[nataliste]

That's true of zealots, but growing the religion anywhere where literate people are will become exceptionally difficult if the myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I, with contemporary first-party proofs untouched by time. Sure, there'll be dinosaurs-are-just-a-test-of-faith types, but the explanation of Christianity as a naturalistic emergence with the "mysteries" of the religion given banal and explicit answers would likely make the revolutions in Biblical criticism in the 19th century (e.g. linguistic analysis revealing multiple authors with narrow dates) look like child's play in comparison.

At any time in the last sixteen hundred years, if such evidence were uncovered, it would've been burned immediately and the monastic reading it likely consigned to perpetual silence, lest the word get out.

But the hegemony of Christianity in the West is over.

[telotortium]

What makes you think "myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I" is at all likely? I read a theory once that Jesus Christ was a reinterpretation of Julius Caesar that was adopted by Romans after the former imperial cult fell out of favor. That seems farfetched, but more likely than this - at least it provides a better explanation of why Romans cared about Christianity.

I'd love to have texts that spoke more about the origins of Christianity and Judaism, but it's far more likely that this trove will contain nothing of the sort - you could imagine a Roman aristocrat in Italy caring about this, but it doesn't seem especially likely.

[nataliste]

>What makes you think "myth of Jesus the Christ turns out to be, say, a cipher of the re-execution of Alexandros I, the son of Herod the Great and Mariamne I" is at all likely?

It's not just Nicholas of Damascus that would reveal such information. Gaius Asinius Pollio, a multifaceted Roman figure known for his connections with literary giants like Virgil and Horace as well as Augustus himself, mentored Alexander, the son of Herod the Great. The Roman world in the first century was wide.

Anyway, as to why I think it's possible, I think it's the most simple explanation as to how it emerged. According to what we have (i.e. Josephus) Alexander had the support of the public but was disliked by Herod's loyalists due to his opposing qualities and lineage from the Hasmonean dynasty.

Herod the Great, notorious for his brutal tactics, killed off male members of the Hasmonean dynasty and married the last Hasmonean princess to solidify his rule. He exhibited suspicion towards his wife Mariamne who was also killed eventually, along with their son Alexander.

I posit that Alexander was not actually executed, being a popular favorite and the son of the tyrant who might regret his decision and punish accordingly. Instead, he laid low until Herod's death, aiming to rightfully claim the throne, but was instead executed to maintain Roman rule over Judea with the consent of the Sanhedrin.

After the First Roman-Jewish War, continued supporters of Alexander coded secret histories into what became the apocryphal and synoptic gospels. Episodes like the massacre of the innocents coming from the Hasmonean male purge, "Jesus" being found in His Father's temple coming from Alexander visiting the building site of the Second Temple erected by his father, Herod. There are plenty of other episodes that seem to neatly correspond to and dispel underlying "mysteries" in the synoptic gospels for anyone actually looking for them.

The survival of works by Asinius Pollio or Nicholas of Damascus in particular in the Herculaneum library could confirm or refute this theory. Their writings, likely popular in aristocratic households due to Nicholas and Gaius Asinius Pollio's favor with the Julians, would very much be pertinent to a Roman aristocrat in 79AD.

But I don't need to prove it via circumstantial and inferential evidence--that's why I'm excited. We could actually uncover period documentation by the actual participants rather than the heresay of the following generations living under the shadow of Roman retribution.

[Amezarak]

I'm not sure why you think an explanation involving a vast empire-spanning conspiracy supported with widespread propaganda and centuries of silence and suppression even from its enemies is more likely than the usual naturalistic explanation "Jesus was a real figure who did the non-supernatural things ascribed to him."

People love these conspiracy theories about religions but they're definitely not the simple or logical explanations.

[nataliste]

What are you even on about?

I'm talking about widespread suppression of Jews, whether Christianized or not, that is documented before and in the aftermath of the first Jewish-Roman war, which occurred 68-74AD.

There's no empire-spanning conspiracy lasting centuries, but a continual massage of what came before to justify the current status quo, an extremely similar dynamic as what is recognized by biblical scholars when treating the Old Testament.

[Amezarak]

Christianized Jews and Jews generally were spread throughout and beyond the empire. The persecutions, even postwar, were terrible but relatively localized and there is no reason to believe it involved the mass redaction of all existing documents (not even possible!) and then-unwritten oral histories (which then everyone, antisemites, Christians, pagans, all alike decided to maintain silence about even though they would have been delighted to show their enemies up with this evidence) except that it makes people feel clever to think so.

Even more incredibly, plenty of heretical documents did survive! People were one hundred percent successful absolutely crushing any leaks of a vast conspiracy to “justify the status quo” (why do you even think it needed justifying?) even against powerful groups that would not have wanted to…but couldn’t stop eg the Gnostics.

Most scholars don’t think that about the Old Testament either, although I have been learning lately it is very much in vogue on certain corners of the Internet. But at least that is in some respects at certain times more plausible depending on the specific text and time period being talked about, if very early. The Christianity conspiracy theories really aren’t. There’s no evidence for them whatever and yours in particular boggles belief, and is really not remotely feasible. This is basically the zeitgeist nonsense with a different spin.

[nataliste]

I still have no idea what you're ranting on about, but it's clearly not related to anything I've said. Cheers.

[ted_bunny]

Can you suggest a good book on this topic?

[mensetmanusman]

Demographics refutes your last point.

“by Constantine's Christianity“ is also an interesting reference, although he was just a politician realizing half of the population had adopted a revolutionizing family structure.

[nataliste]

>Demographics refutes your last point.

By all means, please explain.

[mensetmanusman]

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/07/why-peopl....

[nataliste]

>These projections, which take into account demographic factors such as fertility, age composition and life expectancy, forecast that people with no religion will make up about 13% of the world’s population in 2060, down from roughly 16% as of 2015.

That's certainly a trend, but it's in relative terms, not absolute terms. The study also did not break the demographics down by religion, nor does it represent hegemony. They don't control the government or the educational institutions. Even further, the notion that religiosity in the West will be Christian is unproven.

Regardless, the kind of active suppression of contradictory evidence to religious narratives that was historically present from the early middle ages to the early modern period is no longer extant. The Church can put any discovered texts on a Novus Index Librorum Prohibitorum all they want, but that's not going to stop academia or the Internet from mining it.

Also, I can speak from personal experience with a traditionalist Catholic father, none of his many kids are Catholic. Having kids doesn't mean successfully keeping them religious.

[mensetmanusman]

The interesting thing about moving forward is we are entering the post truth era where technology can spoof and create an unlimited set of falsehoods.

Active information suppression in this era is mostly the work of governments and government aligned corporations.

Random question about the last point, did your upbringing involve nightly family prayer and thanksgiving? Or was the post war impact too great to maintain that tradition?

[lazyasciiart]

How does this theory reconcile the existence and growth of Scientology or Mormonism? Or hell, the recent rise of QAnon?

[nataliste]

As far as QAnon goes, this would be like discovering an unsecured laptop that actually belonged to the original Q and had something like IRC channel logs that they used when generating "what won't they believe" type ideas.

As for Scientology and Mormonism, they don't have explicitly historical and rational claims to truth like the Catholic Church and some sects of Judaism do. Ask a fervent Catholic or Orthodox Jew why they believe what they do and they'll say "Because it's true." As far as I know (I don't spend significant time with Mormons or Scientologists), they don't make this type of claim to be historically validated by peak reason.

[nyssos]

> As far as I know [Mormons] don't make this type of claim to be historically validated by peak reason.

Mormons absolutely believe that their religion is backed up by history: the book of Mormon is about and ostensibly by various descendants of Old Testament figures who migrated to the Americas, culminating in the burial of golden tablets with "Reformed Egyptian" writing in upstate New York. It's obviously fiction - but that doesn't seem to make much difference.

[lazyasciiart]

I know both fervent Catholics who do not feel the historical accuracy of the Bible is what makes their belief in God accurate, and Mormons who believe in the literal historical accuracy of their religion.