"Greeks and Roman don't talk about it because it's not important to them. They thought Palestine was totally unimportant. That would be like me saying well you claim to be well informed about current events but you don't know who the mayer of Lancaster Texas is"

What about the Jews? You don't think they'd find it odd that a dead guy came back to life? Especially if he brought a bunch of dead folks back with him (Matt)? I'd bet I'd know the Mayor of Lancaster Texas if he'd been killed on a cross and came back to life!
No I don't think Jesus was a total myth, there probably was a historical person in there somewhere.

Heracles was no doubt based on the stories surrounding Gilgamesh, another ancient demigod (Babylon) with lots of adventures and great strength with godly inlaws and such, though he was a real life person, a King.

[This message has been edited by marduck (edited May 24, 2001).]

Iconoclast

No, the Romans did not think it was a totally unimportant area. It was not super-important but neither was it unimportant to them.

[This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited May 24, 2001).]

Well, the focus of the present discussion has to do with Jesus' existence, rather than all of the Gospel of Matthew's accounts.

Anyway, most of the New Testament authors were Jews. Josephus and the Talmud do contain references to Jesus.

Lance

Layman: I might point out that the legal definition of conspiracy is that you knowingly join such an organization. Unless you're an idiot, you know your church's history.

Toto: I'd stop right here. We have Christian energizer bunny #2 right here and we're back around where at least 3 or 4 debates have started. Yes, Josephus does contain some references, but it is also a compromised source. And on, and on, and on.

Yes. My church is a 20 year old independent charasmatic church that has never participated in, nor advocated, any illegal activity.

You knowingly retain your U.S. citizenship. You know its history. You know is has committed attrocities in the past. Does that make you responsible for all of its acts?

You have no idea what criminal conspiracy means.

I actually agree with you here Layman.

Holding modern day Christians responsible for acts committed in the middle ages is ludicrous.

Lance

Valmorian: I'd agree with you both except for one thing. The same old shit is going on today, just less overt.

If the Christian cult had grown up, become responsible, and didn't terrorize people, that'd be one thing. We all grow up, hopefully...

The Christian cult to date has shown no signs of that.

Both Paul and I speicialize in doing it the other way around.

As far as being born on the Winter Solstice that makes no difference at all. Dec. 25 as Jesus' birthday is not in the bible. Do you realize that? It was added latter as a way of giving the pagans a means of continuing to celibrate on a day they were used to holding feasts on but changing the reason for the feast to a Christian reason. It does not affec the Gospel story at all. And I also doubt that it is true of many of them. Most of that documentation comes from books written excluively to destroy Chrsitnaity, such as the Acharia S. stuff. I have never seen any real documentation form a real scholar which agrees with that. Maybe a few of them were but I doubt that all were.

As for the dying rising savior gods, that is just not true. If you look at the real myths in the classical books that record them, none are crucified, very few actually die, and hardly any are born of virigins. Almost all of those who are said to have been so born or so killed are not recorded as such in the real myths. That is something the Christ mythers have distorted and they put that in their own books and footnote each other but it has no foundation in fact at all.

And that does not affect Jesus' historicity at all. If you just go by the facts, without any theological interpritation, this guy claimed to Messiah and he was crucified. That is not negated by the dying rising savior gods and the only connection is that one could possibly calim that the theological explaination of his followers was colored by these dying rising pagan gods. But not his actual existence, that's unrelated. Moreover, he is rooted in Judaism and they hated the pagan gods who why would they even be influenced by them? why woudl they interprit the life and death of a Messianich claiment in terms of pagan mythology which they hated?

I'm going to start a new thread on this.

Meta =>Because including the Gospels a great deal of what we do have attests to Jesus as a real histoircal person.

1)four Gospels
2)Paul
3) Jospehus
4)Mishna
5) Celsus
6)Phalen
7) Johonine literature
8)Peterian epistles
9)1 Clement
10) Acts
11)testimony fro early second century of those who knew eye witnesses.

The Biblical lit can be defended on the grounds of it's historical validity, at least to the extent that all of these people, the principle players were historical, the neo-platonic notions of Dhortey apply to a latter period, there is no evidence that they took it as anything but history, which John and Clement prove, so why take it otherwise?

You are also just ignoring the argument above which is proof! All those documents tesify to the basic story, why is there no other story?

Layman: Sure I accept responsibility for those things. That's part of what I'm doing right now, trying to change the crapy system so things like that don't happen again.

As to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thats war. We were attacked and defended ourselves. We got into the mess in Vietnam exactly because we didn't treat a war as a war. Probably that whole topic deserves a thread on its own.

I haven't seen you renouncing the cult of Christianity lately, now have I?

Meta =>That is just ignorant carp. Christianity did not get us into Veitnam, and to a large exent it tried to get us out! Every heard of the Baragins? They were not alone. Priests and Nuns fought the war a lot. I was a protester I know what I'm talking about, Nuns and preists were big in the anti-war movement. Liberation theology in Latin America, I don't see you apologizing for the cult of satan (the Republicans).


Meta [->That how do you explain the fac that Paul accepted Jesus as historical (Romans 1:3) and he also attests to many of the principle people in the Gosples and met many of them?



Meta =>You are not making the connections here man! It's all interconnected, they guys alll knew each other. If Paul was real than we know that Peter and James were, and that Philip, Andrew, Barnabus, Anddronicus and Junia, Pricilla and Aquilla who Paul says followed Jesus in the begining, Luke, they were all real. So what were they doing talking about this guy they knew if he never existed?