesses), the lack of an armageddon didn't seem to fatally wound early Christianity.

There's a tendency for many to make up wild claims about the early church, and non-Christians are just as guilty about this as the most fundamentalist of Bible-bashers. A particularly piss-poor place to start would be Dan "I plagarise pseudo-history" Brown and his piece of dreck called "The Da Vinci Code". You may think it impossible to come out dumber after reading a book, but Brown certainly proves it with his poorly-written piece of crap. Particularly hilarious is Dan's belief that gnosticism was suppressed because it portrayed Jesus as "completely human". Dan, you fuckwit, Gnostics generally despised the physical world as a place of evil. The Gnostic Jesus would be even less physical than the one we have.

Above: Never before have so many people been suckered into buying what amounts to a gift-wrapped turd. Among other nonsense, there's the guff about the "sacred feminine", which I can only conclude was included solely for onanistic enjoyment.

The truth is that early Christianity was mostly a Jewish reform movement. It was centered in Jerusalem, headed by James the Just, a blood relative of Jesus, celebrated all the Jewish feasts, obeyed the Levite laws, including those that were dietary, and insisted on circumcision for its male adherents. The first inklings that things would change was when Paul of Tarsus, a new convert to Christianity, began to embark on his self-appointed mission to convert the gentiles. (Which did not seem to be high on the Jerusalem church's agenda). Despite receiving a few concessions, Paul's influence in the religious movement remained low for quite some time, but a series of events would serve to marginalize the Jewish centre of the church to such an extent that Paul's heretical gentile offshoot would soon be left to flourish alone.

First, in 70 AD, the Jewish people of Iudea province rose up in revolt. A Roman army under the future Emperor Vespasian came to put down the revolt and, after a few temporary victories, the Jewish rebels were completely crushed. Vespasian returned to Rome to become Emperor, and his son-in-law Titus finished were he had left off, laying siege to Jerusalem, and destroying the Second Temple. Probably about one million Jews died during the war - an astonishing amount given the period - and 97,000 were sold into captivity.

Another Jewish rebellion, the Kitos War, followed sixty years later, and in 135 AD the Jews rose up for a third time under Simon Bar Kochba, whom the Jewish leadership proclaimed the "Messiah". This time they were more successful, and, for two and a half years, Bar Kochba ruled the first independent Jewish state for centuries as "Nasi" (Prince).

But, once again, history was just playing games with the Jewish people, taunting them like a boy dangling a sausage above a dog's head, just out of reach. Emperor Hadrian sent his legions to quell this new revolt. Hundreds of thousands of more Jews died and Hadrian, convinced that Judaism was the problem, set about finding a solution. Torah law was prohibited, along with the Hebrew calendar. Jewish scribes were executed - and the scrolls of Jewish knowledge and history ceremonially burned on the Temple Mount. A new, pagan temple was built there, Jerusalem was renamed "Aelia Capitolina", where Jews would be forbidden to set foot, and finally, in a final insult, Hadrian decreed that "Judea" was to be renamed after the ancient foes of the Jews, the Philistines - hence, "Palestine", a name that the area would keep until 1948.

Above: Uncircumcised pork eaters? Not in my church, Paul!

James the Just, among virtually every other Jewish leader of the Christian church, died in the series of Jewish revolts. The stage was now set for Paul's church to succeed where they had failed. It is important to remember that this era is the one in which most of the New Testament was written - so it is not difficult to see why Christians believed that the end of all things were coming.

Truly, however, things were just beginning...

Coming up:

Part 10: I, Constantine

Posted by Quentin George at September 10, 2008 10:16 PM