• Oiconomia@feddit.de
      0·
      10 months ago

      It also inspired Schwanzus Longus as the accurate translation of Biggus Dickus in the life of Brian

    • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      Longinus (/lɒnˈdʒaɪnəs/) is the name given to the unnamed Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus with a lance;

      The name is probably Latinized from the Greek lonche (λόγχη), the word used for the lance mentioned in John 19:34.[9]

      They didn’t know this soldier’s name so they essentially named him “Lancer”. Amazing.

      • cerement@slrpnk.net
        0·
        10 months ago

        nickname for Roman soldiers was “Miles” from Latin mille for “thousand” – legionaries walked everywhere giving us the unit of measure, a Roman mile = mille passus (thousand paces)

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
        0·
        10 months ago

        It’s actually worse. The name couldn’t be from the 1st century CE because otherwise it would be Lonchinus [lɔn’ki:nʊs]; back then Greek still kept ⟨χ⟩ as [kʰ] (as in “kit”), this would only change around the 4th century or so.

        Plus whoever coined that name wasn’t fully proficient in Greek, otherwise they wouldn’t plop a Latin -īnus into it, they’d go with ⟨λογχίτης⟩ lonkhítēs “spear-bearer, the spear guy” → Lonchites instead.

        …the English pronunciation stands out as being weirder than everything above. Also, obligatory:

        A spear of Longinus a day keeps the Tang sea away~

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
    0·
    10 months ago

    If they just wouldn’t have killed him he wouldn’t have been able to come back and prove that he’s holy. Then Christianity may not have come to existence, and we’d instead have the much cooler Roman gods.

  • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
    0·
    10 months ago

    Note that Jesus was crucified partially because the Romans did not believe he was God or had any powers

    (i get the joke)

    • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
      0·
      10 months ago

      Idk, I think he was crucified because he was a political activist that threatened the power of the state and forced people to question the authority of said power, just like the Romans crucified all political activists that were critical of the Roman Empire.

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
        0·
        10 months ago

        Perhaps that was the historical perspective, but that doesn’t include Jesus definitely performing miracles either. In the perspective where he does do miracles, a.k.a. the Bible, at least according to Christianity.com (which sources itself inline to the bible) a ton of priests and people were angered by Jesus’s claim of being the messiah and son of God. They then invented a bunch of insurrection charges and took to the local governor, who initially refused but went through when they basically threatened to get him fired by questioning his loyalty.

        So, I guess I stand corrected that it was not the Romans but the existing religion.

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
          0·
          10 months ago

          Of fucking course the website of the religion dedicated to worshipping a dead Jewish carpenter is going to say he definitely performed miracles. Dude… we don’t have any actual proof of him doing so though, just attestations from people who either worshipped him or claims from people who stand to benefit from the story being true

          • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
            0·
            10 months ago

            I think you should reread what I said. In the very first sentence I doubt that what transpired in history was Jesus performing miracles.

      • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nlEnglish
        0·
        10 months ago

        There was a whole section in the Bible about how the local Roman leadership didn’t really care enough about crucifying Jesus and that they were just doing what the Jews told him to. Of course, a great many Bible passages are anti-Roman propaganda, so it should be taken with a bit of salt, but if you do believe in the Bible, the Roman Empire didn’t really seem to care that much.

        The whole thing that made the Roman Empire relatively stable was the “you worship your gods and do your weird rituals, just do what we say and maybe take part of a ritual once or twice a year to show your Roman-ness and you will be good” ideals. Several gods in conquered areas were even inserted into the local Roman pantheon. I don’t really think Tiberius could give a shit about Jesus, if he even knew who he was. Treating Jesus as an actual threat makes little sense to me, unless Pilate was being manipulated into thinking so, because of the actual threat to his rule by another Roman rival trying to replace him.

        There are some that think Jesus was crucified for leading a revolt (being dubbed “King of the Jews” and all), but in revolts Romans usually applied collective punishment (see also: executing the people digging for the arc of the covenant), so that doesn’t seem very likely to me. Whole groups of early Christians would’ve been executed alongside Jesus.

        I have a feeling the Jewish/Christian population saw the way Romans kind of didn’t really care about what religion their conquered areas were following as poor and weak leadership, and used that to paint Pilate as a weak ruler.

        • masquenox@lemmy.world
          0·
          10 months ago

          Roman leadership didn’t really care enough about crucifying Jesus and that they were just doing what the Jews told him to

          And it’s complete bull. If the Jewish authorities wanted Jesus dead he would have been stoned to death - not crucified. The Romans only crucified people they wanted to crucify. This is not anti-Roman propaganda - it’s anti-Jewish propaganda by the Catholic Church to camoflage the fact that it was their imperial progenitors who was responsible for Jesus’ death.

        • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
          0·
          10 months ago

          Pilate did seem to be pressured by the Jews into crucifying Jesus. Even with the Barrabas incident where they freed a literal murderer to still have Jesus killed.

          • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
            0·
            10 months ago

            Yeah, that does seem to be the most likely scenario. But on the other hand, I take the Bible’s take on Romans about as serious as their take on the Babylonians: it’s hard to know what parts to trust and what parts were made up to make the Romans look bad.

            The whole Barabbas story is rather questionable; random, unwarranted executions were something Pilate was kicked out for, and there aren’t any independent source backing up the whole “releasing a prisoner at the request of the people” story. I don’t think many scholars believe this story actually happened as described.

            Plus, there are the many alternative interpretations, like the idea that Barabbas was not a murderer, but rather the son of Jesus and Maria Magdelena, and that making him a criminal was the work of badmouthing by a Christian sect that believed that Jesus died unmarried and without children, or that Jesus and Barabbas were the same person as some dedicated scholars believe.

            • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
              0·
              10 months ago

              I took you seriously until you tried to propose that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, these “scholars” must be mental if they seriously think that.

              Also worth mentioning Barabbas’s first name was also Jesus (or Yeshua) which if it were made up, wouldn’t make any sense why a criminal would be given the same name.

              • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nlEnglish
                0·
                10 months ago

                I took you seriously until you tried to propose that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene

                I don’t think it’s a popular take among religious scholars at all, but from a non-religious view, I don’t see why not. There’s a lot about Jesus’ life that’s been altered throughout the years.

                Also worth mentioning Barabbas’s first name was also Jesus (or Yeshua) which if it were made up, wouldn’t make any sense why a criminal would be given the same name.

                Barabbas’ name means “son of the father”, which already sounds oddly specific in this context.

          • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
            0·
            10 months ago

            We finally arriving at the end of any christian fundamentalist arc - Jews bad. Shorter than expected.

            • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
              0·
              10 months ago

              Are you really trying to equate me stating historical fact to me trying to propagate anti semetism? Even though the Jews in the times of Jesus were completely different to the Jewish people nowadays? That’s like claiming that the Japanese did war crimes in WWII is some form of racism towards the Japanese.

      • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        10 months ago

        Or he was crucified because he was gay (kisses the guy he put in charge of the group’s money around that time, had a beloved disciple reclining on him when feeding same disciple he kisses dipped bread at his last meal before being turned in). That was a capital charge under Jewish law.

        In fact, it’s extremely sus that Peter is alleged in his own tradition to deny Jesus three times right around the time Jesus is going through ~3 trials, at least one of which Peter is acknowledged as going back to the guarded area where the trial was taking place to deny him in.

        He could have also been killed for promoting atheist ideas at the time, given the earliest Christian ‘heresy’ was Simon Magus who after leaving the early church is talking about an “indivisible point” and later heretics and apocrypha have Jesus seeming to be quoting Lucretius’s naturalism and atomism. This is the same century Rabbi Elazar allegedly said “why do we study the Torah? To know how to answer the Epicurean.” So Jesus promoting Epicurean ideas might not have gone over very well (and might explain why Paul was so adamant Corinth ignore “other versions of Jesus” that they accepted saying things like “everything is permissible” or denying physical resurrection - very Epicurean statements).

        Or it could have been the official story, though personally I don’t really buy it. If he was a threat to Rome it’s bizarre he gets such different treatment from the several other messianic upstarts in Josephus who are killed immediately without trial by Roman forces with their followers included. And why would the Sanhedrin be peeved about messianic claims when the other examples of messianic claimants were solely depicted as opposed by Rome?

        But possibly gay Jesus teaching evolution and atomism while criticizing dynastic monarchy? Yeah, I can see that dude ending up dead pretty fast in that time and place by Sanhedrin demand and Roman hands.

        • bstix@feddit.dkEnglish
          0·
          10 months ago

          I remember reading about how investigations into the translations of the Bible support the gay Jesus. (Disclaimer I’m not gay, so I have no affiliated interest in promoting gayness, I just find it historically interesting).

          “Washing feet” was a actually a mistranslation of some kind of general “servicing” that had several meanings, including cock sucking or accepting being bottom. Jesus “washed a lot of feet”, but one thing is certain: It didn’t mean literally washing feet. That part was definitely made up according to the people who looked into it.

          Anyway, it’s been thousands of years and learning of how cultures and acceptance of certain things can change rapidly, I wouldn’t be surprised.

          Keep in mind that Romans were also at war with the Greek shortly before the alleged time of Jesus. We know that the ancient Greeks practiced gay sex not just casually, but even expectedly. The Romans did not. The empire had an expansion strategy that looked a lot like the Nazis Third Reich: Expansion by breeding.

          Personally I find it likely that historical Jesus was killed for a whole lot of other reasons than for claiming to be the king of Jews or for betrayal of the state, and he sure as fuck did not die “for our sins”.

          • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            10 months ago

            We know that the ancient Greeks practiced gay sex not just casually, but even expectedly. The Romans did not.

            Huh? The Romans were even more extreme with it. The Greeks would court young boys coming of age with a lengthy courting ritual that involved a lot of focus on consent - the Romans were straight up castrating prepubescent children to preserve their femininity.

            In fact, it’s probable that the “marriage is between a man and a woman” in the NT was an anachronistic reactionary response to gay marriage having become a legitimate Roman institution in the 60s CE following Nero marrying two men, first playing the role of the bride and then the role of the husband (the latter time with someone who had been castrated when prepubescent).

            Even before the empire there were rules related to homosexual senators losing their voting rights if they were the bottom, and they weren’t likely to create a rule for something that didn’t happen.

            So I’m not sure where you get the idea Rome didn’t have homosexuality.

            “Washing feet” was a actually a mistranslation of some kind of general “servicing” that had several meanings, including cock sucking or accepting being bottom.

            I’d really need to see a source for this claim, as it sounds extremely spurious. There’s a lot of literature around Christianity that claims secret coded language use, but generally they are all quite ridiculous claims.

            While ‘feet’ or ‘thigh’ as words sometimes have euphemistic meaning for genitals, I’m unaware of any idiomatic use of “washing feet” as reference to sex. You can see some related discussion about the OT usage of a similar phrasing/theory here.

      • bstix@feddit.dkEnglish
        0·
        10 months ago

        Maybe he was killed because an acorn dropped on some chariot. You never know.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
    0·
    10 months ago

    All the biblical fiction heaven vs hell fantasy fiction is basically this. Gotta harvest those potential biblical artifacts for their apocalyptic powers.

  • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Been going down a lot of early Christianity rabbit holes, and my latest over the past few days has been oddities to the depiction of the crucifixion in John (allegedly based on earlier eyewitness testimony).

    Crucifixion as an execution method didn’t even necessarily involve nails. It was excruciating because it dragged on over a very long period of time. Your body’s survival instinct to keep breathing effectively tortures you to keep struggling to breathe as it gets more and more unbearable.

    Except - that’s not at all how Jesus’s execution turns out in John.

    He just sort of chills up there, takes a sip of sour/bitter wine brought up to him on the cross (19:29), and then not long after is just like “ok, peace out” and croaks midday.

    This is so unusual that in the evening the guards who are then breaking the legs of the other prisoners being executed to speed up the process for the Sabbath have to double check whether Jesus is actually dead by poking his side with a spear, when suddenly water and blood pour out (19:34).

    So, some fun facts about the Mediterranean in antiquity:

    • Euthanasia was a thing, mentioned a number of times BCE as performed by high doses of opium
    • Opium has a bitter taste
    • Acute opium poisoning causes pulmonary edema where your lungs fill up with fluid

    (Notably both Matthew 27 and Mark 15 deny that he drank the wine offered when he was on the cross, though there’s a doubled denial of wine where the soldiers offer it that’s found in all the Synoptics. In theory Luke depends on Mark, but doesn’t have the non-consumption of the wine on the stick as drunk in John, so it looks a bit like the extant version of Mark may have had post-John parts of Matthew edited into it later on.)

    So suddenly dying only a few hours into crucifixion shortly after drinking bitter/sour wine and then having fluid pour out of a lung puncture sounds a bit like even if you put him in a cage it wouldn’t necessarily have lasted very long anyways assuming he still had access to beverages provided by his mom. Also, a rather dark but humanizing perspective to the story if what I’m suggesting was historically correct and his mother effectively euthanized him to shorten his suffering…