FRDB Archives

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.


Go Back   FRDB Archives > Archives > Religion (Closed) > Biblical Criticism & History
Welcome, Peter Kirby.
You last visited: Yesterday at 03:12 PM

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 08-07-2006, 04:15 PM   #31
Contributor
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: the fringe of the caribbean
Posts: 18,988
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian
The catholic explanation that I have heard often is that the brothers of Jesus were from a previous marriage of Joseph. They were really only half-brothers so Mary can stay a perpetual virgin.
It amazes me how stories about Jesus Christ can be made up. The Church can always resolve fiction, they wrote the book.
aa5874 is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 05:57 PM   #32
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Tallmadge, Ohio
Posts: 808
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jakejonesiv
Matthew didn't know what Nazarene meant, confused it with Nazarite, and compounded the error by creating a ficticious town Nazareth to explain the whole thing.
What's wrong with the simpler explanation, that Matthew was stuck with a messiah from the wrong town, and that he stretched prophecy like taffy to make it appear that Jesus' hometown was biblically correct? There's certainly evidence that the site called Nazareth was inhabited as least as far back as its supposed refounding 200-300 B.C.E., and no evidence that its name had been anything other than Nazareth. What compelling evidence is there to support the claim that Nazareth was made up?
jjramsey is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 06:56 PM   #33
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Alaska
Posts: 9,159
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjramsey
Josephus gives maybe a paragraph or so to most of the armed messianic claimants in the first century. About the only other such claimant mentioned by anyone else is Simon of Perea. And you expect that an unarmed claimant would get more of a mention than that?
heh. Premise falsified by counterexamples aplenty. My favorite one is the truly nutty Jesus who is running around saying "Woe unto Israel". Pilate has him tortured, and lets him go as just a harmless fruitcake. He's killed by one of the seige engines of the Romans in the taking of Jerusalem.

See how carefully you have to compartmentalize what is actually the most complicated scenario of all - and invent false premises that are easily negated (eg the non-armed are not written of by Josephus)

So I guess now you'll have to invent yet one more complicating factor in the pretense of "parsimony". It is only parsimonious if you get to restrict attention to the only things the theory can explain. The rest - why then we have to patch together an ever-growing quilt of "just so" stories.

Quote:
Pliny's problem with handling Christians had nothing to do with them being obviously unruly. He himself had "never participated in trials of Christians," and Emperor Trajan indicated in reply that, "it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard.."
This appears to be an attempt at diverting a simple point into a vortex of confusion about "unruly". I don't see any point. Pliny does not know how to handle Christians and yet there is presumably many decades of experience with them. Er, none of which is recorded anywhere - explained by "just so" story #354 I suppose.



Quote:
Nazareth. Despite Matthew's claim that the prophets said that "He shall be called a Nazarene," there is nothing in the OT on Nazareth.
That's what I thought you might mean, and indeed I am in agreement with JakeJonesIV about the almost childishly sloppy mining of the HB for the junkyard Jesus, with tell-tale mistranslations from the Septuagint and all. Misquoting of commandments by Jesus. Laughably inconsistent geneologies. Etc. Now back to your claim, exactly:

Quote:
It also trivially explains why Jesus would have been said to be from a town that wasn't in an OT prophecy.
The fact of the matter is that Matthew states quite clearly in
2:23:

Quote:
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
This whole chapter seems to have one purpose: validating Jesus as fulfillment of HB prophecy with Birth in Bethlehem, being a Nazorean, Rachel weeping for her children &Etc.

The parsimonious explanation is that the HB is being quote-mined in a pretty sloppy fashion. The requirement for Joseph to move out of Nazareth for a census is not historically motivated because it is poppycock. Likewise escaping to Egypt with the slaughter of the innocents.

But the explanation that a story needed to be weaved to include naza-something, Bethlehem birth, and "coming out of Egypt" fits exactly.

You have in this manner eliminated numerous ficticious personages and events that need be explained away with "just so" stories.
rlogan is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 07:29 PM   #34
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 47
Default

Quote:
Originally posted by rlogan:
My favorite one is the truly nutty Jesus who is running around saying "Woe unto Israel". Pilate has him tortured, and lets him go as just a harmless fruitcake.
Pilate's term as procurator (or perhaps more accurately, prefect) ended in about 36 CE, so he had been out of the picture for more than 25 years when this “nutty Jesus” was active in the years leading up to the war, which lasted roughly from 66 to 73 CE.

Quote:
From Josephus, War of the Jews, Book VI, Ch 5:
...there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, (23) began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!"
DaBuster is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 08:32 PM   #35
Contributor
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: the fringe of the caribbean
Posts: 18,988
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjramsey
What's wrong with the simpler explanation, that Matthew was stuck with a messiah from the wrong town, and that he stretched prophecy like taffy to make it appear that Jesus' hometown was biblically correct?
The unknown author of Matthew mis-interprets the OT and Jesus Christ fulfills his mis-interpretations. Fiction at its best.
aa5874 is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 09:21 PM   #36
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: none
Posts: 9,879
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by aa5874
The unknown author of Matthew mis-interprets the OT and Jesus Christ fulfills his mis-interpretations. Fiction at its best.
Once again, yet another avoidance of the question. Way to go.
Chris Weimer is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 09:35 PM   #37
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Alaska
Posts: 9,159
Talking

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaBuster
Pilate's term as procurator (or perhaps more accurately, prefect) ended in about 36 CE, so he had been out of the picture for more than 25 years when this “nutty Jesus” was active in the years leading up to the war, which lasted roughly from 66 to 73 CE.

Heh. That's my boy! Isn't he just darling?

Thanks for the correction on Pilate. The Procurator at the time I guess would be Florus.
rlogan is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 09:37 PM   #38
Contributor
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: the fringe of the caribbean
Posts: 18,988
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Weimer
Once again, yet another avoidance of the question. Way to go.
The simple explanation is that Matthew's Jesus Christ is fiction. The author of Matthew mis-interprets the OT and Jesus Christ fulfills the author's mis-interpretations. That is blatant fabrication. The book of Matthew should be de-canonised. It's a disaster.
aa5874 is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 10:16 PM   #39
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: none
Posts: 9,879
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by aa5874
The simple explanation is that Matthew's Jesus Christ is fiction. The author of Matthew mis-interprets the OT and Jesus Christ fulfills the author's mis-interpretations. That is blatant fabrication. The book of Matthew should be de-canonised. It's a disaster.
You are right - you really aren't an historian. In 2000 years, I wonder how many armchair historians will loudly proclaim "George Bush did not exist"?
Chris Weimer is offline  
Old 08-07-2006, 11:57 PM   #40
Contributor
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: the fringe of the caribbean
Posts: 18,988
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Weimer
You are right - you really aren't an historian. In 2000 years, I wonder how many armchair historians will loudly proclaim "George Bush did not exist"?
Jesus Christ never existed so George Bush, Socrates, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Eusebius, me, you and everybody else never existed. Your analogies are useless.

We are discussing MJ/HJ, my point is that the Jesus Christ described in the NT appears to be fictitious. There are no prophecies in the OT for Jesus Christ, the NT falsely shows prophecies, his birth cannot be confirmed, either Matthew or Luke gives false information about his birth. His miraculous healings and raising people from the dead are improbable and could not have been seen by anyone. No-one saw a dead person come to life by Jesus Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Saulus/Paulus' epistles contain false information regarding Jesus Christ. There are contradictory information about his death.

Jesus Christ fits the character of fiction.
aa5874 is offline  
 

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 03:13 AM.

Top

This custom BB emulates vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2015, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.