mens_sana

Why don't you read up a bit on what the Romans meant by the term. Your usage is contemporary.

"[S]uperstitio is an aristocratic term of contempt for forms of religion and piety that Rome’s literate upper classes found excessive, comic, or dangerous."
Freedman, David Noel: The Anchor Bible Dictionary. V.6,p.240.

Any religion which was not sanctioned as "Roman" and ancient (from their perspective) was an upstart superstitio.

FathomFFI

Precisely.

These Jesus Mythers seem to have this penchant for applying contemporary wisdom to ancient history.

patcleaver

Your the one who proved that Christianity is just a superstition. We know for certain that Christianity is a suppression and Jesus is fiction because you proved that it was true. You said that Tacitus and Pliany used official Roman records to prove that "Christianity is a superstition". Tacitus did not believe that Christianity was true. He said that Christian beliefs such as "Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate", were just a superstition.

Why are you asking me for additional evidence in support of your position?

There is lots of evidence that Jesus is just a myth, but you should do your own research.

Do the other members of team FathomFFI agree with your claim that Christianity is just a superstion - and Jesus is just a fictional character in a fictional book of lies?

From Free Online Dictionary

fic·tion (fkshn)
n.
1.
a. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
b. The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
2. A lie.
3.
a. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
b. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
4. Law Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.

Usually, when someone says that the gospels are fiction, they just mean that they are not reliable, a pack of lies, recorded mythology, legands, allegory, metaphor, pure BS.

Your faine that I am talking about genre is just a dishonest red herring. Anyway, we have no reason the think that Mark or the other gospel writers were not intentionally writing fiction, and in fact good evidence that they were all intentionally writing fiction. See http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ospel_mark.htm

FathomFFI

Uh-huh. I left a message for you over HERE

I expect an answer from you shortly, Mr. Man!

patcleaver

You have no evidence at all that "no one thought Jesus was a fiction at the time." Can't you see that its just part of the delusion that is deranging your mind?

The Christians spent 1500 years trying to destroy all the evidence of the Jesus-Myth belief, but they missed some - for example, the following:

1 John 4:3...every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. 2 John 1:7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

These are a polemics against pagans, Jews and heritics who claimed that Jesus was not historical. The heresy of docetism is the claim that Jesus was not a physical person – only a spiritual phantasm.

Matt 12:32 ... 'but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.' This is a polemic against people who say that the Christinan story is just a myth.

Tertullian tells us that the antichrists are those who deny that Jesus has come in the flesh. The docetical phantom was not an historical entity, but something that appeared in visions – like the Jesus Christ of Paul:

Our heretic must now cease to borrow poison from the Jew--"the asp," as the adage runs, "from the viper"--and henceforth vomit forth the virulence of his own disposition, as when he alleges Christ to be a phantom. Except, indeed, that this opinion of his will be sure to have others to maintain it in his precocious and somewhat abortive Marcionites, whom the Apostle John designated as antichrists, when they denied that Christ was come in the flesh; not that they did this with the view of establishing the right of the other god (for on this point also they had been branded by the same apostle), but because they had started with assuming the incredibility of an incarnate God.
--Tertullian: Against Marcion, Book III, CHAP. VIII

All the original Nicean Creed of 325 said regarding the anointed savior was that he “came down and was made flesh, was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, went up into the heavens”. It was a pagan creed - Jesus Christ literally means annointed saviour and lots of pagans could have agreed that this creed fit their pagan anointed saviors.

The Jews went to the synagogues with the Christians until around 95 CE, and surely most of the Jews knew the Christian story about Jesus, but they did not believe it - they though it was fiction or they would have become Christians.

Whenever a crazy new cult starts up there are usually dozens of skeptical people who know the beliefs of the cult for every gullible fool that joins the cult. The dozens of skeptical people who know the beliefs of the crazy cult, but do not join it, think that its just fiction. Do you believe that there is a Xenu of Scientology, or an Angel Maroni of Mormonism, or that Mohammad really talked to the angel Gabriel or that there was a winged horse that Mohammad rode to heaven one night – or do you think that they are fictional.

Why do you believe that Jesus really existed when there is no reasonable evidence for your belief? It is just like all the other crazy cults that start up. First your parents told you that they were certain that Jesus existed - they had no evidence - they were lying to you. Then you went to church on Sunday and the minister told you that certainly Jesus existed - he had no evidence - he was lying to you. Then you read apologist websites that lie to you. All your religious beliefs are just lies. You are just a gullible mark of the religion hoax that is stealing your life and enslaving you. Try to free yourself.

The following is mostly cut and paste from Dhorty, The Jesus Puzzle. It explains some reasons why we know that some denied the historical Jesus and why we doubt that the early Christians even believed in an historic Jesus.

Paul does not know anything about an historic Jesus. He only says that Jesus was born of women and was killed on a tree and resurrected. He presents the last supper as a revelation directly from god – just an allegory. Paul said, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” 1 Corinthians 15:50. Paul reports that all the original eye-witnesses [James, Peter, the 12 disciples, and hundreds of others] saw Jesus in essentially the same way Paul did (i.e. in a vision).

In Justin’s Second apology, Justin has a debate with Trypho the Jew. Trypho is a literary invention, he represents educated Jewish opinion. Justin puts into his mouth the following accusation, one which must have represented a common Jewish opinion of the time: "But Christ—if he has indeed been born, and exists anywhere—is unknown”

Tatian's Apology. In chapter 21 he says, "We are not fools, men of Greece, when we declare that God has been born in the form of man”. This is Tatian’s only allusion to the incarnation. This only makes sense if the men of Greece were calling the Christians fools for claiming that God was born in the form of a man.

Minucius Felix (circa after 150-200 CE) Minucius Felix is a Christian apologist who writes about a fictional debate between a Christian named Octavius and a Pagan named Caecilius with Minucius as moderator. Caecilius is a literary invention who represents an educated Pagan.

In this debate, the names of Christ and Jesus are never used, though the word "Christian" appears throughout. Nor is there any allusion to the Son or Logos. Octavius' Christianity revolves around the Unity and Providence of God and the rejection of all pagan deities, the resurrection of the body and its future reward or punishment. In regard to the latter, no appeal is made to Jesus' own resurrection as proof of God's ability and intention to resurrect the dead. Not even in answer to the challenge (11): "What single individual has returned from the dead, that we might believe it for an example?"

The writer puts into the mouth of Caecilius the Pagan, a list of accusations (partly paraphrased in brackets) against the Christians:

[This abominable congregation should be rooted out . . . a religion of lust and fornication. They reverence the head of an ass . . . even the genitals of their priests] . . . . "And some say that the objects of their worship include a man who suffered death as a criminal, as well as the wretched wood of his cross; these are fitting altars for such depraved people, and they worship what they deserve" . . . . [Also, during initiations they slay and dismember an infant and drink its blood . . . at their ritual feasts they indulge in shameless copulation].

Octavius the Christian ridicules the Greek myths about the deaths of their gods, such as Isis lamenting over the dismembered Osiris, he says (22): "Is it not absurd to bewail what you worship, or worship what you bewail?" In other words, he is castigating the Greeks for lamenting and worshiping a god who is slain. Later he says (23): "Men who have died cannot become gods, because a god cannot die; nor can men who are born (become gods) . . . Why, I pray, are gods not born today, if such have ever been born?" He then goes on to ridicule the whole idea of gods procreating themselves, which would include the idea of a god begetting a son. Elsewhere (20) he scorns those who are credulous enough to believe in miracles performed by gods.

Here is the manner and context in which Octavius the Christian deals with the charge of worshiping a crucified criminal (29):
"1 These and similar indecencies we do not wish to hear; it is disgraceful having to defend ourselves from such charges. People who live a chaste and virtuous life are falsely charged by you with acts which we would not consider possible, except that we see you doing them yourselves. 2 Moreover, when you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the truth in thinking that a criminal deserved, or that a mortal man could be able, to be believed in as God. 3 Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on a mortal, for such hope ceases with his (the latter's) death

In his chapter (Against the Heathen, I.37 & 40), Minucius discusses the folly of heathen peoples who do "choose a man for their worship," but he makes no such admissions for Christians. As to the accusation of worshiping crosses, he says dismissively: "We do not adore them, nor do we wish for them." And he goes on to admonish the pagan for being guilty of using signs of crosses in their own worship and everyday life. There is not a hint that for Minucius the cross bears any sacred significance or requires defending in a Christian context.

mens_sana

I should have said "no Christian thought Jesus was a fiction at the time." And while a pagan (or heretic) could assert that Jesus was a "mere human," as far as I know none of them denied his reality. As with superstitio, you are using a contemporary perspective. In a world filled with spirits, demons, gods, demigods, and goddesses under every burning bush — in a world where both good fortune and personal disaster were the deity's "gift" — in a world where magic incantations could curse or heal — there was no inconsistency in seeing the apparition of Jesus as a real figure in real history. Gnostics denied that Jesus came in the flesh, but he was NOT fiction, never fiction in their minds. You cannot impose your "fiction" on a culture in which your version is foreign.

patcleaver

What a useless response. An out of context statement from a tertiary source that very few participants have access to check. All I can do is ignore it.

patcleaver

No, the problem is that you have no evidence at all that even the consensus of Christians believed that Jesus was historical before the 4th century.

Of course there were non-Christians that denied the historicity of Jesus. It was common for Greek philosophers to deny the existence of all the Gods which presumably included god-men like Jesus. Jesus was just another pagan god-man.

Gnostics who believed that Jesus was a phantasm certainly did not believe in a historic human Jesus. Your historic Jesus is a real flesh Jesus. I am sure that you would not be satisfied with a Jesus who was never flesh - how would that even be an historic Jesus?

Human societies seem to all be about 15% skeptics, and 15% politicians, and 70% gullible sheeple. The politicians don't believe in anything but power and they control and abuse the sheeple using various control mechanisms such as religious superstitions. The skeptics disapprove of the abuse openly when they can, and silently when the politicians get serious and start burning the sheeple at the stake.

FathomFFI

Such utter nonsense, every last bit of it. You Jesus Mythers don't even bother to research; you just see what you want to see without bothering to look at the rest. Let me give you an example just from that mess you created above.

The following absolutely makes a fool of the assertions above:

Considering Trypho

The argument asserts that Justin Martyr's Dialog With Trypho had need to address the existence of Jesus. The Trypho argument would undoubtedly use the following quote from Chp 8 to substantiate the claim:

The proponents for non-existence extract the quote from the context and use the argument that the quote above has Trypho speaking of Jesus as though Jesus did not exist.

However, what the proponents did not consider is that Trypho was an orthodox Jew who did not believe Jesus to be the Christ. Therefore, Trypho is not speaking of Jesus as being the Christ mentioned in the first part of the quote above, but of the Christ being someone other than Jesus. Yet, let us concern ourselves with the 2nd part of the quote.

Proponents for the non-existence of Jesus assert that the 2nd part of the quote above indicates that Trypho is saying that Jesus did not actually exist, but instead was an invention of the Christians. However, Trypho did not say that Jesus the man did not exist, but that a Christ was invented by the Christians. The question that needs to be answered here is this:

Was Trypho saying that the Christians invented a Christ and named him Jesus?

To answer this question, let us examine the evidence. The following is another quote from Trypho in Chp 67:

In the quote above, Trypho criticizes Justin and the Christians of misinterpreting prophecies from the Torah and applying them to Jesus. He also demonstrates how the Greeks had a myth of a child being born from a virgin. Trypho then lashes out at the Christians for assigning such similar tales to Jesus, and insists that instead they should acknowledge this Jesus to be a man of mere human origin. Trypho then challenges the Christians to prove that this Jesus was the Christ from the scriptures, and not according to the nonsense propagated by Greek mythology.

It would not be incorrect to state that if Trypho thought that Jesus did not exist, yet encourages the Christians to acknowledge this Jesus to be a man of mere human origin, that he would be contradicting himself, for it is completely illogical for Trypho to encourage Christians to recognize the human qualities of someone who did not physically exist.

Further evidence can be extracted from the quote below:

In the quote above, in context relating to Jesus, Trypho positively claims that Jesus was crucified, otherwise he would be not accusing the Christians of placing their hope in him. And yet even more ...

Again in the quote above we see Trypho positively confirming that Jesus was crucified. There can be no doubt that he believed Jesus to have existed as a human being, otherwise his remarks of someone being crucified who didn't exist would be totally ridiculous.

It should be noted that Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho does not concern itself with whether or not Jesus existed. It is a discussion between a Christian (Justin) and a Jew (Trypho) over whether or not Jesus was the promised Christ of the Jews. Trypho postulated that the Christian gospel had embellishments of an actual person named Jesus, and accused the Christians of misinterpreting ancient scripture and borrowing from Greek myths to embellish the life of Jesus in an effort to present him as the promised Christ. Trypho took great offense to the idea that the promised Christ would be crucified, as the following quotes indicate:

The entire discussion revolved around Justin making an attempt to qualify Jesus as being the Christ to Trypho. Yet Trypho, although admitting that Jesus was crucified and therefore to have existed, accuses the Christians of creating myths around Jesus insomuch as the claims of the Gospel regarding Jesus were preposterous. Trypho accused the Christians of inventing a Christ; an invention created by embellishing the life of a "man of mere human origin."


Interesting how your belief regrading Trypho suddenly gets chewed up and spit out when we actually STUDY history, isn't it?

What we just did to Trypho, can easily be done to all your other assertions.

Have yourself a cheery day!

ChristMyth

I'd like to get back to the idea that Tacitus is taking his information from the Roman register for a moment, if its ok.

Fathom, in your post showing that Tacitus uses other sources for most of information, I believe you demonstrate that in most cases Tacitus is obtaining his information from historians of his day. I also believe that you demonstrate that Tacitus did not knowingly use hearsay in his writing.

Admitting this, however, I have a few questions:

1. If what you demonstrate is true, should we not expect, also, to find the reference to where Tacitus is gaining his information about this Christus? Even in your own evidence you provide, Tacitus clearly states that he is using the register in certain places. In the Christus passages, however, we have no reference to where this passage is coming from. Are we to assume that he is obtaining his information from these sources despite the lack of references to them? Why should we assume this?

2. If Tacitus is using the Roman register, as you assert, why are we to believe that someone would have written a note telling of the crucifixion of some wayward preacher in the backwoods of some small nowhere town? Is there evidence to show that every crucifixion that took place under Pilate was recorded accurately within the register? I ask this with the understanding that in that area, there were plenty of "Christs" walking around and many crucifixions taking place. Christianity would have not been noticed as anything more than a small group of people following another preacher who seemed to cause trouble where ever he went. I don't understand why this particular crucifixion would have been any different than any other for someone to take note of.

3. I will agree that Tacitus is gaining some of his information from historians of his day. But this brings up the question as to how reliable are the sources he is using. Are we to assume that his sources are also 100% accurate and never use hearsay as a source of their information? Is it possible that Tacitus is gaining his information from someone he believed to be reliable, but who is just reporting hearsay himself? Since Tacitus does not reference this information, how are we to verify that reliability?

I assure you, these are honest questions I have about your claims. Not being a historian myself, any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

Christmyth