But if you're going through the trouble to invent a story for national pride, why would you ever claim your people were enslaved when they weren't? Slavery carried such shame in the ancient world. A far more impressive story would've been the Egyptians trying to conquer the Israelites, only to...
As opposed to what? Your suspicions are very much biased by the advanced time period you've grown up in. Imagine yourself living in a pre-Enlightenment, pre-scientific-method society. The world around you is vast and teeming with diverse, complex life and everything appears to act in sync...
When Emperor Theodosius closed the pagan temples and banned their sacrifices around 391 A.D., what's the estimate percentage of the Empire that was still pagan? Were the Christians a majority by then and therefore oppressing a minority religion? Or were the Christians still in the minority and...
Is there a single Dharmic creation account you're referring to? Because you act as if those religions have a Genesis equivalent which is superior, yet I'm having trouble finding one. And I'm not being sarcastic either. If you can point me in the right direction so I can read up on the topic, it...
Not to get too off-topic, but the Genesis narrative could be interpreted as a primitive parable of cosmological and evolutionary development. From a figurative point of view, it's not that far off-base. The days are metaphors for very long time periods. It began with light (Big Bang), then...
I didn't say it was impossible. I merely had strong doubts. And the very fact that it took sixteen more centuries for this other unique Messianic claimant to pop up almost bolsters my point that another preacher wouldn't have taken Jesus' place in ancient Israel. People such as them are very...
Because Messianic claimants back then were like political candidates today. You get behind one and support him, but if he fails, you move on to a different candidate. You don't stick with a loser. And execution is the ultimate form of failure, which is why I don't see any other followers doing...
I'm sure there were other sages and healers roaming Israel, but the core idea of Christianity—that the Messiah is a son of God who must die as a human sacrifice and then rise from the dead for the forgiveness of sins—seems so radical when compared to what we know about first century Judaism that...
Because those Messianic claimants had a very different idea of what being the Messiah meant. They tried to rally popular support for a rebellion against Rome and restore an independent kingdom of Israel, with themselves as its king. Admittedly, this was also what most Jews thought the Messiah...
True, but part of the reason Napoleon chose the imperial title a couple decades later was because "Emperor" had republican connotations to it, in that the Roman emperor was at least nominally elected by the Senate. Along with the fact that the Founding Fathers were inspired by Ancient Rome when...
Why not? If Saint Paul could persecute Christians, then later convert and repent of his past, how is it inconsistent for a pagan monarch to convert, repent and rule as a Christian?
The whole point of Christianity is that everyone sins and needs to be forgiven. It's not about doing the right...
No. When Charlemagne was crowned Emperor by the Pope, the Byzantine throne was held by a woman, Empress Irene. Pope Leo III reasoned that a woman could not be the Roman Emperor, so he declared the imperial throne was vacant, and consequently gave that vacant throne to Charlemagne.
Now, the Pope...
At least for this papal order of precedence, the Byzantine Empire no longer existed by 1504, so there would be no place for it in that list.
As for earlier than that, I suspect that the Byzantine Emperor wouldn't have ranked very high. In Western Europe, the Holy Roman Emperor was believed to...
While I don't believe that the story of Exodus is a completely factual account of what happened to the Israelites (no Ten Plagues, no Crossing the Red Sea, exaggerated number of Israelites), I do believe that the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians at some point, achieved their freedom...