this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
7 points (100.0% liked)
RoughRomanMemes
627 readers
12 users here now
A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.
RULES:
-
No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, etc. The past may be bigoted, but we are not.
-
Memes must be Rome-related, not just the title. It can be about Rome, or using Roman aesthetics, or both, but the meme itself needs to have Roman themes.
-
Follow Piefed.social rules.
MORE COMMS ON THE HISTORYVERSE:
- !historymusic@quokk.au
- !historygallery@quokk.au
- !historymemes@piefed.social
- !historyruins@piefed.social
- !historyart@piefed.social
- !historyartifacts@piefed.social
- !historyphotos@piefed.social
founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That doesn't change the ability to roughly estimate the likely position of the historical Jesus as an anti-establishment Jewish preacher active around roughly ~30 AD who quarreled with the established Jewish priesthood and was executed with the acquiescence of Roman officials (who would not have been fond of the Jewish priesthood sentencing people to death without Rome's consent). Shit, if mentioning magic and divinity was disqualifying, even Herodotus would have to be cast out. Sources are examined critically, to see how they fit with or clash with other sources of the time, their own narratives, known practices, archeology, etc.
We recreate from imperfect sources, like the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, all the time; not to mention the general consistency of Christian writers in the first two centuries AD in an era before the printing press, amongst less-literate populations of the Empire, cast over a great geographical area, and forced to operate in secret due to tensions with the Jewish communities and the Roman government.
The idea of a historical Jesus is generally an attempt to fit the likely real historical preacher of Yeshua bar Yoseph with later accounts; thus, the idea of a historical Jesus is to minimize baseless speculation and maximize what is likely from what we know. Aslan gets basic facts wrong in addition to his wild and baseless speculation. It's not a great starting point.
I'm not saying it's wrong to have enjoyed it or found it thought-provoking, but it's definitely not a text that gets mentioned without comment when there's some pedantic Romaboo dragging his knuckles around the comm. :p
This is specifically why I like you Pug. I think it's far too common on the internet for some one to share a fun fact they learned and then get dog piled by people just wanting to be right without respect for that person's desire to learn.
That being said, those are all points that seemed important and Aslan did bring up and I latched onto. I as a fresh enjoyer of the field of Christology, couldn't tell you where the problems are and I'm gonna be annoying and ask for a good intro to why Aslan sucks AKA SoUrCe? but I'm also gonna go looking on jstor and my university library for book reviews after.
Otherwise, I was going to read Bart Erhman's "Did Jesus Exist?" book next. Maybe I'll check for reviews first this time, but what are your suggestions for historical Jesus stuff?
Honestly, I probably couldn't recommend a better source. Not because that's necessarily the best around, but because that was probably the most recent book on Christology I read, and I read it back when I was in college. XD
Ehrman's work is very much within the academic consensus about the historical nature of Jesus. Forgery And Counter-Forgery is the only other book of his I read (also largely on early Christianity), and I remember enjoying it very much.
I probably wouldn't even be aware of Aslan's work except that it became infamous in like, my first or second year of college (and that a few of the arguments presented, such as Jesus as an anti-Roman rebel, are regularly floated online).