Does anyone think Jesus never existed
Terry
Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
calendars on His birth happened back then?
Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net
The calendar wasn't based on his birth until centuries later.
Nowhere in the gospels do you read the shepards or the magi or Herod
saying 'Hey, everybody! Let's all set our calendars to zero!'
You know it's very unlikely, from a historical perspective, that he
was born in the middle of Winter, don't you?
But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
Frank J
2c from a non-Christian theist.
>From what I can tell, there probably was such a person, though I can't
rule out that the written stories feature a character who is a
composite of more that one. AIUI, the main one, or only one if that's
the case, was born 2011 years ago, +/- ~2-3 years. Whether or not he
did anything that significant, someone has to be the most written
about person in history. And it has to be someone who lived long ago
enough that (1) it is hard to find much written information on many
people who lived earlier, and (2) the evidence is sketchy enough to
allow much embellishment. Furthermore, someone, and only one, has to
be "next in line to God," if only because that's the way people think.
My "gut feeling" is that the real Jesus (Jesuses?) would be shocked at
the centuries of attention.
As for basing the calendar on his birthday, AIUI, it's not on the day
(which may or may not be Dec 25) or the year (which is probably not
2007.4 years ago but a bit sooner), but attributed to him regardless.
I don't know why it should offend anyone. If it were based on Pat
Robertson, then I'd understand.
Lexington Victoria-Rice
> On 7 Apr 2007 16:11:56 -0700, "Terry" <kilo...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
>> calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> The calendar wasn't based on his birth until centuries later.
I wonder if Terry will accept that the names of Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday and Saturday are good evidence of the existence of the
gods from which they take their names.
>
> Nowhere in the gospels do you read the shepards or the magi or Herod
> saying 'Hey, everybody! Let's all set our calendars to zero!'
>
> You know it's very unlikely, from a historical perspective, that he
> was born in the middle of Winter, don't you?
>
> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
>
The search for an historical Jesus continues, and so far has come up dry.
--
"Fundamentalists can kiss my left behind."
Some bumper sticker or t-shirt.
Alan Morgan
Some do, some don't. I haven't researched it, but I have no
difficulty believing that a man who called himself the Christ
lived in that part of the world at around that time. I also
think that Buddha, Muhammad, and Joseph Smith existed, but that
doesn't make me a Buddhist, Muslim, or Mormon.
Alan
--
Defendit numerus
Roy Culley
Yes. Care to provide some contemporary documents from the time that
this supposed jesus lived? NB: the new testament was written long
after this jesus chap supposedly lived so doesn't count.
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
Typical Xtian thinking that the Gregorian calendar is the only
calendar in use today. The Thai calendar began 543 years before. The
Thai new year is in the Gregorian calendar month of April.
There are others in use today in other countries such as Iran and
Ethiopia.
Of course the Gregorian calendar is most widely used as it makes sense
to have a common international calendar.
Pagan Myth
Names of days are based on Norse gods,
Wednesday Oden, Thursday Thor, ...
Pagans of the Christ Myth
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/getting_started_pocm.html
When Romulus is described as the Son of God,
born of a virgin, we understand that as a myth.
Semitic gods and goddesses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_gods#Proto-Semitic_Gods
Scholars have speculated that the "transition" from
polytheism to monotheism was likely a form of
theological supremacy — by which the theology of
a supreme deity, the "One God," naturally grew from
the supremacy of a particular culture to which that
"One God" was favorable toward. (See covenant.)
Thus, as the culture and people expanded, their
monotheistic beliefs and specific God was carried with them.
Apple of Discord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_of_Discord
An apple of discord is a reference to the
Golden Apple of Discord which, according
to Greek mythology, the goddess Eris said
would go "to the fairest" at the wedding
of Peleus and Thetis, sparking a vanity-fueled
dispute between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite that
eventually led to the Trojan War.
Thus, "apple of discord" became a euphemism for
the core, kernel, or crux of an argument,
or for a small matter that could lead to a bigger dispute.
Timothy McVeigh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh
McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge
for "what the U.S. government did at Waco and
Ruby Ridge.
Ruby Ridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
After the onset of the Yom Kippur War and the
oil-related issues that followed, the Weavers
became disillusioned with their church for not
reacting properly to what they saw as
Apocalyptic happenings.
Waco: the big lie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Thompson_(attorney)
In 1993, she made a film titled Waco: The Big Lie,
which contained footage of the siege of the
Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas.
ZikZak
I consider it possible, although unlikely.
The Christianity we know today was founded by Paul, not Jesus, and
Paul never met Jesus in person. There are no reliable contemporary
accounts of any historical Jesus.
The only evidence that I consider to point to any historical Jesus is
the mentions in Paul's epistles of his opponents in the church, and
that they'd been in the Christianity game longer than he had. That
sect must have been founded by someone, perhaps someone named Jesus.
Cemtech
kilo...@charter.net says...
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
life.
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
Um no. He didn't die and suddenly, everybody started counting the years
from that. It had to wait for at least Constantine to make Christianity
"OK". And many cultures don't use the BC/AD system like the Chinese and
Muslim cultures.
--
Steve "Chris" Price
Associate Professor of Computational Aesthetics
Amish Chair of Electrical Engineering
University of Ediacara "A fine tradition since 530,000,000 BC"
ZikZak
> In article <1175987516.185636.33...@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> kilow...@charter.net says...
>
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>
> I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
> life.
I think you'll find that this is not correct. The only mention of
Jesus in a contemporary source is one sentence in Josephus, which is
almost certainly a much later interpolation by an overly zealous monk.
Cemtech
ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com says...
Ah I thought it was mentioned during Governor Pilate's rule.
Lucifer
Why don't you ask Thuriszaz about the names of the weekdays while you
are at it?
Lucifer
Quite a lot of us do actually, or at least lived in any recognisable
form. That's because there isn't any damn evidence.
Emma Pease
Couple of problems
1. Not contemporary. Josephus was born about 37CE so after the usual
date given for Jesus's death. However, he could well have known
people who knew of Jesus.
2. Two statements. One of which was almost certainly a later
interpolation (or it could have been a mention that was added to by a
later copier). The other is a mention of James brother of Jesus.
Paul also mentions James the Lord's brother in his letter to the
Galatians.
Whether Lord's brother is a title or whether it means James really was
Jesus's brother, can be debated.
If Jesus did exist, we don't know when he was born (the two birth
stories are (a) heavy with mythology and (b) indicate he was either
born before 4BCE or around 6CE). The rest of his life as given in the
gospels also has many bits that are mythic (however it isn't uncommon
for real figures to attract mythic bits, see G. Washington and the
cherry tree, etc).
Those who claim the Romans would have had records if Jesus existed are
probably correct; however, the chances of the records surviving are
very low (historians would love it if we still had 1% of the records).
From the Roman point of view Jesus was at that time at most just
another minor troublemaker and there were plenty of those in Judea.
He didn't have an armed force behind him or anything else to make him
especially difficult to deal with. Any records would likely have
remained in Judea and likely to have been destroyed during one of the
early revolts before any Christians became prominent enough to look
them up.
My own conclusion is that I don't know whether he existed or not.
Emma
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
John Wilkins
I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
I finally saw that piece of religious slash porn _The Passion of the
Christ_ and my basic thought thoughout was how unbelieveable the
sequence of events appeared. It had all the hallmarks of tall tales
retold for effect.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
AC
The dating system didn't come into use until about 700 years after the
man allegedly died. I don't think you can use Anno Domini as a legitimate
argument for the existence of Jesus as a historical figure.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
John McKendry
> <1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> "Terry" <kilo...@charter.net> writes:
>>
>> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>
> Yes. Care to provide some contemporary documents from the time that this
> supposed jesus lived? NB: the new testament was written long after this
> jesus chap supposedly lived so doesn't count.
>
Well, let's see; there was Livy, 59 BCE- 17 CE, who wrote a history
of Rome. Tibullus, the poet, 55 BCE - ca. 19 CE. Seneca, philosopher,
orator, playwright, tutor of Nero, 4 BCE - 65 CE. Petronius, satirist,
ca. 27 CE - 66 CE. Velleius Paterculus, historian, 20 BCE - after 30 CE.
Philo of Alexandria, Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, ca. 20 BCE - 50 CE.
I think that's pretty much the list of contemporary authors whose works
survive. "Documents" could also include inscriptions, coins, epitaphs,
graffiti, theoretically even surviving papyrus and parchment, but such
materials are vanishingly rare for that period.
Now strictly speaking, that's the answer to your question. But I'm
going to guess that you didn't want just contemporary documents, but
contemporary documents that mention Jesus.
There are none. With one exception, none of those authors ever wrote
anything about current events in Roman Judaea. The one exception is
Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death
of the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of
Caesarea Maritima. Outside this very thin literary evidence, the only
evidence for the existence of any historical figure in the province of
Judaea during the lifetime of Jesus is the coinage of Herod Antipas.
There is, bluntly, no contemporary written evidence for Herod Antipas,
and no contemporary evidence at all for the six other prefects and
procurators who filled Pontius Pilate's office during Jesus' lifetime.
When you consider that there is no contemporary evidence for the
existence of anyone at all, other than Herod Antipas and Pontius
Pilate, in the province of Judaea in the first four decades of the
Common Era, it seems disingenuous to complain that Jesus is missing
from that evidence.
There may be good arguments for the nonexistence of the person called
"Jesus", but this is not one of them.
<snip silly calendar argument>
John
Walter Bushell
j.wil...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> Terry <kilo...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
He might even have been a 1st century televangelist (which required a
lot of walking).
eerok
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
Including non-Christians? Why would they really care one way
or the other? Dispute takes time and energy, after all.
The Christians here would likely believe that Jesus lived in
fact -- that's pretty safe to say. But the range of beliefs
among scientists (and those with no agenda forcing an
adversarial stance against scientific theories such as
evolution) is quite broad. That is the audience to which you
are addressing your questions, in case you wondered.
In light of this, what's your point?
Do you think that Jesus, if he had existed, would have had
some special problem with the theory of evolution?
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
The calendar thing was done much later, so all we know is that
the significance you refer to was attached by people in a
different historical epoch, which proves nothing in particular
with respect to what might have actually happened.
Isn't it kind of a shame that you didn't know this already?
--
"The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."
- George Bernard Shaw
Walter Bushell
"ZikZak" <ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> wrote:
> On Apr 7, 4:11 pm, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> I consider it possible, although unlikely.
>
> The Christianity we know today was founded by Paul, not Jesus, and
> Paul never met Jesus in person.
I could make a case for Emperor Constantine as founder.
John Wilkins
> In article <1hw94p9.12dpg691f3up4wN%j.wil...@uq.edu.au>,
> j.wil...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
>
> > Terry <kilo...@charter.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > > calendars on His birth happened back then?
> >
> > I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> > than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
>
> He might even have been a 1st century televangelist (which required a
> lot of walking).
Why'd you choose such a backward time and such a poor nation?
Israel in 4BC had no mass communication...
> >
> > I finally saw that piece of religious slash porn _The Passion of the
> > Christ_ and my basic thought thoughout was how unbelieveable the
> > sequence of events appeared. It had all the hallmarks of tall tales
> > retold for effect.
Michael Siemon
> Terry <kilo...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
I think it is reasonable to assume that Jesus had some initial
connection with John the Baptist, and broke with him (with some
fallout in various directions) to initiate his own rather different
path (and had to deal with flack from the other school as a result).
There are perhaps a few other things that would pass critical muster
in evaluation of the gospel accounts. But not much...
Thurisaz the Einherjer
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
When is a jebus a jebus?
Is a wandering preacher named jebus with some radical opinions enough? If
so, then jebus might have lived. And he would have been pretty irrelevant
to history.
As soon as any supernatural stuff enters the equation... well... see
jesusneverexisted.com.
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
Yes - brainwashing and history revision by the morontheists.
--
Romans 2:24 revised:
"For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you
cretinists, as it is written on aig."
My personal judgment of monotheism: http://www.carcosa.de/nojebus
Bodega
Sounds like you're just looking for an argument. Many people do not
care whether Jesus lived or not.
Considering all the "miracles" talked about today -- virgin Mary on a
piece of toast, Christ on the side of a freeway underpass -- all the
events described in the bible seem very dubious.
Ivar Ylvisaker
This question is discussed extensively in the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_history.
People who "accept" Jesus are sure that he existed.
However, the real issue is not whether Jesus existed but, rather,
whether Jesus (or anyone) was divine.
My limited, first-hand experience with the accuracy of newspaper
articles suggests that, even when they contain elements of truth, the
details can be badly garbled.
Ivar
Greg G.
> Terry wrote:
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> Names of days are based on Norse gods,
> Wednesday Oden, Thursday Thor, ...
I'm an Ohio State fan but I don't think Oden is a god. Maybe, if he
comes back for another season...
--
Greg G.
Use conscience-stricken in a sentence? Never conscience-stricken
before they're hatched.
--Groucho Marx
Rolf
"Terry" <kilo...@charter.net> skrev i melding
news:1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
Take a look at my response to "Let's celebrate Jesus' death!"
Rolf
Rolf
<Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net> skrev i melding
news:ruag13ld2lmufcijp...@4ax.com...
> >Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> >calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
>
> Nowhere in the gospels do you read the shepards or the magi or Herod
> saying 'Hey, everybody! Let's all set our calendars to zero!'
>
> You know it's very unlikely, from a historical perspective, that he
> was born in the middle of Winter, don't you?
>
> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
>
Why don't you think that?
Actually, a very old controversy.
To be specific: The Jesus of NT, absolutely NO.
As for other Jesuses, Messiah's and other more or less lunatic "prophets" -
seems Jerusalem was swarming with them at that time...
Rolf
"ZikZak" <ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> skrev i melding
news:1175995104.4...@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
The people of the Dead Sea Scrolls may perhaps have had something to do with
this?
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
>Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
Yes. Lots.
>Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
>calendars on His birth happened back then?
No. There is no evidence for it.
--
Bob.
alwaysaskingquestions
"Emma Pease" <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:slrnf1glt...@munin.Stanford.EDU...
> In article <1175995889.4...@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
> ZikZak wrote:
>> On Apr 7, 6:23 pm, Cemtech <c...@cox.net> wrote:
>>> In article <1175987516.185636.33...@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> kilow...@charter.net says...
>>>
>>> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>>>
>>> I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
>>> life.
>>
>> I think you'll find that this is not correct. The only mention of
>> Jesus in a contemporary source is one sentence in Josephus, which is
>> almost certainly a much later interpolation by an overly zealous monk.
>
> Couple of problems
>
> 1. Not contemporary. Josephus was born about 37CE so after the usual
> date given for Jesus's death. However, he could well have known
> people who knew of Jesus.
>
> 2. Two statements. One of which was almost certainly a later
> interpolation (or it could have been a mention that was added to by a
> later copier).
{...]
The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the reference by Josphus is
original but that certain phrases were added to it later.
The passage with the questionable left out (...) bits reads:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man (...) for he was a doer of
wonders (...) He drew many after him (...) When Pilate, at the suggestion of
the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved
him at the first did not forsake him (...) and the tribe of Christians, so
named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).
Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an
Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated
in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was
good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews
and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be
crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon
their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days
after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that
he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.
alwaysaskingquestions
Frank J
> Terry <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
>
> I finally saw that piece of religious slash porn _The Passion of the
> Christ_ and my basic thought thoughout was how unbelieveable the
> sequence of events appeared. It had all the hallmarks of tall tales
> retold for effect.
But there's no evidence that humans are capable of doing that, so
according to Occam's Razor, like all other written stories, it must be
true. ;-)
John Wilkins
> On Apr 7, 10:47 pm, j.wilki...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> > Terry <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
> > > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > > calendars on His birth happened back then?
> >
> > I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> > than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
> >
> > I finally saw that piece of religious slash porn _The Passion of the
> > Christ_ and my basic thought thoughout was how unbelieveable the
> > sequence of events appeared. It had all the hallmarks of tall tales
> > retold for effect.
>
> But there's no evidence that humans are capable of doing that, so
> according to Occam's Razor, like all other written stories, it must be
> true. ;-)
Yeah, my mate Paul Bunyan was telling our mutual friend Baron von
Muchnhausen just that very thing the other day...
AC
Walter Bushell <pr...@oanix.com> wrote:
> In article <1175995104.4...@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
> "ZikZak" <ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 7, 4:11 pm, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
>> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
>> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>>
>> I consider it possible, although unlikely.
>>
>> The Christianity we know today was founded by Paul, not Jesus, and
>> Paul never met Jesus in person.
>
> I could make a case for Emperor Constantine as founder.
He might be considered the founder of *Modern* Christianity. Myself,
I think that St. Paul is probably the actual founder. He seems to have
been the one most influential in taking a Jewish messianic cult and
giving it a unique theology.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
Walter Bushell
j.wil...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> Why'd you choose such a backward time and such a poor nation?
> Israel in 4BC had no mass communication...
Sun Myung Moon has no such limitation.
> > >
I had the album.
And place it in a culture that was about to be wiped from the Earth.
Rev Moon of the Unification Church has no such limitation.<-- orginal
version, but above version scans better
Walter Bushell
AC <mightym...@gmail.com> wrote:
Was pre Constantine Christianity the same religion as "Modern
Christianity". Instead of a babble of Churches and doctrines we had one
prganization with one doctrine allowed. In an illegal and hence
clandestine religion, one does not spend much time rooting out people
who think for themselves, which was a major preoccupation of the Church
after Constantine.
Certainly he founded the Church in the West, ignoring the Nestorian and
the Etheopian Churches.
Desertphile
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
Why would it matter either way?
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His [sic] birth happened back then?
Is that why Tuesday is named after the god Twe? And why Wednesday
is named ofter the god Odin? And Thursday is named after the god
Thor? And Friday is named after the goddess Frigg?
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"I may be dead, but I'm still pretty." -- Buffy
Desertphile
<ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> wrote:
> On Apr 7, 4:11 pm, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
> I consider it possible, although unlikely.
>
> The Christianity we know today was founded by Paul, not Jesus, and
> Paul never met Jesus in person. There are no reliable contemporary
> accounts of any historical Jesus.
>
> The only evidence that I consider to point to any historical Jesus is
> the mentions in Paul's epistles of his opponents in the church, and
> that they'd been in the Christianity game longer than he had. That
> sect must have been founded by someone, perhaps someone named Jesus.
Some of the teachings attributed to Jesus have been dated to 100
and more before Jesus is said to have lived. Some of the places
Jesus is said to have visited did not exist when he is said to
have lived. Hell, Nazareth did not exist when Jesus is said to
have been born, and had been uninhabited for centuries before then
and afterward.
If Jesus did exist (and who cares?), nobody knows anything about
him.
Desertphile
> In article <1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> kilo...@charter.net says...
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
> life.
Where?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
> Um no. He didn't die and suddenly, everybody started counting the years
> from that. It had to wait for at least Constantine to make Christianity
> "OK". And many cultures don't use the BC/AD system like the Chinese and
> Muslim cultures.
Desertphile
Wilkins) wrote:
> Frank J <fn...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 7, 10:47 pm, j.wilki...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> > > Terry <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
> > > > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > > > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > > > calendars on His birth happened back then?
> > >
> > > I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> > > than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
> > >
> > > I finally saw that piece of religious slash porn _The Passion of the
> > > Christ_ and my basic thought thoughout was how unbelieveable the
> > > sequence of events appeared. It had all the hallmarks of tall tales
> > > retold for effect.
> >
> > But there's no evidence that humans are capable of doing that, so
> > according to Occam's Razor, like all other written stories, it must be
> > true. ;-)
> Yeah, my mate Paul Bunyan was telling our mutual friend Baron von
> Muchnhausen just that very thing the other day...
L. Ron Hubbard told me you all got together but didn't invite him.
What, you're afraid of a few Body Thetans?
Desertphile
Wilkins) wrote:
> Walter Bushell <pr...@oanix.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <1hw94p9.12dpg691f3up4wN%j.wil...@uq.edu.au>,
> > j.wil...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> >
> > > Terry <kilo...@charter.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > > > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > > > calendars on His birth happened back then?
> > >
> > > I think there was a Jesus from Galilee. I think he was crucified. Other
> > > than that I doubt the entirety of the rest of the story.
> >
> > He might even have been a 1st century televangelist (which required a
> > lot of walking).
That was also true of 18th and 19th century USA. The first
envangelist to Death Valley (John J. Crowley) walked many
thousands of miles every year ministering. Of course he was a far
better person than Jesus was, if the Christian Testament is to be
believed.
> Why'd you choose such a backward time and such a poor nation?
> Israel in 4BC had no mass communication...
What's the buzz? Tell me what's happening....
Pete G.
news:XsydnWP52pJf-oXb...@comcast.com...
> On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 02:36:39 +0200, Roy Culley wrote:
>
>> <1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,>> Yes. Care to provide some contemporary documents from the time that this
>> supposed jesus lived? NB: the new testament was written long after this
>> jesus chap supposedly lived so doesn't count.
>>
>
> Well, let's see; there was Livy, 59 BCE- 17 CE, who wrote a history
> of Rome. Tibullus, the poet, 55 BCE - ca. 19 CE. Seneca, philosopher,
> orator, playwright, tutor of Nero, 4 BCE - 65 CE. Petronius, satirist,
> ca. 27 CE - 66 CE. Velleius Paterculus, historian, 20 BCE - after 30 CE.
> Philo of Alexandria, Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, ca. 20 BCE - 50 CE.
>
> I think that's pretty much the list of contemporary authors whose works
> survive.
And I think that's a fairly substantial list, too. A collection of
well-placed and well-informed figures who would inevitably have taken a
detailed interest in this 'Jesus' character, had he actually existed (or
even *been reported*) in the fantastic form the 'gospels' present.
> Now strictly speaking, that's the answer to your question. But I'm
> going to guess that you didn't want just contemporary documents, but
> contemporary documents that mention Jesus.
>
> There are none. With one exception, none of those authors ever wrote
> anything about current events in Roman Judaea.
Exactly. And the reason for this is that nothing happened in that area that
*even remotely* resembled the succession of world-changing events detailed
in the later and fictional 'gospels'. You cannot have 'The Greatest Story
Ever Told' and somehow still expect it not to have been at least *mentioned*
by a clear majority of the people whose job it was to tell the Empire's
greatest stories. Face it: the 'Jesus' of the gospels is a non-figure to
them. He hasn't been reported to them. *He isn't even debunked*.
> The one exception is
> Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death
> of the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
> attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of
> Caesarea Maritima.
[snip]
> When you consider that there is no contemporary evidence for the
> existence of anyone at all, other than Herod Antipas and Pontius
> Pilate, in the province of Judaea in the first four decades of the
> Common Era, it seems disingenuous to complain that Jesus is missing
> from that evidence.
You say this; but neither Herod Antipas nor Pontius Pilate had healed the
sick; raised the dead; turned water into wine; preached a unique philosophy;
spoke treason, blasphemy and sedition; organised an obedient and worshipful
rabble, and then resurrected himself into the bargain after his own
execution. You see, you can't have it both ways. You can't point out that
Philo 'mentions' Pilate *unless you also point out* that this 'mention'
fails to refer, by way of clarification or reminder, to what 'ought' by then
to have seemed Pilate's most significant (non-)achievenent -- i.e. his role
in the judicial murder of a seditious and since-resurrected miracle-worker
with an ever-growing following whose existence placed the empire in peril.
And if you want to claim that the 'real Jesus' isn't part of recorded
history because he *didn't actually do* such things as heal the sick; raise
the dead; turn water into wine; resurrect himself, and so on, then you've
saddled yourself with a 'Jesus' who's a mere nothing. Be my guest...
P.
Cemtech
deser...@nospam.org says...
> On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 18:23:57 -0700, Cemtech <cm...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > In article <1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> > kilo...@charter.net says...
> > > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>
> > I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
> > life.
>
> Where?
I thought somewhere among Pilate's accounts, but that might not be the
case after all.
--
Steve "Chris" Price
Associate Professor of Computational Aesthetics
Amish Chair of Electrical Engineering
University of Ediacara "A fine tradition since 530,000,000 BC"
Desertphile
> In article <rpci13t1of97tav0l...@4ax.com>,
> deser...@nospam.org says...
> > On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 18:23:57 -0700, Cemtech <cm...@cox.net> wrote:
> >
> > > In article <1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> > > kilo...@charter.net says...
> > > > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> >
> > > I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
> > > life.
> >
> > Where?
> I thought somewhere among Pilate's accounts, but that might not be the
> case after all.
Ah, thank you. That text appears to be a 13th century forgery (or
was it 12th century?). If any historical non-Bible text mentions
Jesus, nobody has found it yet--- that doesn't mean such a text
will not one day be found.
I recall in the 1970s that there was no evidence supporting the
existance of "Kind David." It was pretty much concluded by
historians and Bible scholars that "Kind David" never existed;
then one fragment of a fresco was found that was authentic and
mentioned "Kind David." Since then there have been two more found,
and the existance of "Kind David" has been granted nominal
acceptance (though there is no evidence the actual "King David"
was anything like the Bible claims).
The same may some day happen with Jesus.
Greg G.
> "John McKendry" <jmcken...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
snip...
Much of the writings from that era are passed along to us by Christian
scribes over the years. If there was anything mentioning Jesus from
that time, it would certainly have been well-known and referred to by
other authors.
>
> P
--
Greg G.
Whatever you are on, CUT THE DOSAGE!
Pete G.
>
> Much of the writings from that era are passed along to us by Christian
> scribes over the years. If there was anything mentioning Jesus from
> that time, it would certainly have been well-known and referred to by
> other authors.
Indeed; and the fact that there's such a sizeable tradition of Christian
authors and scribes *faking and fabricating* ancient 'references' is just
another demonstration of *how desperately, embarrassingly lacking* they felt
the actual record to be...
P.
Desertphile
> On Apr 8, 2:51 pm, "Pete G." <P...@com.net> wrote:
> > "John McKendry" <jmcken...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> >
> snip...
> >
> > > The one exception is
> > > Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death
> > > of the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
> > > attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of
> > > Caesarea Maritima.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > When you consider that there is no contemporary evidence for the
> > > existence of anyone at all, other than Herod Antipas and Pontius
> > > Pilate, in the province of Judaea in the first four decades of the
> > > Common Era, it seems disingenuous to complain that Jesus is missing
> > > from that evidence.
It is disingenuous to assert non-Bible texts as mentioning Jesus:
none do, and that's the point. Even writers of that era fail to
mention him, yet had the forethought to record and keep bills of
sale, wage earnings, land transfers, and the sordid transgression
of various heads of state. Odd how tens of thousands of people
witnessed the dead rising from their graves and walking through
the city, but none of them saw fit to mention it in their diaries
and histories.
> > You say this; but neither Herod Antipas nor Pontius Pilate had healed the
> > sick; raised the dead; turned water into wine; preached a unique philosophy;
> > spoke treason, blasphemy and sedition; organised an obedient and worshipful
> > rabble, and then resurrected himself into the bargain after his own
> > execution. You see, you can't have it both ways. You can't point out that
> > Philo 'mentions' Pilate *unless you also point out* that this 'mention'
> > fails to refer, by way of clarification or reminder, to what 'ought' by then
> > to have seemed Pilate's most significant (non-)achievenent -- i.e. his role
> > in the judicial murder of a seditious and since-resurrected miracle-worker
> > with an ever-growing following whose existence placed the empire in peril.
> > And if you want to claim that the 'real Jesus' isn't part of recorded
> > history because he *didn't actually do* such things as heal the sick; raise
> > the dead; turn water into wine; resurrect himself, and so on, then you've
> > saddled yourself with a 'Jesus' who's a mere nothing. Be my guest...
> Much of the writings from that era are passed along to us by Christian
> scribes over the years. If there was anything mentioning Jesus from
> that time, it would certainly have been well-known and referred to by
> other authors.
Ken Shackleton
> On 7 Apr 2007 16:11:56 -0700, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> >Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> >calendars on His birth happened back then?
>
>
> Nowhere in the gospels do you read the shepards or the magi or Herod
> saying 'Hey, everybody! Let's all set our calendars to zero!'
>
> You know it's very unlikely, from a historical perspective, that he
> was born in the middle of Winter, don't you?
>
> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
I don't believe that he ever existed at all.
Emma Pease
> On 8 Apr 2007 14:04:09 -0700, "Greg G." <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 8, 2:51 pm, "Pete G." <P...@com.net> wrote:
>> > "John McKendry" <jmcken...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> >
>> snip...
>> >
>> > > The one exception is
>> > > Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death
>> > > of the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
>> > > attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of
>> > > Caesarea Maritima.
>> >
>> > [snip]
>> >
>> > > When you consider that there is no contemporary evidence for the
>> > > existence of anyone at all, other than Herod Antipas and Pontius
>> > > Pilate, in the province of Judaea in the first four decades of the
>> > > Common Era, it seems disingenuous to complain that Jesus is missing
>> > > from that evidence.
>
> It is disingenuous to assert non-Bible texts as mentioning Jesus:
> none do, and that's the point. Even writers of that era fail to
> mention him, yet had the forethought to record and keep bills of
> sale, wage earnings, land transfers, and the sordid transgression
> of various heads of state. Odd how tens of thousands of people
> witnessed the dead rising from their graves and walking through
> the city, but none of them saw fit to mention it in their diaries
> and histories.
And where are those bills of sale, wage earnings, land transfers, etc
for Judea of that era? Or for that matter the names of everyone
executed in that time and place.
>> Much of the writings from that era are passed along to us by Christian
>> scribes over the years. If there was anything mentioning Jesus from
>> that time, it would certainly have been well-known and referred to by
>> other authors.
Assuming it existed to a time that Christians were in a position to
preserve it.
Christianity was a fairly obscure religion with almost all adherents
from the bottom echelons of society for many decades after its
founding. No one with access to the records was looking and then the
area gets hit by a couple of revolts (records tend to get burnt in
such cases). Even time would cause records to be misplaced or
destroyed. Or if the records contained info that wasn't supportive of
a particular doctrine (e.g., the Ebionites were right).
All that lack of evidence proves is that if Jesus did exist his life
and death were certainly not accompanied by all the miracles listed
(e.g., the darkness after his death would be just the thing for
someone to report widely). It is a bit like a field of wheat. If
someone reports that an elephant walked across it last night, one
would easily see the signs (lots of broken stalks, footprints, etc)
and lack of such signs would cause one to doubt the report. If
someone reports a mouse walked across it last night, that would be a
bit trickier to find the signs. Jesus if he existed must have been
more like the mouse.
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
Walter Bushell
"Greg G." <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Much of the writings from that era are passed along to us by Christian
> scribes over the years. If there was anything mentioning Jesus from
> that time, it would certainly have been well-known and referred to by
> other authors.
Or destroyed as contrary to the faith.
Skitter...@yahoo.com
On 8-Apr-2007, Desertphile <deser...@nospam.org> wrote:
> On 7 Apr 2007 18:18:24 -0700, "ZikZak"
> <ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 7, 4:11 pm, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
>> sect must have been founded by someone, perhaps someone named Jesus.
<snip>
> Some of the teachings attributed to Jesus have been dated to 100
> and more before Jesus is said to have lived.
Hi Desertphile,
Could you (or anybody else) point me the right direction for more on this?
I am aware that some of the teachings seem to relate to Budda's teachings,
but don't know alot about the specifics or really anymore than that.
Thanks in advance or understanding if you can't.
Some of the places
> Jesus is said to have visited did not exist when he is said to
> have lived. Hell, Nazareth did not exist when Jesus is said to
> have been born, and had been uninhabited for centuries before then
> and afterward.
This seems to contradict some of the stuff I've seen in the pop-sci
literature on the subject.Could you provide additional info on this?
Thanks
Skitter the Cat
--
The Source For Premium Newsgroup Access
Great Speed, Great Retention
1 GB/Day for only $8.95
Skitter...@yahoo.com
On 7-Apr-2007, Emma Pease <em...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote:
> n article <1175995889.4...@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
> ZikZak wrote:
> > On Apr 7, 6:23 pm, Cemtech <c...@cox.net> wrote:
> >> In article <1175987516.185636.33...@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> >> kilow...@charter.net says...
> >>
> >> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> >>
> >> I don't. I think the Romans did mention him at one time during his
> >> life.
> >
> > I think you'll find that this is not correct. The only mention of
> > Jesus in a contemporary source is one sentence in Josephus, which is
> > almost certainly a much later interpolation by an overly zealous monk.
>
> Couple of problems
>
> 1. Not contemporary. Josephus was born about 37CE so after the usual
> date given for Jesus's death. However, he could well have known
> people who knew of Jesus.
>
> 2. Two statements. One of which was almost certainly a later
> interpolation (or it could have been a mention that was added to by a
> later copier). The other is a mention of James brother of Jesus.
>
> Paul also mentions James the Lord's brother in his letter to the
> Galatians.
>
> Whether Lord's brother is a title or whether it means James really was
> Jesus's brother, can be debated.
>
> If Jesus did exist, we don't know when he was born (the two birth
> stories are (a) heavy with mythology and (b) indicate he was either
> born before 4BCE or around 6CE). The rest of his life as given in the
> gospels also has many bits that are mythic (however it isn't uncommon
> for real figures to attract mythic bits, see G. Washington and the
> cherry tree, etc).
>
> Those who claim the Romans would have had records if Jesus existed are
> probably correct; however, the chances of the records surviving are
> very low (historians would love it if we still had 1% of the records).
> From the Roman point of view Jesus was at that time at most just
> another minor troublemaker and there were plenty of those in Judea.
> He didn't have an armed force behind him or anything else to make him
> especially difficult to deal with. Any records would likely have
> remained in Judea and likely to have been destroyed during one of the
> early revolts before any Christians became prominent enough to look
> them up.
Basically, the crucifixion of Jesus was just "another day at the office" for
a squad of Roman legionaries unfortunate enough to be posted to one of the
armpits of the empire.
An universe changing event for Christians-a log entry for a Centurion.
>
> My own conclusion is that I don't know whether he existed or not.
My personal rational conclusion (leaving aside my religious beliefs as best
I can) is that it is the existence of a historical Jesus is certainly
plausible; I would say that it is likely.
Cory Albrecht
> On 7 Apr 2007 16:11:56 -0700, "Terry" <kilo...@charter.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>
> Why would it matter either way?
>
>> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
>> calendars on His [sic] birth happened back then?
>
> Is that why Tuesday is named after the god Twe? And why Wednesday
> is named ofter the god Odin? And Thursday is named after the god
> Thor? And Friday is named after the goddess Frigg?
In English their are named after the Old English gods Tiw (Tīwesdæg),
Wodan (Wōdnesdæg), Thunor (Þunres dæg) and Frigga (Frīgedæg).
Tiw == Tyr (Old Norse Týr) (dies Martis)
Wodan == Odin (Óðinn)
Thunor == Thor (Þórr)
Frigga == Frigg (?)
For whatever reason, we got a half-translated name for Saturday
(Sæterdæg, Sæternesdæg). Some authorities think it's becaus there's no
real corresponding figure in the Germanic pantheon to Saturn/Cronus. But
if that's the basic strategem, why did we get Wodan's Day for dies
Mercurii and Thunor's day for dies Jovis instead of vice versa?
Cory Albrecht
> "John McKendry" <jmck...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:XsydnWP52pJf-oXb...@comcast.com...
>> of Rome. Tibullus, the poet, 55 BCE - ca. 19 CE. Seneca, philosopher,
>> orator, playwright, tutor of Nero, 4 BCE - 65 CE. Petronius, satirist,
>> ca. 27 CE - 66 CE. Velleius Paterculus, historian, 20 BCE - after 30 CE.
>> Philo of Alexandria, Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, ca. 20 BCE - 50 CE.
> And I think that's a fairly substantial list, too. A collection of
> well-placed and well-informed figures who would inevitably have taken a
> detailed interest in this 'Jesus' character, had he actually existed (or
> even *been reported*) in the fantastic form the 'gospels' present.
>> Now strictly speaking, that's the answer to your question. But I'm
>> going to guess that you didn't want just contemporary documents, but
>> contemporary documents that mention Jesus.
>> There are none. With one exception, none of those authors ever wrote
>> anything about current events in Roman Judaea.
> Exactly. And the reason for this is that nothing happened in that area that
> *even remotely* resembled the succession of world-changing events detailed
> in the later and fictional 'gospels'. You cannot have 'The Greatest Story
> Ever Told' and somehow still expect it not to have been at least *mentioned*
> by a clear majority of the people whose job it was to tell the Empire's
> greatest stories. Face it: the 'Jesus' of the gospels is a non-figure to
> them. He hasn't been reported to them. *He isn't even debunked*.
That argument assumes that those luminaries mentioned above would have
1) heard about the goings on in a backwater province like Judea, and 2)
that they would have cared about yet another Jewish messiah claimant
raising a ruckus in the palestinian provinces. Did anybody in Rome even
have a reason to truly care about Judean events until Vespasian?
Let's face it - as much as Christians want to believe otherwise, during
his own lifetime, Jesus' (political) significance beyond that little
stretch of land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean was nil.
Indeed, had it not been for Constantine the Great, Christianity would
probably only be notable today for having been a initially persistent
monotheist religion which threatened the stability given by Rome's
official syncretism. I doubt it would even be one of the so called
"world religions," had it survived Roman persecution.
>> The one exception is
>> Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death
>> of the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
>> attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of
>> Caesarea Maritima.
I wonder, had Roman syncretism stayed the norm in Europe, making it the
past the Dark Ages and through the Enlightenment, would the raison
d'etre for this newsgroup still exist? I.e would we now be arguing
against the castration of Ouranos since it lacks any evidence? :-)
Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net
<notphalennotwe...@oohay.com> wrote:
>> The calendar wasn't based on his birth until centuries later.
>
>I wonder if Terry will accept that the names of Tuesday, Wednesday,
>Thursday, Friday and Saturday are good evidence of the existence of the
>gods from which they take their names.
Do you realize that 'Easter' is the name of a pagan goddess?
>> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
>The search for an historical Jesus continues, and so far has come up dry.
There -is- evidence, but it's sparse. Jesus' existance, as a man and
a teacher and leader of a group of believers, is not inconsistant with
the times.
Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net
>> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
>Quite a lot of us do actually, or at least lived in any recognisable
>form. That's because there isn't any damn evidence.
What kind of evidence did you expect? Photographs? A birth
certificate on file in Rome?
alwaysaskingquestions
"Desertphile" <deser...@nospam.org> wrote in message
news:n51j131jablef1sdr...@4ax.com...
[...]
> It is disingenuous to assert non-Bible texts as mentioning Jesus:
> none do, and that's the point. Even writers of that era fail to
> mention him, yet had the forethought to record and keep bills of
> sale, wage earnings, land transfers, and the sordid transgression
> of various heads of state. Odd how tens of thousands of people
> witnessed the dead rising from their graves
Please tell us where in the NT it says that *thousands* witnessed the dead
rising from their graves?
> and walking through
> the city, but none of them saw fit to mention it in their diaries
> and histories.
Emma Pease has summed this up very well - your argument is getting
dangerously close to the logic of Creationists trying to claim that gaps in
the fossil record disprove ToE.
Pete G.
> Some of the places
>> Jesus is said to have visited did not exist when he is said to
>> have lived. Hell, Nazareth did not exist when Jesus is said to
>> have been born, and had been uninhabited for centuries before then
>> and afterward.
>
> This seems to contradict some of the stuff I've seen in the pop-sci
> literature on the subject.Could you provide additional info on this?
Maybe he meant stuff like that found here:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
P.
John McKendry
> "John McKendry" <jmck...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:XsydnWP52pJf-oXb...@comcast.com...
>> On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 02:36:39 +0200, Roy Culley wrote:
>>
>>> <1175987516....@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, "Terry"
>>> <kilo...@charter.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>>>
>>> Yes. Care to provide some contemporary documents from the time that
>>> this supposed jesus lived? NB: the new testament was written long after
>>> this jesus chap supposedly lived so doesn't count.
>>>
>>>
>> Well, let's see; there was Livy, 59 BCE- 17 CE, who wrote a history of
>> Rome. Tibullus, the poet, 55 BCE - ca. 19 CE. Seneca, philosopher,
>> orator, playwright, tutor of Nero, 4 BCE - 65 CE. Petronius, satirist,
>> ca. 27 CE - 66 CE. Velleius Paterculus, historian, 20 BCE - after 30 CE.
>> Philo of Alexandria, Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, ca. 20 BCE - 50 CE.
>>
>> I think that's pretty much the list of contemporary authors whose works
>> survive.
>
> And I think that's a fairly substantial list, too. A collection of
> well-placed and well-informed figures who would inevitably have taken a
> detailed interest in this 'Jesus' character, had he actually existed (or
> even *been reported*) in the fantastic form the 'gospels' present.
>
Let's go over the list, then.
Livy died in 17 CE, before Jesus began his public ministry. If he had
lived through that period, though, there is no reason to suppose he
would have reported gossip from Judaea. He wrote history; his concern
was the Roman past.
Tibullus was a lyric poet and again too early. He did not write
any account of current events.
Seneca? Seneca lived through the great fire at Rome in 64 CE
and never mentions it. Tacitus, later, says that Nero blamed the
fire on Christians, and had many Christians tortured, crucifed,
or burned alive to serve as torches. Seneca did not find this
incident worth writing about.
Petronius wrote one surviving work, the Satyricon. It makes no
reference to current events.
Velleius Paterculus actually travelled in "all the Eastern
provinces", which would have included Judaea, early in his
military career, but this was right around the turn of the era,
1 BCE and after, too early for our purposes. His history ends
in 29 CE; its last chapters cover the military campaigns of
Augustus and Tiberius, particularly the Germanic wars and the
insurrections in Pannonia and Dalmatia (present-day Austria,
Hungary, and the Balkans). Paterculus served in those
campaigns. His topic is military history.
I'll get to Philo later.
You seem to think that Roman writers habitually recounted
the latest news and rumors. They did not. There were no
diarists among the writers of that age, no investigative
journalists, no social commentators. There is no account
of Nero's fire written at the time it happened; the only
extended written account is that of Tacitus, who was 7 or
8 years old when the fire happened, and who wrote about it
more than 40 years later. So your assertion that these
figures "would inevitably have taken a detailed interest
in this 'Jesus' character" seems to be founded on something
other than the actual practice of any actual Roman authors.
Tacitus, incidentally, does not say he is writing of the
fire from his own memory.
>> Now strictly speaking, that's the answer to your question. But I'm going
>> to guess that you didn't want just contemporary documents, but
>> contemporary documents that mention Jesus.
>>
>> There are none. With one exception, none of those authors ever wrote
>> anything about current events in Roman Judaea.
>
> Exactly. And the reason for this is that nothing happened in that area
> that *even remotely* resembled the succession of world-changing events
> detailed in the later and fictional 'gospels'.
You appear to have me confused with someone else. My position is this:
it is more likely than not that there was a person named "Jesus",
a Jewish teacher and religious reformer, who was crucifed during
Passover in Jerusalem by Roman authorities in about the year 31 CE,
and whose followers formed a small religious community that
became the Christian religion.
> You cannot have 'The
> Greatest Story Ever Told' and somehow still expect it not to have been at
> least *mentioned* by a clear majority of the people whose job it was to
> tell the Empire's greatest stories.
I am not arguing for the historicity of The Greatest Story Ever Told.
But your argument is bunk. You talk about "the people whose job it was
to tell the Empire's greatest stories" as if we still possessed the
complete archives of the Rome Daily News. We don't. We never did.
Nero's fire burned for five days and destroyed well over half the
city of Rome. Surely the people whose job it was to tell the empire's
greatest stories must have noticed. Yet nobody wrote about it.
> Face it: the 'Jesus' of the gospels is
> a non-figure to them. He hasn't been reported to them. *He isn't even
> debunked*.
>
He had been reported by 64 CE, according to Tacitus; there were
enough Christians in Rome that Nero could round up "immense multitudes"
of them to feed to dogs, crucify, or use as torches. Suetonius reports
that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome in 49 CE for disturbances
"at the instigation of Chrestus", so there may have been a significant
Jewish Christian population in Rome that early. There is, of course,
no contemporary mention of either the expulsion of (all) the Jews
from Rome, or the mass killing of Christians.
>> The one exception is
>> Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death of
>> the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
>> attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of Caesarea
>> Maritima.
>
> [snip]
>
>> When you consider that there is no contemporary evidence for the
>> existence of anyone at all, other than Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate,
>> in the province of Judaea in the first four decades of the Common Era,
>> it seems disingenuous to complain that Jesus is missing from that
>> evidence.
>
> You say this; but neither Herod Antipas nor Pontius Pilate had healed the
> sick; raised the dead; turned water into wine; preached a unique
> philosophy; spoke treason, blasphemy and sedition; organised an obedient
> and worshipful rabble, and then resurrected himself into the bargain after
> his own execution. You see, you can't have it both ways. You can't point
> out that Philo 'mentions' Pilate *unless you also point out* that this
> 'mention' fails to refer, by way of clarification or reminder, to what
> 'ought' by then to have seemed Pilate's most significant (non-)achievenent
> -- i.e. his role in the judicial murder
You didn't bother to look up the Legatio ad Caium, did you? My fault,
probably, for getting the case wrong. Why do you assume that a "mention"
ought to include a full biography? the "Legatio" is a long recounting
of a trip that some Alexandrian Jews, including Philo, made to Rome,
to implore the insane emperor Caligula not to erect a statue of
himself, to be worshipped as a god, in the Jewish temple at Alexandria.
As part of the argument, Philo tells how Pilate ordered imperial
shields (not even images) placed in the Temple at Jerusalem, how
the Jews of Jerusalem appealed against the order to the emperor
Tiberius, and how Tiberius countermanded Pilate's order and
chastised him for his offense against the Jews.
Philo does in fact include in his characterization of Pilate
"his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried
and uncondemned", but it is no part of his purpose to document
the particulars.
Honestly, I don't know why I'm bothering. I don't think Philo
ever heard of Jesus. I think Pilate probably crucified quite a
few troublesome Jews, Jesus among them.
> of a seditious and
> since-resurrected miracle-worker with an ever-growing following whose
> existence placed the empire in peril.
Placed the empire in peril? In 41 CE? In 41 CE the proto-Christian
movement had grown from a community of maybe a dozen followers in
Jerusalem to a community of maybe a few hundred in Jerusalem and
Antioch.
> And if you want to claim that the
> 'real Jesus' isn't part of recorded history because he *didn't actually
> do* such things as heal the sick; raise the dead; turn water into wine;
> resurrect himself, and so on, then you've saddled yourself with a 'Jesus'
> who's a mere nothing. Be my guest...
>
If you're going to divide humanity into on the one hand those who can
raise the dead, turn water into wine, and resurrect themselves, and on
the other hand the mere nothings, there's going to be a considerable
imbalance. Personally, I think inspiring a major world religion that
has influenced the course of world history for two millennia ought to
count for something, whether you can turn water into wine or not.
But even that is beside the point. The question the O.P. asked
was "do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?", not
"Do people here dispute that Jesus ever lived, raised the dead,
turned water into wine, and rose from the dead after three days?"
You could have just said at the beginning that you agree with
me.
> P.
John
Martin Kaletsch
> In English their are named after the Old English gods Tiw (Tīwesdæg),
> Wodan (Wōdnesdæg), Thunor (Þunres dæg) and Frigga (Frīgedæg).
>
> Tiw == Tyr (Old Norse Týr) (dies Martis)
> Wodan == Odin (Óðinn)
> Thunor == Thor (Þórr)
> Frigga == Frigg (?)
>
> For whatever reason, we got a half-translated name for Saturday
> (Sæterdæg, Sæternesdæg). Some authorities think it's becaus there's no
> real corresponding figure in the Germanic pantheon to Saturn/Cronus. But
> if that's the basic strategem, why did we get Wodan's Day for dies
> Mercurii and Thunor's day for dies Jovis instead of vice versa?
I read somewhere (can't rememeber for sure, but could have been
J.Grimms "Deutsche Mythologie) that the Romans did indeed equate Wodan with
Jupiter/Zeus, but to the Germanic tribes Jupiter as the Thrower of
Lightning was closer to Donnar/Thor while Odin/Wodan as a good of wisdom
was equal to Hermes/Mercury who had a similar position in the Greek/Roman
pantheon.
By the way, in German, Wednesday is called Mittwoch, "midweek". I don't have
a clue why we lost exactly that god!
--
Martin Kaletsch
John McKendry
> On 8 Apr 2007 14:04:09 -0700, "Greg G." <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 8, 2:51 pm, "Pete G." <P...@com.net> wrote:
>> > "John McKendry" <jmcken...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> >
>> snip...
>> >
>> > > The one exception is
>> > > Philo, who mentions Pontius Pilate in a work written after the death
>> > > of the emperor Caligula in 41 CE (Legatio ad Caius). Pilate is also
>> > > attested by one inscription, discovered in 1961 in the city of
>> > > Caesarea Maritima.
>> >
>> > [snip]
>> >
>> > > When you consider that there is no contemporary evidence for the
>> > > existence of anyone at all, other than Herod Antipas and Pontius
>> > > Pilate, in the province of Judaea in the first four decades of the
>> > > Common Era, it seems disingenuous to complain that Jesus is missing
>> > > from that evidence.
>
> It is disingenuous to assert non-Bible texts as mentioning Jesus: none do,
> and that's the point. Even writers of that era fail to mention him, yet
> had the forethought to record and keep bills of sale, wage earnings, land
> transfers, and the sordid transgression of various heads of state.
Shoot. And here I've been arguing that there are no such records. OK,
I'm going to have to revise my argument. Please give me a reference
to a concrete example of the writers and records you're talking about.
One or two will be enough.
<snip>
John
John Wilkins
> Cory Albrecht wrote:
>
>
> > In English their are named after the Old English gods Tiw (T?wesdæg),
> > Wodan (W?dnesdæg), Thunor (?unres dæg) and Frigga (Fr?gedæg).
> >
> > Tiw == Tyr (Old Norse T?r) (dies Martis)
> > Wodan == Odin (Ó?inn)
> > Thunor == Thor (?órr)
> > Frigga == Frigg (?)
> >
> > For whatever reason, we got a half-translated name for Saturday
> > (Sæterdæg, Sæternesdæg). Some authorities think it's becaus there's no
> > real corresponding figure in the Germanic pantheon to Saturn/Cronus. But
> > if that's the basic strategem, why did we get Wodan's Day for dies
> > Mercurii and Thunor's day for dies Jovis instead of vice versa?
>
> I read somewhere (can't rememeber for sure, but could have been
> J.Grimms "Deutsche Mythologie) that the Romans did indeed equate Wodan with
> Jupiter/Zeus, but to the Germanic tribes Jupiter as the Thrower of
> Lightning was closer to Donnar/Thor while Odin/Wodan as a good of wisdom
> was equal to Hermes/Mercury who had a similar position in the Greek/Roman
> pantheon.
>
> By the way, in German, Wednesday is called Mittwoch, "midweek". I don't have
> a clue why we lost exactly that god!
Teutonic envy of the Norsemen?
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Ye Old One
Both would be a good start.
But how about records of his trouble making in first century
Palestine? If he did half of what is claimed then there would have
been many records of him in Roman, Jewish and Greek archives.
We also have problems with many of the stories told about him,
including his death, which do not "fit" with the reality of the
records that do exist.
--
Bob.
dali_70
To bad immigration found out and deported his ass back across the
border. He was $10 cheaper than the local kids who'll mow your lawn.
ZikZak
> On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 18:51:57 +0000, Pete G. wrote:
> > And I think that's a fairly substantial list, too. A collection of
> > well-placed and well-informed figures who would inevitably have taken a
> > detailed interest in this 'Jesus' character, had he actually existed (or
> > even *been reported*) in the fantastic form the 'gospels' present.
>
> Let's go over the list, then.
> Livy died in 17 CE, before Jesus began his public ministry. If he had
> lived through that period, though, there is no reason to suppose he
> would have reported gossip from Judaea. He wrote history; his concern
> was the Roman past.
>
I think you're forgetting Josephus. He was writing from a later
perspective, and not from his own memory, but was deeply interested in
the detailed history of the Jews.... to the extent that he gives
exhaustive accounts and names of minor preachers such as Jesus would
have been. And yet he does not mention Jesus. Certainly if zombies had
walked the streets of Jerusalem, there is no question that Josephus
would have known about it, and would have recorded it. Even if Jesus
was a simple preacher of any note whatsoever, Josephus would likely
have recorded it. Since he didn't, the best conclusion to draw is that
either the historical Jesus did not exist, or that he was entirely
inconsequential.
Walter Bushell
Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net wrote:
Ah, YAFM -- Yet Another Failed Messiah.
Ben Standeven
<alwaysaskingquesti...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Emma Pease" <e...@kanpai.stanford.edu> wrote in message
>
> news:slrnf1glt...@munin.Stanford.EDU...
>
>
>
> > In article <1175995889.414216.103...@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
> > ZikZak wrote:
> >> On Apr 7, 6:23 pm, Cemtech <c...@cox.net> wrote:
> >>> In article <1175987516.185636.33...@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> >>> kilow...@charter.net says...
>
>
> >>> life.
>
> >> I think you'll find that this is not correct. The only mention of
> >> Jesus in a contemporary source is one sentence in Josephus, which is
> >> almost certainly a much later interpolation by an overly zealous monk.
>
> > Couple of problems
>
> > 1. Not contemporary. Josephus was born about 37CE so after the usual
> > date given for Jesus's death. However, he could well have known
> > people who knew of Jesus.
>
> > 2. Two statements. One of which was almost certainly a later
> > interpolation (or it could have been a mention that was added to by a
> > later copier).
>
>
> The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the reference by Josphus is
> original but that certain phrases were added to it later.
>
> The passage with the questionable left out (...) bits reads:
>
> Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man (...) for he was a doer of
> wonders (...) He drew many after him (...) When Pilate, at the suggestion of
> the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved
> him at the first did not forsake him (...) and the tribe of Christians, so
> named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).
>
> Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an
> Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated
> in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West:
>
> At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was
> good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews
> and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be
> crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon
> their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days
> after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that
> he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.
Yeah; this was obviously interpolated by a Muslim instead of a
Christian....
Blazin...@a.mail.sonic.net
wrote:
>Ah, YAFM -- Yet Another Failed Messiah.
LOL! Well you don't have to believe he never lived to believe he was
not the Messiah. It's understandable that the Jews wouldn't recognize
him. They were waiting for a general to lead them against the Romans.
alwaysaskingquestions
"ZikZak" <ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> wrote in message
news:1176140890.2...@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 9, 3:00 am, John McKendry <jmcken...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 18:51:57 +0000, Pete G. wrote:
>
>> > And I think that's a fairly substantial list, too. A collection of
>> > well-placed and well-informed figures who would inevitably have taken a
>> > detailed interest in this 'Jesus' character, had he actually existed
>> > (or
>> > even *been reported*) in the fantastic form the 'gospels' present.
>>
>> Let's go over the list, then.
>> Livy died in 17 CE, before Jesus began his public ministry. If he had
>> lived through that period, though, there is no reason to suppose he
>> would have reported gossip from Judaea. He wrote history; his concern
>> was the Roman past.
>>
>
> I think you're forgetting Josephus. He was writing from a later
> perspective, and not from his own memory, but was deeply interested in
> the detailed history of the Jews.... to the extent that he gives
> exhaustive accounts and names of minor preachers such as Jesus would
> have been. And yet he does not mention Jesus.
You must be reading a different Josephus from everyone else.
[...]
John McKendry
Please expand on the records that do exist. I am just an amateur
at this, but I have made an earnest effort to find any mention of
such records and have found precisely nothing. There are no records,
there are no such archives as you suggest.
For someone whose favorite word of opprobrium is "dishonest", you
seem awfully careless of your facts. But please correct me if you can.
Tell me where I can find the police blotters, the birth certificates
and death certificates and marriage licenses for first-century Galilee.
Tell me where are the archives naming the criminals that Pilate
crucified, where the census records are stored. Forget Galilee,
forget even Jerusalem, tell me where I can find those records for
Rome or Athens or Alexandria.
If you can do that, I will apologize for calling you careless and
I will thank you for the information. If you can't, I suggest you
should stop saying there are such archives and such records, and
limit your arguments to those consonant with the facts.
John
John McKendry
Thank you. I was looking for a civil way to say that, but I like
your way better than anything I could come up with.
To Mr. Zak: I did not forget Josephus. I was addressing the claim
that there are no contemporary documents, where the poster made it
clear that the issue was the word "contemporary", so I thought it
best not to muddy the mud with non-contemporary sources.
John
John Wilkins
He mentions Jesus twice. One of the extant texts is clearly a Christian
interpolation, but originally it likely just mentioned him as a
crucified preacher.
Skitter...@yahoo.com
Thanks!
That was a good start. Since that includes the names/info on some of the
actual archaeolgy, I should be able to pull the names and info from there
and start looking stuff up. The textual/historical sources will be a bit
harder to track, but I it is a good start.
Rolf
"ZikZak" <ZXBWDN...@spammotel.com> skrev i melding
news:1176140890.2...@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
The following is a cut and paste from 'The Jesus Mysteries' by Timothy Freke
and Peter Gandy:
In In Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus writes:
At about this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one might call him a
man. For he was one who accomplished surprising feats and was a teacher of
such people as are eager for novelties. He won over many of the Jews and
many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon an indictment
brought by the principal men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who
had loved him from the very first did not cease to be attached to him. On
the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the holy prophets
had foretold this and myriads of other marvels concerning him. And the tribe
of the Chris負ians, so called after him, has to this day still not
disappeared.
Josephus also tells us that when the "miracle-worker" was brought before
Pilate, he concluded that Jesus was "a benefactor, not a criminal, or
agitator, or a would-be king." Josephus relates that as Jesus had
miraculously cured Pilate's wife of a sickness, Pilate let him go. However,
the Jewish priests later bribed Pilate to allow them to crucify Jesus "in
defiance of all Jewish tradi負ion." As for the resurrection, he tells us
that Jesus' dead body could not have been stolen by his disciples, which was
a common argument advanced against Christian claims that Jesus miraculously
resurrected, since "guards were posted around his tomb, 30 Romans and 1,000
Jews"!
For hundreds of years these passages in Josephus were seized on by
Chris負ian historians as conclusive proof that Jesus existed. Critical
scholarship, however, has revealed them to be much later additions to
Josephus' text. They are not of the same writing style as Josephus and if
they are removed from the text, Josephus' original argument runs on in
proper sequence. Writ虹ng at the beginning of the third century, Origen,
whom modern authorities regard as one of the most conscientious scholars of
the ancient Church, tells us that there is no mention of Jesus in Josephus
and that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Christ since he did not
believe in any Jewish Mes貞iah figure.
tex...@gmail.com
> In article <slrnf1i5bq.3ps.mightymartia...@nobody.here>,
>
>
>
> AC <mightymartia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:18:36 -0400,
> > Walter Bushell <p...@oanix.com> wrote:
> > > In article <1175995104.433655.159...@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
> > > "ZikZak" <ZXBWDNKFY...@spammotel.com> wrote:
>
> > >> On Apr 7, 4:11 pm, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > >> I consider it possible, although unlikely.
>
> > >> The Christianity we know today was founded by Paul, not Jesus, and
> > >> Paul never met Jesus in person.
>
> > > I could make a case for Emperor Constantine as founder.
>
> > He might be considered the founder of *Modern* Christianity. Myself,
> > I think that St. Paul is probably the actual founder. He seems to have
> > been the one most influential in taking a Jewish messianic cult and
> > giving it a unique theology.
>
> Was pre Constantine Christianity the same religion as "Modern
> Christianity". Instead of a babble of Churches and doctrines we had one
> prganization with one doctrine allowed. In an illegal and hence
> clandestine religion, one does not spend much time rooting out people
> who think for themselves, which was a major preoccupation of the Church
> after Constantine.
>
> Certainly he founded the Church in the West, ignoring the Nestorian and
> the Etheopian Churches.
Please! Irenaeus wrote his work "Against the Heresies" in the 2nd
Century. If you read the Letters of John with only half an eye and
half a brain, you'll see they oppose undesired views. You can even
find traces of this happening in the Gospels and the letters of
Paul. Let's keep the Dan Browns of this world out of this.
Regards,
Karel
Ye Old One
<jmck...@comcast.net> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:11:27 +0000, Ye Old One wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:32:24 -0700, Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net
>> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>>
>>>On 7 Apr 2007 19:34:12 -0700, "Lucifer" <wyrd...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
>>>
>>>>Quite a lot of us do actually, or at least lived in any recognisable
>>>>form. That's because there isn't any damn evidence.
>>>
>>>What kind of evidence did you expect? Photographs? A birth certificate
>>>on file in Rome?
>>
>> Both would be a good start.
>>
>> But how about records of his trouble making in first century Palestine? If
>> he did half of what is claimed then there would have been many records of
>> him in Roman, Jewish and Greek archives.
>>
>> We also have problems with many of the stories told about him, including
>> his death, which do not "fit" with the reality of the records that do
>> exist.
>
> Please expand on the records that do exist. I am just an amateur
>at this, but I have made an earnest effort to find any mention of
>such records and have found precisely nothing. There are no records,
>there are no such archives as you suggest.
There is a lot know about the time in question.
We know for example that JC was charged with religious crimes, that
would have required a Jewish execution (almost certainly stoning to
death). There is nothing in the stories that would have led to a Roman
execution. The story doesn't fit. Arrested by Roman soldiers, handed
to Jewish religious officials, then strangely put to death by Romans.
It also doesn't ring true because there is no reason for Pilate to
have been in Jerusalem.
>
> For someone whose favorite word of opprobrium is "dishonest", you
>seem awfully careless of your facts. But please correct me if you can.
>Tell me where I can find the police blotters, the birth certificates
>and death certificates and marriage licenses for first-century Galilee.
>Tell me where are the archives naming the criminals that Pilate
>crucified, where the census records are stored. Forget Galilee,
>forget even Jerusalem, tell me where I can find those records for
>Rome or Athens or Alexandria.
>
> If you can do that, I will apologize for calling you careless and
>I will thank you for the information. If you can't, I suggest you
>should stop saying there are such archives and such records, and
>limit your arguments to those consonant with the facts.
You will find many roman papers in museums all over the world. There
are also large amounts of Jewish material in Israeli museums.
>
>John
>
--
Bob.
UC
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
The whole thing is a fiction.
Desertphile
>
> On 9-Apr-2007, "Pete G." <Pe...@com.net> wrote:
>
> > <Skitter...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:4619b2fb$0$
> > > Some of the places
> > >> Jesus is said to have visited did not exist when he is said to
> > >> have lived. Hell, Nazareth did not exist when Jesus is said to
> > >> have been born, and had been uninhabited for centuries before then
> > >> and afterward.
> > >
> > > This seems to contradict some of the stuff I've seen in the pop-sci
> > > literature on the subject.Could you provide additional info on this?
> >
> > Maybe he meant stuff like that found here:
> > http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
>
> Thanks!
>
> That was a good start. Since that includes the names/info on some of the
> actual archaeolgy, I should be able to pull the names and info from there
> and start looking stuff up. The textual/historical sources will be a bit
> harder to track, but I it is a good start.
Podcast on the subject:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/dogmafreeamerica/four.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/dogmafreeamerica/Episode_5--dogma_free_america.mp3
The above are parts one and two, http://dogmafreeamerica.com/
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"I may be dead, but I'm still pretty." -- Buffy
qqq...@pc.nu
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
I wonder when most people will just realize that the old testament is
a collection of Jewish fantasies and the new testament is a collection
of Jewish/maybe some non-Jewish fantasies.
Imagine that around year 100 AD or so when NT was constructed from
parts that religious people felt that the masses turned away from
Torah (old testament), and simply said "we say that there was a
messiah that specifically supports the Torah" Rember that the play
character Jesus in NT sais "I have not come to change the [religious]
law, but to fulfil it" or something like that.
John McKendry
This is the so-called "Testimonium Flavianum". Its authenticity
has been questioned by Christians since the late 16th century.
It seems pretty clear that it has been embroidered heavily and
clumsily by a Christian redactor, but the present consensus seems
to be that there is an authentic core from Josephus within it.
This is from a paper delivered at the Society for Biblical Literature's
Josephus Seminar in 2000 by Alice Whealey, author of a 2003 book
on the subject, "Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum
Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times":
"Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be
distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period
insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian.
While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in
the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by
Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside
the church uniformly denounced the text's
authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been
marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent
participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of
Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text
have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all
religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one
hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards
secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other
hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with
the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the
sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible
for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus
of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum."
> Josephus also tells us that when the "miracle-worker" was brought before
> Pilate, he concluded that Jesus was "a benefactor, not a criminal, or
> agitator, or a would-be king." Josephus relates that as Jesus had
> miraculously cured Pilate's wife of a sickness, Pilate let him go.
> However, the Jewish priests later bribed Pilate to allow them to crucify
> Jesus "in defiance of all Jewish tradi負ion." As for the resurrection,
> he tells us that Jesus' dead body could not have been stolen by his
> disciples, which was a common argument advanced against Christian claims
> that Jesus miraculously resurrected, since "guards were posted around
> his tomb, 30 Romans and 1,000 Jews"!
>
This, on the other hand, is totally bogus. It's interesting that Freke
and Gandy don't even tell us where in Josephus' works this passage
allegedly appears. I have read substantial portions of Josephus and
I have never seen this.
> For hundreds of years these passages in Josephus were seized on by
> Chris負ian historians as conclusive proof that Jesus existed.
Well, I question this. Doubts about the authenticity of the Testimonium
seem to be older than doubts about the historicity of Jesus; older
Christian historians did not generally feel much need for conclusive
proof that Jesus existed.
> Critical
> scholarship, however, has revealed them to be much later additions to
> Josephus' text. They are not of the same writing style as Josephus and
> if they are removed from the text, Josephus' original argument runs on
> in proper sequence.
The second passage, wherever they found it, is surely an interpolation.
The Testimonium, though, is not to be dismissed that easily.
> Writ虹ng at the beginning of the third century,
> Origen, whom modern authorities regard as one of the most conscientious
> scholars of the ancient Church, tells us that there is no mention of
> Jesus in Josephus and that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the
> Christ since he did not believe in any Jewish Mes貞iah figure.
This news would be pretty devastating to those who use Josephus as
evidence for the historicity of Jesus, if it were true. It's not.
The statement that "Origen ... tells us that there is no mention
of Jesus in Josephus" is a flat-out bald-faced demonstrable untruth.
Origen tells us exactly the opposite.
"Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in
seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of
the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against
Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they
put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although
against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to
the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a
brother of Jesus (called Christ),--the Jews having put him to death,
although he was a man most distinguished for his justice." (Origen,
Contra Celsus, Bk. 1:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen161.html )
"And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this
James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews"
in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered
so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said,
that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in
consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the
brother of Jesus who is called Christ." (Origen, Commentary on Matthew:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen-matthew.html )
As a great philosopher once said, you could look it up. The passage in
question is "Antiquities" Book 20, Ch 9. The relevant sentence, in part,
is this: "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he
(Ananus, newly made high priest and leader of the sanhedrin)
assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of
Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others..."
So what's wrong with this picture? First of all, here's a passage
in Josephus that mentions Jesus (and no, it's not another person
of the same name; James the brother of Jesus is a well-attested figure
in the early Jerusalem Christian community), and Freke and Gandy
entirely fail to mention its existence. Next, there are two separate
works of Origen that cite this passage in Josephus, yet Freke and
Gandy say "Origen tells us there is no mention of Jesus in Josephus".
Stunning mendacity, or breathtaking incompetence? Whichever.
John
rip...@azonic.co.nz
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
Many do dispute that, but that is probably not what you actually
asking.
As an analogy the Rastafarians claim that Ras Tafari Makonnen, later
to be Emperor Haile Selassie I, is God incarnate. No one should doubt
that Ras Tafari existed, in fact my grandfather was presented with a
lion skin cape by him when Tafari visited Aden in 1922. The issue is
whether he was/is 'god incarnate', something that he himself denied.
In fact it is unlikely that there was such a person that is written
about as 'Jesus'.
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
Actually the western calendar is _not_ based on his supposed birth. In
what we now call 525 C.E. or so while calculating the date of Easter
it was noted that there was a coincidence between a planetary
conjunction that occurred every 520 years or so and the alleged birth
of jesus that was roughly 520 previously. This led eventually (8th
century) to the era being named Anno Domini, but the year number
starting, not at any actually birth, but at the conjunction around
that time.
In any case it was only the christian churches that set that
particular calendar, and what else would they use ? Many other
countries and religions used, and still use, completely different
calendars.
In fact up until around the 8th century the most used common western
year number was based on the founding of Rome.
But this is completely irrelevant. Whether he existed or whether he
was born in 1 AD does not mean that he was some sort of demi-god
(demi=half, with a human mother like Hercules) or space pixie.
John McKendry
> On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 20:09:21 -0400, John McKendry <jmck...@comcast.net>
> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:11:27 +0000, Ye Old One wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:32:24 -0700, Blazin...@b.mail.sonic.net
>>> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 7 Apr 2007 19:34:12 -0700, "Lucifer" <wyrd...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> But I don't think even non-christians dispute that Jesus ever lived.
>>>>
>>>>>Quite a lot of us do actually, or at least lived in any recognisable
>>>>>form. That's because there isn't any damn evidence.
>>>>
>>>>What kind of evidence did you expect? Photographs? A birth
>>>>certificate on file in Rome?
>>>
>>> Both would be a good start.
>>>
>>> But how about records of his trouble making in first century Palestine?
>>> If he did half of what is claimed then there would have been many
>>> records of him in Roman, Jewish and Greek archives.
>>>
>>> We also have problems with many of the stories told about him,
>>> including his death, which do not "fit" with the reality of the records
>>> that do exist.
>>
>> Please expand on the records that do exist. I am just an amateur
>>at this, but I have made an earnest effort to find any mention of such
>>records and have found precisely nothing. There are no records, there are
>>no such archives as you suggest.
>
> There is a lot know about the time in question.
>
Your unsupported say-so is no more probative than my unsupported
say-so. Helmut Koester has this to say:
"<But> there are two reasons which lead to the definitive conclusion
that the Roman administration was responsible for the condemnation and
execution of Jesus. First, the Jewish authorities did not have the
right of capital punishment, which was the exclusive reserve of the
Roman prefect. The only two cases which seem to suggest that the
Jewish court could sentence a person to death are the stoning of Stephen
and the murder of Jesus' brother, James. But the former was a case of
mob lynching, while the latter occurred during a vacancy in the prefect's
office, which means that these two cases cannot prove the point. The
Jewish authorities indeed were not permitted to put anyone to death (John
18:31). They certainly would never be able to do so in the presence
of the Roman prefect, who regularly came from Caesarea to Jerusalem
on the high holidays in order to prevent any possible unrest.
Second, the reason for Jesus' condemnation was not the blasphemy
that is reported in the Synoptic gospels. All the gospels agree in
reporting the inscription on the cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
Jews". This inscription says only too clearly that there was a substantive
reason for Jesus' condemnation by the Romans. Whatever Jesus' actual
claims might have been, in the eyes of Pilate he was an actual or
potential political agitator - and, to be sure, not the first one made
short work of by Pilate." (History and Literature of Early Christianity,
1st ed., p. 77.)
W.H.C. Frend says slightly differently, but the conclusion is the
same:
"The authorities charged Jesus with being a false prophet who had
uttered blasphemy by claiming to be Messiah and Son of God. The
Sanhedrin could no doubt have organized a stoning as they did in
the case of Stephen a few years later. The Romans neither intervened
to save Stephen nor, so far as is known, took action against the
perpetrators. But evidently the Jewish leaders wanted to go
further and have the hated Galilean executed with as much publicity
as possible. To be hanged from a tree (Deut 21:22-23) was a death
reserved for the accursed of God, but the Roman governor was the only
authority that could order crucifixion, a death that could be
interpreted, as it later was, as fulfilling the terms of the
Deuteronomic curse." (The Rise of Christianity, p. 73.)
The Talmud says that the Sanhedrin lost or set aside its authority
to pronounce the death penalty during the period of Roman
occupation (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, Folio 41a).
I'm asking you for evidence, not assertion. The above is intended
to give you some idea what evidence looks like.
> We know for example that JC was charged with religious crimes, that would
> have required a Jewish execution (almost certainly stoning to death).
> There is nothing in the stories that would have led to a Roman execution.
> The story doesn't fit. Arrested by Roman soldiers, handed to Jewish
> religious officials, then strangely put to death by Romans. It also
> doesn't ring true because there is no reason for Pilate to have been in
> Jerusalem.
No reason? We know from Philo and from Josephus
that there were Jewish protests against Pilate's heavy-handedness,
and we know from the gospels that there had lately been some sort
of insurrection. The Passover is a celebration of the liberation of the
Jews from an earlier oppression. If you were the Chief Enforcer
for the emperor, where would you be during Jewish Independence Week?
>>
>> For someone whose favorite word of opprobrium is "dishonest", you
>>seem awfully careless of your facts. But please correct me if you can.
>>Tell me where I can find the police blotters, the birth certificates and
>>death certificates and marriage licenses for first-century Galilee. Tell
>>me where are the archives naming the criminals that Pilate crucified,
>>where the census records are stored. Forget Galilee, forget even
>>Jerusalem, tell me where I can find those records for Rome or Athens or
>>Alexandria.
>>
>> If you can do that, I will apologize for calling you careless and
>>I will thank you for the information. If you can't, I suggest you should
>>stop saying there are such archives and such records, and limit your
>>arguments to those consonant with the facts.
>
> You will find many roman papers in museums all over the world. There are
> also large amounts of Jewish material in Israeli museums.
Then it should be easy for you to give me one or two concrete examples,
shouldn't it? Try it. Here, I'll even help you get started. Try
http://www.dinur.org/resources/resourceCategoryDisplay.aspx?
categoryid=549&rsid=478
(on one line).
This is the site for the Jewish History Research Center at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Resource Index, Second Temple and Talmudic
Era, Inscriptions, Documents, and Coins. Do a little research. See if
you can find a first-century birth certificate or death certificate
or record of a criminal trial. Follow the links for "Cave of Letters"
and tell me what number you attach to "large amounts".
Do some research. The worst that can happen is that you will learn
something.
John
AC
This seems like hyper-skepticism to me. I can well imagine a Roman
governor delivering the guy to local "authorities", and, at their
request, executing the fellow. The Romans were interested in civil
order, and if someone was causing a problem, I'm sure any civil
administrator would without much trouble send such a person off to
their death.
I think there is sufficient historical veracity in saying there was
a holy man named Jesus who lived during the first decades of the
1st century AD, and who was found guilty of religious crimes and was
crucified by the Romans. The details as put forward in the Gospels
are pretty damned suspect, and none of the miracles were recounted by
witnesses.
<snip>
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@gmail.com
tex...@gmail.com
And to confuse things, they faked different traditions
about this Jesus, so that anyone looking at their
fabrications would suppose it all was dependent
on things that *must* have happened earlier.
You're brilliant!
Regards,
Karel
Desertphile
> On Apr 8, 1:11 am, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
> > Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> > calendars on His birth happened back then?
> I wonder when most people will just realize that the old testament is
> a collection of Jewish fantasies and the new testament is a collection
> of Jewish/maybe some non-Jewish fantasies.
Perhaps Greek fantasies mostly, or Hellenized Jews. When Saul of
Tarsus created Christianity he used many of the myths popular in
Tarsus (southern Turkey, Mediterranean Sea) at the time.
> Imagine that around year 100 AD or so when NT was constructed from
> parts that religious people felt that the masses turned away from
> Torah (old testament), and simply said "we say that there was a
> messiah that specifically supports the Torah" Rember that the play
> character Jesus in NT sais "I have not come to change the [religious]
> law, but to fulfil it" or something like that.
John McKendry
> On 10 Apr 2007 15:04:49 -0700, qqq...@pc.nu wrote:
>
>> On Apr 8, 1:11 am, "Terry" <kilow...@charter.net> wrote:
>> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived? Don't you think
>> > something significant enough for us to base our calendars on His birth
>> > happened back then?
>
>> I wonder when most people will just realize that the old testament is a
>> collection of Jewish fantasies and the new testament is a collection of
>> Jewish/maybe some non-Jewish fantasies.
>
> Perhaps Greek fantasies mostly, or Hellenized Jews. When Saul of Tarsus
> created Christianity he used many of the myths popular in Tarsus (southern
> Turkey, Mediterranean Sea) at the time.
>
Elsewhere in this thread, you may remember, you wrote:
>It is disingenuous to assert non-Bible texts as mentioning Jesus: none
>do,
>and that's the point. Even writers of that era fail to mention him, yet
>had the forethought to record and keep bills of sale, wage earnings, land
>transfers, and the sordid transgression of various heads of state. Odd
>how
>tens of thousands of people witnessed the dead rising from their graves
>and walking through the city, but none of them saw fit to mention it in
>their diaries and histories.
I asked you for one or two specific examples of the writers of that
era who fail to mention him, or of the records you mention, the bills
of sale, land transfers, and so on.
If you won't answer the question directly, would you at least tell me
where you learned this information, so I can look it up for myself?
Some book or web site that might provide a reference? Thanks.
John
Desertphile
Sorry, I missed your query.
My answer is: I made it all up; I lied.
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why couldn't Giles have shackles like any self-respecting bachelor?" - Zander
Ye Old One
<jmck...@comcast.net> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:18:13 +0000, Ye Old One wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 20:09:21 -0400, John McKendry <jmck...@comcast.net>
>> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:11:27 +0000, Ye Old One wrote:
>>
>> There is a lot know about the time in question.
>>
>
> Your unsupported say-so is no more probative than my unsupported
>say-so. Helmut Koester has this to say:
> "<But> there are two reasons which lead to the definitive conclusion
>that the Roman administration was responsible for the condemnation and
>execution of Jesus.
Someone would first have to provide evidence that JC actually existed.
So far nobody has been able to find any. Strange that - the man who
was to become the figurehead of a world wide religion.
>First, the Jewish authorities did not have the
>right of capital punishment, which was the exclusive reserve of the
>Roman prefect.
AFAIUI the Jewish religious authorities did have the right if the
crime was religious and the person was not a Roman citizen.
>The only two cases which seem to suggest that the
>Jewish court could sentence a person to death are the stoning of Stephen
>and the murder of Jesus' brother, James. But the former was a case of
>mob lynching, while the latter occurred during a vacancy in the prefect's
>office, which means that these two cases cannot prove the point. The
>Jewish authorities indeed were not permitted to put anyone to death (John
>18:31).
I really think you do your case little good when you hold up a
quotation from the bible as evidence.
>They certainly would never be able to do so in the presence
>of the Roman prefect, who regularly came from Caesarea to Jerusalem
>on the high holidays in order to prevent any possible unrest.
In what way would the a visit from the prefect prevent unrest? It was
more likely to cause unrest.
> Second, the reason for Jesus' condemnation was not the blasphemy
>that is reported in the Synoptic gospels. All the gospels agree in
>reporting the inscription on the cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
>Jews".
I see you do love your John :)
>This inscription says only too clearly that there was a substantive
>reason for Jesus' condemnation by the Romans.
I was always told that it was added more as an afterthought - half
mocking JC and half mocking the stupid Jews. Tell you what though, to
have said all that in three languages it must have been a bloody big
sign.
> Whatever Jesus' actual
>claims might have been, in the eyes of Pilate he was an actual or
>potential political agitator
And yet your bible says that Pilate did not see him as such.
> - and, to be sure, not the first one made
>short work of by Pilate." (History and Literature of Early Christianity,
>1st ed., p. 77.)
The problem is that all reports of his death (if he ever lived) were
written a long time after the claimed event.
>
> W.H.C. Frend says slightly differently, but the conclusion is the
>same:
> "The authorities charged Jesus with being a false prophet who had
>uttered blasphemy by claiming to be Messiah and Son of God.
But that was not an uncommon claim at the time. In fact a lot of
people think that while JC never existed as a single person, the
stories attributed to him often came from a number of different
Messianic figure of the period.
> The
>Sanhedrin could no doubt have organized a stoning as they did in
>the case of Stephen a few years later. The Romans neither intervened
>to save Stephen nor, so far as is known, took action against the
>perpetrators. But evidently the Jewish leaders wanted to go
>further and have the hated Galilean executed with as much publicity
>as possible. To be hanged from a tree (Deut 21:22-23) was a death
>reserved for the accursed of God, but the Roman governor was the only
>authority that could order crucifixion, a death that could be
>interpreted, as it later was, as fulfilling the terms of the
>Deuteronomic curse." (The Rise of Christianity, p. 73.)
That is one reason I see the whole story of the crucifixion to be
rather suspect. Matthew in particular did a lot to make it look like
his version of JC fulfilled prophecies.
>
> The Talmud says that the Sanhedrin lost or set aside its authority
>to pronounce the death penalty during the period of Roman
>occupation (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, Folio 41a).
John also contains the story of a woman who was to be stoned. So we
know deaths were common.
>
> I'm asking you for evidence, not assertion. The above is intended
>to give you some idea what evidence looks like.
I think my ideas are summed up quite well in this article:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanhedrin#Opposition_to_Christian_historical_accounts
>
>> We know for example that JC was charged with religious crimes, that would
>> have required a Jewish execution (almost certainly stoning to death).
>> There is nothing in the stories that would have led to a Roman execution.
>> The story doesn't fit. Arrested by Roman soldiers, handed to Jewish
>> religious officials, then strangely put to death by Romans. It also
>> doesn't ring true because there is no reason for Pilate to have been in
>> Jerusalem.
>
> No reason? We know from Philo and from Josephus
>that there were Jewish protests against Pilate's heavy-handedness,
Good reason for him to remain in his palace and just count his money.
>and we know from the gospels that there had lately been some sort
>of insurrection. The Passover is a celebration of the liberation of the
>Jews from an earlier oppression. If you were the Chief Enforcer
>for the emperor, where would you be during Jewish Independence Week?
About as far away from the potential trouble as I could get.
Now, if the story had JC carted off to Caesarea it would be a lot more
believable.
In one cave I heard of it was reported that over 7,000 scrolls were
discovered. The thing is that the Jews always buried any document
related to their religion when it was no longer required.
>
> Do some research. The worst that can happen is that you will learn
>something.
The facts are:-
1) There is no contemporary record of JC's existence. No evidence for
his existence at all.
2) The gospel stories were written long after his death and with a
clear agenda of forming a new religion.
3) The stories of JC's trial and death do not ring true for a number
of reasons.
4) It is clear, to me and others, that the stories were written, and
in many cases re-written to make it look like the Roman's were forced
to kill JC at the wishes of the Jewish leaders and people.
You are welcome to believe what you want - but don't be so stupid as
to claim that I have something too learn on the subject when it is
clearly you who seems divorced from reality.
>
>John
>
--
Bob.
Ye Old One
this group when s/he wrote:
>I think there is sufficient historical veracity in saying there was
>a holy man named Jesus who lived during the first decades of the
>1st century AD,
No, I don't think there is. At best JC is a composite figure, at worst
just fictional.
> and who was found guilty of religious crimes and was
>crucified by the Romans.
Of that I would say there grave doubt.
>The details as put forward in the Gospels
>are pretty damned suspect, and none of the miracles were recounted by
>witnesses.
Very true.
--
Bob.
John McKendry
> On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:26:57 -0400, John McKendry <jmck...@comcast.net>
> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:18:13 +0000, Ye Old One wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 20:09:21 -0400, John McKendry
>>> <jmck...@comcast.net> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:11:27 +0000, Ye Old One wrote:
>
>
>>> There is a lot know about the time in question.
>>>
>>>
>> Your unsupported say-so is no more probative than my unsupported
>>say-so. Helmut Koester has this to say:
>> "<But> there are two reasons which lead to the definitive conclusion
>>that the Roman administration was responsible for the condemnation and
>>execution of Jesus.
>
> Someone would first have to provide evidence that JC actually existed. So
> far nobody has been able to find any. Strange that - the man who was to
> become the figurehead of a world wide religion.
>
No, there is evidence. The gospels are evidence, the letters of
Paul are evidence, the mentions in Josephus are evidence. What's
strange is that the Jesus-mythers are so eager to redefine the
word "evidence" in this one particular case to mean "eyewitness
accounts written and conveyed by unsympathetic contemporaries".
>>First, the Jewish authorities did not have the right of capital
>>punishment, which was the exclusive reserve of the Roman prefect.
>
> AFAIUI the Jewish religious authorities did have the right if the crime
> was religious and the person was not a Roman citizen.
>
You do realize you're arguing with a quotation? But never mind. You may
be right; there is evidence on both sides. If the sanhedrin at that time
did have the authority to try capital cases, it didn't have the right
to punish by crucifixion.
>>The only two cases which seem to suggest that the Jewish court could
>>sentence a person to death are the stoning of Stephen and the murder of
>>Jesus' brother, James. But the former was a case of mob lynching, while
>>the latter occurred during a vacancy in the prefect's office, which means
>>that these two cases cannot prove the point. The Jewish authorities
>>indeed were not permitted to put anyone to death (John 18:31).
>
> I really think you do your case little good when you hold up a quotation
> from the bible as evidence.
>
See below, where you cite the gospel of John as evidence.
>>They certainly would never be able to do so in the presence of the Roman
>>prefect, who regularly came from Caesarea to Jerusalem on the high
>>holidays in order to prevent any possible unrest.
>
> In what way would the a visit from the prefect prevent unrest? It was more
> likely to cause unrest.
>
The prefect was the military commander of the province, and people
did not get to be prefects by being sensitive to the religious
beliefs and practices of their subjects.
>> Second, the reason for Jesus' condemnation was not the blasphemy
>>that is reported in the Synoptic gospels. All the gospels agree in
>>reporting the inscription on the cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
>>Jews".
>
> I see you do love your John :)
>
Odd comment to make about a statement that says "All the gospels
agree...". Matt 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19.
>>This inscription says only too clearly that there was a substantive
>>reason for Jesus' condemnation by the Romans.
>
> I was always told that it was added more as an afterthought - half
> mocking JC and half mocking the stupid Jews. Tell you what though, to
> have said all that in three languages it must have been a bloody big
> sign.
>
>> Whatever Jesus' actual
>>claims might have been, in the eyes of Pilate he was an actual or
>>potential political agitator
>
> And yet your bible says that Pilate did not see him as such.
>
It's not "my bible", and I no more consider the gospels historically
accurate than you do. This is Koester's conclusion. Biblical historians
do this kind of thing sometimes; they read the words, compare them
with other information, draw inferences, and conclude that the words
are not the reality. It happens a lot, actually. Trying to refute
Koester's conclusion by saying "I found a place in the Bible where
it says something else" is truly misguided.
>> - and, to be sure, not the first one made
>>short work of by Pilate." (History and Literature of Early Christianity,
>>1st ed., p. 77.)
>
> The problem is that all reports of his death (if he ever lived) were
> written a long time after the claimed event.
True. They record traditions, they are written at different times to
serve the needs and interests of different communities, and they
contradict one another on important points. Just like other documents
that historians have to deal with. This is why it's worth remarking
that all the gospels say the same thing about the inscription on the
cross: to the historian, this kind of agreement suggests that this
particular piece of information could well be true.
>>
>> W.H.C. Frend says slightly differently, but the conclusion is the
>>same:
>> "The authorities charged Jesus with being a false prophet who had
>>uttered blasphemy by claiming to be Messiah and Son of God.
>
> But that was not an uncommon claim at the time. In fact a lot of people
> think that while JC never existed as a single person, the stories
> attributed to him often came from a number of different Messianic figure
> of the period.
>
Mm-hmm. And you know how we know about all those Messiahs? It's not
from any contemporary accounts. By your standards of evidence, there
were no Messiahs at that time. Not a shred of evidence for a single
Messiah. Nobody has been able to find any mention of any one of those
numerous Messiahs in any contemporary history.
So how come you're solidly convinced there was never a Jesus, but
you're willing to credit that there were a number of non-Jesus
Messiahs active in the same place at the same time? What makes
the non-evidence for Jesus different from the non-evidence for
all those other Messiahs?
>> The
>>Sanhedrin could no doubt have organized a stoning as they did in the
>>case of Stephen a few years later. The Romans neither intervened to save
>>Stephen nor, so far as is known, took action against the perpetrators.
>>But evidently the Jewish leaders wanted to go further and have the hated
>>Galilean executed with as much publicity as possible. To be hanged from
>>a tree (Deut 21:22-23) was a death reserved for the accursed of God, but
>>the Roman governor was the only authority that could order crucifixion,
>>a death that could be interpreted, as it later was, as fulfilling the
>>terms of the Deuteronomic curse." (The Rise of Christianity, p. 73.)
>
> That is one reason I see the whole story of the crucifixion to be rather
> suspect. Matthew in particular did a lot to make it look like his
> version of JC fulfilled prophecies.
Quite right there, at least. Matthew does emphasize the whole
"fulfillment of prophecy" motif, which suggests that the audience
he was writing for was Jewish-Christian, and his whole gospel has
to be read in that light.
>>
>> The Talmud says that the Sanhedrin lost or set aside its authority
>>to pronounce the death penalty during the period of Roman occupation
>>(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, Folio 41a).
>
> John also contains the story of a woman who was to be stoned. So we know
> deaths were common.
>
Whoa, hasty inference. The woman was taken in adultery, and the scribes
and Pharisees asked Jesus what should be done with her; Mosaic law
clearly prescribed that she should be stoned. (This is John 8:3-11
for those who want to follow along.) "They said this to test him,
so that they might have some charge to lay against him", it says.
The story makes more sense if you understand that the Jewish
authorities did not have the right to stone anyone, because then
if Jesus says to let her go, he abandons the Mosaic law, but if
he says to stone her, he runs afoul of the Romans.
Interesting passage also because it doesn't appear in some of the
earliest manuscripts of the gospel of John. But I run the risk of
digressing.
Oh, yeah, this is where you hold up a quotation from the bible as
evidence.
>>
>> I'm asking you for evidence, not assertion. The above is intended
>>to give you some idea what evidence looks like.
>
> I think my ideas are summed up quite well in this article:-
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanhedrin#Opposition_to_Christian_historical_accounts
>
OK, apparently your ideas are pretty mainstream: there are conflicts
among the gospel accounts themselves, and there are conflicts between
the gospel accounts, collectively, and other sources of information about
the practice of the Sanhedrin at that time. So how does that translate
to "Jesus never existed"? Any historian of any subject whatever has to
deal with this kind of problem all the time. Was the murder of Thomas
Becket due to a misunderstanding, or is that story an early instance
of plausible deniability? Was Ronald Reagan the greatest American
president of the twentieth century, or an affable dimwitted
nincompoop? We can't tell (OK, Reagan...). But we don't untangle the
knot by deciding that Becket and Reagan didn't exist.
Look at how Koester and Frend deal with the trial. Each accepts
a different account of the power of the Sanhedrin, each addresses
the evidence on the other side, and they come to the same
conclusion, that Jesus' opponents among the Jews maneuvered the
Romans into crucifying him.
>
>>> We know for example that JC was charged with religious crimes, that
>>> would have required a Jewish execution (almost certainly stoning to
>>> death). There is nothing in the stories that would have led to a Roman
>>> execution. The story doesn't fit. Arrested by Roman soldiers, handed
>>> to Jewish religious officials, then strangely put to death by Romans.
>>> It also doesn't ring true because there is no reason for Pilate to
>>> have been in Jerusalem.
>>
>> No reason? We know from Philo and from Josephus
>>that there were Jewish protests against Pilate's heavy-handedness,
>
> Good reason for him to remain in his palace and just count his money.
>
He was, I repeat, the military commander of the province. Roman
military leaders did not attain to the governorship of provinces
by avoiding confrontation.
>>and we know from the gospels that there had lately been some sort of
>>insurrection. The Passover is a celebration of the liberation of the
>>Jews from an earlier oppression. If you were the Chief Enforcer for the
>>emperor, where would you be during Jewish Independence Week?
>
> About as far away from the potential trouble as I could get.
>
Now I understand why the US military command in Iraq has its
headquarters not in Baghdad, but in Basra, where it's safer.
It doesn't?
And archaeologists have dug them all up?
Why should I believe that? The Dead Sea Scrolls contain 800+ documents
spread among eleven caves. Nag Hammadi, twelve bound codices containing
fifty-two works in one buried jar. Those are the big, earth-shaking
discoveries. You're telling me a cave with 7,000 scrolls escaped my
notice? No.
>>
>> Do some research. The worst that can happen is that you will learn
>>something.
>
> The facts are:-
>
> 1) There is no contemporary record of JC's existence. No evidence for
> his existence at all.
>
As there are no contemporary records, one would not expect any of them
to attest to his existence. "No evidence at all" is only true if one
stipulates that later documents, in this one special case, are
arbitrarily disqualified as evidence. And the only reason for such a
stipulation is to support the claim that there is no evidence.
> 2) The gospel stories were written long after his death and with a clear
> agenda of forming a new religion.
>
Obviously. That doesn't disqualify them as evidence; it only means
they have to be read critically. Like any other evidence.
> 3) The stories of JC's trial and death do not ring true for a number of
> reasons.
>
No further comment.
> 4) It is clear, to me and others, that the stories were written, and in
> many cases re-written to make it look like the Roman's were forced to
> kill JC at the wishes of the Jewish leaders and people.
>
Obviously. I think most NT historians would agree with this. Why do you
see this as a difficulty for people who think there was a person Jesus?
> You are welcome to believe what you want - but don't be so stupid as to
> claim that I have something too learn on the subject when it is clearly
> you who seems divorced from reality.
Well, I gotta tell you, the idea that the prefect of Judaea would
most likely stay away from Jerusalem during Passover is bizarre. And
the cave with 7,000 scrolls is pretty hard to swallow without better
documentation than "one cave I heard of". If I have really said anything
as absurd as either of those, yes, I must be pretty stupid.
John
John McKendry
Ah. Good, honest, straightforward, forthright prevarication, then?
OK, I can respect that.
John
Desertphile
<jmck...@comcast.net> wrote:
Yes, I am trying very hard to be a Creationist (there's good money
in it).
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
From what I've read, there's no evidence whatsoever that the
"Jesus" of the New Testament of the Holy Bible was anything other
than a ficticious character made up at some later time, probably
approximately a hundred years after the alleged life of such
character, similar to Moses or Adam or Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill.
(Noah, however, per that latest stuff I read, seems to have been a
gross exaggeration from a real-life person with a different name,
who really did ferry some farm animals down a flooded Euphrates
river at one time, rather like Davy Crockett who didn't do half the
stuff attributed to him but nevertheless really did serve in
Congress for a while and really did die in defense of the Alamo
against Santa Ana's army of five thousand, each a real-life hero in
different ways. Even George Washington had a few exaggerations.)
It's unfortunate that the Roman Empire came under control of the
believers of Jesus, who forced everyone uder their dominion to
accept that belief despite lack of evidence, and made no effort to
research whether there even was any worthwhile evidence to support
that belief.
> Don't you think something significant enough for us to base our
> calendars on His birth happened back then?
The A.D. calendar was established retroactively quite a long time
after the alleged Jesus life was supposed to have happened,
enforced by the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church
controlling it, and then that caledar was forced on every one under
its dominion. Prior to that establishment, there was no continuous
calendar except in China, merely a brand-new calendar for each new
emperor in each different country. The Christian calendar was a
useful tool to simplify keeping track of various date-related
things such as how old somebody was. For example, imagine if every
time control of the Presidency of the USA changed party we threw
out the old calendar and started Year One of the new calendar? So
this year would be Year Eight of the GWBush calendar, where Year
One was preceded by Year Eight of the Clinton calendar, where Year
One was preceded by Year something of the Reagan/BushSr calendar,
where Year One was preceded by Year something of the Carter
calendar, where Year One was preceded by Year something of the
Nixon/Ford calendar, where Year One was preceded by Year something
of the Kennnedy/Johnson calendar, where Year One was preceded by
Year Eight of the Eisenhower calendar, where Year One was preceded
by Year something of the Roosevelt/Truman caledar. I was born seven
years before the last year of the Roosevelt/Truman calendar, so to
compute my age now, I'd need to look up in a table the number of
years each of those various calendars lasted from Eisenhower
through Carter and add those numbers, and also add the eight years
from when I was born until the first year of the Eisenhower
calendar, plus seven years since the start of the GWBush calendar,
and I might easily calculate it wrong, having my age off by one or
two years, you know "fencepost error".
The reason each of us follows the Christian calendar is twofold,
because our parents and schoolteachers and various media exposed us
to it from an early age, as if it were somehow *RIGHT* in some
absolute sense, so it stuck in our minds before we were old enough
to question it, and because it's so terribly useful there there's
no point in abandoning it now, either to revert to a per-emperor
system or the Chinese calendar or any other alternative, and anyone
who unilaterally changes to a different calendar is then unable to
communicate with anyone else about when things happened. Also, it's
the law, for example when filing Income Tax (IRS) returns, or when
filling out our driver's license appliations, we must use the
Christian year, not make up "in the year of GWBush" dates.
The fact that we stick with an ad hoc religious-based calendar
instead of switch to some other calendar system, in no way is
evidence that Jesus (as described in the Bible) really existed.
So the origin of our calendar system is now on-topic for talk.origins??
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Josephus was born about 37CE so after the usual date given for
> Jesus's death. However, he could well have known people who knew
> of Jesus.
I agree. It's equally possible he too-much trusted a
liar-for-Jesus, somebody who talked the Jesus myth as if it were
factual truth, as if that person had actually known a real Jesus
instead of just made up a story and used it to manipulate people
into their cult. At this time, we simply have no way to determine
which is true, real-life Jesus or made-up Jesus.
> Those who claim the Romans would have had records if Jesus
> existed are probably correct; however, the chances of the records
> surviving are very low (historians would love it if we still had
> 1% of the records). From the Roman point of view Jesus was at
> that time at most just another minor troublemaker and there were
> plenty of those in Judea. He didn't have an armed force behind
> him or anything else to make him especially difficult to deal
> with. Any records would likely have remained in Judea and likely
> to have been destroyed during one of the early revolts before any
> Christians became prominent enough to look them up.
That's a well-thought-out argument I haven't seen before. Again,
lack of surviving records can't be used as evidence of
non-existance of Jesus the Troublemaker of Judea who finally
<metaphor>put one too many straws on the back of the Roman
Camel</metaphor> and got sentenced to death. We simply don't know
whether he was real or not.
> My own conclusion is that I don't know whether he existed or not.
My conclusion is exactly the same. In particular, somebody spending
several hours every day worshipping and serving an idea of somebody
who might or might not have ever existed, and *if* he existed
surely the story of him being a God was totally bogus, is an
utterly stupid way for people to live their lives, a terrible waste
of human energy, just as stupid as people who waste their lives
away trying to contact Martians, or planning their daily activities
around a "horoscope", etc.
Personal note for you, Emma: When we worked in the same building at
Stanford prior to 1991 when I got laid off due to recession
(combined with Loma Prieta quake repair cost and Donald Kennedy
mis-use of government research money, so all three sources of
possible funding dried up),
I thought you were attractive and wished to get acquainted with
you, but you totally shunned me. Because you shunned me, and
because I was shy and didn't make a habit of pushing myself on
somebody who wanted **XERO** communication with me, I had no avenue
for even asking you why you hated me so much. Was I ugly, and you
refused to even talk to ugly guys, even as friends? Or were you
married to a man who forbad you to ever speak to another guy in any
way not necessary for work, especially if you knew he had a crush
on you? Or were you into religion at that time and you knew I
wasn't into religion and you were forbidden to talk to anyone who
wasn't into religion? Or what??? Since there were lots of other
women who likewise shunned me for no apparent reason except that I
was ugly or didn't have enough money or wasn't a member of their
church, I had no particular reason to break my do-not-bother-people
rule to confront you instead of any of a hundred other women about
why you all hated me so much, although in some cases I did get
specific feedback, like the gal who answered my ad in the Trellis
singles magazine only to reject me because I didn't own a home
already, and the other gal who answered my ad who flat out called
me a liar because I looked ten years younger than my calendar age
and she refused to even look at my driver's license to prove my
true age because it didn't matter to her anyway because she wanted
a man who *looked* like a man not like a *boy*, and the several
women who tried to get me to join their religion and cut me off as
soon as they realize I wasn't ever gonna do it no matter how much
they proselytized to me.
But in recent years I've several times seen you post really
intelligent analyses to this newsgroup, showing both a similar way
of thinking to my own and similar conclusions/beliefs based on
evidence plus analysis, and so increasingly it's like an infected
thorn in my foot that keeps hurting more and more, that we could
have been friends if only you had given me a chance. But still all
these recent years you never did apologize for shunning me, nor
offer any opening for any personal communication between us, so I
refrained from asking you why, until now. The thorn hurts too much
to let it fester any more. If you want to tell me privately why you
totally shunned me at Stanford, and never turned around since then,
even recently when we shared discussions in this newsgroup, check
my Web page for the keyword in the Subject field to bypass my spam
filter so I'll see your e-mail separated from half a gigabyte of
spam that continues to accumulate at a rate of several hundred
messages per day.
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
I really like your last paragraph, and especially the very last
sentence, which I wish to use as a "sound bite", a teaser to the
last paragraph, which in turn would be a teaser to your whole fine
article. But let me add two commas, OK?
<a href="http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/NewPub/mouseInField.html">
"Jesus, if he existed, must have been more like the mouse."
</a>
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Personally, I think inspiring a major world religion that has
> influenced the course of world history for two millennia ought to
> count for something, whether you can turn water into wine or not.
That has no bearing on the question of whether he actually existed
as a human or sorta-human being, as opposed to being a purely
fictional artifact of legend or a misunderstanding of nature such
as the "Sun god" which influenced many cultures worldwide, far
higher proportion of ancient mankind than the Jesus myth. (People
saw the Sun seem to travel relative to the landscape, and they
didn't feel the land move, so they naturally assumed it was the Sun
doing the moving, which they understood to require it be animated
somehow. Since it flew too precisely to be any living bird, and
since it seems to have control over both day/night and the seasons,
it must be something supernatural. At least that's my plausable
idea how a "Sun god" myth originated.)
Judaism had a myth about a Messiah, which they mistakenly took
seriously, too seriously, as if factually true. Lots of people
thought lots of their contemporaries might actually be that
Messiah. Other people made up ficticious people, wrote glorious
fictions about them, to contrive yet another Messiah. Jesus could
easily have been one of these fabricated realizations of the
Messiah myth. Those of us who understand evolution knows that it
isn't survival of the fittest, it's survival of whatever happens
mostly by chance (with some bias caused by differential fitness) to
avoid extinction for many consecutive generations, and then chance
into a niche that supported exponential growth in population. Maybe
the Jesus myth was nothing more than the lucky myth that
encountered the growth-favoring Emperor Augustine niche.
AC
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t <rem...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> From: Emma Pease <e...@kanpai.stanford.edu>
>> Josephus was born about 37CE so after the usual date given for
>> Jesus's death. However, he could well have known people who knew
>> of Jesus.
>
> I agree. It's equally possible he too-much trusted a
> liar-for-Jesus, somebody who talked the Jesus myth as if it were
> factual truth, as if that person had actually known a real Jesus
> instead of just made up a story and used it to manipulate people
> into their cult. At this time, we simply have no way to determine
> which is true, real-life Jesus or made-up Jesus.
Shouldn't you know something about Josephus before you start maligning
him like this?
Roger Pearse
> In article <1175995889.414216.103...@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
>
> ZikZak wrote:
> > On Apr 7, 6:23 pm, Cemtech <c...@cox.net> wrote:
> >> In article <1175987516.185636.33...@l77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> >> kilow...@charter.net says...
>
> >> > Do many people here dispute that Jesus ever lived?
>
> >> life.
>
> > I think you'll find that this is not correct. The only mention of
> > Jesus in a contemporary source is one sentence inJosephus, which is
> > almost certainly a much later interpolation by an overly zealous monk.
>
> Couple of problems
>
> 1. Not contemporary. Josephuswas born about 37CE so after the usual
> date given for Jesus's death. However, he could well have known
> people who knew of Jesus.
A historian in antiquity being "not contemporary" is not an argument
in this discipline. We just don't have enough data for this.
Consider that Josephus is the best source for most Jewish history of
the reign of Herod. He was hardly an eye-witness; but is nevertheless
an excellent source.
> 2. Two statements. One of which was almost certainly a later
> interpolation (or it could have been a mention that was added to by a
> later copier). The other is a mention of James brother of Jesus.
The long passage is probably damaged but corrupt (the idea of
interpolation was fashionable a century ago, but has been waning for
the last 100 years). The short passage certainly mentions the "so-
called Christ".
> If Jesus did exist, we don't know when he was born (the two birth
> stories are (a) heavy with mythology and (b) indicate he was either
> born before 4BCE or around 6CE). The rest of his life as given in the
> gospels also has many bits that are mythic (however it isn't uncommon
> for real figures to attract mythic bits, see G. Washington and the
> cherry tree, etc).
These points appear to involve the idea that Jesus cannot have existed
if he was who he said he was. This, of course, is petitio principi,
or begging the question.
> Those who claim the Romans would have had records if Jesus existed are
> probably correct; however, the chances of the records surviving are
> very low (historians would love it if we still had 1% of the records).
Agreed.
> From the Roman point of view Jesus was at that time at most just
> another minor troublemaker and there were plenty of those in Judea.
> He didn't have an armed force behind him or anything else to make him
> especially difficult to deal with. Any records would likely have
> remained in Judea and likely to have been destroyed during one of the
> early revolts before any Christians became prominent enough to look
> them up.
Agreed. The Roman state was in any event more loosely organised than
a modern state.
> My own conclusion is that I don't know whether he existed or not.
Probably best to ask a professional academic. This issue is endlessly
trumpted on usenet, but seems ridiculous to everyone else.
All the best,
Roger Pearse