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Why Christianity grew so fast

CMPancake said:
The Iliad of Homer, and The Odyssey of Homer are noteworthy examples of first eye witnesses of Poseidon.
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The Iliad was not claiming to be history? It's an epic poem about something which is placed hundreds of years before it was written.

Not even the same genre.
 
RGacky3 said:
The Iliad was not claiming to be history?
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The Iliad was claiming the epic tale of the battle of Troy. Along with the legends of men like Hector and Achilles. What makes this book any less true than the story of Jesus Christ?

RGacky3 said:
It's an epic poem about something which is placed hundreds of years before it was written.
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Kinda sounds like the holy bible, does it not?

RGacky3 said:
Not even the same genre.
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They're exactly the same genre.
 
CMPancake said:
The Iliad was claiming the epic tale of the battle of Troy. Along with the legends of men like Hector and Achilles. What makes this book any less true than the story of Jesus Christ?

Kinda sounds like the holy bible, does it not?

They're exactly the same genre.
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It was written hundreds of years after the fact, and Iliad was written in the genre of myth, not historical biography as the synoptics.

THe bible is not one book ... which book of the bible are you talking about?
 
RGacky3 said:
It was written hundreds of years after the fact, and Iliad was written in the genre of myth, not historical biography as the synoptics.
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It's regard as mythology today because nobody believes in the Greek Gods anymore. (At least as a serious, main-stream religion.) Again, what makes the Iliad any less true than the Bible?

RGacky3 said:
THe bible is not one book ... which book of the bible are you talking about?
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I'm speaking of the bible as a whole.
 
CMPancake said:
It's regard as mythology today because nobody believes in the Greek Gods anymore. (At least as a serious, main-stream religion.) Again, what makes the Iliad any less true than the Bible?

I'm speaking of the bible as a whole.
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No it's regarded as Mythology because that's the genre it is written in ... there is Mythology written about historical People, and one can tell it's Mythology based on the genre, style of writing, Sources and so on.

Speaking of the bible as a Whole and trying to make one genre for it, and claim it's all as historical as the Iliad is stupid .... the bible CANNOT be speaked of as a Whole unless you're talking theology, which we arn't, we're talking history.
 
RGacky3 said:
No it's regarded as Mythology because that's the genre it is written in ... there is Mythology written about historical People, and one can tell it's Mythology based on the genre, style of writing, Sources and so on.
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Oh I see the confusion here. You're misunderstanding the fact that Christianity falls under Mythology as well.

RGacky3 said:
Speaking of the bible as a Whole and trying to make one genre for it, and claim it's all as historical as the Iliad is stupid .... the bible CANNOT be speaked of as a Whole unless you're talking theology, which we arn't, we're talking history.
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If we're talking about history we can not trust the bible or epics like the Iliad as accurate counts of history.
 
RGacky3 said:
THe gospels contain eye witness testimony.

I gave the example of eye witnesses listen With the assumption that People would know who they are. Another argument is the narratives are written in piece meal, i.e. events remembered and put together, the Q Source has obvious oral tradition that goes back to eye witnesses, since it's Clear much of it is from speaches and has Things that the early Church wouldn't have made up.

One example is the tons and tons of irrelevant details.
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Please show that the Gospels are actual eye witnesses. The 'tons and tons of irrelevant details' is not evidence for them being eye witnesses. I can show that, indeed, many if not most Modern Christian biblical scholars say that the Gospels are not eye witnesses.

And, for example, the Gospel of Mark was not written by an eye witness, because the Gospel of Mark made mistakes when it comes to the geography of the region, something that someone who was an eye witness, and living in Jerusalem would know.
 
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Fleming said:
You mioght want to read up a bit on history. During the first three centuries of its existence Christianity did not spread through conquest, for the very simple reason that it was persecuted and didn't have any state support.
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For most of that period, it was a weird cult in Rome, during a time when weird cults were trendy in Rome. And really, Christianity didn't exist promptly at year 1 AD. It didn't even become distinct from being a sect of Judaism until around 100. The only real turning point that changed Christianity from a cult into a powerful religion was Constantine. His political actions and victory in a battle are what secured Christianity's place in Rome. Constantine could just as easily have decided to embrace the cult of Mithras instead, and you'd be worshiping a completely different god.

It seems to me that Mormonism is the most notable faith in terms of speed of growth through a method other than violence. But so what? What does growing quickly have to do with anything? This has been offered a few times as proof of the veracity of Christian mythology, but one does not follow the other. The idea that Justin Bieber is a talented musician spread quickly. That doesn't make it even remotely true.

RGacky3 said:
The Iliad was not claiming to be history? It's an epic poem about something which is placed hundreds of years before it was written.

Not even the same genre.
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It was written as a dramatic telling of actual historical events. This includes the major political figures, the war itself, the existence of Troy, and the intervention of the gods. All of that was considered to be historical fact at the time Homer was writing. Of course, none of that actually happened. Just like with the bible.
 
Paschendale said:
For most of that period, it was a weird cult in Rome, during a time when weird cults were trendy in Rome. And really, Christianity didn't exist promptly at year 1 AD. It didn't even become distinct from being a sect of Judaism until around 100. The only real turning point that changed Christianity from a cult into a powerful religion was Constantine. His political actions and victory in a battle are what secured Christianity's place in Rome. Constantine could just as easily have decided to embrace the cult of Mithras instead, and you'd be worshiping a completely different god.

It seems to me that Mormonism is the most notable faith in terms of speed of growth through a method other than violence. But so what? What does growing quickly have to do with anything? This has been offered a few times as proof of the veracity of Christian mythology, but one does not follow the other. The idea that Justin Bieber is a talented musician spread quickly. That doesn't make it even remotely true.



It was written as a dramatic telling of actual historical events. This includes the major political figures, the war itself, the existence of Troy, and the intervention of the gods. All of that was considered to be historical fact at the time Homer was writing. Of course, none of that actually happened. Just like with the bible.
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I think around between years 85 (from Comments of the Council of Jamania) showed there were disagreements, but Christains were still considered Jew, but Pliny in his letters to Trajan thought they were distinct (in 110 C.E.)
 
Fleming said:
Clearly you don't know the historical facts. Have a Nice day.
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Clearly You can't stand the heat. You are welcome to prove me wrong, but simply saying " that isn't true" isn't a valid argument.

And then insinuating that I don't know history because your unfounded frankly irrelevant statement was labeled as such is quite pathetic.
 
CLAX1911 said:
Clearly You can't stand the heat. You are welcome to prove me wrong, but simply saying " that isn't true" isn't a valid argument.

And then insinuating that I don't know history because your unfounded frankly irrelevant statement was labeled as such is quite pathetic.
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If you had even a basic knowledge of history you would know that saying that Christianity in the 4th Century was an obscure cult limited to Jews is ridiculous. However, I doubt that you care at all about facts.
 
Fleming said:
If you had even a basic knowledge of history you would know that saying that Christianity in the 4th Century was an obscure cult limited to Jews is ridiculous. However, I doubt that you care at all about facts.
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So now we move into posturing. Excellent debate tactic.
 
cpwill said:
Muhammed had the benefit of an Army to enforce conversion. :) Not quite the same thing.
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just like crusaders and colonialists :2razz:

dont tell me it was only the success of missionaries
 
Martyrdom. Thanks Rome.
 
Fleming said:
That is simply not true.
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Can you provide actual evidence that it is not? HOw about some hard numbers, how those numbers were collected, and show that it was extraordinary growth.
 
CMPancake said:
Oh I see the confusion here. You're misunderstanding the fact that Christianity falls under Mythology as well.
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What do you mean when you say "Christianity" Mythology is a literary genre .... "Christianity" is not a writing ... which writing are you refering to?

If we're talking about history we can not trust the bible or epics like the Iliad as accurate counts of history.
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For ****s sake ... THE BIBLE IS NOT ONE BOOK!!!!

People lump it together for theological reasons, but for historical reasons you CANNOT lump it all together.

Some of it is poetry, some of it is history, some of it is Mythology, some of it is legal documents, some of it is biography, some of it is epistles, some of it is wisdom literature, some of it is apocalypse literature ...
 
RAMOSS said:
Please show that the Gospels are actual eye witnesses. The 'tons and tons of irrelevant details' is not evidence for them being eye witnesses. I can show that, indeed, many if not most Modern Christian biblical scholars say that the Gospels are not eye witnesses.

And, for example, the Gospel of Mark was not written by an eye witness, because the Gospel of Mark made mistakes when it comes to the geography of the region, something that someone who was an eye witness, and living in Jerusalem would know.
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Being written by eye witnesses doesn't mean the same thing as having eye witness testimony. So for exmaple the irrelevant details is a dead give away that this tradition is from an eye witness, the same that goes With the use of names With the assumption the audience would know them.

Richard baukham Points out the "mistakes" in geography, are not actual mistakes when you take into account the perspective of the writers, they wern't geographers, they didn't have maps, they were writing from the perspective of peasent galilean fishermen ....
 
Paschendale said:
It was written as a dramatic telling of actual historical events. This includes the major political figures, the war itself, the existence of Troy, and the intervention of the gods. All of that was considered to be historical fact at the time Homer was writing. Of course, none of that actually happened. Just like with the bible.
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Again ... when you say "the bible" you have to be specific to which book, the bible isn't a book.

It was a Collection of known myths, that may or may not have come from actual events, but they were written AS myths, and understood as such, whether or not they actually happened historically was not the point .... I mean in a sense much of Genesis is of a similar genre, but it's certainly not analogous to the synoptic gospels, which are of a completely different genre.
 
RGacky3 said:
I hate to be pitching for the other team, but ... an argument is used by christians very often, that's not as simple as it sounds, and frankly, a bad argument.

the argument is basically "Christianity grew REALLY REALLY fast, and it wouldn't have grown that fast had Jesus not rised from the dead." that's a bad Version of it, but the argument follows basically that line.....
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I cut off the majority of your post because my answer as to why Christianity spread so fast is very easy to answer. Because in the post Roman world, they saw Jesus and Christianity as the ultimate warrior religion, with Jesus being a man who was so powerful that he could defeat death itself. That and the politics of the Dark Ages helped of course. After that, it was all about trade which was dominated by the Europeans. And the rest is history.
 
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