gwern comments on Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable - Less Wrong

124 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 August 2007 03:21AM

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Comment author: gwern 01 July 2009 03:07:50PM *  3 points [-]

I'm intrigued by your comment about the bible being folklore, and especially that the NT is propaganda. I suppose if we take Jesus to be a Jewish revolutionary, I could see the Jewish apocalyptic propaganda, but where do you find the Roman imperialist propaganda?

It's a staple of higher biblical criticism; I no longer read much of it, but from what I remember, a number of Gospel features and language are there specifically to endorse the Roman hegemony and try to make early Christianity appear harmless and compatible with it.

Off the top of my head: 'render unto Caesar', and the blood-guilt of Jesus's martyrdom being put on the Jews and not the Romans/Pontius Pilate (Pilate as depicted in the Gospels is an absurd farrago of fiction, as a comparison with the narrow-minded blood-thirsty Pilate of Josephus will readily demonstrate).