Posts by SickofLies

at the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by pontius pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

SickofLies

Actually Hellrider my source for this artice wasn't from the people that made the God movie, but from a historian that wrote a book on the subject his webpage is: www.jesusneverexisted.com/

I have check many other webpages and for the most part they all agree (well except the christian fundmentalist ones of course), next time I'm in the library I will do some more concrete research on the subject. I may even stop over at the religion department at McMaster and see if anyone is doing research in this area. I will get back to you with my results.

21

Fabrication in Gospels

by SickofLies in

jesus was a spiritual and political leader of great renown.

the sick came from miles around to seek his miraculous healing powers.

at the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by pontius pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

SickofLies

Interesting point Hellrider, but I did provide a link above that explains why Josephus mentioned Jesus; here is the text in full:

Josephus (c37-100 AD)

Flavius Josephus is a highly respected and much-quoted Romano-Jewish historian. The early Christians were zealous readers of his work.

A native of Judea, living in the 1st century AD, Josephus was actually governor of Galilee for a time (prior to the war of 70 AD) – the very province in which Jesus allegedly did his wonders. Though not born until 37 AD and therefore not a contemporary witness to any Jesus-character, Josephus at one point even lived in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle.

Josephus's two major tomes are History of The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews. In these complementary works, the former written in the 70s, the latter in the 90s AD, Josephus mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event which occurred there during the first seventy years of the Christian era.

At face value, Josephus appears to be the answer to the Christian apologist's dreams.

In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the Christ-myth:

1. Jesus's existence 2. his 'more than human' status 3. his miracle working 4. his teaching 5. his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles 6. his Messiahship 7. his condemnation by the Jewish priests 8. his sentence by Pilate 9. his death on the cross 10. the devotion of his followers 11. his resurrection on the 3rd day 12. his post-death appearance 13. his fulfillment of divine prophesy 14. the successful continuance of the Christians.

In just 127 words Josephus confirms everything – now that is a miracle!

BUT WAIT A MINUTE ...

Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defences against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’ wondrous words.

The third century Church 'Father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defence of Christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively. Yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. In fact, Origen actually said that Josephus was "not believing in Jesus as the Christ."

Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.

It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum.

Consider, also, the anomalies:

1. How could Josephus claim that Jesus had been the answer to his messianic hopes yet remain an orthodox Jew?The absurdity forces some apologists to make the ridiculous claim that Josephus was a closet Christian!

2. If Josephus really thought Jesus had been 'the Christ' surely he would have added more about him than one paragraph, a casual aside in someone else's (Pilate's) story?

In fact, Josephus relates much more about John the Baptist than about Jesus! He also reports in great detail the antics of other self-proclaimed messiahs, including Judas of Galilee, Theudas the Magician, and the unnamed 'Egyptian Jew' messiah.

It is striking that though Josephus confirms everything the Christians could wish for, he adds nothing not in the gospel narratives, nothing that would have been unknown by Christians already.

3. The passage is out of context. Book 18 starts with the Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 AD, talks about various Jewish sects at the time, including the Essenes, and a sect of Judas the Galilean. He discusses Herod's building of various cities, the succession of priests and procurators, and so on.

Chapter 3 starts with a sedition against Pilate who planned to slaughter all the Jews but changed his mind. Pilate then used sacred money to supply water to Jerusalem, and the Jews protested. Pilate sent spies among the Jews with concealed weapons, and there was a great massacre.

Then comes the paragraph about Jesus, and immediately after it, Josephus continues:

'And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews ...'

Josephus, an orthodox Jew, would not have thought the Christian story to be 'another terrible misfortune.' It is only a Christian who would have considered this to be a Jewish tragedy.

Paragraph 3 can be lifted out of the text with no damage to the chapter. It flows better without it. Outside of this tiny paragraph, in all of Josephus's voluminous works, there is not a single reference to Christianity anywhere.

4. The phrase 'to this day' confirms that this is a later interpolation. There was no 'tribe of Christians' during Josephus's time. Christianity did not get off the ground until the second century.

5. The hyperbolic language is uncharacteristic of the historian:

'... as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him."

This is the stuff of Christian propaganda.

REALITY CHECK

In fact, the Josephus paragraph about Jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine.

Bishop Eusebius, that great Church propagandist and self-confessed liar-for-god, was the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus, about the year 340 AD. This was after the Christians had become the custodians of religious correctness.

Whole libraries of antiquity were torched by the Christians. Yet unlike the works of his Jewish contemporaries, the histories of Josephus survived. They survived because the Christian censors had a use for them. They planted evidence on Josephus, turning the leading Jewish historian of his day into a witness for Jesus Christ ! Finding no references to Jesus anywhere in Josephus's genuine work, they interpolated a brief but all-embracing reference based purely on Christian belief.

Do we need to look any further to identify Eusebius himself as the forger?

Sanctioned by the imperial propagandist every Christian commentator for the next thirteen centuries accepted unquestioningly the entire Testimonium Flavianum, along with its declaration that Jesus “was the Messiah.”

And even in the twenty first century scholars who should know better trot out a truncated version of the 'golden paragraph' in a scurrilous attempt to keep Josephus 'on message.'

The "Arabic Josephus"

In a novel embellishment to the notion of an orthodox Jew giving testimony of Jesus, defenders of the faith have in recent times tossed an Arabic version of the Josephus text on to their pile of dubious evidence. The Arabic recension was brought to light in 1971 by Professor Schlomo Pines of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Pines himself remained cautious about claims of untampered authenticity but the brethren have no such reservations, such is their desperation to keep Josephus in the witness stand for Jesus.

The work in question is actually a history of the world to the year 941/942 penned by a Christian Arab bishop, Agapius of Hierapolis. His World History preserves, in Arabic translation, a version of the Testimonium minus the most obvious Christian interpolations.

But what does a 10th century copy actually prove?

Claims that the Arabic passage itself dates from the 4th century are untenable (written Arabic barely existed at such an early date). Moreover Agapius was a Melkite Christian (pro-Byzantium) at a time of intensifying Islamization of his native Syria. What he wrote was political correctness for his own times. A new Shia Hamdani dynasty had been established barely 50 miles away in Aleppo. Its first prince, Sayf ad Dawlah (sword of the state), began a century of persistent attacks against Byzantium. Agapius' paraphrase of a Syriac rendition of Josephus from a Greek original rather significantly mentions JC's "condemnation to die" but not the actuality of it and of JC being "alive" 3 days later – in other words, a carefully balanced compatibility with Muhammad's view of a Jesus as a prophet who did not die on the cross.

In short, the Arabic Josephus is no evidence of the Christian godman and serves only to confuse the unwary.

21

Fabrication in Gospels

by SickofLies in

jesus was a spiritual and political leader of great renown.

the sick came from miles around to seek his miraculous healing powers.

at the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by pontius pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

SickofLies

Heathen, as you seem more reasonable than our friend Rex, what points weren't convincing? Why don't you post some of this evidence that 'refutes' what I have posted. I have posted from many different sources to show that these idea's are generally accepted by scolars. So if there is other evidence feel free to bring it out.

However, argument such as, 'I don't see how that refutes anything' or 'I'm not convinced' are merely statements of faith and not worth mentioning.

21

Fabrication in Gospels

by SickofLies in

jesus was a spiritual and political leader of great renown.

the sick came from miles around to seek his miraculous healing powers.

at the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by pontius pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

SickofLies

http://home.ca.inter.net/oblio/partone.htm

Around the year 107, the Christian bishop of Antioch made a last, doleful journey. Under military escort Ignatius travelled by land from Antioch to Rome, where in its brutal arena he was to die a martyr's death. Along the way he wrote to several Christian communities.

To the Trallians he said: "Close your ears then if anyone preaches to you without speaking of Jesus Christ. Christ was of David's line. He was the son of Mary; he was really born, ate and drank, was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was really crucified....He was also truly raised from the dead."

But there is something very curious about the occurrence of such ideas in Ignatius' letters. Let's leave the Gospels aside for now, except to say that there is no good reason to date any of them before the late first century, and look at the remaining corpus of surviving Christian writings to Ignatius' time.

The above chart includes the genuine letters of Paul, written in the 50s; letters written later in the first century under his name: Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians; and the three Pastorals (1 & 2 Timothy & Titus) dated to the second century; other New Testament epistles: James, Hebrews, Jude, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2 & 3 John; and Revelation. Also included are non-canonical writings: 1 Clement, the Didache (later called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), the letters of Ignatius, and the Epistle of Barnabas. The dates of many of these documents, all originally written in Greek, are difficult to fix and are here only approximate.

Several times in his letters Ignatius stresses his belief in Jesus as the son of Mary, as a man who had lived at the time of Herod, who had suffered and died under Pontius Pilate. Every Christian would agree that these are essential elements of the Gospel story, along with the portrayal of Jesus as an ethical teacher, as a worker of miracles, an apocalyptic preacher of the coming Kingdom of God. And yet when we step outside those Gospels into the much more rarefied atmosphere of the first century epistles, we encounter a huge puzzle.

Before Ignatius, not a single reference to Pontius Pilate, Jesus' executioner, is to be found. Ignatius is also the first to mention Mary; Joseph, Jesus' father, nowhere appears. The earliest reference to Jesus as any kind of a teacher comes in 1 Clement, just before Ignatius, who himself seems curiously unaware of any of Jesus' teachings. To find the first indication of Jesus as a miracle worker, we must move beyond Ignatius to the Epistle of Barnabas. Other notable elements of the Gospel story are equally hard to find.

This strange silence on the Gospel Jesus which pervades almost a century of Christian correspondence cries out for explanation. It cannot be dismissed as some inconsequential quirk, or by the blithe observation made by New Testament scholarship that early Christian writers "show no interest" in the earthly life of Jesus. Something is going on here. In Part One, we are going to take a close look at this "Conspiracy of Silence" to which Paul and every other Christian writer of the first century seems to be a party

21

Fabrication in Gospels

by SickofLies in

jesus was a spiritual and political leader of great renown.

the sick came from miles around to seek his miraculous healing powers.

at the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by pontius pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

SickofLies

What is Nazareth?:
Nazareth was a small agricultural village of no importance and which would have disappeared from all memory if not for its associations with Jesus in the gospel traditions. If it was occupied on a permanent basis, it wouldn’t have held much more than 1,000 people and possibly only as many as 500. Luke describes it as a “city” rather than “village,” which is inconsistent with what little we know.

Where is Nazareth?:
Nazareth was located close to the Via Maris, a major trade route between Palestine and Egypt. It was also close to Sepphois, an important city. Modern Nazareth is about 15 miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee and 20 miles west of the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated on a hill in the north of the Plain of Esdraelon, around 1200 ft above sea level.

Did Nazareth exist?:
No references to it can be found in the Old Testament, Josephus, rabbinic texts, or the otherwise exhaustive Roman records. Because of this, some have argued that no such village may have existed at all. No houses or architecture has been identified. Archaeologists have, however, identified small caves in a chalk ridge that were closed to the outside, presumably to make homes.

Why is Nazareth important?:
The only ancient significance to Nazareth are the gospel traditions that Jesus’ mother came from here (according the Luke) and that Jesus grew up here (according to Matthew and Luke). Early Christian pilgrims paid no attention to Nazareth, but after legends about Mary developed around the 6th century, it began to attract more and more visitors.

Today the modern village of Nazareth dwarfs whatever might have existed in ancient times and is filled with mostly Arab Christians. It has become a popular site for Christians visiting Israel.

http://atheism.about.com/od/bibleplacescities/p/Nazareth.htm

21

Fabrication in Gospels

by SickofLies in

jesus was a spiritual and political leader of great renown.

the sick came from miles around to seek his miraculous healing powers.

at the height of his popularity, he triumphantly entered jerusalem with his followers, appeared to declare himself the messiah, violently disrupted the business of the temple, and, after being tried by pontius pilate himself, was put to death as a revolutionary.

SickofLies

CITING GEOGRAPHY, AND KNOWN HISTORICAL FIGURES AS "EVIDENCE"

Although the New Testament mentions various cities, geological sites, kings and people that existed or lived during the alleged life of Jesus, these descriptions cannot serve as evidence for the existence of Jesus anymore than works of fiction that include recognizable locations, and make mention of actual people.

Homer's Odyssey, for example, describes the travels of Odysseus throughout the Greek islands. The epic describes, in detail, many locations that existed in history. But should we take Odysseus, the Greek gods and goddesses, one-eyed giants and monsters as literal fact simply because the story depicts geographic locations accurately? Of course not. Mythical stories, fictions, and narratives almost always use familiar landmarks as placements for their stories. The authors of the Greek tragedies not only put their stories in plausible settings as happening in the real world but their supernatural characters took on the desires, flaws and failures of mortal human beings. Consider that fictions such as King Kong, Superman, and Star Trek include recognizable cities, planets, and landmarks, with their protagonists and antagonists miming human emotions.

Likewise, just because the Gospels mention cities and locations in Judea, and known historical people, with Jesus behaving like an actual human being (with the added dimension of supernatural curses, miracles, etc.) but this says nothing about the actuality of the characters portrayed in the stories. However, when a story uses impossible historical locations, or geographical errors, we may question the authority of the claims.

For example, in Matt 4:8, the author describes the devil taking Jesus into an exceedingly high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Since there exists no spot on the spheroid earth to view "all the kingdoms," we know that the Bible errs here.

John 12:21 says, "The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee. . . ." Bethsaida resided in Gaulonitis (Golan region), east of the Jordan river, not Galilee, which resided west of the river.

John 3:23 says, "John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. . . ." Critics agree that no such place as Aenon exists near Salim.

There occurs not a shred of evidence for a city named Nazareth at the time of the alleged Jesus. [Leedom; Gauvin] Nazareth does not appear in the Old Testament, nor does it appear in the volumes of Josephus's writings (even though he provides a detailed list of the cities of Galilee). Oddly, none of the New Testament epistle writers ever mentions Nazareth or a Jesus of Nazareth even though most of the epistles got written before the gospels. In fact no one mentions Nazareth until the Gospels, where the first one got written at least 40 years after the hypothetical death of Jesus. Apologists attempt to dismiss this by claiming that Nazareth existed as an insignificant and easily missed village (how would they know?), thus no one recorded it. However, whenever the Gospels speak of Nazareth, they always refer to it as a city, never a village, and a historian of that period would surely have noticed a city. (Note the New Testament uses the terms village, town, and city.) Nor can apologists fall on archeological evidence of preexisting artifacts for the simple reason that many cities get built on ancient sites. If a city named Nazareth existed during the 1st century, then we need at least one contemporary piece of evidence for the name, otherwise we cannot refer to it as historical.

Many more errors and unsupported geographical locations appear in the New Testament. And although one cannot use these as evidence against a historical Jesus, we can certainly question the reliability of the texts. If the scriptures make so many factual errors about geology, science, and contain so many contradictions, falsehoods could occur any in area.

If we have a coupling with historical people and locations, then we should also have some historical reference of a Jesus to these locations and people. But just the opposite proves the case. The Bible depicts Herod, the Ruler of Jewish Palestine under Rome as sending out men to search and kill the infant Jesus, yet nothing in history supports such a story. Pontius Pilate supposedly performed as judge in the trial and execution of Jesus, yet no Roman record mentions such a trial. The gospels portray a multitude of believers throughout the land spreading tales of a teacher, prophet, and healer, yet nobody in Jesus' life time or several decades after, ever records such a human figure. The lack of a historical Jesus in the known historical record speaks for itself.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

2

Controversial Christian Faction Believes Jesus was Nailed to...

by Maryjane in

.

controversial christian faction believes jesus was nailed to 2 parallel pieces of wood!

(now nail that to your torture stake!

SickofLies

LOL

13

Directed by Holy Spirit? or Bum-Steered by Holy Spirit?

by Scully in

*** w81 12/1 p. 27 the path of the righteous does keep getting brighter ***.

however, it may have seemed to some as though that path has not always gone straight forward.

at times explanations given by jehovahs visible organization have shown adjustments, seemingly to previous points of view.