The Historicity of Jesus - The Spread of Christianity in the 1st Century

[King]

This has probably already been covered in some form in such a long thread, but I've always assumed Christianity spread because of its apocalyptic urgency.   Many early Christians and those who were around Jesus during his lifetime were giving the impression that his arrival meant the world would end before the end of the first century.  We've all seen how the strangest cults have risen swiftly on the same promises in modern times.  Not even Mormonism, but weird Baptist faction "prophets" like Michael Traverser.  That's enough to make it spread quickly and for Romans to fear it creating unnecessary panic in the empire. 

It likely wasn't the only fast growing religious movement that they killed during their reign.  In fact, Christianity was on the decline by the 3rd century and likely would have been a dead religion by the 5th if not for Constantine in the 4th.

[King]

Maybe I misunderstood your response, but Biblical retort to the attitude of 1st AD Christianity is kind of silly isn't it?  There was no NT formed yet and it likely all spread through word of mouth.  Jesus could have told Peter this but that doesn't mean the other Apostles, or lesser disciples, comprehended such.   

Even today, with the Bible, we see things like Premillenial Rapture spread like a wildfire for no just reason. Without written testimony, I just cannot envision it NOT being chaotic.

[King]

I'm not saying there's not written rules to Christianity.  I'm saying that, in a mostly illiterate society, they weren't the end all of what was happening at the time.   I mean seriously, jmfcst, before the printing press, the Bible that reached the public said only whatever the Catholic hierarchy wanted it to say.  In 1 AD? All of those letters only had one copy--the original, were only viewed by the recipient, and were at that person's discretion to heed all of it.  

As I said, apocalyptic urgency is only an assumption of mine.  I think it's rather good assumption.  Yes, there were rules and letters, but the church leaders main responsibility first and foremost was to convert as many people as they could.  Maybe some did it the right way, but even today we have ridiculous apocalyptic Christian denominations who are incredibly successful and no doubt back then we did, too.    

Now, when Nicea convened and sorted it all out for their history books they picked nothing but the finest of documents to use.  Good for them, but like all historical accounts of ANYTHING, there's a detailed ground situation that gets glossed over.

[King]

They COULD have been read word for word, but the odds of this occuring in every case is so low that its absolutely impossible. Even if every literate missionary did the word for word duty (again, even if optomistic, you have to say at most 99% did; someone had to have skipped out on something somewhere or else you're saying there is no such thing as human error or free will), the remaining 95 percent of illiterates would not have spread it the same way. A man listening to the missionary who goes home and tells his brother, his wife, and his kids about it would only remember the juicy details (the cruxification, ressurrection, and promise to return soon) and none of the rest.