Freethought & Rationalism Archive

John A. Broussard · 07-02-2005, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by goozlefotz

Even by the NT account, he was not dead for three days. From Friday evening to Sunday morning is at most a day and a half. All they knew was that on Sunday morning he was gone. So, it was definitely less that 1.5 days. It may have been only a few hours.

Thanks for correction.

I should have remembered that, since some recent writers on the subject claim he wasn't dead at all, i.e., as soon as the mourners left, he was removed live from the tomb.

John Kesler · 07-02-2005, 11:03 AM

The ascension scene, or at least the motifs associated with it, may have been borrowed from an account about Romulus. The Roman historian Titus Livius (Livy) lived circa 59 BCE to 17 CE, before the authorship of Acts and the putative ascension of Jesus. Here is what Livy wrote in History of Rome 1:16:

Quote:

After these immortal achievements, Romulus held a review of his army at the "Caprae Palus" in the Campus Martius. A violent thunderstorm suddenly arose and enveloped the king in so dense a cloud that he was quite invisible to the assembly. From that hour Romulus was no longer seen on earth. When the fears of the Roman youth were allayed by the return of bright, calm sunshine after such fearful weather, they saw that the royal seat was vacant. Whilst they fully believed the assertion of the senators, who had been standing close to him, that he had been snatched away to heaven by a whirlwind, still, like men suddenly bereaved, fear and grief kept them for some time speechless. At length, after a few had taken the initiative, the whole of those present hailed Romulus as "a god, the son of a god...
SOURCE

Myrion · 07-02-2005, 01:17 PM

Some of my main concerns dealing with the resurrection and ascension deal with what they mean to some Christians. They say that by being crucified, Jesus "died" for us and suffered for us and basically he was a kind of sacrifice. However, what kind of crappy sacrifice is this if he comes back to life over the weekend? On top of that he ascends to heaven? Sounds like we got the shaft. He suffered briefly in the cross, died a few hours and this is the ultimate sacrifice supposed to open the doors of heaven for all? I think it would have been more effective if Jesus had gone to hell. That would be sacrifice; otherwise it's just an afterthought.

Steven Carr · 07-02-2005, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Kesler

The ascension scene, or at least the motifs associated with it, may have been borrowed from an account about Romulus.

It may have been , but it was more likely to have come from ascensions of Elijah, Enoch or possibly Moses.

Exactly why the resurrected Jesus ascended to Heaven, when he still had work to do here is a mystery.

Guess he just couldn't be bothered to usher in a Messianic age of world peace and harmony.

The story couldn't have come from Livy, as you can't expect highly educated and literate Roman authors to have the same sophisticated view of cosmology as Galilean peasant fishermen, can you?

John Kesler · 07-02-2005, 04:26 PM

Quote:

John Kesler:
The ascension scene, or at least the motifs associated with it, may have been borrowed from an account about Romulus.

Steven Carr:
It may have been , but it was more likely to have come from ascensions of Elijah, Enoch or possibly Moses.

Generally I think that a Jewish antcedent should be sought when examining the New Testament. But as Richard Carrier points out, the ascension is far from the only parallel between Romulus and Jesus. From Carrier's article Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?:

Quote:

Another God who submitted to being murdered in order to triumph was the well-revered Roman national deity Romulus, whose death and resurrection was celebrated in annual public ceremonies in Rome since before Christian times (Plutarch, Romulus 27-28 & the pre-Christian author Livy, From the Founding of the City 1.16.2-7, written c. 15 B.C.; cf. also Cicero, Laws 1.3, Republic 2.10, c. 40 B.C.; Ovid, Fasti 2.491-512, c. 10 A.D.; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.63.3, c. 10 B.C.; Tertullian, Apology 21, c. 200 A.D.). Though again a very different story, the Romulan tale shared with Christ's at least the following elements: both were incarnated gods (Romulus descended from heaven to become human and die); both became incarnate in order to establish a kingdom on earth (for Romulus, the Roman Empire; for Christ, the Kingdom of God, i.e. the Church); there was a supernatural darkness at both their deaths (Mk. 15:33, etc.); both were killed by a conspiracy of the ruling powers (Christ, by the Jewish and Roman authorities; Romulus, by the first Roman senate); both corpses vanished when sought for (i.e. Christ's tomb is found empty--no one sees him rise); both appear after their resurrection to a close follower on an important road (Proculus on the road to Alba Longa; Cleopas on the road to Emmaus--both roads 14 miles long, the one leading to Rome, the other from Jerusalem); both connected their resurrections with moral teachings (Romulus instructs Proculus to tell the Romans they will achieve a great empire if they are virtuous); both "appeared" around the break of dawn; both ascended to heaven (e.g. Lk. 24:50-55, Acts 1:9-11); both were hailed "God, Son of God, King, and Father"; and in the public Roman ceremony, the names were recited in public of those who fled in fear when the body of Romulus vanished, just as we "know" the names of those who fled in fear when the body of Jesus vanished (Mk. 16:8), and in both cases the story went that these people kept their silence for a long time and only later proclaimed Romulus a risen god (just as the women "told no one" and the Christians waited fifty days before proclaiming their "discovery" to the public: Acts 1:3, 2:1-11).

Chili · 07-02-2005, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Exactly why the resurrected Jesus ascended to Heaven, when he still had work to do here is a mystery.

To be with Christ as the Omega behind the Alpha so he could more work? It is like placing the conscious mind subservient to the sub-conscious mind to which the disciples were gazing in bewilderment.

In Catholic theology Mary gets assumed into heaven to put these disciples to work on earth as in heaven. That is how the transformation of earth into heaven takes place = knowledge frees. Remember here that Mary was the cause of the HS (She's our queen of angels) that inspired the existence of the disciples to start with and their gaze into their origin is how they become grounded into reality.

John A. Broussard · 07-03-2005, 12:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myrion

Some of my main concerns dealing with the resurrection and ascension deal with what they mean to some Christians. They say that by being crucified, Jesus "died" for us and suffered for us and basically he was a kind of sacrifice. However, what kind of crappy sacrifice is this if he comes back to life over the weekend? On top of that he ascends to heaven? Sounds like we got the shaft. He suffered briefly in the cross, died a few hours and this is the ultimate sacrifice supposed to open the doors of heaven for all? I think it would have been more effective if Jesus had gone to hell. That would be sacrifice; otherwise it's just an afterthought.

Welcome aboard.

You're especially welcome because you bring up a new point--at least it's something I hadn't thought about.

If Jesus wanted to really make a sacrifice, then he should have been willing to suffer in hell for all of eternity in order to help man.

As you say, that would be a sacrifice. It would certainly show his genuine concern for man if he were willing to suffer the fate ordained by god for at least some segment of human kind.

cognac · 07-03-2005, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John A. Broussard

Welcome aboard.

You're especially welcome because you bring up a new point--at least it's something I hadn't thought about.

If Jesus wanted to really make a sacrifice, then he should have been willing to suffer in hell for all of eternity in order to help man.

As you say, that would be a sacrifice. It would certainly show his genuine concern for man if he were willing to suffer the fate ordained by god for at least some segment of human kind.

This is only an argument against subsitutionary atonement, which says that Christ was substituted for us, taking on the death sentence that all who have sinned have incurred. Not all Christians have this sort of literal Christology. It's more typical of evangelicals and fundamentalists.

Chili · 07-03-2005, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John A. Broussard

.If Jesus wanted to really make a sacrifice, then he should have been willing to suffer in hell for all of eternity in order to help man.

. . . and he should have had a twin sister maybe?

andrewcriddle · 07-03-2005, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Another God who submitted to being murdered in order to triumph was the well-revered Roman national deity Romulus, whose death and resurrection was celebrated in annual public ceremonies in Rome since before Christian times (Plutarch, Romulus 27-28 & the pre-Christian author Livy, From the Founding of the City 1.16.2-7, written c. 15 B.C.; cf. also Cicero, Laws 1.3, Republic 2.10, c. 40 B.C.; Ovid, Fasti 2.491-512, c. 10 A.D.; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.63.3, c. 10 B.C.; Tertullian, Apology 21, c. 200 A.D.). Though again a very different story, the Romulan tale shared with Christ's at least the following elements: both were incarnated gods (Romulus descended from heaven to become human and die); both became incarnate in order to establish a kingdom on earth (for Romulus, the Roman Empire; for Christ, the Kingdom of God, i.e. the Church); there was a supernatural darkness at both their deaths (Mk. 15:33, etc.); both were killed by a conspiracy of the ruling powers (Christ, by the Jewish and Roman authorities; Romulus, by the first Roman senate); both corpses vanished when sought for (i.e. Christ's tomb is found empty--no one sees him rise); both appear after their resurrection to a close follower on an important road (Proculus on the road to Alba Longa; Cleopas on the road to Emmaus--both roads 14 miles long, the one leading to Rome, the other from Jerusalem); both connected their resurrections with moral teachings (Romulus instructs Proculus to tell the Romans they will achieve a great empire if they are virtuous); both "appeared" around the break of dawn; both ascended to heaven (e.g. Lk. 24:50-55, Acts 1:9-11); both were hailed "God, Son of God, King, and Father"; and in the public Roman ceremony, the names were recited in public of those who fled in fear when the body of Romulus vanished, just as we "know" the names of those who fled in fear when the body of Jesus vanished (Mk. 16:8), and in both cases the story went that these people kept their silence for a long time and only later proclaimed Romulus a risen god (just as the women "told no one" and the Christians waited fifty days before proclaiming their "discovery" to the public: Acts 1:3, 2:1-11).

One problem with this is it mixes together different versions of the story of Romulus to produce a composite version that nobody believed and in some details nobody could believe.

Eg Some people believed that Romulus disappeared because he ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, some believed he disappeared because he was killed and dismembered by the senators. I don't think anybody could have believed both at the same time.

Also there was indeed a Roman ceremony the 'flight of the people' in which a procession called out various names, but the association of this with Romulus appears a minority opinion. most people seem to have related this ceremony to events occurring at the time of the invasion of Italy by the Gauls.

Andrew Criddle

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07-02-2005, 01:17 PM	#13
Myrion Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Colorado Posts: 7	Some of my main concerns dealing with the resurrection and ascension deal with what they mean to some Christians. They say that by being crucified, Jesus "died" for us and suffered for us and basically he was a kind of sacrifice. However, what kind of crappy sacrifice is this if he comes back to life over the weekend? On top of that he ascends to heaven? Sounds like we got the shaft. He suffered briefly in the cross, died a few hours and this is the ultimate sacrifice supposed to open the doors of heaven for all? I think it would have been more effective if Jesus had gone to hell. That would be sacrifice; otherwise it's just an afterthought.

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