Johann_Kaspar

Where is the evidence?

Celsus

Unless I misunderstand you, Ladyshea is quite right. There are 27(?) different "Jesus's" mentioned in Josephus alone, for example. The second or first century BCE Apocryphal text "Sirach" is actually fully called "Jesus, Son of Sirach" as another prominent Jesus in the Bible itself.

Joel

lpetrich

The same can be said of many medieval heretics, who were often hunted down and slaughtered mercilessly. The main difference between the Reformation and previous heretical movements is that the early Protestants and their supporters succeeded in fighting the Church and its supporters to a draw.

Furthermore, if you believe that you will be rewarded in Heaven and get to see one's persecutors burn in Hell, then why not?

And as to Herod's alleged baby-killing, the Gospel of Matthew is our only primary source for that alleged massacre. Nowhere else does the New Testament mention it, and outside sources like Philo and Josephus do not mention it, even though such an act would be completely in character with the way that Josephus describes Herod.

And where does Biff the Unclean get his nonsense about "Christna"? I'd like to see him point to primary sources.

Llyricist:
Any reason that words spelled for a "Y" sound were translated to english words with a "J" sound? (and spanish words with an "h" sound?, especially since spanish is latin based language).

"J" was invented in the Middle Ages as a variant of "I", just as "U" and "W" are variants of "V". This happened because the words got mispronounced in various ways over the centuries; what was originally /y/ in Latin became /dZ/ and /Z/ in Italian and French and /h/ in Spanish, three of Latin's descendant languages. After William the Conqueror's conquests, English-speakers ended up borrowing a lot of words from Old French, where "j" was still /dZ/, borrowing both the pronunciation and the spelling. But in English, "j" continued to be /dZ/, while in France, "j" got changed further to /Z/.

Such mispronunciations produce sound shifts that are often very regular, and such shifts are useful for working out the history of languages; what ones share some ancestor, when did some words come into a language, etc.

As to Jesus, Zeus, and Jupiter, I agree that "Jesus" is not derived from "Zeus". Actually, the Zeus-Jupiter connection is shared Indo-European ancestry. Zeus was often called Zeus Pater ("Father Zeus"), and Jupiter is short for Jovis Pater ("Father Jove"). These names are derived from an ancestral Indo-European form that looked something like *dyeus p@ter (something like "Father Sky", order reversed like the Latin and Greek forms).

Ancestral Indo-European was likely spoken just north of the Black Sea about 4000-3000 BCE -- which makes Father Sky one of the oldest-known deity names. However, Father Sky was not an exclusivist deity; he shared the Indo-European pantheon with a deity of thunder and war who liked to fight snake monsters with a cudgel (Thor, Indra, Hercules, etc.), and various other deities, and as the ancestral-IE speakers spread out, the adopted the worship of many of the deities worshipped by those they overran and conquered.

contracycle

redundant remark deleted

Gregg

This is just so funny. Christians today are constantly complaining about how hard it is to be a Christian, how they are being wronged and persecuted by our sinful secular society. So why don't they just renounce Christ and give in to the sin?

But seriously, Huggy, it's not like "Mark" received a large advance from Roman House, wrote his gospel, and had it published to great fanfare and publicity. There were no printing presses or bookstores. "Mark's" gospel was probably copied and circulated mainly within small Christian communities and used as a liturgical, teaching, and inspirational tool. Later on other Christian writers took "Mark's" basic framework and adapted it to suit their own theologies.

It took a long time for the gospels to emerge into the consciousness of the wider Roman world.

Johann_Kaspar

Hi Celsus,

Sorry, yes, there is a missunderstanding. "Jesus" is a greek name translation. Hebrew speaking people will never call themselves "Jesus". The example I am giving : it is William Clinton, not Wilhelm Clinton (German) nor Guillaume Clinton (French). I mean you will never find the laters in any newspapers be it in Germany or in France. And can you imagine any US newspaper writing "Guillaume" Clinton or an UK one "Antoine" Blair? As I said: no way. I do not know how it is in English, but the French translation should read Josué. Not "Jesus".

Ieoshua (or whatever the transcription from Hebrew) is indeed a very common Hebrew name. I agree. In my opinion to use the word "Jesus" for an Hebrew character is the very first fraud.

Best wishes,
Johann

lpetrich

Kilgore Trout:
Jesus wanted to change the laws of the Torah.

Johann_Kaspar:
Where is the evidence?

Rather contradictory. Jesus Christ claimed that he will uphold the law, down to every last detail, while revoking some of it, like:

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
One must not work on the Sabbath, no matter what
Adultery is to be punished with stoning to death

"Jesus" is a greek name translation. Hebrew speaking people will never call themselves "Jesus".

Except that such "translation" was common back then; consider the Septuagint's "translations" of a lot of Biblical names, some of which we English-speakers continue to use, like "Moses" for "Moshe", "Solomon" for "Shlomo", etc.

Kilgore Trout

Yes, lpetrich is right. Lots of examples in Matthew 5 right after the sermon on the mount. You are not supposed to change the Law in the slightest way, and Jesus changed lots of laws.

If Jesus didn't revoke the Torah how come christians ignore almost all the rules in the Torah?

Hazel-rah

Just in case anyone is still interested in this little tangent:

http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/p...cs/word30.html

Shows how the PIE root *deiwo- turned into all sorts of interesting words, including deus, Zeus, devil, divine and even Tuesday.

Amaleq13

I think that should be attributed to the efforts of Paul.