Proof of Jesus Existence. Sophiee, Dawn, and Alesiah

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Sophiee1		#41	[-]
Posts: 11617 (12/26/08 09:25:30) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	There was a time when experts said the world was flat. There was a time when experts said man would never fly. There was a time when millions of people believed that Pharaohs and Emperors were gods. The fact that "experts" who are Chrstians believe something to be true and then claim it IS true with no real evidence behind it falls into the same camp -- I'll side with Thomas Jefferson on this one. When and IF ODBS or anyone else can actually prove that Jsus lived, I'll be happy to say "OK, fine." Because as we've already stated in numerous times, whether he did or did not live is immaterial. But through all this FUD around still doesn't prove a thing -- this thread is now 41 posts long and for all the long posts and assertions by ODBS he hasn't proven anything. Has anyone here changed their mind based on ODBS' posts on this thread? What exactly do you think he has proven, or not proven? סופי And everything that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. Bereshit (Genesis) 21:12
deby22		#42	[-]
Posts: 63 (12/26/08 11:17:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Hi, I haven't posed in some time but this thread has amused me. 1) Sophie to answer your question. No it hasn't changed my mind because I'm reasonably sure that a man with a Hebrew or Aramaic name vaguley similar to what modern English pronounces as Jesus, once lived. I am comfortbale with the idea that he lived somewhere in the early 1st century and that he was probably a fairly knowledgable Pharisee. It would seem that he did a fair amount of preaching and had attarcted a Jewish following of non-trivial, although unremarkable size. I think it is quite plausable, given the tenor of times, that his followers saw him as a possible messiah, as were many others in that era. And it would seem that he, like many jews in 1st century Judea, was crucifed by the Romans for being more trouble than he was worth. I am also fairly sure that this man's life was the basis of what came to be known as xianity as described in the GT. No Sophie I can't prove any of it. But I believe it because it is very consistent with the way we interpret just about everything else in the world of ancient history. 2) Sophie and ODBS, you are working with two different definitions of the word "proof", so there can be no resolution to your dispute. 3) Question to ODBS: Generally speaking, do you claim to have proven any more than what I said in number 1 above? 4) I think we need to take a step back and ask ourselves why we allow missionaries to drag us into protracted pointless discussions about non-issues like whether or not the Jesus of the GT existed. Frankly, I'm not aware that mainstream Jewsih scholarship has ever taken a very strong "Jesus-never-existed" position, nor has mainstream Judaism cared much opne way or the other. Missionaries pounce on these forays into the pointless because they provide an opportunity to paint the counter-missionary POV as being fundamentalist, and irrational neither of which are true. A few people asked earlier why this thread was so wide. I would ask why it is so long. Just some passing observations
Sophiee1		#43	[-]
Posts: 11619 (12/26/08 12:35:22) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Great post Deby, and I agree with everything except two things. The first disagreement is that the way people "prove" the Greek Text and Jsus' existence is not the same way we interpret everything else in the world of ancient history. The opposite is true: nothing is accepted by scholars without external proof. Chrstians use a completely different set of "standards" when even looking for the historical "Jsus." Wikipedia says that in studying"ancient history" historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world: archaeology and the study of source texts. Source texts are defined as firsthand written evidence of history made at the time of the event by someone who was present. Neither exist in the case of Jsus of Chrstianity. Link. The second point of disagreement is that you are reasonably sure that Jsus existed. While I agree hat there were thousands of men who had Hebrew names similar to 'Jsus.' in the first century CE (the name is 'Joshua' in English, '‎יְהוֹשֻׁעַ in Hebrew), I'm not reasonably sure that there was a man under all the myth of the Chrstian Jsus (ala the Jsus Seminar). I don't have a problem with people who think there was as long as they realize there is no PROOF. There may have been a many who turned into myth (which appears to be ODBS' thinking), but no one can prove it. . There may not have been. As of today no one has proved it either way. This isn't a major obstacle in a dialog or discussion because "for the sake of argument" we can assume you are right -- because it makes no difference from a counter missionary point of view. We Jews must deal with Chrstianity's attempt to convert Jews in its various guises. . . I appreciate your post, agree with most of it and also find the thread amusing. My biggest point of AGREEMENT with your excellent post is: 4) I think we need to take a step back and ask ourselves why we allow missionaries to drag us into protracted pointless discussions about non-issues like whether or not the Jsus of the GT existed. Frankly, I'm not aware that mainstream Jewsih scholarship has ever taken a very strong "Jsus-never-existed" position, nor has mainstream Judaism cared much opne way or the other. Missionaries pounce on these forays into the pointless because they provide an opportunity to paint the counter-missionary POV as being fundamentalist, and irrational neither of which are true. A few people asked earlier why this thread was so wide. I would ask why it is so long. Brava. I quite agree. סופי And everything that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. Bereshit (Genesis) 21:12 Last Edited By: Sophiee1 12/26/08 12:55:52. Edited 2 times.
SearchinMyRoots		#44	[-]
Posts: 536 (12/27/08 19:33:06) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Bravo for Debby! I agree with her statement of missionaries dragging us into something that doesn't even matter. So ODBS, if we agree that there might have been a person named jc who spoke about the Hebrew bible, where does that leave us? Back to all of the mistranslations, inaccuracies and twisting of the Tanach. Yes, there might have been a person such as jc. No, he wasn't a messiah or G-d incarnate. Next topic please!
Dannyil		#45	[-]
Posts: 34 (12/27/08 21:14:48) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	ProfBenTziyyon wrote: Dannyil wrote: Historicity for a Jew places Jesus around 190 BCE. He didn't walk on water, and he did not do anything the NT portrays him to have done. Where the dickens do you get a date of 190BCE from? It is an approximation of the date according to one view in the Talmud, that places him at around the time of Ben Perakiyah....It has been a while since I did the research, and I could have mixed up the dates. The point is that it is around the 2nd Century BCE that I recall the correlation. The Talmud also places a figure that fits the description later in the history at around 100 CE, but I have not verified this at all. Deut 4:15, Deut 4:35-39, Num 23:19, Deut 24:16, Eze 37, Psa 119 - now go and read it...! Torah True Judaism
Sophiee1		#46	[-]
Posts: 11625 (12/27/08 21:20:53) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Dannyil, I think your dates are a bit "off." Are you thinking of Yeshu ben Pandira who lived about 80 years BCE? He is mentioned in Sanhedrin 43a. Pandira doesn't fit the idea (date wise or anything else) for the Chrstian Jsus. The Talmud has a few Yeshus in it. . . It is a fairly common name after all (Joshua). *Quote:* On the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that "[Yeshu] is going to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray. Anyone who knows something to clear him should come forth and exonerate him." But no one had anything exonerating for him and they hung him on the eve of Passover. Ulla said: Would one think that we should look for exonerating evidence for him? He was an enticer and G-d said (Deuteronomy 13:9) "Show him no pity or compassion, and do not shield him." Yeshu was different because he was close to the government. סופי And everything that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. Bereshit (Genesis) 21:12 Last Edited By: Sophiee1 12/27/08 21:24:17. Edited 1 times.
ProfBenTziyyon		#47	[-]
Posts: 1607 (12/27/08 22:33:20) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Sophiee1 wrote: On the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that "[Yeshu] is going to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray...." This passage (which was censored from all European editions of the Talmud other than that published by the Romm Press of Wilnius) appears in the following context: the Mishnah has stated (Sanhedrin 6:1) וְכָרוֹז יוֹצֵא לְפָנָיו "a crier must go forth ahead of him [the condemned man]...." which the g'mara explains (folio 43a) לְפָנָיו, אִין - מֵעִקָּרָא, לָא "[immediately] ahead of him: yes - but [a long time] beforehand: no" on which Rashi (who clearly had access to an uncensored version) remarks לְפָנָיו, אִין - דְּמַשְׁמָע בַּהֲלִיכָתוֹ מֵעִקָּרָא, לָא - אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם קוֹדֶם "[immediately] ahead of him: yes - this means when he is actually walking to the place of execution; but [a long time] beforehand: no - i.e. for forty days before [the execution]. The passage about Yéshu's execution then follows, introduced by the Talmudic key-word וְהָתַנְיָא which is used to call attention to a discrepancy (or an apparent discrepancy): "but [on the contrary] hasn't it been taught elsewhere...?" http://mordochai.tripod.com - פרופ' מָרְדֳּכַי בֶּן-צִיּוֹן, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל
Sophiee1		#48	[-]
Posts: 11627 (12/28/08 10:18:14) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Yep, and per the GT the "facts" around Yeshu ben Pandira don't "match" Jsus. 1. He was executed after a proper trial; 2. He had the 40 days period for the crier to try and find witnesses on his behalf (not the ridiculous night time farce of a fake trial the GT talks about for Jsus) 3. He was executed by stoning (a Jewish death sentence) and his dead body was (per halacha) hung from a tree to display to others as a warning. No Roman crucifixion, no hanging from a cross. . . 4. He was executed in 80 BCE when the Sanhedrin still had the ability to pass a death sentence (by the time of Jsus' supposed death the Sanhedrin had lost the power to pass a death sentence -- both by the Romans and due to the Chamber of Hewn Stones being unavailable. . .) I could go on, but you get the idea. Some think that Pandira was the man who evolved into the mythical Jsus, but it seems unlikely. Aside from the details around Pandira differing from those of Jsus, Pandira actually DID have followers for about two centuries after his death, but his following died out. This means there would have been Pandira believers at the same time Chrstianity was beginning. . . Pandira's sect died out around 130 CE with the death of R' Yishmael. סופי And everything that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. Bereshit (Genesis) 21:12
Dannyil		#49	[-]
Posts: 40 (12/28/08 11:05:54) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Sophiee1 wrote: Yep, and per the GT the "facts" around Yeshu ben Pandira don't "match" Jsus. If you believe the GT to be historically accurate.....however, if you believe it is a work of mythology (Cf. Their Hollow Inheritance, by Drazin), then the made up stuff is just that - imaginative ramblings....and the facts do fit....because the GT is not factual. So they could have easily used Pandira as a person with which to identify....I mean John was written in around 70-80 CE.... -D Deut 4:15, Deut 4:35-39, Num 23:19, Deut 24:16, Eze 37, Psa 119 - now go and read it...! Torah True Judaism
Sophiee1		#50	[-]
Posts: 11628 (12/28/08 11:51:05) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	There are those who agree with you -- but the sticking point for me is that Pandira had followers into the 2nd century CE -- it appears to have been a DIFFERENT sect from Chrstianity. Celsus, the pagan, who Origen wrote against in "Contra Celsus" seemed to think that Pandira was the prototype for the Chrstian Jsus. The early church fathers (like Origen) disagreed with him. We don't have Celsus' work, but we do have Origen's rebuttal to it. Link Book 1, Chapter 32. Origen quotes Celsus as saying: "when she was pregnant she (Miriam) was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera". . . Origen takes great exception to the idea of Jsus' mother being pregnant by a Roman soldier and not a "virgin birth" from G-d. Origen wrote Contra Celsus around 248 CE so we are hundreds of years from Jsus' supposed birth and nearly three hundred from that of Yeshu ben Pandira. . . so who knows? Maybe, but still no "missing link" to connect Pandira to the prototype of the Jsus of Chrstianity. סופי And everything that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. Bereshit (Genesis) 21:12
Dannyil		#51	[-]
Posts: 41 (12/28/08 15:39:03) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Sophiee1 wrote: "when she was pregnant she (Miriam) was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera". . . Origen takes great exception to the idea of Jsus' mother being pregnant by a Roman soldier and not a "virgin birth" from G-d. Origen wrote Contra Celsus around 248 CE so we are hundreds of years from Jsus' supposed birth and nearly three hundred from that of Yeshu ben Pandira. . . so who knows? Maybe, but still no "missing link" to connect Pandira to the prototype of the Jsus of Chrstianity. 1. The Gospel of Thomas is surprisingly similar to this account. 2. Origen would take great exception. It shows, quite plainly, the real story of what happened, which as Prof Mordechai Tziyyon so eloquently describes in his links to the virgin birth, and interpretation of "Kiddushin" in Matthew 1:23.... 3. Scholars (although not mainstream), will argue that Matthew 1:23 is a later interpolation made, to justify the belief of virign idolatrous practices, that were current at the time. A far more likely story is the suggestion above. Joseph and Mary were in the midst of Kiddushin, and she was 'raped' by a Roman soldier (a far more obvious and likely tale), and in order to justify her adultery, blamed their god for the horrendous act. Joseph instead of disowning her (probably in the light of the lack of Sanhedrin, or adequate means of proof), takes on the myth that she was impregnated by a god. This is not Jewish or Judaism, but rather some later editor, which is described as Paul I, in the literature. Some have speculated that even this is Paul II. 4. The missing link is not a missing link. Origen disowns the story because it is contrary to his theology. Not because it is factually incorrect. The opposite, Origen agrees that it is far more likely to have occurred than his version, but is so obviously the real story, he rejects it. Jsus' alleged birthdate is steeped in controversy. To state that he was born between 200 BCE and 200 CE, is not an understatement, but is probably most accurate. If you were to ask me, this is probably the best evidence we have that Xianity is a religion that emerged in a post 70 CE world, with different issues and entirely different world view. In fact, it fits far better if you view the GT as a post-exile work. It tries to extrapolate back, with limited or no success. People tend to have a linear view of history. Often groups begin and end in co-existence and often influence each other in unique and different ways. For Xianity to have had any affect, Paul's position of a non-Jewish membership, and a break from Essene cult worship had to occur. To remain Essene is to limit your scope and effect, and to preach to Jews would be futile. They had one alternative - to be a group that preached to non-Jews and had to adjust to being a societal phenomenon, rather than being seclusionary. To say that early-Xians took on Pandira's movement, would be a logical progression in this philosophical dillemna. In fact, early-Xians viewed themselves as enlightened Jews, and had more in common with splinter factions in Judaism than any other group. For me, though Xianity begins in 70 CE, not a second before. Xian concepts such as dying for the world's sins etc. are John and Paul's undeniable influence, which could have only occurred in a post-apocalyptic worldview, which could only be achieved in a world without a Temple. But you don't need to learn this way, you can make Jsus and his cult, formulate after the aftermath of the Greek invasion, and could have been a schism that eventually died, and only to be resurrected by Paul, much later. Paul, presents the witnesses as eye-witnesses to a recent event, but they could have easily been descendants of witnesses to an historical event. For Paul, there would be no difference in theological terms. For all we know, Paul could have invented Jsus, without us even knowing it. -D Deut 4:15, Deut 4:35-39, Num 23:19, Deut 24:16, Eze 37, Psa 119 - now go and read it...! Torah True Judaism
Dannyil		#52	[-]
Posts: 43 (12/28/08 15:57:23) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Report Post	Remember how Missionaries love to quote the relevant so-called 'interpolated' passages in Josephus as a support for external evidence. I would like to point out that in the same breath, I'm sure they would like to persuade us all that the Oral Torah is nothing but a set of man-made traditions created after Jesus was dead and buried (sic!). If we grant them the right to accept Josephus as a legitimate source, we should go at great lengths to point out that Josephus himself, tells us that the longstanding position of the Rabbis was established fact, and accepted by the majority of the people, long before Jesus came into the picture. As far as Josephus is concerned, the Oral Torah is from at least Ezra, and if not earlier. To accept Jsus is to accept the historicity of Josephus, and to accept Josephus is to accept the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah flatly denies that Jsus has any credibility. Lets face it, the Josephus horse has kicked the proverbial bucket. -D Deut 4:15, Deut 4:35-39, Num 23:19, Deut 24:16, Eze 37, Psa 119 - now go and read it...! Torah True Judaism

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