Is it possible that Jesus could have been a general or figurehead of a terrorist christian group?

by Quintron

So I was having a conversation about religion with a colleague and as the question states, the idea of Jesus being a general or high up leader of an early christian terrorist group was brought up. At first I dismissed the idea because it sounds like it classifies the past based on current social events. I am very much an amateur historian and ancient history isn't my strong point but the more I think about it though, the more it makes a lot of sense for these reasons:

  • Christians were persecuted heavily by the Roman empire. Often times the punishment of christian worship was crucifixion. This punishment seems a bit extreme for me for just worshiping. Might the early Christians have received this punishment for conspiring against the state at the time?

  • Christian worship places were often hidden and sometimes they were underground in what could have been a fortified position.

  • The twelve apostles came from all walks of life and could helped with leadership/dissemination of propaganda.

  • The Roman Empire controlled much of the Mediterranean during the time Jesus supposedly lived and they took most of it by military force. Couldn't this set the tone for a grass roots resistance in occupied lands much like we see today?

Anyways, what do you guys think? Are there any points I missed that may add to or counter mine? I'm not entirely convinced he was a general or that he even existed in the first place.

talondearg

No.

I’m not sure I want to turn this into a historical cmv, but let’s go over some of this.

  1. There are no Christians without Jesus. The key features of the movement are religious in orientation.
  2. Despite later interpretations, the consistent witness of New Testament documents is to Jesus disavowal of violent means. Neither Jesus nor his earliest followers show any propensity for violence, armed resistance, revolution, insurrection, etc..
  3. The 12 apostles show some social variation, but it’s not that extreme. They are still all Palestinian Jews.
  4. There were militant resistance groups. The Zealots seem to have been one. Depending how we understand the term Sicarii might have been one. Certainly the later Jewish revolution aka the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73) and the Bar Kokhba revolution (132-135) were they type of thing you are thinking off. They both ended badly. There is no evidence for Christian support or involvement in these.
  5. The main problem with your view, in terms of being “an amateur historian” is that there is simply no evidence to support this view. That’s what history involves, looking at evidence and analysing it and making careful and reasoned conclusions about events. I cannot think of a single document that would support the idea that Jesus was a military leader.
  6. So we should still discuss persecution and crucifixion. Christians were seen as politically subversive. They proclaimed an alternate Lord and denied ultimate authority to the Roman Emperor. Furthermore they were atheists who denied the gods. Rome was religiously pluralistic, but that doesn’t mean religiously tolerant in a way that we would categorise it. Furthermore, much of the language of early Christianity is framed in anti-Imperialistic language. This even causes problems within Jesus’ lifetime, both in the Judean context and the Roman. The gospels suggest that some did want Jesus to be a revolutionary leader, and the interactions surrounding the trial of Jesus suggest that the Jewish authorities presented Jesus in this way to Pontius Pilate.
  7. However crucifixion is not that ‘extreme’ in their eyes because Jesus is not a citizen and so from the Roman perspective has no real standing. Likewise with early Christians who are crucified – for the most part lack of legal status means lack of rights.
  8. You seem to make a category error in aligning “seen as subversive” and “militant resistance group”. Pliny the Younger certainly considers them as subversive, but even he doesn’t think the later is going on.

tl,dr: No, there’s no evidence to suggest this.