Action star Mr. Chuck Norris says Obamacare woulda killed Baby Jesus. Shooting back from the hip, Washington Post writer M. Kessler says Christian-dude Chuck Norris woulda killed Mary even before she’d delivered Jesus.
Afterall, Mary was an unwed mother. Before he’da let her give birth in his holy Christian manger, Chuck woulda let her freeze to death out on the plains.
Dudes, dudes, I say! Stop your sniping! Save your lovely breath! Nobody killed baby Jesus -- Jesus never existed!
Not one shred of evidence exists that a man named Jesus of Nazareth walked the planet from 1 to 32 AD. None. Nada.
As in zip, zero and zilch.
Posted by Athana
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thnx to okinawa soba for the pic; go HERE to see more
8 comments:
Christianity is mentioned by the historian Tacitus in the early second century. But he talks about it only because Christians were unfortunate enough to be made scapegoats by the Emperor Nero for the great fire of Rome. Tacitus is interested in the Emperor, not his victims about whom he gives very limited information. Still, he does tell us that Jesus existed and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Do not bother countering this by claiming that he could have got his information from Christians which would (somehow) mean his evidence is not independent. So...until Christianity had spread no one except Christians would be interested in Jesus but all later records are ruled out of court as they are tainted by association with Christianity. This sort of special pleading is one of the reasons that modern historians have no time for these theories as they are set up to be impossible to disprove. In fact, Christian evidence for a human Jesus who was crucified is trustworthy because it ran counter to the myths of the time and suggested that he had suffered a humiliating death. If they made it up and then suppressed the truth with clinical efficiency, why did they come up with a story which even the Christian apologist, Tertullian, admitted was absurd? It seems far more likely that they had a large number of historical facts that they had to rationalise into a religion rather than creating all these difficulties for themselves.
Dear empyresubverter,
First, what proof do you have that it *wasn’t* the Christians who started the great fire of Rome? Some sources (Edward Gibbon, for one) place a good deal of the blame for the fall of Rome on the Christians – who set fires constantly, made trouble in the streets, melted down prized statues for the gold, and were, in general, the hoodlums of the day.
Second, I DO counter your claim by saying that Tacitus no doubt got his “information” from Christians – the very hoodlums who no doubt helped hasten the end of Pagan Rome.
Third, What do you mean by “why did they come up with a story which even the Christian apologist, Tertullian, admitted was absurd?” Everything in the Christ story was lifted, borrowed or outright stolen from pagan stories that had been extant in the Mediterranean world long, long before the first Christian ever saw the light of day.
Ahoy there!
Oooh this is so delicious in so many ways, especially for any atheist or any plausible historian ;) The whole NT is such a rambling fairy tale that asking about a historical Jeebus equals asking whether Easter Tooth Santa has lived. But let's play along and shoot this one home..
Tacitus writing in 116 about whatever the persecuted Chrestians (his spelling) were repeating as the ethymology of their name is no historical evidence - just a repetition of an old fairytale.
Outside the NT there is NO mention of holy Jeebus especially the quite significant and unheard of part about being a poor Jewish revolutionary yet talking exclusively to Roman V.I.P. Pilatus.
The contemporary Roman and Jewish historians of Judea province in the time between 10 AD-80 AD mention no such person. Mentions exist of other apocalyptic Jewish prophets who tried to preach the end is neigh and show miracles to the crowds, only to be slaughtered brutally together with their followers - Romans would simply not tolerate any preachers with potential of raising crowds against them. Romans also crucified Jews by the hundreds a day, that is even archeologically attested - a typical Roman punishment for being a disobedient Jew-slave.
The historically proven people from the NT are Pontius Pilatus and the Herod dynasty, sorry to burst the believers' bubble.
Josephus the contemporary Jewish historian also briefly mentions the demise of one popular and peaceful Jewish religious man John the baptist. Josephus also mentions about 20 different Joshuas living in Jerusalem and doing various things (unfortunately quite a common name those days). The only vaguely similar to our beloved Baby Jeebus is.. one Mad Joshua, known for being mad and homeless - who according to Josephus cried a crazy apocalypse song and died accidently in the first Roman war against Jerusalem in 66-70 AD. Fun fact
: the words of his crazy song are repeated in the gospels as words of Jeebus!
What's funniest is saint Paulus or rather Saul of Tyrs. Saul/Paulus lived and wrote his stuff about 60 AD. He never met Jeebus in person, he just had a vision of this apocalyptic prophet-guy, and his letters are the oldest accounts in NT (the 4 Gospels are all written by Greeks much later, censored and chosen by Ireneus the christian bish around year 180 AD). Saul/Paulus actually invented most of Christianity as we know it, especially the divine and resurrecting son of god thing. However he didn't know whatever Jeebus is said to be preaching nor his mother Mary nor Mary Magdalene etc. Based on Saul/Paul's letters and a whole lot of the Old Testament babble the "Markus" gospel was written, then "Matthew" copied Markus& added all kinds of magical fairy tales such as "the divine childhood", then "Lucas" copied Matthew and so on.
None of the gospels nor Paulus letters make Jeebus any more historic though - they contradict eachother constantly about facts and don't tell us anything specific - no birth date, no parents, no specific age, no existing birth place, no precise account of death - no mention of any dates whatsoever actually.
Sorry for this long.. epistle (teehee).
Many greetings and best regards :)
Ahoy there to U2 AnnaPerenna! How have you been lately, my friend!?
Thank you for this very, very nice coverage on the "historic Jesus" issue.
What you're saying is that, if the man Christians call Jesu Christos had been an actual historical figure, he would almost certainly have been written up by the Jewish and/or Roman historians of his day -- mostly because he would have stood out from all the others of the time who were calling themselves "Messiah, son of God" -- by virtue of the fact that he had a personal audience with the big-time VIP dude Pontius Pilate....
Makes sense to me!
Why thank you, I've been wyrd ;) and consumed by various things. But now I'm back in almost full vigour!
Of course, my coverage is a bit faulty - it's not actually sure when and if Saul/Paul actually lived and wrote. Could be even long past 80 or 120 AD. But still "his" epistles are the oldest in NT, then comes Mark, Matt, Luke etc as said before.
Jeebus is not considered human by S/Paul thus it was soooo easy for him to invent the cult of godly son and steal with arms and legs from other such cults. There is a very exciting theory that most of the NT gospels and Jeebus sayings are based not only on Old Testament but also on Buddhism and life of Gautama, which was actually very popular in the Mediterranean area already few centuries BC. This would explain the weird mix of meek (Buddhistic) and cruel (Old T) ideas and behaviours Jeebus produces.
And yes, the 1-on-1 exclusive VIP chat of Pilatus with this Arameic, illiterate, apocalyptic doomsday prophet considered criminal is the biggest miracle described in NT! Bigger than any zombie resurrection, earthquake, eclipse, wandering star, healing or curse. If a wonder chat like that occurred it would surely be registered by Greeks, Romans, Jews and Egyptians alike.
In reality we know that historic military leading Pilatus either slaughtered Jews with an iron fist or offended their intolerant theocracy with his Roman symbols of "pagan" worship. In fact he slaughtered so many that the Jews complained to Rome and he got called of duty and returned to Rome. Nooooot quite the philosophic, Jeebus-respecting pacifist the NT portraits him as.
AnnaPerenna,
Not only do your claims contain zero sources or references to check them, but you reveal that you have never read the gospels, or you would no that they actually do mention quite specific times, locations, names, and events, many of which are historio-archaeologically verifiable and have been. Also, Tacitus did not spell it "Chrestus", he wrote them as "christians". It was Suetonius who wrote "Chrestus".
Again, it is telling that virtually no serious scholars, secular or otherwise, support the Jesus myth hypothesis anymore because it would require such a vast suspension of disbelief and disregard of data. Here, take a look at link (sorry for the wiki, but its quick and will at least lead you into more serious research) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
By all means, contest Jesus' teachings, but not his existence. It's too silly.
I also wanted to ask you (or anyone on this thread): How do you know the Goddess exists? What is your evidence?
Athana,
First, it is uncertain who or what actually caused the fire — whether accident or arson. According to Tacitus, some in the population held Nero responsible. To diffuse blame, Nero targeted the Christians. Christians confessed to the crime, but it is unknown whether these were false confessions induced by torture (like modern day Al Qaeda in Gitmo). Also, the passage is unclear as to what the Christians confessed to — being arsonists or Christians. Suetonius and Cassius Dio favor Nero as the arsonist with an insane desire to destroy the city as his motive. However, major accidental fires were common in ancient Rome. In fact, Rome burned again under Vitellius in 69 and under Titus in 80.
According to Tacitus, Nero ordered Christians to be thrown to dogs, while others were crucified or burned to serve as lights.
He describes the event as follows:
"As a consequence, to get rid of the report, 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, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. In accordance, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not as much of the crime of firing the city as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired."
To research this further, see: Cassius Dio, Roman History, Books 62 (c. 229)
Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars, the Life of Nero, 38 (c. 121)
Tacitus, Annals, XV (c. 117)
Second, while Christians did not engage in open rebellion against the Empire, they did refuse to support or serve it as part of their rather anarchical faith. But the Empire was already on the decline sometime before Christianity exploded. And be glad the Empire did fall and Christianity remain, for it was a very cruel, patriarchal, system, which the ideas of Chritianity, if actually followed (which, of course, the Church did not do), would have rectified.
Third, Tacitus would have had no dealings with Christians, unless he had been present at their tortures or executions, at which point their testimony would be even more incredible. He, like any good historian, most likely got his information through research. Unless of course you would like to dispute the rest of what he wrote and a huge chunk of classical history in the process?
Fourth, by "absurd" I referred to the admission by Tertullian and other churchers that the story of God being crucified for us sounds offensive/absurd/foolish to people.
"Everything in the Christ story was lifted, borrowed or outright stolen from pagan stories that had been extant in the Mediterranean world long, long before the first Christian ever saw the light of day."
Wrong. The comparative myths have vast differences, in practices, times, locales, and origin.
Jesus doesn't exist anymore because Chuck Norris ate him and then shat out the bible
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