A Christian Framework

[Overcame Faith]

Did this Buddhist monk have the truth? It seems to me that if you are correct in your assertion, he must have had the truth if he was willing to set himself on fire, of all things, for his beliefs.

 

http://www.vietnampix.com/fire1.htm

[mymistake]

Let's not forget that Jim Jones is God.

[Overcame Faith]

How about the Heaven's Gate crowd when 39 people were willing to commit suicide for their beliefs. Were their beliefs correct?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120869/Heavens-Gate-cult-committed-mass-suicide-15-years-ago.html

[Overcame Faith]

Come now, Wololo, you don't seriously argue that because someone is willing to die for a religion or cause that they have the truth, do you? You are sounding more and more like the untold number of Christians who come here with the same tired arguments we have heard hundreds of times. Can't you be at least a little more original?

[Guest afireinside]

How about the Heaven's Gate crowd when 39 people were willing to commit suicide for their beliefs. Were their beliefs correct?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120869/Heavens-Gate-cult-committed-mass-suicide-15-years-ago.html

Exactly!

[midniterider]

 

Alright, well that's actually a good start, and I appreciate that you're willing to open things up a bit. I've had half a beer so far, working on finishing it. Such a featherweight.

 

Eastern philosophy is actually something I'd like to study a bit more. I'm pretty familiar with most western philosophy, but it would be good to find a bridge to the easterners. If we are to discover the real truth about the universe, the best way to do so is to have a dialogue between people of all systems of belief.

 

One part of your perspective is actually not that much different from mine, at least philosophically speaking (believe it or not). I think this actually a very good place to start. Let's discuss the interrelatedness of everything. I do have a few questions though, I suppose I would like to direct this at everyone who would answer. Is there such thing as an essence? Do we agree that there are distinct identities? This is important to establish. When I was talking about nihilism, for those that don't know, it's the denial of any sort of meaning.

 

Distinct identities may be true from an everyday perspective but from the perspective of advaita (non-duality) there is only wholeness. The identity of 7 billion distinct human entities would be false with respect to non-duality. Several people like Alan Watts have mentioned how since we rely on each other and the planet and the solar system and everything in the universe in order to be alive that we are more than two arms, two legs, a head and a trunk, but I am the entirety of the universe (or multiverse). It is a pleasing concept to me, though I'm not really interested in Maharshi's self-inquiry exercises for self realization. Nor am I interested in devoting my life, soul, heart, head, whatever, to any philosophical or religious system.

 

As I see it, everything in the world is definitely interrelated. Nothing is without some form of significance, and everything affects everything else. This underlies Systems Theory. Essentially, everything is interconnected and a multidisciplinary approach is necessary when you're working with complex issues. With a world as complex as ours, interrelatedness is the only thing that makes much sense.

 

As far as significance, there may be a reason we are all here, or maybe not. I can enjoy a purpose-less driven life. :-) Anyway, off to work now.

 

In terms of my philosophy, I look at it in terms of concepts (which for me are completely nonphysical, though they can be represented physically). Words like 'marriage' don't need to have a fixed meaning. Instead they are related to and affected by the meanings of other words. Meaning is flexible based on what it 'needs' to be in the universe. Let me give you an example. The word "gay" used to refer to being in a state of happiness. Over time, the meaning has evolved into one synonymous with "homosexual"...and often with a negative connotation. This was not due to an arbitrary decision we made. The word evolved based on external influences. The culture shifted...the language shifted, and with it, a new meaning emerged. Rather than there being conflict, it is instead harmonious. Words and concepts mold and evolve over time based on interactions with other words and concepts. This is quite natural.

 

Fear and shame and guilt should not be a part of Christianity.

 

[thereisnoperfect]

Congratulations, you've discovered solipsism, the least useful philosophy known to humans. 

 

"I don't know what part of my brain makes meaning" does not prove there are nonphysical things. You admit you just "posit" that there is something nonphysical that does that. Good for you. I posit a being called Nebular who can do telepathy faster than the speed of light and lives somewhere in the Crab Nebula did it. We can posit anything we want, with full confidence that no evidence will show up one way or another.

 

See, I don't have faith that science will necessarily reveal how meaning-making happens. It probably will, because it's the only thing that has made progress in those areas up until now. But if it doesn't, I'm not in a faith crisis. "I don't know" just means "I don't know." My reasons for not trusting the christian god or the bible aren't based what part of my brain makes meaning, or whether I even know that. If you were really here to listen and discuss, you might have figured that out first. But you're here to pronounce. 

 

I don't think you even know why you're really here, which is why you give inconsistent answers on that point. If you wanted to discuss and learn, you'd have a lot more open-ended questions for the smart people who've engaged you. Instead, you have pointed questions that you think will lead us somewhere. And when they don't, you very quickly get agitated. Either you're here to reassure yourself, or you're here because you're afraid you're wrong, or you're just trolling.

 

In any of those cases, this elaborate "framework" is just philosophical masturbation to no purpose. You have a worldview that you think holds together. Yippee. When we point out how that's irrelevant to us, you ignore it. You think that you can prove that our worldview is also based on "faith," by one definition of that word. But that doesn't make our worldviews less useful to us, or yours any more compelling.

 

So I'm going to take my own advice and go do things that will bring me happiness or someone some good. If this clown tries to make any further claims regarding postmodernism, deconstruction, how texts mean, or how meaning is constructed, and I can be of some use, someone send me a PM or something. Otherwise I'll leave him to the capable hands of the rest of you.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

 

Ah, now perhaps we're getting somewhere. I need to know because most of you assert that there are only physical things, and that empirical evidence is the only evidence that is acceptable. It makes all the difference, because the first step in my argument is that there are nonphysical things. I posit that you have a nonphysical mind that does this. If you were to tell me "we don't know yet", then you are putting your faith in science. You are having faith that science will provide your answers, because...you don't know for sure. You're hoping that in the future, science will help us. To say you do know for sure, would be dishonest.

 

 

 

(snip) 

 

Prove it. Prove to me that science does precisely describe the world. It's not an ad hominem attack actually. I'm showing that you're not interested in arguing. Prove me wrong, by all means. Show me that you do value more than science.

 

 

 

I don't care about the dictionary definition. The dictionary definition is simple and incomplete. It misses out on all the nuance. Just like consciousness, there are many different ideas for what consciousness is. The dictionary definition is just the simple one.

 

Second note, if you say you don't have faith, then you are not in a position to tell me what it is, because according to you, you don't have it.

 

We're probably at the point where it's necessary to define "thing."  I'll toss out this:  a referent of a significant utterance.  Don't know whether this works, but it may suffice for the moment.

 

I would guess that most people on here would allow that non-physical things exist, e.g. laws, stories, institutions, truths... et al.

 

I don't think one gets very far by insisting that the brain is physical and the mind is not physical, because "mind" needs to be taken apart.  I like Quine's discussion, in which he posits that the mind is a construct.  It subsists in the brain, its material substrate, but the work that "mind" does in our discourse is not reducible to that done by "brain."  He offers what I think is a good analogy, a university:  it is composed of physical entities like buildings, parking lots, people, books, etc. but is not reducible to those objects.  "University" is a construct.  If we look at how we use the term "mind," it may well be that "construct" suffices as an account of that term and its reference.

 

What other alternative do we have for characterizing "mind?"  If you are going to maintain that it is a substance that does not have extension, and not merely a construct, you need to show the superiority of the former over the latter account.  Do you want to argue that "mind" exists independently of body?  You'll get into pseudo-questions very quickly.  Will you perhaps defend the doctrine of the occult soul, that can maintain its identity in separation from its body? 

[Ravenstar]

" The only thing physical about God was Jesus, and while his existence is more or less agreed upon".  No.. it's not. Other than the Bible there is NO evidence for a character named Yeshua Ben Yosef…or even one who did what the Bible says he did. There are no contemporous references AT ALL. (I believe John the Baptist has more evidence) No census data, no historian of the time even whiffs in that direction, and there were quite a few… good ones. It is seriously in debate on whether he existed at all. Even if he did, as a person, that does not validate any 'miracles' or make him more than just another religious/political nut job with an agenda,  and the message attributed to him was actually pretty nasty.

 

​As a matter of fact there is little historical or archaeological evidence for most of the OT events (but not all.. the Hebrews were actually a people living in the area from at least 1500BC - although there are NO originals or even copies of the Torah until much, much later). 

 

Without original sin (i.e.: Adam and Eve) there is no need for a saviour - Adam and Eve are ridiculous concepts in the real world. It just doesn't work, scientifically or logically. For those of us who are actually informed on religious syncretism in the ancient middle east it's pretty easy to see how Judaism developed… and then Christianity (which is NOT based on Judaism - but Hellenism/Zoroastrianism) It's not unique or even original.

 

That's the facts… unless you have something new I haven't come across?

 

That's false. Do some research please. It is commonly accepted by scholars that the man 'Jesus' did exist and did die due to crucifixion.There are historical records (someone here made a thread about it.) Tacitus (in Annals) and Josephus (in Antiquities of the Jews) both wrote about him...and especially the negative tone of Tacitus' account essentially proves it's an independent account uninfluenced by Christians. There are plenty of Christian records as well. In fact, Jesus is one of the most well documented men of his day. So not only are there many internal sources, but also external sources. Your first paragraph is completely false.

 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the largest source for the Old Testament. I'm not as knowledgeable about it, so I'll have to leave that to someone else to explain, but I do know that there are several thousand very very old copies of the New Testament that are 99.5% consistent (which for a historical text of that age is remarkable).

 

It really depends on what you consider to be sin. I don't believe in a literal creation account, nor do I believe in a literal Adam and Eve. Those two are a story that explains the implications for free will in a world where there is good, and not good.'

 

Hehehehe Christianity based on paganism? Hahaha let's see you back up that assertion. Go ahead, make my day.

 

 First: 

 

 http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ

 

Conflicts with known history

A major ding against the Gospels and Acts as history is when they can be compared with known historical events or people they spectacularly fail.

• Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents (Matthew 2:16-18) is not recorded in any other history (or Gospel) — not even by Josephus, who really didn't like Herod and meticulously catalogued his other misdeeds.

• Luke 2:1-4 claims Jesus was born in the year of a universal tax census, but the first such census did not occur until 74 CE - and it is not in the other gospels. ^[110]

• Luke 2:2 KJV specifically states "And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." Cyrenius is the Greek name for Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, who came to this position in 6 CE.

• The Sanhedrin trial account is totally at odds with the records on how that court actually operated in the 1st century.^[111]

• Jesus preaches in the open, so there is no need for the whole Judas betrayal. A real Roman official would have sent a modest group of soldiers and got the guy, which is what happened with John the Baptist.

• Pontius Pilate is totally out of character based on other accounts. Josephus relates two accounts where Pilate's solution to mobs causing a disturbance was brutally simple--have Roman soldiers go out and kill them until they dispersed. Moreover it is never really explained in the Bible why, if Jesus' only crime was blasphemy, Pilate would need to be involved. If Jesus' crime has been sedition, then there would be no reason for Pilate to involve Herod Antipas--or for the Sanhedrin to be involved for that matter.

• The crucified were left to rot as a warning to others unless there was intervention on the behalf of an important person per The Life of Flavius Josephus (75)

• Given Jesus' short time on the cross and reports of him being out and about afterwards, certainly the Romans might have wondered if they had been tricked, yet there is nothing in the reports about the Romans acting in this matter. Carrier describe how the Romans would have handled the situation and it is totally at odds with the account in Acts. ^[112]

• Jesus is depicted as hugely popular in the gospels. Yet he is unrecorded by non-Biblical historians.

• None of the miracles described biblically, such as the dead saints rising from graves and visiting Jerusalem, or a three hour long eclipse following Jesus' death, are picked up on by contemporary writers such as Pliny or Philo. One would reasonably expect that such events would be noticed."
  
  … and more

 

 

Josephus (c37-100 AD)

Flavius Josephus is a highly respected and much-quoted Romano-Jewish historian. The early Christians were zealous readers of his work.

 

A native of Judea, living in the 1st century AD, Josephus was actually governor of Galilee for a time (prior to the war of 70 AD) – the very province in which Jesus allegedly did his wonders. Though not born until 37 AD and therefore not a contemporary witness to any Jesus-character, Josephus at one point even lived in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle.

Josephus's two major tomes are History of The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews. In these complementary works, the former written in the 70s, the latter in the 90s AD, Josephus mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event which occurred there during the first seventy years of the Christian era.

 

At face value, Josephus appears to be the answer to the Christian apologist's dreams.

In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the Christ-myth:

 

1. Jesus's existence 2. his 'more than human' status 3. his miracle working 4. his teaching 5. his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles 6. his Messiahship 7. his condemnation by the Jewish priests 8. his sentence by Pilate 9. his death on the cross 10. the devotion of his followers 11. his resurrection on the 3rd day 12. his post-death appearance 13. his fulfillment of divine prophecy 14. the successful continuance of the Christians.

 

In just 127 words Josephus confirms everything – now that is a miracle!

BUT WAIT A MINUTE ...

Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defences against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’ wondrous words.

The third century Church 'Father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence of Christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively. Yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. In fact, Origen actually said that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ."

Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.

It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum.

 

Consider, also, the anomalies:

 

1. How could Josephus claim that Jesus had been the answer to his messianic hopes yet remain an orthodox Jew?

The absurdity forces some apologists to make the ridiculous claim that Josephus was a closet Christian!

 

2. If Josephus really thought Jesus had been 'the Christ' surely he would have added more about him than one paragraph, a casual aside in someone else's (Pilate's) story?

 

In fact, Josephus relates much more about John the Baptist than about Jesus! He also reports in great detail the antics of other self-proclaimed messiahs, includingJudas of Galilee, Theudas the Magician, and the unnamed 'Egyptian Jew' messiah.

 

It is striking that though Josephus confirms everything the Christians could wish for, he adds nothing that is not in the gospel narratives, nothing that would have been unknown by Christians already.

3. The question of context.

Antiquities 18 is primarily concerned with "all sorts of misfortunes" which befell the Jews during a period of thirty-two years (4-36 AD).

 

Josephus begins with the unpopular taxation introduced by the Roman Governor Cyrenius in 6 AD. He presents a synopsis of the three established Jewish parties (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes), but his real quarry is the "fourth sect of philosophy ... which laid the foundation of our future miseries." That was the sect of Judas the Galilean, "which before we were unacquainted withal."

 

At the very point we might expect a mention of "Christians" (if any such sect existed) we have instead castigation of tax rebels! 

"Nor can fear of death make them call any man Lord." Sound a tad familiar?

 

"It was in Gessius Florus's time [64-66] that the nation began to grow mad with this distemper, who was our procurator, and who occasioned the Jews to go wild with it by the abuse of his authority, and made them revolt from the Romans; and these are the sects of Jewish philosophy."

 

 

Chapter 2 notes the cities built to honour the Romans; the frequent changes in high priest (up to Caiaphas) and Roman procurators (up to Pontius Pilate); and also the turmoil in Parthia. 

 

Chapter 3, containing the Testimonium as paragraph three, is essentially about Pilate's attempts to bring Jerusalem into the Roman system. With his first policy – placing Caesar's ensigns in Jerusalem – Pilate was forced to back down by unexpected Jewish protests in Caesarea. With his second policy – providing Jerusalem with a new aqueduct built with funds sequestered from the Temple, Pilate made ready for Jewish protests. Concealed weapons on his soldiers caused much bloodshed.

At this point the paragraph about Jesus is introduced! Immediately after, Josephus continues: 

 

There is no way that Josephus, who remained an orthodox Jew all his life and defended Judaism vociferously against Greek critics, would have thought that the execution of a messianic claimant was "another terrible misfortune" for the Jews. This is the hand of a Christian writer who himself considered the death of Jesus to be a Jewish tragedy (fitting in with his own notions of a stiff-necked race, rejected by God because they themselves had rejected the Son of God).

 

"And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews ..."

 

With paragraph 3 removed from the text the chapter, in fact, reads better. The "aqueduct massacre" now justifies "another terrible misfortune."

4. The final assertion, that the Christians were "not extinct at this day," confirms that the so-called Testimoniumis a later interpolation. How much later we cannot say but there was no "tribe of Christians" during Josephus' lifetime. Christianity under that moniker did not establish itself until the 2nd century. Outside of this single bogus paragraph, in all the extensive histories of Josephus there is not a single reference to Christianity anywhere.

5. The hyperbolic language is uncharacteristic of the historian:
 

This is the stuff of Christian propaganda.

 

"... as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him."
 

6. The Testimonium is a rather short for a genuine digression in the narrative of Josephus (the material surely was deserving of more attention than it gets). But a copyist, working with scrolls of a fixed length, would have had little space to play with.

 

REALITY CHECK

In fact, the Josephus paragraph about Jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine.

 

Bishop Eusebius, that great Church propagandist and self-confessed liar-for-god, was the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus, about the year 340 AD. This was after the Christians had become the custodians of religious correctness.

Whole libraries of antiquity were torched by the Christians. Yet unlike the works of his Jewish contemporaries, the histories of Josephus survived. They survived because the Christian censors had a use for them. They planted evidence on Josephus, turning the leading Jewish historian of his day into a witness for Jesus Christ ! Finding no references to Jesus anywhere in Josephus's genuine work, they interpolated a brief but all-embracing reference based purely on Christian belief.

Do we need to look any further to identify Eusebius himself as the forger?

Sanctioned by the imperial propagandist every Christian commentator for the next thirteen centuries accepted unquestioningly the entire Testimonium Flavianum, along with its declaration that Jesus “was the Messiah.”

And even in the twenty first century scholars who should know better trot out a truncated version of the 'golden paragraph' in a scurrilous attempt to keep Josephus 'on message.'

 

Christian apologists, for their own convenience, blur the distinction between evidence of Jesus and evidence of Christians.

It is rather as if a child who believed in the Tooth Fairy was to be presented as evidence that the Tooth Fairy really existed.

 

The Usual Suspects

There is no doubt that Christians existed, from the early years of the second century certainly, and – as heretical Jews and under diverse names – up to a generation earlier. Belief in a Messiah (a 'Christ' in Greek) was endemic among the Jews after all.

 

But belief in a celestial Christ does not equate to belief in a flesh-and-blood 'Jesus of Nazareth' – and when the 'heretical' and 'gnostic' views of early Christians are examined 'Jesus of Nazareth' is noticeably absent. And to press the point, even a belief in a 'Jesus of Nazareth' does not make him a reality – it is only the belief that is a reality.

None abashed, Christian apologists compound their suspect 'logic' by recruiting notable pagans as witnesses, writers who were doing their best to faithfully report on a suspect cult. And as ever in the history of Christianity, in the hands of its scribes, forgery augments what the ancient writers actually wrote, the better to bring unbelievers to the One True Faith.

Pliny the Younger (61-115 AD)

Around 112 AD, in correspondence between Emperor Trajan and the provincial governor of Pontus/Bithynia, Pliny the Younger, reference is made to Christians for the first time. Pliny famously reports to his emperor: 

Note that Pliny is relaying what those arrested said they believed (and there is no reference here to a 'Jesus.')

 

"Christians ... asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so." – Pliny to Trajan, Letters10.96-97.

 

Pliny had convened trials of Christians, not because of their beliefs but because he had 'forbidden political associations' which he obviously suspected them of forming. He continues: 

Some of those arrested recanted, worshipped the imperial image and state gods, and cursed Christ. But Pliny is uncertain how to proceed with numerous others in what he describes as a widespread 'contagion' and asks Trajan for guidance. Trajan's celebrated reply is:

 

"Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition." 

 

Is the exchange of letters genuine?

 

"They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it -- that is, by worshiping our gods -- even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance."

 

It's worth noting that unlike the 247 letters Pliny himself prepared for publication (so-called books 1-9), book 10, which contains the celebrated letters "96" and "97", was published posthumously and anonymously. "It is surprising," says Betty Radice (translator of the Penguin edition), "that no more letters were to be found in the imperial files or among Pliny's personal papers to add to this record of the relations between one of the best of Rome's Emperors and his devoted servant." On the other hand, Tertullian (c. 160-220 AD) discusses the letter and refers to Trajan's reply in his Apology, chapter 2, which suggests authenticity: 

Pliny's ignorance of Christians

 

" We find that even inquiry in regard to our case is forbidden. For the younger Pliny, when he was ruler of a province, having condemned some Christians to death, and driven some from their stedfastness, being still annoyed by their great numbers, at last sought the advice of Trajan, the reigning emperor ..."

 

Pliny was a lawyer in Rome before going to the east. He was only a child when the "persecution of Christians by Nero" supposedly took place but his guardian Verginius Rufus was a high-placed commander at the time, loyal to Nero. Following Nero's suicide, Rufus actually declined an offer from the army of the Rhine to become emperor himself. Any "lurid massacre" of Christians, if it had taken place, could have been told to Pliny as a child – but in later life he recalls no such thing.

 

At the age of 17 Pliny inherited his uncle's extensive estates after the elder Pliny died in the eruption of Vesuvius. Rich and talented, and with impeccable connections to the highest echelons of the Roman state, Pliny began a distinguished career. He served on the imperial staff in Syria, a centre – one is led to believe – of energetic Christian activity, but again it left no mark on Pliny.

 

Rising rapidly through the ranks of quaestor, tribune and praetor, while still in his thirties the bright young aristocrat was appointed state prosecutor at four major public trials of provincial governors. Such a career would have made any incumbent aware of "persecution" of Christians, if indeed there had ever been any such thing. But Pliny reports none of it.

 

Pliny survived the persecution of the Stoic opposition during the reign of Domitian (81-96). The emperor actually made him a senator, even though several of Pliny's Stoic friends were executed. Subsequently Pliny went on to become consul, state priest, and finally, governor of Bithynia-Pontus.

 

Curious, is it not, that such a well-placed, well-educated Roman grandee, directly and intimately involved in the Roman judicial system at the highest levels, and a friend of historians Tacitus and Suetonius, should – in the second decade of the 2nd century – remain so ignorant of Christians and the persecution of them – unless, that is, they were nothing other than an obscure, and insignificant bunch of fanatics and the "persecution" is a fable?"Having never been present at any trials concerning those persons who are Christians, I am unacquainted not only with the nature of their crimes, or the measure of their punishment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examination concerning them."

 

Caius Suetonius (c.69–140 AD)

Nowhere in any of Suetonius's writings does he mention 'Jesus of Nazareth.' Suetonius did write a biography called Twelve Caesars around the year 112 AD and of Emperor Claudius he says: 

Jesus in Rome in 54 AD? Of course not. But the unwary can be misled by this reference.

 

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."

 

'Chrestus' does not equate to 'Christ' in English but to 'the good' in Greek (and for a definitive study of the manuscript evidence see here). It was a name used by both slaves and freemen and is attested more than eighty times in Latin inscriptions. Clearly, Suetonius was explaining why the Jews (not Christians) were expelled from Rome and is referring to a Jewish agitator in the 50s – not to a Galilean pacifist of the 30s. Yet even this report is questionable. The historian Cassius Dio gives a more convincing account of the same Claudian "expulsion": 

It is also said that Suetonius, in his Life of Nero, described Nero's persecution of the Christians:

 

"As for the Jews, who had again increased so greatly that by reason of their multitude it would have been hard without raising a tumult to bar them from the city, he did not drive them out, but ordered them, while continuing their traditional mode of life, not to hold meetings." – Roman History, 60.6. 

 

We have moved from 'rebellious Jews' to 'mischievous Christians'.

 

'Punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief ...' (16.2)

 

BUT WAIT A MINUTE:

Christians in Rome during the reign of Nero (54-68 AD) ?

Would (could) Nero have made such a fine sectarian distinction – particularly since there was no identifying faith document (not a single gospel had been written) – so just what would 'Christians' have believed?

 

Even St Paul himself makes not a single reference to 'Christians' in any of his writings.

The idea that a nascent ‘Christianity’ immediately faced persecution from a cruel and bloodthirsty pagan Rome is an utter nonsense. For one thing, it is only in the last third of the 1st century AD, that Christ-followers emerged as a separate faction from mainstream Judaism. Until then they remained protected under Roman law as Jews. The irritation they caused to their more orthodox brethren meant nothing to the pagan magistrates. Says Gibbon: 

Early Christ-followers called themselves 'saints', 'brethren', 'Brothers of the Lord' and their critics used various names: Nazoreans, Ebionites, 'God fearers', atheists. The Jewish association remained strong throughout the first century and when Christian sects got going in Rome in the second century they were identified by their rival leaders – Valentinians, Basilidians, Marcionites, etc.

 

"The innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance and contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often proved the most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue."

 

So little were Christ-worshippers known in the Roman world that as late as the 90s Dio Cassio refers to 'atheists' and 'those adopting Jewish manners'. Christians as a distinct group from the Jews appear only late in the 1st century, not long before the Jewish curse on heretics at the council of Jamnia (around 85 AD). The label 'Christian' itself only appears with the 2nd century Acts – with the story that the term 'began in Antioch' (11.26).

 

Equally odd, is that Suetonius's isolated sentence appears in a section on Nero's 'good points.'

It should also be noted that Suetonius does not associate punishment of the Christians with the fire that swept Rome, a crucial part of the later myth.

 

Quite simply, the reference is a Christian forgery, added to Suetonius to backup the work of the 5th century forger Sulpicius Severus, who heavily doctored the work of another Roman historian – Tacitus – with a lurid tale of brutal persecution ('torched Christian martyrs') which immortalized Nero as the first Antichrist in the eyes of the Christian church (the second Antichrist being the reformist Luther).

 

Cornelius Tacitus (c.55-117 AD)

Christianity has no part in Tacitus's history of the Caesars. Except for one questionable reference in theAnnals he records nothing of a cult marginal even in his own day.

Sometime before 117 AD, the Roman historian apparently wrote: 

As we have seen, the term 'Christian' was not in use during the reign of Nero and there would not have been 'a great crowd' unless we are speaking of Jews, not Christians. 'Jewish/Christians' – being perceived by Roman authorities (and the populace at large) simply as Jews meant that early Christ-followers also got caught up in general attacks upon the Jews.

 

"Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race.

 

Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animals' skins , they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight." 

– Tacitus (Book 15, chapter 44): 

 

One consequence of the fire which destroyed much of Rome in 64 AD was a capitation tax levied on the Jews and it was the Jews – throughout the empire – who were required to pay for the city’s rebuilding – a factor which helped to radicalise many Jews in the late 60s AD.

 

"Their effects to dissemble their Jewish origins were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to enquire into the difference of their religious tenets."

– Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall)

 

Not for the first time would Christian scribes expropriated the real suffering of a whole people to create an heroic 'origins' fable...

 

No Christian apologist for centuries ever quoted the passage of Tacitus – not in fact, until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. Sulpicius's contemporaries credited him with a skill in the 'antique' hand. He put it to good use and fantasy was his forte: his Life of St. Martin is replete with numerous 'miracles', including raising of the dead and personal appearances by Jesus and Satan.

His dastardly story of Nero was embellished during the Renaissance into a fantastic fable with Nero 'fiddling while Rome burned'. Nero took advantage of the destruction to build his 'Golden House' though no serious scholar believes anymore that he started the fire (we now know Nero was in his hometown of Antium – Anzio – when the blaze started.) Indeed, Nero opened his palace garden for temporary shelter to those made homeless.

 

In short, the passage in Tacitus is a fraud and adds no evidence for a historic Jesus.

 

11th century monk corrects Tacitus: "Goodies" to read "Christians"!

Ultraviolet photo of a critical word from the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus (second Medicean, Laurentian library, Italy).

 

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos ("the good"), has been overwritten as christianos ("the Christians") by a later hand, a deceit which explains the excessive space between the letters and the exaggerated "dot" (dash) above the new "i". The entire "torched Christians" passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly "worked over" by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth.

 

The truth may be that there was an original gnostic cult following a personified virtue, "Jesus Chrestos" (Jesus the Good). Consequently, they were called Chrestians, an appellation which seems to have attached itself at an early date to the sectarians of the "heretic" Marcion. Support for this possibility comes from the earliest known "Christian" inscription, found in the 19th century on a Marcionite church at Deir Ali, three miles south of Damascus. Dated to circa 318, the inscription reads "The meeting-house of the Marcionists, in the village of Lebaba, of the Lord and Saviour Jesus the Good", using the word Chrestos, not Christos.

 

As a flesh-and-blood, "historical" Jesus gradually eclipsed the allegorical Jesus so, too, did "goodness" get eclipsed by "Messiahship". Justin, in his First Apology (4), about thirty years after the death of Tacitus, plays on the similarity in sound of the two words Χριστὸς (Christ) and χρηστὸς (good, excellent) to argue for the wholesome, commendable character of Jesus followers.

The Chrestianos Issue in Tacitus Reinvestigated by Erík Zara © 2009

 

Did the Rabbis Know Jesus?

In a most ironic twist, Christian apologists sometimes bring forward an ancient anti-Jesus slur, circulated by the rabbis, as "evidence" that their godman existed.

Yet the earliest rabbinic writings – for example, the Mishnah ("study") (of which the Talmuds are later commentaries) – make no reference to a "Jesus" character at all.

 

In the vast corpus of material the closest we get to such testimony is Mishnah Yevamot 4.13 which has a very oblique reference to a 'peloni' (rabbinic Hebrew for 'so and so') but nothing more: 

The reference could have been to anyone. Though difficult to date the verse could well be a rabbinic counter-stoke to Matthew's manufacture of a genealogy for JC early in the 2nd century.

 

"Simeon ben Azzai has said: I found in Jerusalem a book of genealogies; therein was written: That so and so is a bastard son of a married woman."

 

A later, 2nd or 3rd century, rabbinical reference is to a magician who had led some Jews into apostasy. This is in an addendum to the Mishnah – 'Baraitha Sanhedrin 43a' – which records the hanging of a 'Yeshu' on the eve of Passover for sorcery. It also adds that he had 5 disciples – Mattai, Naqai, Netzer, Buni and Todah – not exactly the familiar names!

 

The 3rd century Tosefta (another supplementary commentary on the Oral Law, even later than theMishnah) tells of an attempt to invoke the name of 'Yeshu ben Pandira' to cure a rabbi of a snake bite (Chullin 2:23).

 

Later still, the references to Yeshu get more colourful.

 

Both Talmuds are 'late' constructions: the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the early 5th century AD and the Talmud of Babylon was compiled during the 6th century. By this date the only source of information about Jesus available to the rabbis was the Christians themselves! But far from confirming anything found in the gospels the rabbinic authors appear to have confounded at least two Jesuses – a 1st century BC Yeshu ben Pandira and 2nd century AD Yeshu ben Strada.

 

According to Talmud Shabbat 104b, Sanhedrin 67a, JC is apparently the son of an adulterous hairdresser ('Miriam Megaddela') and is executed in Lud. Talmud Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah 47a,  has the magician Jesus worshipping a brick during the 1st century BC reign of John Hyrcanus.

 

If the 3rd century Church Father Origen is to be believed (Contra Celsum 1.28) Celsus, the pagan opponent of Christianity, writing in the late 2nd century, had heard from Jewish sources the scandalous rumour that the Christian hero was the result of an illicit affair between Miriam, a young Jewess, and a Roman trooper called 'Pantheras.' The woman had been driven off by her husband when he discovered she had got herself pregnant by a soldier of the occupying power.

 

One could hardly conceive of a more disreputable pedigree for a would-be Jewish Messiah!

Which of course reveals the whole point of the slur: to damn the iconic figure held high by apostate Jews who, together with their gentile converts, now formed the rival Christians. In comparison, simply denying that the hero figure had ever existed would have appeared weak and conveyed none of

[Roz]

regarding Ravenstar's post:

 

1.  clap

2.  stand

3.  clap some more

 

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Ravenstar, you rock.

 

I would be surprised if Wololo attempts a meaningful response.

[Ravenstar]

Thanks Roz  

 

I wish I could take credit for the entirety of the post but most of it was written by someone else (cited). I just did the searching and compiling.

 

However.. all this stuff is out there for anyone honest enough to really look into it.

[Guest afireinside]

regarding Ravenstar's post:

 

1. clap

2. stand

3. clap some more

 

Holy Hell Ravenstar!!

[Wololo]

Due to having something enormous to respond to, I'm going to stop other conversations everywhere on the forum. Not only do I have to get to sleep earlier tonight due to my schedule, but I don't have the time to make a massive response and keep up other conversations. Those are going to have to be dropped for now. Maybe I'll get back to them. You can expect a response either tonight in the next 4 hours or so, or else it's going to be more like 20, as I get up early for work tomorrow.

 

Instead of just posting the work of someone else though, I'll actually take the time to make my own arguments and put them into my words.

[Guest afireinside]

Due to having something enormous to respond to, I'm going to stop other conversations everywhere on the forum. Not only do I have to get to sleep earlier tonight due to my schedule, but I don't have the time to make a massive response and keep up other conversations. Those are going to have to be dropped for now. Maybe I'll get back to them. You can expect a response either tonight in the next 4 hours or so, or else it's going to be more like 20, as I get up early for work tomorrow.

 

Instead of just posting the work of someone else though, I'll actually take the time to make my own arguments and put them into my words.

Ok sweet dreams

[♦ ficino ♦]

Wololo, I accept that you are sincere and serious about your OP. When I was a Christian, I was guided into similar bifurcated thinking - that either we have God guaranteeing meaning or everything falls apart into chaos, ignorance and exploitation. I think this scheme is part of the sales pitch of Christianity (maybe other religions, too), and it's very superficial. Much of the shrill tone prevalent in such apologetic - e.g. "the world is no longer stable and reliable," as you put it - seems to trade on the "return to a golden past" meme that gets a lot of mileage.

 

It really is a disaster, though, to put forth a religion that claims to establish stable grounds of meaning and then have it turn out that we're saddled with the Bible and all its contradictions, barbarities and words for X that mean X except when they don't. Good luck with getting a stable and reliable ground of meaning out of the Bible.

 

Words do change their meanings, because, after all, the world changes. Why is this a big deal? Can you improve on Wittgenstein's insight that a word's meaning is its use? I am glad that my male lover and I were able to be married. I hope you don't view this in our case and for many other couples as a tragedy, as though the world is no longer stable and reliable because gays and lesbians can be treated like heterosexuals in some significant areas of law.

 

I have been a lover of Plato for decades, though I am not a Platonist. I am surprised that you declare that you know that Plato is not close to our heart as he is to yours. ??!! I also hope that you gain deeper insight into his and Aristotle's works.

 

You are aware, I'm sure, that some of the most sophisticated opposition to Christianity came from Platonists? e.g. Celsus and Julian.

[Orbit]

Wololo will be back...and won't be replying to other threads.

Translation: He's pinned down on the other threads...

[♦ ficino ♦]

Thanks Roz  

 

I wish I could take credit for the entirety of the post but most of it was written by someone else (cited). I just did the searching and compiling.

 

However.. all this stuff is out there for anyone honest enough to really look into it.

I knew it would get interesting when W said that Ravenstar needed to go learn some ancient history.

[Ravenstar]

I think he just tried to insult me.   *snicker*

[francesco]

And he gave up lol lol lol

He will leave this thread, never come back and open a new one

[Wololo]

Yes because I live in my mother's basement with nothing better to do than discuss religion with strong opposition. I don't have time for a half dozen threads.

[sdelsolray]

…

Instead of just posting the work of someone else though, I'll actually take the time to make my own arguments and put them into my words.

Take THAT Ravenstar!!!  Guess he put you in your place.  Problem is, most anything Wololo puts into his own words is sophomoric nonsense.

[francesco]

Yes because I live in my mother's basement with nothing better to do than discuss religion with strong opposition. I don't have time for a half dozen threads.

Then rather than replying 1million threads and also making other one million threads, you should have just focus on one thread at the time

[Overcame Faith]

Yes because I live in my mother's basement with nothing better to do than discuss religion with strong opposition. I don't have time for a half dozen threads.

Then stop wasting your time and ours.

[Overcame Faith]

You are overmatched and under prepared to respond. So, why not just give up on what you thought would be such easy pickin's. Maybe we aren't the ignorant people you hoped to enlighten, after all.