Jews and Jesus

[Gord_in_Toronto]

We have no contemporary historical writings concerning the Roman Emperor Nero or Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the known world. Does that mean they didn't exist?

And Jesus was mentioned by Josephus twice although one time is contested.

The likeness of both Nero and Alexander appear on hundreds of coins dated to the years of their reigns.

Both "mentions" of Jesus by Josephus are spurious.

This is the best you can do?

If the events recorded in the NT about Jesus had actually happened, they would have convinced the entire population. That there was no mass conversion to Christianity at the time indicates that they did not and that the events did not take place. The incoherent and contradictory stories did not convince the people who were there to witness them. That they are supposed to convince anyone two-thousand years later is boggling to anyone with a brain.

 

[grunion]

The real mystery about Jesus that puzzles me is this: if he was Jewish, then why did he have a Puerto Rican name?

 

[Mudcat]

The real mystery about Jesus that puzzles me is this: if he was Jewish, then why did he have a Puerto Rican name?

Humor or not? Hard to be sure on the internets... but if you are being serious about it, than Jesus was actually a very common name in his time. Which further complicates things for Christians because they have to point out which Jesus that was crucified by the Romans was their Jesus.

It kind of reminds me of that scene at the end of that one anime movie (I forget the name of it) where a girl who has to pick out her parents (who were turned into hogs after eating cursed food) out of a bunch of similar looking pigs or get turned a pig herself. Yeah, not related, I know. But even Narutard is more entertaining than the Bible in any of it's shapes.

 

[grunion]

Sorry I left out the

(and I believe you are thinking of the wonderful anime Spirited Away.)

ETA: and none of the pigs were her parents.

 

[Leumas]

The real mystery about Jesus that puzzles me is this: if he was Jewish, then why did he have a Puerto Rican name?

During his lost 18 years Jesus went to Puerto Rico to visit some cousins from the lost tribe that went to America. While in Puerto Rico he had a brief affair and unbeknown to him he had a Jr. named after him by his heartbroken paramour.

If you don't believe that Israelites discovered and inhabited America loooong before 1492 then you need to see the PROOF in the Book Of Mormon.

 

[Mudcat]

Sorry I left out the

(and I believe you are thinking of the wonderful anime Spirited Away.)

You are forgiven, and thanks I was wondering about the name of it for some time now (it is indeed a wonderful anime, though I have to wonder if Mizuki's parent's hadn't been ensnared by a spell to eat abandoned food).

ETA: and none of the pigs were her parents.

Indeed, though perhaps you should use spoilers like this:

And none of the pigs the Jesuses were her parents the Christians Jesus

I couldn't but notice a certain parallel between the movie and Christians, btw.

 

[DOC]

OK.... I am responding to this GAFFS. I am being gaffed....but I had to.


Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Verification....

So when it is said in history books that Alexander the Great conquered very much of the known world, that is not an extraordinary claim? According to your saying, it would seem that this extraordinary claim should have contemporary historical writings in existence but it doesn't. In fact most of the info we get on Alexander the Great comes from historians writing over 300 years after his death.

 

[hgc]

The real mystery about Jesus that puzzles me is this: if he was Jewish, then why did he have a Puerto Rican name?

Geraldo Rivera can do it. Why not Jesus?

Hebbo!

 

[Lowpro]

Maybe it's the Delirium Tremens talking but for 3 or so days now I've continually read this as "Jaws and Jesus" as in, the maneating shark had some relation to Jews. I would rather discuss that particular topic if such an opportunity arises.

 

[Craig4]

So when it is said in history books that Alexander the Great conquered very much of the known world, that is not an extraordinary claim? According to your saying, it would seem that this extraordinary claim should have contemporary historical writings in existence but it doesn't. In fact most of the info we get on Alexander the Great comes from historians writing over 300 years after his death.

We also have the physical evidence in the form of items left behind tracing his path across Asia. There's also nothing mystical or supernatural about Alexander the Great. There are no claims of Alexander the Great defying the laws of physics making this not as extraordinary as the Jesus fairy tale.

 

[Brainache]

We also have the physical evidence in the form of items left behind tracing his path across Asia. There's also nothing mystical or supernatural about Alexander the Great. There are no claims of Alexander the Great defying the laws of physics making this not as extraordinary as the Jesus fairy tale.

Yeah, he was called Alexander The Great, not Alexander The Impossible, or Alexander Son Of God.

If the stories told about Jesus were true, someone would have noticed at the time. We have some crazy writings from Paul twenty or so years after the supposed events and another generation or so after that we have the Gospel stories, written in Greek for a Hellenic audience who know nothing about Palestine or its politics.

I think the Jews rejected Jesus because they could see he was a fiction created for foreigners. A saviour who rejects the Law of Moses is not the Messiah, just a naughty boy...

 

[Leumas]

So when it is said in history books that Alexander the Great conquered very much of the known world, that is not an extraordinary claim? According to your saying, it would seem that this extraordinary claim should have contemporary historical writings in existence but it doesn't. In fact most of the info we get on Alexander the Great comes from historians writing over 300 years after his death.

If someone starts telling me a story about a guy who went around with a sword killing people and conquering their villages. I would say:

hmmm....ok...humans have been doing this throughout history....what's new?​

If someone starts telling me a story about a guy who went around mixing spittle with dirt and using the concoction to cure blind people and he exorcised demons out of humans into pigs or revived a 4 days putrid dead body. I would say:

hmmm..... ok... that is a nice fairy tale..... I heard a few similar ones from all over the world from numerous cultures....what's new?​

When someone tries to tell me that the story about the conquering man is not to be believed I would say:

Why not....you may be right that the particular man mentioned in the story might not be the one named in it....but men have been doing what is claimed in the story and it is a very PLAUSIBLE...indeed....VERY LIKELY thing....so unless you can show me a good reason why I should doubt all the circumstantial evidence pointing to him being Alexander I will keep going along with the PLAUSIBLE and VERY LIKELY hypothesis asserted by sane and REALITY based historians.​

If someone tries to argue with me that the story about the man who animated zombies is not a myth and is a fact. I would say:

You are infantile....there is no evidence that this CAN BE done....there is no evidence that it has EVER been done.... it defies the laws of EVERYTHING we know about REALITY. The story is IMPLAUSIBLE....it is EXTREMELY IMPROBABLE that it could have taken place… and why that one particular story should be true to the exclusion of the PLETHORA of similar stories....unless you can prove it to me beyond any flimsy circumstantial evidence I will REJECT it as a myth just like all the other myths that abound from all ages and cultures which YOU TOO are rejecting as myths….why not reject this one too.​

Notice how I am less skeptical of things that CAN happen and take place all the time than of things that are very IMPLAUSIBLE and have no priors. My judgment on things that can happen is usually based on EXPERIENCE and REALITY.

This is called REASONING and using EPISTEMOLOGY based on REALITY not based on DELUSION and ILLUSION and WISHFUL THINKING.

I will make a deal with you DOC....that is if you are a real human being instead of a GAFFS.....

I will declare my utter belief in Jesus and go to the church you indicate to me and have them baptize me in whatever manner you prefer .....IF.....

According to Mark 16:15-18 I can see with my own eyes live .... not on a stage or setup circumstances as per magicians' or religious hucksters' setups ....ONE.....JUST ONE.... US soldier's amputated arm or leg grow back to full functionality.​

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I think the point was that John of Giscala and Menahem ben Judah both were very famous in their own lifetimes and managed to raise armies of people who declared them to be the Messiah, Jesus isn't even mentioned by any contemporary Historians.

If Jesus was even half as successful in his lifetime as those other guys, Josephus or Philo or someone would have noticed him.

All we have for Jesus is one crazy guy named Paul babbling about the voices in his head.

And yet, two thousand years later, it is clear who, among the claimants that you've mentioned, has been by far the most successful at being recognized as the Messiah.

 

[Brainache]

And yet, two thousand years later, it is clear who, among the claimants that you've mentioned, has been by far the most successful at being recognized as the Messiah.

Yep, recognised as the Messiah by people who, as Loss Leader pointed out, wouldn't know the Messiah if he bit them in the goolies.

Shame he didn't manage to convince anyone of note while he was alive and the job of convincing people was left to two dodgey characters like Paul and Peter...

 

[Leumas]

Argumentum Ad Populum Logical Fallacy Does not a Christ Make

And yet, two thousand years later, it is clear who, among the claimants that you've mentioned, has been by far the most successful at being recognized as the Messiah.

You keep repeating this as if it is a point of importance.


By your appeal to majority logical fallacy (Argumentum Ad Populum) we then have to also concede that the earth used to be flat up to about 100 years ago and that the sun used to rotate around it. Also that the universe is 6000 years old.

Those VERY SAME majority who fell for the Jesus hoax also believed in witches and dragons and unicorns, werewolves, vampires and that diseases were caused by demon possessions, and that drinking an old lady's urine cured measles and that the Pope is infallible and so on and so forth of an endless list of things we KNOW NOW are and never were true.

So can we then by your logic draw a conclusion: if enough morons believe something then it is true?


In fact if we should go by the majority rule....then Jesus is definitely not anything.... the majority of humans think nothing of him.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Shame he didn't manage to convince anyone of note while he was alive and the job of convincing people was left to two dodgey characters like Paul and Peter...

It seems to me that you and I are defining “success” rather differently. You're hung up on a very short-sighted notion of success, limited to what he personally gained for himself during his brief time among Mankind. To me, his success is not limited to that brief moment of human history, nor to his own experience and what was in it for him; but to the effect that he has had—and continues to have—on nearly all human history, for thousands of years thereafter.

 

[Brainache]

It seems to me that you and I are defining “success” rather differently. You're hung up on a very short-sighted notion of success, limited to what he personally gained for himself during his brief time among Mankind. To me, his success is not limited to that brief moment of human history, but to the effect that he has had—and continues to have—on nearly all human history, for thousands of years thereafter.

Well, European History surely. By extension that includes the Americas and Australasia, but still not the history of nearly all humans.

OK, I'll grant you that belief in stories about Jesus has had an enormous impact on our culture.

My point is that those stories aren't true. They are fiction. Possibly invented by charlatans, possibly invented by sincere good-hearted honest people who totally believed every story they made up. Religious people can be like that sometimes, just ask any reformed Fundamentalist...

 

[Leumas]

Yep, recognised as the Messiah by people who, as Loss Leader pointed out, wouldn't know the Messiah if he bit them in the goolies.

Shame he didn't manage to convince anyone of note while he was alive and the job of convincing people was left to two dodgey characters like Paul and Peter...

In fact they did not succeed much either.... it took HUNDREDS of YEARS of Roman Empire RAPINE and torture to "convince" enough surviving defeated miserable remnants to concede that the SWORD of Jesus is mightier than the sword of Thor/Zeus/Quetzalcoatl etc.

If it was not for the ruthless killer son of an ex-madam roman emperor and the subsequent countless battles and massacres over 1000 years we would not be talking about Jesus at all right now. He would be just as forgotten as
Simon bar Kokhba or the numerous other False Messiahs.

 

[Craig B]

DOC

Here's something I forgot at first, but have now remembered. You write:

ETA: And remember Matthew 27: 52-54 says this occurred after the crucifixion: "And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many."

Matthew's garble here is a certain sign that he's not writing history, but as Tom Paine amusingly put it, "lugging in" some prophetic or scriptural stuff, probably misunderstood - like the story of the two donkeys and the story of the virgin birth.

If we are to take him literally, then the zombie saints must have risen, and then hung about in their tombs for the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection, and then set off to wander about the streets. The Jerusalemites must have been really spooked by this weird event, coming so soon after the earthquake, eclipse at the full moon, damaged temple and splitting rocks. And when we consider R G Ingersoll's observation that people returned from the grave would be "objects of extraordinary interest" to their surviving friends and relations, it is all the more remarkable that not merely is history silent on these saints - so are all the other gospels!

 

[HansMustermann]

Which BTW is made even more remarkable since Matthew tells us that the Romans set guards at Jesus's tomb. (But nobody seems to have told Mark about that.) So, you know, even skipping past the people who'd get buried or visit their relatives' tomb in that time, at the very least two guards (the number Matthew menions) times three shifts, that's 6 soldiers, though likely more. And those have been doing shifts in the middle of a cemetery with some hundreds of zombies hanging around waiting for Jesus's resurrection, and presumably passing the time complaining about kids these days not knowing how good they have it, what have the Romans ever done for us, and about whose son in law gave him a really lousy headstone

I don't know, I would have at least asked for more guards there.

Plus, if you take into account that Jesus's burial must necessarily happen after his death and before his resurrection, then Joseph of Aramathea and whoever helped carry the body and roll the stone and whatnot, must have done so by going through a small horde of zombies.