Perhaps read some first century history?

Many Christians (including me, for years) live in a fantasy world where the Jews of Jesus day engaged in polite Pharisee vs. Sadducee squabbles, the Romans kept a bemused and wary eye on things, and Jesus appeared out of the blue as a peaceful wandering sage who said and did Son of God things that finally irritated the Jewish authorities past the breaking point.

NOTHING could be FURTHER from the truth. The 100 years before Jesus and the 100 years after were violent, bloody and out-of-control almost beyond belief. Jews vs. Jews, Jews vs. Romans, Jewish-leaning Romans vs. anti-Roman fanatics, knife-wielding Jewish terrorists that terrorized the populace, pseudo-Messiahs and wonder-workers all over the place, the Chief Priesthood for sale to the highest bidder, yada yada. There is no mystery about it. It’s all well-documented.

I’m not saying it should change or harm anyone’s faith, but a knowledge of this period would be a major eye-opener for anyone living in the fantasy world described above. It likely would change your perspective (and not necessarily for the worse) on what the gospel accounts are all about. (The Romans didn’t just “destroy the Temple” - they turned Jerusalem into a wasteland.) I’ve never understood why so many believers actually seem to prefer willful fantasies.

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I agree. And study the post New Testament early church.

Fire away.

What source material are you referencing?

Christianity : The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch

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I’m intrigued by the title, given the two-thousand-year history of Christianity. :wink:

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Exactly what I thought when I had to read it for a class.

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Cost me a grand total of $12, including shipping to check it out (for a hardcover, of course!) Used books are the best kind. (imagine the alternative)

Order Total: $9.69

$0.75
$1.49
$0.05
$0.00
$11.98

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I rarely buy new books. Especially academic books that are outrageous in price.

I never find it productive to make reading suggestions - and would be accused of bias even if I did. The 100 years before and after Jesus are well-documented by vast quantities of serious secular scholarship. None of it is any secret except to those who are willfully ignorant and fear it might change their perspective on the Bible and even Jesus. Although scholars are not by any means in agreement on exactly who or what the “historical Jesus” was, they are in agreement that there is huge chasm between the historical Jesus and the “Christ of faith” and that the historical Jesus is best understood in the context of the 50 or 100 years before and after his ministry.

It seemed to me to be rather the point of your thread—

Surely you have some suggestions.

I haven’t read it, but in skimming the table of contents it doesn’t seem to focus in depth on Jesus’ milieu. What I have gained the most from are serious secular scholars who focus specifically on the state of Judaism and Jewish-Roman relations in the period I’m talking about. I am going to order it, however. Even good old Josephus wrote his first major work, The Jewish War, in 75 AD, before any of the gospels except possibly Mark, while The Antiquities of the Jews was written in 94, roughly contemporanously with the Gospel of John and Revelation.

No, not the point of my thread at all. The point of the thread is that most Christians “need to get out more” but rather curiously resist doing so.

Yawn. It’s like suggesting that “if you are going to fly, you should read up on aeronautical engineering.” Most folks would think it rather unnecessary.

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You seem to be working hard to miss the point. “You might want to read up on the principles of flight” would be appropriate advice to someone who insists jumping off a cliff with homemade bird wings is a good idea. The Christians I’m addressing are those living in the fantasy world of the NT as accurate history.

Here is the sort of thing I’m talking about FOR ME: For the Freedom of Zion: The Great Revolt of Jews against Romans, 66–74 CE: Rogers, Guy MacLean: 9780300248135: Amazon.com: Books.

Yale University Press, 744 pages, published 2022. The folks to which my post was addressed might be better advised to start with Wikipedia and branch out from there.

@MrE’s example totally applies to this situation. It’s called ‘hyperbole.’ A hyperbole is “a statement or claim not to be taken literally.” @Bingo, I think you took his words literally lol.

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:wink: Thanks for trying to help.

“The point” that apparently flew past @Bingo is- that you don’t need to understand aeronautical engineering, nor the history of flight in order to fly. You just need a ticket to ride.

So too with Christianity.

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Maybe if you understood the ‘Jews’ of Jerusalem were and still are pagans of the synagogue of Satan things would suddenly become clear.

I’ll give you a fact you are ignorant of: The Ark of the Covenant had been missing for 619 years by the time Jesus years confronted the High Priests.
They knew that as the son of GOD he knew that the ark wasn’t in the Holy of Holies and could not be sprinkled with blood each Passover to erase the previous years sins.
They knw that that knowledge must be kept from the public or they would riot and probably kill the priests. So Jesus had to be gotten out of the way.
By today the Jews have accummulated 2610 years of sins…and they increase that total each time the deny Jesus is the Son of GOD.

Please post where your “facts” are obtained.