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If Rome had lost the Punic Wars, it likely would not have colonized the Levant. Not only would Christianity have spread differently, but the story of Christ wo

If Rome had lost the Punic Wars, it likely would not have colonized the Levant. Not only would Christianity have spread differently, but the story of Christ would also have been very different. For instance, there would have been no census to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, there would have been no Pontius Pilate. Crucifixion itself was a favored means of execution in the Roman Empire, and may not have been employed by whatever political entity that would have been dominant in Judea in its stead.

mongol 4y ago
Yes all circumstanced would be different. Impossible to tell how it would have played out. My opinion is that the historical Jesus would not have been born. Christians may think otherwise.
- gatlin 4y ago
  Non-christians and Christians alike seem to think the existence of multiple stories about a particular person written down after all first parties were dead means a historical Jesus is a certainty. I actually like Christianity and many of the teachings, but for some reason people will accept the worst evidence for this one specific claim.
  - vehemenz 4y ago
    What's the alternative? This is true of many historical facts we take for granted. The earliest accounts of Jesus were written only one generation after Jesus's death. Plenty of first-hand accounts were still available. There are many of corroborative accounts of Jesus and other historical accounts of this period. Christianity had spread to Greece in 50 AD, only 20 years after Jesus's supposed death. In an age where information moved so slowly, it's remarkable that Christianity had spread so quickly. It's fair to dispute the details of the canonical/apocryphal stories—surely those are contrived—but the idea of Jesus had to come from somewhere. No one else was interested in taking the credit, which should tell us something.
    - nitrogen 4y ago
      the idea of Jesus had to come from somewhere What present-day meme will reach a similar level of distribution and hazy origins? Will we see future generations speculating about the true nature of Harry Potter, or the Jedi, or Chuck Norris's superpowers, or the one true Nyancat?
      - moomin 4y ago
        I mean, we still have records of Josephus Flavius' (not a Christian and not associated with the early church) writings. He was writing something like 50 to 60 years after the date of Jesus death. However, it should be pointed out he mentioned something like 20 people all called Jesus (in Koine Greek), because it was at the time a relative common soubriquet. No early writers seem to doubt the existence of such a person although they definitely differ on the details. In short, it's highly unlikely Jesus is purely fictional, and there was almost certainly someone known as Jesus executed by Pontius Pilate. Is this going to make a difference to your beliefs in any direction? No.
        Jedd 4y ago
        > .. we still have records of Josephus Flavius .. Those writings are doing a lot of heavy lifting, since that's about all apologists can hold up as 'contemporary corroboration'. Antiquities was written in the last decade of the first century, so at the further end of your 50-60y range. As you note, the wording in the Jamesian reference is not very compelling in itself, and historicists generally argue that Josephus would have explained his terminology much more carefully than we see in that section, so there's some reason to doubt it was in the original. The longer section from that work that apologists refer to is clearly an interpolation. The style is completely wrong for both the author and the context. The previous pages are describing taxes, protests, massacres, etc and then there's this very brief and spectacularly flowery prose that attests to Jesus being the Christ, and to the ten thousand wonders he did, and then on the next page the author continues with 'And another terrible thing that happened to the Jews ...' -- which only makes sense once you remove the clearly forged / added page. At which point we're really short - a rounding error away from zero - on any corroborating stories from the 1st century.
  - wwtrv 4y ago
    We have very little first hand evidence about almost any historical figure every existing, for oldest surviving written source about the Second Punic war and Hannibal's invasion of Italy was written at least 50 years after it happened. The oldest surviving book about Alexander the Great was written several hundred's of years after his death.
  - qubex 4y ago
    Independently from being an atheist I’m very dubious about the historic validity of Jesus. Clearly all the supernatural aspects (virgin birth, miracles, & cetera) are to be eliminated as implausible, but even what remains doesn’t strike me as substantiated by historical veracity. Accounts are inconstant and do not gel well with certainties we have about the period (such as Roman censuses https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius).
- jtbayly 4y ago
  I'm a Christian, and in one sense, I agree. The Bible says in Galatians 4:4, that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son." Thus, when Jesus was born and what was going on was not happenstance. The point in history and the circumstances of when it happened (for example, the Romans being in power, and their use of crucifixion on wooden crosses) were foundational to Him accomplishing the work the Father sent Him to complete. He had to be raised up on a tree at His death in order to take the curse of the sin of His people upon Himself.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    I mean that's still all historical speculation and using a statement from the Bible as anything other than a statement of the obvious since the Christian mythos require a death and resurrection seems dubious. It's very possible that none of it happened. I mean it seems most likely that there was an individual named Jesus who preached as there were many like him in that period in that era, which can be verified by other historical sources and works. It doesn't seem unlikely that one eventually came to dominate and win the imaginations of people, especially of the poor and oppressed who needed something better was going to happen down the line just to keep going and bring a little happiness to them. Then you have the springboard for a full blow religion. Another way is to conquer vast swathes of land and force people to accept your religion and that seems to be the more tried and true method down through the ages by all of the current major religions.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Yep, he may have just gone off into obscurity and we would have been worshipping Mithra or Isis or Odin
  - tomrod 4y ago
    One of my favorite alt-history stories was if Constantine converted to Judaism. I'm not Jewish, I simply loved the consideration regarding how history might have evolved differently.
    - stjohnswarts 4y ago
      I'm not sure, the Romans bolted on a lot of their on philosophy & beliefs to Christianity so it might not be much different.
- twangist 4y ago
  You're assuming there's such a thing as "historical Jesus". There's basically no evidence.
Jedd 4y ago
> .. there would have been no census to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem .. Most historians agree there was no such census, certainly not one that required people return to their birthplace. There was a 6CE census (but it certainly would not have required everyone travel to their origin - that would have been as ridiculous then as it sounds now), plus the timing would put it at odds with Herod's death in 4BCE. In any case, it appears to be a literary device employed by the author of Luke to get the main character of the story to the prophecy-mandated location.

mongol 4y ago

Yes all circumstanced would be different. Impossible to tell how it would have played out. My opinion is that the historical Jesus would not have been born. Christians may think otherwise.

gatlin 4y ago
Non-christians and Christians alike seem to think the existence of multiple stories about a particular person written down after all first parties were dead means a historical Jesus is a certainty. I actually like Christianity and many of the teachings, but for some reason people will accept the worst evidence for this one specific claim.
- vehemenz 4y ago
  What's the alternative? This is true of many historical facts we take for granted. The earliest accounts of Jesus were written only one generation after Jesus's death. Plenty of first-hand accounts were still available. There are many of corroborative accounts of Jesus and other historical accounts of this period. Christianity had spread to Greece in 50 AD, only 20 years after Jesus's supposed death. In an age where information moved so slowly, it's remarkable that Christianity had spread so quickly. It's fair to dispute the details of the canonical/apocryphal stories—surely those are contrived—but the idea of Jesus had to come from somewhere. No one else was interested in taking the credit, which should tell us something.
  - nitrogen 4y ago
    the idea of Jesus had to come from somewhere What present-day meme will reach a similar level of distribution and hazy origins? Will we see future generations speculating about the true nature of Harry Potter, or the Jedi, or Chuck Norris's superpowers, or the one true Nyancat?
    - moomin 4y ago
      I mean, we still have records of Josephus Flavius' (not a Christian and not associated with the early church) writings. He was writing something like 50 to 60 years after the date of Jesus death. However, it should be pointed out he mentioned something like 20 people all called Jesus (in Koine Greek), because it was at the time a relative common soubriquet. No early writers seem to doubt the existence of such a person although they definitely differ on the details. In short, it's highly unlikely Jesus is purely fictional, and there was almost certainly someone known as Jesus executed by Pontius Pilate. Is this going to make a difference to your beliefs in any direction? No.
      - Jedd 4y ago
        > .. we still have records of Josephus Flavius .. Those writings are doing a lot of heavy lifting, since that's about all apologists can hold up as 'contemporary corroboration'. Antiquities was written in the last decade of the first century, so at the further end of your 50-60y range. As you note, the wording in the Jamesian reference is not very compelling in itself, and historicists generally argue that Josephus would have explained his terminology much more carefully than we see in that section, so there's some reason to doubt it was in the original. The longer section from that work that apologists refer to is clearly an interpolation. The style is completely wrong for both the author and the context. The previous pages are describing taxes, protests, massacres, etc and then there's this very brief and spectacularly flowery prose that attests to Jesus being the Christ, and to the ten thousand wonders he did, and then on the next page the author continues with 'And another terrible thing that happened to the Jews ...' -- which only makes sense once you remove the clearly forged / added page. At which point we're really short - a rounding error away from zero - on any corroborating stories from the 1st century.
- wwtrv 4y ago
  We have very little first hand evidence about almost any historical figure every existing, for oldest surviving written source about the Second Punic war and Hannibal's invasion of Italy was written at least 50 years after it happened. The oldest surviving book about Alexander the Great was written several hundred's of years after his death.
- qubex 4y ago
  Independently from being an atheist I’m very dubious about the historic validity of Jesus. Clearly all the supernatural aspects (virgin birth, miracles, & cetera) are to be eliminated as implausible, but even what remains doesn’t strike me as substantiated by historical veracity. Accounts are inconstant and do not gel well with certainties we have about the period (such as Roman censuses https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius).
jtbayly 4y ago
I'm a Christian, and in one sense, I agree. The Bible says in Galatians 4:4, that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son." Thus, when Jesus was born and what was going on was not happenstance. The point in history and the circumstances of when it happened (for example, the Romans being in power, and their use of crucifixion on wooden crosses) were foundational to Him accomplishing the work the Father sent Him to complete. He had to be raised up on a tree at His death in order to take the curse of the sin of His people upon Himself.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I mean that's still all historical speculation and using a statement from the Bible as anything other than a statement of the obvious since the Christian mythos require a death and resurrection seems dubious. It's very possible that none of it happened. I mean it seems most likely that there was an individual named Jesus who preached as there were many like him in that period in that era, which can be verified by other historical sources and works. It doesn't seem unlikely that one eventually came to dominate and win the imaginations of people, especially of the poor and oppressed who needed something better was going to happen down the line just to keep going and bring a little happiness to them. Then you have the springboard for a full blow religion. Another way is to conquer vast swathes of land and force people to accept your religion and that seems to be the more tried and true method down through the ages by all of the current major religions.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Yep, he may have just gone off into obscurity and we would have been worshipping Mithra or Isis or Odin
- tomrod 4y ago
  One of my favorite alt-history stories was if Constantine converted to Judaism. I'm not Jewish, I simply loved the consideration regarding how history might have evolved differently.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    I'm not sure, the Romans bolted on a lot of their on philosophy & beliefs to Christianity so it might not be much different.
twangist 4y ago
You're assuming there's such a thing as "historical Jesus". There's basically no evidence.

Jedd 4y ago

> .. there would have been no census to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem .. Most historians agree there was no such census, certainly not one that required people return to their birthplace. There was a 6CE census (but it certainly would not have required everyone travel to their origin - that would have been as ridiculous then as it sounds now), plus the timing would put it at odds with Herod's death in 4BCE. In any case, it appears to be a literary device employed by the author of Luke to get the main character of the story to the prophecy-mandated location.