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1 posted on 07/23/2017 9:02:39 AM PDT by EveningStar
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To: EveningStar

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.


2 posted on 07/23/2017 9:06:53 AM PDT by vladimir998 (Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: EveningStar

I really hate the CE/BCE designations. I do not use them. BC & AD.


4 posted on 07/23/2017 9:16:58 AM PDT by FatherofFive (Islam is EVIL and needs to be eradicated)
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To: EveningStar
"Candida Moss"? That's her real name? She was named after a YEAST INFECTION??????


5 posted on 07/23/2017 9:19:06 AM PDT by left that other site (You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)
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To: EveningStar

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.


6 posted on 07/23/2017 9:21:06 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal (Americans are modern day Amorites ripe for destruction)
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To: EveningStar
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

9 posted on 07/23/2017 9:28:55 AM PDT by Bratch ("The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke)
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To: EveningStar

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.


10 posted on 07/23/2017 9:34:40 AM PDT by rlmorel (Donald Trump: Making Liberal Heads Explode 140 Characters At A Time.)
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To: Coleus; ebb tide; narses; NYer; Salvation

ping


11 posted on 07/23/2017 9:35:28 AM PDT by EveningStar (I am a Non-Cultist Trump Supporter.)
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To: EveningStar

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.


14 posted on 07/23/2017 9:49:13 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: EveningStar

> “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.


15 posted on 07/23/2017 10:02:01 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: EveningStar

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.


17 posted on 07/23/2017 10:06:00 AM PDT by tflabo
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To: EveningStar

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.


18 posted on 07/23/2017 10:06:23 AM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel
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To: EveningStar
But how accurate is Acts?

Sort of sums up the author's thesis right there. I find Tacitus generally credible. You can cross check his accounts of events with other writers of the era including Livy, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius and his descriptions are generally consistent. The works of each include details not mentioned by the others. They were all essentially Emperor Trajan's house historians. You have to keep in mind that it was history with a political purpose - Julius Caisar and Augustus were great, the Julio-Claudians and Flavians suck and Rome's best days are ahead. Cassius Dio wrote about 100 years later and sourced a lot of his material from Tacitus and others of the Trajan school.

I trust Acts and the works of Tacitus a lot further than Candida Moss and her blatantly anti Christian sources.

25 posted on 07/23/2017 10:36:15 AM PDT by InABunkerUnderSF (Proudly deplorable since 2016.)
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To: EveningStar

meh

An author with an axe to grind agrees with an author who agrees with him


29 posted on 07/23/2017 11:20:08 AM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds will parents sometimes foster first but not always)
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To: EveningStar
Contrary to the realization of most, the greatest persecutions of Christians by the Romans were during the mid-third (Decius) to early fourth (Diocletian) centuries. However, to say that there is no evidence that Christians were persecuted in the first and early second centuries is historical revisionism.

The earliest Christian document outside of the New Testament that can be definitely dated is the letter of Clement of Rome to the church at Corinth in A.D. 96. I post and excerpt from it here:

But let us not dwell only upon ancient examples. Let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors. When he had at length suffered martyrdom, he departed to the place of glory due to him. Because of envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee and stoned. After preaching both in the East and West, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world. When he came to the extreme limit of the West, he suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience. (I Clement. 5) More to follow.
31 posted on 07/23/2017 11:39:58 AM PDT by Engraved-on-His-hands
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To: EveningStar
It left only four of Rome’s fourteen quarters untouched.

I'm no math expert, but it sounds like Rome had ten extra quarters than it needed.

36 posted on 07/24/2017 4:10:45 PM PDT by Larry Lucido (Take Covfefe Ree Zig!)
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