Les Benton

Smugg, Don't accuse me of anything. I know what I want5ed to say. You added. Pretty petty.
By the way just so you don't get to carried away> i will correct you by saying there were 4 women at the cross. Count them.

smugg

<sigh>

Les Benton

smugg, I am not emotionally wrapped up. I had never paid any attention to those passages. Though I had read them before. What was more important to me was who is on the cross. It certainly was not Jesus. From what I gather you are just going with version that is most likely in your eyes. It make no difference that I can see. I am curious. Are you Christian or atheist. I can't tell.

smugg

Since you ask, Les, I'll tell you I'm an atheist. Absolutely I am going with the version that is most likely in my eyes. Let me explain.

There are two axioms that get thrown around here quite a bit on the Secular Web buletin boards which I consider to be self-evident and true. They are:
[list=a][*]Occam's Razor and[*]extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.[/list=a]

Keeping those in mind, I tell you that I am willing to look at any radical approach to events in or behind the scenes of the New Testament. I've heard many really juicy ones -- here are some blasphemies that I think may be true:

• Jesus, while only a mortal man, was trying to establish his descendance from David in order to stage a rebellion against Roman rule in Israel.
• Judas, identified in the Gospels as Judas Iscariot, is actually Judas the Sicarii, a member of a radical Jewish sect not above acts of guerrilla warfare and assassination to acheive political goals.
• Mary Magdalene was either Jesus' bride, fianceé, or consort.

Probably none of these are new to people on this board, but the point is, there is evidence to support each of these. Do I know what really happened? No. If someone wants to discuss them, then I'll discuss them -- and run the risk of being shown I'm wrong. The point is that I realize I'm not any kind of authority and that just because I say it doesn't make it any more likely: the claim's valitity lies solely on the strength of the evidence.

When you claim Jesus was the son of Augustine, you are just deciding that evidence which exists only in your head is more compelling than several flat, plain-language statements put forth in the text itself. There is no meaningful evidence for this pedigree besides two unrelated passages in two books written years and miles apart.

When offa (or you) tries to count the women represented in John 19:25 you are merely revealing flaws in your education regarding English sentence structure and grammar.

So my contention is that if you're really interested in textual/historical investigation, pay attention to all the passages and any relevant evidence that exists in the real world. You aren't going to inspire a lot of confidence in readers by inventing your own language no one else speaks in order to make your claims harder to refute. And knowledge through revelation (as in a vision quest in the Arizona desert), while not without precedent, is not going to sway many sceptics.

If you want me to treat your hypotheses (ugh) seriously you'll have to give me some facts I can use.

Les Benton

Smugg, so you are saying that the bible writers were educated in sentence structure and grammer. Go to your library and look up some Hemingway or others or his caliber. You will find that sentence structure and grammer is all over the place.
Since you do not believe in Jesus(you say) you must know that he was a natural man. I do not know how old you are but in case you missed your fathers point it takes a natural man to maje another natural. So Jesus must have had a natural father. Jesus ended up rulling the Roman empire. Down until today. He sai I will inherit my fathers kingdom. There was only one kingdom. The owner of the kingdom was Augustus Caesar.
Luke 2:1 and history says that Augustus was the king of the world at the time of Jesus's birth.
Rev.1:5 says the king of the earth had a prince. That would be Caesar's son.
Rev. 17:1-2 says that there was a woman who had sex with the king of the earth.
Rev. 17-7 says that the woman carried a "beast in pregnacy.
The Jews called Augustus and his son beasts. Call your local rabbi.
As an atheist DIRECT QUESTION say ugh. Jesus had to have a father. Why do you object so gutteral at the thought of his father being Caesar? BECAUSE you are a Christian trying to pretend to be an atheist. Because you think it's cool and it gets you attention.

smugg

This is against my better judgement, but I'm gonna continue...

What? The authors of the New Testament probably were pretty familiar with Greek grammar. The English scholars who translated the texts available to them into the King James Bible were probably also familiar with the workings of their language. Earnest Hemmingway has authored none of the Bible's books but instead wrote excellent fiction and essays like Death in the Afternoon and For Whom the Bell Tolls. If you're still confused I'd like to direct you to your local community college where they offer many fine continuing education programs and you can even get a Graduate Equivelency Degree.

I'm with you so far. As a matter of fact (and I do assume that by maje you mean make) the Gospels tell us that Jesus' (human) father was Joseph, son of Heli, son of... and so on.

Hate to break it to you, but the Roman Empire ceased to be a going concern in the fifth century.

There were many kingdoms. Idumea was a kingdom, Israel was a kingdom...they were all over. An Empire, however, is a collection of (usually conquered) nations (or, in the case of nations ruled by a monarchy, kingdom) governed by a central state. This was the case of Rome.

You're mixing otherwise unrelated passages in books written miles and years apart. But I'm repeating myself. The book of Revelations was named that because the author claimed the future was revealed to him in a dream. Did you catch it? The future.

You have not presented any reason to assume the "Whore Babylon" (obviously a referrence to Rome) was actually Mary, wife of Joseph and mother of Jesus and James.

Since you obviously can't discern between reality and allegory, I'd like to ask you if you think Jesus also had seven heads "and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads?" Don't you think it's possible that the author of Revelations used the Lamb to refer to Jesus? Oh, no. He says as much in the text: it can't be as valid as whatever idea you had last night, right?

I wonder what your local Rabbi, as someone who has actually done his homework, thinks of your "theories."

Huh?

Because there is no reason to think this was the case. No reason. You just made it up. You've said so.

The Romans, by the way, kept really good records during this time. It is a simple thing to find out that Tiberius succeeded Augustus, then Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespassian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. That brings us to 100 AD. and I still haven't seen any Jewish names... Gosh, that's funny.

In a metaphorical sense, Jesus did come to rule Rome. Okay, that's fine, but it lends no credence to the claim that Augustus was literally his father. It's just silly.

Show me some real evidence. You're arbitrarily ignoring some scripture and accepting others. There must be a system, right?

I'm no Christian. What I am, though, is a fan of history and I reject your needless abuse of it.

As for attention-seeking, I dare not argue with you since you wrote the book -- and have admitted it in the past.

[ July 20, 2001: Message edited by: smugg ]