WI: Simon bar Kokhba was seen as the Second Coming?

By who? If the Jewish Christians had felt that way, would we even know? It is very unlikely the pagan Christians would, and if they did, they would likely end up rebuffed quite decisively.

Hmmm. Maybe this could become a POD leading to earlier and more concerted persecutions of Christians?
 
Maybe... if Christians empire-wide decided to bet the farm on Bar-Kokhba, his failure would be seen as the final failure of Christianity. And it would confirm the fact that they were a bunch of traitors. Would mean the end of Christianity.
 
Would it really influence anything if the few thousand or so Christians on the planet at the time felt that Simon bar Kokhba/Kosiba and his abortive rebellion was evidence of "the second coming"? If they did, they would have soon become disappointed of it's failure.
 
Whatever you want to say about Jesus of Nazareth, the message presented is relatively apolitical and did not call for much violence involved, so a violent civil revolt wouldn't really gel with the teachings of the Gospel.
 
Whats more, Bar Kokhba was pro-Jewish, so I'm not sure what he would make of the Christians. If he was strictly orthodox, I don't think he would time for them.
 
Whatever you want to say about Jesus of Nazareth, the message presented is relatively apolitical and did not call for much violence involved, so a violent civil revolt wouldn't really gel with the teachings of the Gospel.

...which is exactly what makes this a point of divergence. However unlikely, however ill-advised, Christians in large numbers decided to root for a Jewish rebel... and got smacked hard for it when he lost.
 
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