There is some evidence of anti-Roman subversion in the New Testament

[struggle4progress]

I mention this because possible subversive readings of the New Testament do not seem to be widely known and because Joseph Atwill is once again promoting his strange idea that Christianity was an imperial Roman invention

These readings predate Atwill, so they are not a special argument designed suddenly to refute Atwill -- and he would have been aware of them, were he the Biblical scholar he claims to be

The story of the Gerasene Demoniac, versions of which occur in all three Synoptic gospels, provides a good example. Here is the account in Mark 5:

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him ... “What is your name?” Jesus asked him. “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many” ... The impure spirits ... went into the pigs ..., rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned

Of interest here is the use of the Roman military term "Legion" for the demon which is cast out; the same Roman military term occurs in the version in Luke 8. It is quite difficult to ignore, in the historical context of a country subjugated by Roman soldiers, especially since resentments against the conquerers fueled rebellions to "cast out" the Legions, apparently before the gospels were written

The use of the title Son of God for Jesus of Nazareth is also evidence of potential anti-Roman subversion. As this title, or clear suggestions of it, occur in all the gospels (see e.g. Matthew 16:16, Mark 1:11, Luke 1:35, John 1:34), it must have been widespread in early Christianity. Various Roman emperors, beginning with Julius Caesar were officially regarded as deities after their death, and therefore Augustus, and some of his successors, added "Son of God" (Divi Filius) to their own titles. The Christians, however, insisted on applying such a title to a poor peasant crucified by the Romans

Moreover, there is some evidence that the antichrist in Revelation is Nero. This reading has been available for more than a century now:

On the History of Early Christianity
... This solution was given by Ferdinand Benary of Berlin. The name is Nero. The number is based on Neron Kesar, the Hebrew spelling of the Greek Nerôn Kaisar, Emperor Nero ... This inscription was found on coins of Nero's time minted in the eastern half of the empire. And so — n (nun)=50; r (resh)=200; v (vau) for o=6; n (nun)=50; k (kaph)=100; s (samech)=60; r (resh)=200. Total 666. If we take as a basis the Latin spelling Nero Caesar the second nun=50 disappears and we get 666 - 50 = 616, which is Irenaeus's reading ...

Nero as the Antichrist
... Nero is the only name that can account for both 666 and 616, which is the most compelling argument that he, and not some other emperor, such as Caligula or Domitian, was intended ...

Regarding these texts as windows into the worldview that produced them, we should think it a very odd idea that the Roman deliberately forged and circulated stories describing "Legion" as a demon to be cast out, or applying a title used by emperors to a poor peasant crucified by the Romans, or containing a coded reference to Nero as the great antichrist: such readings do not suggest that early Christianity would be particularly useful to Rome

[dimbear]

1. Of Caiaphas and Pilate, the greater guilt lay with Caiaphas in the gospel story.

One recalls the remarkable faith of the Centurion, but perhaps the most remarkable story may be the ten lepers. Of them, as we all recall, only one showed any gratitude: the foreigner.

That tag 'Son of God' isn't likely to be very old, in the sense that it wouldn't go back to actual gospel times. It would have sounded like sacrilege to the Jews of the day. Not so much to the folk of the Empire. Rather than be anti-Roman, it's tailoring the word to the folk.

My 2 cents.

[struggle4progress]

4. The Gospel of Rome vs. the Gospel of Jesus Christ:

Two New testament Responses from the Churches Founded by Paul
by Marianne P. Bonz
May 30, 1998, Harvard University
About 75 years before the apostle Paul began proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to the gentiles of the mid-first-century Roman world, Rome had already begun formulating its own gospel and spreading its message to the peoples of the new empire ... However, all of the territorial wars and factional infighting that characterized the late Republican era came to an end when Octavian (who, as emperor, assumed the name Augustus) defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium ... Augustus was worshiped throughout the empire as the savior and benefactor of the entire world, as the one who had rescued the world from the evils of war and chaos. And the proclamation of his heroic deeds and extraordinary benefactions constituted the essence of the new gospel of Rome ... From a purely literary perspective, the most famous and complete expression of Augustan ideology is without doubt Virgil’s Aneid, an epic narrative that casts Augustan achievements as the fulfillment of divine prophecy and Augustan rule as the defining moment of Greco-Roman history ... And, of course, the most illustrious among this collection of future Roman leaders is Augustus himself. He is described as son of a god ...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/symposium/gospel.html

From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians
... Prof. JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN, DePaul University: Jesus was born during the reign of the Emperor Augustus, in the sort of a booming economy of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. And on every coin that Augustus had were the words, Divi Filius, "Son of the Divine One," Julius Caesar, son of God ...

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. The example of Caiaphas comes from Matthew...

...the most ideologically-Jewish of the Gospels.

The anti-Semitism of the Synoptic Gospels has less to do with Roman revisionism than with the sectarian conflict which emerged naturally as Christians and Jews differentiated themselves from one another. Failing to convert their neighbors with any great success, the Palestinian Christians vilified the Jews as greedy, corrupt, obstinate schemers who refused to see the "truth" of Christ. Meanwhile Jewish traditionalists vilified Christians as fringe heretics worshiping (yet another) self-proclaimed messiah.

Your second source says as much:

Prof. SHAYE J.D. COHEN, Brown University: The Jewish sect, then, is a group which sees itself as Jews, recognizes that there are other Jews out there, but claims that those other Jews out there have it all wrong. They don't fully understand what Judaism is all about and only the members of the sect do.
Prof. MICHAEL WHITE: Sectarian groups are always in tension with their environment. That tension is manifested in a tendency to want to spread the message out, to hit the road and convince others that the truth is real.

Both sources describe in some detail the ideological shift of early Christianity from a Judaic perspective to a Hellenistic perspective. This is fairly well-documented, and has not been disputed here. Neither document, however, attributes the anti-Semitism of New Testament to the Romans, nor do they suggest the New Testament's whitewashing of the prefect Pontius Pilatus as being anything else but relative to the sectarian tensions between early Christians and their Jewish neighbors.

[struggle4progress]

8. I think it quite likely that there were such shifting tendencies and that they are partly revealed

by careful textual analysis, but not being a scholar in the field myself it is terrifying for to contemplate just how much I would have to learn before being able to assess such claims in any detail

[rug]

5. That was today's Gospel.

Gospel Lk 17:11-19

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying,
"Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"
And when he saw them, he said,
"Go show yourselves to the priests."
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
"Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"
Then he said to him, "Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you."

[xfundy]

2. Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6).

[struggle4progress]

3. That's not a historical form of gematria

though you know lots of us did joke about that back in the 80s

[dimbear]

7. Matthew 26 53 "Do you not think I can pray to the Father and he will at once send more than twelve

legions of angels?"

If a lesser person said this, we would think of it as bragging. Mere statement of fact, perhaps. Sound to anyone like a slur on 'legions?'

Identical word, BTW.

[struggle4progress]

9. It is difficult to do much with a single short quote. I cited the Gerasene Demoniac because

it occurs in all three Synoptic gospels (which suggests an early origin to the story), because it appears in the gospel Mark (which is usually believed to have been written first and which thus argues against the story being a later interpolation), and because the demon in two of three gospel versions asserts its name is "Legion"

If Mark were actually written somewhere around 70 CE, a natural inference will be that the story was already in wide circulation at the time of the Roman sack of Jerusalem and that therefore it might indeed reveal something about cultural reactions to the Roman occupation

Something might be done with your quote, but only in conjunction with others: it might, for example, fit into the view expressed in #6 upthread

[dimbear]

10. I can't conjoin it to others, that's the only other use of the word legion in the NT.

Other than the demons, of course.

One good, one bad, the bad one repeated.

Latin loan words in the Greek NT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:New_Testament_Latin_words_and_phrases

My favorite so far: denarius. No contempt for that.

[struggle4progress]

11. It's even more difficult to do anything with single words: upthread I gave a short argument, based

on three different examples

In one of those examples, the Gerasene Demoniac, I pointed out that there's some evidence the story circulated widely during the period before the sack of Jerusalem and even in a form that used the word "Legion" in a particular context: a man allegedly suffers from a demon, who calls itself "Legion," is cured by the "casting out" of "Legion" into unclean animals who all destroy themselves. The word "Legion" here is of interest -- not because it is a Roman military term in a Greek text from a Hebrew splinter sect -- but because its appearance suggests the allegorical reading of the story, regarding the Legions as a "demonic possession" of the occupied country, which can be cured by "casting them out"

[dimbear]

12. It would appear that legion is a relatively common loan word in both Koine and Aramaic.

I only have this on the authority of those who should know, it is beyond my expertise. That said you may be right or you may be overstepping yourself. What remain to be considered are the many places where the NT strives to legitimate Rome and diminish the original home of Christianity. The most glaring example is the founding pun: "On this rock etc. " With that founding pun, Jesus supposedly hands over his church to Peter and hence to Rome. What weight should be given to the pun being valid in Latin is up for grabs. The problem of course as usual is custody. When we look to books which weren't in the custody of Rome, we don't see that pun. For example, in GThom, Jesus makes a much different assignment of his legacy--to James, right there in the original land.
James, on due consideration, a more rational and more likely choice. GThom managed to escape the busy Roman scribes and the bonfires both, hence preserves the concept.