James Brown

According to Acts 5:30, and 10:39, Jesus was killed and hung on a tree. That's a backwards description of a crucifixion, and in both passages I get the sense that it was performed by Jews.

Toto

I split this digression off because it threatens to become a slug fest.

Juststeve made a simple, or simplistic, claim, that it is a historical fact that Jesus was crucified by the Romans, as if this claim is well documented and indisputable, and as if he is unaware of the arguments against it. A few other posters make incomplete answers in an attempt to show that this claim is not a fact, and Juststeve misinterprets or mistates their arguments and compares them to Birthers. Then aa5874 jumps in with his mantra about the gospels only describe a supernatural Jesus, not a historical Jesus.

Let's try to get this discussion a bit more rational and less like a food fight, OK?

You might want to start with some of the detailed arguments from Neil Godfrey showing that the claim that the crucifixion is a historical fact is actually quite insecure, if you apply the normal historical criteria for fact:

Evidence for the UNhistorical “fact” of Jesus’ death
The Fredriksen Fallacy

aa5874

I produce the written evidence and Juststeve made an unevidenced claim.

Any reference to Jesus of the NT must refer to his ACTUAL description in the NT.

People here make claims here knowing full well that there is no historical credible source anywhere that support the claim.

Even HJers agree that the Jesus of the NT is described mythically from conception to ascension.

When one deals with Jesus of the NT then it is MOST obvious that the content of the NT MUST be considered.

Matthew 1.18, and Luke 1.35 also, described the conception and birth of the character that was crucified and he was not a man.

There are NO credible Roman or Jewish records of Jesus a Jewish Messiah BEFORE the Fall of the Temple.

This is Justin Martyr in "Dialogue with Trypho" CX"First Apology" XXI
The EVIDENCE, NOT mantra, has totally contradicted Juststeve and it has been KNOWN for hundreds of years, about 1800 YEARS now.

Let us not waste time with people who do not want to discuss the evidence of antiquity but only regurgitated debunked mantra.

It is SIMPLY completely erroneous and without any merit to say that it is an historical fact that Jesus was crucified by the Romans when there is not even any evidence that Jesus could have existed and that apologetic sources clearly show that no character was known as Jesus the Messiah by the Jews.


What is the basis for Jussteve's claim that Jesus was actually crucified by the Romans?

What book of history supports his claim?

So why is he making the claim?

I think it is time we ask people to FIRST justify their claims with credible historical sources.

Toto

These passages in Acts contradict the account in the gospels.

It appears that the author of this passage in Acts assumes that Jesus was killed by the Jews for blasphemy, in which case he would have been stoned and his body hung on a tree. The gospel authors (all of whom seem to derive their story from Mark) portray Jesus as killed by the Romans. The Romans would have used crucifixion rather than stoning.

Acts in its final form is assumed to be later than the gospels, but may incorporate earlier traditions. Or perhaps it was written first, and the gospels were written as prequels. In any case, there is no consistent early tradition, and no reason to think that either of these stories is an accurate reflection of a historical fact, is there?

If Mark is an allegorical depiction of the fate of the nation of Israel, the crucifixion represents the treatment of the rebels at the hands of the Romans, and the resurrection is the rebirth of the nation.

Your move, Steve.

Juststeve

Toto:

Thanks for offering to start with Neil Godfrey but why? Why not start with a well recognized Biblical Historian of the kind that teaching in major universities and publishes in peer reviewed journals. Godfrey himself admits there are plenty of those. He says so in the very material you posted. Paula Fredriksen is only one of many. Yet he does not claim that any of those recognized scholars agree with his analysis, everyone else it seems are laboring under a fallacy that Godfrey has detected.

Who is this Godfrey who has tumbled to the truth when all of the professionals are in error. Well according to his blog he is a librarian who tells us precious little else of relevance about himself other than that Biblical History is his hobby, a serious hobby he says. Thus we have a contest between a hobbyist on one hand any many recognized scholars on the other, in the scholars field of expertise. Gee, I wonder who is more likely to be right?

We have been through this before. I value the academic standards ordinarily applied to scholars, advanced degrees, academic positions at respected universities and publications which are read and discussed by other academics. These sorts of things serve as quality controls particularly important in a internet world where any crackpot can publish anything they want. These are the sort of things that allow us to recognize crack pots whether in the guise of birthers, creationists or ancient alien theorists. It appears that you on the other hand place little of no value on academic credentials and probably won’t until real scholars begin to agree with you. You are of course entitled to your opinion about the nature of scholarship and scholars, as am I.

You and Godfrey may be right, and all of the recognized academic scholars might be wrong, but that’s not where my money is and it is my money.

Have a good weekend.

Steve

DCHindley

Steve,

That fact is "backed into" on the assumption that Christians would not have conceded that Jesus was crucified, the Roman punishment for political sedition, by a specific Roman governor, unless it was likely very true. They did, of course, make a silk purse out of a sow's ear by making Jesus into a cynic-like wisdom teacher, and shifting the blame for his crucifixion to Judean authorities because they were "jealous" of his "authoritative" style of teaching.

Almost every single regular poster here, with a couple exceptions, think that the source of this crucifixion story is derived from vague Egyptian/Babylonian/Greek/Roman dying and/or resurrected god myths that have been "historicized" in Pilate's governorship of Judea because it seemed to be a believable place and time to place a fictional story.

Don't worry that this deliberate choice of place and manner of death would place the adherents to this historicized mythical story in very real danger of being themselves considered revolutionaries by the Romans, and subject to that same death sentence.

Don't fret that no one can explain what kind of function this "story" served in early Christian communities.

Don't be held back because the parties involved in these dying and/or resurrected god myths from which early Christians fabricated the crucifixion story from are all gods themselves, not fixed to specific times and persons in written history.

Osiris, grandson of the Egyptian god Ra and son of the earth god Geb and the sky god Nut, is killed by his brother Seth, and reanimated by his sister/wife Isis, only to die again to become the god of the underworld. No attempt to equate them with Menes and the kings of the first dynasty.

Getting back to "backing into" a historical crucifixion. If Anointed Jesus was indeed crucified by the Romans for sedition (whether a real king claimant, or imagined to be holding such aspirations), and Christians sought to "explain it away," it seems natural to interpret the development of Christian dogma as an attempt to maintain a community that started as a gentile faction within a movement hoping to find a place in an expected Jewish kingdom of God on earth, and centered on Jesus as the anointed leader, by transforming themselves into a mystery religion that saw Jesus as a divine savior figure called Christ. 2nd century Christian apologists then could say, "do not persecute us for sedition, but tolerate us because we are no different than adherents of the cults of the gods, who you praise."

DCH

gdeering

Steve,

Why are you are always hiding behind someone's skirts. Part of the reason I enjoy the site is for the educational debates. I wish you'd join it.


Gregg

Toto

Go ahead - find one or more of these brand name recognized Biblical Historians^TM and present their analysis. Why do they claim that the crucifixion is a historical fact?

I do value these academic standards, and I find that Biblcal scholars who claim to be historians do not measure up. Instead, Biblical scholars have tried to steal the credibility of real academics to squash controversy over their own methods.

I just wonder why you want to buy their conclusions without actually examining them.

Steven Carr

I imagine Paul is most likely to be right.

He was one of the first Christian writers.

He explains that the Roman authorities ' do not bear the sword for nothing.'

Paul explains that '... rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.'

In much the same way, in our times, Osama bin Laden explains how the American government is an agent of Allah, and is there to punish wrongdoers and people arrested by the Americans have brought punishment upon themselves as wrongdoers.

andrewcriddle

Paul certainly believed that the crucified Jesus (1 Corinthians 2:8). If, you hold that Paul cannot mean human earthly rulers here because this would contradict Romans 13, then you are left with the strange idea that Paul regarded earthly human rulers as appointed by God but not their angelic heavenly counterparts.

(It may be relevant that Paul in 1 Corinthians regards the crucifixion as a sin of ignorance, ie dreadful things done by rulers (whoever the rulers are) are likely to involve misunderstanding.)

Andrew Criddle