Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Steven Avery · 12-13-2005, 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

This sounds very much like a reference to the "Archko volume" ...A useful web page on the key point...

Roger, to what extent is

"here was an earlier pamphlet published in Boston, 1842, under the title, Pontius Pilate's Account of the Condemnation of Jesus Christ, and his own Mental Sufferings. This was supposedly extracted from an Old Latin manuscript recently found at Vienna."

... itself refuted. Is that pre-Mahan pamphet extant, and, putting aside the Mahan shenangigans, does it have clearly fatal flaws ? (Yes, I am a true skeptic, and realize that the lack of a fatal flaw would not be an indication of authenticity :-)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery · 12-13-2005, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Expendable

...How come he wrote no books? A man as important as this surely would have written something himself, no? I know it's an assumption, a big assumption on my part, but how come he's written nothing? Any explainations?

Providence. If we had writings from Jesus, there would be great difficulty balancing His writings with those about Him from others (Even today we have those "red-letter" Bibles). Then the enemies of the NT would do a whole new special type of tier analysis. So instead He inspired men to write, while He became the author and finisher of our faith.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery · 12-13-2005, 03:23 AM

Toto, your post 11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

The problem with this: Christians did not use the cross as a symbol in the first century, but other groups did. So these were probably not Christian tombs.

Let up to my post 62 (and later 91), discussing that and the written words, too (e.g. Yeshu aloth).
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...1&postcount=62

Could you help with your specific theory of what groups would have led to crosses on that Jewish ossuary ? And any actual evidence that crosses would not have been a Christian symbol in the 1st century ?

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic[/QUOTE]

Steven Avery · 12-13-2005, 03:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notsri

I think you run into several difficulties here, Asha'man. The materials deriving from the earliest strata of the rabbinic corpus do not place Yeshu (ben Pandira) in the 1st c. BCE....Notsri

Notsri Thanks for this great keeper/bookmark
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...&postcount=100
on the Talmud/ToldetYeshu/Celsus interplay and the related issues.

Incidentally, when Professor Lawrence Schiffman spoke about the Gibson movie, he specifically mentioned Talmud time anomalies. He was emphasizing that certain Talmud-based potential historical arguments againt the NT stories should best be considered inoperative (well, that was not his exact word). He was defending a nighttime Sannhedrin trial agains the Talmud rules that would preclude same, while placing the Sannhedrin mostly as Roman lackeys. In that discussion, he particularly brought up the unreliability of the Talmud when it comes to dating its stories, something that is a big part of the Talmud-Yeshua story discussion, without much oomph, as you point out.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Roger Pearse · 12-13-2005, 04:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Roger, to what extent is

"here was an earlier pamphlet published in Boston, 1842, under the title, Pontius Pilate's Account of the Condemnation of Jesus Christ, and his own Mental Sufferings. This was supposedly extracted from an Old Latin manuscript recently found at Vienna."

... itself refuted. Is that pre-Mahan pamphet extant, and, putting aside the Mahan shenangigans, does it have clearly fatal flaws ? (Yes, I am a true skeptic, and realize that the lack of a fatal flaw would not be an indication of authenticity :-)

Hello,

I'm afraid I have never seen the pamphlet, and cannot tell you. I doubt any such Ms. exists, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Vorkosigan · 12-13-2005, 04:24 AM

You mean Schiffman, the Orthodox Jewish scholar?

Gooch's dad · 12-13-2005, 04:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Providence. If we had writings from Jesus, there would be great difficulty balancing His writings with those about Him from others (Even today we have those "red-letter" Bibles). Then the enemies of the NT would do a whole new special type of tier analysis. So instead He inspired men to write, while He became the author and finisher of our faith.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

I'm sorry, that entire paragraph really doesn't make much sense. If Jesus was God incarnate, he could have figured out how to write a message that would be quite clear to all people, down through the ages. Instead, we have several different stories with quite different messages, from the "Kingdom of God is within you" to vague pronouncements about a "Lamb of God".

The question still stands--if Jesus was God on earth, why couldn't he be bothered to write down a message for all of humanity?

"He became the author and finisher of our faith" is one of those Christian babble-speak pronouncements that is especially nonsensical. It doesn't say a thing. It's nonsense, pure and simple.

John A. Broussard · 12-13-2005, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gooch's dad

The question still stands--if Jesus was God on earth, why couldn't he be bothered to write down a message for all of humanity?

The answer is simple. If Jesus made it crystal clear that he was god on earth in such a way that everyone would know and therefore believe, there would then be no credit for faith.

See? That's the important part. To believe where there's no evidence gives one great credit. To believe where the evidence is entirely against belief is best of all.

Jesus' obfuscation is part of the great plan--to get blind followers.

Give him credit. He's got a lot of them.

Toto · 12-13-2005, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by praxeus

Toto, your post 11

Let up to my post 62 (and later 91), discussing that and the written words, too (e.g. Yeshu aloth).
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php...1&postcount=62

Could you help with your specific theory of what groups would have led to crosses on that Jewish ossuary ? And any actual evidence that crosses would not have been a Christian symbol in the 1st century ?

Thanks.

Shalom,
Steven

This is pretty basic, and I don't have time to write an essay now on early Christian symbolism. Early Christians used the fish (pisces astrological sign) and, for some reason, the anchor as their symbols. Crosses were used in a variety of non-Christian religions.

Photo of fishes and anchor

You might check this previous thread on depictions of crucifixion:
7th Century crucifixion iconography - Why so late?

Here's one Christian source:
The Cross

Quote:

The cross has become associated with Christianity. It was not, however, an early Christian symbol and, indeed, the Sabbath-keeping Churches have traditionally been iconoclastic and have abhorred the use of the cross symbol as pagan.

. . .

from here

Quote:

A Christian epitaph in Latin from the beginning of the third century opens with an invocation to the Dis Manibus (guardians of the grave). There is a break in the inscription, however, for the inclusion of two fish beside an anchor and the Greek phrase IXOUS ZWTWN (Fish of the living). This is one of the earliest examples of Christian symbolism on a funerary monument.

This is standard. It's now up to you. Find any source that claims a cross in the first or second centuries indicates Christianity, if you disagree.

Steven Avery · 12-14-2005, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

This is standard. It's now up to you. Find any source that claims a cross in the first or second centuries indicates Christianity, if you disagree.

We are discussing..

http://www.christiancourier.com/penpoints/tombVoice.htm
"While it once was claimed that the “cross�? did not appear as a symbol of Christianity until the late second century A.D., further discovery has shown that the timeframe for this symbol now must be pushed back into the first century (Sukenik, p. 365).Professor Eliezer L. Sukenik of Hebrew University
The American Journal of Archaeology (October-December, 1947, LI.4, pp. 351ff.)

Note that on one websites the attempt to discredit this information calls him "Father Sukenik a Christian believer" e.g Iasion ...
http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.c...&f=1&t=90&m=16
hmmmmm

Most of the references you had were late crucifixion iconography types of discussions. The CCOG page is more interesting, but little direct substance.

Here are two ECW references, c.200 of an early specialness to the cross as a symbol.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04517a.htm

Early in the third century Clement of Alexandria ("Strom.", VI, in P. G., IX, 305) speaks of the Cross as tou Kyriakou semeiou typon, i.e. signum Christi, "the symbol of the Lord" (St. Augustine, Tract. cxvii, "In Joan."; De Rossi, "Bull. d'arch. crist", 1863, 35, and "De titulis christianis Carthaginiensibus" in Pitra, "Spicilegium Solesmense", IV, 503).

The cross, therefore, appears at an early date as an element of the liturgical life of the faithful, and to such an extent that in the first half of the third century

Tertullian could publicly designate the Christian body as "crucis religiosi", i.e. devotees of the Cross (Apol., c. xvi, P. G., I, 365-66

=======
They were writing this at about the same time that we have your referenced fish iconography.

Apparently we don't have much extant Jewish or Christian symbology in the first centuries. Making this discovery that much more interesting, especially with the unusual writings on the outside of two of the ossuaries.

So I will repeat both unanswered questions.

The first one you didn't even try to answer, although I appreciate that you took the time to actually address the issue to an extent.

Could you help with your specific theory of what groups would have led to crosses on that Jewish ossuary ?

And any actual evidence that crosses would not have been a Christian symbol in the 1st century ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

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12-13-2005, 04:24 AM	#116
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	You mean Schiffman, the Orthodox Jewish scholar?

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