In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"
Just as there are no evidence for Jesus' alleged crucifixion, there is even less evidence for the scale of persecution early Christians allegedly sufferred, and the reason why violence was directed at them. It is to be noted that during this so called early persecution and consequent scattering of Christians, Jesus' disciples, the heads of the movement against whom oppression was allegedly directed, stayed put in Jerusalem.
In fact it was precisely due to the religious toleration of the Roman world, that nevertheless despised Jews for their insularity and acted against religious movements only when they appeared to threaten public order, that the nascent cult of Christianity was able to develop out of Judaism, become organised and, ultimately, seduce the Roman state.
In total, Christians, throughout a 300 year period, lost about a little less than 2000 persons, not for solely adhering to a faith that until the early years of the 2nd century Roman administrators were ignorant of, but due to their own provocations, stirring up of the population by refusing military service and motivating others to do the same based on the fear of eternal damnation, campaigns of psycho-terorism that consisted in seizing every possible calamity that befell the Roman world as an occasion to claim "divine retribution" and the soon destruction of "Babylon" with the emminent return of Jesus, defiance of governement laws that local administration such as that of Pliny the younger instaured forbidding political associations which he suspected Christians and others that even practiced pagan cults of forming as seen from his complaint letters to Emperor Trajan where mention of Christians is made for the first time (interestingly these letters were published posthumously and anonymously, and no mention is made in his life work of any persecution of Christians, let alone of Christianity as a belief, not even Nero's alleged massacre that occured as Pliny was a child, despite him having been involved in the Roman judicial system at the highest levels, and having served in places like Syria at a time where Christianity was allegedly very active. If anything, Pliny's alleged letters only show how lenient the Rome of Trajan was to Christians since in his reply to Pliny, the emperor requests a stringent procedure before validating any accusation against Christians) confrontations by the church as it organized itself against a fragilized, erroded and fragmented Roman empire as a "state within a state".
It was only when the empire was itself in peril that the Roman state acted violently against any hostile element from within, including Christians.
Acts 11:27-28 has a prophet, Agabus, prophecy of a famine that will afflict the whole world, in the time of the Roman procurator Claudius. A famine did occur in Judea around this time according to the historian Josephus, but did not afflict the whole world or Roman world. Roman historians regularly attest to localized droughts and food shortages in various provinces of the empire, a different matter entirely. Agabus was wrong here as he was about Paul being "bound by his own belt and handed over to the Gentiles by the Jews" while it was actrualy gentiles that rescued him from murdering Jews Acts21:10,22:23-29. So during the famine, Jerusalem was under hardship but relieved from donations by the newly judaized Helena, queen of Adiabene. Acts11 also speaks of Christian solidarity in this time, at the hands of Barnabas and Paul (why the partiality, and what about Jesus' loving thy neighbor teachings?). Besides the fact that Paul says nothing of the worldwide famine in his purported letters written during his extensive travels, and his silence on the donations while speaking of fund-raising to the Church and its employees, the problem for the NT account starts in Acts12:1, after the famine had occured.
It speaks of King Herod Agrippa I and his "persecution" of Christians. In their zeal to find yet another powerful leader persecutor of righteous Christians, the NT's unknown writers commit an anachronism; if Agrippa is still king in Judaea the region cannot be ruled by a Roman procurator, ie Claudius, and Italian troops cannot be stationed in Caesarea as stated earlier in the account.
As a side note, although Agrippa I is painted as another persecutor of Christians, he is described by Josephus as of mild and liberal character to all, including foreigners.
Even the claim of persecution at the hands of Saul, apparently a leading persecutor Acts7:58-8:3,Gal1:13,Phil3:6,1Cor15:9 is flimsy. In those days the Sanhedrin had no authority to empower a heresy hunter as claimed in Acts9, to operate independently in Damascus, emprisonning, torturing, killing. The NT itself states that his ultra orthodox teacher Gamaliel persuaded the Sanhedrin to release the disciples and cease persecution "just in case" they were doing God's work Acts5:34-40. Saul was supposedly zealously persecuting Christians at the very time Jesus was performing miracles, attracting multitudes, overthrowing moneychangers in the Temple and generally provoking
Pharisees and Sadducees yet not a word of protest is reported from him during all of Jesus' time throughout the gospels.
What is more intriguing is that following Saul conversion to Christianity, his Roman and Jewish employers do not react, and the persecution of Christians immidiately stops then, as if the entire show was run by just only one man Acts9:31. Either this religious policeman role was a storytelling embellishment or Jesus' had so little impact in his lifetime that he and his followers passed unnoticed.
After all, the NT itself states that the number of Jesus' followers did not exceed 120. That is not to mention the fact that Saul, after his name change to Paul and his conversion, his blazing missionary activities and audiences of governors and kings, equally passes unnoticed in the secular histories of his age. Not to say that Saul/Paul is an entirely fictional character as some scholars suggest, but it is clear that in their effort to reach out to the Jews, the NT writers needed a "zealous Jews who saw the light" and in fact most of the incidents surrounding Saul/Paul's life have a striking similarity with a certain aristocrat in the times of Herod, during the Jewish rebellion of 66-74 AD named SAUL, whose character and life are depicted by Josephus.
That 2000 estimate is dwarfed by the victims of the witch trials, burnings and lynchings during the period 1300-1800 numbering 35-65,000 (and many estimates are much higher) or victims of the Inquisition, though sometimes speculatively put in the millions, in any event far exceeded anything dreamed of by the cruellest of Roman emperors against Christians. This isnt even taking into consideration forced conversions of peasantry, temple-torching and shrine-smashing ordered by bishops as soon as Christianity started ruling under Emperor Constantine, the enactement of draconian laws prohibiting non-Christian beliefs and the equation of heresy with treason thus becoming a capital offense, along with the criminalization of pagan religions and "philosophies" (that is rational thought and science) in order to force the populace of the empire into Christianity, Christian persecution by Christians themselves such as the 100.000 Protestant Netherlanders sent for execution by the Catholic Charles V of Spain.
What modern apologetics forget is that much more Christians died for their faith at the hands of fellow Christians than had died before in all the "persecutions". Up to this day, Christians love brandishing what they call "the Truth". Just considering the fact that Christianity has 30000+ denominations, each of which firmly believes that it has "The Truth", should give us a clue concerning the question of why "Truth" is such a common subject for debate among Christians.
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