Jesus Christ Assassinated!

King James IX

Just had a thought, what would've come of the Christian people, the Jews, Rome, &c had Jesus Christ (assuming he or some actual person similar to the Christ described in the Bible did exist) been assassinated as opposed to publicly crucified.

Not advocating any religion or anything, just thought I'd see what you lot would make of it.:)
 
Assuming he was who he said he is, he comes back from the dead to be crucified and ignores it

If he was a normal human, I got nothing
 
Or if he is the Son of God.. Armageddon gets kicked off early as God attacks Lucifer for foiling his plan. :eek:

If he is a normal person, perhaps he becomes the last of the prophets or something similar. Perhaps rebellion as his followers blame it on Rome or Judea.
 

King James IX

Or if he is the Son of God.. Armageddon gets kicked off early as God attacks Lucifer for foiling his plan. :eek:

If he is a normal person, perhaps he becomes the last of the prophets or something similar. Perhaps rebellion as his followers blame it on Rome or Judea.

The latter is what I was thinking. Also, what the repercussions of such a rebellion would be.
 
Assuming, of course, that he is a normal human.

Yeah, history kinda works on a secular basis, so he was a normal person. At least history in this forum, because we can't have people stopping discussion because it goes against their personal theology.
 
Well, if we're assuming that he was just a normal guy, then not much changes. If his followers just made up all of that stuff about rising from the dead in OTL, they can make up the same stuff in this TL. Albeit there may be more of a bias against the Romans/Jews/whoever assassinated him than there was in OTL.
 
I guess if you kill him off earlier in his ministry before he has a bunch of big burly fisherman hanging about then we talking a whole new world of butterflys.

If it was later then it may spark a new Jewish uprising against the Romans and the Temple is destroyed 150 years earlier and Christianity ends up being something like the Mafia or Tongs, a resistance movement that turns to crime.
 

Jlinker613

Banned
If Jesus just died off without really gathering any significant number of followers or supposedly rising from the grave, odds are regular Jews in Rome, who also would have been a significant minority in the city due to the Jewish Exodus from Judaea (the Roman Province) would have been persecuted by Nero instead. What let christianity spread like wildfire throughout the city was how the christians were so devoted to their faith. Even while being burned alive as human torches told they were only allowed to be taken down if they renounced their faith, they didn't. This inspired many people throughout the city and empire to convert. Odds are a similar occurrence would happen if Jews were the people who were persecuted in such a horrific manner. Judaism wouldn't have spread as far and wide though, due to the fact that Christianity is designed to get more converts. Judaism is not designed to get converts, so odds are at most 15%-25% of the empire would convert, compared to the 90%-95% of the empire that Christianity took hold of. With no Christianity, Islam never would have developed, due to Jesus and hell being very big parts of the religion, and Judaism not having a mention of either of them. So there you have it.
 
I guess if you kill him off earlier in his ministry before he has a bunch of big burly fisherman hanging about then we talking a whole new world of butterflys.

If it was later then it may spark a new Jewish uprising against the Romans and the Temple is destroyed 150 years earlier and Christianity ends up being something like the Mafia or Tongs, a resistance movement that turns to crime.

I thought the temple was destroyed in the 70's CE, about 40-50 years after whatever historical persons Jesus was based on died and around the time Paul started writing his letters. The Gospels and Acts were codified after this time and the Peter letters are mostly retcons.

I really think there were real persons John the Baptist and Jesus were based on. The gospels contain lots of munges to make Jesus fit prophecy. Why munge the story if there was no historical person to rationalize? And the whole John the Baptist baptizes Jesus story suggests there was a struggle between the followers of John and the followers of Jesus. The followers of Jesus won the struggle, but needed to throw a bone to the followers of John. Some still follow John the Baptist today, but not Jesus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism

Without Jesus, maybe the John the Baptist followers become stronger. Maybe they fail. Maybe Rome becomes Mythrian. Maybe Rome still falls. Maybe Rome applies as much Hellenistic philosophy and science as it can and combines Hero of Alexandria's steam toys with his water organ pistons to make a steam engine to allow their miners to access more metal resources. Maybe they make Hero's puppet controller cams into a waterwheel powered computer. Maybe they start making refined fertilizer. Maybe they discover explosive mixtures like gunpowder.

Huge butterflies here.
 

King James IX

I like the ideas going around here. No way could I add anything of worth, but I figured I'd bump it before school.:D
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
If Jeshua the Nazarean is killed of, I still think something very similar would appear. The Mediterranean World was ready for a new kind of moralistic religion. It having roots in Judaism would make sense, so I'd still keep my eyes on Palestine and the Levant. It would of course create tons of butterflies (Islam is butterflied away, but something similar might appear if the circumstances are right).
 
If Jeshua the Nazarean is killed of, I still think something very similar would appear. The Mediterranean World was ready for a new kind of moralistic religion. It having roots in Judaism would make sense, so I'd still keep my eyes on Palestine and the Levant. It would of course create tons of butterflies (Islam is butterflied away, but something similar might appear if the circumstances are right).

What does it mean for it to be "ready for" a new religion?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
What does it mean for it to be "ready for" a new religion?
They were receptive for a moralistic message, especially the lower classes. Also their bonds to the old religion was weak, since they OTL embraced a religion that said none of the old Gods were real. Christianity was able to fill a need, and if Christianity won't appear, something else will come instead. It might not be as successful as Christianity, it might even lose the battle with the old religions, but some kind of moralistic message would come.
 
I really don't see Christianity's progress being altered much. Jesus being a target for assassination means that he was already a notable spiritual figure, so this would occur not long before he was executed in the OTL. In the Bible, he would still rise from the dead, etc, etc.

The most likely motivation for the assassination would be opposition to Jesus's teachings among the Jewish population, so the assassin would, of course, have to be Jewish. This might have an impact of Christianity's attitude towards Judaism later on, since a Jew will have directly murdered Jesus, as opposed to him being delivered to the Roman authorities for execution.
 
Where does this assumption come from, that the people of the ancient world were "ready for a new moralistic religion"? In what way is Christianity more moral than the various ethnic Polytheisms that came before it? Because to me, this just smacks of the ill-informed bigotry from people who are ignorant of religions other than their own.
 
Where does this assumption come from, that the people of the ancient world were "ready for a new moralistic religion"? In what way is Christianity more moral than the various ethnic Polytheisms that came before it? Because to me, this just smacks of the ill-informed bigotry from people who are ignorant of religions other than their own.

A number of eastern religions gained prominence in the middle and late Roman Empire: Judaism, Christianity, Mithraism, and new versions of Cybeleism, Isisism, and so on. So a lot of people wanted something they weren't getting from their other religions. I suspect that the established religions just didn't address the needs of womyn, slaves, or the poor. I don't know how well that applies to Mithraism though.
 
A number of eastern religions gained prominence in the middle and late Roman Empire: Judaism, Christianity, Mithraism, and new versions of Cybeleism, Isisism, and so on. So a lot of people wanted something they weren't getting from their other religions. I suspect that the established religions just didn't address the needs of womyn, slaves, or the poor. I don't know how well that applies to Mithraism though.

"Cybeleism", "Isisism" and Mithraism were being transferred from different pantheons to another. There wasn't a general need among the population, as you describe it, to change religions. Christianity and Judaism had doctrines which denounced other gods and faiths, so they required their newest followers to make a full conversion. The cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras were clubs that existed within a larger Polytheistic spectrum.

And given that Judaism and Christianity approve of the subordination of women and the existence of slavery, I did don't regard either of them as being especially "moralistic".
 
And given that Judaism and Christianity approve of the subordination of women and the existence of slavery, I did don't regard either of them as being especially "moralistic".

Well, that depends on the version - some early Christian texts denounce both institutions. But the point was more general - that all these religious movements drew people away from traditional Greek and Roman religion. I suspect some of these people were open to new religions because they weren't getting what they needed from the traditional religions.
 
Top