Cofty said-
So are you saying that Rome invented Jesus, successfully kick-started a new peace-and-love, render unto Ceasar cult, but it was so successful Rome then started throwing them to the lions, but then later made it the official religion?
I'm confused.
I can't speak for Atwill's hypothesis, but from what I understand, the target for the newly-developed religion of Christianity was Jews, who HAD to convert or face death: THEY were the initial prospective converts to Christianity (which the NT reflects in Jesus' words to preach to Jews).
Of course, Paul's exporting of the beliefs to Gentiles was a loss of containment of a weaponized virus, and it spread throughout the Roman Empire (collateral damage) amongst some influential members of society who were NOT supposed to take it up.
"Pay Caesars things to Caesars, but God's things to God" was an acceptable concession to Jews, since the Romans were willing to let them to believe what they wanted as long as they could be controlled (much like the way people view Moslem extremists who blow themselves up); the problem was for Roman citizens to suddenly consider THEIR God NOT to be Caesar, but this foreign Hebrew God, Jehovah. THAT would explain why Christians were prosecuted in Rome; they were viewed as traitors who abandoned the State God.
Besides, if this WAS the plan, it failed miserably: otherwise there wouldn't have been a Bar Kochba Jewish rebellion/revolt (circa 130CE), with the costly and bloody Roman-Jewish war.
I don't know how the hypothesis handles gnosticism: that seems like the flavor of Christianity that should've been preferred, since it was less militant than extremist Judaism (or even orthodox Christianity, with it's stubborn willingness to die for Christ, since the gnostics generally saw martyrdom as a waste, as a violation of God's gift of life since they could simply pledge an oath to Caesar and get off scot-free). I suppose it's possible that an attempt at control spurred fan fiction, as well: that's what the gnostic texts are, being third-generation fan fiction.
Regardless of such plots by the Romans, many Jews WERE killed at the hands of Christians, both in the short-term and in the millenia that followed.
I don't know if Atwill's hypothesis really offers anything all that helpful to resolving the dilemma of how so many different flavors of Christianity quickly developed: it's hard enough to get others to accept one's pamphlets today, as any JW can tell you.
The hypothesis requires a belief in the existence of the sort of duplicitious masterminds that I just find a bit too hard to swallow (it's a bit too much 'conspiracy hypothesis' for my tastes)....
Adam