Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dargo · 01-02-2008, 06:01 AM

For all we know, some 1st century pagan might have written a thorough debunking of Christianity. Keep in mind, all books had to be tediously hand copied, so very Christians would ever see this debunking and most of them couldn't read it anyway. The few who did would, as has been noted earlier, most likely ignore it just like followers of modern religions ignore embarassing facts which disagree with their faith. Scientologists will go out of their way to avoid reading anything that makes their religion look bad.

You can bet as soon as Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire any debunkings would be burned as heretical. I guarantee Mormans would love to eliminate a lot of unpleasant details about Joseph Smith's life. If they could get away with it, they might even try to pretend he'd never condoned polygamy.

spin · 01-02-2008, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Crucifixion was forbidden under Jewish Law. It was purely a Roman form of execution and was only administered in Judea for crimes against the Roman state.

The last sentence is completely incorrect. According to Herodotus crucifixion was used by the Persians. It was certainly used by the Greeks. The Assumption of Moses indicates that Antiochus IV used crucifixion during his persecution of the Jews. Alexander Jannaeus crucified 6000 Pharisees in retaliation for their attempt to bring Antiochus VIII to Judea to remove him. And Shimeon ben Shetach crucified (ie "hanged" on stakes) 80 "witches" in Ashkelon. There is nothing purely Roman about crucifixion.

Given the last two examples, the claim that crucifixion was against Jewish law is questionable, despite Paul and Deut 21:22-3. Shimeon ben Shetach was a pillar of rabbincal Jewish tradition. Can we be so sure that the christian interpretation of Jewish law here is valid?

spin

Roger Pearse · 01-02-2008, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dirge

The Romans tried to stamp out Xianity. The easiest way to stamp out the new religion would be to prove Christ didn't exist. That would have been easy enough back then, if Christ didn't exist, since it could have been demonstrated they never crucified anyone like Jesus Christ. Why didn't they?

Why should they? On the contrary, Jesus was considered a disreputable figure by the Romans, and the fact that Christianity was founded by some nogoodnik who was executed dishonourably was enough to make Christianity seem risible. The pagan in Minucius Felix Octavius makes just such a point, and Octavius has to evade it. The heretics such as Marcion found it advantageous to pretend that the crucifixion was merely in seeming, or that someone else was crucified -- which no modern feels the need to do. The 'Alaxamenos graffiti', showing a crucified man with a donkey's head (cf. Tertullian, Apologeticum) and the inscription "Alaxamenos worships his god!" likewise explain why Jesus was a convenient figure in pagan polemic.

It's rather like asking why we don't dispute the existence of L. Ron Hubbard. Well, after reading his Times obituary, who wants to?!?

The allegation that Jesus never existed was only invented ca. 1700 by people desperate to find excuses not to believe in Christianity. It remains a lunatic fringe position even today. Whether Christianity is true or not, the account that it gives of its origins, that it was founded by a charismatic leader on a soapbox, is so evidently probable and so well evidenced -- people who knew him and their associates founded an organisation, after all -- that no normal person sees any need to controvert it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Yellum Notnef · 01-02-2008, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

The allegation that Jesus never existed was only invented ca. 1700 by people desperate to find excuses not to believe in Christianity.

You have really outdone yourself with this one.:notworthy:

Malachi151 · 01-02-2008, 06:37 AM

Now Roger, there was no one 2,000 years ago interested in proving that any of the heroes never actually existed. There is no evidence of any interest in Christianity at all until the 2nd century, at which point is was limited and insignificant among non-followers, and how, pray tell, would anyone have been able to prove that this god-man never existed by that point anyway?

Such concepts are simply foreign to the time, not because there weren't occasions to employ them, but quite the opposite, because so many such instances were accepted as true without issue.

DrZoidberg · 01-02-2008, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

The allegation that Jesus never existed was only invented ca. 1700 by people desperate to find excuses not to believe in Christianity. It remains a lunatic fringe position even today. Whether Christianity is true or not, the account that it gives of its origins, that it was founded by a charismatic leader on a soapbox, is so evidently probable and so well evidenced -- people who knew him and their associates founded an organisation, after all -- that no normal person sees any need to controvert it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I'm not so sure about that. These people are Christians who are critically evaluating the available evidence, and so far they've found nothing. They're far from a fringe movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar

Sure, they have strong indications of physical people having done certain things at the time of Christ, but the number of prophets with an almost identical message was probably in their hundreds. The Jesus character is a typical example of a Pharisee at that time. It's impossible to know if everything attributed to Jesus was one man. We do know that everything attributed to Jesus was first penned by Sophia of Alexandria. Karen Armstrong's The history of God sums the known bits of the story up pretty well, and she's pretty far from a loon on the fringe.

Roger Pearse · 01-02-2008, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Now Roger, there was no one 2,000 years ago interested in proving that any of the heroes never actually existed.

I'm afraid that your sentence contains too many negatives for my tired eyes. Again?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Jeffrey Gibson · 01-02-2008, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrZoidberg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I'm not so sure about that. These people are Christians who are critically evaluating the available evidence, and so far they've found nothing.

[snip]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar

Nothing? I take it that you yourself have not read the "final reports" of the JS -- i.e., The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) and The Acts of Jesus : The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) or any of the discussion of the Gospel material that forms the basis of the conclusions reached in these works that appeared in the JS journal Forum?

Quote:

We do know that everything attributed to Jesus was first penned by Sophia of Alexandria.

Who?? Can you provide me, please, with some information on this Sophia of Alexandria (dates, titles of works, testimonies to her (?) existence by other ancient writers) and how it is we know that she (?) penned anything about, let alone everything attributed to, Jesus?

Jeffrey

DrZoidberg · 01-02-2008, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Nothing? I take it that you yourself have not read the "final reports" of the JS -- i.e., The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) and The Acts of Jesus : The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) or any of the discussion of the Gospel material that forms the basis of the conclusions reached in these works that appeared in the JS journal Forum?

Quote:

We do know that everything attributed to Jesus was first penned by Sophia of Alexandria.

Who?? Can you provide me, please, with some information on this Sophia of Alexandria (dates, titles of works, testimonies to her (?) existence by other ancient writers) and how it is we know that she (?) penned anything about, let alone everything attributed to, Jesus?

Jeffrey

Sorry about that. I was being sloppy. According to Karen Armstrong Sophia of Alexandria penned the Christian doctrine ca 50 bc. I don't know of anybody who's questioned that. Jesus supposedly repeated his words. But probably not the exact same formulations. I just don't know. There's sources quoted in "The history of God (or via: amazon.co.uk)". It's not like it's a secret or anything.

Just because the Jesus Seminar have found a person who has said something doesn't mean it's the same person. They are very careful about making any definite statements. I've got a very open mind about this. My own faith doesn't really hinge on the level of reality of Jesus and I doubt any religious people really do. Who cares if Jesus is a symbol or a real person. The message is the same.

storytime · 01-02-2008, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

Quote:

Originally Posted by storytime

Well, I'm still trying to figure out why a non-Jewish people would have adopted a Jewish god and a messiah that excluded them. This in itself doesn't make sense. But then the Gentiles had "faith" that somehow this odd reasoning would eventually sink into everyones brain and we all would just accept that Jesus and his tribal god really loved everyone. And it came to pass that literacy began a movement of actually reading the bible story and questioning it's authenticity, not to mention its piecework in metaphors, allegories, tale tales and legends galore. And the wise who were once foolish said "What the hell?"

I've gone over this several times here. Firstly, your question shows that you don't understand Christian or even Jewish theology.

Much of the Jewish scripture is preoccupied with prophecies that the Jewish god would destroy the Jews and turn his favor over to the Gentiles.

The claims of Christianity are the these prophecies are being fulfilled and that indeed by the act of killing Jesus the Jews had done the deed that resulted in God brining his wrath to destroy the Jews and become the God of the Gentiles.

The Romans were obsessed with prophecy. The early Roman apologists and church elite were likewise obsessed with prophecy, and they focused on this subject extensively, and they created a number of "proofs" to demonstrate that this was the first case in history as they knew it of solid proof that major prophecies had been fulfilled, and that these prophecies proved that this must be the one true religion. They argued that it was proven beyond doubt that the Jewish scriptures were prophetic, and that furthermore, not only did this prove that Christianity was the true religion, but also that the Romans would be able to decipher the Jewish scritpures and use them to predict the future to help them gain more power by knowing the events of the world before they happened.

I'm not kidding, this is a MAJOR aspect of the appeal of Christianity to the Roman elite.

But what was all of this prophecy business based on? Well, the problem of course is that the concept of Jesus and the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, are all based on the Jewish scriptures in the first place, such that Paul's description of Jesus is simply a regurgitation of the messianic scriptures, and the Gospels are constructed simply of stories that use the Hebrew scriptures as their source material, thus, yes, events in the Gospels are directly portrayed as fulfillments of the Hebrew prophecies, but the problem is that such "fulfillments" are merely a product of the author, not reality.

Having been raised a Christian allows me to know the Christian mindset of a universal god as understood by all of Christianity. Now being an atheist allows me to stand back and examine the bible story independently.

You really need to re-read the old and new testaments, for no where does it say that God would destroy his people [the Jews] and replace his people with another[Gentiles]. How do you explain that Jesus was sent only to the lost sheep in the house of Israel? You do realize this means the 12 tribal sons of Jacob, don't you? Were any Gentiles named as tribes of Israel? Many many people were excluded and for a reason. Maybe you'd like to investigate as to the reason why?

I thought the main concern of the "fathers" in Rome was to prove a corpse was raised from the dead. Isn't this the foundation principle? What good is Christianity without a resurrected Christ figure? What good is Christianity if Christians are not raised from their dead corpses? What happens to the Jewish myth should Matthew 11:5 be taken into account, and the dead are seen as already raised-up while Jesus was still alive? I mean, this is what Jesus told John. So why do Christians not believe it? After all, "it's in the bible".

The claims of Christianity, as you know, should be challenged. Far to long has this bible story gone unchecked.

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01-02-2008, 06:01 AM	#21
Dargo Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Texas Posts: 713	For all we know, some 1st century pagan might have written a thorough debunking of Christianity. Keep in mind, all books had to be tediously hand copied, so very Christians would ever see this debunking and most of them couldn't read it anyway. The few who did would, as has been noted earlier, most likely ignore it just like followers of modern religions ignore embarassing facts which disagree with their faith. Scientologists will go out of their way to avoid reading anything that makes their religion look bad. You can bet as soon as Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire any debunkings would be burned as heretical. I guarantee Mormans would love to eliminate a lot of unpleasant details about Joseph Smith's life. If they could get away with it, they might even try to pretend he'd never condoned polygamy.

01-02-2008, 06:37 AM	#25
Malachi151 Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 8,674	Now Roger, there was no one 2,000 years ago interested in proving that any of the heroes never actually existed. There is no evidence of any interest in Christianity at all until the 2nd century, at which point is was limited and insignificant among non-followers, and how, pray tell, would anyone have been able to prove that this god-man never existed by that point anyway? Such concepts are simply foreign to the time, not because there weren't occasions to employ them, but quite the opposite, because so many such instances were accepted as true without issue.

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