this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

“Alexamenos worships his god.”

The fact that he was crucified was still an insult, up to probably 200 CE ish at least. Crucification was an especially degrading death - not just about killing you, but making sure it was long, drawn out and humiliating. (Longinus would have been doing something kind. Think about giving someone vinegar on a sponge to drink - to keep them alive just a little bit longer is drawing out the torture. You wanna be stabbed with the spear.)

Early Christians used the fish as their symbol for Christ. If the resurrection were historical (sorry NT Wright - I don’t think the tomb was empty) - a fish would make more sense for accessory choice.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

nice info. Do you know when they started shifting from the fish to the cross?

the fish seems a nicer symbol (food) over the cross (sacrifice) but it is "deeper" to have the sacrifice symbol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

the fish seems a nicer symbol

Not when it was about "catching fish" as mentioned in the really early stuff. (swapped for Oysters by Lewis Carroll's homage)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I thought it was because of the miracle of the loaves and fish (not christian, through popcultural osmosis I know there was an instance where he ... made more fish and bread at a gathering? unsure if this was also the same story where he turned water into wine)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

It comes from an acrostic - “Ἰησοῦς Χρῑστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ" - means Jesus Christ, God’s son and savior.

ἸΧΘΥΣ is the greek word for fish. I’m sure the story of the loaves and the fish probably did inspire the acrostic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Earlier than that, even. Mark chapter 1 talks about Jesus first setting up his ministry, and in verses 16 and 17 says:

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”

This is from the NIV. It's sometimes translated as "fishers of men".

A lot of his early disciples were fisherman, so it likely goes back into that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

The shift was starting around the time of this image I think - pretty solid bit of iconography by the 300s.

I imagine some of it has to do with the development of a “higher” Christology. I don’t think the evidence suggests that Jesus’s immediate followers believed he was resurrected, but that he came to be identified as a divine figure around the 200s. Then, it makes sense to adopt the cross as your symbol - because you are arguing that your guy defied that brutal execution.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah, they stick that cross on him so the old white people who look at it know he's the one good brown person in the picture.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That dude looks white as fuck with his nice straight auburn hair.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nah, he's in 'whiteface'. He's doing mime.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I also love wearing a miniature of a torture and execution device as a fucking pendant! Jesus christ, jesus...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Maybe he just likes tea?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Dude was a carpenter. He clearly just loved making torture instruments, and made a miniature of his favourite one.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Pontius Pilate: Well with that outfit, you're kind of asking for it.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If the scene is set after resurrection it's actually very metal.

I'm back bitches, and I'm even wearing drip with the thing they killed me on.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Much like the line about turning the other cheek when someone strikes you. So many people take it as a submissive thing. No.

Look the jerk in the eye and dare them to do it again.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago

Everything bad is good, and everything good is bad, slave morality in a nutshell.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

There’s a bunch of different interpretations and arguments that have been made, but I think the most reasonable one to think would have been intended by the writers/historical Jesus is about forcing someone to acknowledge you as an equal.

It’s okay to backhand inferiors with your right hand, but not really your left, because you wipe your ass with it. So if someone turns the other cheek, you’re forced to either open hand slap them, punch them, or switch to your toilet hand. If you slap them or punch them, that’s an act of aggression that somewhat validates them as an equal.

The spiritual interpretation I like, as a discordian that treats Christianity like a terrible Chinese buffet, is that “turn the other cheek” is to recognize that people treating you poorly is a mark of their character, not yours. Your goal is to take suffering with the kind of grace and dignity that forces them to look at themselves for the way that they treat you. Perhaps the cops who set the dogs or turned the hoses on little black children who just wanted to go to school are brought to that moment where they are brought to see the humanity in those that they hate.

It works as a somewhat sadistic solution for the problem of evil - that some of us suffer to benefit the souls of others. But at least it gives meaning to suffering.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

He calls me Joseph.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

See how much it did to me last time? I was barely inconvenienced.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

*foreshadowing