Re: What Atheists Can't Answer

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:09:16 GMT, The Amaurotean Capitalist
<g.j.bailey@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:03:12 +0100, "Westapostle"
><westprog@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>> It's still a reasonable historical assertion to accept there was a
>>> historical JBJ.  There is evidence outside the NT of that.

Really? The Romans, meticulous record keepers, make no mention of
Jesus in their surviving records. Indeed the entire recital of the
events leading up to the Crucifiction is filled with misleading errors
and outright fantasy as far as known Roman reaction to home-grown
Messiahs is concerned. The only record is in the New Testament, which
most non-believers regard as a snow job created by believers to
monumentalize a person who never existed.

This was the basis of an argument which went on for several weeks in
scs and concluded that Jesus was a fantasy figure. Apart from any
thing else, the Jewish Sanhedrin would have stepped in to halt what to
Jews would have been absolute blasphemy, and they retained the power
to put such people to death, without any permission from, or
intervention by the Roman authorities, whose sole interest was in
maintaining the peace and collecting taxes from a less than friendly
population.         

>>
>>And even if there weren't, it seems unlikely that they'd make one up. We
can
>>see a similar effect today with people like princess Diana, who has
achieved
>>a form of secular wor****p. In pagan times, I'd expect her to be a
goddess by
>>now.
>
>Well, at least until the home video of her and Dodi comes out.  Who
>knows, the illogic of that cult is such that it might inflate her
>reputation even further.
>
>>I don't think the other sources really give us much of a personality
though.
>
>Sure, but aside from brief references to JBJ which undoubtedly
>wouldn't have escaped the attention of the Christian censors, there's
>some excellent contem****ary context of Judea at the time from Josephus
>which can be used to place JBJ in historical context.  There are even
>parallel messianic figures being bumped off by the client regime and
>the Romans after various rebellions long before we get to the main
>Jewish Revolt.
>
>Any understanding of JBJ as a historical figure has to engage with the
>historical political, cultural and religious context of contem****ary
>Judea from that source alone.
>
>Gavin Bailey


The Highlander 
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