Toto

What word?

And this is a Roman practice.

Crucifixion

Roger Pearse

Please don't do this. You've snipped all the context that I carefully included and then reiterated the bit liable to cause confusion. You don't think that I paid huge sums of my inheritance to paste all those bytes in the message merely for fun?

You want it to mean "worshippers of Serapis were also known as Christians."

What it actually says is that people who worshipped Serapis one week worshipped Christ the next, and vice versa, and that this shows what sort of losers they were.

As Andrew says, the text in these biographies may well be a fiction. That's why I wondered about whether Phlegon really said anything like this.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I would be sceptical about this.

For one thing, what sort of statistical sample is there in a passage as short as the TF?

For another, such claims invariably fail to test for false positives -- i.e. would the same technique 'prove' that Thucydides wrote the works of Julian the Apostate?

Two brief accounts of the life of the same person in the same language will have certain similarities. That is inevitable. And humanists playing at science are capable of astonishing errors of methodology.

Just my opinion, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

No, I didn't suppose you had. The reason I asked, tho, was that trying to find one would probably be an education itself, in the value of the material that you have read and which you are relying on here.

Are you sure about this? Willing to produce citations to this effect?

Mithras was certainly labelled 'deus Mithras sol invictus' in inscriptions -- the unconquered sun god Mithras -- but he also appeared alongside Helios, the normal sun god in the same context. So he wasn't a bog-standard solar deity (if there is such a thing).

As a matter of fact I have collected all the ancient references to Mithras, which you may peruse here.

So in fact we do have some pretty solid evidence that this was not part of the mythos, as far as we know; and we can't assert as fact what is not in the data base, can we?

Whatever we write about antiquity must be based on DATA. That data can be literary evidence, copied down the centuries; or it can be archaeological; or it can be coins and inscriptions. But I really don't think that we can assert things unless they have some kind of specific basis in one of those.

Again, we need to see citations from ancient sources for this claim...

Being crucified was a humiliating way to die (e.g. Cicero, In Verrem), and so pagans jeered at Christians because their god was crucified (e.g. the arguments of the pagan in Minucius Felix, Octavius; the 'Alaxamenos worships his god' graffito in the slave barracks on the Palatine hill in Rome, depicting a crucified man with the head of an ass) and heretics tried to pretend that Jesus wasn't really crucified (e.g. Tertullian mocks Marcion for this in De Carne Christi 5:4). It wasn't something that anyone would *choose* to have as part of their mythos.

You may feel that you are getting a thumping in this thread. I do apologise. But this forum isn't the place for coming out with hearsay. All of the regulars here are familiar with all this sort of stuff, and many are familiar with the ancient data base. Even I know a thing or two.

This happens every year, you know. We get someone come in here, who has read one book, or maybe two, neither scholarly, who brightly announces that (e.g.) Jesus was really a spaceman. We all groan, and someone asks the usual questions -- sources, data. The poor unfortunate stammers out something or other, people pull this to shreds, and the poor guy stumbles off feeling as if he has been beaten up with a sledgehammer, all for merely repeating in good faith what he read somewhere and doesn't quite remember where.

Don't feel got at. Admittedly you've got hold of some of the less good material around (but then I think this of a lot of the anti-Christian material). Perhaps some of the atheists in here could recommend something which would give a better, decent education on antiquity.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Tim Holt

Even without going to the Greek, it's clear that Justin is referring to execution on a cross.

First (as you suggest), Justin is perfectly aware that other gods were said to have died. He lists a number of examples in chapter XXI in order to show that Christians shouldn't be singled out for persecution on the ground that they blasphemously say that gods can die and ascend to heaven. As by LV he's already presented evidence that other gods are said to have died, his statement that no other god is said to have been crucified must refer to crucifixion specifically rather than to dying in general.

Second, the context shows that death on a cross is what Justin has in mind; the chapter is explicitly about the symbol of the cross. Here's the quote in context:

"But in no instance, not even in any of those called sons of Jupiter, did they imitate the being crucified; for it was not understood by them, all the things said of it having been put symbolically. And this, as the prophet foretold, is the greatest symbol of His power and role; as is also proved by the things which fall under our observation. For consider all the things in the world, whether without this form they could be administered or have any community. For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is not ploughed without it: diggers and mechanics do not their work, except with tools which have this shape. And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands extended, and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living creature; and this shows no other form than that of the cross." [Justin Martyr, First Apology, LV]

The argument may be laughable, but that in the first sentence Justin is talking about death on a cross rather than death in general is clear.

andrewcriddle

Horus (son of a God) AFAIK was not killed (his father Osiris was). Adonis (killed) was not (at least in most myths) the son of a God. Attis (killed) has a rather lurid origin which might make him in a rather bizarre way the son of a God see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attis

Andrew Criddle

patcleaver

I did some research on this. Sorry, what I said above is completely wrong. I discovered that things are much weirder than I though.

The Greek word for cross or a description of Jesus as being hung on a cross is not found anywhere in the Greek New Testament. The words "cross" and "crucify" are derived from Latin. These words in the English NT are intentional mistranslations, of the Greek words stauros and stauroo. The noun stauros means upright pole or stake. The verb stauroo means to fasten to a stake or pole. I could not find any evidence that crosses used for crucifixion were ever called stauros.

There seems to be some strange disagreement between JW's and fundamentalist Christians regarding this issue. Apparently, the JW bible correctly translates stauros as pole, but then they claim that Jesus was hung on a pole, and that the Romans did not really use crosses to execute people. They claim that only one body has ever been found from ancient times that was crucified. Others claim that Jesus was impaled on the ground with a pole.

The whole crucifixion thing might be a late addition to the Jesus of Nazareth story - seems very weird. You should check this out yourself - I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't found lots of different sites saying it was true.

George S

So the symbol of Christianity should be an upright pole. Like ...

patcleaver

Nowhere is a cross or crucifixion mentioned in the New Testament. I thought that Jerome made up the whole cross thing, but I see that it may have come from Justin Martyr.

If Justin Martyr does not know that the New Testament never mentions crucifixion or a cross, then why would we trust him that no pagan son of god was killed on a cross?

Since the NT just says stake or pole then how was Jesus death any different than a prophet of pagan son of god who was hung on a pole (e.g. Attis, Buddha, Dionysus, Horus, Krishna)?

Justin might be trying to get Jesus' hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:16), but that is just based on a mistranslation in the Septuagint.

We have only ever discovered one body that had evidence of Nail wounds due to ancient crucifixion.

aa5874

And, whether or not people were crucified on a cross, the authors of the Gospels appear to simply put Jesus on a cross for their story. There is no known historical account that the Jesus of the NT was even born or was a real peson.

Josephus, in The Life of Flavius Josephus, wrote that he personally saw people crucified, and it would appear that a crucified person takes a prolonged time to die, since he managed to get three of them down and one survived. I did not see any information on how crucifixions were carried out.

I regard the NT as a totally unreliable compilation of stories, and that Jesus of the NT was a fictionalised character.