mens_sana

Quote:
Originally Posted by mens_sana
Quote:
Originally Posted by aa5874
Up to now, HJers can't seem to agree on who this HJ was. By now, I would have thought they would have known if HJ was an Egyptian or a Samaritan.

You can't be serious — but, at the same time, you didn't use a clarifying smilie.


Having no faith — and understanding that "history" is a matter of probabilities — my only question was whether the HJ was Galilean or Judaean. Did the idea that he could be either Samaritan or Egyptian originate in the fringe of the Caribbean?

mens_sana

Who said the biblical accounts had to be "history" in order to include historical data?

Who said Jesus-as-significant-person had to be "significant" during his lifetime in order to attract later apologists?

aa5874

You think the HJ can only be a Judaean or from Galilee?

You must know his father and mother, then.

And, I didn't want to write every country in the habitable earth up to the 2nd century and every being real or imagined that could qualify to be an HJ.

You must remember that the HJers have had at least 2000 years to present their HJ and so far they have not.

Cerinthus, educated by the Egyptians, about 1900 years ago claimed that Mary and Joseph were the parents of an HJ, a human only Jesus, but Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, Tertullian, Origen and Eusebius call people like Cerinthus liars, evil interpreters and blasphemers.

Maybe the real HJ is from Egypt, but Cerinthus had the wrong parents.

Solitary Man

Are you so closed-minded that you hold all Christians uno ordine?

thedistillers

:rolling:

Solitary Man

I'm guessing from your shocked reaction to Roger and your refusal to answer thus that yes, yes you do. I am ashamed to be an atheist with you.

mens_sana

Ah! I see. You are always serious, but occasionally need to relieve the concomitant stress with unfalsifiable "maybes." Hey, if that works for you, go for it.

Did Cerinthus suggest that Jesus was Egyptian? I hadn't run across that one, but the idea that Mary and Joseph were the parents of a human only Jesus seems fairly likely, especially with the John the Baptist and Ebionite connections. There must have been quite a few people who believed the same way too, in order to get Tertullian, Origen and Eusebius all lathered up. I'm surprised you've never noticed . . . if you listen very closely to the local pulpit pounder, you'll pick up the location of the current den of iniquity.

rlogan

This is a sort of "big bang" conspiracy theory approach. As opposed to co-option of a homegrown movement.

Seems to me the Hellinized diaspora was the first place that it was introduced, whether we accept the "big Bang" conspiracy theory or not. Because of the errors in geography, time or place.

The Hebrew Bible was grafted on to a mystery-religion type thing to lend an ancient and therefore respectable credential to it. It was a pretty sloppy job, but close enough for religious work.

It does not necessarily point to a Jewish origin that a Jewish heritage was appended. Nor a "Jewish" origin that is in reality a subterfuge by Roman authorities.

Josephus wrote one of his great tracts in 90 CE or something, didn't he? That is 20 years after the Temple fell so it would seem to rule him out in my mind, or else he would have written about it by then. Not in brief passing, but in a real effort to put the conspiracy into effect.

aa5874

Well, if you read gMatthew, you might be able to see how this Jesus could be considered to be from Egypt.

The angel told the parents to flee to Egypt with the baby Jesus?

Where do you think they registered the baby's birth, with Herod or in Egypt?

And if the baby Jesus was a real human baby, his parents would not be Mary and Joseph, since Mary was a virgin and Joseph had no sex with her.

Maybe the baby was an orphan or abducted in Egypt.

That's one candidate for an Egyptian HJ, and there are hundreds more, if not thousands. I do not have the time to go through every single possible HJ, it may take hundreds of years.

Once you reject the Jesus of the NT as described, then every single person named Jesus is a candidate for an HJ, every person who was crucified, every magician, every person whose body cannot be found after burial, every person who called themselves the Christ or the annointed one, every false prophet that lived before the first Jesus story was written are all persons of interest for an HJ.

The list of candidates for an HJ are inexhaustive, and there is another major problem, I am not sure that the Jesus story in the NT is close to the truth.

Perhaps we should be looking for a person called Susej in the 1st century BCE.

Clivedurdle

During the reign of Domitian.

Following a link on Britannica from the article on Domitian - that interestingly discusses at length his persecution of everyone but xians! - was this

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...#ref=ref363289

It does not have to be a big bang conspiracy theory - just an attempt to take the fangs out of Judaism by paganising it - unsuccessfully, as it didn't accept Jesus as a roman god and that by rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's - including the fact that the emperor was a god, meant xians were meant to worship the emperor.

The story in Acts that it is OK to eat food sacrificed to gods may be another attempt to paganise the proto xians.