Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

[stromboli]

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm

Too strange to be a coincidence!

According to the Biblical account, Pilate offered the Jews the release of just one prisoner and the cursed race chose Barabbas rather than gentle Jesus.

But hold on a minute: in the original text studied by Origen (and in some recent ones) the chosen criminal was Jesus Barabbas â€" and Bar Abba in Aramaic means ‘Son of the Father’!

Are we to believe that Pilate had a Jesus, Son of God and a Jesus, Son of the Father in his prison at the same time??!!

Perhaps the truth is that a single executed criminal helped flesh out the whole fantastic fable.

Gospel writers, in scrambling details, used the Aramaic Barabbas knowing that few Latin or Greek speakers would know its meaning.

Was there a Jesus? Of course there was a Jesus â€" many!


The archetypal Jewish hero was Joshua (the successor of Moses) otherwise known as Yehoshua (Yeshua) bin Nun (‘Jesus of the fish’). Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Iesous in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘saviour’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’) probably every band in the Jewish resistance had its own hero figure sporting this moniker, among others.

Josephus, the first century Jewish historian mentions no fewer than nineteen different Yeshuas/Jesii, about half of them contemporaries of the supposed Christ! In his Antiquities, of the twenty-eight high priests who held office from the reign of Herod the Great to the fall of the Temple, no fewer than four bore the name Jesus: Jesus ben Phiabi, Jesus ben Sec, Jesus ben Damneus and Jesus ben Gamaliel. Even Saint Paul makes reference to a rival magician, preaching ‘another Jesus’ (2 Corinthians 11,4). The surfeit of early Jesuses includes:

Jesus ben Sirach. This Jesus was reputedly the author of the Book of Sirach (aka 'Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach'), part of Old Testament Apocrypha. Ben Sirach, writing in Greek about 180 BC, brought together Jewish 'wisdom' and Homeric-style heroes.

Jesus ben Pandira. A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophecy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree â€" and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect.

Jesus ben Ananias. Beginning in 62AD, this Jesus had caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of ‘Woe to the city’. He prophesied rather vaguely:

"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people."

â€" Josephus, Wars 6.3.

Arrested and flogged by the Romans, Jesus ben Ananias was released as nothing more dangerous than a mad man. He died during the siege of Jerusalem from a rock hurled by a Roman catapult.

Jesus ben Saphat. In the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee, this Jesus had led the rebels in Tiberias ("the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people" â€" Josephus, Life 12.66). When the city was about to fall to Vespasian’s legionaries he fled north to Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus ben Gamala. During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by ‘James and John, sons of Susa’). It did him no good. When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.

Jesus ben Thebuth. A priest who, in the final capitulation of the upper city in 69AD, saved his own skin by surrendering the treasures of the Temple, which included two holy candlesticks, goblets of pure gold, sacred curtains and robes of the high priests. The booty figured prominently in the Triumph held for Vespasian and his son Titus.



But was there a crucified Jesus?

Certainly. Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew. And given the scale that Roman retribution could reach â€" at the height of the siege of Jerusalem the Romans were crucifying upwards of five hundred captives a day before the city walls â€" dead heroes called Jesus would (quite literally) have been thick on the ground. Not one merits a full-stop in the great universal history.


But then with so many Jesuses could there not have been a Jesus of Nazareth?

The problem for this notion is that absolutely nothing at all corroborates the sacred biography and yet this 'greatest story' is peppered with numerous anachronisms, contradictions and absurdities. For example, at the time that Joseph and the pregnant Mary are said to have gone off to Bethlehem for a supposed Roman census, Galilee (unlike Judaea) was not a Roman province and therefore ma and pa would have had no reason to make the journey. Even if Galilee had been imperial territory, history knows of no ‘universal census’ ordered by Augustus (nor any other emperor) â€" and Roman taxes were based on property ownership not on a head count. Then again, we now know that Nazareth did not exist before the second century.


(NOTE: see below on Nazareth)

It is mentioned not at all in the Old Testament nor by Josephus, who waged war across the length and breadth of Galilee (a territory about the size of Greater London) and yet Josephus records the names of dozens of other towns. In fact most of the ‘Jesus-action’ takes place in towns of equally doubtful provenance, in hamlets so small only partisan Christians know of their existence (yet well attested pagan cities, with extant ruins, failed to make the Jesus itinerary).

What should alert us to wholesale fakery here is that practically all the events of Jesus’s supposed life appear in the lives of mythical figures of far more ancient origin. Whether we speak of miraculous birth, prodigious youth, miracles or wondrous healings â€" all such 'signs' had been ascribed to other gods, centuries before any Jewish holy man strolled about. Jesus’s supposed utterances and wisdom statements are equally common place, being variously drawn from Jewish scripture, neo-Platonic philosophy or commentaries made by Stoic and Cynic sages.

N-N-N-Nazareth!!!!!

The Lost City

The Gospels tell us that Jesus's home town was the 'City of Nazareth' ('polis Natzoree'):


And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a CITY of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
(Luke1.26,27)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the CITY of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David:
(Luke 2.3,4)

But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a CITY called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
(Matthew 2.22,23)

And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own CITY Nazareth. And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
(Luke 2.39,40)


The gospels do not tell us much about this 'city' â€" it has a synagogue, it can scare up a hostile crowd (prompting JC's famous "prophet rejected in his own land" quote), and it has a precipice â€" but the city status of Nazareth is clearly established, at least according to that source of nonsense called the Bible.

However when we look for historical confirmation of this hometown of a god â€" surprise, surprise! â€" no other source confirms that the place even existed in the 1st century AD.

• Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. The Book of Joshua (19.10,16) â€" in what it claims is the process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area â€" records twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its list.

• The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

• St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles (real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

• No ancient historian or geographer mentions Nazareth. It is first noted at the beginning of the 4th century.


None of this would matter of course if, rather like at the nearby 'pagan' city of Sepphoris, we could stroll through the ruins of 1st century bath houses, villas, theatres etc. Yet no such ruins exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo

[Mike Cl]

^This--my kind of stuff!

[stromboli]

^This--my kind of stuff!

I felt the music was appropriate.

[Mike Cl]

I felt the music was appropriate.

Oh yeah.................

[marom1963]

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/surfeit.htm




N-N-N-Nazareth!!!!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo

I appreciate the scholarship, I do, I really do. But, no amount of scholarship will ever change their minds. And it took no scholarship at all to convince me in the first place that there was no God. It was simple logic that did it.The value of the scholarship is for us (now) and (perhaps) for future generations.

[Mike Cl]

I appreciate the scholarship, I do, I really do. But, no amount of scholarship will ever change their minds. And it took no scholarship at all to convince me in the first place that there was no God. It was simple logic that did it.The value of the scholarship is for us (now) and (perhaps) for future generations.

I have to agree with that.  Theists use only belief and faith.  Reason and critical thinking just does not register.  The harder it is to believe, the more faith comes into play; the greatest good comes from deepening and strengthening that faith.  Which translates to me--let's move from willful ignorance to willful stupidity.  And revel in it!

[aitm]

Randy will simply say no, and prance away as if he won a war or single handedly defeated Darth Vader while the whole time unaware that the those watching were simply too stunned at the simplistic stupidity that abounded within him and like many people before over many generations, simply could find it in themselves to kill the retarded.

[Randy Carson]

And it took no scholarship at all to convince me in the first place that there was no God. It was simple logic that did it.

What was that logic?

I'm curious, because other atheists cite logic as the reason they became believers. Maybe it's not so black and white as you imply...

[Baruch]

What was that logic?

I'm curious, because other atheists cite logic as the reason they became believers. Maybe it's not so black and white as you imply...

In logic (the usual kind) it is always black and white.  It is a tautology, a contradiction or contingent.  If tautology, it is so coherent, it only defines itself without reference beyond itself.  If contradiction, it is incoherent.  If contingent, it is isn't incoherent, but such that reference beyond itself must be sought.

But then any apologist would be expert at "fuzzy logic" to go with their "thuzzy finking"