mountainman

How many estimated crucifictions occurred under
the Roman imperial rule during the period in question?
How many hundreds of thousands of Jewish and Druidic
born human beings were actually crucified?

There was not one person crucified.
What of all the others?



Pete Brown
www.mountainman.com.au

gstafleu

The silence constituted by the lack of reference to this "firestorm" event outside the NT. The NT counts for something, but the 22 books that attest the crucifixion are hardly independent: they are all written from the faith. If there was indeed such a widespread uproar about an unjust crucifixion, one which resulted in a new creed spreading like wildfire, then wouldn't we expect some reference to it in contemporary documents outside the NT? After all, this little unjust crucifixion ballooned, according to VMJ, into quite a happening. All we have though, are the usual suspects who are adduced for HJ. Which aint much.

Doug Shaver

OK. I don't, but I can understand why many people would.
It certainly could not happen nowadays. The modern intellectual landscape has no room for multiple heavens or about connections between things happening there and things happening here. But the landscape was very different 2,000 years ago.

Doug Shaver

According to whom?

Alf

That was one of them that people believed had done that as far as I know. I also believe there were others.

Alf

Alf

Because she accepted to be referred to as a dog. Riiight.

Alf

Alf

Possibly an appolonious wanna-be then? There were lots of that sort of people around at the time.

Alf

Jon Barleycorn

I think i may possibly have a theory - i recently saw a programme regarding the authenticity of the Turin Shroud. The most recent tests seem to suggest that it may well actually date from the 1st Century A.D - Well, it struck me that if, in fact, the shroud is genuine - in as much as a man was crucified, his body then wrapped in the shroud which then retained an imprint or image of said body - well, that would indeed seem miraculous to the people of that time & could even, over time metamorphise into a legend of a man who beat death & even "rose from the dead" - it's a thought? :huh:

Didymus

Yes, there is. And I don't know what the mechanism was.

As this stage I can only guess what might have been what the VMJ precipitating mechanism might have been. Christian historicists believe, of course, that the reaction was mainly the result of post-crucifixion events: the empty tomb and the appearances. In the VMJ scenario the community may have reacted to the "injustice of it all," much like persecuted minorities react to perceived injustices today. A community leader - Peter? - may have reported having a dream or vision about the crucified individual. There are myriad other possibilities. I realize that that's pretty thin in the evidence department; then again, it's a lot more concrete than the MJ scenario, which posits no mechanism whatsoever.

You seem to be touching on the heart of the matter.

Unknown Mechanism: Obviously, there are many possible scenarios for such a crucifixion. The existence of a "church of God" persecuted by Paul (in Syria and Arabia?) would suggest that whatever "true story" that was known in Jerusalem was swamped early on in the Diaspora by Messianic fervor. It not a giant step to transform the torture and crucifixion of a crazy holy man into the torture and crucifixion of a divine holy man. As I've suggested before, something seems to have gotten into those "saints" that Paul was chasing around. The MJ Jesus doesn't seem worth all that aggravation.

Mechanism of Unknown Complexity: I'm actually not sure what you mean by that or what difference it would make.

The Complexity of the Origins: We know that there were a multiplicity of forces at work that enabled Christianity to thrive. (I mentioned several in another post.) Most were in play before and during the time of Paul, the most notable exceptions being the Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple. Some of those pre-existing conditions seem to have been quite specific to the "church of God's" interpretation of the crucifixion. These would include the Wisdom stories of a descending/ascending savior and the Sayings traditions, especially Parables, and Thomas and Q. (I don't think there are many scholars who date Thomas and Q that early. But it doesn't matter, so long as the sayings were circulating on the grapevine, aka "the oral tradition.)

I've suggested a few above, but I think that there are probably many more in the wings. I'm not sure that anyone has read Paul, the gospels and Acts with such a scenario in mind. I certainly intend to do that.

In any event, we're talking here about an inference, not a cut-and-dried sure thing. It's a bit like the way astronomers discover planets and stars, not by seeing the newly found objects themselves, but by inferring their existence from the known orbits and known masses of other objects in the vicinity. At this point, the data can be readily construed to infer such an event. Obviously, there's much more to be done. But in the meantime, objections like yours need to be raised and taken into account.

Didymus

Didymus

Obviously, I'm saying that this one had to have been special in some way. At this point, I can only guess what that way might have been. But there's nothing to rule out exceptionality, and such an event would account for the data - more parsimoniously, IMO, than either MJ or HJ.

This same objection applies to "secular" HJ, of course. If there was no empty tomb and no post-resurrection appearances, than what did cause such a stir? I would assume that HJ posits that Jesus had built some sort of following that would carry on in his absence. I'm not sure though; I've never seen a version of Mark's gospel that's been stripped of all the miracle stories, geographical goofs and direct lifts from scripture. Does one exist? I can't imagine that there would be much left.

Didymus