Jesus discussion

[Restitvtvs]

Oh gad, there are thousands of Christian legends of military saints before the 3rd C. The list is endless.

Before anyone mentions it, yes we have to challenge the authenticity, it could be folklore, altered after the fact, documentary hypothesis...blah blah blah. Fine. but when we see a large pattern of the same issue, namely christian soldiers dying for their beliefs we have to ask why did this become a trope of Christian hagiography? Why was this a compelling story to tell and retell?

It seems the first instinct is to say "this isn't real" fine. why did it exist in the first place? Outside marxist methodologies calling it christian propaganda, what else meaningful can be said on that avenue of thinking? In short, dismissing a textual tradition is just that, dismissive. Let's try and build on what's there. There is ample evidence that demonstrating the existence of military converts (and not just converts but saints) was very important to early Christians. Why? Clearly these stories may be exaggerated by why make them in the first place.

There are only two answers: One there is some propagandistic value to them (of which there are many theories, none of them very satisfying) or they have some kernel of truth.

Travis

Excellent summary!

Given the very large numbers of people involved over decades & centuries; and given the individual, societal, and ethic diversity within the extensive Roman Enpire; probability favors that there where at least a few pre-Great Fire military converts, and a much larger number of pre-Constantinian military converts. That strongly favors kernals of truth & more.

Unfortunately, actual cases of military conversion may be distorted (and sometimes duplicated) over the centuries, for many different reasons, including misunderstanding, inaccurate memory, mistranslation, mistranscription, etc. Of course, some cases can be outright fabrications, created for various reasons, some perhaps well-intended & others not.