The Jesus to whom atheists and others often refer

[Eloi]

Many times when the teachings of Jesus and his person are discussed, reference is made to a particular interpretation of what his words may be indicating. For example, I have read a discussion about a Jesus who denies or contradicts the Law of Moses. But that is an incorrect way of understanding Jesus, just like a political Jesus is or one who does not admit rich people among his followers, as if honest possessions were sin.

Can those who debate the teachings of Jesus at least begin to ascertain that the Jesus they suppose is the one that Scripture shows us and not an imaginary Jesus?

This topic is to analyze the need to be serious in the use of terms and premises, so that the debates adjust to the truth, and the conclusions are more accurate.

What is the Jesus you have in mind? Does it correspond to the Jesus of the Bible? Can you really know what Jesus was like?

[oldbadger]

No. You tried to tell me that Origen wrote Contra Celsum in the second century and I corrected you.

I'm sad about that...... I meant that Celsus wrote in the 2nd century....see how I was definitely writing about Celsus there

A speculative conclusion on your part doesn't somehow become my error. I recently had a similar conversation with someone trying to project things into Papias' writings that aren't there.

Meh...... when an enemy of Christianity writes about a Jesus, his boatmen and those two taxmen, I don't have to speculate about whether he absolutely believed that they had lived, been involved in troubles etc...... your conversations about other authors are irrelevant, surely?

None of these identifies a different source. It could have been aliens. Who knows? Not you, and that's the point. Speculation isn't evidence.

You speculated about Celsus's origins, yes? And so Grant's 'Celsus also writes as a loyal citizen of the Roman Empire and a devoted believer in Greco-Roman paganism, distrustful of Christianity as new and foreign.'
So Celsus was not restricted to Christianity and Judaism does help to correct that. .....I responded.

Your 'Who knows?' is fun to read, because all Historical Jesus study is about the balance of probabilities and possibilities.... and that enemies even acknowledged Jesus's existence does rather put your 'aliens?' question to bed. If you don't like people like Celcus acknowledging Jesus the man, then I can't help you.

There are lots of options. I already mentioned aliens. All of them are speculative, though, because if Celsus wrote down who his sources were, Origen didn't relay them to us.

Lots of options...... now that's a significant advance from your previous 'Christian tradition, Jewish polemic, or a simple mistake?' .....which is pleasing. Sources? So, if your were to receive direct evidence from a witness....would that do it for you? How about Cephas's depositions? Any good?
But whether you would accept anything yeah-or-neh, that cannot spoil the value that I put upon Celsus's comments.

This is pretty early in the convesation to start conflating "possible" with "probable." Speculation isn't evidence.

Huh? The Possibilities and Probabilities are what we have to work with. And since it's two millennia since the depositions were written we won't be able to convince you of much, methinks. But I'm not a Christian, just doing my best to investigate what happened all that time ago, so my opinion happens to differ from yours....yes?

A late second-century opponent reacting to what late second-century Christians believed isn't evidence of what happened in the first century.

Ah ah! I wrote 'probably quite accurate'............ did you see that 'probably' right there? It's all about balancing probabilities and possibilities, and when enemies of Jesus have acknowledged his existence, including rough descriptions of his followers, and in very critical ways, that helps my opinions.

And so speculations and aliens all won't be able to help you when discussing all this with me.

[oldbadger]

Jews have a community and attend synagogues even outside of Jerusalem. So it isn't that hard (I should think) to track Jews down and ask them to pay the temple -tax. Thus I have read, though I have never tried to do it and don't know whether or when they started to say 'Why should I pay for a Temple that isn't there any more?' That said, it was a Jewish religious tax (in addition to tithe I suppose ) not related to the state taxes, and Jesus and his disciples were expected to pay it. That's the context of the Shekel -eating fish and my guess at what the story (told only by Matthew and thus, I believe, his invention) is intended to do. I guess that Matthew was implying that Jesus as a Jewish man was expected to pay the Temple tax, but as son of God he shouldn't need to, but he (Matthew guesses) did, just to not cause trouble. Rather than just have Jesus hand over a shekel, he invents this ludicrous tale of a fish with a shekel in its' mouth.

Fair enough........
Question: Do you have any references about Temple officials or their agents travelling to outer provinces to extract shekel payments from non-attending Jews? I know I had some but cannot find them now. By the way, I rather think that Saul might have been contracted to sort out non-paying Jews/Christians.

I approve your work of gospel comparison. One doesn't realise what a mess they are unless that is done. We tend to weave the elements together into a unified narrative and don't realise what a conflicting story it is. The test case was the nativity before i ever did this. But after doing it and several debates, it has put the 2nd census apologetic to bed. Josephus pretty much says that there is no previous governership of Qurinus after Varus but Varus acted as governor, putting down revolts while Herod's son was in Rome. Thus the census of Quirinus is during the Roman takeover and can only be then, not in Herod's time. Before, it was only less likely that 'when he was governor' meant 'before he was governor', or there was a Roman run tax in Herod's client kingdom that Josephus didn't mention, or there was a revolt of Judas in Herod's time as well as a later one during the Roman takeover. Moreover Luke says (Gamaliel's speech) that the revolt was in the days of the census - the one he talks about. I am sure that the Nativity is done and dusted and the 2nd census excuse dead and buried, and, like dominoes, the rest go down.

Varus, only an acting governor/Legate....I didn't know that, although I expect that his powers were exactly those of a full Syrian Legate.
That brigands took chances after King Herod's death, such as the taking of Zippori......... the eventual splitting of the Kingdom between Philip, Antipas and Archelaus (and a sibling sister up North?) ,,, of Archelaus's total mess down in Judea, Idumea with probable troubles in Samaria leading to the appointment of a Prefect in 6CE and a census for those regions only..... that seems about right.
But how a Galilean hand-worker gets roped in to a tax census 100 mile trek to the south, oh dear........ the body swerving and conjuring that had to be done to fit in with some blooming prophecies is just gobsmacking.... but I shouldn't think that Christians asked to many questions through the centuries; after all, the stake awaited any who caused the slightest trouble over anything......

Yes, I originally thought that Mark was the original, and it took someone on my former board to point out to me:

(a) that the end was not Lost but there never was one
(b) that Mark is itself an edit of a lost original. Not as obvious as Matthew or Luke, but with a lot of edits, nevertheless.

And, oh yes. I Utterly reject Acts as reliable, soup to nuts. I believe and swear that it is based on Paul's letters plus some Josephus (as in Luke's gospel - the census is taken from Josephus, not what Luke knew), and is bulked out as a fictionalised biography by Luke. Even the 'council of Jerusalem' was a private chat between Paul, James and Peter, but Luke turns it into a Sanhedrin hearing and he had James misquote Micah at the end. No, Acts is fiddle and fabrication, and you may bet the bank on that.

OK........ I acknowledge your opinion about Acts; for myself I don't actually bother with any of it after the gospel accounts since HJ is my interest and not HC.

Trawling through the gospels for genuine anecdotes is useful, but with G-Mark I have always needed to trawl through for Christian additions for any kind of real story to emerge, and then I attempt to add those anecdotes from other gospels.
This sort of thing.....
Mark {9:30} And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know [it. ]{9:31} For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. {9:32} But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. {9:33} And he came to apernaum:......................

....... to simply extract the wholly Christian piece and be left with the smoothly flowing ...
{9:30} And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know [it.]{9:33} And he came to Capernaum:..................

But G-Mark does reduce somewhat.....

[TRANSPONDER]

I haven't dug into the temple tax collection methods, though I may have a look. Reading Josephus made it clear that the unknown governorship (where Bible apologists pop in a previous stint for Quirinus) had Varus operating against Rebels and it seems that he was just being allowed to act as governor until a new one was appointed, irregular though it seems. I'd say that definitively knocks on the head any attempt to have Luke's nativity shifted to the last year of Herod's life, though all the evidence was actually against it and it took a lot of wangling invention of circumstances and special pleading to try to make for a plausible hypothesis to reconcile Luke's and Matthew's Nativities.

Of course, there's still the debate about whether Nazareth existed at all in Jesus' time. At least of a size for it to have its' own synagogue. One side insists that, apart from a farmhouse dug into a hill there is no evidence of a Nazareth in the 1st c and the other insist that this one dwelling means there was a small city or town. I won't go into all the attempts to fiddle the evidence to support a 1st c Nazareth town, particularly that very dubious 'Nazareth' fragment from Capernaum, but I'll mention that I have seen a few references to a cliff outside of Nazareth just begging for Jesus to be thrown off it. But I have also read that there is no such cliff or even high rise. But pending a search of Google map, I am sure that Luke's tale of the rejection at Nazareth following his messianic declaration and the attempt to do fling Jesus of a cliff afterwards is totally and utterly spurious. There is a 'rejection' in Mark and Matthew but it is placed a lot later on in the story (John has a reference to a prophet without honour, as well) but Luke shifts it to the outset of the mission (4.16). And yet again there's this question of such a significant event as Jesus showing that he was the Messiah from scripture in public in his town synagogue being ignored by everyone else, which is simply unbelievable. Just as John having no transfiguration, No synoptic mention of the raising of Lazarus, no spear thrust in the synoptics, Nobody but Luke having the penitent thief and so many instances of shifting material about and rewriting it that I stand amazed that after a couple of thousand years of Bible study this is all overlooked.

It seems as inescapable as the conclusion that the original basic story (itself a Christian rework of something else) has been rewritten by the four gospel writers l independently, and that is why they contradict, monumentally and terminally, and the excuses about eyewitness error are the reason why people still think the Nativity is all one scene - we have been lied to by Pious Bible apologists and nobody has bothered to read it for themselves.

It is a fair bit of work, but it is not rocket science to do a gospel comparison, but people just don't. But I do and I have a mission to let them know what I found and how it is.

Once Atheist Axiom is 'once you've had a trick explained, you won't be fooled by it ever again'.

Other Axiums or Axia

'It takes less time to say: "There are fairies at the bottom of my garden" than to explain why there probably aren't'.

There are 12 altogether, but the others slip my mind...

[oldbadger]

I haven't dug into the temple tax collection methods, though I may have a look. Reading Josephus made it clear that the unknown governorship (where Bible apologists pop in a previous stint for Quirinus) had Varus operating against Rebels and it seems that he was just being allowed to act as governor until a new one was appointed, irregular though it seems. I'd say that definitively knocks on the head any attempt to have Luke's nativity shifted to the last year of Herod's life, though all the evidence was actually against it and it took a lot of wangling invention of circumstances and special pleading to try to make for a plausible hypothesis to reconcile Luke's and Matthew's Nativities.

Reconciling both Luke's and Matthew's nativities ..... I'll leave that to apologists to juggle with but I actually think that Celsus (despite his seething enmity) might have been nearer to the truth, the scenario building in to something like this:-
Mary a temple maiden in a Hellenistic temple in Zippori, the taking of Zippori by Judas BarEzekiah the bandit, Varus having to go to the expense of sending a couple of Legions and a cohort to retake it, all women and children found in Zippori sold in to slavery to pay the costs, the men forced to tear the place down and then crucified. Mary somehow survived all this through a relationship with a Roman soldier........ Joseph taking part in the rebuilding program and meeting with a dumped and pregnant woman.

Of course, there's still the debate about whether Nazareth existed at all in Jesus' time. At least of a size for it to have its' own synagogue. One side insists that, apart from a farmhouse dug into a hill there is no evidence of a Nazareth in the 1st c and the other insist that this one dwelling means there was a small city or town. I won't go into all the attempts to fiddle the evidence to support a 1st c Nazareth town, particularly that very dubious 'Nazareth' fragment from Capernaum, but I'll mention that I have seen a few references to a cliff outside of Nazareth just begging for Jesus to be thrown off it. But I have also read that there is no such cliff or even high rise. But pending a search of Google map, I am sure that Luke's tale of the rejection at Nazareth following his messianic declaration and the attempt to do fling Jesus of a cliff afterwards is totally and utterly spurious. There is a 'rejection' in Mark and Matthew but it is placed a lot later on in the story (John has a reference to a prophet without honour, as well) but Luke shifts it to the outset of the mission (4.16). And yet again there's this question of such a significant event as Jesus showing that he was the Messiah from scripture in public in his town synagogue being ignored by everyone else, which is simply unbelievable. Just as John having no transfiguration, No synoptic mention of the raising of Lazarus, no spear thrust in the synoptics, Nobody but Luke having the penitent thief and so many instances of shifting material about and rewriting it that I stand amazed that after a couple of thousand years of Bible study this is all overlooked.

Nazareth? Yes, surely it existed, as did both hilltops named 'Cana' at different times and a couple of other hills which surrounded Zippori/Sepphoris.
Those hilltops were obviously not cities, more like secure hilltops for the wood, stone, workers, hauliers, labourers and others to place their families while they worked at Antipas's lovely new development upon Zippori. None of those villages, hamlets etc were anything like our perception of a city, obviously.
There were no family buildings on these rocky hilltops, of course. Who would be daft enough to make bricks on the plains and carry them up several hundreds of feet to build a property? All of the handworkers, hauliers and labourers were itinerants and lived in goat-hair tents, just as some families do today. Tents were big back then. Ask Paul! The metal workers were probably a separate group of very highly skilled folks so I didn't include them in the picture.

Some folks rant on about Zippori not having been that large, about 7 acres of buildings....... that was massive back then, very impressive.

It seems as inescapable as the conclusion that the original basic story (itself a Christian rework of something else) has been rewritten by the four gospel writers l independently, and that is why they contradict, monumentally and terminally, and the excuses about eyewitness error are the reason why people still think the Nativity is all one scene - we have been lied to by Pious Bible apologists and nobody has bothered to read it for themselves.

I haven't read a serious supporting post for the nativity in a few years now. I've been away from here for a few years and so maybe I've been missing these, but apologists who want to juggle the accounts to fit must receive some very clear reasoning to forget about that. Celsus's ideas were better, at least they were feasible. !!!

It is a fair bit of work, but it is not rocket science to do a gospel comparison, but people just don't. But I do and I have a mission to let them know what I found and how it is.

That's cool....... I stripped out Matthew, Luke and John for any useful 'bits' and focused just upon a reduced G-Mark...several years ago.
What was I left with? A couple of men who campaigned for social justice and who died, like we all do. And I walked away from any kind of Christianity....... I sometimes attend priest-supervised weddings, funerals and baptisms.
I might as well have devoted my time to collecting dinky toys or whatever, a Beano comic collection could be worth a lot of cash today...... Too late! Ahhhhh!

Atheist Axiom is 'once you've had a trick explained, you won't be fooled by it ever again'.

Other Axiums or Axia

'It takes less time to say: "There are fairies at the bottom of my garden" than to explain why there probably aren't'.

There are 12 altogether, but the others slip my mind...

What!!!! ??? No fairies?
Please excuse my facetious comments, the reason is this; looking back over the decades I can feel so much anger about the Institutional Indoctrination that got stuffed in to us all..... red heat. So it's better to not allow such anger to get a grip. ok?

I once had to survey a large house for the CofE Diocesan Board, it was a senior priest's home..... the long case of shotguns, pairs of Purdeys, Holland and Holland's etc. any one pair could buy a home........ probably could now. They cherry-pick the bits that suit...
Mark 10:21} Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor,

[JoeyKnothead]

Me, asking the question...

"So, what y'all know about the bible?"

Y'all, two years later...

"Then, in Genesis chapter 2..."

Smart folks'll smart

[TRANSPONDER]

I haven't dug into the temple tax collection methods, though I may have a look. Reading Josephus made it clear that the unknown governorship (where Bible apologists pop in a previous stint for Quirinus) had Varus operating against Rebels and it seems that he was just being allowed to act as governor until a new one was appointed, irregular though it seems. I'd say that definitively knocks on the head any attempt to have Luke's nativity shifted to the last year of Herod's life, though all the evidence was actually against it and it took a lot of wangling invention of circumstances and special pleading to try to make for a plausible hypothesis to reconcile Luke's and Matthew's Nativities.

Reconciling both Luke's and Matthew's nativities ..... I'll leave that to apologists to juggle with but I actually think that Celsus (despite his seething enmity) might have been nearer to the truth, the scenario building in to something like this:-
Mary a temple maiden in a Hellenistic temple in Zippori, the taking of Zippori by Judas BarEzekiah the bandit, Varus having to go to the expense of sending a couple of Legions and a cohort to retake it, all women and children found in Zippori sold in to slavery to pay the costs, the men forced to tear the place down and then crucified. Mary somehow survived all this through a relationship with a Roman soldier........ Joseph taking part in the rebuilding program and meeting with a dumped and pregnant woman.

Of course, there's still the debate about whether Nazareth existed at all in Jesus' time. At least of a size for it to have its' own synagogue. One side insists that, apart from a farmhouse dug into a hill there is no evidence of a Nazareth in the 1st c and the other insist that this one dwelling means there was a small city or town. I won't go into all the attempts to fiddle the evidence to support a 1st c Nazareth town, particularly that very dubious 'Nazareth' fragment from Capernaum, but I'll mention that I have seen a few references to a cliff outside of Nazareth just begging for Jesus to be thrown off it. But I have also read that there is no such cliff or even high rise. But pending a search of Google map, I am sure that Luke's tale of the rejection at Nazareth following his messianic declaration and the attempt to do fling Jesus of a cliff afterwards is totally and utterly spurious. There is a 'rejection' in Mark and Matthew but it is placed a lot later on in the story (John has a reference to a prophet without honour, as well) but Luke shifts it to the outset of the mission (4.16). And yet again there's this question of such a significant event as Jesus showing that he was the Messiah from scripture in public in his town synagogue being ignored by everyone else, which is simply unbelievable. Just as John having no transfiguration, No synoptic mention of the raising of Lazarus, no spear thrust in the synoptics, Nobody but Luke having the penitent thief and so many instances of shifting material about and rewriting it that I stand amazed that after a couple of thousand years of Bible study this is all overlooked.

Nazareth? Yes, surely it existed, as did both hilltops named 'Cana' at different times and a couple of other hills which surrounded Zippori/Sepphoris.
Those hilltops were obviously not cities, more like secure hilltops for the wood, stone, workers, hauliers, labourers and others to place their families while they worked at Antipas's lovely new development upon Zippori. None of those villages, hamlets etc were anything like our perception of a city, obviously.
There were no family buildings on these rocky hilltops, of course. Who would be daft enough to make bricks on the plains and carry them up several hundreds of feet to build a property? All of the handworkers, hauliers and labourers were itinerants and lived in goat-hair tents, just as some families do today. Tents were big back then. Ask Paul! The metal workers were probably a separate group of very highly skilled folks so I didn't include them in the picture.

Some folks rant on about Zippori not having been that large, about 7 acres of buildings....... that was massive back then, very impressive.

It seems as inescapable as the conclusion that the original basic story (itself a Christian rework of something else) has been rewritten by the four gospel writers l independently, and that is why they contradict, monumentally and terminally, and the excuses about eyewitness error are the reason why people still think the Nativity is all one scene - we have been lied to by Pious Bible apologists and nobody has bothered to read it for themselves.

I haven't read a serious supporting post for the nativity in a few years now. I've been away from here for a few years and so maybe I've been missing these, but apologists who want to juggle the accounts to fit must receive some very clear reasoning to forget about that. Celsus's ideas were better, at least they were feasible. !!!

It is a fair bit of work, but it is not rocket science to do a gospel comparison, but people just don't. But I do and I have a mission to let them know what I found and how it is.

That's cool....... I stripped out Matthew, Luke and John for any useful 'bits' and focused just upon a reduced G-Mark...several years ago.
What was I left with? A couple of men who campaigned for social justice and who died, like we all do. And I walked away from any kind of Christianity....... I sometimes attend priest-supervised weddings, funerals and baptisms.
I might as well have devoted my time to collecting dinky toys or whatever, a Beano comic collection could be worth a lot of cash today...... Too late! Ahhhhh!

Atheist Axiom is 'once you've had a trick explained, you won't be fooled by it ever again'.

Other Axiums or Axia

'It takes less time to say: "There are fairies at the bottom of my garden" than to explain why there probably aren't'.

There are 12 altogether, but the others slip my mind...

What!!!! ??? No fairies?
Please excuse my facetious comments, the reason is this; looking back over the decades I can feel so much anger about the Institutional Indoctrination that got stuffed in to us all..... red heat. So it's better to not allow such anger to get a grip. ok?

I once had to survey a large house for the CofE Diocesan Board, it was a senior priest's home..... the long case of shotguns, pairs of Purdeys, Holland and Holland's etc. any one pair could buy a home........ probably could now. They cherry-pick the bits that suit...
Mark 10:21} Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor,

I enjoy your comments. And I love the tale of "Mary, slave girl of Nazareth" (1) When you get it published I'll be there on Kindle or Amazon. I wrote "The Jesus Detectives", a terrible and boring detective novel about an investigator sent by Claudius to look into these Christian claims. I thought if I can't peddle my pet theory as a Real Jesus Theory, I could make a few bucks from it as the next big seller after the DaVinci code.

I welcome apologetics about the Nativity. I've seen them try everything, clever to ludicrous. Including the 'There were Bethlehems in Galilee' nonsense. Luke says it was the one in Judea, specifically. End of that argument. We never got the argument from Gamaliel where he (Luke) identified the 'days of the census' as when Judas the Galilean revolted. "The Galileans are revolting!" "I've always said that." (drum sting). A probability is that he got that from Josephus, just as in Acts he got the death of Herod Agrippa. And for that matter the historical context of Luke 3.1 and I suspect the 'Blood of the Galileans' which event has gone mysteriously missing from the histories. .

Nazareth existed eventually, sure. But in Jesus' time? Arguable. I was once persuaded that 'Nazrene' was more a religio -political group (thus the Nazorenes that were targeted by the 'High Priests', acting as gofors for Rome) but I suspect it might mean a district or 'Gen' near lake Kinnoreth (Lake Gen - Nessaret) where Nazareth was later built as a town to house those relocated priestly families as per the Capernaum inscription. The Gospels mention Nazareth but not Zipporah (not Jotapa), while Josephus mentions Sepphoris and Jotapa but not Nazareth. I see that as showing that the Gospels have to be post Jewish war and of course, the prediction of that war are retrospective prophecy.

No, no fairies, though I can offer you some elf - maidens, or some ET Alien Greys if you prefer. And while I do not find Church behavior or even behaviour attractive, that is not the same as whether the religion they claim to follow is based on historical facts and if so, how much.

(1) Saith the Publisher. "Zipporah don't sell. We have to make it Nazareth. Never mind historical accuracy."

[oldbadger]

I enjoy your comments. And I love the tale of "Mary, slave girl of Nazareth" (1) When you get it published I'll be there on Kindle or Amazon. I wrote "The Jesus Detectives", a terrible and boring detective novel about an investigator sent by Claudius to look into these Christian claims. I thought if I can't peddle my pet theory as a Real Jesus Theory, I could make a few bucks from it as the next big seller after the DaVinci code.

The Jesus Detectives. I'll look that up.
After a decade of fiddling with it, editing it, messing about, I showed (posted in daily pieces) my findings in a story about Jesus'n'his on a faith forum and the mostly Christian bosses let it be, even built a section for it. But they didn't much like how it went. Thing is, if I went back to read it again I'd be humming and hah'ing, fiddling, changing.

I welcome apologetics about the Nativity. I've seen them try everything, clever to ludicrous. Including the 'There were Bethlehems in Galilee' nonsense. Luke says it was the one in Judea, specifically. End of that argument. We never got the argument from Gamaliel where he (Luke) identified the 'days of the census' as when Judas the Galilean revolted. "The Galileans are revolting!" "I've always said that." (drum sting). A probability is that he got that from Josephus, just as in Acts he got the death of Herod Agrippa. And for that matter the historical context of Luke 3.1 and I suspect the 'Blood of the Galileans' which event has gone mysteriously missing from the histories. .

Ha ha! I do enjoy reading all that 'body swerving' .
The trick is, to search for background which might have been real, and from which all these stories were built up.

The Joseph/pregnant Mary trek south might just possibly have been some kind of real journey..... to get the hell far away from a very dangerous place, after Varus's soldiers had started to rape and pillage their way around the hilltops. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a Jewish peasant living anywhere near pillaging Roman soldiers who wanted a hug with a pretty girl and something to take home to Mum?

Nazareth existed eventually, sure. But in Jesus' time? Arguable. I was once persuaded that 'Nazrene' was more a religio -political group (thus the Nazorenes that were targeted by the 'High Priests', acting as gofors for Rome) but I suspect it might mean a district or 'Gen' near lake Kinnoreth (Lake Gen - Nessaret) where Nazareth was later built as a town to house those relocated priestly families as per the Capernaum inscription. The Gospels mention Nazareth but not Zipporah (not Jotapa), while Josephus mentions Sepphoris and Jotapa but not Nazareth. I see that as showing that the Gospels have to be post Jewish war and of course, the prediction of that war are retrospective prophecy.

Ahhhh! Jesus the Nazreen etc etc! That kind of junk just hurts the mind!
Nazareth? Who would give a hoot about a small hilltop where Jewish peasants stayed above the plain? There were several of those and a retired Military General had probably never heard of that particular hilltop. Our archaeologists are finding protected hills from aircraft millennia later......no history, no name, an unknown leader buried under large rocks. Josephus..... no microlight for him!

No, no fairies, though I can offer you some elf - maidens, or some ET Alien Greys if you prefer. And while I do not find Church behavior or even behaviour attractive, that is not the same as whether the religion they claim to follow is based on historical facts and if so, how much.

(1) Saith the Publisher. "Zipporah don't sell. We have to make it Nazareth. Never mind historical accuracy."

At one time I wouldn't have minded a spiritual maiden or two. Long ago I had a girlfriend who was a Christian spiritualist..... what a turn on!.... Today? 30 years with a sweet quiet lady who wouldn't give a fig for any of it, and who would batter me if I ever turned an eye towards any women, let alone spiritual maidens.

And those publishers......... now if you had been a piano teacher and armed with a bunch of archaeology reports, and had written a book about the myth of Nazareth...... you see? That would have paid off your mortgage nicely. But even the mythers can write some junk.

[TRANSPONDER]

I enjoy your comments. And I love the tale of "Mary, slave girl of Nazareth" (1) When you get it published I'll be there on Kindle or Amazon. I wrote "The Jesus Detectives", a terrible and boring detective novel about an investigator sent by Claudius to look into these Christian claims. I thought if I can't peddle my pet theory as a Real Jesus Theory, I could make a few bucks from it as the next big seller after the DaVinci code.

The Jesus Detectives. I'll look that up.
After a decade of fiddling with it, editing it, messing about, I showed (posted in daily pieces) my findings in a story about Jesus'n'his on a faith forum and the mostly Christian bosses let it be, even built a section for it. But they didn't much like how it went. Thing is, if I went back to read it again I'd be humming and hah'ing, fiddling, changing.

I welcome apologetics about the Nativity. I've seen them try everything, clever to ludicrous. Including the 'There were Bethlehems in Galilee' nonsense. Luke says it was the one in Judea, specifically. End of that argument. We never got the argument from Gamaliel where he (Luke) identified the 'days of the census' as when Judas the Galilean revolted. "The Galileans are revolting!" "I've always said that." (drum sting). A probability is that he got that from Josephus, just as in Acts he got the death of Herod Agrippa. And for that matter the historical context of Luke 3.1 and I suspect the 'Blood of the Galileans' which event has gone mysteriously missing from the histories. .

Ha ha! I do enjoy reading all that 'body swerving' .
The trick is, to search for background which might have been real, and from which all these stories were built up.

The Joseph/pregnant Mary trek south might just possibly have been some kind of real journey..... to get the hell far away from a very dangerous place, after Varus's soldiers had started to rape and pillage their way around the hilltops. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a Jewish peasant living anywhere near pillaging Roman soldiers who wanted a hug with a pretty girl and something to take home to Mum?

Nazareth existed eventually, sure. But in Jesus' time? Arguable. I was once persuaded that 'Nazrene' was more a religio -political group (thus the Nazorenes that were targeted by the 'High Priests', acting as gofors for Rome) but I suspect it might mean a district or 'Gen' near lake Kinnoreth (Lake Gen - Nessaret) where Nazareth was later built as a town to house those relocated priestly families as per the Capernaum inscription. The Gospels mention Nazareth but not Zipporah (not Jotapa), while Josephus mentions Sepphoris and Jotapa but not Nazareth. I see that as showing that the Gospels have to be post Jewish war and of course, the prediction of that war are retrospective prophecy.

Ahhhh! Jesus the Nazreen etc etc! That kind of junk just hurts the mind!
Nazareth? Who would give a hoot about a small hilltop where Jewish peasants stayed above the plain? There were several of those and a retired Military General had probably never heard of that particular hilltop. Our archaeologists are finding protected hills from aircraft millennia later......no history, no name, an unknown leader buried under large rocks. Josephus..... no microlight for him!

No, no fairies, though I can offer you some elf - maidens, or some ET Alien Greys if you prefer. And while I do not find Church behavior or even behaviour attractive, that is not the same as whether the religion they claim to follow is based on historical facts and if so, how much.

(1) Saith the Publisher. "Zipporah don't sell. We have to make it Nazareth. Never mind historical accuracy."

At one time I wouldn't have minded a spiritual maiden or two. Long ago I had a girlfriend who was a Christian spiritualist..... what a turn on!.... Today? 30 years with a sweet quiet lady who wouldn't give a fig for any of it, and who would batter me if I ever turned an eye towards any women, let alone spiritual maidens.

And those publishers......... now if you had been a piano teacher and armed with a bunch of archaeology reports, and had written a book about the myth of Nazareth...... you see? That would have paid off your mortgage nicely. But even the mythers can write some junk.

You won't find it. I said it was terrible so I wouldn't even offer it for publication. Besides it didn't work. You can't have the investigators talking to the disciples and then telling the gospel story, as that can't be true. Anyway, Possibly a Nazareth of sorts, but nothing of any size -not on the site of the present Nazareth. Not that it makes a huge difference, but it just asks 'Why was he called a Nazorene?' The district could still have been called 'nazareth' and the eventual town named after it. But it means the 'events' there never happened. Especially if there couldn't have been a synagogue. Which helps to debunk Luke's story which is (on all the evidence) fabricated..like most of the other stuff.

Including the nativities. Sorry. Although we tend to chuckle about the 'Virgin Birth' the stories are fabricated from first to last. They conflict on every point, and are contradicted by Mark and John not having such a story. John in fact tacitly says Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, but he should have been 7.14 was it? 7. 42. Damn' my memory... And that explains why the stories were invented at all. Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, but he should have been. Matthew tells us that by having Herod hear Gollum screaming "Messiah....Bethlehem!!" before Herod sends his riders rushing off to find it. Matthew of course had them already living in Judea. Their own house in Bethlehem (so forget about the cowshed at 2 o'clock in the morning) and coming back from Egypt, God has to tell Joseph 'Sorry mate, forgot to mention, Herod's son is ruling Judea so you'd better move house'.

Which he does, moving to Galilee where another son of Herod is ruling. "Matthew ....that's a really crummy plot! Nobody'll believe that". "Wanna bet? I'll bet you 2 thousand shekels that nobody'll notice for 2,000 years."

And that is why, Matthew crows triumphantly "Jesus will be called a Nazarene!" (Matt.2.23) turning it into a sort of prophecy, which of course isn't found in the OT (the apologists playing the convenient 'It got lost' card, for all they insist on perfect transmission of text to claim a reliable record).

No, my friend, the mechanism is there from spoiler to credits. All fabricated, and we know why and even how (Plot construction). And that's the clue to the rest of the Book. Though, yes, there still could be a true story underneath. But it has - on clues - got to be the story of Jesus Bar Abbas, the zealot insurrectionist.

But why no historical mention? Really, there isn't, except perhaps Tacitus. But the fact that he calls Pilate a procurator rather than Prefect shows that he is repeating what he heard, rather than what he knows. The rest is irrelevant and nothing to do with Jesus. Apart from possibly bar- Serapeon who suggests that he heard the Christian claim that Jerusalem fell because the Jews 'killed their king'. Which I claim isn't true - it was the Romans did it, but the Christians foisted the blame onto the Jews.
Though some poster mentioned that it might relate to some other Jewish king, but I can't recall which. But the point, crux and fulcrum is the Flavian testament which is (or was ) once held up as proof that the Bible was true, for as long as they could get away with it. is demonstrably Not by Josephus, at least in part. And its' parenthetical nature (plus of course that the story is false ) indicated it's all spurious. But I wonder, was it added to supply a Jesus story that wasn't there, or did it replace one that was, but they didn't like it? I'm still not sure. I just say IF there is a true story and a Real Jesus, it is not a wise Jewish Rabbi, but a zealot rebel with a Messiah -complex, who was (probably) married, faked (evidently) miracles to impress his followers, announced himself to 5,000 as messiah (1) and they provided the muscle in the Temple bust up, without which Pilate and his 1,000 guards would have nabbed him immediately.

Conspiracy theory? But it fits and it explains all the puzzles. Well, almost all, .

(1) which is of course the explanation of why John has no Transfiguration - They bot do tell the event, but John disguised it and the Synoptic story transformed it.

[oldbadger]

You won't find it. I said it was terrible so I wouldn't even offer it for publication. Besides it didn't work. You can't have the investigators talking to the disciples and then telling the gospel story, as that can't be true. Anyway, Possibly a Nazareth of sorts, but nothing of any size -not on the site of the present Nazareth. Not that it makes a huge difference, but it just asks 'Why was he called a Nazorene?' The district could still have been called 'nazareth' and the eventual town named after it. But it means the 'events' there never happened. Especially if there couldn't have been a synagogue. Which helps to debunk Luke's story which is (on all the evidence) fabricated..like most of the other stuff.

OK...... well, your story couldn't have been worse than mine, in any case, no probs.
Yeah, Nazorene..... the answer to who coined that title probably lies in that very person. I just junk that stuff.

Including the nativities. Sorry. Although we tend to chuckle about the 'Virgin Birth' the stories are fabricated from first to last. They conflict on every point, and are contradicted by Mark and John not having such a story. John in fact tacitly says Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, but he should have been 7.14 was it? 7. 42. Damn' my memory... And that explains why the stories were invented at all. Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, but he should have been. Matthew tells us that by having Herod hear Gollum screaming "Messiah....Bethlehem!!" before Herod sends his riders rushing off to find it. Matthew of course had them already living in Judea. Their own house in Bethlehem (so forget about the cowshed at 2 o'clock in the morning) and coming back from Egypt, God has to tell Joseph 'Sorry mate, forgot to mention, Herod's son is ruling Judea so you'd better move house'.

Please don't apologise to me.
I would choose Celsus's version first. Why? Well, because it doesn't involve the God of everything selecting a planet in a minor star system amongst more stars than all the grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts of Earth, deciding to become a recently evolved human.
Easy.

Which he does, moving to Galilee where another son of Herod is ruling. "Matthew ....that's a really crummy plot! Nobody'll believe that". "Wanna bet? I'll bet you 2 thousand shekels that nobody'll notice for 2,000 years."

Meh...... Let's just start the account with the Baptist, a man living out in the wastes, surviving on the surges of the migrations and the sends of the seasons, at one with Nature, and who so despised the greed, corruption and hypocrisy of the Temple and its priesthood that he offered cleansing, redemption, feel-good-factor through immersion...and for nothing. Folks could go back home feeling clean again and with their hard earned money. And Temple takings feel back. Lovely story.

And that is why, Matthew crows triumphantly "Jesus will be called a Nazarene!" (Matt.2.23) turning it into a sort of prophecy, which of course isn't found in the OT (the apologists playing the convenient 'It got lost' card, for all they insist on perfect transmission of text to claim a reliable record).

Meh....Jesus was a Galilean peasant of the handworker level (nagara/nagar) who met with the Baptist, followed the Baptist, legged it into the desert after the Baptist's arrest and soon after tried to carry on the same mission in Galilee.
That a clever minded contract breaker like Saul should have a blindingly good idea about how to control masses and used Jesus's name is a whole different story.

No, my friend, the mechanism is there from spoiler to credits. All fabricated, and we know why and even how (Plot construction). And that's the clue to the rest of the Book. Though, yes, there still could be a true story underneath. But it has - on clues - got to be the story of Jesus Bar Abbas, the zealot insurrectionist.

Yes! Absolutely yes! Who got welcomed in to Jerusalem? Who was supported in the Temple riots? Who was so popular that even a Roman Prefect was scared to nobble him? Yep............ and here he is folks, Jesus the son of the Father, whose name was hidden in plain sight by presenting it in Eastern Aramaic and whose first name 'Jesus' (Yeshua?) was omitted from bibles not long after the first was written.

But why no historical mention? Really, there isn't, except perhaps Tacitus. But the fact that he calls Pilate a procurator rather than Prefect shows that he is repeating what he heard, rather than what he knows. The rest is irrelevant and nothing to do with Jesus. Apart from possibly bar- Serapeon who suggests that he heard the Christian claim that Jerusalem fell because the Jews 'killed their king'. Which I claim isn't true - it was the Romans did it, but the Christians foisted the blame onto the Jews.
Though some poster mentioned that it might relate to some other Jewish king, but I can't recall which. But the point, crux and fulcrum is the Flavian testament which is (or was ) once held up as proof that the Bible was true, for as long as they could get away with it. is demonstrably Not by Josephus, at least in part. And its' parenthetical nature (plus of course that the story is false ) indicated it's all spurious. But I wonder, was it added to supply a Jesus story that wasn't there, or did it replace one that was, but they didn't like it? I'm still not sure. I just say IF there is a true story and a Real Jesus, it is not a wise Jewish Rabbi, but a zealot rebel with a Messiah -complex, who was (probably) married, faked (evidently) miracles to impress his followers, announced himself to 5,000 as messiah (1) and they provided the muscle in the Temple bust up, without which Pilate and his 1,000 guards would have nabbed him immediately.

Josephus wrote about Jesus alright.......... just because Christians stuffed their own waffle in to that space, they certainly didn't choose where that space was placed; they would have picked a space after mention of the Baptist and longer than the Baptists's. So Josephus wrote about Jesus but it was probably about the troubles he caused in the Temple.

Conspiracy theory? But it fits and it explains all the puzzles. Well, almost all, .

(1) which is of course the explanation of why John has no Transfiguration - They bot do tell the event, but John disguised it and the Synoptic story transformed it.

Yes........ that's the way I see it.

[TRANSPONDER]

You won't find it. I said it was terrible so I wouldn't even offer it for publication. Besides it didn't work. You can't have the investigators talking to the disciples and then telling the gospel story, as that can't be true. Anyway, Possibly a Nazareth of sorts, but nothing of any size -not on the site of the present Nazareth. Not that it makes a huge difference, but it just asks 'Why was he called a Nazorene?' The district could still have been called 'nazareth' and the eventual town named after it. But it means the 'events' there never happened. Especially if there couldn't have been a synagogue. Which helps to debunk Luke's story which is (on all the evidence) fabricated..like most of the other stuff.

OK...... well, your story couldn't have been worse than mine, in any case, no probs.
Yeah, Nazorene..... the answer to who coined that title probably lies in that very person. I just junk that stuff.

Including the nativities. Sorry. Although we tend to chuckle about the 'Virgin Birth' the stories are fabricated from first to last. They conflict on every point, and are contradicted by Mark and John not having such a story. John in fact tacitly says Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, but he should have been 7.14 was it? 7. 42. Damn' my memory... And that explains why the stories were invented at all. Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, but he should have been. Matthew tells us that by having Herod hear Gollum screaming "Messiah....Bethlehem!!" before Herod sends his riders rushing off to find it. Matthew of course had them already living in Judea. Their own house in Bethlehem (so forget about the cowshed at 2 o'clock in the morning) and coming back from Egypt, God has to tell Joseph 'Sorry mate, forgot to mention, Herod's son is ruling Judea so you'd better move house'.

Please don't apologise to me.
I would choose Celsus's version first. Why? Well, because it doesn't involve the God of everything selecting a planet in a minor star system amongst more stars than all the grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts of Earth, deciding to become a recently evolved human.
Easy.

Which he does, moving to Galilee where another son of Herod is ruling. "Matthew ....that's a really crummy plot! Nobody'll believe that". "Wanna bet? I'll bet you 2 thousand shekels that nobody'll notice for 2,000 years."

Meh...... Let's just start the account with the Baptist, a man living out in the wastes, surviving on the surges of the migrations and the sends of the seasons, at one with Nature, and who so despised the greed, corruption and hypocrisy of the Temple and its priesthood that he offered cleansing, redemption, feel-good-factor through immersion...and for nothing. Folks could go back home feeling clean again and with their hard earned money. And Temple takings feel back. Lovely story.

And that is why, Matthew crows triumphantly "Jesus will be called a Nazarene!" (Matt.2.23) turning it into a sort of prophecy, which of course isn't found in the OT (the apologists playing the convenient 'It got lost' card, for all they insist on perfect transmission of text to claim a reliable record).

Meh....Jesus was a Galilean peasant of the handworker level (nagara/nagar) who met with the Baptist, followed the Baptist, legged it into the desert after the Baptist's arrest and soon after tried to carry on the same mission in Galilee.
That a clever minded contract breaker like Saul should have a blindingly good idea about how to control masses and used Jesus's name is a whole different story.

No, my friend, the mechanism is there from spoiler to credits. All fabricated, and we know why and even how (Plot construction). And that's the clue to the rest of the Book. Though, yes, there still could be a true story underneath. But it has - on clues - got to be the story of Jesus Bar Abbas, the zealot insurrectionist.

Yes! Absolutely yes! Who got welcomed in to Jerusalem? Who was supported in the Temple riots? Who was so popular that even a Roman Prefect was scared to nobble him? Yep............ and here he is folks, Jesus the son of the Father, whose name was hidden in plain sight by presenting it in Eastern Aramaic and whose first name 'Jesus' (Yeshua?) was omitted from bibles not long after the first was written.

But why no historical mention? Really, there isn't, except perhaps Tacitus. But the fact that he calls Pilate a procurator rather than Prefect shows that he is repeating what he heard, rather than what he knows. The rest is irrelevant and nothing to do with Jesus. Apart from possibly bar- Serapeon who suggests that he heard the Christian claim that Jerusalem fell because the Jews 'killed their king'. Which I claim isn't true - it was the Romans did it, but the Christians foisted the blame onto the Jews.
Though some poster mentioned that it might relate to some other Jewish king, but I can't recall which. But the point, crux and fulcrum is the Flavian testament which is (or was ) once held up as proof that the Bible was true, for as long as they could get away with it. is demonstrably Not by Josephus, at least in part. And its' parenthetical nature (plus of course that the story is false ) indicated it's all spurious. But I wonder, was it added to supply a Jesus story that wasn't there, or did it replace one that was, but they didn't like it? I'm still not sure. I just say IF there is a true story and a Real Jesus, it is not a wise Jewish Rabbi, but a zealot rebel with a Messiah -complex, who was (probably) married, faked (evidently) miracles to impress his followers, announced himself to 5,000 as messiah (1) and they provided the muscle in the Temple bust up, without which Pilate and his 1,000 guards would have nabbed him immediately.

Josephus wrote about Jesus alright.......... just because Christians stuffed their own waffle in to that space, they certainly didn't choose where that space was placed; they would have picked a space after mention of the Baptist and longer than the Baptists's. So Josephus wrote about Jesus but it was probably about the troubles he caused in the Temple.

Conspiracy theory? But it fits and it explains all the puzzles. Well, almost all, .

(1) which is of course the explanation of why John has no Transfiguration - They bot do tell the event, but John disguised it and the Synoptic story transformed it.

Yes........ that's the way I see it.

I'm always wondering about why something is there. Where did it come from? This Lazarus thing. (Elazar) And Arimathea. Can they be names picked out at random or is some real thing there? That Luke has a tale of Lazarus in the right place is a wonder, and I also concocted a (far fetched) story incorporating both elements. Just as I concoct one combining the transfiguration and Jesus running off into the hills at Bethsaida. Just as Believers combine the Nativities and the death of Judas, or Paul's escape from Damascus in Acts and the tale of the Two Corinthians 11. 32. But in all these cases, these stories come from somewhere, even though in the case of the nativity the motivation is to fulfil a prophecy they belatedly became aware of - Jesus should have been born in Bethlehem.

Possibly there was a real story of Jesus, but it's been removed without trace. I can't find a place where something has been removed. Unlike John 12.20 where you can see where the temple cleansing has been ripped out.