That's a huge amount of foresight on josephus part, a massive amount of ignoring issues on the Flavius family's part. Not to mention how would it even spread to throughout the Roman Empire if it was being spread by the Flavius's agents? All of it with only similarities as proof.
I would need the other possibility disproven before I could assume what you are suggesting is correct.
As for why the jews rejected Christianity, it's because they believed the Messiah was supposed to free them from Roman rule, kill their enemies, and make them powerful. Jesus didn't. So they rejected him and his message.
As for the persecution of Christians under Nero. It only happened after the fire to my knowledge. I doubt the cult of Julius Caesar would burn down such a massive chunk of Rome to spite Nero. If it truly wasn't an accident fueled by bad city management and high winds, then it was a large coordinated attack. If they had the resources to pull it off, at that point why wouldn't they just go after Nero rather than burning their own homes down? It also doesn't make sense for Nero to have started the fire when he was the emperor and could just pay people to move so he could build whatever he wanted.
In the end, the fire was probably an accident. People were looking to blame Nero for poor city management, and so Nero declared it arson and shifted the blame to a new tiny cult that at large no one yet cared about. So to put it simply, Nero wasn't concerned about the Christians, he was concerned about covering his ass.
It's now getting close to midnight, so I'll start responding again, probably Monday as I have stuff planned for the next two days.
s23erdctfvyg 0 points 1.5 years ago
That's a huge amount of foresight on josephus part, a massive amount of ignoring issues on the Flavius family's part. Not to mention how would it even spread to throughout the Roman Empire if it was being spread by the Flavius's agents?
All of it with only similarities as proof.
I would need the other possibility disproven before I could assume what you are suggesting is correct.
As for why the jews rejected Christianity, it's because they believed the Messiah was supposed to free them from Roman rule, kill their enemies, and make them powerful. Jesus didn't. So they rejected him and his message.
As for the persecution of Christians under Nero. It only happened after the fire to my knowledge. I doubt the cult of Julius Caesar would burn down such a massive chunk of Rome to spite Nero. If it truly wasn't an accident fueled by bad city management and high winds, then it was a large coordinated attack. If they had the resources to pull it off, at that point why wouldn't they just go after Nero rather than burning their own homes down? It also doesn't make sense for Nero to have started the fire when he was the emperor and could just pay people to move so he could build whatever he wanted.
In the end, the fire was probably an accident. People were looking to blame Nero for poor city management, and so Nero declared it arson and shifted the blame to a new tiny cult that at large no one yet cared about.
So to put it simply, Nero wasn't concerned about the Christians, he was concerned about covering his ass.
It's now getting close to midnight, so I'll start responding again, probably Monday as I have stuff planned for the next two days.