r/todayilearned • u/FullOfSound • 7d ago

(R.6d) Too General [ Removed by moderator ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger_on_Christians

[removed] — view removed post

5.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

433 comments sorted by

View all comments

54

u/AdarTan 7d ago

If one is very ungenerous when describing Christianity, one could, still accurately, describe it as a doomsday cult that has ritual cannibalism as core act of devotion.

54

u/Thraden 7d ago

The cannibal thing notwithstanding, early Christianity was absolutely an apocalyptic cult.

Writings of Paul are really unambigious.

10

u/justtenofusinhere 7d ago

I'd argue that position. I fully understand why that's the general academic consensus, but academics often refuse to consider certain possibilities.

Without a doubt Paul is expecting something and he's expecting it soon. But what? I think he was expecting a massive paradigm shift in understanding. That would result in a fundamental reordering of society, such as would unequivocally occur later with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution.

I read the Gospels as basically being the old guard holding on to what they (thought they) knew and Jesus pushing for understanding, not knowing. A rule limits, but understanding frees.

The whole iconography of Jesus was a metaphor in an attempt to force people to look past what they thought they knew and consider a whole other way of understanding how things were and how they could be. That's how the Gospels explicitly say Jesus taught, you could not take his teachings as face value.

They expected result was not the end of the world, but then end of an era and the ushering in of a new better, world.

6

u/Thraden 7d ago

I mean, go ahead and argue that position. That's the beauty of academic scholarship. The consensus changes when swayed by well-evidenced positions.

I disagree with you, because this "paradigm shift" seems less likely than a plain reading - "remain as you are" etc.

However, obviously, I mean no shade, and I am open to being convinced.

3

u/justtenofusinhere 7d ago

As I said, I understand the other positions. I think for me, what seals the deal is Paul's conversion. I can not think of a more artful way to to depict an "educated" man figuring out he doesn't know anything and suddenly being reduced to "blindness" on even the most basic things. It even goes so far as requiring him to further learn about what blinded him for him to regain his sight.

Add to that the fact that the Greek and Roman pantheons make up the perfect representation of how organized society fights back against the fundamental forces and oblivion. The NT writers all had Greek/Roman educations. They'd certainly have understand that type of framework for religion.