aa5874

The HJ argument is FAITH-BASED without question.

It is also HIGHLY ILLOGICAL, ABSURD, WITHOUT MERIT, WITHOUT CREDIBLE HISTORICAL SOURCES and DESTROYS ITSELF.

The HJ argument is an INSULT to RATIONALISM and INTELLECTUALISM.

The HJ argument ATTEMPTS to SHOW that Jesus of the NT was a MAN or based on a MAN and that THERE were Roman and Jewish records that Jesus was just a man.

Well, the HJ argument CANNOT be true because Romans, Jews and Skeptics, even Tacitus or Josephus themselves, would have USED the very same Roman and Jewish records to show that Jesus was just a MAN and NOT a God, NOT born of a VIRGIN without a human father, NOT the Creator of heaven and earth, did NOT walk on water, did NOT transfigure, did NOT resurrect and ascend to heaven.

The HJ argument MUST be FALSE since if Jesus was a just a MAN who was PUBLICLY crucified and died after a PUBLIC trial in the PRESENCE of Jews, Romans, his OWN FAMILY, acquaintances then these EYEWITNESS would have been able to SHOW that the so-called authors of the NT, especially "PAUL", were LIARS and DECEIVERS.

The HJ argument MUST be INVALID since the supposed Jesus cult members would have KNOWN that they themselves were LIARS and DECIVERS, especially "Paul" or the Pauline writers, who claimed he SAW the resurrected Jesus, that Jesus was the CREATOR of heaven and earth and that he was NOT the apostle of a man when it was KNOWN PUBLICLY that Jesus was just a man.

The very Roman and Jewish records (FORGERIES) that HJers are ATTEMPTING to use TODAY to prove Jesus was a man were NOT USED at ALL by anyone in Antiquity to prove Jesus was just a man.

The very Roman and Jewish records (FORGERIES) that HJers are ATTEMPTING to USE today would have shown the NT was BLASPHEMY and NOT embellishments and WOULD have DESTROYED the Jesus cult, especially "Paul" the Hebrew, as CRIMINALS based on Jewish Law and subject to DEATH.

The HJ argument MUST be FALSE since we have the Gospel, the Good News of the RESURRECTION. Once it was PUBLICLY KNOWN that Jesus was a just a man and that there were PUBLIC Roman and Jewish records, that he had a human father, then it would have been PUBLICLY KNOWN that Jesus was NOT able to SAVE MANKIND from SIN and through a resurrection.

Thousands of Jewish MEN were crucified in the 1st century and NONE had the ability to SAVE MANKIND from Sin or was EXPECTED to resurrect on the third day.

If PUBLIC Roman and Jewish did exist and it was PUBLICLY KNOWN Jesus was just a man who lived for about 30 years in Nazareth of Galilee then it would have BEEN PUBLICLY KNOWN that the JESUS cult did worship a MAN as a God and the very supposed disciples, FAMILY, acquaintances and followers of Jesus would have KNOWN that Jesus was NOT the Creator of heaven and earth, who walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended to heaven.

The bones of Jesus, if he did live and was a Jew, could have been in an OSSUARY.

Why did not people of antiquity do as HJers are doing today with the FORGERIES?

They Simply did not have the FORGERIES because they would have used them to PROVE Jesus was not the CREATOR of heaven and earth just like HJers today.


The HJ argument that there were Roman and Jewish records destroys itself.

The claim in the HJ argument that Jesus was from Nazareth is completely BLIND-FAITH based since the Gospels are UNRELIABLE and no credible external source mention Jesus was from Nazareth. Not even "PAUL" claimed Jesus was from Nazareth and even in the UNRELIABLE Gospels Jesus did not do anything in NAZARETH FOR 30 years or up to the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius and the taxing of Cyrenius.

"Paul" a supposed contemporary of Jesus claimed Jesus was the FIRSTBORN of the dead. The dead "live" in graves. "Paul's" history of Jesus started from the GRAVE.

The claim in the HJ argument that Jesus was crucified is another BLIND-FAITH based argument.

Not even in the NT are Jewish people who blaspheme are crucified. Stephen in Acts was stoned for Blasphemy, even "Paul" was STONED for preaching Blasphemy.

In Hebrew Scripture it is said that BLASPHEMERS should be STONED and in the Mishna the Blasphemer is one who should be stoned.

1. Jesus was from Nazareth----BLIND-FAITH--no credible historical source.

2. Jesus was crucified----BLIND-FAITH--no credible historical source.


The HJ argument is just BLIND-FAITH and highly illogical.

spin

I don't know how many times we've had to deal with the James passage in Josephus's AJ 20.200. Here it is in a little context:

[T2]"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so [the high priest Ananus] convened the judges of the sanhedrin, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them to be stoned."[/T2]

There are two simple problems with the highlighted section: 1) it gives Jesus the appellation "christ" and 2) it has unaccountable word order.

1) Jesus called christ

Josephus, who claimed descent from a Jewish priestly family, spent the best part of his adult life defending the Jews in Roman society. He was a pious Jew, who obviously understood the concept of the messiah, though he avoided using any of the 40 odd LXX references which mention χριστος. In fact, if the Jesus passages are veracious, then the only place Josephus mentions χριστος is in regard to Jesus. This hardly seems likely. He would have known that a dead messiah is a false messiah. He would also have known that to do justice to the term, he would have had to explain the notion of the messiah. (This would explain why he omitted the references to the χριστος when he drew on the LXX.)

The James passage doesn't explain the term χριστος, which is in itself a problem, because the term χριστος means "unguent" or "ointment", that which is used to anoint, so that Jesus called christ would seem exceptionally strange to his patrician audience, "Jesus the ointment". The Jews, when they started translating their religious works into Greek chose an idiosyncratic way of translating messiah. Using the Greek version of the same verb as messiah is based on, they derived their equivalent of messiah, ie "christ", though, as we have seen, the word doesn't refer to the one who is anointed but that which is used to anoint. Outside the Judeo-christian tradition, the notion of the christ would have made one think of ointment, so we find the preposterous description of "Jesus called ointment". While Josephus surely would have had to define the term for his Roman audience, christian readers would have had no problem, suggesting that the text was written with christians in mind.

2) Unaccountable word order

There's no way of getting out of it: the word order of "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" is strange. The normal way of saying the phrase would be "James the brother of Jesus called christ". The current word order is certainly disturbed, though not impossible. However, such a word order suggests a discourse motive behind it.

For example, the high priest Jeshua, who had been mentioned several times in AJ 11, could justifiably be placed at the front of a phrase, "the high priest at the time was the son of Jeshua, named Joakim" (AJ 11.122). The high priest Jeshua is established in the text, so one can justify inverting the word order.

Or consider BJ 2.575 which introduces John of Gischala, "John (son) of Levi". This is followed a little later (585) by a case of variatio, "a man from Gischala, the son of Levi, whose name was John".

When we come to "the brother of Jesus called christ", there is no recent prior reference to allow the word order change. Besides, it is made further strange by the fact that the relationship that Jesus was brought in for was that of brother, when the Jewish custom is filiality. The only reason why fraternity is used is because of prior reference.

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On two counts the phrase "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" is improbable, but the phrase is a different type of manifestation from the TF. It is likely that Josephus originally mentioned something like "a certain man named James", which drew a marginal comment, "the brother of Jesus called christ". A later scribe, finding the marginal comment, considered it an omission from the text and "reinserted" it.

Toto

Rather than a busload of nuns, you have a few old drunks in a bar.

Secular texts? Tacitus and Josephus, both transmitted through Christian hands, both based on hearsay even if not heavily interpolated.

Christian texts? Late and contradictory.

Archaeological evidence? What on earth does this refer to? The James Ossuary? The Shroud of Turin? The Holy Prepuce?

And - "the fact of the advent of a Christian church in the first century." How is this established as a fact?

spin

It's quite quaint that one should trot out the reference to Chrestus in Suetonius's Life of Claudius (25.4). Here it is:

[T2]"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."[/T2]

This is about a Roman Jew called Chrestus and his activities got the Roman Jews ejected from the city. What this has to do with christianity other than the similarity of the name Chrestus with Christus is unaccountable. The passage clearly deals with Jews. Even an interpolator would get it right. This clearly has nothing to do with christians and this instigator was very much alive at the time in order to stir up the Jews.

"Oh, wait, these Jews were actually christians, not Jews."

Says who? Perhaps you could phone Suetonius and check. As things stand, the text is clear. The troublemaking of Chrestus got the Jews kicked out of Rome. Beside the fact that Suetonius was writing 70 years after the time of Claudius, his statement about the expulsion of Jews is just not relevant as evidence for Jesus.

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Over the many centuries of christian hegemony we come to expect the christianizing of many things. Who thinks about the pagan goddess Eostre when Easter comes around? Who thinks of the pagan traditions behind easter eggs and bunnies, mistletoe and xmas trees? It's normal that so many things take on christian traits. A few christian scribes maintaining pagan works over the centuries will slip up, either accidentally, as in the case of the James reference in Josephus, or deliberately, like the bogus TF.


spin

Chaucer

That is an appallingly sloppy and misleading statement. The Arabic version refers to a third-hand report. It does not claim that Jesus is a Messiah. It does not claim that any resurrection happened. The Jesus followers are plainly described as imagining that Jesus somehow returned alive and as therefore viewing Jesus as "perhaps the Messiah". That is very, very different. It is a report of others' claims, and the notion that Josephus wouldn't report on others' claims is simply absurd. No amount of sophistry can change the plain fact that Josephus is reporting on others' impressions, not his own avowal.

Chaucer

Chaucer

And so, Spin totally ignores --

Ant. 5.8.1
"but he had also one that was spurious, by his concubine Drumah, whose
name was Abimelech" --

I wonder what he will come up with on that one ...........

Chaucer

spin

Oh, gawd, just because you put up three uncomprehending attempts at dealing with the word order issue, do I have to respond to them all? Can't you see what is obviously wrong with this example already??

Think about it for a minute, will you? Try to come up with it yourself.

N/A

aa5874

Well, let's hear from the witness, one of the supposed contemporaries.

Do you swear by God that that the evidence you give is true?

Ro 9:1 - Tell us your name and profession?

Ga 1:1 - Tell us about your Gospel.

Galatians 1.11
Tell us, did you EVER see Jesus Christ?
1 COR 15.3-8
Did you say OVER 500 people SAW the resurrected Jesus?

2Co 11:31 - Tell us more about this Jesus where did you SEE him?

2Co 12:2 - Your honour we will have to get the 500 eyewitnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus, this witness SUFFERS from AMNESIA.

We ONLY need about 15 BUS LOADS.

We need to get ALL the EYEWITNESS of the RESURRECTED JESUS in the courtroom even though we know the other side has NO eyewitnesses of a human Jesus.


The HJ argument is based on BLIND-FAITH and NO eyewitnesses, and only need a toy SCOOTER

MJ has an EYEWITNESS of the resurrected Jesus who knows BUS LOADS of "NUNS" and "DEACONS" and other eyewitnesses of the resurrected myth Jesus.

angelo

A good defense lawyer would destroy any evidence bit by bit provided by the prosecution working on the HJ case. The nuns would be sent packing.
How can something written up to 70 years after any fact be used as evidence without even an original copy of this manuscript. But something that was copied centuries later and by christians.

aa5874

There is just NO overwhelming case for an historical Jesus.

There is an OVERWHELMING case for the RESURRECTED MYTH Jesus.

A witness has come forward who claimed to have LIVED during the time of King Aretas and has SWORN by God that he is NOT lying.

2Corinthians 11:31-32 -
This witness will claim, under oath, that Jesus was NOT a man, that HE SAW the resurrected Jesus and can ALSO IDENTIFY over 15 BUS LOADS of eyewitnesses, OVER 500 eyewitnesses, who SAW the resurrected Jesus.


Galatians 1:1.20, 1.1, 1.11-12 - This witness has SWORN by Jesus Christ repeatedly that he is NOT Lying.

Ro 9:1, 10.9 - This WITNESS can supply OVER 15 BUS LOADS of EYEWITNESSES for the RESURRECTED Jesus.

1Co 15:6 - The ABUNDANCE of EVIDENCE, by the BUS LOADS, support the RESURRECTED MYTH JESUS.