renassault

The descriptions in Matthew Mark and Luke plainly show that a Jew is most likely responsible for the description as 'robber' the same way Josephus does. At least as far as that narrative is concerned. In regards to authenticity, it doesn't prove much if anything, only that a Jew was responsible behind that section.

Oh, so now Josephus is obliged to write about everything that could have become a rebellion as well? How would he know about an issue that subsided 7 years before he was born and 60 years before he wrote his Antiquities? If it had turned into a big rebellion and was passed over, then you'd have a point, albeit one wonders how big of a significance it would be seeing how Josephus talks about riots in Jerusalem all the time (when talking about the Sicarii).

Who would be interested in recording the 'almost happened rebellion' as a result of a blasphemer? Certainly no Christian would have written about it within decades; there were only hundreds, most wouldn't be engaged in history, and they would have talked about it. So who else? Certainly not those who perceived it to be just another day of executions.

But he didn't 'almost massacre them' did he.

Pilate in this case did not want to appease the Jews for no reason. His aggravations of the Jews was largely due to the same reason others had such feelings against the Jews' religion, such as their rejection of the Roman deities which he set up; this is true seeing how the Jewish war started according to Josephus, when a Greek went to sacrifice a dove in front of the Temple, clearly to aggravate the Jews based on their religious practices. Just because of this, it doesn't follow that he would a) Crucify someone at the mob's appeal, b) follow a demand of the Jews' for no reason. He may also have been warned against further needless murder of Jews by Tiberius as Josephus (I think) says, though I think this was after Sejanus' death in 31, but he may have received a warning earlier, and not wanting to kill an innocent man because of this. That's only speculative though.

Jedi Mind Trick

I don't think anyone seriously argues that the gospels didn't portray Jesus as historical so I find this "proof" odd.

mountainman

A lot of people here are into textual criticism.
The new testament apocrypha is a field which
has been described as a textual citics nightmare.

Every man and his dog wants to wag the canon around.
Nobody wants to seriously discuss the "Far Side" of the NT.
And if they did want to take me on, without exception
they would start with a citation via Eusebius and Tertullian
that the writing of popular fiction about Jesus Fictive Christ
was authored by a presbyter in Asia who did it because he
loved Paul. The C14 doesn't reach the table.


Fiction about Jesus resulted in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum - ("List of Prohibited Books")
The very first List of Prohibited books was compiled by Eusebius.
The index was maintained from 325 to 1966 CE.


It provides in 2009 the first objective approximation
to the actual chronology of the publication of a book
or series of codices. Publication and politics are often
quite often directly related - especially in antiquity -
since the codices required sponsorship to produce.

Jedi Mind Trick

The Gospels are the highly edited tools of orthodoxy, what else would you find there, but the support of orthodox doctrine?

I believe that Jesus was a real historical person too, but I don't believe everything the NT says about him.

"Be wise money changers (regarding the scriptures) take what is good, cast away what is evil." -Pistis Sophia

renassault

You'd have to support that conclusion with form criticism. Otherwise it's just a speculation.

The statement 'his blood be on us' is probably in the sense that they take responsibility (from Rome? Divine Judgment?) for his death and not Pilate.


If the Bereans were praised for searching the Old Testament for what Paul preached...obviously they were p

The things that were burned was not knowledge or things known to contradict Christianity; from what lectures I remember of my more or less anti-Christian professor, the early Renaissance universities were sponsored and encouraged by the Catholic Church. The things that may have been burned are heretic texts, such as Gnostics, etc.

Books that used history, logic, etc to argue against Christianity were argued against, as seen by the early Church writers (Justin Martyr, Ireneaus, Tertullian, etc.) even so much that there was a debate during the Inquisition in Spain (the Tortosa Disputation) regarding Judaism and Christianity.

Romans 12:19-21. As for Jesus, when did He ever disagree with his doctrine? If you mean the Temple cleansing, that is hardly hatred or killing.

So all Christians of all times sold such?

In that case I'd agree it does have negative side-effects, though it is theologically motivated, i.e. the Catholic Church believes it must be so not to sin, and by that logic, is a person who is walking and is mugged to be blamed for the mugging for having money, instead of the mugger?

If you're referring to the Catholic prohibition of birth control, this would again fall similarly under the above.

aa5874

The Gospels writers were not treating Jesus as fiction at all based on the information supplied by the church writers and even internally from the Gospels.

John 21.24 The stories of Jesus, although appearing to be incredible, were believable at least by Roman standards. Vespasian was believed to have performed miracles like Jesus by spitting in the eyes of people.

And Marcion promoted the wholly incredible phantom called Jesus, yet he had many believers and followers.

Presenting myths as historical figures that actually lived on earth was nothing new in antiquity.

Even, the angel Gabriel, an incredible unsubstantiated creature, found ony in Daniel and gLuke was on earth at around the beginning of first century, giving details to Mary about how the Holy Ghost can make a baby.

The Gospel writer and those of the Church presented a myth as an historical God/man.

show_no_mercy

This is all just massive mental gymnastics. You still haven't made sense of the discrepancy between Historical Pilate and Bizzaro (gospel) Pilate

Historical Pilate executed troublemakers without trial. Meaning he didn't care whether said troublemakers were guilty or innocent.
Gospel Pilate releases already tried and convicted troublemakers because it's a holiday and engages in another trial of an innocent man and finds him innocent and wants to release him.

Historical Pilate hides his troops in a crowd of protesting Jews so his troops can beat them to near death.
Gospel Pilate executes an innocent man because a crowd of protesting Jews want said innocent man dead.

Historical Pilate was known for his venality, short temper, cruelty, and injustice.
Gospel Pilate shows patience, bipartisanship, recognizes that the Jews are just jealous of Jesus, and is unwilling to execute an innocent man so he "washes his hands" of any responsibility.

These are two very different people. Unless you're going to argue that Pilate was actually possessed by the Holy Spirit during Jesus' trial and acted completely contrary to his nature just for Jesus' trial. It's no less spurious than anything other "spiritual" evidence you've presented.

lpetrich

And how is "form criticism" supposed to work?

The analogy is very good:
Jesus Christ, who got crucified = sacrificed goat
Barabbas, who got released = released goat

That's a load of horseshit. I am careful to avoid having a gaping mind while reading the Bible, and it is VERY obvious what a real lynch mob would say and do.

They'd think that JC deserved his fate, and if Pontius Pilate had released him to them, they would have stoned him to death right there and then.

So heretical books do not really "contradict Christianity"???

And so what if they did not burn every book that they disliked?

So what? There are plenty of parts that state the opposite, that one must kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. Shall I quote Deuteronomy 7:1-5 for you?

What gives you the idea that that's what I was claiming?

I can't follow what you are arguing.

Are you claiming that there must be a good reason for forbidding birth control and abortion if the Church forbids those activities?

Amaleq13

First, one assumes that the text in question has a basis in history (ie it is not fiction). Then, one starts peeling away what one argues are layers in the text until one arrives at what one suspects is the oral tradition/history behind the text.

For the notion that the above is not a form of speculation, you're on your own. He certainly can't support it.

And I think we're not supposed to notice that this approach involves an assumption of the conclusion (ie historical basis) he is arguing.

lpetrich

But the originals often did not survive. A lot of Gnostic writings were long known from what orthodox theologians said about them -- the Nag Hammadi discoveries represented a revolution in our knowledge of Gnosticism. Celsus's writings of Xianity survive only as quotes in Origen's rebuttals of him.

Writings that medieval theologians liked often survived; those they didn't did not. It need not have required conscious effort; neglect was all that was necessary. Most of Plato's writings have survived, but none of Democritus's did, and Lucretius's On the Nature of Things survived by a hair, because someone liked his writing style.

Hasn't anyone ever tried to check such methodologies? Ideally, one might want to do so by looking at cases where we have both on-the-ground reports and much later reports.