Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
FROM
THE
ROMAN
EMPIRE
TO
THE
AMERICAN
EMPIRE
By
John
Hudson
PART
ONE:
THE
SYSTEM
OF
POWER
IN
THE
ROMAN
EMPIRE
At
the
end
of
the
first
century
under
the
Flavian
Emperors,
the
Roman
Empire
had
many
distinctive
characteristics.
It
was
a
slave
state
in
which
there
was
a
tiny
minority
of
super
wealthy
people,
2000
of
whom
owned
all
of
Europe.
The
rest
were
poor
and
many
were
either
slaves
or
virtually
slaves,
working
in
mass
production
industries.
It
was
a
military
state
founded
on
incessant,
constant
war,
on
multiple
fronts.
The
standing
army
increased
in
size
from
about
250,000
(excluding
navy)
at
the
time
of
Augustus
to
a
peak
of
about
440,000
at
the
end
of
the
second
century;
compared
to
the
population
of
the
Empire
of
about
50
million.
Military
power
enforced
obedience
with
punishments
and
torture‐‐‐crucifixion
being
a
common
punishment.
It
was
also
an
Empire
of
mass
entertainment.
The
Flavian
Amphitheater
which
we
call
the
Colosseum,
was
a
place
of
massive
theatrical
spectacles
as
well
as
public
torture
as
entertainment
and
extreme
pornography:
its
programming
was
replicated
in
theaters
throughout
the
Empire.
When
they
occupied
a
territory
the
Romans
typically
devastated
it,
but
they
gave
their
work
a
satirical
name.
One
chieftan
remarked
the
Romans
plunder
and
butcher,
and
call
it
‘Empire’.
They
create
a
desolation
and
call
it
‘peace’,
the
‘pax
Romana’.
State
propaganda
extended
from
slogans
on
the
coinage
to
Imperial
statuary
to
street
processions
and
censorship
of
publications.
The
final
component
which
the
Romans
used
to
justify
their
power
was
a
system
of
religions
which
were
deliberately
created
as
a
technique
for
ideological
control
of
thought.
Of
these
the
most
significant
was
Caesar
worship.
This
religious
manipulation
was
conscious
and
deliberate
and
was
done
because
it
was
useful.
As
Lucretius
wrote
“all
religions
are
equally
sublime
to
the
ignorant,
useful
to
the
politician,
and
ridiculous
to
the
philosopher”.
Seneca
similarly
wrote
“religion
is
regarded
by
the
common
people
as
true,
by
the
wise
as
false,
and
by
rulers
as
useful.”
Roman
imperial
theology
claimed
that
the
gods
had
bestowed
on
them
‘dominion
without
end’
and
that
they
were
ruling
by
divine
will.
False
religions
created
in
order
to
be
useful
for
politicians
as
a
tool
of
imperialist
strategy
were
entirely
self‐serving‐‐‐
providing
legitimacy
for
their
actions,
and
precluding
any
form
of
criticism.
It
gave
them
an
exemption
from
any
normal
ethics
so
they
had
no
hesitancy
in
breaching
international
law—for
instance
in
destroying
all
the
forests
in
Judea‐‐‐or
in
exterminating
entire
towns
and
dehumanizing
their
enemies
as
demons.
The
Romans
felt
entitled
to
rule
over
others
since
they
regarded
themselves
as
the
only
civilized
nation,
they
felt
entitled
to
speak
for
all
mankind
and
that
others
should
obey
them,
since
they
were
born
to
rule.
1
Finally,
in
their
conception
of
the
‘pax
Romana’,
the
Romans
practiced
the
subversion
of
language,
employing
a
strategy
of
secrecy
that
replaced
the
truth
with
a
manufactured
jargon
of
slogans
and
misnomers,
hyperbole
and
self‐serving
versions
of
events.
Overall,
this
mixture
of
warfare,
inequality
of
wealth,
slavery,
mass
entertainment,
and
false
consciousness
functioned
together
in
an
integrated
fashion
as
an
economic
and
social
system
to
support
the
power
structure.
It
created
a
passive,
obedient
population
that
was
preoccupied
with
religious
fantasy
and
entertainment
and
could
be
easily
ruled.
PART
TWO:
DID
THE
ROMAN
EMPIRE
CREATE
THE
NEW
TESTAMENT?
Rome
was
skilled
in
creating
propaganda,
false
histories
and
false
biographies.
Could
they
have
created
the
Gospels
in
order
to
give
the
Jews
a
dead
pacifistic
pro‐Roman
Messiah
to
follow?
It
would
have
fitted
very
well
with
Imperial
strategy
which
needed
to
find
a
way
of
quelling
Jewish
Messianism.
To
find
the
answer
we
have
to
look
at
the
implicit
values
and
imagery
in
the
NT
documents
and
what
they
tell
us
about
the
context
in
which
they
were
created.
1. Pro
Roman
Values
are
central
to
the
Gospels
and
Epistles
Whereas
the
authentic
Hebrew
documents
,
the
Dead
Sea
Scrolls,
are
vehemently
anti‐
Roman,
and
want
to
drive
the
Romans
into
the
sea,
that
is
not
the
case
in
the
NT.
In
the
Letter
to
Timothy
the
people
must
offer
prayers
for
the
Emperors
and
all
in
high
positions
of
authority
so
that
they
may
lead
“a
quiet
and
tranquil
life”
in
all
“piety
and
dignity”
(1
Tim
2:1‐2).
The
Gospel
is
also
filled
with
pro‐Roman
values:
being
obedient,
paying
taxes,
not
resisting
enemies,
and
assisting
the
army.
For
instance
“do
not
resist
those
who
are
evil”
(Mt
5:39),
“if
one
hits
you,
turn
the
other
cheek”
(Mt
5:39),
“love
your
enemies
and
pray
for
your
persecutors
“(Mt
5:44)
“pay
the
half‐shekel
tax”
(Mt
7:24),“give
to
Caesar
what
is
Caesars”
(
Mt
27;19‐22)
and
“if
the
soldiers
ask
you
to
carry
their
pack
one
mile,
carry
it
for
two”
(Mt
5:41).
2. Imagery
from
the
Caesar
cult
underlies
the
NT
documents
A
hundred
years
ago
Adolf
Deissman
wrote
of
a
“polemical
parallelism
between
the
cult
of
the
emperor
and
the
cult
of
Christ
where
ancient
words
derived
by
Christianity
from
the
treasury
of
the
Septuagint
and
the
gospels
happen
to
coincide
with
solemn
concepts
of
the
Imperial
cult
which
sounded
the
same
or
similar.”
It
is
of
course
not
just
a
coincidence
that
the
concepts
that
Paul
is
using
in
his
letters
echo
the
Virtues
in
Roman
morality
and
the
Imperial
cult.
That
is
where
they
came
from.
The
Christological
titles
of
“Savior”
and
‘Lord’
are
simply
technical
terms
of
Imperial
ideology.
So
is
the
expression
‘Son
of
God’
which
is
an
imperial
formula
widely
used
in
first
century
Imperial
titles.
So
are
descriptions
of
the
Emperor
as
a
peacemaker
and
pacifier.
Core
concepts
of
the
Emperor
cult
included
faith
(pistis),
peace
(eirene)
,
righteousness
(dikaiosyne),
hope
(elpis),
justice
(dikaipsyne),
the
coming
(parousia),
2
Savior
(Soter)
and
the
good
news
of
military
victory
or
gospel
(evangelion)
which
was
also
the
term
used
for
how
benefits
flowed
from
the
Empire.
Piety,
which
is
eusebia
in
Greek,
and
in
Latin
pietas,
was
the
chief
virtue
of
Augustus
Caesar
and
one
of
those
“inscribed”
on
his
shield
of
Virtue.
But
it
was
also
a
major
feature
of
the
Pauline
letters
to
get
the
populace
themselves
to
take
on
the
”shield
of
faith”
(Eph
6;16),
and
the
“breastpiece
of
righteousness”
(Eph
6;14).
Taking
two
examples,
the
introductory
sentence
to
the
Letter
of
Titus
twice
uses
‘faith’
(pistis)
and
the
other
terms
‘Joy’
or
‘Grace’
(charis),
and
‘mercy’
(eleos)
were
the
qualities
that
people
would
seek
from
the
Divine
Caesar
who
would
be
petitioned
‘kyrie
eleison’
‘Lord
have
mercy’.
Both
grace
and
mercy
were
also
Roman
Virtues,
namely
goddesses
associated
with
the
Emperor
cult.
In
Letter
to
the
Colossians
one
of
the
key
concepts
is
the
Roman
virtue
fides
which
refers
to
good
faith,
reliability,
or
mutual
trust.
It
was
one
of
the
first
Virtues
to
be
treated
in
Rome
as
an
actual
deity.
So
none
of
these
are
Jewish
values
taken
from
the
Torah,
they
are
Roman
religious
concepts
which
form
part
of
the
Caesar
cult.
3. The
Gospels
are
a
Parody
of
Torah
There
are
three
kinds
of
Hebrew
literature
against
which
the
gospels
should
be
compared.
Firstly,
at
Yavneh
under
Rabbi
Yohannan
ben
Zakkai
the
Jews
took
a
hundred
years
to
produced
the
collection
of
sayings
that
we
know
as
the
Mishnah.
Secondly
there
are
the
Dead
Sea
Scrolls,
but
none
assigns
halakhot
to
individuals
at
all.
In
the
Mishnah
very
few
halakhot
and
few
disputes
were
attributed
to
individual
masters
who
lived
before
70.
Thirdly
there
is
the
Torah.
Matthew
is
a
kind
of
re‐written
Torah.
Far
from
being
a
naturalistic
account,
the
Gospel
of
Matthew
is
structured
into
five
books
like
an
alternative
rewritten
Torah.
That
is
why
it
starts
with
an
account
of
Genesis
(1;1‐2;12).
It
moves
next
to
an
account
of
Exodus
(2;13‐23)
then
includes
passages
about
wilderness
which
remind
us
of
the
Book
of
Numbers
(3;1‐4;16)
which
Jews
call
the
book
of
‘In
the
Wilderness’.
Then
most
important
of
all,
there
is
a
Book
of
Instruction
(8;1‐26;1)
that
opens
in
a
similar
way
to
how
Moses
begins
the
Book
of
Deuteronomy
and
similarly
comprises
five
sections.
Finally
the
last
book
about
the
passion
story
mirrors
the
Book
of
Leviticus
which
is
about
sacrifice
and
atonement
(23;34‐.28;16).
Each
of
the
five
books
of
the
Torah
has
their
specific
parallels
in
Matthew
and
typology
is
used
to
construct
the
events
in
the
life
of
Jesus.
Although
some
of
the
Dead
Sea
Scrolls
do
rewrite
Torah
they
do
not
do
so
in
order
to
replace
Torah.
But
that
is
what
Matthew
does.
Matthew
also
parodies
the
Torah
and
does
not
treat
it
with
reverence.
And
whereas
the
focus
of
Torah
is
on
the
history
of
the
people
Israel,
the
focus
in
Matthew
is
on
one
individual.
4. The
Gospels
and
Graeco‐Roman
Literary
Forms
Matthew
uses
Torah
to
create
a
kind
of
biography.
The
gospels
have
some
resemblance
to
Plutarch’s
fictional
‘biography’
of
Hercules,
the
fictional
biography
of
Heraclitus
by
3
Digenes
Laertius
or
the
fictional
divine
biographies
that
were
created
by
the
cults
of
the
gods
Dionysius
and
Asclepius.
None
of
these
were
Jewish.
Matthew
also
uses
many
pronouncement
stories
which
were
rarely
used
in
Hebrew
literature
but
were
very
popular
in
Greek
biography.
The
Greek
biographer
Diogenes
Laertius
used
an
average
of
6
such
stories
in
each
of
his
biographies
of
famous
sages.
Matthew
however
uses
an
enormous
number,
32
such
stories.
Many
of
the
sayings
attributed
to
Jesus
are
derived
from
classical
philosophers.
For
instance
when
Jesus
is
asked
why
he
and
the
disciples
eat
with
unwashed
hands,
he
replies
that
it
is
not
what
goes
into
a
person
but
what
comes
out
of
them
that
makes
them
unclean.
Similarly
when
people
reproached
Diogenes
for
going
to
unclean
places
he
replied
that
the
sun
can
shine
into
a
toilet
without
being
contaminated.
The
gospels
are
also
similar
to
the
tragedies
of
Euripides
as
transformed
by
Seneca
into
Latin
tragedy.
One
can
point
to
a
number
of
examples
but
they
become
most
clear
in
Gospel
of
Mark
.
There,
John
the
Baptist
plays
a
role
in
introducing
the
plot
very
similar
to
that
in
a
Greek
or
Roman
tragedy.
The
accounts
of
the
resurrection
are
similar
to
a
deus
ex
machina
(god
out
of
the
machine)
which
is
found
in
two
thirds
of
the
plays
of
Euripides.
In
Aclestis
for
instance,
Hercules
appears
to
bring
Aclestis
back
to
life.
There
are
also
specific
similarities
to
the
Seneca‐like
Octavia,
which
features
the
resurrection
appearance
of
a
ghost
of
Agrippa.
Perhaps
the
most
similar
play
to
the
Gospels
is
Seneca’s
Hercules
Oetaeus.
In
this
play
Hercules
has
overcome
his
labors
in
the
world,
washes
away
his
guilt
in
the
river
and
cleanses
his
hands
like
in
the
Gospel
accounts
of
Jesus’
baptism
and
of
Pilate
cleansing
his
hands.
Then
Hercules
goes
to
heaven,
from
which
he
speaks
to
the
audience,
his
form
taking
shape
in
the
air
as
he
tells
the
audience
that
hell
has
been
conquered.
The
chorus
closes
asking
Hercules
as
“peace
bringer
to
the
world”
to
still
be
with
us.
The
portents
at
his
death
are
similar
to
those
at
the
depiction
of
the
death
of
Jesus.
But
though
Matthew
is
based
on
the
Hebrew
epic,
the
Torah,
that
is
not
so
true
of
the
other
gospels
which
use
other
literary
structures.
It
was
rewritten
using
the
model
of
Homer
as
the
gospel
of
Mark
and
then
rewritten
again
using
the
model
of
the
Aeneid
as
Luke‐Acts.
Much
of
the
gospels
describe
fantastic
miracles.
In
some
cases
these
resemble
Roman
fantasy
literature.
In
other
cases
they
resemble
Imperial
propaganda
about
the
miracles
performed
by
the
Emperor,
for
instance
Vespasian’s
healing
of
a
man’s
sight
with
spittle.
The
Jewish
people
knew
that
the
Gospels
were
not
authentic
Jewish
accounts
of
a
divine
event,
because
they
gave
them
no
credence,
instructed
other
Jews
not
to
read
hem,
and
refused
to
follow
Jesus.
Indeed
yhey
participated
yn
hundreds
of
debates
and
disputations
in
an
attempt
to
show
Christians
the
error
of
their
beliefs.
Unfortunately
these
were
all
in
vain.
4
5. First
Christian
HQ;
The
Catacombs
of
Flavia
Domitilla
The
earliest
archaeological
evidence
of
the
Jesus
cult
comes
from
Rome
in
the
70sCE,
namely
the
catacombs
of
Titus
Caesar’s
cousin
Flavia
Domitilla,
where
Titus
Caesar’s
brother
Flavius
Sabinus,
and
his
sister
Titania
were
buried.
These
catacombs
lie
underneath
Domitilla’s
family
mansion
on
the
Via
Argentina.
The
question
this
raises
is
what
is
the
relationship
between
the
formation
of
Christianity
and
the
Flavian
Caesars.
A
connection
between
the
Flavian
Emperors
and
the
commissioning
of
the
Gospel
of
Mark
has
already
been
suggested
by
at
least
two
scholars.
Dungan
described
this
Gospel
as
possibly
being
composed
“under
the
direct
encouragement
of
certain
members
of
the
Flavian
household.”
Agnew
even
suggested
that
“Mark
wrote
it
for
presentation
to
the
Imperial
family”.
Recent
research
suggests
the
relationship
was
even
closer.
6. The
Gospels
were
created
in
parallel
to
Josephus
The
central
literary
character
of
the
gospels,
called
Jesus,
inhabits
a
plot
with
various
peculiar
features:
he
begins
his
efforts
by
the
Lake
of
Galilee;
sends
a
legion
of
devils
out
of
a
demon‐possessed
man
and
into
pigs;
offers
his
flesh
to
be
eaten;
mentions
signs
of
the
destruction
of
Jerusalem;
in
Gethsemane
a
naked
man
escapes;
Jesus
is
captured
at
Gethsemane
on
the
Mount
of
Olives;
Simon
denies
knowing
him;
he
is
crucified
with
two
other
men
and
only
he
survives;
he
is
taken
down
from
the
cross
by
a
man
called
Joseph
of
Arimathea;
his
disciple
John
survives
but
his
disciple
Simon
is
sent
off
to
die
in
Rome;
after
his
death
his
disciple
Judas
dies
by
eviscerating
himself.
Each
of
these
peculiar
events
has
a
parallel
in
the
writings
of
Josephus,
our
main
record
of
the
military
encounter
between
the
Judeans
and
their
Roman
conquerors‐even
to
the
unusual
crucifixion
in
which
three
men
are
crucified,
and
a
man
named
Joseph
takes
one,
who
survives,
down.
Events
at
the
Lake
of
Galilee
launch
the
Judean
careers
of
both
Titus
and
Jesus.
There
Jesus
called
his
disciples
to
be
'fishers
of
men'.
There
the
Roman
battle
took
place
in
which
Titus
attacked
a
band
of
Jewish
rebels
led
by
a
leader
named
Jesus.
The
rebels
fell
into
the
water
and
those
who
were
not
killed
by
darts
"attempted
to
swim
to
their
enemies,
the
Romans
cut
off
either
their
heads
or
their
hands"
(Jewish
War
III,
10).
Men
were
indeed
pulled
out
of
the
water
like
fish.
As
for
the
episode
of
the
Gadarene
swine‐
in
which
demons
leave
a
Gadara
demoniac
at
Jesus'
bidding
and
then
enter
into
a
herd
of
2,000
swine,
which
rush
wildly
into
the
lake
and
drown‐‐‐Josephus
recounts
the
Roman
campaign
in
which
Vespasian
marched
against
Gadara.
In
the
same
way
that
the
demons
were
concentrated
in
one
demoniac,
Josephus
describes
the
faults
of
all
the
rebels
being
concentrated
in
the
one
head
of
the
rebel
leader
John.
Then,
rushing
about
"like
the
wildest
of
wild
beasts,"
the
2000
rebels
rushed
over
the
cliff
and
drowned.
To
take
yet
another
example,
Josephus
describes
how
Titus
went
out
without
his
armor
in
the
garden
of
Gethsemane,
was
nearly
caught
and
had
to
flee.
The
parallel
in
the
gospel
of
Mark
is
a
naked
young
man
who
appears
in
the
Garden
of
Gethsemane
and
flees.
So
far
over
dozen
of
these
parallels
have
been
identified
over
a
period
of
a
century.
More
recently
Atwill
has
identified
the
overall
pattern,
showing
the
pattern
in
Josephus
5
to
correspond
with
the
pattern
in
the
gospels.
This
fulfills
the
criterion
for
'good'
parallels
namely
that
"patterns
of
parallels
are
more
important
than
individual
parallels"
and
"the
larger
and
more
complex
the
pattern
of
parallels,
the
more
we
should
take
them
seriously."
It
suggests
these
parallels
were
created
as
a
sequence
through
a
deliberate
literary
strategy
employing
allegorical
typology.
Since
it
is
impossible
to
imagine
that
for
their
official
war
history
the
Romans
would
have
invented
accounts
of
battles
taking
place
in
locations
marked
50
years
earlier
by
the
ministry
of
Jesus,
we
need
an
alternative
explanation,
of
which
there
is
really
only
one.
The
Gospels
began
to
be
written
in
the
late
80s
CE,
about
the
same
time
as
Josephus'
The
Jewish
War.
Key
events
in
the
life
of
Jesus
were
invented
as
literary
satires
of
the
Roman
battles,
ambushes,
crucifixions,
cannibalisms,
etc.,
in
the
military
campaign
of
Titus
Caesar,
as
recounted
in
Josephus.
Rather
than
different
communities
separated
in
time
and
space
writing
the
NT
Gospels,
either
as
eye‐witness
accounts
or
based
on
oral
tradition,
the
three
Synoptic
gospels
were
written
as
a
single
co‐ordinated
literary
undertaking‐‐‐most
probably
at
the
Imperial
Court.
The
Jews
who
ended
up
following
the
false
Messianic
literary
character
'Jesus'
would,
unbeknownst
to
them,
really
be
worshipping
an
allegory
for
Caesar.
Overall
this
research
suggests
that
the
gospels
were
deliberately
created
as
a
parody
of
Jewish
literature,
by
members
of
the
Roman
Court,
as
part
of
a
covert
campaign
of
war
propaganda
designed
to
persuade
the
Jews
to
worship
Caesar.
It
suggests
that
there
was
no
historical
figure
Jesus
but
that
he
is
entirely
a
literary
character.
It
suggests
that
the
values
of
pacifism
and
support
for
the
Roman
military
exist
in
the
gospels
because
the
Romans
put
them
there.
It
suggests
that
Christianity
was
created,
like
other
Roman
religions,
as
a
way
of
manipulating
the
masses,
as
a
kind
of
satirical
purge
of
Jewish
consciousness,
and
to
keep
the
existing
power
structure
in
place
by
preventing
rebellion.
PART THREE: IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY
Today
the
Roman
Empire
is
being
replicated
In
America.
Under
the
Neo‐Conservative
‘Pax
Americana’,
the
dominant
forms
of
Christianity
continue
to
support
a
power
structure
characterized
by
a
militarized
State,
incessant
warfare,
the
stereo‐typing
of
members
of
other
religions,
and
a
massive
inequality
in
the
distribution
of
wealth.
Corporations
and
special
interests
control
the
Senate,
Congress
and
Government
officials,
and
over
80%
of
the
mass
media
are
owned
by
a
handful
of
multinational
corporations.
Those
media,
especially
tv
‘news’
and
talk
radio,
seem
to
foster
a
kind
of
propaganda,
which
usurps
genuine
social
ties
and
promotes
a
kind
of
intellectual
passivity.
This
intellectual
passivity
and
lack
of
critical
thinking
is
especially
prevalent
among
the
Religious
Right.
As
Mark
Noll
notes
in
his
book
The
Scandal
of
the
Evangelical
Mind,
there
are
substantial
barriers
to
“careful
and
constructive
thinking”
in
the
Evangelical
6
churches
and
in
their
Neo‐Conservative
allies.
Their
thinking
is
full
of
appeals
to
authority,
assertions,
generalities,
over‐simplifications
and
authoritarian
threats
of
social
disapproval.
The
religion
is
sloganized
and
feeds
into
endless
apocalyptic
speculation
which
demonizes
opponents
and
does
not
engage
in
critical
thought.
Yet
as
a
voting
bloc
the
Religious
Right
has
also
been
extremely
significant
in
supporting
the
Neo‐Conservatives
in
actively
promoting
militarization
and
especially
war
in
the
Middle
East,
in
the
hope
that
this
will
bring
about
Armageddon.
A
belief
that
the
world
is
about
to
end
in
one’s
own
lifetime,
and
that
the
Messiah
will
return,
prevents
people
from
taking
actions
that
will
improve
society
here
and
now.
It
prevents
people
from
pressuring
Government
to
remedy
injustices
of
wealth,
because
these
will
be
corrected
in
heaven
and
through
prayer.
A
Gallup
poll
in
2004
found,
61
per
cent
of
the
US
population
believe
that
"religion
can
answer
all
or
most
of
today's
problems."
On
this
logic,
the
only
action
needed
is
further
evangelism.
Any
possible
energy
that
might
have
been
devoted
to
social
or
political
change
is
channeled
into
religious
expansionism.
To
change
that
situation,
it
would
have
to
be
entirely
reframed.
However,
Right‐wing
media
promote
the
idea
that
there
is
no
alternative
to
the
status
quo
and
the
pacifist
values
of
the
gospels
create
a
culture
of
passive
acquiescence
and
a
lack
of
social
critique.
Because
of
the
underlying
pro‐war
assumptions,
it
is
considered
ethical
to
spend
hundreds
of
billions
of
dollars
in
war,
which
could
have
gone
towards
education
and
social
services
or
a
better
standard
of
living.
For
instance
in
2008
cuts
were
made
to
social
programs
such
as
housing
assistance
for
low
income
seniors
and
home
heating
assistance
for
those
on
low
incomes
in
order
to
fund
additional
billions
for
the
military
budget.
Finally,
the
misuse
of
language
that
the
Romans
pioneered
is
endemic
in
a
society
that
is
constantly
marketing
propaganda.
Political
causes
are
packaged
and
branded
with
names
that
often
are
completely
the
opposite
of
what
they
will
actually
achieve,
in
a
kind
of
Orwellian
double‐speak.
Although
classical
rhetoric
had
categories
for
persuasive
speech,
in
today’s
world
language
becomes
a
suspect
vehicle
for
deceit
and
manipulation.
These
ways
of
seeing,
these
‘frames’
as
Lakoff
would
put
it,
which
underlie
American
Christianity,
are
replicating
a
version
of
Roman
Imperialism.
Like
Rome,
America
is
the
largest
global
power.
Like
Rome
it
is
arrogant
and
believes
it
is
doing
the
will
of
God,
and
that
through
"full
spectrum
dominance"
it
should
impose
its
values
and
beliefs
on
the
rest
of
the
world
and
should
do
so
by
military
force,
by
torture
and
divine
right.
It
seems
from
this
review
that
Christianity
is
not
part
of
the
solution
to
the
social
and
economic
problems
that
face
America
today,
but
rather
that
it
is
one
of
the
prime
causes.
As
a
system
of
ideas,
through
the
deep
underlying
assumptions
and
logics
of
its
worldview,
Christianity
is
colluding
with,
and
sometimes
actively
constructing,
the
Empire
which
it
was
created
to
support.
7
Is
it
possible
to
change
this
situation
?
Although
this
understanding
of
the
origins
of
the
gospel‐‐and
its
social
impact‐‐is
more
acute
than
previous
work
by
writers
like
D.
F.
Strauss
and
Bultmann
who
revealed
the
mythical
and
non
historic
materials
in
the
gospels
there
is
no
reason
to
suppose
that
it
will
have
any
greater
impact.
Marginal
and
challenging
theological
perspectives
are
easy
to
ignore,
especially
any
that
require
people
to
engage
in
complex
analysis.
In
our
visually
orientated
culture
such
an
invitation
is
simply
uninviting.
As
a
social
intervention
it
simply
will
not
have
any
impact
on
a
change
project
as
vast
as
the
need
to
begin
reversing
Federal
spending
priorities
and
dismantling
the
American
Empire.
If
however
a
set
of
material
could
be
distributed,
commoditized
and
internalized,
and
could
then
be
‘exploded’
to
reveal
the
true
nature
of
Christianity
,
then
this
might
potentially
have
an
impact
on
the
Religious
Right.
That
might
in
turn
have
a
knock
on
effect
on
the
entire
system
which
is
coming
under
increasing
strain
as
military
spend
causes
massive
indebtness,
and
by
having
diverted
investment
away
from
more
productive
deployment,
causes
job
losses
and
slowing
economic
growth.
There
is
now
an
opportunity
to
test
one
possibility
of
using
an
ideological
approach
to
promote
a
re‐evaluation
of
Christianity.
The
plays
of
Shakespeare
have
recently
been
shown
contain
a
system
of
Jewish
allegorical
structures
which
recount
a
new
story
of
how
Christianity
was
created.
Moreover
as
several
demonstrations
by
the
Dark
Lady
Players
have
shown,
these
allegorical
structures
can
be
depicted
on‐stage
‐‐‐the
Company’s
current
work
demonstrates
that
Hamlet
is
an
allegorical
comic
parody
of
the
Book
of
Revelation.
The
message
of
the
allegorical
levels
in
the
plays
should
in
itself
be
shocking
and
disorientating—especially
the
comic
parodies
of
the
crucifixion
such
as
the
death
of
Bottom/Pyramus.
Since
in
addition
it
appears
the
plays
were
co‐authored
by
the
dark
skinned
woman
who
was
England’s
only
Jewish
poet,
if
it
could
be
correctly
positioned
this
work
might
possibly
promote
a
process
of
rethinking
and
re‐framing.
So
far,
the
limited
audience
feedback
suggests
that
these
productions
have
potential
for
enabling
people
to
rethink
their
basic
assumptions
about
the
play
and
the
material
it
is
parodying.
This
possibility
deserves
in
depth
exploration.
John Hudson
www.darkladyplayers.com
8