Historicity of Jesus - 2

[dhu]

Following is an account for the origin of the idol worship canard in Monotheism. It has to be emperor worship elevated to the status of canard and invective *at the level of academia (represented by Josephus)* and as a substitute for the acceptance of imperial sway. The idol worship canard in no way was existent a priori to the colonial project in heathen canaan, nor is Roman Emperor worship itself different from other forms of heathen devotion.

(It must be remembered that it is just one faction of the roman polity, *the roman catholic faction*, which destroyed the Druids and Canaanites. This phenomenon in no way reflects upon the heathenness of the whole Roman society, even though the antecedents are traceable specifically to the Glaucon-Socrates exchange).

Ramana, Husky, does the following make sense..

brihaspati wrote:

There are parallel studies which find the early Christian movement to be a political one, which either started off as a revolutionary movement or was taken up as such a revolutionary movement by disgruntled sections of the Roman society.

This is precisely the problem. Conflict was always there in the heathen society, there is nothing significant in this by itself. Factions will always form and there will be supporters in each faction, and there will be some voicing a grievance. The rebellion of grievance is in no way transformed into a “revolutionary movement” in heathen society. In fact, the “revolutionary movement” only manifests at the level of conceptualization in socio-political theory. This happened for the first time in Monotheism. For example, we know that (Titus of) Josephus is a mirror image of the (Jesus of) NT and that the NT is a parody of Josephus and not the other way around (but with tell-tale reverse situations occurring in isolation). If Josephus is so perfectly crafted, then what of its “neutral observations” regarding the natives refusing to “bow before the emperor/idol’’ in ‘theological principle’ rather than just rebellion? When Shivaji rebelled against the Emperor, did he do so because he was opposed to idol/emperor worship? Of course not (although the converted omniscients will have an extremely hard time visualizing such). The “observations” regarding "refusal to emperor/idol worship" in Josephus are simply the ground against which the anti-semitic (meaning anti-ME) invective of the NT can manifest. Josephus is the "social observation" and is posited as the 'normality'. And in framing the case of the native rebellion as a case of theological disagreement, an intermediary (of theological principle) was able to be posited as the “fulcrum” of the conflict, allowing for further ambiguation (eg, the rebels had founded a world theory of "anti-slavery", "freedom", "liberty", etc). At the level of Josephus, this ambiguation is "social theory"; at the level of NT, it is religious invective. Such ambiguation is present in the texts themselves and works as long as the social theory (Josephus) part remains isolated from the religion (NT) which commands action. When a relationship between the two becomes obvious, the macaulayite nature of the “revolutionary movement” also is seen.



The need to normatize against a standard may itself prevent the "revolution" from taking off on its own, ie both the elites and the followers cannot conceptualize beyond the macaulayite lifestyle. In fact, the ambiguation which is "useful to the elites” and the "delight of the rabble-rouser" needs a sustained academia/seminary for maintenance. When discrepancies are encountered eg the discovery of heathen native america or heathen india, the discourse automatically shifts to incorporate those at the level of discourse itself (Enlightenment with its binary of sterilized social science and orientalist romanticism). The elites are quite secondary here.