Boomeister

Even Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson have supporters.
Would we hate somebody so much that we would allow someone like Barabbas to be set free? Was that even Jewish custom to let someone go in another person's place? Why not crucify Barabbas and Jesus? That didn't make sense either. Also, Bar-Abbas means Son of the Father. Interesting.


Boomeister

Diogenes the Cynic

Mark doesn't claim that the release of a prisoner was a Jewish tradition but a custom for Pilate at Passover.

In reality there is no record that Pilate (or any other Roman) ever had any such tradition.

Vorkosigan

NOT REMSBURG!

Look, this list is totally bogus. It contains numerous errors. Putting up nonsense that is easily refuted, like Remsburg's list, makes us look stupid. Remsburg's list is naive anti-Christianism, low-level atheist apologetics aimed at low-level thinking of fundie whackjobs. It won't work against anyone who knows their history...

Josephus -- OK, should have noticed.

Philo-Judaeus -- OK, should have noticed

Seneca -- OK, probably should have noticed

Pliny the Elder -- a definite maybe, as he wrote histories, but focused many of them on military matters, and they cover Nero and after. The only arguable case for him is his Natural History, but even that is iffy.

Suetonius -- a definite maybe as he is second century.

Juvenal -- Juvenal wrote satires during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian and is not a contemporary. So doesn't fit the demand of contemporaries, and I see no reason for him to mention anything about Jesus' death.

Martial -- born in Spain in 40, went to Rome. Wrote satires of everything. Doesn't appear to mention Christians, so no idea why he should mention anything about Jesus.

Persius -- AD 34-62. Six short satires that are largely Stoic in character survive. Why he should be expected to mention anything about Jesus is a mystery. This is simply using erudition as a bludgeon instead of as a tool to illuminate.

Plutarch -- 45-125. Plutarch wrote lives of Greek and Roman heroes paired. Why he should be expected to mention outre events in Judea is a mystery. More bad argument.

Justus of Tiberius -- No surviving writings. Photius in 9th century said he didn't mention Jesus.

Apollonius -- Which one? This isn't even clear.

Pliny the Younger -- Does mention Christians. Not a contemporary of Jesus.

Tacitus -- allegedly mentions Christians. Not a contemporary of Jesus.

Quintilian -- ROTFLMAO. Quintilian was a teacher of rhetoric who wrote a book on rhetoric pedagogy. Why he should mention Jesus is a mystery to me. Born in 35 CE, didn't start teaching and writing until 68.

Lucanus -- wrote ONE work on the Roman civil war of the first century BCE whose unreliability is well known. Why he should be expected to mention Jesus or Christianity is a mystery.

Epictetus -- for pete's sake! Didn't leave any writings. So how can he mention Jesus?

Silius Italicus -- b ~25 CE, d ~ 101 CE. Wrote a terrible epic about the Punic War. Why he should be expected to mention Jesus or Christianity is a mystery.

I don't have time to bother with the rest. You can see that Remsburg is simply beating people over the head with erudition, hoping that they won't crack an encyclopedia to find out that Silius Italicus was like the worst epic poet who ever lived, and wrote about stuff that occurred long before Jesus died and had no interest in events of his own time, literarily, anyway. The idea that Epictetus (who didn't leave any works), Arrian (who wrote a history of Alexander), Silius Italicus (who wrote on the Punic Wars), Columella (who wrote on agriculture) or Paterculus (who wrote before Jesus' time!) would mention Jesus is absurd.

Scholarship on this issue -- especially skeptical scholarship -- from prior to 1950 is shot through with bad, bad history. Like Remsburg's, for example. Avoid it like the plague. As you can see above, Remsburg's list includes (a)people who didn't leave any writings (b) unspecified writers (which Apollonius?) (c) writers who published before Jesus died; (d) writers who wrote on events that took place before Jesus' death such as the Punic Wars or the Civil Wars, (e) idiosyncratic names (Dion Prusaeus is more commonly known as Dio Chrysostom), (f) writers who wrote on completely unrelated topics; and (g) writers who wrote long after Jesus died about events that took place before he was born. Since anyone can do what I just did, take five minutes on the Internet to research these names, it is obvious that Remsburg should never, ever, be used in debates with someone who is seriously interested in Christian origins, because they will hand you your head with your mouth still flapping.

Toto

If you are going to quote Remsberg, read him directly instead of reading Frank Zindler.

Rembsberg's The Christ Chapter 2

In defense of Remberg, he wrote in 1909, and he is more interested in disproving the existence of the divine Jesus Christ than the possible historical marginal Jew Jesus son of Jospeh. If you read his Chapter 2, he is not claiming that each of the authors on that list would have been expected to mention Jesus, just that there are surviving documents from that era, and that if Jesus had been divine and had done the miraculous things claimed, historians would have been writing a lot about him.

jonesg

Rejection ,as others say, was because Jesus did not fit their expectations , but ask yourself if the expectations were of man or of God.
Having expectations of God are from the mind of man and not of God.

But ultimately Jesus did overthrow the roman empire, look at what it was converted to.

Jesus did pull down the temple, they abandoned some of their social laws soon after his death. 1 animal sacricfice 2. strict adherence to the LAW (of moses) 3. Saturday sabath, soon after Jesus died thousands of Jews observed Sunday(when he rose). The point Jesus made was not lost on even his enemies.

The Jews wanted a political/military leader, but God is in charge of what we need.

There is little written because oral tradition was in play and the Romans didn't seem to care about what was going on at the poverty level.

Diogenes the Cynic

Let's just say he did not fit the expectations of the Hebrew Bible.
Jesus had nothing to do with it.

It was too little too late anyway. Jerusalem and the Temple had already been destroyed. Jesus did nothing to restore the Davidic Kingdom or protect Isreal. He died without fulfilling a single Messianic expectation.
Um...no...the Romans pulled down the Temple.
Not true. Animal sacrifice is still just as valid as it ever was in orthodox Judaism. The problem is that it can only be done at the Temple altar. As soon as the temple is restored animal sacrifice will resume.
Completely false.
No they didn't. Jewish-Christians observed the Sabbath on Saturday. It was only converted pagans outside of Palestine who started doing it on Sunday.
What point?
So why did God lie in the Hebew Bible then?

It's a misuse of language to say that the "Jews rejected Jesus." The Jewish Messiah is not somebody who can be "accepted or rejected." He either fulfills the expectations or he does not. Jesus did not. "Rejection" does not come into play. The Messiahship is not a birthright and is not something to be taken on faith.

Queen of Swords

And even if this was the case, why would Pilate offer to release a murderer? I mean, wouldn't he be making life that much more difficult for himself if he let murderers go?

Amaleq13

It is ever worse than that, QoS. Barabbas is identified as a convincted seditionist. This story requires us to believe that Pilate was offering a convicted enemy of the Roman Empire clemency in respect for a Jewish religious holiday.

Queen of Swords

I should visit this forum more often. Each time I think the bible cannot get any more implausible, you guys prove me wrong. :thumbs:

Enda80

"It is ever worse than that, QoS. Barabbas is identified as a convincted seditionist. This story requires us to believe that Pilate was offering a convicted enemy of the Roman Empire clemency in respect for a Jewish religious holiday."

Imagine if at the Tokyo Trials, the US governement allowed the Japanese to vote whether they wanted to to free him or Yamashita for Children's Day*. Or if the US caught a bunch of Islamic terrorists including Osama Bin Laden, and then allowed the world's Muslims to vote to have one of them freed for Ramadan. The mind boggles.

*An actual holiday in Japan. Pokemon did an episode on it not shown overseas since they did not feel non-Japanese would understand the holiday.