Can this be anything other than what it appears to be?

[JustCallMeNick]

The reason Paul avoided as much Jesus bio as possible is because he wanted to meld him with Helios/Apollo/Mithras and away from his Judaism with all those messy Jewish laws which turned off so many pagans. I mean circumcision alone....

Fair enough, but Helios/Apollo/Mithras did not actually exist. So if that's the angle we're sticking with, that seems like a point in the "Jesus didn't exist" column.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Fair enough, but Helios/Apollo/Mithras did not actually exist. So if that's the angle we're sticking with, that seems like a point in the "Jesus didn't exist" column.

Well, he actively buried, so to speak, Jesus' mortal humanity in order to grow the myth in the pagan circles. The fact that Jesus actually existed was a detriment to his effort, while at the same time he had to make nice with James and Co. in order to placate his Jewish converts--which in Asia Minor were greatly intermixed with the Gentile converts. I think the interaction between Paul and James, and the Talpiot Tombs, are significant evidence for the historical Jesus.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

The following link is from Simcha Jacobovici's blog containing an English translation of an article in Hebrew in the Israeli newspater, "Harretz".

http://www.simchajtv.com/jesus-tomb-confirmed-in-suburb-of-jerusalem/
http://www.simchajtv.com/jesus-tomb-confirmed-in-suburb-of-jerusalem/
This paragraph is of particular interest:

Dr. Shimon Gibson adds: “If there was another ossuary in the tomb, we should have found an imprint in the ground. I hope Aryeh Shimron publishes his research and then we can respond to it.”

Dr. Gibson was a young archaeologist that participated in the original Talpiot excavation back in 1980; those are his illustrations of the tomb. He was among the first, if not the first, to suggest that there might have been an eleventh ossuary originally near the door and which prevented it from being covered by the silt and thus more pitted and weathered than the others. It would have been the only one visible and more easily removed at some point prior to the discovery in 1980. His comment was made in Dr. Tabor's first book on the subject, The Jesus Family Tomb.

I asked Tabor about this given the new evidence, and he said he thought Gibson hadn't thought things through. I was gratified but also surprised at this very candid comment about his partner on their Mt. Zion dig in Jerusalem. So I'm also not surprised that my question and his response has apparently been removed.

 

[Parsimony]

People will just decide that Jesus did not need to ascend in body. They have decided less likely things.

I wonder how Luke 24:39 would then be explained: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Or the fact that the Bible states that his physical body was no longer present in the tomb.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

I wonder how Luke 24:39 would then be explained: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Or the fact that the Bible states that his physical body was no longer present in the tomb.

Never underestimate the power of blind faith.

 

[JustCallMeNick]

Well, he actively buried, so to speak, Jesus' mortal humanity in order to grow the myth in the pagan circles. The fact that Jesus actually existed was a detriment to his effort, while at the same time he had to make nice with James and Co. in order to placate his Jewish converts--which in Asia Minor were greatly intermixed with the Gentile converts. I think the interaction between Paul and James, and the Talpiot Tombs, are significant evidence for the historical Jesus.

Went back to my book and looked up Carrier's thoughts on the James ossuary and Talpiot tomb:

Likewise the so-called James ossuary (which supposedly once contained the brother of Jesus Christ) is inconclusive as evidence for any particular Jesus (its inscription fails to mention that he is the brother of the Jesus regarded as the Messiah, as opposed to some other Jesus), and is also probably a fake (or rather, part of the inscription on it is): Ryan Byrne and Bernadette McNary-Zak (eds.), Resurrecting the Brother of Jesus...
By the same reasoning the Talpiot Tomb almost certainly has no connection to Jesus Christ (nor do any of the other tombs alleged to have been 'the' tomb of Jesus: Stephen Pfann and James Tabor, 'Forum: The Talpiot "Jesus' Family Tomb,"...The claim that the name cluster there is too improbable otherwise is refuted by none of those claims taking into account the fact that there were more than a dozen and as many as twenty bodies in that same tomb greatly increasing the frequency of chance name combinations. For example, another startling chance combination of Jesus-related names had already been found elsewhere in the nineteenth century: Carl Kraeling, 'Christian Burial Urns?'...Jesus' family can't have been buried in two places at once. These kinds of finds are statistically inevitable and therefore meaningless. See the discussions of this point in Pfann and Tabor, 'Forum'...

Maybe I missed it earlier in the thread, what was the interaction between Paul and James you're referring to?

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Went back to my book and looked up Carrier's thoughts on the James ossuary and Talpiot tomb:

Maybe I missed it earlier in the thread, what was the interaction between Paul and James you're referring to?

The confrontation between Paul and James/Jerusalem Council is common knowledge from Acts and Paul's own letters. It was after his last confrontation with them before he had to call on the Romans, based on his (Herodian acquired) Roman citizenship, to defend him from the Jews in the Temple that were about to tear him apart. I'm sure he'd never revealed that citizenship to them before, or we'd be questioning the historicity of the pieces of Paul otherwise. He was sheltered by the Romans until he was sent to Rome and never faced the Jerusalem Jews again.

On the Historicity of Jesus was published 6 months before this last NY Times article on the findings about the minerals on the James' ossuary matching those on the other ossuaries from the Talpiot Tomb.

 

[JustCallMeNick]

The confrontation between Paul and James/Jerusalem Council is common knowledge from Acts and Paul's own letters. It was after his last confrontation with them before he had to call on the Romans, based on his (Herodian acquired) Roman citizenship, to defend him from the Jews in the Temple that were about to tear him apart. I'm sure he'd never revealed that citizenship to them before, or we'd be questioning the historicity of the pieces of Paul otherwise. He was sheltered by the Romans until he was sent to Rome and never faced the Jerusalem Jews again.

On the Historicity of Jesus was published 6 months before this last NY Times article on the findings about the minerals on the James' ossuary matching those on the other ossuaries from the Talpiot Tomb.

So I just lost the whoooooooooooole reply I wrote out to you because my computer is ridiculous, and it's really got me PO'ed. So this is going to be short.

In Acts 21-22 there is no confrontation between Paul and James so I still don't know what you're referring to. Paul's references to James in his epistles are all neutral or positive. Re: Paul saying he's a Roman citizen - I'm not seeing how that's evidence for a historical Jesus. And since you're referencing the book of Acts as evidence, why not just reference the Gospel of Luke (it certainly says there was a historical Jesus!) and call it a day?

Re: the ossuary - it being original to the tomb does not demonstrate that it ever contained the bones of James the brother of Jesus Christ. The inscription on it is widely regarded as forged.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

So I just lost the whoooooooooooole reply I wrote out to you because my computer is ridiculous, and it's really got me PO'ed. So this is going to be short.

In Acts 21-22 there is no confrontation between Paul and James so I still don't know what you're referring to. Paul's references to James in his epistles are all neutral or positive. Re: Paul saying he's a Roman citizen - I'm not seeing how that's evidence for a historical Jesus. And since you're referencing the book of Acts as evidence, why not just reference the Gospel of Luke (it certainly says there was a historical Jesus!) and call it a day?

Yes, Acts 21-22, where "Paul was warned by James and the elders that he was gaining a reputation for being against the Law, saying 'they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.' "--Wikipedia article.

In Paul's own letters he also talks about it being OK to eat food sacrificed to idols, and I think worst of all, he institutes the Last Supper, as the consumption of Jesus' flesh and blood. That last even bothered many early church fathers because even the specific name for it, the Last Supper, was Mithraic. Also he claimed you didn't have to try to be good or do good works to be saved, only believe that Jesus died for our sins (human sacrifice). The Book of James, which is likely actually written by James, is pretty much reemphasizes all of this. Paul, and Luke, his apostle, had to face these issues because they were to well known, but they downplay them as much as possible.

The discovery of Paul's Roman citizenship (and thus his Herodian heritage) would have been the last straw for the Jews. Paul was under Roman house arrest for the next four years, waiting for trial, which occurrence isn't mentioned, and after which Paul comes off the stage of history. And the point of all this is that the historicity of Paul and James are not in dispute; and if they existed, Jesus had to have existed as well.

Re: the ossuary - it being original to the tomb does not demonstrate that it ever contained the bones of James the brother of Jesus Christ. The inscription on it is widely regarded as forged.

The evidence says otherwise. The primary witness for the forgery in the trial, Yuval Goren of the Israel Antiquities Authority, was so badly discredited the Judge openly questioned why the issue had even been brought to trial. Goren had to recant and admit that the patina inside the disputed part of the inscription was original. Experts from the Israel Geological Survey, have been almost exclusively against it being a forgery.

I've been following this particularly in Biblical Archaeology Review since the James ossuary issue first became public, and the evidence as well as the experts opinions have been overwhelmingly pro authenticity. As so often happens with evidence that's very involved, all the opposition has to say is that it's a lie, and the believers continue to believe.

It's a subscription site, but this is a link to the BAR article summarizing the James Ossuary information:
“Brother of Jesus” Inscription Is Authentic! | The BAS Library

 

[JustCallMeNick]

Yes, Acts 21-22, where "Paul was warned by James and the elders that he was gaining a reputation for being against the Law, saying 'they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.' "--Wikipedia article.

Maybe this is just semantics, but I've never heard this described as a "confrontation." Immediately before that it says James and the other elders glorified God as Paul told them how great proselytizing the Gentiles was going. Paul immediately goes and does what James and Co. Tell him to do after they tell him the rumors that are spreading about him. Again, what does any of this have to do with Jesus being a real historical person?

In Paul's own letters he also talks about it being OK to eat food sacrificed to idols, and I think worst of all, he institutes the Last Supper, as the consumption of Jesus' flesh and blood. That last even bothered many early church fathers because even the specific name for it, the Last Supper, was Mithraic.

And again, Mithra was not real...

Also he claimed you didn't have to try to be good or do good works to be saved, only believe that Jesus died for our sins (human sacrifice).

Eh, that's a very Protestant reading of Paul. (And again, has nothing to do with the historical Jesus). In Romans 2 Paul explicitly says God grants eternal life on the basis of our good deeds.

The discovery of Paul's Roman citizenship (and thus his Herodian heritage) would have been the last straw for the Jews. Paul was under Roman house arrest for the next four years, waiting for trial, which occurrence isn't mentioned, and after which Paul comes off the stage of history. And the point of all this is that the historicity of Paul and James are not in dispute; and if they existed, Jesus had to have existed as well.

I don't follow your reasoning at all. As we've already covered, there is next to nothing in the Pauline epistles that grounds Jesus in history. There is even less in James (I don't think he even mentions the crucifixion or resurrection). Again, I think the fact that you are just taking Acts at historical face value is telling. If you do that, you might as well do the same for Luke - but I have a feeling you don't want to.

The evidence says otherwise. The primary witness for the forgery in the trial, Yuval Goren of the Israel Antiquities Authority, was so badly discredited the Judge openly questioned why the issue had even been brought to trial. Goren had to recant and admit that the patina inside the disputed part of the inscription was original. Experts from the Israel Geological Survey, have been almost exclusively against it being a forgery.

I've been following this particularly in Biblical Archaeology Review since the James ossuary issue first became public, and the evidence as well as the experts opinions have been overwhelmingly pro authenticity. As so often happens with evidence that's very involved, all the opposition has to say is that it's a lie, and the believers continue to believe.

It's a subscription site, but this is a link to the BAR article summarizing the James Ossuary information:
“Brother of Jesus” Inscription Is Authentic! | The BAS Library

I'm sort of surprised that you as a freethinker are relying on stuff you read in BAR. BAR is a magazine published by a Christian organization. I don't know of many people in secular academia who take it seriously.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

I'm sort of surprised that you as a freethinker are relying on stuff you read in BAR. BAR is a magazine published by a Christian organization. I don't know of many people in secular academia who take it seriously.

Hershel Shanks started BAR 40 years ago. He's still its editor, and still Jewish. It's a well-respected source of information on Biblical Archaeology with articles by respected archaeologists and historians written for popular consumption. Among other accomplishments, he broke the publication log-jam tying up the Dead Sea Scrolls in the early 90s.

 

[Barrackubus]

The point is still that Jesus is dead, Jesus was buried and we have evidence to support this all the way through. I just been thinking about that spiritual resurrection taking the place of the physical resurrection, this defies even further a shakily grounded belief that is now been proven to be completely false. Even the bible says and has dialogue concerning a an actual physical resurrection and as assencion to heaven. Which obviously the latter did not occur. If there is no actual ressurrection or assencion as stated then why call yourself a Christian. While we are at it we would be better off discussing the probability of a Santa Claus and using the same measure of faith and also equally consider it as real, had it been an actual tenant of faith.
I was Christian for a large part of my early life and it okay not to be and see it for what it really is, no matter how much some may want it to be real or how much some may want to believe it, it is time for the Jesus lawyer-ing to stop, people have been doing this for centuries and now that everyone of them are shifting bricks because they are no longer at the top of the spiritual food chain, it seems that it would be time to accept the fact that is no longer the place for Christianity in our world now or even before, the whole thing was misrepresented and poorly packaged and written and now it has come to this and everything that is logical and scientific has been disputed every inch by the Christian religion, and now that science has caught their most important tenant of faith as being a falsehood, you can't repackage or rethink this to fit in that little Christian box that they seem to live in.
We can't blame Jesus or put any of this on him, he may not even known what it is they did with his story after his death, but my question is why did they make such a story about this person and why has he been made the god of this religion???

 

[Shad]

Yet you make such assertions and even conclusions:



There is a lot more to the assertions than the film, The Lost Gospel being the latest source, the Bible and Gnostic texts being some others.

None of which can supports the claims as sound. The authors only uses sections of the Aseneth story which confirmed their views. Anything that refuted or even questioned their views was ignored. The authors use the word decoding which implies there is a secondary meaning to the key story which is not found by through research of the story for the last 300 years. Yet mainstream scholarship has produced centuries of work cover the Jewish story about the pagan wife of Joseph. Jacobovici has a history of supporting hoaxes and fraudulent claims. This is due to the fact that he has no formal education in any field he talks about.

The story is interesting but the speculation just over the topic borders from the conservative to fringe radical. No just for the links you provided by in the general population. There are many issues with this finding dating back years but that is for another thread.

Your continuing red herring with the fiction, which I assume you're referring to The Da Vinci Code, has not been used as a source of anyone I read, other than to mention in it passing.

What do you mean, "my actual peers"? I think your stake in all this just became obvious.

Considering the data does not support the idea put forward that the Mary ossuary is in fact Mary wife of Jesus. The conclusion goes well beyond what the data even suggests. So it is not a red herring as these are the claims put forward. Perhaps you should read the sources you are talking about. Did you not see in your own link the certainty of the claims, ie 100% certainty. It says a lot when someone claim certainty is that high without putting their research up for peer-review instead it is published in a newspaper.

My peers as in Biblical Archaeologists and Biblical scholars. Neither of which the authors are. I am certified in Biblical Archaeology and I take what Biblical scholars have to say seriously. I do have a stake when two author which have no formal training put forward views based on confirmation bias and shoddy work. Neither submitted their work for reviews, it went straight to the printing press thereby passing one of key principles of scholarship and academy. So yes they are a fringe not only in their views but professional conduct.

 

[Shad]

The evidence says otherwise. The primary witness for the forgery in the trial, Yuval Goren of the Israel Antiquities Authority, was so badly discredited the Judge openly questioned why the issue had even been brought to trial. Goren had to recant and admit that the patina inside the disputed part of the inscription was original. Experts from the Israel Geological Survey, have been almost exclusively against it being a forgery.

I've been following this particularly in Biblical Archaeology Review since the James ossuary issue first became public, and the evidence as well as the experts opinions have been overwhelmingly pro authenticity. As so often happens with evidence that's very involved, all the opposition has to say is that it's a lie, and the believers continue to believe.

It's a subscription site, but this is a link to the BAR article summarizing the James Ossuary information:
“Brother of Jesus” Inscription Is Authentic! | The BAS Library

Keep in mind the inscription is authentic not the claims of the ossurary is in fact James brother of Jesus of Nazareth. So there is a huge difference between the two. Keep that in mind while you prop up "believers" with invalid support.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Keep in mind the inscription is authentic not the claims of the ossurary is in fact James brother of Jesus of Nazareth. So there is a huge difference between the two.

Yes there is. Or now we can say yes there was. I've never been one to play the power game. I've always put up the Truth to let it speak for itself. I'm still anonymous and will be happy for the Truth to be known no matter who gets the credit. And no matter how much I regret it, there will always be lost lingerers who feel themselves betrayed--just not by me. Jesus felt the same way, for the same reasons, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani."

 

[Shad]

Yes there is. Or now we can say yes there was. I've never been one to play the power game. I've always put up the Truth to let it speak for itself. I'm still anonymous and will be happy for the Truth to be known no matter who gets the credit. And no matter how much I regret it, there will always be lost lingerers who feel themselves betrayed--just not by me. Jesus felt the same way, for the same reasons, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani."

Your rebuttal does nothing to counter my argument. Pure sophistry backed up by religious rhetoric.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Your rebuttal does nothing to counter my argument. Pure sophistry backed up by religious rhetoric.

Yeah, well I took a different tack since nothing else seemed to draw a reasoned, considered response. I don't mind repeating myself in separate threads, but not within the same thread. It usually means that dialogue receptors aren't open, to put it as politely as I can.

 

[Muffled]

...or there are people who're skeptical about that whole "rise from the dead" thing. You know, because we have no reason to believe or even assume that's possible. Just saying. You don't believe in Faeries, but I don't see anyone saying that's because you don't want to.

I believe I would love to believe in faeries but I have no valid evidence. The evidence for faeries is myth which may or may not be true but there is no way to find out which.

The evidence for Jesus rising is the testimony of faithful witnesses and it is also attested by the paraclete.

 

[Muffled]

People only look for the living among the dead???

It was a question that the angels asked the women who went to the grave of Jesus: "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

 

[Nietzsche]

I believe I would love to believe in faeries but I have no valid evidence. The evidence for faeries is myth which may or may not be true but there is no way to find out which.

The evidence for Jesus rising is the testimony of faithful witnesses and it is also attested by the paraclete.

And there is evidence for Odin intervening n the affairs of men, both as warrior & wanderer, from testimony of faithful witnesses. But I don't see you hailing the Allfather.