Freethought & Rationalism Archive

peanutaxis · 05-09-2012, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

It was only after the rise of Christianity that anything resembling a 'position' on Jesus developed.

:funny::funny::applause::applause: Hilarious considering that it was also only after the rise of Christianity THAT THE GOSPELS WERE WRITTEN! LOL

Steve Weiss · 05-09-2012, 05:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Setting Paul aside, doesn't all of the early evidence we have about what the early Jewish Christian groups thought about Jesus show that they regarded him to have been a Jewish man who walked the earth?

From the Nazarenes and Ebionites, to Celsus, to the Talmud, and more, Jesus was a man.

Wouldn't the Jews have known best who Jesus was?

The biblical Jesus wasn't a man. He wasn't a real person at all. There is no evidence that would stand up in court that there ever was a Jesus, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary amounts of proof. The opposite is the case with religion. That's why faith is required to close the information gap, but in reality the gap is huge and remains despite the wishful thinking of Christian apologists.

sotto voce · 05-09-2012, 05:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Get a book on Jewish inscriptions at synagogues, grave sites etc many if not most in the early Common Era were not in Hebrew or Aramaic. Most wealthy Jews could speak Greek. This helps explain why there are so many Greek words in Jewish Aramaic

The earliest stories of Jesus were not inscribed in stone, but were written in the Greek language - not Hebrew or Aramaic - and bound into codices. Once the Greek authors of the New Testament stories had found the Greek LXX, Jewish involvement was not required. The Greek authors of the NT literally hijacked the Greek LXX (not the Hebrew Bible) and they worked in Greek exclusively. The story of Jesus is a Greek story published for the Greeks in Greek.

Which is why the NT contains so many sympathetic references to Zeus, Apollo, Demeter et al.

Duvduv · 05-09-2012, 07:23 AM

TedM, Jewish religious texts such as the Talmud and Midrashim do not know of a first century Jesus. They only speak of Yeshu, the son of Joseph Pandera and of Miriam, who lived in the 1st century BCE when Alexander Jannaeus was king followed by his wife Alexandra Shlomtzion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Setting Paul aside, doesn't all of the early evidence we have about what the early Jewish Christian groups thought about Jesus show that they regarded him to have been a Jewish man who walked the earth?

From the Nazarenes and Ebionites, to Celsus, to the Talmud, and more, Jesus was a man.

Wouldn't the Jews have known best who Jesus was?

No Robots · 05-09-2012, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Setting Paul aside, doesn't all of the early evidence we have about what the early Jewish Christian groups thought about Jesus show that they regarded him to have been a Jewish man who walked the earth?

From the Nazarenes and Ebionites, to Celsus, to the Talmud, and more, Jesus was a man.

Wouldn't the Jews have known best who Jesus was?

Jewish scholars are unanimous to this day on who Christ was, namely, a Jew. They disagree to some extent on particulars, but on the core question of the existence of the historical Jewish man there is no dissent. Here is one Jewish scholar on the subject of Christ as myth:

I have indicated that neither Graetz nor Geiger espoused the skeptical view of Bauer that Jesus never existed. One cannot know why they did not; one can only speculate. Perhaps they sensed danger to the well-being of German Jews in the elect of Jewish scholars joining in with a radical like Bauer; perhaps Bauer’s anti-Semitism repelled them. Perhaps they may have taken a certain pride in Jesus and therefore they did not want to negate his having existed. Yet the likelihood seems to be in a different direction, and to involve a consideration of much greater profundity. It might be phrased in this way: A Jew versed in Scripture and in Talmud who enters into the pages of the Synoptic Gospels finds himself in familiar territory. He can be irked, annoyed, or aghast at the ferocity of the anti-Jewish sentiments, but he is nevertheless in a geography which does not seem strange to him. Scripture is cited in ways like the citations in the Talmud (though, of course, for a very different purpose), the parables of Jesus either duplicate or overlap rabbinic parables, and the “conflicts” which Jesus has with Pharisees and chief priests bring to mind both the animated discussions of the Talmud, and recall intra-Jewish conflicts between Pharisees and Sadducees. Such a Jewish person, for all that he would agree with Strauss that the Gospels are replete with legends and contradictions, would nevertheless hold to the opinion that Gospels and Talmud are similar weavings of similar threads, and such a person would say to a Bauer that no imagination could out of the thin air create so authentically the religious scene and the flavor of Palestinian Judaism. Such a Jew would be prone to say that, however wrong this or that detail of the Gospels may be, the general, over-all impression of a conformity to the general facts is indisputable. To this opinion I myself subscribe.--We Jews and Jesus / Samuel Sandmel, p. 65-66.

Jewish scholarship is taking over the field of New Testament studies, with numerous new works published in the last few months. Gentile scholars, including mythicists, rarely mention this fact.

Sheshbazzar · 05-09-2012, 08:24 AM

Jewish scholars are unanimous ???
:hysterical:

Pardon me No Robots, but that has to be about one of the funniest things I have read on here in months.

No Robots · 05-09-2012, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

Jewish scholars are unanimous ???
:hysterical:

Pardon me No Robots, but that has to be about one of the funniest things I have read on here in months.

Glad to provide some hilarity. Please reciprocate, and cite any Jewish scholar who denies the existence of the historical Christ.

outhouse · 05-09-2012, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

I have already responded to this in the other thread. The Jews only took a passing interest in Jesus while Jesus was alive. It was only after the rise of Christianity that anything resembling a 'position' on Jesus developed. If you are going to say that the Jews 'knew best' then you have to accept a whole bunch of bizarre narratives including a flying Jesus, Jesus the magician, the sexually perverted Jesus, Jesus getting his powers by scratching the Tetragrammaton on his thigh. A critical eye can discern that the Jews knew little or nothing about Jesus while he was alive. Take a look at the argument that Jesus was a bastard. Mamzer did not mean 'bastard' in the sense of that Bruce Chilton for instance gives it (i.e. born out of wedlock) but specifically to the child born of an adulterous or incestuous union, as defined by the laws of Leviticus 18 and 20. It is only in Yiddish that mamzer takes on the familiar meaning of 'bastard.'

In order to accept the Jewish tradition we have to get very far away from the gospel narrative. Jesus the mamzer was thus the product of an illicit affair on the part of his mother with someone named Panthera or Pandera while married to another man. Are you really prepared to defend that kind of tradition?

excellent reply

unknown to most jews, less any who witnessed the possible violence in the temple in a sea of people.

the movement failed in judaism.

stephan huller · 05-09-2012, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Glad to provide some hilarity. Please reciprocate, and cite any Jewish scholar who denies the existence of the historical Christ.

But thats only because they have been actively engaged in a debate with Christians, denying that God "switched sides" at the beginning of the common era

outhouse · 05-09-2012, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Weiss

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Setting Paul aside, doesn't all of the early evidence we have about what the early Jewish Christian groups thought about Jesus show that they regarded him to have been a Jewish man who walked the earth?

From the Nazarenes and Ebionites, to Celsus, to the Talmud, and more, Jesus was a man.

Wouldn't the Jews have known best who Jesus was?

The biblical Jesus wasn't a man. He wasn't a real person at all. There is no evidence that would stand up in court that there ever was a Jesus, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary amounts of proof. The opposite is the case with religion. That's why faith is required to close the information gap, but in reality the gap is huge and remains despite the wishful thinking of Christian apologists.

false

there is more evidence then many historical charactors not in question today.

In a court of law I would win a case for historical jesus based on what evidence we have to work with

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05-09-2012, 08:24 AM	#16
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	Jewish scholars are unanimous ??? :hysterical: Pardon me No Robots, but that has to be about one of the funniest things I have read on here in months.

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