What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

[Mark Rand]

The heroes find a book that states that the Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesue was still alive in the library of the team's mage. He explains that the book, a world history text, was given to him by a friend in an alternate reality.

The question for our learned panel is this. Assuming that this world's history was identical to the CU's before this event, how is this world different from the CU?

[garou]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

What caused the early fall of the Roman Empire? Goths? Punks? Plague? Little green things from outer space?

[Teflon Billy]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Does the collapse of the Roman Empire imply that Christ would not have been crucified?

 

How does his continued life (presuming the local Hebrews didn't execute him on their own after Roman withdrawal) effect things?

 

Does Satan attempt to take a more direct approach to corruption/hindering His mission?

 

I think this might be a cool What if...

TB

[Mike W]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Depends on how you define "falling apart". Most scholars would place the Roman Empire in decline shortly after Jesus's death, though it was a slow decline and there were enough good Emperors that the decline wasn't obvious for a while. But by the time Julius Caesar and Octavian got done, the Roman Empire was too big to manage and the long slow decline began. So, you might speed things up a little bit, but really, unless Jesus was somehow tied into the actual Fall of Rome(because his death touched off a rebellion or something), you really wouldn't have any major changes.

 

Now, if Jesus was thought to be responsible somehow...the Roman Empire would have gone Christian 300 years earlier than Constantine's conversion in the early 4th century and probably more fervently. So you probably would have had a theocratic Europe from then on. This means that the Muslims probably never gain a foothold in Europe. The Jews' position probably doesn't change much. The Crusades happen much earlier and are much more successful. You could end up with much less knowledge of the Classical times because of it, since the fire in the Great Library destroyed a lot of things that only came back to us through the Muslims, who probably wouldn't have had as good of records if the Romans converted to a Christian theocracy earlier.

 

In modern times, Italy and Greece might be Christian Theocracies but I doubt it. By the time you get to the Middle Ages, the Catholic church was both dominant over most of Europes monarchs and corrupt. And so much of what happened since(the Reformation, the Church of England, etc) probably happened in a fairly similar manner. With a more spectacular and influential secular beginning, the Church probably became more politically influential sooner, but the end result probably doesn't change much. You just can't sustain a corrupt theocracy the size of Europe for any length of time. About the only things I could think of changing are that Israel probably doesn't get founded. Because there wouldn't be enough Jews in Europe when Hitler tries to massacre all the non-Aryans for people to be sympathetic enough to them to get the land allocated.

 

MAYBE, after WWII, instead of the UN, we get a religious based NATO like organization that leaves the third world out. Which leads to a more Eurocentric world that has a colonial attitude toward the third world still, similar to the European attitude circa 1880. The European powers wouldn't have started giving the other countries independence after WWI and into the 1970s because the religious-paternal instincts would have been stronger. But this is something that could go either way.

[Agent X]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

The Byzantines were Christian and kept good records of Classical Learning. It wasn't Christianity in the West that was the problem. It was population decline, more immediate priorities than book conservation, and illiterate Germanic leadership.

 

As to the collapse of the Roman Empire - Do you mean just the Western Roman Empire or are you adding in a new wrinkle, that of the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium?

 

It's important to remember that Christianity was an urban religion in its infancy and spread along the roads of the Roman Empire among the disaffected populations. Should Rome fall, Christianity would have to find another vehicle for spreading or organize much more effectively and earlier probably in Judaea itself.

 

As to what groups would have asserted themselves with a Roman collapse in the first few decades of the First Century, you need only look at its neighbors and come to a conclusion; Germans to the North, Parthian Persians to the East, Nubians to the South. Also, portions of the Empire may reassert their national identity, such as the Egyptians.

[Ozgrowl]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Hmm....from my church history you'd have the following impacts

* No Romans, no crucifixion of Christ. The Jewish pharisees would have had to knock him off their way. No major changes maybe.

* No Romans, no Roman Catholic Church. Emperor Constantine ultimately protected Christianity from persecution BUT turned it into a state religion with all it's politics and offices and bells and smells (no offense).

This means the practical expression of 'the Church' is open to your own imagination, I guess. Without the Romans, it may have gone underground across the world rather than being accepted here, thus maybe creating potential for a 'Rebel Force' type group. But I'm blathering now......

 

Oz

 

I knew my seminary training would come in useful somewhere....

[Mike W]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

The Byzantines were Christian and kept good records of Classical Learning. It wasn't Christianity in the West that was the problem. It was population decline, more immediate priorities than book conservation, and illiterate Germanic leadership.

 

QUOTE]

 

True, but the point I was trying to make is that if Europe would have gone more strongly Christian 300 years earlier, the Byzantine records still would have been lost, and the Muslim records that the Classical philosophers and dramatists were rediscovered through would probably have been less complete because they Muslims would have had less presence in Europe for us to recover the records from and very possibly less positive interaction with the Romans and Greeks during the time when much of that was being written(Plutarch for instance) and since we can't be sure when the older pieces(Plato, Aristotle) were acquired by the Muslims, we might have lost some of that as well. And other much later literary pieces like the Song of Roland may never have been written and the Battle of Ronscevals may never have happened.

[Agent X]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

The Byzantines were Christian and kept good records of Classical Learning. It wasn't Christianity in the West that was the problem. It was population decline, more immediate priorities than book conservation, and illiterate Germanic leadership.

 

QUOTE]

 

True, but the point I was trying to make is that if Europe would have gone more strongly Christian 300 years earlier, the Byzantine records still would have been lost, and the Muslim records that the Classical philosophers and dramatists were rediscovered through would probably have been less complete because they Muslims would have had less presence in Europe for us to recover the records from and very possibly less positive interaction with the Romans and Greeks during the time when much of that was being written(Plutarch for instance) and since we can't be sure when the older pieces(Plato, Aristotle) were acquired by the Muslims, we might have lost some of that as well. And other much later literary pieces like the Song of Roland may never have been written and the Battle of Ronscevals may never have happened.

Why would the Byzantine records have been lost if Europe was more strongly Christian?

 

Yep, the Song of Roland may very well NOT have happened.

[Agent X]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Hmm....from my church history you'd have the following impacts

* No Romans, no crucifixion of Christ. The Jewish pharisees would have had to knock him off their way. No major changes maybe.

* No Romans, no Roman Catholic Church. Emperor Constantine ultimately protected Christianity from persecution BUT turned it into a state religion with all it's politics and offices and bells and smells (no offense).

This means the practical expression of 'the Church' is open to your own imagination, I guess. Without the Romans, it may have gone underground across the world rather than being accepted here, thus maybe creating potential for a 'Rebel Force' type group. But I'm blathering now......

 

Oz

 

I knew my seminary training would come in useful somewhere....

The collapse of the Roman Empire could very well place the Pharisees in an untenable position with the people of Judaea connecting the fall of Rome and the Pharisees with God's displeasure at the crucifixion of the Messiah leading to a strongly Christian Judaea. Folks in the collapsing Roman Empire would look for answers most likely turning to Christianity, Zoroastrianism, or the like. One big change is that the Christian Church would not have had the time to pattern itself after the Roman Government; No Papacy.

[Mike W]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Why would the Byzantine records have been lost if Europe was more strongly Christian?

 

Yep, the Song of Roland may very well NOT have happened.

 

Well, assuming that the records were even written, a stronger Christian church, particularly as fundamentalist as the Middle Ages church was, might have been able to prevent the Byzantine Christians from maintaining the Classical records on the grounds that they were "heretical" or "pagan" or the like. The Church suppressed a lot that either disappeared into the cathedrals of Rome not to be seen for a very long period or just disappeared altogether from Europe. A stronger, more fanatical Catholic Church could have had a much better opportunity at being thorough and at extending its influence to Christian populations that they, in "real life", held less influence over.

[Mike W]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

The collapse of the Roman Empire could very well place the Pharisees in an untenable position with the people of Judaea connecting the fall of Rome and the Pharisees with God's displeasure at the crucifixion of the Messiah leading to a strongly Christian Judaea. Folks in the collapsing Roman Empire would look for answers most likely turning to Christianity' date=' Zoroastrianism, or the like. One big change is that the Christian Church would not have had the time to pattern itself after the Roman Government; No Papacy.[/quote']

 

Actually,I think that the Papacy could still have come about. The Christians stole everything from someone else,and the idea of an Emperor was hardly unique to the Romans. Now the college of Cardinals and down the line might look a little different, but even then, arguments could be made for keeping a similar structure(aside from utilitarian evolution, they could have stolen the ideas from another culture like the Germans who used a system for selecting a king not unlike the college of cardinals, where the King was really the most powerful duke, but who had to have the approval of the other dukes to assume control. The French(who had Germanic origins) also elected their king this way for quite a time. And the German dukes would rule smaller areas, and had others of less rank under them to manage smaller areas and so on).

[Markdoc]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Christianity became a Europe-spanning (and eventually global) faith via the Roman empire: first via its trade networks (where it was only marginally effective) and then after its adoption by the Empire, by active evangelism. If Rome had collapsed (really collapsed) around the time Jesus is supposed to have lived, its enemies would have moved into the gaps and the dissemination of the faith would either have never happened or happened much, much more slowly (to take an example, the area which is now French was "christianised" by official policy in only a few generations: north of the empire, however, the process still wasn't complete 800 years later)

 

There would have *been* no Byzantine empire - at that point, Byzantium was a sleepy, no-account minor port and the Roman empire had no split officialy into Eastern and Western. The relatively peaceful Roman Asia Minor where Paul went to preach and build up his folowing would almost have certainly been plunged into war as the Persians swallowed it up and the local Armenian and Hellenised lords tried to prevent that. Not fertile ground for sowing the gospel of the prince of peace...

 

Egypt would almost have certainly regained the freedom it had only recently lost, while the Germanic tribes would have moved south a few generations earlier. Europe had been pagan for 3000 years - it's likely that it would have stayed that way for a while longer.

 

Forget about whether there would be a papacy or not - a very likely outcome is that Christianity would either have not survived or become one of many minor mystery cults. After all, the early church fathers travelled to Egypt, to Persia and even to India to spread their faith as well as staying in Judea, but those churches all perished. Only Paul's church got a lasting foothold, and that was in Roman territories and especially in Rome. The Egyptian coptic church is an offshoot of Paul's original founding in Asia Minor, not a survivor of the original founding, while James' foundings in Persia and India have vanished from history. The Ethiopian church is also an offshoot from Paul's founding, via a hellenistic convertee.

 

And if Christianity had not become a continent-spanning religion, there's a good chance that Islam would not have arisen. If Mohammed was born at all, he may have copied Ahrimanism instead, or whatever was most successful at the time.

 

It's really hard to imagine what the world would have looked like - the only safe bet is that it would not look much like what we have now.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Agent X]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

 

Well, assuming that the records were even written, a stronger Christian church, particularly as fundamentalist as the Middle Ages church was, might have been able to prevent the Byzantine Christians from maintaining the Classical records on the grounds that they were "heretical" or "pagan" or the like. The Church suppressed a lot that either disappeared into the cathedrals of Rome not to be seen for a very long period or just disappeared altogether from Europe. A stronger, more fanatical Catholic Church could have had a much better opportunity at being thorough and at extending its influence to Christian populations that they, in "real life", held less influence over.

There wouldn't be a Papacy, at least not as we know it.

[Agent X]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Christianity became a Europe-spanning (and eventually global) faith via the Roman empire: first via its trade networks (where it was only marginally effective) and then after its adoption by the Empire, by active evangelism. If Rome had collapsed (really collapsed) around the time Jesus is supposed to have lived, its enemies would have moved into the gaps and the dissemination of the faith would either have never happened or happened much, much more slowly (to take an example, the area which is now French was "christianised" by official policy in only a few generations: north of the empire, however, the process still wasn't complete 800 years later)

 

There would have *been* no Byzantine empire - at that point, Byzantium was a sleepy, no-account minor port and the Roman empire had no split officialy into Eastern and Western. The relatively peaceful Roman Asia Minor where Paul went to preach and build up his folowing would almost have certainly been plunged into war as the Persians swallowed it up and the local Armenian and Hellenised lords tried to prevent that. Not fertile ground for sowing the gospel of the prince of peace...

 

Egypt would almost have certainly regained the freedom it had only recently lost, while the Germanic tribes would have moved south a few generations earlier. Europe had been pagan for 3000 years - it's likely that it would have stayed that way for a while longer.

 

Forget about whether there would be a papacy or not - a very likely outcome is that Christianity would either have not survived or become one of many minor mystery cults. After all, the early church fathers travelled to Egypt, to Persia and even to India to spread their faith as well as staying in Judea, but those churches all perished. Only Paul's church got a lasting foothold, and that was in Roman territories and especially in Rome. The Egyptian coptic church is an offshoot of Paul's original founding in Asia Minor, not a survivor of the original founding, while James' foundings in Persia and India have vanished from history. The Ethiopian church is also an offshoot from Paul's founding, via a hellenistic convertee.

 

And if Christianity had not become a continent-spanning religion, there's a good chance that Islam would not have arisen. If Mohammed was born at all, he may have copied Ahrimanism instead, or whatever was most successful at the time.

 

It's really hard to imagine what the world would have looked like - the only safe bet is that it would not look much like what we have now.

 

Cheers, Mark

There are still Persian Christians unaffiliated with the Catholic Church and whose origins are ancient and unrelated to Catholic or Protestant missionary activities.

[Agent X]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Actually' date='I think that the Papacy could still have come about. The Christians stole everything from someone else,and the idea of an Emperor was hardly unique to the Romans. Now the college of Cardinals and down the line might look a little different, but even then, arguments could be made for keeping a similar structure(aside from utilitarian evolution, they could have stolen the ideas from another culture like the Germans who used a system for selecting a king not unlike the college of cardinals, where the King was really the most powerful duke, but who had to have the approval of the other dukes to assume control. The French(who had Germanic origins) also elected their king this way for quite a time. And the German dukes would rule smaller areas, and had others of less rank under them to manage smaller areas and so on).[/quote'] But they would have had to do it the hard way and remember what the early Church was like? It bore little resemblence or character in terms of organization with what came later as a result of becoming more and more "Roman".

[laxrulz777]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

The Roman empire was the vessel for the spread of christianity. If the empire falls then Jesus might or might not have stayed alive (probably killed shortly after by the Jews but perhaps not). If he does stay alive then his martyrdom might happen in an entirely different way (if at all) and you might have to look at revising the entire modern Christian faith (salvation through faith alone might not even exist as a modern tenet). Additionally, christianity would probably have stayed more local. Paul would not have made all those trips to Rome and the home of any 21st century Christian church would probably be in Judea, Greece or Turkey perhaps (who knows really but it wouldn't be anywhere near Rome).

 

Christianity would NOT have spread to England and England would have stayed a Pagan dominated island as would Germany. The Arthurian legends might be couched in an entirely different religion (in fact the alterations to England seem like the most interesting variations). Islam's roots might have been very different. Remember that Mohammed viewed Jesus as a prophet. It seems more likely that Islam would have been a tighter offshoot of Christianity (perhaps even its first schism?).

 

The crusades would have been nothing like what we've got today. Either they would have been against another group (Perhaps those Germanic and English pagans mentioned above?), they would have been half-hearted against the muslims (seems unlikely) or (if Mohammed had been more influenced by Hinduism or Zorastrianism) they might have been full scale holy wars with one side claiming complete victory.

 

That above paragraph probably sets up the most crucial changes to the modern era. Let's pick one: Crusades against the Pagans and Mohammed influenced by Hinduism.

 

You'd imagine that Islam's relations with Hinduism and Christianity would be flip flopped (i.e. out and out war with Hinduism now and simmering hatred with Christianity). Pakistan and Turkey would be like Northern Ireland and Ireland were in the 80s (or like Palestine and Israel today perhaps). Israel probably wouldn't have come around.

 

Asia was so isolationist that it probably remained mostly the same as would Africa. However, America probably wouldn't have been founded by puritan immigrants fleeing british religious persecution. More likely that explorers would have founded individual settlements (like spain in FL and holland in NY for example) and that those settlements would have been the major players. I doubt America as a country would have even come about but you might have had a succession of wars for independence as they decided to help eachother out in seperating from their colonial masters. So North America would probably look alot more like South America.

 

Whether the World Wars would have happened at all is anyone's guess but I would think that if they did the wars would have been against Russia (unchecked by America) and would have been later (in place of the Cold War). One or more nuclear strikes might even have occurred. A possible (and interesting) outcome would have been for a WW to have been fought similar to WWII in which the european and asian countries allied against Russia (perhaps with a vietnamese or japanese ally) and in which Europe and

China split up Russia piecemeal (just like Russia and the western powers split up Germany) leading to a current Cold War between Europe and China.

[Markdoc]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

There are still Persian Christians unaffiliated with the Catholic Church and whose origins are ancient and unrelated to Catholic or Protestant missionary activities.

 

Correct - but as far as we can determine their origins come not from the original churches founded in Persia (of which no trace remains apart from a few stones, potsherds and traces of scripture) but from the Armenians who moved into the area during the 3rd to 5th centuries. They still retain traces of their ancient culture and are apparently not indigenous to the region.

 

That's why I was careful to write "from Paul's Asia Minor founding", not the Roman church. The Armenian churches which sprang from Paul's first preachings are also (at least as far as we can tell) also the origin of what went on to be come the Greek Orthodox church: their claim to be coeval with the Roman Church is the argument that they also arose from Paul's original preachings and the Persian churches were traditionally under their umbrella until the Byzantine defeats in 636/7.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lightray]

If the Roman Empire fell around the time of Christ, then the Jews don’t get decisively crushed and their Diaspora never happens. Also, there’s no Roman Empire to stop the Persians/Sassanids from dominating not only Mesopotamia but all of the Middle East.

 

Also no Roman Empire to resist the Goths, Vandals, Huns and so forth in later centuries. And no Roman Empire to persecute the Christians and unify their various sects.

 

Probably, you’re looking at a Persian Empire with more connection to the Orient than the Romans ever had, with Europe dominated by squabbling tribal kingdoms.

 

I’d expect Mithraism or some other variant of Zoroastrianism to become the dominant religion. Depending on how closely you want to follow our own timeline, you can have Mohammad become a prophet of Ahura Mazda, replace the Roman Empire with the Persian Empire, move most of the European developments over to the Middle East, have the Crusades be against the northern pagan infidels (for defiling sacred Mithraist sites in Rome, maybe?), have America settled by Persians and Chinese, and move the World Wars to the Middle East – India – China region.

[laxrulz777]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

The only reason that I didn't suggest a Persian Empire was that they were kind of restricted by geography. East of them was a very strong oriental dynasty, West of them was alot of land before you got to water and north of them was inhospitable desert and mountain regions. Sardis, Damascus and Jerusalem were already Roman holdings (and had been for almost 20 years) when Jesus died. So Persia would have had to take them back from the dying Roman Empire and then either make peace with the Empire and start trading with their people or start building military vessels there and conquering.

 

In fitting with the Champions motif, I think the most likely European Empire would have been an Arthurian one. A pagan Arthur might have had a very different relationship with Mordred (Maybe not evil but certainly darker). I can picture a long lasting Camelot led Empire with holdings in Spain, France, Germany and Scandinavia.

 

Alternatively, you could use Arthur as the spread of christianity (albeit greatly delayed) with Camelot becoming this world's equivalent of Rome (after the schism with the Orthodox church).

 

I think Europe would have known about the Orient MUCH earlier thanks to Persia however. This might have led to a discovery of America sooner. Marco Polo "discovered" the orient in 1271 and Columbus sailed in 1492 so figure that if someone in 700 had gone to the orient you'd be looking at someone in 900 trying to sail west to get to Asia. That opens up all kinds of cookiness.

[tancred]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Slightly off-topic but related:

 

Harry Turtledove has a short-story collection entitled Agent of Byzantium.

 

The Master of Alternate History postulates the changing of history by having Mohammed convert to Christianity and become known as Saint Mohammed after his death.

 

This leads to a radically different alternate universe. The Persian Empire never falls, and is Rome's leading opponent in the time of the stories in the collection (the 12th Century IIRC).

The main character in the book is a roving trouble-shooter for the Roman Empire, sort of the James Bond of the Middle Ages.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

This is the Champions forum people, not the a Hard SF alternate reality forum! With that in mind, lets move this conversation towards the more fantastic/supernatural rather than having it be a constant back and forth of who has more esoteric history knowledge.

 

Task: Postulate an alternate historic progression from 20 AD forward (end date is not important, though 1000 AD is profered.)

 

Conditions: Rome collapses on or about 20 AD, the reason for the collapse is left to the participant.

Jesus isn't executed by the Romans on or about 33 AD.

The supernatural and metaphysical is demonstratively in existence for the purposes of this excercise.

 

Standards: The Bible, The Jewish Wars (by Josephus), and other pertinant extent writings of the time period ( BC 100 thru 150 AD)

 

TB --HGF Taskmaster

[McCoy]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

Assuming that the execution of the Rabbi Josuah ben Joseph of Nazareth went the way it did in our world, possibly one of the last acts by the Roman garrison before they mutinied against Pilate.

 

Christianity never becomes the official religion of the empire, and the strong, central church never develops. Without the sponsorship of Constintine, the Nicean Council never comes about, and by the fourth century there is a major rift between what we would think of as mainstream Christianity, and the Arians, who believed that Jesus was the Messiah but not God. (Simular to the rift between the Shiits and Sunnis in Islam.)

[Lightray]

In fitting with the Champions motif, I think the most likely European Empire would have been an Arthurian one. A pagan Arthur might have had a very different relationship with Mordred (Maybe not evil but certainly darker). I can picture a long lasting Camelot led Empire with holdings in Spain, France, Germany and Scandinavia.

 

Alternatively, you could use Arthur as the spread of christianity (albeit greatly delayed) with Camelot becoming this world's equivalent of Rome (after the schism with the Orthodox church).

The problem with an alternate history CU is that we don't really know of that many major, historical events that were influenced by the supernatural in the CU. (unlike, say, the World of Darkness where every major event was influenced). So, there's no real impetus to push the timeline back to "normal". Thus the divergence.

 

However. If you want an Arthurian alternate history, it doesn't even need to be pagan. Recall that Joseph of Arimathea is supposed to have taken the Grail to Glastonbury and settled there. His successors were the Fisher Kings and were Christian. We can postulate that they become the nucleus of a Christian sect in post-Roman Britain.

 

I don't see England having the resources to colonize/conquer/dominate Europe (not without supernatural help, anyway). But it's certainly possible than an Arthur could stabilize Britain long enough for missionaries to go forth. Irish missionaries were major proselytizers in the Dark Ages, after all.

 

You could have this end up with an eventual conversion of Europe, where the Dark Ages came earlier and maybe ended earlier. The "Church" would look toward England, not Rome (Glastonbury or Canterbury or London as the holy city, maybe?). Christian dogma would be much different, probably not as unified, with more celtic influences -- more asceticism maybe, and those odd celtic tonsures. And the heirs of the Pendragon would take the place of Holy Roman Emperors -- and probably be just as ineffectual by and large.

[hooligan x]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

If Jesus had been executed by the Pharasees instead of the Romans I would have had to throw pebbles instead of crossing myself when I attended St. Bernard High. That would have made that school even worse than it was.

[RDU Neil]

Re: What??!! The Roman Empire fell to pieces while Jesus was still alive??!!

 

I just hope the history buffs come to a consensus, so that when I get my time machine finished, I know what I need to do to keep Christianity and Islam from ever developing.

 

Personally, I'm fascinated by the idea of a world where there IS no omni-present religion... that it remains very fractionalized and local... culturally specfic... etc. I wonder what effects on global development, industrialization, imperial expansion, etc., would come from a lack of a proselytizing force such as Christianity. Would the Indo-European devlopment have eventually found SOMETHING like Christianity/Islam to justify their imperial designs, or would things have remained fractioned and disparate?

 

Hmmmm... good thread by the way.