Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 09-24-2009, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by premjan

Didn't realize Constantine was British.

Nobody really knows. Evidence suggests that he fabricated his own geneology.

bacht · 09-24-2009, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgoodguy

Any traces of the Historical Jesus would have been wiped out by the Romans and Jewish rebels in the Roman Jewish wars and later by the Roman Church as it eliminated any opposition.

We do know of Jewish Christians whose Jesus was not a god, born of a virgin and was not physically resurrected, but they were eliminated by the Roman army and the Roman church.

The Romans did not wipe out all the history and traces of the Messiah called Simon Barcocheba. Even Church writers, Justin and Eusebius, wrote about Barcocheba

The Church and NT writers did not wipe out stories where the Pharisees called Jesus the Devil.

Now, if Josephus, being a Pharisee wrote that Jesus was a Devil, and deserved to be crucified, then that would have been regarded as extremely credible evidence.

There is simple no indication that the Church would have wiped out all the history of Jesus that they claimed existed, if there was really a character called Jesus who supposedly did miracles that was deified after being crucified for blasphemy.

It would appear that the Church could not find any history and then had to manufacture some.

I guess it's theoretically possible that some apocalyptic prophet like Jesus had a brief career in the generation before the first revolt, but as you say there's nothing to support his historical reality other than the insistence by later Christians that SOMEONE lay at the base of the stories.

Maybe there was a group of people expecting the Day of the Lord, judgment and resurrection. Such people might be convinced they had seen a vision of Jesus as first of the resurrected, a sign of the end.

Or, the whole thing could be a product of post-70 writers. I'm beginning to suspect we'll never know, unless the RCC has some crazy stuff stashed away in some dusty archive.

DrZoidberg · 09-24-2009, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IBelieveInHymn

Quote:

Originally Posted by eccles

The BIblical God: YWYH

The Hebrew Spoken Name for God is Adhonai. In writing it is YWYH, yet this tetragrammaton is always pronounced as Adhonai. It is the plural of Adhon, which in Greek translates as Adonis with the usual meaning of 'The Lord'.

The Bible God is YHWH. That is because there were no vowels in the Hebrew language. YHWH is an abreviation for "YAHWEH". Also, some Jews believed saying God's name out loud was considered blasphemy.

According to the Bible, Yahweh is the personal name of the one true God who delivered Israel from Egypt and gave the Ten Commandments, "Then God spoke all these words. He said, ‘I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you lived as slaves. You shall have no other gods to rival me.’” Yahweh revealed himself to Israel as a jealous God who would not permit his people to make idols or follow gods of other nations or worship gods known by other names, "I am Yahweh, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, or my praise to idols." Yahweh demanded the role of the one true God in the hearts and minds of Israel, "Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one: and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

יהוה is composed of four Hebrew consonants, and it occurs 6,828 times in the approved consonantal Hebrew text of the Bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton

Not quite. The problem with the Torah/Old testament is that it describes paganism, and two different pagan branches, Elohim and Yahwe. But is then creatively interpreted to be about monotheism. I've read quite a few books on this now, and to my knowledge there are no scholars who don't hold this view.

Different books describe different types of theology. It's either polytheist or henotheist depending on how late it is written. None of it describes monotheism.

And obviously Jewish religion was an evolution of earlier religions in the area, all of which were polytheistic.

bacht · 09-24-2009, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrZoidberg

Not quite. The problem with the Torah/Old testament is that it describes paganism, and two different pagan branches, Elohim and Yahwe. But is then creatively interpreted to be about monotheism. I've read quite a few books on this now, and to my knowledge there are no scholars who don't hold this view.

Different books describe different types of theology. It's either polytheist or henotheist depending on how late it is written. None of it describes monotheism.

And obviously Jewish religion was an evolution of earlier religions in the area, all of which were polytheistic.

Should we assume that OT monotheism was a creation of post-Exilic priests and scribes? They certainly seem to have put a lot of effort into editing the older laws and histories in this direction.

show_no_mercy · 09-24-2009, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eccles

In a remarkable aside, the Church further admits that "the earliest of the extant manuscripts [of the New Testament], it is true, do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century AD" (Catholic Encyclopedia, op. cit., pp. 656-7).

It's actually not that remarkable at all. There are no autographs of any writer from antiquity. This argument should only be used against naive, sola scripture fundamentalists/Biblical literalist who think that the New Testament dropped down from the sky fully intact, and that we still have that version.

Huon · 09-24-2009, 07:36 AM

In his Church History, good old Eusebius shows clearly that there was not a list of authorized books, and un-authorized books. There were "accepted" books, and "disputed" books. The disputed books could be accepted in a region, and refused in the next region. Before Constantine, there was no authority who could impose a list of authorized books to the Christians of the East and the West. And after Constantine, there still were discussions.

aa5874 · 09-24-2009, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

I guess it's theoretically possible that some apocalyptic prophet like Jesus had a brief career in the generation before the first revolt, but as you say there's nothing to support his historical reality other than the insistence by later Christians that SOMEONE lay at the base of the stories.

If Jesus of the NT did exist it is accepted that he could only have been human.

But, there is a massive problem. The Church writers and the authors of the NT claimed or implied Jesus was fully God and fully man. No such creature or similar entity is known to have existed anywhere on earth at any time

Jesus of the NT never existed. Jesus of the NT is not biological but mythological.

I can only look for a person after they have been described to me. I do not fabricate my own description of Jesus from imagination and then look for for what I have imagined.

If I told you to look for someone, you must first get a detailed description of the person. The Church gave a detailed description of their Jesus.

This Jesus cannot be found anywhere in history outside the Church, except for forgeries in Josephus.

If you want me to look for another Jesus just show me the source of antiquity that wrote about that other Jesus.

Josephus wrote about several persons called Jesus and did not claim that they were Gods, perhaps they existed.

Kapyong · 09-24-2009, 03:30 PM

Gday,

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

It's actually not that remarkable at all. There are no autographs of any writer from antiquity.

Well, that's not 100% true is it?

We have various originals written in stone or tablets :

* the Pyramid Texts

* The library of Ashurbanipal including the Epic of Gilgamesh

* The Amarna Letters

* The various Egyptian palettes and stelae (e.g. Narmer Palette)

* The Rosetta stone

* The Behistun inscription

We have many original documents from ancient times.

K.

Toto · 09-24-2009, 05:59 PM

hobbyhorse split

Chaucer · 09-24-2009, 07:06 PM

BUMP

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09-24-2009, 07:36 AM	#46
Huon Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Bordeaux France Posts: 2,796	In his Church History, good old Eusebius shows clearly that there was not a list of authorized books, and un-authorized books. There were "accepted" books, and "disputed" books. The disputed books could be accepted in a region, and refused in the next region. Before Constantine, there was no authority who could impose a list of authorized books to the Christians of the East and the West. And after Constantine, there still were discussions.

09-24-2009, 05:59 PM	#49
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	hobbyhorse split

09-24-2009, 07:06 PM	#50
Chaucer Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: New York, U.S.A. Posts: 715	BUMP

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