Posted on 07/23/2017 9:02:39 AM PDT by EveningStar
Christian tradition maintains that after Rome nearly burned to the ground, Nero engaged in a brutal crackdown on Christians which led to the executions of Peter and Paul.
On the evening of July 18, in the scorching summer of 64 CE, a fire started in a shop under the Circus Maximus in Rome. The fire quickly spread to nearby homes and businesses and the Circus itself. The fire burned for six days, ravaging the city. It left only four of Rome’s fourteen quarters untouched.
The reigning emperor, Nero, a man known for his cruelty and love of theater, scapegoated the Christians for the disaster. According to tradition and later historians, as a punishment, Nero devised grotesque executions for the Christians: he covered them in animal skins and had them torn apart by dogs, and he doused them in tar and used them as human torches to light the night sky for his dinner parties. It was in the wake of the fire, Christian tradition maintains, that the most important Apostles–St Peter and St Paul–were arrested and executed. But while the fire of Rome was a devastating historical reality, did Nero actually target Christians as a result?
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Candida Moss’ whole career is built on the dubious idea that there really wasn’t much persecution of Christians by the Romans. She has a tendency to focus on only those sources which support her argument while dismissing those that don’t.
She also wants to date the book of acts to the 2nd century, long after the events (instead of accepting that Luke was the author).
The bible is an anvil that wears out many hammers...
I really hate the CE/BCE designations. I do not use them. BC & AD.
Moss’s entire article if fake news.
It’s quite possible by some estimates (depending on your source) that more Christians were martyred by Romans than by Muslims.
I sensed a good amount of misdirection in her article. Whether the term “Christian” was used to describe them at the time, Peter and Paul were in Rome and were executed. They were followers of Christ. Romans charging then for “disturbing the peace” wouldn’t change the reality.
Musselmen are currently at a figure north of 240,000,000 brought to Paradise ...
She isn’t the only notable person to do so. Edward Gibbon, who wrote “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” is also of that mindset, that persecution of Christians by Rome is overblown.
I personally don’t agree with him.
ping
“I sensed a good amount of misdirection in her article.”
That same misdirection pops up frequently in her book from the excerpts I’ve read.
Ya, i noted that too. What’s with this 64 CE date; why not say it’s 64 AD????
Political correctness has infiltrated just about every area of society.
As this affects the calendar, I would expect that the “Gregorian calendar” will be abandoned at some point. Future liberals will decry that a Pope Gregory had anything to do with it. And with using CE and BCE, the liberals are still counting from the birth of Christ.
I expect the new calendar of the future, may designate 2009 as year 1, based on the date of Obama becoming president.
Or perhaps 2004 will be year 1, the year that homosexual marriage started in Massachusetts, the first place in America to have homosexual marriage.
Or 1970 could be year 1, as that was the year of the first Earth Day.
It all depends on what significant event the liberals want to honor with the start of their new liberal era.
I’m half joking with this post, but half not sure if this is a joke, or if the above could ever really happen.
The liberals may think that using BCE and CE gets rid of any tieback to the time of Christ, but when they realize that it does not accomplish that, then they may impose a new system.
Read the article with an open mind and notice your reactions and preconceive ideas.
It is an article of manipulation and part truths, but sort them out in your own reading.
Points to Ponder.
1) Did Nero target Christians as a RESULT of the fire? This is the main theme and the distracter. The detail that is not quite right (weak point) in the story (tradition), used in the article to discredit all of Christianity. Reminds one of the serpent in the garden. “did God really say.........”
Tacitus does not necessary reference the fire but they were targeted before, during and after. I would agree, the fire was not necessarily the CAUSE of the targeting, it was something else.
The other reference is “a new and evil superstition”. Dad always said on the farm, “If one pig squeals, they rest gang up on him” Christians were the noticed pig at the time.
2) Use of the word Christian? Weak argument. People of the Way was the first designation, was it not? Or they were call followers of Christ. The first Christians were most likely viewed as Jews to outsiders.
3) Does it make a difference if Peter and Paul were executed because of the fire? As the article proposes the official charge might have been disturbing the peace? But what were they saying that was disturbing? Get your Bible out for that answer.
> “On the evening of July 18, in the scorching summer of 64 CE ...”
‘CE’, an intentional irritant lie injected into discussions of Christian history.
Candida, you’re an a-hole. If I ever see you I will repeat BC-AD-BC-AD-BC-AD until you scream for it to stop, and I won’t stop until your eyes roll back into their sockets and your head spins around 360, and you tell me your real name.
Me as well.
Lieberals excel at revisionist history twisting and spinning it to reflect their ideological bents. Truth will ultimately be revealed and no deception will trump it. Unbelievers deceive their own selves to unprofitable outcomes. Nothing new under the gorebull warmed sun.
Candida Moss is an angry woman with an agenda.
But if my parents named me Candida (as in Candida albicans a yeast infection of the genitals), I too would be angry.
Oh my Candida
We could make it together
The further from here girl the better
Where the air is fresh and clean
Oh my Candida
Just take my hand and I’ll lead ya
I promise that life will be sweeter
‘Cause it said so in my dreams
So sings Tony Orlando
What happened to Mary?
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