Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Archbio]

I'm not going to say anything about the historicity of Jesus, except that I'm pretty sure that there was academic controversy on the existence of an historical Jesus, so I don't think it's all that obvious.

As for citing the Glorious Life Church website to "back up" anything, I don't think that's very prudent at all. Historically, there's no consensus that the Bible (and by that I mean the Old Testament) should be assumed to be accurate, even in parts that aren't blatantly mythological or miraculous narratives, and this website seems overenthusiastic over minor things (a figurine of a calf from antiquity? wow!) as well as outright inflating others. All in all, I was under the impression that the accuracy of the Bible, as a source, wasn't held by most historians as particularly faultless. I get the curious impression from the GLC website that the authors are imagining a conflict between "the historical narrative of the Bible is made out of whole cloth" and "the bible is the absolute truth, hurray!", which isn't a very balanced way of looking at this.

Lets not forget Homer was confirmed at least once by archeology.

[ZAKtheGeek]

I've also heard things to the effect that there were a bunch of "messianic" figures around that time period. Anybody know about this? Any truth to it? In particular I ask because a lot of these historic references refer to Christ rather than Jesus; a title rather than a name.

[Elminster_Amaur]

Yes there were a bunch of people claiming to be Christs at that time, due to the book of Daniel giving a general time-frame on when the Christ was supposed to be expected. I'm not big on prophecy, but it could have referred to anytime in the hundred to two hundred or so years on either side of Jesus' birth, depending upon how you interpret the term "a week" in the prophecies. It's most commonly interpreted as 7 years, when they're referring to far-future events such as this, but there are other possible meanings, giving it a bit of leeway. Anyway, there were at least two other people claiming to be Christs that had large followings, but they didn't fulfill all the prophecy to enough people's acceptance. One in particular was fairly close, but it was a hundred years previous, I think. He's mentioned in the Gnostic texts, if I'm not mistaken.

But most of the people, aside from those three or four, who were claiming to be the Christ were just in it for fame or fortune.

However, I've recently heard claims by a guy who is supposedly of the "bloodline" who secretly control everything by spreading knowledge discretely throughout the populations of earth that the three wise men were part of their order, and were almost always near Jesus' side. Supposedly, that's why Jesus succeeded and the rest failed. He was furthering their "cause" whatever the hell that means.

Personally, some of the guy's claims are far out there, but some are pretty close to what I have come to believe (the religious parts, not the "we control knowledge of the divine" part).

http://www.scribd.com/doc/403303/The...y-Insider-2005

I was searching for various texts on magic, because I tend to look at those and laugh when I'm bored, and this transcription intrigued me.

[Magus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Messiah_claimants this is an article that talks about Jewish Messiah claimants; I'd ignore the Alexander the Great thing there at the beginning (that wasn't even there the last time I saw this page), and probably focus on the first three or four after that as far as the ones around that time.

# Judas son of Hezekiah (Ezekias) (c. 4 BCE)
# Simon (c. 4 BCE)
# Athronges (c. 4-2? BCE)
# Honi HaM'agel
# Jesus

These people were all claimants to Messiah-ship at that time. The next one in the timeline here was "Theudas (44-46) in the Roman province of Judea" which was a few years after Jesus death (if you took it as exactly happening in 32 AD or what have you, since no one really knows exactly when Jesus was born/died).

[TheWolf13]

Originally Posted by ZAKtheGeek

"NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF JESUS." Would somebody with good knowledge of relevant history like to point out any biases, mistakes and/or conspicuous omissions in this little piece?

Josephus was a VERY famous non-Christian historian who focused on the Jewish-Roman relationship. He refers to Jesus Christ in several of his manuscripts. The key thing about Josephus is that he was a pagan who verified many of the claims of the early Apostolic church.

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by Magus

Wait, are they trying to say there wasn't SOMEBODY named Jesus or somebody along those lines who was probably crucified by the Roman authorities?

The Romans crucified people all the time, and Jesus is a very common name. That's like saying there was a guy named John who was executed in the United States.

Originally Posted by TheWolf13

Josephus was a VERY famous non-Christian historian who focused on the Jewish-Roman relationship. He refers to Jesus Christ in several of his manuscripts. The key thing about Josephus is that he was a pagan who verified many of the claims of the early Apostolic church.

As I said previously in the thread, there's "historical records" of things like Alexander the Great doing it with the queen of the Amazons. Roman and grecian historians have to be taken with a grain of salt.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by TheWolf13

Josephus was a VERY famous non-Christian historian who focused on the Jewish-Roman relationship. He refers to Jesus Christ in several of his manuscripts. The key thing about Josephus is that he was a pagan who verified many of the claims of the early Apostolic church.

According to The Google, Josephus was Jewish. For whatever that's worth one way or the other.

[TheWolf13]

Originally Posted by Serenity

As I said previously in the thread, there's "historical records" of things like Alexander the Great doing it with the queen of the Amazons. Roman and grecian historians have to be taken with a grain of salt.

The reason I mentioned Josephus is because he is a reputable historian.

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

According to The Google, Josephus was Jewish. For whatever that's worth one way or the other.

Entirely possible. The pagan thing I remember from a college professor. Josephus sounds like a Jewish name that was changed to sound more Greek which was very common for the time. Example Jesus' name wasn't actually Jesus that was his Greek name. His parents would have called him Yeshua(Hebrew transliteration). Cephas(Peter). Paul(Saul). Matthew(Nathaniel). It is all throughout the New Testament time period.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by TheWolf13

Entirely possible. The pagan thing I remember from a college professor. Josephus sounds like a Jewish name that was changed to sound more Greek which was very common for the time. Example Jesus' name wasn't actually Jesus that was his Greek name. His parents would have called him Yeshua(Hebrew transliteration). Cephas(Peter). Paul(Saul). Matthew(Nathaniel). It is all throughout the New Testament time period.

Eh, from what I've read, he pretty much just went with whatever the religious or governmental flow was in order to save his own skin. A lot of people fault him for this and they aren't wrong to do so, but his historical accounts do seem to be fairly accurate from what I understand, and you can't really keep records of stuff if you're dead.

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by TheWolf13

The reason I mentioned Josephus is because he is a reputable historian.

Onesicritus, the guy who invented the story about Alexander and Thalestris (queen of the amazons) getting it on, accompanied Alexander on his campaigns in Asia.