<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â Â
a.manans...@attbi.com Â
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
From: a.manans...@attbi.com
Date: 16 Mar 2006 09:12:42 -0800
Local: Thurs, Mar 16 2006 12:12 pm
Subject: Re: Who is the Most Influential Person in History
roger_pea...@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> > Simply stating that writers of his day might not have been interested
> > in him does not make him anymore historical either. They might have
> > been interested or they might not have been interested.
> This shows, however, the worthlessness of the argument from silence,
> doesn't it?
For a person to be considered historical, there must be positive timely
evidence.
There is no non-controversial positive evidence with regard to Jesus.
The only possible good source is Josephus and his tiny supposed
reference to Jesus is *widely* considered an interpolation.
Josephus Testimonium Flavianum first came under suspicion as
interpolation by Archbishop Ussher in the 16th century. Most Western
scholars up until the 20th century believed it was an interpolation.
It's only according to people like Alice Wheatley that most *Western*
scholars consider that there might have been something authentic about
the work, but that doesn't mean there aren't a great number that still
believe it's interpolation.
First you suggested that there were not many historical works from the
period, which is completely untrue. You backtracked on this error by
stating that the writers from this period were not "historians" and
according to you were not interested in Jesus.
Now you continue to state that no scholars believe that the Josephus
passages were interpolations. Here is a short list of some who do:
Burton Mack
Earl Doherty
George Albert Wells
Alvar Ellegard
Harold Leidner
Frank Zindler
Robert Price
S. Acharya
Timothy Freke
Peter Gandy
Arthur Drews
Solomon Zeitlin
Alfred Loisy
Edwin Johnson
Michael Hoffman
Rod Green
Joseph Atwill
Georges Ory
Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Jean Magne
Tom Harpur
Hermann Detering
Klaus Schilling
Max Rieser
Bruno Bauer
Edwin Johnson
I won't even go into the scholars from socialist countries.
Here's a good ref. list of works form the 40s till today from
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html:
Alvin Boyd Kuhn, 1944, Who is this King of Glory? 1970, Rebirth for
Christianity. Jesus was never a person, but a symbol of the divine soul
in every human being.
Herbert Cutner, 1950, Jesus: God, Man, or Myth? Mythical nature of
Jesus and a summary of the ongoing debate between mythicists and
historicizers. Mythic-only position is continuous tradition, not novel.
Pagan origins of Christ.
Georges Las Vergnas, 1956, Pourquoi j'ai quitté l'Eglise romaine
Besançon.
Georges Ory, 1961, An Analysis of Christian Origins.
Guy Fau, 1967, Le Fable de Jesus Christ.
John Allegro, 1970, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. 1979, The Dead
Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. Jesus was nothing other than a
magic mushroom and his life an allegorical interpretation of a
drug-induced state. Not jail for Allegro - but professional ruin.
George Albert Wells, 1975, Did Jesus Exist? 1988, The Historical
Evidence for Jesus. 1996, The Jesus Legend. 1998, Jesus Myth. 2004, Can
We Trust the New Testament? Thoughts on the Reliability of Early
Christian Testimony. Christianity a growth from Jewish Wisdom
literature. Later books concede possible influence of a real preacher.
<b>
Max Rieser, 1979, The True Founder of Christianity and the Hellenistic
Philosophy. Christianity started by Jews of the Diaspora and then
retroactively set in pre-70 Palestine. Christianity arrived last, not
first, in Palestine - that's why Christian archeological finds appear
in Rome but not in Judea until the 4th century.</b>
Abelard Reuchlin, 1979, The True Authorship of the New Testament.
Conspiracy theory par excellence: Roman aristocrat Arius Calpurnius
Piso (aka "Flavius Josephus") conspired to gain control of the Roman
Empire by forging an entirely new religion.
Hermann Detering, 1992, Paulusbriefe ohne Paulus?: Die Paulusbriefe in
der holländischen Radikalkritik. German minister in the Dutch radical
tradition.
Gary Courtney, 1992, 2004 Et tu, Judas? Then Fall Jesus! The Passion is
essentially Caesar's fate in Judaic disguise, grafted onto the
dying/resurrcting cult of Attis. Jewish fans of Caesar assimilated the
sacrificed 'saviour of mankind' into the 'Suffering Servant' of Isaiah.
Michael Kalopoulos, 1995, The Great Lie. Greek historian finds
strikingly similar parallels between biblical texts and Greek
mythology. He exposes the cunning, deceitful and authoritarian nature
of religion.
Gerd Lüdemann, 1998, The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said
and Did. 2002, Paul: The Founder of Christianity. 2004, The
Resurrection Of Christ: A Historical Inquiry. After 25 years of study
German professor concluded Paul, not Jesus, started Christianity.
Lüdemann was expelled from the theology faculty at the University of
Göttingen for daring to say that the Resurrection was "a pious
self-deception." So much for academic freedom.
Alvar Ellegard, 1999, Jesus One Hundred Years Before Christ.
Christianity seen as emerging from the Essene Church of God with the
Jesus prototype the Teacher of Righteousness.
D. Murdock (aka 'Acharya S') 1999, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest
Story Ever Sold. 2004, Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ
Unveiled. Adds a astro-theological dimension to christ-myth demolition.
Murdock identifies JC as a composite deity used to unify the Roman
Empire. She also exhibits worrying aberrations for serious scholars.
Earl Doherty, 1999, The Jesus Puzzle. Did Christianity Begin with a
Mythical Christ? Powerful statement of how Christianity started as a
mystical-revelatory Jewish sect - no Jesus required!.
Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, 1999, The Jesus Mysteries. 2001, Jesus and
the Lost Goddess : The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians.
Examines the close relationship between the Jesus Story and that of
Osiris-Dionysus. Jesus and Mary Magdalene mythic figures based on the
Pagan Godman and Goddess.
Harold Liedner, 2000, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth. Anachronisms
and geographic errors of the gospels denounced. Christianity one of
history's most effective frauds.
Robert Price, 2000, Deconstructing Jesus. 2003 Incredible Shrinking Son
of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Ex-minister and
accredited scholar shows Jesus to be a fictional amalgam of several 1st
century prophets, mystery cult redeemers and gnostic 'aions'.
Hal Childs, 2000, The Myth of the Historical Jesus and the Evolution of
Consciousness. A psychotherapist take on the godman.
Michael Hoffman, 2000,Judaism's Strange Gods. Historian and theorist of
"ego death" who jettisoned an historical Jesus.
Burton Mack, 2001,The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy.
Social formation of myth making.
Luigi Cascioli, 2001, The Fable of Christ. Indicting the Papacy for
profiteering from a fraud!
Frank R. Zindler, 2003, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth
Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources. No
evidence in Jewish sources for the phantom messiah.
Tom Harpur, 2005, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Canadian
New Testament scholar and ex-Anglican priest re-states the ideas of
Kuhn, Higgins and Massey. Jesus is a myth and all of the essential
ideas of Christianity originated in Egypt.
Francesco Carotta, 2005, Jesus Was Caesar: On the Julian Origin of
Christianity. Exhaustive inventory of parallels. Alarmingly, asserts
Caesar was Jesus.
Joseph Atwill, 2005, Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent
Jesus. Another take on the Josephus-Gospel similarities. Atwill argues
that the 1st century conquerors of Judaea, Vespasian, Titus and
Domitian, used Hellenized Jews to manufacture the "Christian" texts in
order to establish a peaceful alternative to militant Judaism. Jesus
was Titus Flavius? I don't think so.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
http://sambali.blogspot.com/
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
a.manans...@attbi.com Â
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
From: a.manans...@attbi.com
Date: 16 Mar 2006 09:12:42 -0800
Local: Thurs, Mar 16 2006 12:12 pm
Subject: Re: Who is the Most Influential Person in History
roger_pea...@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> > Simply stating that writers of his day might not have been interested
> > in him does not make him anymore historical either. They might have
> > been interested or they might not have been interested.
> This shows, however, the worthlessness of the argument from silence,
> doesn't it?
For a person to be considered historical, there must be positive timely
evidence.
There is no non-controversial positive evidence with regard to Jesus.
The only possible good source is Josephus and his tiny supposed
reference to Jesus is *widely* considered an interpolation.
Josephus Testimonium Flavianum first came under suspicion as
interpolation by Archbishop Ussher in the 16th century. Most Western
scholars up until the 20th century believed it was an interpolation.
It's only according to people like Alice Wheatley that most *Western*
scholars consider that there might have been something authentic about
the work, but that doesn't mean there aren't a great number that still
believe it's interpolation.
First you suggested that there were not many historical works from the
period, which is completely untrue. You backtracked on this error by
stating that the writers from this period were not "historians" and
according to you were not interested in Jesus.
Now you continue to state that no scholars believe that the Josephus
passages were interpolations. Here is a short list of some who do:
Burton Mack
Earl Doherty
George Albert Wells
Alvar Ellegard
Harold Leidner
Frank Zindler
Robert Price
S. Acharya
Timothy Freke
Peter Gandy
Arthur Drews
Solomon Zeitlin
Alfred Loisy
Edwin Johnson
Michael Hoffman
Rod Green
Joseph Atwill
Georges Ory
Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Jean Magne
Tom Harpur
Hermann Detering
Klaus Schilling
Max Rieser
Bruno Bauer
Edwin Johnson
I won't even go into the scholars from socialist countries.
Here's a good ref. list of works form the 40s till today from
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html:
Alvin Boyd Kuhn, 1944, Who is this King of Glory? 1970, Rebirth for
Christianity. Jesus was never a person, but a symbol of the divine soul
in every human being.
Herbert Cutner, 1950, Jesus: God, Man, or Myth? Mythical nature of
Jesus and a summary of the ongoing debate between mythicists and
historicizers. Mythic-only position is continuous tradition, not novel.
Pagan origins of Christ.
Georges Las Vergnas, 1956, Pourquoi j'ai quitté l'Eglise romaine
Besançon.
Georges Ory, 1961, An Analysis of Christian Origins.
Guy Fau, 1967, Le Fable de Jesus Christ.
John Allegro, 1970, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. 1979, The Dead
Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. Jesus was nothing other than a
magic mushroom and his life an allegorical interpretation of a
drug-induced state. Not jail for Allegro - but professional ruin.
George Albert Wells, 1975, Did Jesus Exist? 1988, The Historical
Evidence for Jesus. 1996, The Jesus Legend. 1998, Jesus Myth. 2004, Can
We Trust the New Testament? Thoughts on the Reliability of Early
Christian Testimony. Christianity a growth from Jewish Wisdom
literature. Later books concede possible influence of a real preacher.
<b>
Max Rieser, 1979, The True Founder of Christianity and the Hellenistic
Philosophy. Christianity started by Jews of the Diaspora and then
retroactively set in pre-70 Palestine. Christianity arrived last, not
first, in Palestine - that's why Christian archeological finds appear
in Rome but not in Judea until the 4th century.</b>
Abelard Reuchlin, 1979, The True Authorship of the New Testament.
Conspiracy theory par excellence: Roman aristocrat Arius Calpurnius
Piso (aka "Flavius Josephus") conspired to gain control of the Roman
Empire by forging an entirely new religion.
Hermann Detering, 1992, Paulusbriefe ohne Paulus?: Die Paulusbriefe in
der holländischen Radikalkritik. German minister in the Dutch radical
tradition.
Gary Courtney, 1992, 2004 Et tu, Judas? Then Fall Jesus! The Passion is
essentially Caesar's fate in Judaic disguise, grafted onto the
dying/resurrcting cult of Attis. Jewish fans of Caesar assimilated the
sacrificed 'saviour of mankind' into the 'Suffering Servant' of Isaiah.
Michael Kalopoulos, 1995, The Great Lie. Greek historian finds
strikingly similar parallels between biblical texts and Greek
mythology. He exposes the cunning, deceitful and authoritarian nature
of religion.
Gerd Lüdemann, 1998, The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said
and Did. 2002, Paul: The Founder of Christianity. 2004, The
Resurrection Of Christ: A Historical Inquiry. After 25 years of study
German professor concluded Paul, not Jesus, started Christianity.
Lüdemann was expelled from the theology faculty at the University of
Göttingen for daring to say that the Resurrection was "a pious
self-deception." So much for academic freedom.
Alvar Ellegard, 1999, Jesus One Hundred Years Before Christ.
Christianity seen as emerging from the Essene Church of God with the
Jesus prototype the Teacher of Righteousness.
D. Murdock (aka 'Acharya S') 1999, The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest
Story Ever Sold. 2004, Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ
Unveiled. Adds a astro-theological dimension to christ-myth demolition.
Murdock identifies JC as a composite deity used to unify the Roman
Empire. She also exhibits worrying aberrations for serious scholars.
Earl Doherty, 1999, The Jesus Puzzle. Did Christianity Begin with a
Mythical Christ? Powerful statement of how Christianity started as a
mystical-revelatory Jewish sect - no Jesus required!.
Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, 1999, The Jesus Mysteries. 2001, Jesus and
the Lost Goddess : The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians.
Examines the close relationship between the Jesus Story and that of
Osiris-Dionysus. Jesus and Mary Magdalene mythic figures based on the
Pagan Godman and Goddess.
Harold Liedner, 2000, The Fabrication of the Christ Myth. Anachronisms
and geographic errors of the gospels denounced. Christianity one of
history's most effective frauds.
Robert Price, 2000, Deconstructing Jesus. 2003 Incredible Shrinking Son
of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Ex-minister and
accredited scholar shows Jesus to be a fictional amalgam of several 1st
century prophets, mystery cult redeemers and gnostic 'aions'.
Hal Childs, 2000, The Myth of the Historical Jesus and the Evolution of
Consciousness. A psychotherapist take on the godman.
Michael Hoffman, 2000,Judaism's Strange Gods. Historian and theorist of
"ego death" who jettisoned an historical Jesus.
Burton Mack, 2001,The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy.
Social formation of myth making.
Luigi Cascioli, 2001, The Fable of Christ. Indicting the Papacy for
profiteering from a fraud!
Frank R. Zindler, 2003, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth
Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources. No
evidence in Jewish sources for the phantom messiah.
Tom Harpur, 2005, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Canadian
New Testament scholar and ex-Anglican priest re-states the ideas of
Kuhn, Higgins and Massey. Jesus is a myth and all of the essential
ideas of Christianity originated in Egypt.
Francesco Carotta, 2005, Jesus Was Caesar: On the Julian Origin of
Christianity. Exhaustive inventory of parallels. Alarmingly, asserts
Caesar was Jesus.
Joseph Atwill, 2005, Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent
Jesus. Another take on the Josephus-Gospel similarities. Atwill argues
that the 1st century conquerors of Judaea, Vespasian, Titus and
Domitian, used Hellenized Jews to manufacture the "Christian" texts in
order to establish a peaceful alternative to militant Judaism. Jesus
was Titus Flavius? I don't think so.
Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
http://sambali.blogspot.com/
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->