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Old 05-06-2013, 09:33 PM   #101
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Josephus provides quite a number of historical messiah-aspirants.
Who are those historical messiah aspirants provided by Josephus?? Identify them and identify the one who was used as the historical Jesus.

Who did Jesus kill when he was a militant or ask his followers to kill?



How can that be?? You asked if Jesus was a militant so we must see if he killed anything or asked his followers to kill anything in the NT.

Jesus killed a tree when he was hungry. Is it not documented in the Canon??

Jesus killed some demons or caused some demons to be killed when he drowned some pigs. I completely forgot.

Matthew 8:30-32 KJV
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And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding .

So the devils besought him, saying , If thou cast us out , suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

And he said unto them, Go . And when they were come out , they went into the herd of swine: and, behold , the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
Jesus appears to have tricked some demons.

Would you regard Jesus as a militant because the demons died under his watch?
Josephus identified many messiah aspirants such as Judas the Galilean, his sons and many others you should know.

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Who did Jesus kill when he was a militant or ask his followers to kill?
Huh? First of all Jesus was fictional, but still I do not recall he asked his disciples to kill anybody.

As to the herd of swine, that is Joe Atwill's gig as per his book Caesar's Messiah, which I do agree to. . . but only up to a point.
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Old 05-06-2013, 09:47 PM   #102
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Josephus identified many messiah aspirants such as Judas the Galilean, his sons and many others you should know.
Judas the Galilean and his sons were not known as messiahs and were not the historical Jesus.

Do you have anyone else?

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Who did Jesus kill when he was a militant or ask his followers to kill?
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Originally Posted by Onias
Huh? First of all Jesus was fictional, but still I do not recall he asked his disciples to kill anybody.

As to the herd of swine, that is Joe Atwill's gig as per his book Caesar's Messiah, which I do agree to. . . but only up to a point.
Onias
You are one who is asking if Jesus was a militant but up to now you cannot show that Jesus was armed or that he armed his disciples and gave them orders to kill.
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Old 05-06-2013, 09:58 PM   #103
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How did the fiction become history in the first place?

There must have been a controversy if people thought Jesus was fiction.


Have a look at the "Historia Augusta".
Perhaps a better question would be when did people of antiquity realize the Jesus story was fiction?

The story of Jesus as the Son of a God must have completely plausible.

If Jesus was claimed to be or even an actual human militant then the story would be rejected as fiction.

If Jesus was a human militant then it could not have been believed that he walked on the sea, it could not be believed that he transfigured and that he resurrected.

The story of Jesus that has been found is that he was the Son of God.

Once Jesus was claimed to be the Son of God then everything that is written about him could be believed to have happened regardless of the chronology.

The story of Jesus was known to be fiction when all the human beings associated with Jesus could not be accounted for.

The story of Jesus was known to be fiction by those who invented Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline letters.

Who wrote the monstrous fables called Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline letters?

Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline letters appear to have been fabricated very late--perhaps the 4th century--but at least sometime between c305-360 CE before "Against the Galileans" and After the writings of Arnobius' "Against the Heathen".

But the pagans already had Asclepius, Apollo, Zeus, Venus, Hercules, Romulus, Remus, Isis and a host of other pagan gods.

When did the pagan people of antiquity realize that the Jewish Jesus God story was fiction?

Immediately! As soon as the story was circulated.


The Christian victors suppressed the bad press.

The bad press were the books of the heretics.





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Old 05-06-2013, 10:02 PM   #104
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Josephus identified many messiah aspirants such as Judas the Galilean, his sons and many others you should know.
Judas the Galilean and his sons were not known as messiahs and were not the historical Jesus.

Do you have anyone else?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Onias
Huh? First of all Jesus was fictional, but still I do not recall he asked his disciples to kill anybody.

As to the herd of swine, that is Joe Atwill's gig as per his book Caesar's Messiah, which I do agree to. . . but only up to a point.
Onias
You are one who is asking if Jesus was a militant but up to now you cannot show that Jesus was armed or that he armed his disciples and gave them orders to kill.
aa,
JC was not a militant or a pacifist because he was fictional.
He is only a theatrical character in the gospel play. But at times he played the part of a militant and more often he played the antithesis of the militant.

Other historical messianic figures could be John the Baptizer, Theudas, Anthronges, etc.

The main thing to consider is that the gospels and the Paulines are a rebuttal to the militant and zealous doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls.Onias
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Old 05-06-2013, 10:02 PM   #105
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Please identify a militant who used to curse Trees to kill them by the roots.

I never heard of a militant who only killed Trees when he was hungry.

Mark 11
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... for the time of figs was not yet. 14And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee here after for ever. And his disciples heard it. ...............20And in the morning, as they passed by , they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away . 22And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
Jesus was a mythological miltant to plants.

Buddha was supposed to have achieved enlightenment under a fig tree.

But maybe Jesus was just an impatient S.O.B.?




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Old 05-06-2013, 10:50 PM   #106
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Btw, although I entitled this thread "Was the Original Jesus a Militant", I should have put Jesus in quotes: Was the Original 'Jesus' a Militant?

because I was suggesting the original 'Jesus' was not the fictional gospel Jesus but another person, a historical person who inspired the gospel author to create a tale that presented a previous historical person who was largely the antithesis of gospel Jesus.
Name and evidence for the historicity of the figure you are referencing....

Onias, put your cards on the table. Who was this figure that you keep referring to?? Unless you can do this - your talking through your hat!
The model for the fictional JC would obviously be others who were aspiring to be the messiah in that time period. . . . historical people like Judas the Galilean or his sons, Simon or James. Of course these people did not have coins made in their image so you will likely not regard them as historical even though the historian Josephus writes of them.
Onias
Onias, I'll keep repeating this: You have no historical evidence for the above figures that you want to reference in connection with the gospel figure of JC. Zero, nothing.

Consequently, what you are doing is futile as an avenue for searching for early christian history. Your statement: "historical people like Judas the Galilean or his sons, Simon or James", is factually erroneous. You have to provide evidence for their historicity. You can't simply name them as *historical* until you can provide evidence for their existence.

So, Onias, if you keep this up - I'll keep reminding you that your statements about these figures being historical is nothing but speculation.

And if it's speculation that interests you re Judas the Galilean and his two sons - consider this:

Josephus places Judas in around 6 c.e. This is around 70 years from 63 b.c. What happened in that year?


Aristobulus II

Quote:
Aristobulus and his son were captured in 63 BCE. Marc Antony had been commander of the cavalry under Gabinius, consul of the Roman province of Syria. Marc Antony was the man who scaled Aristobulus' fortification and subdued his forces with several men. This is the point that Aristobulus II and his son were taken prisoner. However, Aristobulus II escaped in 57 BCE

Aristobulos, suspicious of Pompey, entrenched himself in the fortress of Alexandrium, but when the Romans summoned their army, he surrendered and undertook to deliver Jerusalem over to them. However, since many of his followers however were unwilling to open the gates, the Romans besieged and captured the city by force, badly damaging city and temple. Hyrcanus was restored as High Priest, but deprived of political authority.

Aristobulus was on his way to Judaea with his son Alexander, in 49 BC when "he was taken off by poison given him by those of Pompey's party". His son Alexander was beheaded by the Roman commander Scipio at Antioch.

His son Antigonus led a rebellion against Rome 40 BC but was defeated and killed in 37 BC.
This history indicates, suggests, that the Josephan writer is basing his story about Judas the Galilean and his two sons, Simon and James, on the historical figures of Aristobulus II and his two sons, Alexander and Antigonus. i.e. the Josephan writer is replaying an earlier historical account within a new, later, time frame - the Josephan writer is replaying the historical tape 70 years after the historical event of 63 b.c.
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Old 05-06-2013, 11:13 PM   #107
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But the pagans already had Asclepius, Apollo, Zeus, Venus, Hercules, Romulus, Remus, Isis and a host of other pagan gods.

When did the pagan people of antiquity realize that the Jewish Jesus God story was fiction?

Immediately! As soon as the story was circulated.


The Christian victors suppressed the bad press.

The bad press were the books of the heretics.
What you say cannot be shown to be true or even plausible.

It was near impossible for people who believed in mythology to have regarded the very same or similar mythology as fiction.

If the Jesus story was composed 300 years after the event that Jesus was the Son of God of the Jews how in the world could people who believed in multiple Myth Gods prove another Myth God did not exist?

It is precisely for the very fact that people of antiquity believed in Myths like Asclepius, Apollo, Zeus, Venus, Hercules, Romulus, Remus, Isis that the Jesus story appeared completely plausible.

It was already believed that the God of the Jews had actual Sons in Jewish Mythology.

Job 1:6 KJV
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Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
It was not necessary for a 4th century Roman Church to invent stories about the Son of a God but only to Hijack them and claim it was theirs from the beginning.

The Roman Church LIED about the Donation of Constantine, they Forged many documents like the False Decretals and they also LIED about the History of the Jesus cult. There was NO Roman Church in the 1st century with Peter as their bishop. The NT Canon of the Church is compilation of forgeries or false attribution.

The Jesus cult started in the 2nd century and there was NO bishop of Rome until the 4th century or perhaps even later.
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Old 05-07-2013, 01:03 AM   #108
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If the Jesus story was composed 300 years after the event that Jesus was the Son of God of the Jews how in the world could people who believed in multiple Myth Gods prove another Myth God did not exist?
Temples for one. Worship and belief in gods of all descriptions were sponsored by the Roman Emperors in the form of the construction and maintenance of temples, shrines and figurines to these gods. The largely pagan people who believed in multiple Myth Gods could prove another Myth God did not exist by asking the believers for a temple or a shrine of pilgrimage. But we know that the first pilgrims to the Holy Land were Constantine's mother-in-law and Constantine's mother.

Consider the opening phrase to the Nag Hammadi Codex 7.3 Apocalypse of Peter:

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Apocalypse of Peter, Translated by James Brashler and Roger A. Bullard

As the Savior was sitting in the temple in the three hundredth (year) of the covenant .....
The author goes on to write that: "The Bishops are dry canals". Jesus is presented as laughing about the whole situation ... "He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus."


What temple was the Saviour sitting in in the three hundredth (year) of the covenant ?


Quote:
It is precisely for the very fact that people of antiquity believed in Myths like Asclepius, Apollo, Zeus, Venus, Hercules, Romulus, Remus, Isis that the Jesus story appeared completely plausible.
The pagan Roman Empire was littered with temples and shrines and figurines to Asclepius, Apollo, Zeus, Venus, Hercules, Romulus, Remus and Isis. The only report of a figurine for the Jesus figure before the 4th century appears in the 4th century forgery known as the "Historia Augusta".

It is true that some gods lived in books, such as the canonical books of Plato, and that the philosophical schools preserved these books by means of apostolic lineages.


Quote:
It was not necessary for a 4th century Roman Church to invent stories about the Son of a God but only to Hijack them and claim it was theirs from the beginning.
There is no doubt that the Hebrew Bible Greek LXX was hijacked for its antiquity.

But the only so-called evidence by which the claim that the New Testament was hijacked and not just fabricated in the 4th century is:

1) palaeographical dating attestations on Egyptian papyri fragments,
2) Eusebius monumental "Church History"
3) a handful of dubious entries in Giovanni de Rossi and Pope Pius IX's "Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae".
4) the Dura-Europos-Yale "house-church".

Therefore it is not unambiguously certain whether the new and strange nation of Christians was hijacked or invented by Constantine's revolutionary regime.


Note that in the Acts of John the Theologian, the Jews write a book to the Emperor Domitian, complaining about a "new and strange nation". As a result, Domitian flies into a rage an persecutes the "New and Strange Nation of Christians. This term "new and strange nation" is a recognised Eusebian trope. The author of this text thus wrote after Eusebius had coined the phrase.


Sorry about the tangentiation Onias.

IMO the Edward Gibbon quote (post #24) summarises the case for a militant Jesus.



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Old 05-07-2013, 07:09 AM   #109
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.....It was not necessary for a 4th century Roman Church to invent stories about the Son of a God but only to Hijack them and claim it was theirs from the beginning.
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Originally Posted by mountainman
There is no doubt that the Hebrew Bible Greek LXX was hijacked for its antiquity.

But the only so-called evidence by which the claim that the New Testament was hijacked and not just fabricated in the 4th century is:

1) palaeographical dating attestations on Egyptian papyri fragments,
2) Eusebius monumental "Church History"
3) a handful of dubious entries in Giovanni de Rossi and Pope Pius IX's "Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae".
4) the Dura-Europos-Yale "house-church".

Therefore it is not unambiguously certain whether the new and strange nation of Christians was hijacked or invented by Constantine's revolutionary regime....
I am delighted that you list some of the evidence that the Jesus cult religion was Hijacked.

Once there is evidence that the Romans Hijacked the religion of the Jesus cult of Christians then my argument can be maintained forever--the Romans are NOT the origin of the Jesus cult religion--they Hijacked it and claimed it was their own from the beginning by introducing a massive amount of fraud and forgeries.

This a partial list of writings that are fraudulent whether wholly or in part.

1. Acts of the Apostles.

2. ALL the Pauline letters.

3. The writings attributed to Clement of Rome.

4. The writings attributed to Ignatius.

5. The writings attributed to Polycarp.

6. The writings attributed to Irenaeus.

7. The writings attributed to Tertullian.

8. The writings attributed to Clement of Alexandria.

9. The writings attributed to Origen.

10. The writings attributed to Eusebius.

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Originally Posted by mountainman
...IMO the Edward Gibbon quote (post #24) summarises the case for a militant Jesus.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus of Nazareth was a militant. If Christians were followers of Jesus then it is claimed by Gibbon that they did not engage in any military activities.

See http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/01/daf01051.htm

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon.

Quote:
The Christians were not less averse to the business than to the pleasures of this world.

The defence of our persons and property they knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine which enjoined an unlimited forgiveness of past injuries, and commanded them to invite the repetition of fresh insults.

Their simplicity was offended by the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and by the active contention of public life; nor could their humane ignorance be convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to shed the blood of our fellow-creatures, either by the sword of justice, or by that of war; even though their criminal or hostile attempts should threaten the peace and safety of the whole community.

100 It was acknowledged, that, under a less perfect law, the powers of the Jewish constitution had been exercised, with the approbation of Heaven, by inspired prophets and by anointed kings. The Christians felt and confessed that such institutions might be necessary for the present system of the world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their Pagan governors.

But while they inculcated the maxims of passive obedience, they refused to take any active part in the civil administration or the military defence of the empire....
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Old 05-07-2013, 09:55 AM   #110
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"He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus."
This is really a quite unusual and interesting quote. (wish you had supplied the context however)

Many years ago, troubled by the apparent unrelenting glumness of Biblegod, I did a search of the Scriptures to see if I could find any of those "you know ...the happy texts" (Pollyanna H.) wherein 'God' or 'Jesus' ever laughed at anything in simple joy and happy humor.

I could post every verse that I found ....but I won't.

The only laughter ever coming from 'God' to be found in the entire Bible is when he mocks or destroys men.
(I didn't try to include old 'apocryphal' texts because they are simply too numerous, the surviving texts too inconsistent, and their content mostly too ridiculous, and either unknown or flat out rejected.)

When you actually look for instances of laughter from the 'God' of the Bible, he comes off looking like nothing more an plotting, evil-minded, insane, gleefully cackling Moloch.

As a believer at that time, I accounted that if there were a 'God' or 'Yahweh', and he wished for mankind to know something, he would place it in texts that were consistent and readily available to anyone who cared to look.
(With his Divine intercession and personal guidance being a daily fact of life ya know.)

'Laughing'....hmm, know of any other instances where God or 'Jesus' is described as being happy, or enjoying a good humored laugh? One that is not at the enjoyment and expense of someone else's suffering loss, misery, or torment?
I don't.

( Found one instance where 'Jesus' is described as being 'glad' (Jn 11:15) but the context certainly suggest he meant something other than joy.)



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