Gladius Hispaniensis
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Posts posted by Gladius Hispaniensis
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Caldrail I think you and I are actually in agreement with what people regarded as "son of God" in those days. It was used in a more generic sense, but that is not how Pauline Christianity sees it. The Catechism says very clearly, "begotten, not made". That is hardly a Judaic concept you have to agree. The late Reverend Billy Graham illustrated this more vividly in front of a crowd in South Africa by waving a finger in the air and saying "The Holy Spirit Impregnated Mary".
This is more akin to pagan legends like Zeus impregnating Olympias in the form of a snake to give birth to Alexander and other such myths prevalent in that area at that time.
If by Messiah we mean son of God in a figurative sense then that is within the framework of Judaism but that is certainly not how Pauline Christianity sees it.
Jesus, by the way, was no Tom, Dick and Harry. He was a very learned sage, and a very remarkable character, and a great human being. That is something people that followed him did recognize and that is why they followed him. But that does not imply they thought of him as a Deity nor does it imply that he and his followers intended to start a new religion
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Religiously, aren't all 'children of God'? It's the context in which it is used. That is why the meaning of the Bible is left to scholars.
Yes, in Judaism, the term meant something figurative, not the "Only begotten son of God" that you find in Christianity
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The local priests weren't happy about this upstart jesus riding into town, kicking over tables, drawing large crowds, proclaiming he was chosen.... The romans of course had no intention of letting jesus have a crown. Mundane or spiritual. Not good for public order and in any case it was a little insulting to roman eyes.
Which is precisely why the Romans wanted him dead. If the charge against Jesus was just blasphemy, the Jews could have stoned him themselves instead of disturbing Pilate at an unearthly hour of the night on the eve of the most important festival in Judaism
As time progressed Greeks called this religion Cristos or the annointed oneWrong. Christos is the Greek translation for Messiah. Messiah was a word the Jews used for "anointed one". It did not mean the same thing to them as it does to Christians. Otherwise explain to me why Cyrus is also called Messiah. Does that imply that Cyrus was a god and started his own religion?
Jesus was a Jew, meaning to fulfill the prophesies of the prophets. He said to the Jews, "I'm not hear to destroy the Torah, rather than fulfill it."Precisely. He was a devout follower of the Torah. Paul, on the other hand, threw the Law out lock, stock, and barrel. So make up your mind, who is right, Jesus or Paul? You cannot have it both ways
The word messiah might have a strict meaning but it definitely did imply 'son of god' status.Really? In that case God has sons BY THE TON in the bible. Adam is called son of god, and so is David or Solomon, can't remember which. There is even a verse "I say to ye, that ye are all sons of God". Does that mean all of us are Messiahs? Messiah was a purely mundane title, it denoted the chosen one of God who was to deliver Israel from the Pagan yoke. Therefore it did not mean Son of God, at least not the way Christains understand it
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Well, I for one, have no doubts about "whatever form that took".
Jesus and his followers worshipped in the Temple, kept the Sabbath, kept the Passover, kept the Festival of the Tabernacles, kept the dietary laws of the Torah, observed the circumcision, said the Kiddush before a meal etc., in other words they were ORTHODOX JEWS. That, to answer your question, Gaius, is how we know how to define the modern following of Jesus, which is an aberration of everything he taught, and this is what I was emphasising earlier - neither Jesus nor his succesor James the Just nor anyone who knew and followed him while he was alive ever wanted to start a new religion. In fact they would have been appalled at the very thought, regarding it as a horrific blasphemy.
All this is not speculation. If you read Jesus's words and study the activities of the early Jerusalem "Church" you would come to the same inescapable conclusions.
Acts tries cleverly to obfuscate the fact that there was an underlying tension between Paul and the Apostles, but the evidence is there.
By the way Gaius, the conspiracy was not ongoing for four hundred years, it only needed for Pauline Christianity to gain an acceptance in the Greco Roman world and then it had a momentum of it's own, and that momentum is carried on to this day
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Good article Primus Pilus. Thanks for posting it
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Gladius xx, one is left with the conclusion that a conspiracy exists within the Roman and Orthodox Churches?
To what end? What are they trying to keep from the hungry, ignorant masses?
That Jesus did NOT start a new religion, he was a pious Jew
That his followers were not just otherworldly, they earnestly desired a Divine Kingdom in Judea rid of Romans and their Herodian puppets
That Jesus did not claim to be God, just a worshipper
That the word Messiah did not imply Son of God, it was a simple Hebrew word - Ha Mashiach- meaning the anointed, or chosen, one. Even Cyrus is known as Messiah in the Old Testament
That Jesus's royal bloodline was a physical threat to Roman rule in Judea that had to be dealt with mercilessly, which it was
That Jesus was not put to death for blasphemy, in fact he never blasphemed. If the problem was blasphemy the Jews could have dealt with him themselves
The whole story of the Jews turning Jesus over to Pilate for execution is just a cock-and-bull story that attempted to shift blame away from the Roman administration and foist it on the Jews, with the horrendous results that we have witnessed these last 2,000 years
That Paul of Tarsus was the true founder of what we know as Christianity, and it was an amalgamation of Judaism, Hellenistic faiths, and Middle Eastern mystery cults
That Jesus's immediate family and followers, and their descendents, were hunted down and exterminated ruthlessly
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So I suppose a more probable scenario is that Silva's troops simply took Masada and put everyone to the sword the old fashioned way?
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To my learned friend Theodora:
Note that Eusebius, as you probably know, was a later Church father or the Pauline mould and hence his testimony regarding the reconciliation between Paul and James is not reliable. Of course he is going to show that there was a reconciliation, that is precisely what Acts of the Apostles tries to do. Pauline writers took great pains to show that their mission was not incompatible with what was taught by Jesus and his immediate following. The fact is that Paul was summoned at least twice before the council presided over by James the Just in order to give an account of himself because what he was preaching in Gentile lands did not even remotely resemble the original message of Jesus. Thereafter there was an irreconcilable split which is not totally attested to in the New Testament but does survive in remains of apocryphal works that were banned by the Church establishment.
In fact if Dr. Eisenman's hypothesis about the Qumran community being Proto- Christian is true, then those Dead Sea Scroll writings do mention a certain unnamed person, known variously as the Enemy, the Spouter of Lies, and the Deceiver, that supposedly infiltrated the community outwardly professing their faith and inwardly working to undermine it by misrepresenting it to the Gentile community at large.
I don't think it takes much second guessing to figure out who this person was
Also, if Eusebius does "rely heavily" on Josephus, where in Josephus is there a mention of a reconciliation between the Jerusalem Church and Paul?. I don't even remember Josephus even mentioning Paul in any of his works
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I would have thought Josephus would try to give the rebels a bad name just like he always did in the rest of his work
. I suppose that showing them as having committed suicide, which incidentally is a heinous sin in Judaism, would have served such a purpose. I suppose we all will have to defer our judgments until something more substantial is unearthed. -
You know I too am inclined to be sceptical about the mass suicide, but on the other hand, what motive would Josephus have had to lie about the event?
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A few things you will learn from reading Eisenman's books:
There was no reconciliation between Paul and the rest of the disciples. That is just a Pauline misinformation. Quite the opposite. The movement started by Jesus did acknowledge him as the Messiah, but their idea of a messiah was very different from the man-god or son of god idea propagated by Paul. The messiah that was expected by the Jews was a sacred figure that was supposed to deliver them from the alien yoke, and the Kingdom of God that he promised was a theocratic rule based on justice here in this world.
What Pauline Christianity did was to distort this image and advocate a man-god like Apollo or Dionysius that died for the sins of mankind and whose sacrifice would atone for humanities sins.
You are right. Jesus never went against the Law. He conscientiously practiced it and so did his disciples. They kept the Sabbath, kept the dietary laws, and worshipped in the Temple. On top of everything, they were anti Herodian and anti Roman.
Paul, on the other hand, tried to ingratiate his ideology with the Greco Roman world by turning Jesus into a deity, something that would have scandalized Jesus himself, and by trying to whitewash his image as a non-political figure, which he certainly was not. It would simply not do to deify a rebel against the empire.
After the upheaval of the 60s CE and thereafter, this repackaged form of Christianity survived because of it's apolitical nature while the immediate following of Jesus which was Apocalyptic and Messianic in the true Judaic sense of the word, did not, and for obvious reasons.
Anyway this is the gist of Dr. Eisenman's arguments presented in his various works. Agree with it or not, it has many valid points and does rely on thorough research and profound scholarship.
Theodora, if you have not the time to go through all his books (I know they are a hard slog) just Google Robert Eisenman and you will get a synopsis of his works and ideas
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http://www.vexen.co.uk/books/jesusmysteries.html
Interesting post Northern Neill. I enjoyed it thoroughly and it confirms a lot of the conclusions I have come to myself after much thought and research
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IMHO three things apply:
A spectacular record of healing in the first 300 years - this diminished thereafter;
It was a mystery religeon when such things were fashionable;
It admitted women - which rival cults such as Mithraism did not.
Phil
There were other mystery cults which allowed women Like Isis which were popular as well weren't there?
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Theodora
Re: The Popularity and Rise of Christianity
Dr. Robert Eisenman, in his book, Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (1992, Element Books,UK), highlights one of the texts found in the Qumran corpus entitled,
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I think one reason why pseudo history is popular is its heterodox appeal. People don't like reading dull, pedantic history books. That's for nutcases like myself and many of my fellow forum members. They like excitement, intrigue, something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately for them, real life is very, very ordinary.
However we should also be careful about allowing conventional historicity to have an absolute hegemony, or intellectual tyranny, in the academic field.
Remember, as historians, we are interested in historical facts and their interpretation, not with this or that point of view or school of thought. We should allow some leeway for alternative ideas. Whether we accept them or not would depend on how much historical merit these ideas carry
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Didn't the sultan die when he left the field? Hadn't he intended to come back (had he lived)?
Ottoman army was under command of grand vezir Kara Mustafa. Sultan wasnt there.
I think Gaius is referring to the battle of Szigetvar in Hungary in which Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent did die on the battlefield.His body was carried back. That was in 1566 CE
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You know, I hate to say this, but all the above mentioned qualities, laudable as they are, wouldn't enable a modern politician to last even one campaigning season
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Ave Gaius
I just finished the book. I agree with you - the best part is the one about the civil war itself. It is easy to discern the difference between Caesar's writing style and that of others, even in translation.
On the whole I did enjoy the book but I esteem Gallic Wars to a much greater extent, that is a book I could pick up over and over again. What is your preference?
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SIBYLINE SCROLLS.
There is quite a lot of reference to these in RUBICON by Tom Holland. The part that sticks in my mind was something to do with burying a Gaul and a Greek alive, under the forum (?) to prevent some catastrophe.
IIRC that happened when Hannibal's army appeared outside Rome's walls, or possibly after Cannae. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please
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I think it's a crying shame that we do not have a historian of Josephus's calibre to record the second and final Judean revolt, the one led by Bar Kokhba.
Agreed !
From hindsight it seems to have been far more bloody and destructive than the previous result of the '60s CE.
Not so sure , we have the Jewish Talmud where the revolt of 66 to 70 is described as "המרד הגדול" that is "The great revolt" and the revolt of 132 to 135 as "מרד בר כוכבא" that is just "the bar Cochba revolt" .
Ave Caesar
You may have a point there. I was just saying that because the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in not only the final diaspora of the Jewish people from the Holy Land, but effectively the changing of Jerusalem into a totally pagan city, as you probably know. There were many Jews in Judea still after the first revolt.
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Born in India, grew up in the Maltese Islands, currently residing in Canada, eh?
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Ave Gaius
I think the question is moot. Remember the ancient historians used to put long winded speeches in the mouths of their protagonists. This was an accepted convention and we need to be careful about taking these speeches too literally. To sum up, we don't know what Curio really said, but if I was there, I would certainly not have sided with Pompey or Juba against Caesar
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Ave
I finally got my copy of Civil War from the Toronto Public Library. I just read the introduction so far and was surprised to learn that some parts were actually written not by Caesar but by other participants of that war. Anyway I'll share my thoughts about the book after I finish it.
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Uh Gladius, I think you've mixed up your responses with your quotes.
Yeah I know Flavius. That's what happens when you try to respond to a post and deal with two sick, cranky kids in your lap!
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I agree the Christians could have a motive, but it would not to be to burn the library and all its contents. Many Christians works and poems were held in the library itself. Also, how dumb would the Christians be to burn the books of their own heritage?
Also a lot of Persian and Iraqi works have also been destroyed by Muslims.You're talking as if Christianity was some monolithic organization with absolutely no divergence of opinion within it's ranks. Different sects of Christianity hated each other as much as they hated infidels, and the Library at Alexandria did contain works that were considered heretical by the prevailing Church establishment. So yes, the y would have had a very good reason to get rid of these works. Again, your argument holds no water.
Your lying biggot, happens to be a bunch of Egyptian intellectuals. Again, you are assuming a biased postion in this matter.That is besides point. We're talking about Alexandria, Egypt, here, not about Persia or Iraq
BTW, a crew of Polish and Egyptian archeologists are trying to find out the cause so we should find out in time.No, I was referring to the Patriarch Hebraeus, otherwise known as Abu'l Faraj. I was referring to one person, not "a bunch". So you're saying Egyptian intellectuals cannot be bigoted and cannot lie?Yes, that'll be the day
Until then, let me kick back on my couch with a good history book and wait till the cows come home
The Rise Of Christianity
in Templum Romae - Temple of Rome
Posted · Edited by Gladius xx
We know that Jesus was a great person because of the devotion showed by his following and from the fact that he was willing to lay down his life for a cause.
Just because some parts of the NT are plausible, it does not logically follow that the rest of is automatically plausible too. What school of logic is that? The Josh McDowell School of Logic for Bible Thumpers?
Many parts of many other ancient manuscripts are shown to be partly plausible and partly implausible
And I know that Christianity is not Judaism. You're not telling me anything new. That is my point. Jesus was a devout follower of Judaism. His modern day worshippers are followers of the pagan aberration known as Christianity