Well its been two year since I have been seriously writing here on progressive u, but after poking around here the past few days, I have something so valuable that I must tell it to all of you who are reading. This will be the first of a series of posts Titled "The Truth Of The Resurrection" The final point of these posts will be to prove to you that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is True. I have divided the series into several posts instead of one large one because I would never finish the series if I wrote it all at one time, and because I would be writing too long a post for anyone to read. When I see a post that is bigger than my screen I skip it rather than read it. This series leans heavily on Lee
Strobel's "The Case For Christ" and Dr. Voddie Baucham Jr.'s Sermon "The Resurrection: Fact of Fiction?" Which can be listened to here
http://www.thepath.fm/cyberradio/media/pathasx.cfm/fallbibleconferencewe...
Their work has blessed many lives.
Before I can get into the resurrection it is important that I first take into consideration Jesus as a man. It is quite clear from History that Jesus was a real man and that he was crucified, regardless of whether or not he is God. Most historians agree that Jesus was crucified in the year 33 AD, Several Early historians wrote about Jesus and his crucification.
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote this about Jesus in a published work in 93 AD.
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."
There are however several instances where scholars believe that Christian copyists inserted phrases into this text. If all the questionable phrases are taken out the truth that Jesus was a real man and was crucified would still remain. Josephus was born four years after the crucification of Jesus, but he would have talked to witnesses when doing his writings. We know that he was not trying to build up or hype Jesus because he was a Jew, he did not believe that Jesus was God.
The same also goes for the Talmud, it talks of Jesus but not in a flattering way. It does again prove that Jesus was a real man and was crucified.
"On the eve of Passover Jesus was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover. Ulla retorted: Do you suppose he was one for whom a defense could be made? Was he not a mesith (enticer), concerning whom Scripture says, "Neither shall thou spare nor shall thou conceal him?" With Jesus, however, it was different, for he was connected with the government. (Sanhedrin 43a)"
Several Roman Historian authors wrote about Jesus. To save time I will focus only on Tacitus. He wrote this about the Christians in Rome.
Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome..."
Again we see a historian writing about the crucification of Jesus from their own perspective, this one being the Roman perspective. Again the man Jesus and his crucification is confirmed by the recorders of history in those days. Jesus is a real man. In the next post we will start talking about whether or not he rose from the dead which will answer question, Is Jesus God?
Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII
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Finally, another person who is in tune with the truth about Jesus, and not just "speculating" as most devout Christians would deem if such "blasphemy" were brought before them. This historical and cultural perspective of Jesus as a man is so crucial and significant to the foundations of Christianity, especially because it questions whether their practices are "justifiable", and what the Vatican and Pope's motives are when they had spread Christianity the world over.
I have contemplated the motives of past missionaries who deem they were spreading the Word in the name of Christ, yet did intrude other cultures' value systems and beliefs, many which were pagan and had already been established. It is a shame to say that one is proud to be Christian, yet not take into consideration that people converting had to sacrifice their way of life, and succumb to the inevitable to save their lives and what was left of their dignity and cultural traditions after tortures, war, famine, and disease struck.
I am dumbfounded by the fact that there is a contradiction between what Jesus' teaching meant and stood for - something of loving, understanding, respect and common decency - and what the institution of Christianity has been teaching and condoning to people, which is nothing short of the untruth.
A.C.S.
I mean, this is all very interesting. But, to put it bluntly, so what? There probably was some one named Jesus. In fact, there were probably several sombody's named Jesus. One of the Jesus's claimed to be the Messiah. Well, there were a lot of those at the time. As a Messiah claimant, whether or not he actually did anything, he would be a person likely to be the focus of rebellion, since the Messiah had come to be a liberator in the Hebrew mythology. The Romans, doing what Romans did best, would be very happy to crucify this guy, like every other Messiah caimant, asap, thus nipping a potential rebellion in the bud.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams
"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."
H. P. Lovecraft
Only Josephus wrote about Jesus, no other historians did. And now Josephus' writings are up for debate because they were messed with and aren't as old as they claim to be. So your basic foundation is flawed because there are no other writers but Josephus(actually there are but they are a hundred years after Josephus) and even Josephus was born four years after Jesus' supposed resurrection, enough time for Jesus' true nature to be distorted into that of God's Son.
There are many, many questions and inconsistencies about Josephus writings.
Son of Disaster, you are mistaken. In the above article I quoted at least Tacitus as well. Also the Roman historian Pliny has writings about Jesus, and of course there are the gospels as well. there are several other historians who wrote about Jesus, but I do not know their names off hand.
The Gospels are debatable, contradictory, flawed and only a fraction of the existing gospels out there. Tacitus never once uses the name Jesus, only Christus, and that is also open for debate on whether it was added later or not. Also Christus means Messiah in Greek(there were many Messiahs in Israel, so it proves nothing), but it is thought that what Tacitus wrote down, he got from a report to the emporer not from Christians. Pliny uses Christus also and talks about how Christians worship this Messiah. Once again there were many Messiah he could have been talking about and he never says Jesus or Joshua(Jesus being the Greek translation for Joshua.)
The quote I posted was one of two where Tacitus writes about Christus. Also he was writing in Latin, so your argument about what Christus means in Greek loses all strength. The Greek word for Christ is Xpistos (pronounced Christos), it would have the connotation of being used to describe multiple people who might have been thought to be the Messiah, but Christus in Latin is normally used to describe Jesus. Which becomes more evident from what can bee seen in the days of Emperor Constantine.
But the gospels that you are intending to use are written in Greek. Christus means Christ in Latin. And Messiah means Christ in Hebrew. So that makes your argument lose its strength. It can be used to describe the multiple Messiahs, not just the Messiah that Jesus claimed to be. Like Jsaj said, there were multiple Messiahs, translated into Christs. It proves that both cultures were aware of the multiple people claiming to be Christ, making Jesus none to special.
Much of the Roman upper-class was bilingual and spoke Greek as well as Latin. It would not be unthinkable that they used a Greek word for Messiah.
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams
"That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."
H. P. Lovecraft
There is no question that the Gospels I intend to use talk of Jesus and not some other Christ. All you have to do is read them to figure out that they are surely talking about Christ.
I've read them. However you're using contradictory accounts. The Gospels talk about Jesus and everyone else uses Messiah, which could mean multiple people in that time period. They don't agree on anything whatsoever, only that there were Messiahs. Just that the NT has to have one messiah or Jesus is a fake. Josephus, Pliny the Younger and Tacitus uses the word Messiah, yet they don't claim Messiah but Messiahs.
While there are atheists who make a reasonable case against the historicity of Jesus (Earl Doherty and Robert Price come to mind), I am not one of them. I have no problem with believing there existed a Jesus who was a messianic figure during the early part of the first century CE. But so what? That doesn't mean that what the Gospels say of him is true at all. Especially when we look at the disagreements within the Gospels. Look at the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew. About the only agreement there is that Joseph and Mary are the parents and Jesus was born in Bethleham.
They disagree on everything else. There are incompatible genealogies in Luke and Matthew and I find the apologetic claim that Luke's genealogy is actually through Mary to be an affront to the intellect of anyone with first-grade reading skills or better. Matthew implies that Joseph and Mary lived in Bethleham. Luke says they came there because of a census ... which would having people go to the hometowns of their ancestors of 1000 years previously to register would have been an incredibly stupid thing for the Romans to do .... and the only census that fits the time occurred in 6 CE which was about 10 years after Herod's death so is incompatible with Matthew's timeline. Matthew says Jesus was born in a house; Luke in a barn. Matthew says shepherds came to see the baby Jesus; Luke says it was Magi from the East. Matthew has Jesus' family running off to Egypt to avoid a Herod imposed infanticide ... that was not historical. In Luke presumably they went back to Nazareth. Matthew has them coming back from Egypt after Herod's death and then being afraid to settle back in Bethlehem then go to Nazareth.
Look at how different in tone and how little agreement on about anything there is in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) compared with the gospel of John. Then look at all the gospels that didn't make it into the canon such as the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Peter, the Edgerton gospel; the Infancy gospel; the gospel of Judas, the gospel of the Ebionites, the gospel of the Nazerenes, and several others. That shows that during the first few centuries there were a number of legends concerning Jesus that arose.
It is my contention that we do not have enough information to extract anything useful concerning what the teachings of Jesus REALLY were. Even what you quote here has had legend inserted into it.
For instance you quote Josephus and you claim that the writing was 93 CE. But the earliest extant copy of Josephus comes from the tenth century. Furthermore, all those extant copies seem to trace back to the 4th century church father Eusebius. And Eusebius seems to have taken extensive editorial priveleges with the work in his possession. He changed text to suit his purpose and he destroyed competing texts. So the passages are simply not reliable.
But even if we were to assume that the passage is completely reliable, then it would still be some 60 years after Jesus' death which is plenty of time for legened to build. Josephus wrote his Antiquities of the Jews as a guest of the Roman Emporer Vespasian. So he was writing in Rome. Rome seems to have had the largest Christian community in the Mediterrainian. But no one there would have been an eyewitness to anything that Jesus did. So at best Josephus would be passing on hearsay. And it would be hearsay with a great deal of time for legend to creep in.
All other sources come from an even greater time after Jesus death. The Talmud that you mention was written circa 1000 CE. Almost a thousand years after his death. And it is not even clear that the Jesus they are talking about is Jesus of the New Testament. Jesus was a common name back then. So again, at best what is recorded is hearsay, and hearsay that one would expect to be heavily laden with legendary tales.
Then you ignore evidence that goes counter to your claim. Josephus limits his discussion of Jesus to that single paragraph. But he spends a lot more time on John the Baptist. Philo of Alexandria was a contemporary of Jesus, and he wrote a book discussing Jewish Messianic figures (there were quite a few during those days) and he doesn't mention Jesus at all, but he does mention John the Baptist again. So John the Baptist seems to have been a much more important figure for the day. Yet Jesus is more important now. Why? The answer is legend. Jesus' followers were better at spreading it than were John's.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France