Jesus authenticity
Offline I called bullshit on this the moment I heard it, but I didn't want to say anything back because I never heard of anybody else confirming or denying this before. I was in North Carolina a couple weeks ago during spring break on a volunteer(not really mission) trip with my church youth group in a very poor area. Me and my friend were the only atheists there, we went to help out, not because "god sent us". Anyway, we watched The Passion of the Christ that thursday(the anniversary apparantly, by the way I thought that the south park parody was over-exaggerating, but this seriously was the worst movie I have ever seen), and after it was over, our pastor told us that nobody can doubt Jesus's death because the Romans kept records of all crucifixions, and we have a record of his. I know the Romans were very good at keeping records, but I have never heard of a record of Jesus's death. Can anybody shed some light on this? Sorry if this isn't the right area to post, i would in Atheist vs Theist but I'm looking for more of only an answer to this question than a full historical Jesus debate.
Kind of funny picturing a crucifiction record and exerpts from it...
.. crucified Dillhollius because he was an asshat. .... Crucified [name lost] for making fun of Bigus Dickus' name.. Crucified Moronicus for the hell of it and becuase it had been a long time since we crucified anyone.
I'm pretty sure there is no record of Jesus's crucifixion. In fact, I'm pretty sue there is no historical record of Jesus from any historian of his time.
Jesus needs his
Prescriptions filled
Buddha’s using
Too many pills
Allah promises endless thrills
In volatile bottles marked RELIGION KILLS!
Otep - Noose and Nail
If we had evidence of Jesus' crucification from Roman records, I think we all would have had quite an earful of this by now, which makes me think the silence on this subject tells volumes about its veracity. Perhaps they did keep records of who the state executed, and Jesus was one of the names(if not many of the names on those lists). As I understand it, Jesus was about as common as a name as Michael is now. Contemporary execution records about an apocalyptic prophet from Galilee named Jesus containing a detailed account of his crime(s) would be an unprecedented amount of tangible evidence to allude to the existence of Jesus as a man, and would therefore be as valuable as gold for those who try to find evidence of a historical Jesus. Ask Rook Hawkins, he can probably give a better answer than most of us.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
It's a christian "Urban Myth" They scam their way out of actually providing the real evidence. I was talking about this with my Aunt not too long ago.
BTW, My aunt and I are both atheists but we were both indoctrinated into christianity from childhood.
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We hear a lot of references to so called records of this and that event in the bible.
Moses and the egyptians for example. Some theists claim that the egyptians recorded the slavery of the hebrews, and the subsequent exodus. But, no such record exists, in fact, no record exists of hebrews being used as slaves in an substantial numbers in egypt at ANY time in history. Some evidence shows that the ancestors of the hebrew people may have briefly conquored parts of egypt and been in turn run out, but otherwise, no years of bondage, no plagues, no exodus, no moses.
Similarly, in spite of some pretty wild claims, NO writen record, roman or otherwise has yet been found that validates or substantiates the existence of jesus, little less a crucifixion.
The story about Pilate and Pilates letters have been around for a bit, but, it turns out what has frequently been passed off as authentic letters written by Pontius Pilate were in fact lifted in total from a 19th century novel... (W.P. Crozier "The Letters of Pontius Pilate")
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacrements of canibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Looks like I am coming in late on this one. Your pastor is erroneously claiming that Rome would have kept such trivial records, or rather, they might have kept them provincially (i.e. in Jerusalem) but they would not have bothered sending them to Rome. Especially not in the period between Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, and later Nero.
More than likely, it sounds like this pastor has been watching Monty Python too many times. "Crucifixion? Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each."
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Please help me get my resources so I can finish my book more quickly.
My wish list.
Et suppositio nil ponit in esse.
"You act ridiculously," said Ion, "to doubt everything. For my part, I should like to ask you what you say to those who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I need not discuss this: everyone knows about the Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it, how many he takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam; nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends them away normal in mind, delivering them from their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside them as they lie there and asks : 'Whence came you into his body?' the patient himself is silent, but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one coming out, black and smoky in color." "It is nothing much," I remarked," for you, Ion, to see that kind of sight, when even the 'forms' that the father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose eyes are weak." - Lucian, Lover of Lies
I think you are talking about the Alexandria Library (actually burned more than once but in the Dark Ages totally destroyed purposely by Chistians - they hated science and knowledge then, too.) Wouldn't make sense they'd bother to send a record of someone crucified in Jerusalem to a library of knowledge in Egypt.
You're thinking of the Hyksos. No Hebrew Bible scholar I know believes these are the Hebrews. In fact, I doubt any do. The archaeological evidence is strongly against this. The so-called early Hebrews ('apiru perhaps?) are nothing more than nomadic transjordians, and probably are, in fact, a variety of different bedouin peoples from Syria and Palestine who were moved around and repopulated by the Assyrians in the hill country. The Hebrews were never in Egypt, nor were they the Hyksos. There was never an exodus, nor a conquest.
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Please help me get my resources so I can finish my book more quickly.
My wish list.
Et suppositio nil ponit in esse.
"You act ridiculously," said Ion, "to doubt everything. For my part, I should like to ask you what you say to those who free possessed men from their terrors by exorcising the spirits so manifestly. I need not discuss this: everyone knows about the Syrian from Palestine, the adept in it, how many he takes in hand who fall down in the light of the moon and roll their eyes and fill their mouths with foam; nevertheless, he restores them to health and sends them away normal in mind, delivering them from their straits for a large fee. When he stands beside them as they lie there and asks : 'Whence came you into his body?' the patient himself is silent, but the spirit answers in Greek or in the language of whatever foreign country he comes from, telling how and whence he entered into the man; whereupon, by adjuring the spirit and if he does not obey, threatening him, he drives him out. Indeed, I actually saw one coming out, black and smoky in color." "It is nothing much," I remarked," for you, Ion, to see that kind of sight, when even the 'forms' that the father of your school, Plato, points out are plain to you, a hazy object of vision to the rest of us, whose eyes are weak." - Lucian, Lover of Lies
Rook, I'm interested in learning on why the writer of the biblical mythos about jewish enslavement by the Egyptians would be created. Why would the writer of that myth make it up? Was there a possible reason that he/she wanted to endorse propaganda for the jews to have a grudge against the Egyptians?
This seems rather odd to me. Why did that person feel like demonizing the Egyptians? I know the exact reason is rather impossible to know, however what is a possible explaination?
Science. It works, bitches.
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."
Douglas Adams
Pretty much what I thought. The information I had on the Hyksos was sketchy at best.
I have a guess as to how the story cropped up in relation to the Hebrews, they were inverterate borrowers, taking bits and pieces of the cultures, stories and myths of the civilizations around them, and incorporating them into their own mythology. This is how stories such as the flood and the tale of job migrated from their (?) Sumarian roots to the Hebrew oral tradition and finally into hebrew canon.
LC >;-}>
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacrements of canibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
It makes not a bit of difference if a Jesus or Buddha existed. How could it ?
What if superman came and died from a meteor of Kryptonite ? What if the aliens show up ?
Thanks for the responses, by the way, could a mod move this to the jesus mythisist forum? I didn't notice it before.
Done.
Science. It works, bitches.
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."
Douglas Adams