| thetonestarr said: Wrong on all counts, Megagame. There are a number of texts referencing Jesus, including a Jewish historian (Josephus) that would've (given his religious stance) preferred to write absolutely nothing about Jesus whatsoever. Yet, he referenced Jesus anyways, since accurate history was his main objective. Additionally, there are the events of the first century. The mass persecution and murder of any followers of Christ. Given how much they were being killed, they would have HAD to have known that Jesus was a real figure. Given that their belief stated that he lived during their very lifetimes, they would have easily been able to know whether he was real or not. Considering that they continued with their beliefs, it's pretty safe to say that they most definitely knew that Jesus did indeed exist. Additionally, there are no texts referencing the group of crazy people that believed in this man that didn't exist even though they were being killed over it. Why are there no texts? Probably because Jesus did exist. The committee that put together the Bible weren't deciding which books were right and wrong. The group that worked on it were concerned because there were countless gnostic gospels and other false works that were constantly being written and circulated. What the committee was doing was confirming what everybody had believed was true and holy, and making it official which books were God-inspired, and which were not. When that council was held, they didn't decide which books were going to be part of the Bible. They deciphered which books had always been viewed as part of the Bible from the get-go, and made it officially known that those had always been the true works. |
Josephus's account of Jesus was one hundred years after his death. I believe you are refering to the Antiquities of the Jews. there are no accounts of Jesus in the Talmuds(the history of the Jews). This by no means disproves that a man named Jesus existed it could be the striken him from the books or that they never included him out of fear to acknowledge his existence.
The are several Yeshu's and Yeshua's(jesus's actual name) that pop up in the Talmuds though. Very few had apostles though. There was a guy named Yeshu(who was a student of Yeshua Ben Prada) who had five apostles with names like Mattai and Luqua, I can't remember their Aramaic names. But Mattai is Matthew and Luqua is Luke. Yeshu was put to death for burning meat in public but he had freinds in the goverment so they sent someone out to announce his death and ask anyone to come forward in his defense for 30days no one did and he was hanged. Not a carbon copy of the New Testement by far.
This was a Messanic age and there was no prinitng press there were plenty of people claiming ot the messiah and yes there is a link to astrological roots. It is entirely possible that Jesus did not exist as was written and instead a conglomerate of stories that got mixed from by orally passing accounts of Messiah X and Y with similiar names(Yeshu, Yeshua). Me I tend to believe Jesus existed however I do not delude myselof into thinking there is absolute proof that he did.
Christianity itself mixed many popular religions of the day. Mithras, Cult of Osirus, Zorastrism are the main ones. Mithras broke bread and drank wine every sunday on their day of rest. Zorastrism had many of the aspects of hell and afterlife and good and evil(except an uknown outcome). Christianity also fleshed out an old jewish practice of the Mikvah(we call it baptism). There is nothing wrong with christianity mixing beliefs IMO because that would be the intention.
