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BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction?
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 25 May 06 - 06:05 PM >>Or are you of the opinion that Saul of Tarsus was an undercover operative from the Roman MI5 and that it was in his version of Jesus that the royals hid their repackaged Julius?<< Paul likely did not exist. He, like Christ, is found in no other writings of that period other than church literature. Nor did he ever say his name was Saul or that he came from Tarsus and if he did he was most certainly not a Jew since Tarsus was a non-Jewish city. He claimed to be a Pharisee and yet Gamaliel was the Pharisaic teacher of that time and his school was in Jerusalem where Paul admits he had never been until some 14 years after his conversion. He was likely a Roman royal churning out pseudo-Jewish pap. Judiac affectations among Roman royals was actually quite common. For example, the Loeb Classical Library "The Apostolic Fathers Part I" p. 4 informs us, "More complicated and more interesting are suggestions that Clement may be identified or at least connected with Titus Flavius Clemens, a distinguished Roman of the imperial Flavian family. This Titus Flavius Clemens was in 95 A.D. accused of treason or impiety by Domitian, his cousin, owing, according to Dio Cassius, to his Jewish proclivities." Coincidence that Josephus's full name was Flavius Josephus? Supposedly a Jew captured by the Roman army after he commanded a contingent Jewish rebels to dump burning oil on Roman soldiers. Obviously, they would have taken his head upon his capture and certainly not made him a Roman royal Flavian!!!! He was another Titus Flavius Clemens—a true Flavian from the git-go who had "Jewish proclivities." His works were scoured by the Gospel writers to provide some substance to an otherwise historically sparse gospel narrative. Read these statements by Josephus and see for yourself: "So Jesus the son of Sapphias, one of those whom we have already mentioned as the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people, prevented us, and took with him certain Galileans, and set the entire palace on fire, and thought he should get a great deal of money thereby, because he saw some of the roofs gilt with gold. They also plundered a great deal of the furniture, which was done without our approbation; for after we had discoursed with Capellus and the principal men of the city, we departed from Bethmaus, and went into the Upper Galilee. But Jesus and his party slew all the Greeks that were inhabitants of Tiberias, and as many others as were their enemies before the war began." Vita, v. 12 "…for an actor was introduced, by whom a leader of robbers was crucified, and the pantomime brought in a play called Cinyras, wherein he himself was to be slain, as well as his daughter Myrrha, and wherein a great deal of fictitious blood was shed, both about him that was crucified, and also about Cinyras." Antiquities, Book XIX, Ch 1, v. 13 "Watchmen were accordingly posted by them on the towers, who gave warning whenever the engine was fired and the stone in transit, by shouting in their native tongue, "The Son is coming!" Jewish Wars, Book V, v. 272 (The Greek text of this passage found in Loeb's version renders the statement as "Ho uios erketai" or "The son is coming" while Whiston dishonestly omits it altogether) "Now, when they had given Jonathan and his companions these instructions, they gave them forty thousand [drachmae] out of the public money: but when they heard that there was a certain Galilean that then sojourned at Jerusalem, whose name was Jesus, who had about him a band of six hundred armed men, they sent for him, and gave him three months pay, and gave him orders to follow Jonathan and his companions, and be obedient to them." Vita, v. 40 Casts Jesus Barabbas in a whole new light, doesn't it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 May 06 - 05:57 PM What a fabulous name though! Don't you wish you were called Parson Weems. You could achieve anything with a name like that. Specutively of course. And you probably wouldn't even need to be a real Parson nowadays... DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Ron Davies Date: 25 May 06 - 05:52 PM As I recall, Parson Weems' stories had no pretense to truth--even at the time. They were moralistic (and other) tales for the young. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Haruo Date: 25 May 06 - 05:35 PM And apparently Weems was the pastor of the church Washington attended in Virginia, so who knows, he may even have got some of the stories from the grand old fart himself (Washington, not Jesus). Speculation. Haruo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: flattop Date: 25 May 06 - 05:20 PM Thank you Haruo, I stand corrected. I read somewhere that it was an Englishman. You linked Wiki says, "He studied theology in London and was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1784." Perhaps this explains my sources of confusions and half-truths. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 25 May 06 - 05:09 PM LOL! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 May 06 - 05:05 PM Fiction and speculation seem to get pretty muddled around here at times. It is speculation whan it cannot be proven but there is pretty good reason to formulate certain theories. Fiction is completely made up. Much of the known life of Jesus is speculation. I believe that some is also fiction - but as I cannot prove that I am only speculating! The Lord of the Rings, for instance, is completely fictional. But Tolkien based a lot of his work on factual linguistics and speculative mythology. So part of his work may be termed speculative fiction. Confused? You should be. Read the 'Silmarilion' alongside the Old Testament and tell me which work an outsider would see as fiction, folklore or religion. Blows my mind. Think I'll go for a pint instead... Before I do the other thing that was a real eye opener was shown some years ago by the BBC and was a 'reality' program about dumping modern people in an Iron Age village. The smallest things show how wrong we can be. For decades, if not centuries, people have speculated over the significance of the trough across the door of Iron Age dwellings. Some were convinced it was a physical barrier, to stop rain, insects etc. Others were convinced it was spiritual and used for ceremonial purposes. The TV proved it was caused by chickens sheltering from the rain and scratcing in the doorways... Make you think doesn't it. :D (tG) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Haruo Date: 25 May 06 - 05:03 PM Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction?You didn't name him, but Parson Weems, an American, was the author of pretty much all of the famous far-fetched stories about Washington. Just an FYI sort of thing, I'm not saying George Washington was really just the Prince of Orange repackaged or anything.) Haruo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: flattop Date: 25 May 06 - 04:43 PM >And just for the record, flattop, Parson Weems was not British (though he was educated in London and was an Episcopalian). >Haruo Pardon? Why this? What did I write about Parson Weems? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 25 May 06 - 04:23 PM Good Grief! Thanks for the head's up, tunesmith, I had no idea that such a thing existed. But one sees the signs all around us that there are those who believe in it implicitly. I don't know what your position on it is, but as for me, theologically speaking I find the whole thing pretty scary. Folks who believe in things like The Rapture are liable to behave in some fairly odd ways, which can be downright dangerous if they happen to be in positions of power. Film at 11:00. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Haruo Date: 25 May 06 - 03:59 PM And just for the record, flattop, Parson Weems was not British (though he was educated in London and was an Episcopalian). Haruo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 25 May 06 - 03:58 PM All this business of connecting various dots, then using selected patterns to establish that Julius Caesar and Jesus are the same person got me to pondering. What do we really want to accept as evidence? Erich Von Daniken told us that the lines in the Nazca desert were attempts to communicate with the beings from the stars who came and went frequently in times past. In fact the Nazca lines marked out a landing field for the visiting star ships. Von Daniken even pointed out what appeared to be a knee in the long, straight leg of an immense bird image. This, he said, was a turn-out for a space ship, so it could get out of the way for other ships landing. [Later, a researcher pointed out a small problem with this: that oval shaped "knee" turn-out was about five feet across. So the star ships must have been very small. Flown by little green men, perhaps?] The pyramids were impossible to build with human labor at the time they were constructed (says Von Daniken and a few others). They had to have been built by advanced races from the stars. You want proof? The three primary pyramids at Giza form a line exactly like the three stars in Orion's belt—even to one of them not being exactly on a straight line with the other two, as is the case with the stars in Orion's belt. Obviously, the pyramids were built by beings visiting the earth from some advanced civilization out among the stars. And Stonehenge. . . . Well, you get the idea. All of these constructions appear to be, and in some cases, indeed are lined up according to astronomical data. And we know, don't we, that the hairy, drooling, belly-scratching ancestors from whom modern humans sprang were too stupid and ignorant to have been able to observe the heavens, draw conclusions from their observations regarding relationships between the periodic repetitions they saw and the seasons, when certain crops should be planted, etc., and build any of these things by themselves either as calendars or for ritualistic purposes. And then sometimes a coincidence is just that A fellow named Henry Lincoln did a lot of heavy-duty research some decades ago and provided much "data" that Dan Brown may very well have drawn on for his writing of The Da Vinci Code. He spend hours, days, months pouring over maps of areas in southern France, to where (he tells us) Mary Magdalene, pregnant with Jesus's third child escaped for refuge after the execution of Jesus. The pentangle, Lincoln said, was a symbol for womanhood (I'd always been told it was a symbol used to call forth the Devil). Lincoln, playing "connect the dots" between various castles and cathedrals, managed to draw lines all over maps of, first in southern France, then in Europe in general. He found pentangles everywhere! Blithely telescoping a few centuries here and there, he tells us that the Knights Templars and the Freemasons were in on the plot, so it was the Freemasons (literally masons at the time) who built these castles cathedrals in these pentangle patterns. He even found several churches on an island between Denmark and Sweden that formed a pentangle. Well, that's pretty interesting. I'm not sure that it actually proves what Henry Lincoln was trying to prove, but it is interesting. I wonder what it all means. If anything. I'm reminded of the story about a fellow who didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, so he decided to wait for a sign from God. Several years went by, and then one night when he was out on his back porch drinking a beer and enjoying the night air, a meteorite landed in his back yard. It dug a 200 foot crater, shattered all the windows in the guy's house, cracked the concrete foundation in several places, and blew him back into the kitchen. He was certain that had to be the sign he'd been waiting for. Problem was, he couldn't figure out what God was trying to tell him to do, but he was pretty sure it was something fairly important. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: frogprince Date: 25 May 06 - 03:44 PM In 1918, Clarence Larkin published "The Greatest Book on Dispensational Truth in the World". Google that, and you'll find that you can still buy a copy today. One chapter explains the importance of the measurements of the chambers and passages in the great pyramid of Egypt to a proper understanding of the prophetic content of the Bible. The last time I saw a copy of the book, a dust-jacket blurb said "safe, sane, contains no speculative matter". AR282's explanation of the symbolism of the vertical and horizontal timbers of the cross obviously true, since it is no more speculative than is Larkin's material... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Haruo Date: 25 May 06 - 03:32 PM AR282, with reference to your paragraph That a group of royals repackaged Julius Caesar, put the most unethical garbage anyone ever read into his mouth and said, "Here's you god, worship him or else" and people did without question? Now, that I believe quite easily. I'm curious as to when (on a timeline, and you may use AUC if it doesn't irritate you the way BCE/CE let alone BC/AD must) you think this marketing job by "a group of royals" (whatever that means; what does it mean?) would most plausibly have occurred. Are we talking contemporaneously with Nero, or Nicaea, or when? There's manuscript evidence for some of the New Testament going back into the first half of the first century, and not much later for some of the heterodox (gnostic) literature about him. What date, for example, do you suggest for the Gospel of Mark? Or are you of the opinion that Saul of Tarsus was an undercover operative from the Roman MI5 and that it was in his version of Jesus that the royals hid their repackaged Julius? What do you make of the fishes in the catacombs and all that? I was going to ask you about Jessica, Jesus' little sister, but if you don't think Jesus ever existed you probably don't think his sister did either. Haruo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,Tunesmith Date: 25 May 06 - 03:31 PM I pressed the submit button on the above comment before I had finished! I'll get back in the while. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,Tunesmith Date: 25 May 06 - 03:30 PM I've been thinking a lot about this thread and the points raised and the reponses to comments/opinions. I must say that I find the whole "faith" thing very disturbing. I think many of us have faith in a whole range of things - but they are usually things we have some knowledge of. For example, I have faith that if I needed them, certain friends would always come through for me. That belief - faith - is based on things I have directly experienced. But, to believe in fantastic stories from long ago - with no hard evidence that they are true - is another matter. The problem with the Jesus story is that there a number of versions out there. 1. Everything in the Bible relating to Jesus is true. 2. Most of version 1 is true but certain things have been added - a number of miracles e.g.( alot of Theologians believe version 2 more than one. 3. Jesus existed, but most of his "biography" has been "lifted" from earlier myths. 4. Jesus never existed, and was "invented" at a time when the Jews needed a Messiah i.e. when the Romans were devastating the Jewish civilisation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 25 May 06 - 02:45 PM No sweat, Little Hawk. We'll both take it! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 25 May 06 - 02:20 PM Um...make that "Ron" not "Don". Heh! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 25 May 06 - 02:01 PM I definitely agree, Ron. Much more civilized than things have all too often been for the past couple of years. Perhaps a new day is dawning. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 25 May 06 - 01:12 PM What Don said... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Ron Davies Date: 25 May 06 - 01:07 PM What I find of note in this thread--over a super-emotionally charged topic--is the remarkably civil nature of the disagreement. Impugning powers of logic, pointing out self-contradictions, etc.--but no trips to the gutter. This tends to support the decision to remove perhaps the worst source of such behavior from Mudcat. Moderators, NB. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 25 May 06 - 01:00 PM I'm all for the relentless pursuit of truth, AR282, but that's not what you're about. You have what amounts to a religious (or anti-religious) belief and you're evangelizing. You have no more evidence for your belief—less, in fact—than those whose beliefs you criticize. Having realized that, I respond to you the same way I do to those who knock on my door, try to talk my ear off, and present me with copies of The Watchtower Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 May 06 - 07:37 AM Looks you already did. And look what it's done to your mind. From where do you get the information that I have either got a religion or something wrong with my thought processes? Not once have I indicated that I have a religion of any sort. Moreover I have been very careful to point out that the divinity of Jesus is an entirely different argument to the one in question. As to my mental health. Well. I can differentiate between fact and supposition. I have never assereted that anything I have said about Jesus is fact. You on the other hand have stated quite categoricaly that it is a fact that Jesus did not exist. You have subsequently retracted that statement. I have never chosen to attack you personaly, relying instead on counter arguments to your assertions and doubts on the varacity of claims. You on the other hand have now implied that I am somehow mentaly inferior. Care to comment? Cheers DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 25 May 06 - 06:56 AM >>So, you never said... There is not a shred of evidence to prove that any such person existed. The only literature from that time period to state it is so is the bible and other Church literature and let's just say that literature is likely to be somewhat biased. We need independent and impartial evidence and there is not a shred. None. Zilch. I give up as well. Your anti-religious fundementalism is worse that the TV evangelists we hear preaching for it!<< That was in reference to a wise, compassionate teacher that gained a following that founded a church in his honor after his death. Never happened. That a group of royals repackaged Julius Caesar, put the most unethical garbage anyone ever read into his mouth and said, "Here's you god, worship him or else" and people did without question? Now, that I believe quite easily. >>And why should I admit anything like you request about the figure of Jesus? One minute he doesn't exist at all, Next he is a self-righteous, nasty, little scumbag who said nothing of value.<< Once again, a wise, compassionate teacher that served as Jesus never existed. Not do I personally believe in a cult leader that gained a following. I believe Roman royals repackaged Julius Caesar and made him a total prick so that the masses would not get out of line. You can believe what you want. >>What I am willing to accept is that no-one realy knows anything about him apart from the worlds major religion was built in his name.<< Julius= "son of god" I think we know a lot more about him that we are willing to admit. >>Why would you want to defame a person who you know nothing about, has been dead for 2000 years and can do nothing to defend himself?<< Awww, poor son of god! I feel so bad. >>Sounds like insecurity to me. Perhaps you need to get yourself a religion:-)<< Looks you already did. And look what it's done to your mind. Thanks, but I'll pass. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Paul Burke Date: 25 May 06 - 04:00 AM CC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Paul Burke Date: 25 May 06 - 03:59 AM Ahwell Dave. The whole point is that Jesus IS supposed to be able to do something to defend himself. In the good old days, AR282 would have been gnawed from inside by loathsome worms, or would have been struck dead in mid-blasphemous-sentence (like that woman on the memorial in Devizes market), or have been taken off to Hell by a burning stranger in a black coach... Julius Caesar can't do that. Religion ain't what it used to be. But back on topic. Here's a little bit of evidence that Julius Caesar existed. Of course, it might not be evidence about THAT Julius Caesar, but about another chap of the same name. Two inscriptions, apparently contemporary. And they are really only evidence of a contemporary BELIEF in Julius Caesar. And some coins, apparently contemporary. Same caveat, of course. that's history. No coins of Jesus until much later, but perhaps the contemporary ones were all rendered down. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 May 06 - 03:04 AM I was never saying Jesus didn't exist in some form So, you never said... There is not a shred of evidence to prove that any such person existed. The only literature from that time period to state it is so is the bible and other Church literature and let's just say that literature is likely to be somewhat biased. We need independent and impartial evidence and there is not a shred. None. Zilch. I give up as well. Your anti-religious fundementalism is worse that the TV evangelists we hear preaching for it! And why should I admit anything like you request about the figure of Jesus? One minute he doesn't exist at all, Next he is a self-righteous, nasty, little scumbag who said nothing of value. What I am willing to accept is that no-one realy knows anything about him apart from the worlds major religion was built in his name. Why would you want to defame a person who you know nothing about, has been dead for 2000 years and can do nothing to defend himself? Sounds like insecurity to me. Perhaps you need to get yourself a religion:-) Cheers DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 25 May 06 - 12:22 AM Any number of other things are worth doing. ;-) Just ask people at random, and they will tell you. What you are doing here is just like what Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons do when they come knocking on my door with their chosen versions of reality. You're preaching a highly unconvincing and rather unconventional gospel that you have become emotionally wedded to, because it makes you feel 'right' and 'in the know'...and to feel right and in the know is to feel secure and superior...and when other people don't believe you, you'll fight indefinitely to change their minds and probably bore the bollocks off them in the process. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 25 May 06 - 12:11 AM >>Ar282, if your long post above is original and not cut-and-paste, then it indicates to me that you seem to have a lot of time to devote to this, not to mention a pretty substantial emotional investment. I can't help but wonder what your motives are, beyond the relentless pursuit of truth.<< What else is worth doing?? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 24 May 06 - 09:56 PM It is equally plausible that some of the vague similarities you draw between Caesar's tragic fate and Jesus' fate were used by the Roman civilization in designing and solidifying some of tenets of the Church of Rome. Such things have been done before, and I'm sure they shall be again. So they were most probably both real people, one as real as the other. We know Caesar was. It seems very probable that Jesus was also. Spartacus, by the way, sacrificed himself on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised, and he was crucified for it by the Romans, along with all his surviving followers who were taken prisoner with him. Why not build your theory around Spartacus instead? It sounds just as good as the Caesar theory, and it's a better fit in a number of ways. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 24 May 06 - 09:45 PM I give up! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 24 May 06 - 09:01 PM >>Now it's about the nature of Jesus and NOT his existence. OK. You are entitled to your interpretations of that, for sure. Thank you for the clarification.<< Right. His nature. I was never saying Jesus didn't exist in some form. He is Julius Caesar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: John O'L Date: 24 May 06 - 08:49 PM I think AR282's argument has always been that if Jesus-the-wise-compassionate-teacher-and-healer had existed as is suggested by Christians then we would know of it from unrelated sources. I think he is suggesting that the real Jesus was more likely a travelling snakeoil salesman & medicine show, which the Romans picked up on after the event and used for their own political purposes. What do I think? I think he was probably a small-b buddha who did not make a big splash in his lifetime but deeply touched everyone he met. I think his name (but not his vision) was picked up later and used by Christians and Romans for their own divergent purposes. Note that I do not say this with any scholarly authority. It's just my opinion. I present it here as though it did have academic clout because that's what you do at Mudcat. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 24 May 06 - 08:48 PM As emotional obsessions go, this is a really bad one revealing itself. ;-) AR282, you really need to study some other religious philosophy too, aside from Christianity. I recommend Vedanta (the source of both Hinduism and Yoga), Buddhism, Sufism, and Taoism...all of which can school in person in enough tolerance and compassion to grasp something useful about a figure such as Jesus, and not waste people's time here with obsessive hate progaganda, which is what your diatribes amount to, in my opinion. You are a person beating a dead horse. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 24 May 06 - 08:11 PM "No such person existed--certainly not in the pages of the bible." Eh? What!?? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 24 May 06 - 08:04 PM "fundamentalists out to try to convince me that the power of their faith transcends rational thought" I'm certainly convinced of that... but in Medicine, it's also called Psychotic Delusional Behaviour... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Peace Date: 24 May 06 - 07:57 PM That's a different cuppa, dontcha think? Now it's about the nature of Jesus and NOT his existence. OK. You are entitled to your interpretations of that, for sure. Thank you for the clarification. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 24 May 06 - 07:55 PM >>You just spent lotsa posts saying Jesus didn't exist. Now he does. I got mixed-up confusion, and man it's killin' me.<< I'm not saying he does or doesn't exist as a criminal or morally degenerate cult-leader. If you're willing to admit that that's what he would have to be in order to account for his statements and mission, then I'm willing to admit that there could be the human Jesus everybody is insisting had to exist. It's extremely unlikely but I'm willing to admit it is possible. I will not, however, accept the argument that he was this compassionate, wise, loving, peaceful itinerant philosopher with a loyal following who kept his memory alive after his death and eventually founded a church to honor him. No such person existed--certainly not in the pages of the bible. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 24 May 06 - 07:37 PM I've run unto a lot of evangelists out to save my soul and I've had a fair number of run-ins with fundamentalists out to try to convince me that the power of their faith transcends rational thought. And I've also run into a fair number of disciples of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, not to mention those of Ayn Rand, also a hard-charging atheist, whose arguments are essentially the same as those of the evangelists and fundamentalists, but in the negative. They all exhibit a certain desperation in their desire—their need—to get others to agree with them. What I read above sounds awfully familiar. Ar282, if your long post above is original and not cut-and-paste, then it indicates to me that you seem to have a lot of time to devote to this, not to mention a pretty substantial emotional investment. I can't help but wonder what your motives are, beyond the relentless pursuit of truth. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Peace Date: 24 May 06 - 06:38 PM You just spent lotsa posts saying Jesus didn't exist. Now he does. I got mixed-up confusion, and man it's killin' me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 24 May 06 - 06:36 PM >>I'm still waiting for an answer AR282. Did jesus exist or not? In one post you say there is not a shred of evidence. In your last diatribe you state Once we strip away the divinity from Jesus, we are left with a man who was not a wise, compassionate teacher but a cult-like egomaniac who was wrong on just about everything he said. Much of what is pointed out as valuable was not original but found in earlier sources than the NT. I can read that no other way than he did exist. Which is it?<< If you're willing to say there was a human Jesus but he was a self-righteous, nasty, little scumbag who said nothing of value then I'm willing to grant you that there was such a person. That a wise, wonderful, compassionate teacher would have had his entire life and identity erased and buried in mythology by his devoted followers is stupid and absurd. But if he was a rotten bastard, that makes sense. I'll grant you that such a human Jesus could certainly have existed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Dave the Gnome Date: 24 May 06 - 06:24 PM I'm still waiting for an answer AR282. Did jesus exist or not? In one post you say there is not a shred of evidence. In your last diatribe you state Once we strip away the divinity from Jesus, we are left with a man who was not a wise, compassionate teacher but a cult-like egomaniac who was wrong on just about everything he said. Much of what is pointed out as valuable was not original but found in earlier sources than the NT. I can read that no other way than he did exist. Which is it? Cheers DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 24 May 06 - 06:08 PM >>Oh, I don't think AR282 is harmful or anything. Its just what happens when, all of sudden, you realize that the story of Jesus isn't quite so simple as The Sweetest Story Ever Told. It sorta makes you feel like everyone is being duped and you just want them to wake up to the fact that the bible is not history and Christ is everlasting.<< Thank you, dianavan. You summed it up nicer than I. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 24 May 06 - 06:07 PM It's original. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Wesley S Date: 24 May 06 - 05:54 PM So GuestAR282 - Did you cut and paste all of that from another site or is it original ? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 24 May 06 - 05:44 PM Among religious liberals, the tactic has been to tout a historical Jesus but to strip him of his divinity. The reason is that because stories of the miraculous birth, the miracles, the necromancy and the resurrection raise serious questions as to their veracity. The religious liberals have no other reason for needing to strip Jesus of his divinity than because they simply cannot accept it without feeling gullible and foolish. Having accomplished this, the religious liberal then proceeds to pronounce Jesus a great, compassionate, peaceful and wise teacher who walked in Palestine, gained a loyal following and upset authorities with his revolutionary message that threatened to shake Jewish society to its foundations (as if this were necessarily a good thing) and so was arrested, tried and crucified. Afterwards, his followers kept his memory alive and eventually he was adapted as a figurehead for a church. This scenario is riddled with flaws. The most obvious flaw is that we have nothing but the bible and other Church literature to go on for our information of what this great, wise teacher supposedly taught. Strip Jesus of his divinity, most of what he teaches is pure nonsense and pure status quo. There was nothing revolutionary in what he taught. For example, he exhorts his followers to resist not evil (Mt 5:39). If we don't resist evil then we must, by necessity, succumb to it. He stated that if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off (Mt 5:30). Who in their right mind would steal something and then blame their hand for the theft and cut it off? Jesus stated that the slave who does not do his master's bidding "shall be beaten with many stripes" (Lk 12:47). Where is the revolutionary message that slavery is wrong and must be abolished? Nowhere. I would place Lincoln as superior to this Jesus. Jesus also stated that he did not come to bring peace "but a sword" (Mt 10:34). He claimed to he came to turn family against one another (Mt 10:35). Jesus also claimed that he who does not hate his family and himself cannot be his follower (Lk 14:26). And who can possibly explain Jesus' bizarre statement in Mark 4:11-12? Even the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is neither original nor particularly moral. The Old Testament already has the Golden Rule in it and Confucius was preaching it centuries before Jesus allegedly did. And if someone is a masochist who wants to be beaten and yelled at in the foulest of language, does that mean he should do it to you since that is how he would like you to treat him? In another example, one of the Jesus' followers begs off a journey because his father had died and he needed to attend to the funeral. Jesus basically says no (Mt 8:21-22). Where's the compassion and understanding? When told his mother, brothers and sisters wanted to see him, he blows them off and basically states that he no longer considers them family (Mk 3:31-35). Conclusion: Jesus was neither a revolutionary nor moral teacher. Some might counter that Jesus was not a teacher but a prophet. He wasn't there to teach, he was there to warn. The problem here is that Jesus' prophecies are generally lousy. The glaring flaw of his prophesying is that he told his listeners that there were those among them that "would not taste death before the son of man come again." That is, he was predicting the Second Coming to happen within the lifetimes of those he preached to. This is the same as saying that he predicted the end of the world to happen in their lifetimes (Mk 13:23-31, Lk 21:32). Did it? No. Was Jesus then a prophet? No. What Jesus taught presented no danger whatsoever to the establishment. He was just another doomsayer of which Palestine had plenty and the authorities cared not a wit about any of them. There is no reason he would have attracted the slightest bit of attention by his words other than perhaps to be called a lunatic—of which Palestine already had plenty. The next problem that arises then is how he managed to attract any followers at all considering he taught nothing of any particular value. Who were these people? According to Church literature, they were fishermen, common laborers and poor people. How did a church then manage to get established? Churches require funds and literacy. Where was one to find either among fisherman and poor people in Galilee some 2000 years ago? Who then founded this church and who appointed a common fisherman to be its pontiff? Obviously, such a thing would never happen. We are already hard pressed to explain how a church was founded for a Jesus that taught nothing in particular that anyone would have found interesting. This is further compounded by the fact that this church was not founded to honor this humble man. It would have been founded because he wanted it to be: "Upon this rock I will build my church"(Matthew 16:18). Now how did this humble teacher manage this with a handful of impoverished followers? Did he use his magical powers to influence the minds of the wealthy? Since we've already stripped Jesus of his divinity, no. If Jesus had such a power, he never would have been arrested, tried and executed (this was only to fulfill god's plan which doesn't apply with a non-divine Jesus). So, who built the church on Jesus' orders and how did they manage it? Perhaps we have a way out. This way out concerns a surprisingly little discussed feature of the gospel story: the men in white. At points in the narrative, mysterious men in white appear out of nowhere to assist Jesus in some manner (Mk 16:5, Lk 25:4). Who were these men? They appear to be assistants but who are they and what is their connection to Jesus? We would have to conclude from this that Jesus had the help of an unknown agency who appear to be well connected. Could they have built the church on Jesus' orders? Once again, we run into problems with this idea: Whoever the men in white were, they were not disciples. In the narrative, whenever these mysterious men appear, the other disciples do not recognize them. We get not so much as an impression from the narrative that Jesus' church was built or founded by these men or that they installed Peter as the pope. In fact, after their appearance in Acts 1:10-11, they are not mentioned again, their true purpose and identity never explained. Matthew and John call them angels but Mark, Luke and Acts are adamant that these were men. They represent the most mysterious aspect of the narrative but are all but ignored. This raises another problem and that is the narrative itself. From gospel to gospel, Jesus varies so widely in character that we can only marvel at how the man could possibly be historical. In Matthew, for example, Jesus is strictly a Jew while in Mark he is barely one. In John (8:44), Jesus seems to dislike the Jews on the whole. A different Jesus for each community. That might explain the two entirely different genealogies given for Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Further problems in the narrative involve the describing of incidents during which there were no eyewitnesses such as Jesus praying the garden. John 19:8 and other such examples tell us what Pilate was thinking or feeling at a certain moment when no eyewitness could possibly know this. Once we strip away the divinity from Jesus, we are left with a man who was not a wise, compassionate teacher but a cult-like egomaniac who was wrong on just about everything he said. Much of what is pointed out as valuable was not original but found in earlier sources than the NT. Some ask what my motives are for asserting this. If someone tells you 2+2 is 5 and you correct him and say 4, would it make sense for him to say, "You must have some kind of agenda." No agenda, he's just wrong. When he's wrong, you correct him. That's about as far as my agenda goes. Moreover, I do not expect this post to have any effect on their belief systems but perhaps others are more open-minded and are interested in this debate and would like some detailed background on this in order to make an informed choice. Now, decide as you wish. You're the decider. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Don Firth Date: 24 May 06 - 05:10 PM Once again, I've got to agree with the Hawkster. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Little Hawk Date: 24 May 06 - 04:41 PM "Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true." Yes indeed! And then there will be a lot of stuff that you cannot test. As for that stuff, you will have to make the best guess you can about it, and accept that other people may see it differently. My best guess is that Jesus, and Buddha, and Krisha, and many other such figures existed...meaning only this: they were real, physical people upon whose lives and reputations great religions were inspired and eventually established. Whether any particular thing said about any of them in those religions is half-true, all-true, or wholly false is simply a matter of speculation and guesswork at this point, and no amount of talking about it on this forum will prove any of it one way or another. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Peace Date: 24 May 06 - 04:24 PM PS (and last post to this thread). There are two living people who met my grandfather. He died in 1960. He was never written about and trying even to find his old service records isn't possible anymore. The town he was born in no longer exists. No record of his birth in 1884. I guess when I die he'll fade into total obscurity. However, he existed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Julius Caesar/Jesus - fact or fiction? From: Peace Date: 24 May 06 - 10:33 AM That's well stated, AR282. However, one remark to something you said earlier: You said that people who 'supported' the idea of an historical Jesus quote from religious sites--most of which you presume to be fundamental. What sites do you think would argue on behalf of an historical Jesus if not religious sites? |
