Freethought & Rationalism Archive

DFrechetteNH · 03-01-2008, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CreamFilledGiraffe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

How does that prove ANYTHING?

Atis is not being followed anymore. Where are the 360 prophecies that he fulfilled?

Where's his 2 billion worldwide followers?

What does the number of extant followers have to do with it? Do you believe that the growth in number of believers (in absolute or relative terms) over two thousand years is an indication of the veracity of biblical claims?

So it's a popularity contest. ...and on the inside track and moving into 2nd place it's Muslim....Christian ....Muslim....It's neck and neck all the way down the stretch but wait, we have another contestant pulling alongside, it's Hinduism.

Well Gene, it looks like their gonna be neck and neck and neck for awhile. It's anybody's race at this point, it's a matter of who wants it most. The question is who is gonna go the extra step and pull out those nukes and win this thing. My money is on the Muslims, Bob, they got that eye of the tiger in them, y'know. You just get a feel that they are in it to win.

Joan of Bark · 03-01-2008, 11:41 PM

Quote:

Where are the 360 prophecies that he fulfilled?

You're going to need another thread to present evidence for this one.

schilling.klaus · 03-02-2008, 12:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joan of Bark

Quote:

Where are the 360 prophecies that he fulfilled?

You're going to need another thread to present evidence for this one.

those 360 promises are to be understood allegorically, not literally as rightwingers like Holding try to force you to believe.
they are related to the 360 degrees of the full circle, which is a smooth number fairly close to the number of days in a year.
Thus we are back in astromythology.

Klaus Schilling

cgordon · 03-02-2008, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Where's his 2 billion worldwide followers?

Many of whom don't accept the beliefs of others IN that number who don't believe exactly the same way. Many of whom are convinced that other Christians are going to hell because they follow slightly different doctrines. Many of whom can't agree on which version of the Bible is 'true', which set of requirements have to be met to be 'saved' (or whether there is any such thing AS salvation), on how to worship or pray or to WHOM prayer may be directed.

2 billion is a stretch. You need to break that figure down into sects and branches. Then you'll see that the actual number of YOUR kind of Christianity is pretty much small beans.

schilling.klaus · 03-02-2008, 02:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Half-Life

This is quote from josephus in the 1st century.

no, it's a fraudulent forgery popularised by Messori in the 20th century,
as correctly figured by Cascioli.

Klaus Schilling

chrisengland · 03-02-2008, 05:21 AM

I would have to agree with cgordon
Aparently 76% of Britons(or something like that) are Christians but I don't think thats true.
I think alot of people put Christian or Church of England or something like that down on the census even though they are not religious people.
I havn't met many Christians' if the number was that high it's likely I would have met more.
Also apparently at the current rate of growth' Islam will overtake Christianity as the worlds largest religion in the middle of the 21st century.
Although that is at current rate of growth so it's by no means certian.
I,m not entirely shore what your point was when you mentioned the popularity of Christianity' could you expalin?
Chris

PhilosopherJay · 03-02-2008, 07:29 AM

Hi Roger,

Good description of the evidence.

However, I must disagree that the other reference in Ant. 20 is plainly a reference to Jesus. The passage involve a James, the brother of the Lord, and Eusebius spends more time talking about James, the brother, than any other disciple. No other pre-Eusebean writer talks so much about James. Since Eusebius is the person most often accused of forging the TF, the fact that another passage apparently mentioning this James is found to mention the Christ only throws a stronger suspicion on Eusebius. There is no reason to believe that if he interpolated one passage, he would not interpolate a second passage to prove the existence of James, the brother.

As you correctly note, the great majority of scholars for the past two centuries have considered the passage an interpolation. Once we acknowledge that position, the TF loses its validity as evidence for the existence of Jesus in the First century. It loses it because we cannot tell exactly what was in the original passage. It may have referred to Jesus of Nazareth, Simon the Magician, John the Baptist, another Jesus rather than Jesus of Nazareth, or any other known or unknown messianic figure from the period.

Once we eliminate the TF, we are left with a vast variety of often ambiguous documents that are often difficult to understand and to date, almost all of which come from Christian communities of one type or another.

While a good juggler can juggle between all these documents to make it appear that a living historical man is at the center, when we examine each document on its own, we get only a mythological/literary Jesus. While those taught the art of juggling are very happy to do their tricks and variations thereon, it is only the cranks who do not juggle as well who are skeptical.

It seems to me that the cranks over the past ten years are enhancing their juggling skills and now often match the other jugglers.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisengland

MMM Roger you have been critical of marginal theories before.
Even if it is growing it still only has marginal support.

I don't think that this is correct, you know. As far as I know most Josephus scholars think that the TF is genuine but damaged. This was not the case a century ago, when it was near universally considered an interpolation, and had been for around 2 centuries.

As I understand it (my sources are Whealey, Josephus on Jesus and J. Carleton Paget's JTS 52 article), there is a substantial minority who still consider it as an interpolation, and also one who consider it entirely genuine. I suspect a lot of scholars are simply weary!

Interestingly these two ends-groups hold their views for what is essentially the same reason. The interpolation-camp point out that every element in the TF has been disputed by someone, which is certainly the case. The genuine-camp point out that every element has been suggested as genuine by someone -- often the same people who deny other bits -- and therefore object that in fact all the objections are subjective, and so the passage should be accepted.

I have no special views on this. Even Paget seemed to me weary of the endless literature and arguing (with which he dealt magnificently, tho).

My own amateur opinion is that the data is as follows. That Josephus did refer to Jesus is plain from the other reference in Ant. 20. That the TF 'feels' wrong in some way we can all perceive. That a different Greek text "He was believed to be the Christ" existed in the 4th century we learn from the agreement of Jerome and Michael the Syrian. That none of the scholarly objections have commanded the support of the academy seems clear also. That interpolations could occur we learn from Photius and the textual history of the Jewish War.

From this I infer the following. If we have this objective evidence of at least one bit of damage, explicable by simple copying errors, then we must consider the possibility of more damage. It must have happened at an early date when the text was not necessarily in Christian hands. Both marginal glosses and simple transmission damage could be responsible.

Thus I tend to support the "genuine but corrupt" view.

All the 'objections' of the scholars appear to me subjective, or else interesting but inconclusive. In view of the failure of the subject to reach a final conclusion, I believe that view is correct. (Some of the 'objections' that appear online seem to be made up by non-scholars and display desperately poor education).

Pardon me: I have little interest in arguing about the TF. But I didn't want to have a view that I do not hold attributed to me. The genuineness of the TF seems to be defended and attacked for the same reason; a supposition that it is the only evidence outside the bible that Jesus existed. Since only cranks deny this, and it doesn't depend on the TF either way, I don't have any strong feelings on Josephus.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle · 03-03-2008, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi Half-life,

Here is a recent article presenting proof from the First century that the dying-resurrected God Attis was worshipped in the First century.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scien...13888820071204

This physical proof goes well beyond the statements of Pausanius and Strabo concerning his worship. The genuineness of those statements have never been questioned by anybody.

Minor clarification.

Although Attis was undoubtedly worshipped in the First century, our earliest evidence for some sort of resurrection of Attis is Second century or later.

Andrew Criddle

schilling.klaus · 03-03-2008, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Although Attis was undoubtedly worshipped in the First century, our earliest evidence for some sort of resurrection of Attis is Second century or later.

the Roman Catholic version of resurrection as expressed in the giospel is a Roman Catholic fraud from mid to late second century, starting with Justin Martyr,
thus not substantially earlier than the Mithras stuff.

Klaus Schilling

PhilosopherJay · 03-04-2008, 02:54 PM

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for making this important point. We have evidence of Attis being worshipped as a resurrected God circa 160, although we may suppose that it may have started slightly earlier.

We may take it that the original Christ crucifixion story reflected the popular novels of the mid-first century where lovers appear to be dead but aren't. First Mary (Lazarus, in the rewrite) appears to be dead, but it turns out that she isn't, then Jesus appears to die of crucifixion, but doesn't, reuniting with Mary in the final tomb scene. This original text was probably Samaritan and may have been in the form of a mime play. I suspect Simon was the lead character's name.

A Christian John-the-prophet cult which apparently worshipped the God Jesus developed also in the First century.

The cult of Antinous (130 C.E.) presented a real challenge to the John and Attis cults. Here was an historical man made into a God. Antinous had died for the good of the empire and been resurrected as a God. His worship spread like wildfire.

The Attis cult, during the time of Antoninus Pius (138-160) added the motif of resurrection to its story to compete with the Antinous cult.

At the same time, the time of Antoninus Pius, the John/Jesus cult must have done the same. It is at this time that the old Samaritan Mary-Simon love story gets changed into the resurrected Jesus Christ story with both Mary and John the prophet reduced to minor characters.

It is true that the Christians did not follow the Attis worshippers in adopting the resurrection motif and the Attis worshippers did not copy the Christian movement in adopting the resurrection motif. They both copied the Antinous cult around the same time (138-160).

This scenario proposes that the Mark, Matthew and Marcion texts are all from the period of Antoninus Pius, although they are rewrites of earlier text.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Hi Half-life,

Here is a recent article presenting proof from the First century that the dying-resurrected God Attis was worshipped in the First century.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scien...13888820071204

This physical proof goes well beyond the statements of Pausanius and Strabo concerning his worship. The genuineness of those statements have never been questioned by anybody.

Minor clarification.

Although Attis was undoubtedly worshipped in the First century, our earliest evidence for some sort of resurrection of Attis is Second century or later.

Andrew Criddle

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03-02-2008, 05:21 AM	#26
chrisengland Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Bristol' England Posts: 2,678	I would have to agree with cgordon Aparently 76% of Britons(or something like that) are Christians but I don't think thats true. I think alot of people put Christian or Church of England or something like that down on the census even though they are not religious people. I havn't met many Christians' if the number was that high it's likely I would have met more. Also apparently at the current rate of growth' Islam will overtake Christianity as the worlds largest religion in the middle of the 21st century. Although that is at current rate of growth so it's by no means certian. I,m not entirely shore what your point was when you mentioned the popularity of Christianity' could you expalin? Chris

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