At first I thought that Jesus would have done like Muhammad and eventually raised armies that would liberate Israel. BTW the Mecca
Muhammad was a paltry hippy like Jesus. It was after left Mecca that he gained power gained and became a warlord -> Muhammad in Medina
)\. Then I remembered that Rome was much more powerful in Jesus's day - His armies would have been crushed. Yeah, yeah, with God all things are possible and all, but really it wouldn't have been good.Instead it was Rome's power that helped spread Christianity, so why crucification? Why not life in prison or on a slave ship? I mean, wouldn't Ben-Hur
have been a better book than Paul
going on and on and on about how awesome he is and how much everyone else sucks and will continue to suck and can't do anything but suck?So tune in tomorrow for:
vs. 
I've wondered from time to time what Jesus would have done had he not been killed. I don't think, however, that he would have raised an army and marched on Rome. There were a number of times he had opportunity to speak in favor of the anti-Rome rebellion and never took a stand. What information we do have on Jesus seems to indicate that his primary concern was religious reform rather than political. That being said, Jesus never had a chance to develop his philosophy past the religious scene and the people who preserved his teachings were more concerned with fixing the current religious problems than the political ones. It must be admited, however, that a large number of Jesus’ immediate sucessors and students were very concerned with the political issues of the day. In their more immediate context, Judaism was undergoing a civil war between the faction that wanted to preserve Jewish culture at all costs and the faction that was interested in integrating into the Greco-Roman culture. I think that for Jesus and at least the first generation of his followers, this issue was more important that the Roman occupation. If Jesus was to raise an army, I think it would have been over this issue rather than Rome, at least at first. While Jesus did have an apocalyptic nature to his teachings that could have been anti-Rome had he developed it more, the focus on the "Kingdom of Heaven" and the magical intervention of God to fix everything seemed to preclud human attempts at doing so, especially through violence. If you believe that the world is ending at any moment and God is going to come smite the sinners and reward the righteous, it is far more important to make sure you are righteous than smiting sinners yourself.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the comparison to Muhammad, I don't have much to contribute. While it appears that Jesus and Muhammad both began with an attempt to correct what they determined to be problems with their religious situations, the contexts of their "reformations" were so different it is difficult to state that because Muhammad went one way that Jesus would have or might have gone that way too. The other side is that, generally speaking, it is only a matter of time before a religious group that gains power begins to attempt to influence the political situation around them, often violently. Christiainty suddenly morphs from peace, love, and passive resistence to violent inquisition every time it has the authority and power of a government and/or standing army.
I think you have asked a good question because the direction we would have Jesus go is a direct reflection on how we view Jesus and his philosophy. In reality, the “followers of Jesus “ (and I use that term very loosely here) will act out how they think Jesus would or should have taken his movement . In some sense, especially given how far removed we are now from Jesus’ context, the direction we choose to take Jesus is more important that the direction he would have taken.
With regard to Paul, I would suggest viewing this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoBYYElyP4c.