Toto

I did a brief google search on the phrase. It shows up cited thusly:

on <a href="http://www.mithraism.erudition.net/append/passage2.htm" target="_blank">mithraism.erudition.net</a>

on <a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa.htm" target="_blank">the Religious Tolerance pages</a>

I also found the phrase cited in this <a href="http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/rcf/easterdebate2001.htm" target="_blank">Easter debate between an Anglican and a skeptic</a>, quoting an inscription on a tomb.

Another page gives this source: Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 28

So - check out these, or try your own search. If you find it's all a myth, let us know. But since Justin Martyr complains specificially about the Mithraic communion, it looks plausible.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

GunnerJ

Since Meta is clammoring on about the need for a bodily ressurection, I offer from <a href="http://jasminjahal.com/articles/01_01_Goddess_Isis.html" target="_blank">this site</a> about the Egyptian goddess Isis:

There you go. The next line details how Isis and Osirus concieved the Sun god Horus, so we can tell this is a bodily ressurection. Osirus worship was quite alive and well in Roman times, and with it's proximity to Egypt, no doubt plenty of Jews knew of this legend. Complaints that the daeth was not by crusifixion will be ignored, as the death and ressurection archetype does not require it. What's interesting is that Isis sought out the body parts of Osirus, in much the same way that Mary Magdeline sought the body of Jesus.

Also, there is an interesting miracle conception myth about Zarathustra, whose religion was well known to the Jews, being that they spent so much time in the captivity of the religion's followers. I read from Will Durant's The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage:

RyanS2

We can also take note of early clergymen who emphatically denied that Jesus was born of a woman. Anastasius said that, "Let no one call Mary the Mother of God, for Mary was but a woman, and it's impossible that God should be born of a woman."

Marcionites said Jesus wasn't even born into this World, he materialized in flesh and blood, because Jesus could never touch "vulgar female flesh".

It's funny Christians talk about the variations of the stories in the Roman and Greek Gods, but they don't acknowledge that the first "orthodox" manual for Christianity by Marcion had a radically different Jesus in it.

Nomad

Without speaking for Metacrock, the question of whether or not the Jews (as opposed to the Romans) could have crucified Jesus is answered by noting that we have no records of the Jews having crucified anyone in Judaea after the 1st Century BC when the Romans took over control of the province. In fact, Jesus remains the first crucified Jew of the 1st Century AD that we know of at all.

In any event, as you yourself have noted, the evangelists were motivated to lay as much of the blame on the Jews (as opposed to the Romans) as possible. If the Jewish High Council had executed Jesus on their own, then the Gospels would not have dragged in Pilate at all. The reason Pilate and the Romans are mentioned is because they are the ones who actually did the deed.

"I take it absolutely for granted that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Security about the fact (emphasis in original) of the crucifixion derives not only from the unlikelihood that Christians would have invented it but also from the existence of two early and independent non-Christian witnesses to it, a Jewish one from 93-94 CE (Josephus) and a Roman one from the 110's or 120s CE (Tacitus)."
(J.D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus, [New York: HarperCollins, 1992], pg. 372).

This strikes me as very reasonable.

Yet Grant does not totally deny the historicity of hearings/trials before either the Sanhedrin or Pontius Pilate, though he rightly treats the evidence cautiously. His full quotation here was:

"Then followed the most famous trial in the history of mankind; though it may have been no trial, or trials, at all, but a series of hurried unofficial examinations. The story is told variously by the evangeliss, and their discrepancies have formed the them of many books. Yet all four Gospels at least agree that accusations were made against Jesus by the Jewish authorities, who then persuaded or constrained the Roman governor (prefect) of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, to condemn him and put him to death."
(M. Grant, Jesus, [London: Orion Books Ltd., 1977], pg. 156).

In my own view, the word "trial" need not be applied to Jesus' encounter with the Sanhedrin, or even Pilate. What cannot, nor should not, be ruled out is that Jesus probably did appear before both prior to His execution.

Granted, though I do not think that anyone has claimed otherwise.

This is hardly interesting, as all we know about the name Pontius Pilate at all is what is found in the Bible, brief references in Josephus and Tacitus, and an inscription on a stone. Given the paucity of records on Pilate himself, a lack of court records is hardly surprising.

And as Jesus was not executed for blasphemy, but rather, for sedition/rebellion against the Roman Empire, this is a non-sequitor.

As it is extremely unlikely that the Romans would have executed Jesus (a Jew with no evidence of military or political objectives, nor of a criminal record for murder or other capital offences) on their own, it is reasonable to suppose that the religious authorities in Jerusalem would have played at least some role in Jesus' arrest and execution. Most plausibly, they would have been consulted by Pilate, and it is very probable that they examined Jesus on their own.

Without question, however, Jesus was executed by Rome, not the Jews, and on this we have full agreement not only by the Canonical Gospels, but also Josephus (Antiquities 18) and Tacitus (Annals 15) as well.

Nomad

-DM-

One comment on something Nomad said ...

The claim is not "a lack of court records," rather the claim is that when the court records of Pontius Pilate were still extant, there was no record in them of a trial of Jesus.

[Keep in mind, however, that I don't necessarily put any stock in any claim of what isn't or wasn't.]

--Don--

Vorkosigan

The Josephus fragment is in a text obviously worked over by Christians and is highly controversial and essentially untrustworthy.

Tacitus, writing ninety years after the alleged event, mentions a Christian legend he picked up somewhere. That is hardly proof of anything, other than that Christian legend was going full blast by 110-120, but we knew that anyway.

As I recall, Eusebius says he saw some Acti Pilati, which were not the same as the forgery we have now, that said Jesus was executed in the 7th year of Nero, or 21 AD. An earlier execution date may be the reason Paul is so clueless and confused about Jesus.

The "trial" of Jesus may preserve some echo of a political debate over the execution of someone, but as a trial it is clearly absurd and again, untrustworthy. In any case the canonical gospels present a composite figure built from numerous sources, with little from history.

Michael

Asha'man

Again, I don’t see why the Romans would even bother. Jesus wasn’t raising an army to fight Roman authority, he was raising a theology to fight Jewish authority. He was defying the Jewish laws, breaking the Sabbath, upsetting the whole scheme of things. If Jesus did nothing else but break the Sabbath, that alone is punishable by death according to Jewish law.

I think “without question” is ignoring the whole discussion here. Clearly, I have a question. The canonical Gospels cannot be accepted exactly as we have them, because they are contradictory and show clear signs of editing over time. As was just pointed out, Josephus also shows signs of editing, and Tacitus simply reflects the story at a later date. My question is about the original story, before people turned it into a new religion.

In fact, many people question the very existence of a man named Jesus, not to mention the crucifixion. I appear to have taken an unpopular middle ground by even supposing that some of the gospel accounts may have a fragment of truth in them.

If the only evidence that existed was a few scraps of Jewish writing and some knowledge about how Jewish authority existed under Roman law, the conclusion would be clear: there would have been no crucifixion. If you add in a set of untrustworthy and edited documents, ones that have clear motivation to change the facts to promote a better story, I am not sure you have enough evidence to reverse that conclusion.

(spelling typo)

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Asha'man ]</p>

Reactor

Why is it that when there's something that could go either way, you- turtonm (or someone else on here) automatically determine for everyone that it must fall to "untrustworthy" and "clearly absurd"?

Josephus' writings do a look a little touched up in a couple of places, don't they? I'd agree with that, but there are also places that seem quite fine, and in line with the rest of his writings. His works should be taken with a grain of salt, and not slapped with the title of untrustworthy. They are controversial, yes. But inadequate as evidence of anything related to Jesus? I'd say no. But, let's forget about him altogether for a moment.

The biggest problem you have here, is that you think the bible is worth nothing until backed up by historical sources outside of itself. Other historical documents have gotten away with far less. Until you can prove that every account in the bible about Jesus' life are false (something that can't be done beyond conjecture) you can not with absolute certainty claim that his trial is clearly absurd- even if unsupported by outside historical conformation.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Reactor ]</p>

Nomad

Hello Don

Here is what you said from your original post again:

I pointed out that we do not have any court records from Pilate at all (or anything else, for that matter, beyond the NT, Josephus, Tacitus and one inscription), let alone of records of Jesus' (or anyone else's) trial from Pilate's non-existent personal library, memoirs or what have you. So to draw any kind of conclusions as to what may or may not have been contained in any such hypothetical "extant records" is to engage in pure speculation.

I am unclear as to what you are saying here.

Nomad

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Nomad ]</p>

Metacrock

Meta =&gt;Right so just in that one little space when Jesus lived the Jews did all their own exicusions and before and after that time they didn't? Come on! There is tons of historical precident for that. Besides I think that's wrong I'll have to chekc my docs but I'm pretty sure they had already lost it. Even they didn't that doens't mean they wouldn't have a motive for einginering it so that Rome would do it, after all he was popular, the people would blame Rome if he was crucified but blame them if he was stoned by their authority.