Roland

No, because the disease was named after him not the other way around.

If the name Jesus came to mean "God saves" AFTER Jesus was crucified, then of course it would not be suspicious.

It's like the city that Joshua supposedly destroyed being named Ai, when the word "Ai" already means "ruin." I know that there are cities with very strange names, but when the name itself describes what will happen to the city in the future, we have a right to be suspicious as to the truthfulness of the story.

Godless Dave

Yeshuah, or Yeshashuah, can be translated as "God saves" but it's more precise to translate it as "God is a saving cry" or "God is salvation". If that was his real name then it's a plausible coincidence. My name, David, means beloved. There are people who love me. If I made up a religion based on love, people would read some significance into my name. But it's just a coincidence, and not a very big one at that.

Regardless, the Bible names him as Iēsous, not Yeshua. I know many scholars think Iēsous is a transliteration of Yeshua, but I think there's still some disagreement about it.

angelo

If the question is; ''Is the passion plausible.'' The answer has to be NO.
The gospels state that all the apostles ran for their lives when Jesus or Yeshua, or whatever his name was got arrested.
So,who was present to record or witness the events ???. Let alone what was discussed at the trial.

Chris Weimer

Read post 29.

Ben C Smith

The recording of the apparently closed-session trial itself certainly brings up important questions, but reading out of the gospels that there was no one left to witness the open (public) events is just a bad move. All the gospels affirm that, while (at least most of) the male followers ran away, there were female followers who remained and who witnessed the crucifixion, the burial, and the empty tomb.

The gospels may be incorrect on this score, but they do not (possibly excepting the trial) present the inherently implausible scenario of recording events that they themselves say no one of concern witnessed.

Ben.

Equinox

One small piece of evidence is that in the synoptics, Jesus died at a relatively normal, boring time – the morning of the day of Passover (remember jewish “days” are sunset to sunset). John moves his death to the morning of the day before Passover (the day of preparation), when the lambs were being killed, so that he can make jesus into the lamb of God.


Thus, it seems to me most historically likely that Jesus died at the wrong time (as in the synoptics), and if it were going to be made up, wouldn’t you get it right the first time?

So my guess right now is that it is plausible that jesus died then, just because things were touchy during the Passover – not hard to get oneself killed then. Only later did the whole “lamb of god” thing get attached to it as grieving and confused disciples tried to make up some way to rationalize the death of their leader.

My two cents.

JoeWallack

JW:
This is all mindful of Spin's flyspeck analogy for TF except here what one has to remove is El-Levant Dung. It's like the classic episode of The Adam Family where they try to give Cousin It a haircut and when they finish there's nothing left. How much of the related beggaging the question has to be removed before you can reach up and touch Plausible?

First you have to pretend that "Mark's" credibility has not been completely impeached with all the superstitious nonsense. Than ignore what would be needed in any supposed witness before "Mark" (Paul) to support "Mark". Than ignore that "Mark" presents a story where Jesus doing the Impossible is not supposed to convince anyone that he was the Messiah but doing the Passion is, than ignore that per "Mark" those who know Jesus don't have a clue what he is all about but those who don't know Jesus understand him perfectly, than ignore that the author understands that the story he is presenting is Ironic. Than ignore , to borrow the words of Chris Weimer, that we don't know who the fuck "Mark" was. Since the Passion reads as Fiction, to use the words of Roger Pearse, why not just take it as Fiction.

For Ben - Still waiting for the related explanation of why "Mark" does not present the plausible reason for Jesus' demise, The Temple Tantrum, at the Trial of the 1st Century.



Joseph

The Simontic Problem

Ben C Smith

What is this in reference to?

Ben.

spamandham

I tend to agree. The simpler explanation is that someone constructed the story - particularly when it's recognized that so much of the story has direct OT parallels. Whether or not there are bits of real history thrown in is the big unknown.

What reason is there to think that some actual history is thrown into what is otherwise obviously mythology and legend?

Roland

This reminds me a bit of when apologists try to make the case that the different slants among Matthew, Mark and Luke's accounts add to the verisimilitude of the works, when what they do is actually the opposite. The slants reveal a distinct political agenda rather than an attempt to get at the objective truth. (The obviously invented statements of Jesus in John are a perfect example).