aa5874

HJers and Christians use the Bible for history.

You must know that HJers claim Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem.

mountainman

Do you see an abundance of slavery? Did the Roman Emperor Trajan crucify 2000 Jews in the city of Emmaus in the early 2nd century?

Doug Shaver

What I don't see is a good argument demonstrating that either the existence of slavery or the crucifixion of 2,000 Jews is evidence for anyone's having absolute political power.

But then, perhaps your definition of "absolute political power" is so idiosyncratic that you can find evidence for it wherever it suits you to find it.

mountainman

What if I were to reduce the description of the extreme nature of the political power that the Roman Emperors wielded from "absolute" to "immense". The Roman Emperor had immense influence, to the extent of having his own worshipping cult in many cases. (See Emperor worship).

We have abundant evidence that Roman Emperors in antiquity possessed such immense political power. We also have evidence to indicate what happened to Suetonius's twleve caesars - how they were corrupted by such power. The Roman Emperor's clearly possessed extreme measures of organization and leadership power.

The conspiracy theory angle on Atwill's "Caesar's Messiah" is a strawman.


Here's the context:

jakejonesiv

You were really sensing yourself!!

Nothing wrong with that.

Jake

stephan huller

At least my stuff is original and not always reinforcing the same ====== point of view.

Sheshbazzar

Persons infected with virulent Zombie Jebus Brain Disease become irrational, often highly irrational, and possessed with a burning fever to spread the disease to as many others as possible. There are no limits to what lengths they are willing to go.

Religious conviction, and rational critical thinking never go hand in hand.

aa5874

It is IMPERATIVE that we understand what ApostateAbe claimed about conspiracy theories.

ApostateAbe has EXPOSED that HJ of Nazareth MUST be a conspiracy theory.

If Jesus was PUBLICLY known to be a man how could 12 ILLITERATE men, or fishermen, CON themselves into BELIEVING their own LIES and then CON the same Jews who had Jesus Crucified AFTER he was found guilty of death for Blasphemy?

HJ is a Massive Conspiracy theory.

In the earliest gMark, the disciples WERE DEVASTATED and had Abandoned and DENIED Jesus so it is inconceivable that the very disciples would have re-organised and then proceed with the very SAME Blasphemy all over Jerusalem knowing that they too would be KILLED.

Jesus was EXECUTED within hours of his Blasphemy yet the disciples were ALLOWED to freely BLASPHEME for YEARS and the Pharisees did NOTHING to the disciples.

HJ is a massive conspiracy theory.

mountainman

There is little doubt that the books of the new testament represented a type of literature virus that eventually paralyzed for more than a thousand years the Greek intellectual tradition.

Atwill is aguing that this virus was planted by a Roman Emperor. These guys were often addressed as "My Lord God Caesar <<INSERT NAME HERE>>" and had their own cults, mints, armies, praetorian guards, spies, slaves ...

Sheshbazzar

And with Constantine, there is nothing to doubt either about his level of power, nor his level of corruption. The perfect sponsor for the christian religion.