Steven Avery

... and was replaced by another, keeping the number at twelve

Newton's Cat

According to Eusebius, writing in the early 4th century, there was a Christian sect that claimed that Jesus was the son of Judas of Galilee. Luke claims that Jesus was born at the time of the census of Cyrenius (6 ad). Judas was killed in a revolt against this census.

The original story of Jesus, as per Mark, did not present him as the Son of God, the Christ. He was simply Jesus of Galilee. A later author altered the text and turned him into Jesus Christ. Around 50% of Mark as we have it today is the work of this later author.

The name Jesus Christ, IESOUS CHRISTOS, is an anagram - OSIRIS SET CHOUS. CHOUS means "grave". (cf. the Egyptian resurrection myth of Osiris, Set, and Isis).

So there you have it: Jesus and Jesus Christ are two different people. Jesus may have actually existed, but Jesus Christ was a mythical character invented by whoever used Mark's story to found Christianity.

In the original story it was Simon of Cyrene on the cross.

'And they press into service as a messenger a certain Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, [to carry his (i.e. Jesus') cross - added by the second author], and they brought him (Simon, not Jesus) to Golgotha (Simon being under the impression that he would be given a message by Pilate to take to Cyrene - a great honour), and they gave him (Simon) wine spiced with myrrh (embalming fluid, a soporific) - [but he (Jesus) received it not - added by the second author], and they crucified him (Simon)

Simple really

Verse 29 refers to the next morning. The Jews saw the crucified body of Simon on the cross with a sign reading 'King of the Jews' - and thought that the bloody and broken body of Simon was Jesus.

It does say: "And the ones passing by ...."

See what I mean?

The Jews are not described as watching his crucifixion but as "passing by".

In verse 25 it says: "Now it was the third hour" ... the third hour after sunset.

Johann_Kaspar

Please can you provide the reference? Thanks!

RUmike

Do you have any reference for this, too? I've never heard such a thing.

Amaleq13

Despite the fact that I put it in bold, you must have missed that he is clearly referring to the same twelve.

Amaleq13

Is it as difficult to see as an oral tradition circulating among Christians at the end of the 1st/beginning of the 2nd that describes a death for Judas totally unlike either of the stories in the Gospels?

I don't buy "embarrassment" for a betrayal that was established as necessary and, most important, predicted in scripture in the subsequent rewrites of Mark's story.

mikem

Sorry I'm late to this thread. I have read the previous entries however, so I hope I am up to speed. I am intrigued by the quote from Aristides. Reading it several times, in the version which appears to be the favoured one, it looks to me that it might be a reference to either the gospel of Matthew or Luke. They are the only two canonical gospels which both contain nativity stories.

I think it is more likely to be Matthew's gospel, because of the possible reference to Matthew 28:18 towards the end of the quote.

It is unclear to me anyway, what passage of time Aristides had in mind when he spoke of the recent past. We are dealing with people here who lived in a different culture, whose time frame was different to ours, and who viewed history differently to us. The recent past could refer to events from several hundred years ago up to within living memory, say 50 to 60 years, we just don't know for sure. I think we have to be a little more imaginative and flexible in our interpretation of these ancient documents. The best way to interpret them is to read them in context and in comparison with similar documents.

Aristides writing is weak evidence to show that that the gospel was a recent invention. If as I think, it refers to one of the canonic gospels, then that does not exclude the possibility that the others were already in circulation elsewhere. Not all the gospels were available to all Christians everywhere at the same time.

dark empathy

i'm sorry if this has been brought up in the past but, alice whealey has said something to the effect of " modern historians of all denominations/creeds/ whatever else agree that the tf by josephus is largely authentic.

http://josephus.yorku.ca/pdf/whealey2000.pdf

even in the wikipedia entry. it has alice quoted. i've always thought it was largely spurious... any thoughts?

Amaleq13

I think a more accurate statement would be that most modern scholars believe that an original reference has been tampered with by Christians and all attempted recreations of this alleged original are speculative.

dark empathy

yes, i thought that would be the tone in wikipedia, but the closing comment was alice saying that most say there is some reference to jesus of nazareth that is valid... anyone familiar with her background?