There was a cartoon on instagram the other day with two sheep talking, saying they’d been taught to be afraid of wolves, but it turned out it was the shepherd who was eating them. (Although it’s probably actually the shepherd’s boss.)
This has always been a bit of a problem with the whole shepherd metaphor for me. It somewhat breaks down when you consider why the flock is being kept in the first place.
I was with you for most of it, but I got a bit confused by the part about Nero: “What’s less plausible is that he did it so spectacularly that people started feeling sorry for them.” As I think about dictators throughout history, I do think it’s fairly common for them to overreach and make themselves look bad. Particularly if the Christians Nero persecuted seemed to bear their pain in an otherwise noble way, as we see in other stories of the early church, I could imagine it creating some sympathy for them, and perhaps even contributing to the explosive growth of Christianity.
Am I missing something here? Are there other reasons you think Tacitus’ details about the human torches are exaggerated?
It's mostly where he's trying to get with it - that ordinary people were appalled at Nero. My point isn't that it's inherently implausible, it's that a flag goes up that it's useful for Tacitus's project - arguing that opposition to Nero was not confined to the well-off and that Nero was undeniably savage, not just that Nero was a liability for the upper classes who finally orchestrated his ouster.
To be clear: it's not impossible. There's also just not a ton of sources to draw on for this. It's that a flag goes up that this story is useful for Tacitus - that the public executions were too much even for Rome. Suetonius's depiction of Nero is not favorable but his depiction of Christian persecution is a lot more straightforward - Nero did something about this superstition. Whatever Nero did was probably really bad, but in Suetonius's telling it sounds more like standard work for a Roman emperor.
I personally think the idea that persecution became particularly grotesque by Roman standards and thus sympathy for Christians prevailed is a little unlikely. Even more so if this is in the context of Romans generally accepting that Christians are dangerous interlopers who could have plausibly burned down their city -- which Tacitus says it was. Executing criminals publicly was standard Roman fare and everything Tacitus describes is frankly on the tame side as far as spectacle executions go. (Again, it's only one source, but Martial's epigrams about the Colosseum are truly stomach churning).
The question of whether or not Christian courage in the arena would have made people empathize with them is a really contested one - Kagan goes over this in his book The Lure of the Arena, arguing that a strong sense of moral dessert is a big factor in arena executions. Again, not saying it never happened, just that Rome had a lot of plausibility structures in place to affirm the moral rightness of arena executions.
Ya and the more I think about it the more I think the implausible moment could be one of two things:
1) The persecution itself was so bad that it resulted in sympathy (emphasis on the ferocity of persecution)
2) The response to the persecution was sympathy (no matter how bad it got people didn't care).
The individual standalone details themselves are all otherwise attested - costumed deaths re-enacting myths, crucifixion and being eaten by animals, and burning alive. The specific idea of using the bodies as torches seems to be the novel thing that Tacitus introduces. Just this insane carnivalesque burning of humans all around the space.
And that actually might get us to a verisimilitude problem because violence in the arena is usually centrally located. Having a series of burning humans around a space is a fire hazard and also it's going to (and I'm just gonna be graphic here) produce more smoke than light. The gap between being okay with a person being burned alive in front of you in a central location is different from having them set on fire right next to you. Your primary accelerant is going to be tallow at this point, and unless it's really high quality, it doesn't burn clean or fast.
A couple years ago, I heard a pastor preach that the Greek word "poikilos" (usually translated as "varied" or "diverse") is where we get our word "polka dot," and... then there was something about pirates' sails and how our "varigated" sin is like those sails... It was convoluted and I sat there for ten minutes of the sermon googling what the heck this guy was talking about only to find that the whole thing was bogus. Then just the other day I learned that the whole "they'd tie a rope to the high priest so if he died in the Holy of Holies they could drag out the body" is ALSO a turkey. With this article now, I'm sitting here wondering just how many gobbles I'm hearing in them there woods.
Love this post! I don't think I've heard most of these "bible turkeys" but I have heard the one about "there was a gate called the Eye of the Needle and you had to take all the stuff off the camel and make it shuffle forward on its knees to get through." It's really quite amazing how this totally deflates that whole passage-
"Jesus says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Oh no, we as Americans are comparatively rich, this sounds like really bad news for us!"
"Oh, actually what he meant was, there was a gate called the Eye of the Needle, and they had to take everything off the camel, and make it kneel down and walk on its knees to get through. So actually what Jesus means is, you're fine, you just have to be willing to give up your riches for God, and you have to be humble before God."
"Oh phew thank goodness, so we're fine then."
Another one I've heard is "we can figure out which Old Testament laws still apply to us using this rule: There were moral laws, ceremonial laws, and civil laws. Moral laws still apply, and the other ones don't." I heard this in church growing up, people talked about it like it was a known and accepted thing- and then eventually found out (from the Slacktivist's blog- https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/11/10/god-hates-shrimp-picking-and-choosing-among-abominations/ ) that this is totally made-up and doesn't really make any sense.
Thank you so much. My longtime close ladyfriend is Jewish, and if she gets a chance to read this, I strongly believe she'll appreciate what you wrote about differing (and thus "not altogether obvious") religious interpretations of the same passages of Scripture. I was going to ask her about the anointing-lamb-feet thing but she was busy.
"But even if you do have a If you’re moving from pasture to pasture" Minor formatting error here, but otherwise fantastic post. Thank you so much for everything, Dr. R.
There was a cartoon on instagram the other day with two sheep talking, saying they’d been taught to be afraid of wolves, but it turned out it was the shepherd who was eating them. (Although it’s probably actually the shepherd’s boss.)
This has always been a bit of a problem with the whole shepherd metaphor for me. It somewhat breaks down when you consider why the flock is being kept in the first place.
I was with you for most of it, but I got a bit confused by the part about Nero: “What’s less plausible is that he did it so spectacularly that people started feeling sorry for them.” As I think about dictators throughout history, I do think it’s fairly common for them to overreach and make themselves look bad. Particularly if the Christians Nero persecuted seemed to bear their pain in an otherwise noble way, as we see in other stories of the early church, I could imagine it creating some sympathy for them, and perhaps even contributing to the explosive growth of Christianity.
Am I missing something here? Are there other reasons you think Tacitus’ details about the human torches are exaggerated?
It's mostly where he's trying to get with it - that ordinary people were appalled at Nero. My point isn't that it's inherently implausible, it's that a flag goes up that it's useful for Tacitus's project - arguing that opposition to Nero was not confined to the well-off and that Nero was undeniably savage, not just that Nero was a liability for the upper classes who finally orchestrated his ouster.
To be clear: it's not impossible. There's also just not a ton of sources to draw on for this. It's that a flag goes up that this story is useful for Tacitus - that the public executions were too much even for Rome. Suetonius's depiction of Nero is not favorable but his depiction of Christian persecution is a lot more straightforward - Nero did something about this superstition. Whatever Nero did was probably really bad, but in Suetonius's telling it sounds more like standard work for a Roman emperor.
I personally think the idea that persecution became particularly grotesque by Roman standards and thus sympathy for Christians prevailed is a little unlikely. Even more so if this is in the context of Romans generally accepting that Christians are dangerous interlopers who could have plausibly burned down their city -- which Tacitus says it was. Executing criminals publicly was standard Roman fare and everything Tacitus describes is frankly on the tame side as far as spectacle executions go. (Again, it's only one source, but Martial's epigrams about the Colosseum are truly stomach churning).
The question of whether or not Christian courage in the arena would have made people empathize with them is a really contested one - Kagan goes over this in his book The Lure of the Arena, arguing that a strong sense of moral dessert is a big factor in arena executions. Again, not saying it never happened, just that Rome had a lot of plausibility structures in place to affirm the moral rightness of arena executions.
Gotcha-that makes sense, thanks for fleshing that out!
Ya and the more I think about it the more I think the implausible moment could be one of two things:
1) The persecution itself was so bad that it resulted in sympathy (emphasis on the ferocity of persecution)
2) The response to the persecution was sympathy (no matter how bad it got people didn't care).
The individual standalone details themselves are all otherwise attested - costumed deaths re-enacting myths, crucifixion and being eaten by animals, and burning alive. The specific idea of using the bodies as torches seems to be the novel thing that Tacitus introduces. Just this insane carnivalesque burning of humans all around the space.
And that actually might get us to a verisimilitude problem because violence in the arena is usually centrally located. Having a series of burning humans around a space is a fire hazard and also it's going to (and I'm just gonna be graphic here) produce more smoke than light. The gap between being okay with a person being burned alive in front of you in a central location is different from having them set on fire right next to you. Your primary accelerant is going to be tallow at this point, and unless it's really high quality, it doesn't burn clean or fast.
A couple years ago, I heard a pastor preach that the Greek word "poikilos" (usually translated as "varied" or "diverse") is where we get our word "polka dot," and... then there was something about pirates' sails and how our "varigated" sin is like those sails... It was convoluted and I sat there for ten minutes of the sermon googling what the heck this guy was talking about only to find that the whole thing was bogus. Then just the other day I learned that the whole "they'd tie a rope to the high priest so if he died in the Holy of Holies they could drag out the body" is ALSO a turkey. With this article now, I'm sitting here wondering just how many gobbles I'm hearing in them there woods.
Love this post! I don't think I've heard most of these "bible turkeys" but I have heard the one about "there was a gate called the Eye of the Needle and you had to take all the stuff off the camel and make it shuffle forward on its knees to get through." It's really quite amazing how this totally deflates that whole passage-
"Jesus says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Oh no, we as Americans are comparatively rich, this sounds like really bad news for us!"
"Oh, actually what he meant was, there was a gate called the Eye of the Needle, and they had to take everything off the camel, and make it kneel down and walk on its knees to get through. So actually what Jesus means is, you're fine, you just have to be willing to give up your riches for God, and you have to be humble before God."
"Oh phew thank goodness, so we're fine then."
Another one I've heard is "we can figure out which Old Testament laws still apply to us using this rule: There were moral laws, ceremonial laws, and civil laws. Moral laws still apply, and the other ones don't." I heard this in church growing up, people talked about it like it was a known and accepted thing- and then eventually found out (from the Slacktivist's blog- https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2014/11/10/god-hates-shrimp-picking-and-choosing-among-abominations/ ) that this is totally made-up and doesn't really make any sense.
Did the Jewish people Kill Jesus in 1 Thessalonians 2:15 or Is Paul saying "those Jews" (Specifically those Jews in the crowd) are responsible?
The strongest argument against this idea is actually sacrifices. If you broke a lamb's leg, you could never use it for a sacrifice.
Great post as always!
Thank you so much. My longtime close ladyfriend is Jewish, and if she gets a chance to read this, I strongly believe she'll appreciate what you wrote about differing (and thus "not altogether obvious") religious interpretations of the same passages of Scripture. I was going to ask her about the anointing-lamb-feet thing but she was busy.
"But even if you do have a If you’re moving from pasture to pasture" Minor formatting error here, but otherwise fantastic post. Thank you so much for everything, Dr. R.
Fixed it. Thanks!