Why didn't they kill Christianity?

Have any of you athiests ever wondered why the Jews or Romans didn't simply kill Christanity? It's clear neither one of them liked the Christians. Jesus was overheard several times saying he would "rise again on the 3rd day". The Jews (who disliked everything about Jesus), and the Romans (who viewed Christianity as a minor pain in the backside), could have killed Christanity right away. All they had to do is wait until 4-5 days after Christ died on the cross, throw his body on a cart, and parade it around the streets of Jeruselem, exposing him as a liar! So...why didn't they?? (I do hope you're not going to try to convince me that a few unarmed, rag tag followers of Christ was going to overpower the heavily armed Roman soldiers that was guarding Christ's tomb, and steal his body) So, please, give us a logical reason why the Jews and/or the Romans didn't simply kill Christanity.

Bill,
Do you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead by God?

Secondly, don't you think that the Jews tried to "thwart" Christianity?

Didn't the Romans have lions kill Christians? Also, wasn't there a Roman guard at the tomb of Jesus?

Maybe they did not try as often as they could have. Or maybe, not all Christians were taken into custody.

But whatever, didn't Jesus say that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church?

King James Version
==============
Matthew 16: 18
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Some would say that Christianity was the continuation of the Roman Empire.




A brief overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity

Wolfgang,
Why would they have that conclusion?

Originally posted by KingOnPoint
Bill,
Do you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead by God?

Secondly, don't you think that the Jews tried to "thwart" Christianity?

Didn't the Romans have lions kill Christians? Also, wasn't there a Roman guard at the tomb of Jesus?

Maybe they did not try as often as they could have. Or maybe, not all Christians were taken into custody. ...[text shortened]... , and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

King- I'm still waiting for an answer...

Originally posted by bill718
Christanity right away. All they had to do is wait until 4-5 days after Christ died on the cross, throw his body on a cart, and parade it around the streets of Jeruselem, exposing him as a liar! So...why didn't they?? (I do hope you're not going to try to convince me that a few unarmed, rag tag followers of Christ was going to overpower the heavily armed Roman ...[text shortened]... please, give us a logical reason why the Jews and/or the Romans didn't simply kill Christanity.[/b]

Bill718,

I think the fact of the matter is that they tried.

Saul of Tarsus was a brilliant young rabbi. He didn't wait to be told what to do. He mustered up his courage and intellect and took the initiative. In essence he went to the religious authorities and said "Give me permission in writing and I'll go around and wipe this horrible thing OUT !"

He tried, he tried. Jesus stopped him, gained him, and Saul became the Apostle Paul, writing some 13 of the 27 New Testament books. And skeptics have hated him ever since.

Now Rome tried. They tried. But the saying became "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the saints."

They noticed the way these Christians died in peace, singing, in hope, in victory, and some of their tormentors turned and said "I really need to look into this Jesus belief thing!" And they got saved.

So terrible persecution came from without.
Then the cosmic enemy of Christian truth changed his tactic. Instead of crush it from without, he tried a much more devastating approach. That is to WELCOME it into the world and gradually CHANGE it from WITHIN.

That was a more effective weapon as the history of degraded Christiandom proves. However, Jesus said that the gates of Hades would not prevail against the church which He builds. So neither persecution nor worldly mixture has been able to prevail against the builded church.

"The church of God is an anvil that has worn down many hammers."

But you are positively correct that parading the corpse of Christ around would have stopped the spread of the Gospel cold.

Stay tuned, they may STILL try to do just that someday.
Me, I think it is the truth. Christ rose from the dead and is available to be known today in His form as "a life giving Spirit." He is physically somewhere. I don't know. But we know as He is demonstrating the durability of His kingdom through the centuries the time of torture testing will conclude.

Then as He ascended, He will descend.

Originally posted by bill718
Have any of you athiests ever wondered why the Jews or Romans didn't simply kill Christanity? It's clear neither one of them liked the Christians. Jesus was overheard several times saying he would "rise again on the 3rd day". The Jews (who disliked everything about Jesus), and the Romans (who viewed Christianity as a minor pain in the backside), could have k ...[text shortened]... please, give us a logical reason why the Jews and/or the Romans didn't simply kill Christanity.

Constantine loved Christianity. I'd go as far as to say that you would not be a Christian right now if he had not.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Constantine [b]loved Christianity. I'd go as far as to say that you would not be a Christian right now if he had not.[/b]

I know that Constantine loved Chrisianity and thought "Wow, My empire could really USE this stuff."

This is the subtle way of the Devil. As for whether or not I'd be a Christian without Emperor Constatine. You have no way of knowing that.

But "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". So I have no problem is seeing that the Constantine THOUGHT he was maybe doing God a favor.

Originally posted by sonship
I know that Constantine loved Chrisianity and thought "Wow, My empire could really USE this stuff."

This is the subtle way of the Devil. As for whether or not I'd be a Christian without Emperor Constatine. You have no way of knowing that.

But "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". So I have no problem is seeing that the Constantine THOUGHT he was maybe doing God a favor.

He did Christianity a HUGE favor. Whether he helped God or not is open for debate.

Originally posted by bill718
Have any of you athiests ever wondered why the Jews or Romans didn't simply kill Christanity? It's clear neither one of them liked the Christians.

You seem remarkably mixed up about your history, and worse you are overgeneralizing about 'the Jews' and 'the Romans'. The early Christians were Jews, and later Christians were Romans.

Jesus was overheard several times saying he would "rise again on the 3rd day".
Or so we are told by people who wrote about it many years later. What makes you think any Roman in authority during Jesus' life time knew about this? What makes you think any such Roman would believe such a claim to be true?

The Jews (who disliked everything about Jesus), and the Romans (who viewed Christianity as a minor pain in the backside), could have killed Christanity right away.
Some of them tried to - they executed Jesus, or didn't you hear?

All they had to do is wait until 4-5 days after Christ died on the cross, throw his body on a cart, and parade it around the streets of Jeruselem, exposing him as a liar!
I suspect they thought killing him would be sufficient. It usually works.
I must point out though that Jesus was not the only one to come back to life. (Matthew 27-52)
How were they to know which one of them was going to start a new religion?

I do hope you're not going to try to convince me that a few unarmed, rag tag followers of Christ was going to overpower the heavily armed Roman soldiers that was guarding Christ's tomb, and steal his body
Instead, I will simply convince you that the Romans didn't think a few unarmed, rag tag followers of Christ were going to be much of a problem at all. In fact they weren't much of a problem until much later on - and they were really only a problem when they were the Romans.
Keep in mind that the Romans left no official records of Jesus at during the time he was alive so he clearly wasn't that much of a concern to them.

Originally posted by sonship
Then the cosmic enemy of Christian truth changed his tactic. Instead of crush it from without, he tried a much more devastating approach. That is to WELCOME it into the world and gradually CHANGE it from WITHIN.

That was a more effective weapon as the history of degraded Christiandom proves.

Some have claimed that this is exactly what Paul did.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
He did Christianity a HUGE favor. Whether he helped God or not is open for debate.

He did Christianity a HUGE favor. Whether he helped God or not is open for debate.

Marching people at the point of a spear to be baptized was doing Christianity a huge favor ?

Promising to give whoever would become a Christian a material reward like a nice garment was doing Christianity a huge favor ?

Forcing unregenerated people who had not received the Holy Spirit to be members of the empire's government established religion was doing Christianity a huge favor ?

Preaching that he had a dream of a sign of a cross assuring him that going into warfare he would conquer enemies of his empire was doing Christianity a huge favor ?

Let's see. Jesus, the founder of the Christian gospel (remember Him?) said to Pontius Pilate the Roman Governor "My kingdom is not of this world". Constantine, in contradiction, proclaimed that his worldly kingdom would be endowed to crush his political enemies. That is a kind of "God is on our side" attitude for the Roman empire.

So this "huge favor" to Christianity was contradicting Jesus Christ about the nature of Christ's kingdom of God ?

At best it was an extremely mixed "fortune" or "favor" done to the household of the Christian faith.

Originally posted by sonship

He did Christianity a HUGE favor. Whether he helped God or not is open for debate.

Marching people at the point of a spear to be baptized was doing Christianity a huge favor ?

Promising to give whoever would become a Christian a material reward like a nice garment was doing Christianity a huge favor ?

Forcing unregenerated ...[text shortened]... est it was an extremely mixed "fortune" or "favor" done to the household of the Christian faith.

Ditch the question marks and you'll be just about right.

Originally posted by wolfgang59

Ditch the question marks and you'll be just about right.

Why wouldn't you say that? To destroy the Gospel, to you, would probably be doing it a huge favor.

Originally posted by sonship

[b]Ditch the question marks and you'll be just about right.

Why wouldn't you say that? To destroy the Gospel, to you, would probably be doing it a huge favor.[/b]

Nothing to do with destroying the gospel.

Constantine—as the first Christian emperor—is a significant figure in the history of Christianity

wiki link as before


Without him we wouldn't have all those beautiful Byzantine icons.