Jesus and Caesar both ascended into Heaven. (Poll)

[Princeps Eugenius]

It is remarkable that one can read about the ascension of Jesus in the New Testament but many people might not have heard that there was another ascension popular before the birth of Jesus. This ascension was of Julius Caesar and was a great sign and wonder of the Imperial Cult. The following short video summerizes the context:

 

[George-ananda]

I voted 'Didn't Watch'. The topic seemed too ridiculous to spend time on and sounds like nothing more than an obvious attempt to mock Christian beliefs. Seen that attitude about a million times bfore.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

I voted 'Didn't Watch'. The topic seemed too ridiculous to spend time on and sounds like nothing more than an obvious attempt to mock Christian beliefs. Seen that attitude about a million times bfore.

How should i present the evedince that Caesar ascended into Heaven before Jesus and not make a mockery of Christianity?

 

[Desert Snake]

How should i present the evedince that Caesar ascended into Heaven before Jesus and not make a mockery of Christianity?

A synopsis?

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

A synopsis?

Wow i didnt even know what that word meant until i looked it up. It could work. However i dont see this method as useful in the argument since there is a time gap of 70 years between the textual references (Ovid wrote his in 4AD, the book of acts or any synoptic gospel is written in 70-90AD). Just think of the incredible differences of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John. Do you know how much time was needed for these differences in the nature of Christ to be believed in/written? Between 20 to 40 years (Gospel of Mark written 70AD, Gospel of John written 90-110AD) now the time of Ovid and the Gospels and the book of Acts is twice that amount. The dissimilarities will be enormous.


But it would go as following:

Caesar ascended into the realm of the Gods(Heaven) 44BCE - Jesus ascended into Heaven 30-40 AD.

And i dont even know what other points to make. reference: Ovid and book of acts, synoptic gospels.

 

[psychoslice]

Thanks for the good laugh, I think Christianity can do with it.

 

[Desert Snake]

Well....see actually, I usually argue for the lack of evidential 'cult' adherence and subsequent change in theology, precisely because of the timeline.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

Well....see actually, I usually argue for the lack of evidential 'cult' adherence and subsequent change in theology, precisely because of the timline. There isn't enough time there, imo, basically. Even between the Gospels, wow, that's not enough time. /imho/. Some reasons for my skepticism here, is that, many of the converts in early Xianity, were Jews, or Essenes. This religious thought is very at odds with 'men deities', and such. There really had to be something extraordinary about Jesus and the Gospel accounts for people to believe this. We can look at the aspect of how, Jesu is a divinity, He is a G-d. Now, with a growing 'cult group', we always have splinter factions; some of these factions, would have maintained the 'Jesus is merely a man' mantra, and... some did, we know that, however, not enough did. The ''real Xians'', by all accounts never thought of Jesu as anything but G-d Himself. This is one of the, ironically struggles of the early western church. The scholars knew that the theology was monotheistic, but they couldn't come to grips with the human nature of Jesu. Hence the ''trinity doctrine''. If anything this doctrine is an apologetic, it is not ''creating'' a deity Jesu, rather struggling with the idea, imo. Look at modern Oneness and more oneness type Trinitarians, they make no distinction between G-d and Jesus, in fact none, and some Xians baptize only in the name of Jesus, etc. Over time the churches or some of them have morphed into an interesting ''separate but equal' type ....'godhead'/?/ it's interesting, though, because it draws them further away from monotheism, and really further away from a theistic religion... but the trudge is on, it seems, and with Bibles now /English/ making the distinction between Jesu and the father, we are faced with an interesting Frankenstein. A Golem/?/, of sorts. The uncomfortable spirit merge of Judaism's bad saint, and Christianitie's misunderstood ''man''.

Absolutely. I myself also noticed that nowaday christians tend to forget the other persons of the trinity and emphesize Jesus as their God. Some even go as far as rejecting the Old Testament while saying 'Jesus abolished that'. God the Father is almost non existant to many of them or is used as a concept of an all-loving Father in heaven who begat his son. Not knowing about the real nature of YHWH 'the Father' but i dont blame or want to ridicule them.

However i read you coming with the impression that the Jews were some kind of hardcore monotheists back in those days. And in my upcoming book i have an entire chapter dedicated to proving the entire area of Galilee to be heavely influenced by pagan culture and pagan mythology. There were even synagogue, the most jewish of all places, which incorporated pagan symbols and concept into their artwork depicted there. And i cite other archeological sites which speak of a heavenly paganized territory. Since Jesus lived there we might as well believe he also was a man of his time and adopted many of these beliefs including to be God in the Flesh(John 10:30) or the Son of God(any Gospel). Besides all of this the majority of early Christians were from a pagan background and so i dont see it as a wide stretch to assume they adopted pagan ideas in their new found faith.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

Well....see actually, I usually argue for the lack of evidential 'cult' adherence and subsequent change in theology, precisely because of the timeline.

So you believe time is not a factor in the changes of a story/belief?

 

[Desert Snake]

So you believe time is not a factor in the changes of a story/belief?

I believe that the timeline does not support a radical change in theology, even a variance is questionable, imo. This is one of the major hurdles, imo, of the ''fictional'' Nt crowd, or rather changed theology crowd. The timeline for a shift in theology of that magnitude, for a ''cult'' that size, with supporters at the time of Jesu /when He was in Israel/, is just unbelievable to me. Even for a small cult, with limited members and less of a theology, might not be able to radically change the theology in that timeframe. This is also the problem I have with much church academic assertions, though, as well. They sometimes give the ''church'', far more credit than is realistic, as in. ''we created this religion'; but this is merely one reason.

 

[Desert Snake]

Absolutely. I myself also noticed that nowaday christians tend to forget the other persons of the trinity and emphesize Jesus as their God. Some even go as far as rejecting the Old Testament while saying 'Jesus abolished that'. God the Father is almost non existant to many of them or is used as a concept of an all-loving Father in heaven who begat his son. Not knowing about the real nature of YHWH 'the Father' but i dont blame or want to ridicule them.

However i read you coming with the impression that the Jews were some kind of hardcore monotheists back in those days. And in my upcoming book i have an entire chapter dedicated to proving the entire area of Galilee to be heavely influenced by pagan culture and pagan mythology. There were even synagogue, the most jewish of all places, which incorporated pagan symbols and concept into their artwork depicted there. And i cite other archeological sites which speak of a heavenly paganized territory. Since Jesus lived there we might as well believe he also was a man of his time and adopted many of these beliefs including to be God in the Flesh(John 10:30) or the Son of God(any Gospel). Besides all of this the majority of early Christians were from a pagan background and so i dont see it as a wide stretch to assume they adopted pagan ideas in their new found faith.

However there are different types of 'rules'. theologically speaking, and I do not think that adherence to Xianity is comparable to some adherence to a rabbi, or either the musings of European churchites. So, although I would agree with you in part, I do not believe that monotheists in general are very open to man worship and such, it's just a general rule imo.
// Deity Jesus of course, as well//is not man worship

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

I believe that the timeline does not support a radical change in theology, even a variance is questionable, imo. This is one of the major hurdles, imo, of the ''fictional'' Nt crowd, or rather changed theology crowd. The timeline for a shift in theology of that magnitude, for a ''cult'' that size, with supporters at the time of Jesu /when He was in Israel/, is just unbelievable to me. Even for a small cult, with limited members and less of a theology, might not be able to radically change the theology in that timeframe. This is also the problem I have with much church academic assertions, though, as well. They sometimes give the ''church'', far more credit than is realistic, as in. ''we created this religion'; but this is merely one reason.

Okay, interesting. Do you have any example of a religion or cult which did not develop over time but stayed true to its most primitive beliefs?

 

[Servant_of_the_One1]

Uhmmm not sure if to take this serious or not

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

Uhmmm not sure if to take this serious or not

You got nothing to lose.

 

[Desert Snake]

Okay, interesting. Do you have any example of a religion or cult which did not develop over time but stayed true to its most primitive beliefs?

I don't think that this fits the category of ''over time''. Perhaps the churches are an example, to a certain extent, of this, but even then, there is no indication that this is what I'm looking at. I think that some non-Orthodox churches may be closer to original Xian churches, etc. But to your topic, what makes you think that anything changed, theologically? Isn't that what you're talking about?

 

[Desert Snake]

The Gospel period, which seems like theory anyway, is not enough of a gap or diversity for theological change, imo. I would be skeptical of an 'overly Greek' estimation of the NT as well. So, no, too many variables and signs pointing to a consistent theological theme /Jesu as G-d/ , for me to consider something else. The churches and Bibles have their own agendas/beliefs, as well, I personally do not rely too much on that source for info,

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

I don't think that this fits the category of ''over time''. Perhaps the churches are an example, to a certain extent, of this, but even then, there is no indication that this is what I'm looking at. I think that some non-Orthodox churches may be closer to original Xian churches, etc. But to your topic, what makes you think that anything changed, theologically? Isn't that what you're talking about?

Yeah i think theology changes as time goes by. We had the original Jesus who was, according to any modern scholar, a Jew. He lived as a Jew and died as a Jew. He might have claimed to be the Messiah but he failed and in order to compensate for this failure the desciples, especially the new converts such as Paul or Barnabbas made Jesus into a God like figure. After Paul and others have passed away the Gospels were written in the light of Paul and Pauls message. The original jewish theology got lost and the movement became predominately focused on Jesus as the Son of God and God himself instead. People started praying to Jesus and believed he was born of a virgin and whatnot. I dont think this was part of the original message of the jewish Jesus. Or his master, John the Baptist.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

The Gospel period, which seems like theory anyway, is not enough of a gap or diversity for theological change, imo. I would be skeptical of an 'overly Greek' estimation of the NT as well. So, no, too many variables and signs pointing to a consistent theological theme /Jesu as G-d/ , for me to consider something else. The churches and Bibles have their own agendas/beliefs, as well, I personally do not rely too much on that source for info,

Do you believe that Jesus claimed to be God in his lifetime? Or is it a later development in Christianity?

 

[Desert Snake]

Do you believe that Jesus claimed to be God in his lifetime? Or is it a later development in Christianity?

Aaaah....this is a very good question. Because....the controversy about who 'Jesus' was in Roman occupied Israel. I want to say, ''yes'', however, then I am relying on Biblical text to a large extent....it is the ''easiest'' answer, and the one easiest to infer, or prove to oneself,//or most likely/
I'm open for debate, though...because I believe other arguments can be made.

Now, if we are talking about, a situation that closely follows the ''accepted'' Jesus figure, /the one we all knw, the fisherman, etc/. then definitely, I have no doubt. In fact I believe He called Himself G-d, that was/is the belief, and that was completely demanded by the faith. I believe that other Xians who changed this idea were outsiders, who wanted to adhere to the new religion, but couldn't accept the man Deity idea, so they justified /they most likely thought they were correct/, the idea that Jesus was just a prophet, etc.

The problems with ''just a Rabbi'', Jesus, prophet Jesus, and even merely angel Jesus, are just too many. It becomes simply a matter of evidence to the contrary, it's sort of like, the religion cannot maintain coherency without the /basic tenets that we associate with Xianity.
There are other groups , /in the Xian group, or Jesus adherence group, but, really, they tend to maintain the Deity Jesus idea, imo the most traditional sects/groups, do.

 

[Princeps Eugenius]

Aaaah....this is a very good question. Because....the controversy about who 'Jesus' was in Roman occupied Israel. I want to say, ''yes'', however, then I am relying on Biblical text to a large extent....it is the ''easiest'' answer, and the one easiest to infer, or prove to oneself,//or most likely/
I'm open for debate, though...because I believe other arguments can be made.

Now, if we are talking about, a situation that closely follows the ''accepted'' Jesus figure, /the one we all knw, the fisherman, etc/. then definitely, I have no doubt. In fact I believe He called Himself G-d, that was/is the belief, and that was completely demanded by the faith. I believe that other Xians who changed this idea were outsiders, who wanted to adhere to the new religion, but couldn't accept the man Deity idea, so they justified /they most likely thought they were correct/, the idea that Jesus was just a prophet, etc.

The problems with ''just a Rabbi'', Jesus, prophet Jesus, and even merely angel Jesus, are just too many. It becomes simply a matter of evidence to the contrary, it's sort of like, the religion cannot maintain coherency without the /basic tenets that we associate with Xianity.
There are other groups , /in the Xian group, or Jesus adherence group, but, really, they tend to maintain the Deity Jesus idea, imo the most traditional sects/groups, do. Surprisingly //to many people//, the ''manification'', is actually the trend among churches and such, not the Deification, of Jesus. This is clear from translation efforts to differentiate the ''father'' from the s''son'', via writing methods, etc. This is done from... belief, though, this is a position, not what we would actually find, just from tradition or texts, imo.

I agree with you. I myself dont think the modern scholars on Jesus are entirely correct. Infact in my Book i prove to everyone: Jesus not only claimed to be God (YHWH in the jewish context) but that this claim was an imitation of the Roman Emperor Augustus, who claimed to be the most high God(Jupiter) on earth too! And since Augustus lived earlier than Jesus, it can only be brought in order by saying that Jesus copyed the Roman Emperor. There are many pictures in my book and actual historical reference to Augustus claiming to be Jupiter and the pictures of the ancient idols depict Augustus taking the place(throne) of Jupiter among the gods.

You said that some Christains believed that Jesus was an angel? I believe i havent heard this before, who were these Christian and from which part of the world are they?