Juststeve

Ferryman:

Thanks for sharing but you didn't address the subject of this thread.

Steve

Ferryman to the Dead

Yeah I did....he was a myth, non existant as a real or historical person, secondly the city Nazareth did not exist at the time. The Romans had military campaigns through out that entire area where this city was suppose to have been it wasn't. Josepheus who recorded a lot of these campaigns never makes any mention of this city. Based on the record it did not exist and was made up at later date, then most likely built to cover the myth.

Juststeve

Kapyong:

If you want to make up a story about the Messiah you have him come from Bethlehem, not Nazareth yet all of the Christian sources we know of say Nazareth. Even Matthew and Luke acknowledge Nazareth as his home town as an adult. The question is why? There is no apologetic value to saying he came from Nazareth. If anything it hurts the case for Jesus as Messiah since the Messiah was not expected to be from Galilee. Can you tell me why everyone agrees on Nazareth in Galilee?

Steve

Kapyong

No I cannot.

Now - can you tell me why on earth you assume this means it MUST be a true fact ?


Is it a true fact that a real Zeus came from Olympus?
All stories, written by multiple authors, agree he did.

Does your argument not apply to Zeus or others?


K.

dizzy

You claimed he wasn't associated with any town but Nazareth, but that is not true. Now you've moved the goal posts. Regardless, Mark meant for Capernaum to be the home of Jesus. This is obvious if you don't read him through the lens of the later gospels. And please provide archeological evidence that Nazareth was a real place during the time of Jesus.

Kapyong

Gday,

Have you seen this odd gnostic snippet about Capernaum from Heracleon mid-late 2nd C. ?

The “child” “in Capernaum” is one who is in the lower part of the Middle (i.e. of animate substance), which lies near the sea, that is, which is linked with matter. The child’s proper person was sick, that is, in a condition not in accordance with the child’s proper nature, in ignorance and sins. ' and ' The words, "After this he went down to Capernaum," indicate the beginning of a new dispensation, for "he went down" is not said idly. Capernaum, means these farthest-out parts of the world, the material realm into which he descended.

And :

The ascent to Jerusalem signifies the ascent of the Lord from material realm things to the animate (psychic) place, which is an image of Jerusalem.

http://www.gnosis.org/library/fragh.htm


(I wonder what Earl Doherty would think about that. A quick look didn't show he ever dealt with those comments that I can see.)


Kapyong

Ferryman to the Dead

These could hardly be considered sources. Second hand hearsay. They were never around during this time and trying to prove the Bible with itself has never worked. Do you not find it odd that all these writers that were supposedly around or knew of him knew nothing of his life.



http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html

Noted in the 4th century? Now rumor as it he was born between the 4th and 7th? Odd ain't it. The whole jesus story is drawn from nothing more than solar mythology it is a by product of other ancient civilizations and cultures.

dizzy

It's new to me. But Gnostic symbolism gives me migraines (like reading The Jesus Puzzle ). I'll have to read Origen's commentary to see what he thinks of it.

Juststeve

Kapyong:

Consider that there are two hypotheses to be tested. One is that Jesus is a fictional character some one made up out of whole cloth to form the basis of a new religion. Whoever invented this character could have given him any characteristics they wanted. They could have had him come from Bethlehem or Jerusalem or straight down out of the sky.

The second hypothesis is that some guy named Jesus actually came out of Nazareth, attracted some followers and ended up dead at the hands of the Romans. The people who later wrote about him embellished the truth very considerably but were to an extent constrained by what their audience already new about Jesus. If they had said he dropped from the skiy the folks who knew him as a child in Nazareth would know better.

The data we have, that Jesus is referred to Jesus of Nazareth in all four gospels and in Acts fits better with the second hypothesis than the first.

Steve

Ferryman to the Dead

Sure it fits, can it be trusted? I highly doubt it.