Jesus mythology discussed here

[John99]

Very good Geeser, you have done some homework...

It was not until the council of Nicea that established Christ’s divinity by fiat. The council of Nicea was conducted at the behest of a pagan emperor who legalized Christianity in the empire…Constantine. It is reported that Constantine had a death bed conversion to Christianity. However, Constantine was a high priest of the Sol Invictus cult...which by the way is one of those religions preaching similar messages to Christ. Constantine used Christianity to blend the two religions into one and consolidate his empire.
That is why and when the Christian Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday. That is when pagan (Sol Invictus) holidays were incorporated into the Christian calendar (Christmas and Easter). And that is also when the Invictus symbol, the cross, became a Christian symbol. Prior to Constantine, the symbols for Christians did not include the cross. It was the fish. And the cross that Jesus died on was not the traditional cross we see represented to day. It looked more like a capital T than a +. The + is a Sol Invictus symbol.

Doesn't the word Christian come from Christ. (edit: nevermind) I dont know about that story of yours regarding Constantine, i have never seen da Vinci code.

Which Constantine are you referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine

 

[Photizo]

... since “christ” is from the Greek khristós, meaning “anointed one,” the functional equivalent of “messiah,” we are left with an “everyman name.” He might well have been named Joe Messiah if the story were to have unfolded in 20th century Ohio instead of the Iron Age.

Very true. Nevertheless, ...we see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He, by the grace of God should taste death for every man...Forasmuch then as the human race are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

For verily He did not take upon Himself the nature of angels; but He took upon Himself the seed of Abraham.

The "everyman" aspect comes into play in this respect also: Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest (on behalf of the human race) in things pertaining to God.

 

[Tht1Gy!]

come on tht1gy, you can do better. That is real real old.

While I appreciate your confidence...

...I was just quoting K. Marx.:itold:
It seemed relevant at the time...:shrug:

 

[joepistole]

Well John99 seeing the da Vinci code would not have helped you with Constantine, as he is never mentioned in the da Vinci code. But he is an historical figure, Constantine the Great.

 

[joepistole]

By the way, religion is not an opiate byt a way to grow personally. And if you belive in God as I do, come closer to God. But to become closer to God and to grow spiritually one does not need be persecute others...in fact one cannot become closer to God while mistreating others.

By the way John99 instead of Secundum nex, pacis nex

 

[lightgigantic]

Clearly, LG would rather troll the thread and get responses to his straw man argument that no historical figures can be shown to “empirically exist” so, therefore, mythical figures like Jesus have just as much legitimacy in reality as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and George Patton.

erm - since there is empirical evidence for George Washington and co., it seems you've just done yourself a strawman ....

Btw - by trolling do you mean I begin a post by engineering a character assassination with unbacked claims or references - eg "ylooshi trolls threads all the time with his strawman arguments. Everyone knows it. blah blah blah"

All historical figures. Some would rather dissuade discussion and discourse rather than encourage it and perhaps LG knows that many choose simply not to post in threads he posts in.

thats all fine and well, but the original point still stands - is it sufficient to deem an entity "mythical" because there is no empirical evidence for their existence (particularly if they come from an era where empirical evidence is not really in vogue)?

Or, perhaps, he is truly offended that someone might dare to question mythical creatures and entities since this questions his own, possibly deluded, perception of reality.

questioning is fine
its the use of faulty constructs of reasoning that irks me ...

Regardless, LG is undoubtedly aware that historians don’t use the “empirical evidences” of chemists and physicists, and he was obviously unable to produce a quote where I stated such a thing, but historians do make predictions based upon the evidence they actually obtain. Evidence for historical figures and events comes in the forms of primary and secondary evidence. The written artifacts of the subject constitute primary evidence: bills of laden, manifests, deeds to property, signed orders, correspondence, etc. Secondary evidence comes in the form of documents written in an era after the subject’s period, usually written about the subject, describing his deeds, actions, or ideas about the world.

thats all fine and well but the OP was bypassing this important foundation by inviting people to discuss the jesus "mythology" - which is clearly an empirical claim ("jesus does not exist")

What exists with the Jesus account amounts to only secondary evidence. The only sources we have to say that Jesus existed in history are the Synaptic Gospels and a few apocrypha. Each of which offer conflicting accounts in some cases or appear to be derived from a single source in others. None of Jesus’ personal correspondences exist; not a single account of his life exists that was written while he was alleged to exist; not a single artifact is produced that can be empirically linked to Jesus; etc.

well 2000 years is a long time - and given the social climate of christians at the time, its not clear why you demand such things

Apologists for the Jesus myth will often respond with, “what artifact would be good enough?” A blood-soaked piece of wood that tests to only have 23 chromosomes comes to mind, but, realistically, I’m reminded that many historical figures contemporary to Jesus or before are accompanied by artifacts that are in their name: effigies, murals, tapestries, sculptures, trinkets, jewelry, songs, poems, stories, cities and streets named after them, and so on.

exactly who are these contemporaries of jesus you are referring to?

Jesus Christ has none of these things that were created during his life or even just after. It isn’t until about 50 – 70 years after he was alleged to have been executed that the newly emergent Christian cult created documents detailing the life of this person.

once again, given the social climate of christianity at the time, why is this deemed unusual?

If Jesus Christ did not exist, we would expect to see only post-mortem accounts of his life. We would expect to see the creators of this mythical character use existing mythology to flesh out the character they’re creating. We would expect to see a borrowing of text, as was common for the day, from existing religious texts to create the new myth. We would expect to see mistakes in things like geography and contradictions between authors of the new mythical character if they weren’t collaborating close enough –or if they were competing with one another! We would also expect the Jesus myth to conform to the hero archetype as well.

you do realize that we would also expect all of these things if jesus actually did exist in a social environment that was not primarily geared up for extolling his glories

And you know what, we see all these things.

its not at all unusual to uncover anomalies in historical data from even 100 years ago, what to speak of 2000 years ago
you should realize that the moment you use the word "mythical" you are laying a positive claim to an objects non-existence (ie you are laying down an empirical claim) - if all you have is tentative foundations for such a claim, you have a weak argument
:shrug:

 

[joepistole]

To build on what you said Light, Luke and Matthew were latter documents with portions taken from an earlier document which scholars refer to as the Q document. The Q document have never been found. But because of similarities in writting styles Luke and Matthew can be traced to this Q document which is a much earloer document. There are also non cannonized books like the Book of Thomas and the Book of Judas which shed new and different perspectives. And there are the writtings of the Gnostics as well.

 

[joepistole]

When you look at the Bible you are looking at two things, the version cannonized at the council of Nicea and subsequent revisions. By the way the cannonized version was written in Greek not Aramic which was the language of Jesus. And somethings just don't translate well.

 

[jayleew]

*************
M*W: ... If I can find stones, steles and statues of my family, why isn't there any of Jesus' family? His family was world famous. My family was well beheaded in the French Revolution. You do the math. Jesus had no family because he didn't exist.

Let's talk about the STORY of Jesus...

1) He wasn't famous for long
2) Had a bad rep in the end among the populace.
3) He did not want publicity

MW, we have no evidence of Jesus being real. If we hoped that he was real and looked for evidence we would not find any.

But, if the story was real, perhaps there is no evidence because he was not famous until after the dead sea scrolls were unearthed.

Over his liftetime, the Bible's account of Jesus doing miraculous things and saying all sorts of fabulous things that enlightened people and religious leaders. I'm sure he was famous for a relatively short period of time, but not compared to the reknown of rulers AND accredited saints.

In the end, Jesus was killed, and all record shoved under the rug. In the Bible, it also claims that the Jewish leaders put him under wraps and denied Jesus's claim even after the resurrection. I bet only the disciples and those who were touched by Jesus knew of him 10 years after his death. He was forgotten.

How many years was he actually known of...and how long does one have to be famous to have art created depicting oneself? What, wasn't he supposed to be like in his thirities when he died?

Aside from that, it wasn't popular to publicize a criminal. That's what he was to the people in the end. They chose Barabas to be free, not the blasphemer.

To this day, I don't think Jesus is accepted by the Jews as the savior spoken of in the Torah?

And aside from that, Jesus told the people he did stuff for to not spread the word....though the blind man couldn't contain himself.

If the story were true, it does not surprise me that we see no evidence of him.

So if God exists, I believe it is unreasonable to demand that we believe in him to be saved.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Let's talk about the STORY of Jesus...

1) He wasn't famous for long
2) Had a bad rep in the end among the populace.
3) He did not want publicity

MW, we have no evidence of Jesus being real. If we hoped that he was real and looked for evidence we would not find any.

But, if the story was real, perhaps there is no evidence because he was not famous until after the dead sea scrolls were unearthed.

*************
M*W: I couldn't agree with you more.

Over his liftetime, the Bible's account of Jesus doing miraculous things and saying all sorts of fabulous things that enlightened people and religious leaders. I'm sure he was famous for a relatively short period of time, but not compared to the reknown of rulers AND accredited saints.

*************
M*W: If there were no real Jesus, then there would have been no saints, apostles or martyrs. Zero from zero equals zero.

But since there was a storybook Jesus, it's only fitting that there were also storybook apostles, martyrs and saints (portrayed in scrolls, books, radio, epic films, TV programming, televangelism everywhere, and in all the faith-based programs in the USA that are anything but the separated by church and state.

In the end, Jesus was killed, and all record shoved under the rug. In the Bible, it also claims that the Jewish leaders put him under wraps and denied Jesus's claim even after the resurrection. I bet only the disciples and those who were touched by Jesus knew of him 10 years after his death. He was forgotten.

*************
M*W: If THE crucifixion really happened (because the Romans were known to have used this form of execution), I find it unlikely that of all the crucifixions that Romans had effected, with Jesus obviously being the most famous, why were the records of this crucifixion swept under the camel hair? Wouldn't this have been one of the major Roman triumphs? And you know how flashy and arrogant those Romans were? They would have taken great pride in flashing this particular spoil, but it just didn't happen. That would mean the Romans had a shred of empathy in their humane treatment of a convicted criminal, a traitor to the Holy Roman Empire! It just doesn't add up.

How many years was he actually known of...and how long does one have to be famous to have art created depicting oneself? What, wasn't he supposed to be like in his thirities when he died?

*************
M*W: I don't think there is any set rule on how long one must live to be famous enough to be depicted by some art form. Look what a short time it took Rodney King to become a martyr for all time, resurrected from beyond his videotaped crucifixion that was unbeknownst to the terrorist LAPD officers. Whose infamous words still echo o'er the land, "People, can't we get along? Can't we all just get along?" He was a victim, not a hero, and he has his place in posterity.

Aside from that, it wasn't popular to publicize a criminal. That's what he was to the people in the end. They chose Barabas to be free, not the blasphemer.

*************
M*W: I have a problem with Barabbas whose name literally means "Son (Bar) of the Father (Abbas). Why the duplicity? I even think Bar Abbas's full name was Jesus Bar Abbas. That's just too close for their being two men to be crucified at the same time with the same name, but then, I don't believe either one of them existed.

To this day, I don't think Jesus is accepted by the Jews as the savior spoken of in the Torah?

*************
M*W: And I think you're right. Of course, the Jewish Old Testament and the christian old
testament aren't the same. However, they do tend to believe a man named Jesus existed, but you have to realize that the OT wasn't put together until after the NT was written. I bet most people don't know this. The Jewish OT wasn't completed until around 400 CE, and the Catholic church was well on it's way to becoming the state religion.

And aside from that, Jesus told the people he did stuff for to not spread the word....though the blind man couldn't contain himself.

*************
M*W: Sure, if Jesus was a storybook character.

If the story were true, it does not surprise me that we see no evidence of him.

*************
M*W: Well, as you said, he was a criminal, but I don't think so. There could have been many men named Jesus from that day and time, although I've not come across any more than the two Jesus Bar Abbas and Jesus, Son of the Father, but I believe them to be one character in an ambiguous story.

So if God exists, I believe it is unreasonable to demand that we believe in him to be saved.

************
M*W: So true! There is no reason we would need saving! The bible christians know is so totally opposing the Jewish bible. How did the christian bible become so erroneous? I'll tell you how--it was man-made not god made.

 

[Tht1Gy!]

By the way, religion is not an opiate but a way to grow personally.

That's not religion's job. I have no problem with faith, faith in something greater than ourselves. But one doesn't need religion for that.

Sermon on the mount, something like, well, to paraphrase, Don't worry about church, it's fine if you pray in your closet. Your heavenly father already knows...

Religion's job on the other hand is to make sure that your personal growth is acceptable to the church fathers, and other authority types...

And if you belive in God as I do,

...everything will be just fine!

in fact one cannot become closer to God while mistreating others.

I agree! Please inform the lionshare of your compatriots of this little tidbit.

 

[(Q)]

Greetings all,

Thanks to geeser for posting my list.
I encourage readers to check Nutter's link - J.P Holding is famous on the internet. Infamous that is. Carefully compare the facts to what he claims.

From what I've gleaned so far, the only argument JP has is:

"My challenge to skeptics: Show me why each of these writers should have mentioned Jesus. Remsberg's say-so ain't gonna cut it."

Interesting though, someone by the name of Iasion is mentioned throughout much of the article. (Where have I heard that name before?)