Malachi151

Why do you think that early Chrisitan thought that "Jesus" was crucified at all?

There are at least three completely different tellings of the death of Jesus.

The Jewish teaching of the death of "Jesus", Yeshua in Aramaic, is that he was stoned to death and then hung from a tree.

The Greek telling of the death of "Jesus", Iesous in Greek, is that he was hung from a pole.

The Roman telling of the death of Jesus is that he was crucified, but there is no evidence that people thought Jesus was crucified until like at least 300 or 4000 AD. The image of the crucifixion of Jesus does not appear until around 700 AD.

Even the Bible says that Jesus was hung from a tree in Acts.

There are several early Christian writings that say Christians worshiped crosses for reasosn having nothing at all to do with crucifixion and early Chrisitan authors don't talk anything about his crucifixion.

Someone please present the earliest non-Biblical mention of the crucifixion of Jesus on a cross.

The Biblical mentions of crucifixion have been retranslated to say "crucifixion" after the fact me thinks.

As for the historical truth of Jesus, first of all you have to define what makes a description historical.

Second of all, there are many, many examples of other stories about other figures, whom we know for a fact were mythological, that read just the same as the stories about Jesus.

Thirdly, I think that it is pretty much agreed that there is not one single first hand account of Jesus, including the books of the Bible, so claiming that he "had to be real" is nonsense because once your are removed from a first person source, anything can be made up.

Many people claim that "he had to be real in order to inspire so many followers", but HE did NOT inspire so many followers, even by the most honest Christian accounts.

Christianity didn't because a popular movement until over 100 years after Jesus supposed death. Christianity became popular in Greece, hence the reason that the name for the religion is a Greek name.

His historical reality played no role in the popularization of the religion.

During his lifetime, at best one can say that he would have had a very small and almost unknown following.

The very fact that he was claimed ot have had "12" apostles is itself a very significant clue that the entire story was a myth, because 12 was the universally recognized number of the zodiac that was used in many different death-ressurection-god myths.

The fact that jesus was symbolized with a beam of light coming out of his head is yet another clue that he was a myth, this is the same symbol that was used for many other sun-god myths.

I mean, it goes on and on.

Jesus was a complete myth, just face the facts.

At best, the Jesus character was a myth that was constructed on a few pieces of gosip that may have been based on facts, like "Yeah, I also heard about this guy in XYZ villiage that attacked the money changers in the temples, maybe that was "Jesus"...

There is certianly no evidence whatsoever that the Jesus story is based on any kind of solid accounting of an individual's life, and indeed all of the evidence points the other way.

Vorkosigan

The whole honor-shame culture thing is horribly overblown and rigid (speaking as one who has lived most of his life in just such a culture). Why would a Jew have been dishonored by a Roman crucifixion? And why, if crucifixion is so unutterably shameful, is it so widespread throughout the entertainment fiction of the era?

The whole emphasis on the crucifixion as embarrassment represents a concerted attempt to rescue the embarrassment criterion from uselessness. The early Christians saw the Crucified One in a vision. They were stuck with the Crucifixion because whoever founded the cult saw that, just as the early Taipings were stuck with the ridiculous story that Hong Xiu-quan had risen to heaven and been given new bowels, and the Ghost Dancers were compelled to dance and learn songs to make the grass grow and swallow up the white men, and the Heaven's Gaters were stuck with the ridiculous story of the UFO that would take them to heaven, and the Xhosa were stuck with the ridiculous idea that if they slaughtered the central item of their lives, cattle, the whites would leave, These are all ridiculous stories that many people of the time and place rejected.

Of course the vision of the crucified one was ridiculous and embarrassing. That is why most people rejected it. Just as with the Xhosa Cattle Slaughter:

• In April 1856 two young Xhosa girls were sent to chase birds from cornfields near the River Gxara. The elder girl, Nongqawuse, reported later that while they were drinking at the water's edge two mysterious figures materialised alongside them. They told the girls to take a message back to their kraal that a great resurrection was about to take place, and that all the people should kill all their cattle as these would no longer be needed. Once the great day came there would be no shortages of any kind, so they must tell their people that there must be no sowing or cultivation of crops and all stored grain must be thrown away. Once this had been carried out, the strangers told the girls, no further work must be done. And when all the Xhosa cattle had been killed the new people would come, sweeping all the whites into the sea.
  
  The girls duly carried the message back to the kraal. At first everyone simply laughed, ridiculing them for their naivety. But the girls went back to the river the next day and received the same message. Nongqawuse was told to ask her uncle Mhalakaza, who was something of a seer, to come with her to the river in four days' time.
  
  Four days later Mhalakaza went to the river with his niece, but he could not see the figures the girl assured him were there and could hear their words only when Nongqawuse translated them for him. This is what she claimed they said: "We are the people who have come to order you to kill your cattle, to consume your corn and not to cultivate anymore." Mhalakaza was instructed to take this message to the paramount chief of the Xhosa, Sarili, and to all the other chiefs.
  
  .......
  
  With Sarili admitting that he believed Mhalkaza's message, the whole Xhosa people became divided between 'believers' and 'unbelievers', with the large majority following the paramount chief.

It's absolutely irrelevant whether the story is embarrassing or not. Such a position places too much emphasis on content and not enough on the sales pitch and structure. Cults the world over sell ridiculous and embarrassing ideas to those around them. Indeed, the scandalousness of the idea may actual be a selling point, and something that convinces others that the story might really be effective -- I mean, who would make up something as dumb as seeing people in a vision who asked you to kill all your cattle, the center of your life?

Vorkosigan

jakejonesiv

Did allegedly dying from castration make Attis historical? Would you consider the possibility that he was mythical?

Jake

Ben C Smith

I disagree with you there. I do not agree with everything Malina, Pilch, Rohrbaugh, et alii have to say on the matter, but I do see a big difference between ancient honor cultures and modern western cultures.

Why would the nationality of the persons stripping away your honor matter?

Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, pages 81-82 (underscoring mine):

A brief word should also be said about the Greek romances generally. Crucifixion of the hero or heroine is part of their stock in trade, and only a higher form of this 'recreational literature', as represented say by Heliodorus' Aethiopica, scorns such cruelty. In the Babyloniaca written by the Syrian Iamblichus, the hero is twice overtaken by this fearful punishment, but on both occasions he is taken down from the cross and freed. Habrocomes, the chief figure in the romance by Xenophon of Ephesus which has already been mentioned, is first tortured almost to death and later crucified. Even his beloved, Anthea, is in danger of being crucified after she has killed a robber in self-defence. However, heroes cannot on any account be allowed to suffer such a painful and shameful death — this can only befall evil-doers. Chariton of Aphrodisias, who was perhaps still writing in the first century AD, gives a vivid description of crucifixion as a punishment for slaves: sixteen slaves from the domains of the satrap Mithridates escaped from their lodgings, but were recaptured and, chained together by necks and feet, were led to the place of execution, each carrying his own cross. 'The executioners supplemented the necessary death penalty by other wretched practices such as were effective as an example to the rest (of the slaves)', i.e. the whole proceedings were designed above all as a deterrent. The hero of the romance is saved at the last moment, just before he is to be nailed to the cross.

And from note 36 on page 82:

Crucifixion simply represents the supreme threat to the hero, and screws up the tension to the highest pitch.

The argument on this thread has been that early Christians consciously invented the crucifixion from vague OT passages like Psalm 22.16. To wit:

You and I appear to be in agreement that the crucifixion was more probably handed to the early Christians, not invented, even if your preferred mode of handing it to them is in a vision.

And I think I agree with you that the scandal of the cross alone cannot aptly distinguish between receiving the crucifixion through an authoritative vision and receiving it through the historical event itself. Other factors must come into play on that matter.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

The ancients were quite conscious of the distinction between recent history and the distant mists of the mythical past. All manner of strange and scandalous deeds are attributed to the gods in the primordial age. Death by crucifixion was attributed to the recently deceased human being Jesus, and by people who wanted him to be taken absolutely seriously. That seems a very different order of business.

Ben.

jjramsey

Actually, Vork teaches English in Taiwan, so he is in an Eastern honor-shame culture. That said, he's also in a culture that has a lot of contact with the West, which may mitigate that somewhat.

jakejonesiv

The claim to antiquity was satisfied by appropriating the Jewish scriptures. This gave Christianity the "street cred" that the other mystery religions lacked.

The alleged crucifixion was not an embarrassment to early Christians. The real embarrassment is the one shared by modern day SoTCO; Christianity is not a unique religion. From the virgin birth to the sacraments, there are pagan parallels that are contemporary with or predate the rise of Christianity.

The church fathers weren’t sufficiently stupid to create pagan parallels where none existed.

This whole discussion is really quite amusing. People who believe that Christianity is unique are forced to argue just the opposite to stay in the game.

Jake Jones

Steven Avery

The verbal reading (dug or pierced) vs the noun reading (like a lion) is

a) a minority reading within the Masoretic Text tradition
b) supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls
c) supported by a wide variety of later rabbinical writings.

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

jakejonesiv

There is nothing in the Pauline epistles about Jesus being a recent human being. The only thing recent (to the time of the Pauline authors) is the preaching that reveals him.

It is not stated when Jesus was crucified or by whom, only unnamed archons. There are no historical anchors to peg the alleged life of Jesus.

If you wan to play the "dim mists of the mythical past card", see Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 2:7, Colossians 1:26 , Revelation 13:8 .

Crucifixion goes back at least to the Persians. It wouldn't have to be recent. And, due to the Johnny-one-note nature of these debates, the possibilty that crucifixion was not the original means of death of the god has not been discussed in this thread. We have a competing execution that entails hanging an already dead body on a tree.

"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:" Gal. 3:13.

"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree." Acts 5:30.

"And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:" Acts 10:39.

If the original story of Jesus had him slain and hung on a tree in accordance with the command of Duet 21:22, then the haste of the alleged burial is explained.

I am just going by memory now (always a bad thing) but some scholars have suggested that "even by a cross" is an interpolation into the Phillipians 2 hymn, because it spoils the meter. (I will try to remember to look up the reference.) if this is true, crucifixion could have been a recent innovation.

Jake

JoeWallack

JW:
Your combination of not correcting Didymus' claim that a first century Jew would have seen "pierced" and further stating "The Masoretic text is obviously corrupt at Psalm 22.16" has, in the words of the Bully in the classic Three O'Clock High "made me angry and now I have to work it off."

For starters, copies in the same language are an order of magnitude better evidence than translations. Translations into related languages are much better evidence than translations into unrelated languages. And, the cruncher, as the Brits Melah would way, we have guaranteed or your soul back evidence (including from Bart Ehrman, only the greatest Text Critter of all time) that Christianity Dishonestly Transmitted while on the other side we have no such evidence regarding The Rabbis of Blessed memory.

The translation of the above is that I Am going to rip you a New Testament on the proper translation of Psalm 22:16/17 my young liberal christian friend.

Moderators, please start a New Thread regarding the proper Translation of Psalm 22:16/17 "like a lion" vs. "pierced".



Joseph

INTERPRETER, n.
One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.


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