Jesus vs. The State

Much has been written about inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. And there have been many scholarly attempts to untangle the most authoritative historical accounts from those that were invented to serve the political objectives of evangelists. But I doubt any of them begin with the hypothesis that Jesus was an anti-theist who foresaw the terrible consequences of combining the philosophy of Jewish monotheism with the power of Rome. I think he was indifferent to Holy Law and the creator God that legitimized them. And I think he was also indifferent to Rome's ambitions of Empire which collected duties and took slaves but otherwise left local cultures intact. Both were attempts at social engineering that most individuals were free to accept or disregard. But a Rome under a single God was a dangerous collusion of power which could, through its necessarily-enforced campaigns of re-education and indoctrination, reduce humanity to the status of livestock and extinguish local cultures. The viral diaspora of monotheism unleashed by Rome's pettiness toward Judea now seems natural and inevitable. But at the time it must have seemed stoppable. If Judaism could be reinterpreted and revised before infecting Rome, perhaps both the ambitions of empire and the dehumanizing implications of a holy hierarchy could be softened with self-conscious sentiment, humility, and democratic sensibilities.

But, of course, the disciples of Jesus had other ideas, and they instead corrupted his teachings and made him the emblem of the very thing he'd worked to prevent: The Holy Roman Empire and the Nation State under God.