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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
meh
An author with an axe to grind agrees with an author who agrees with him
I'm no math expert, but it sounds like Rome had ten extra quarters than it needed.