November 27, 2006

• I enjoyed poking around his cheerfully tendentious site, especially the early church and syncretism bits. One thing that caught my eye (can't recall which page) was a claim that the word 'cretin' comes from 'Christian' via old French. An online dictionary agrees, but gives the etymology a less hostile spin.
• Obviously a non-biased account, given the source (jesusneverexisted.com).
• peterneverexisted
• I think it's a fascinating link.
• I think it would be interesting to see a Bible Scholar versus this.
• Actually, Vertex, that's the problem with stuff ike this: Anyone interested enough in the issue at hand has already taken sides. If the person is a non-Christian, it is slanted severely against; if it is a Christian it is slanted very much for. I've done reading on both sides and in the end it's a wash; you tend to believe the guy that leans your way and discount the other one. Just gotta go with your gut feel.
• I kind of liked that he was obviously grinding an axe, but doing a craft job of it, Doohickie. His polemics presented some things I'd read before alongside things that were news to me but seemed reasonably sourced if all marshalled to make a case. I've not really taken sides on the historicity of Jesus, but am interested in the growth of the early Church as of course it was such a pivotal institution in European and central Asian history.
• Those interested in the history of the early church might enjoy this: The church of the first three centuries. Finding problems with Christendom (including the outside-of-scripture corruptions) is like shooting fish in a barrel. But denying that Jesus existed is a little silly. What would the 1st Century historian Josephus' motivation have been for perpetrating a historical fraud?
• Love this stuff. And thanks for the additional link, mercurious.
• That is a great link mercurious, thanks. I meant with the historicity thing that it seems likely some such teacher existed, but how does one separate later legends from actual actions. Not a particularly important question for me, but interesting on a number of levels.
• "What would the 1st Century historian Josephus' motivation have been for perpetrating a historical fraud?" That's an invallid logical leap. Josephus' references to Jesus have been altered by later scribes. It is totally ridiculous to suggest that Josephus believed in someone called the Christ when he was an ex-Jewish mercenary, who now was a Roman citizen. The fraud was not by Josephus, but by later scribes, adding to his account. Add to this, Josephus was not contemporary with Jesus. There were many Roman historians contemporary with Jesus who were interested in religious matters who never even mention this Judean miracle worker. The silence is deafening. It's quite reasonable to argue that Jesus never existed as an historical figure, and that his story is a blend of several different people, turned into a classic dying-resurrecting god story such as was popular at the time. Jesus of Gamala is probably the main influence for the Jesus of the NT.
• Here's the site of an Historian/Archeologist. Jewish/Roman The very balanced, carefully researched perspective in a prodigious collection of work by an interesting, entertaining and scholarly mind. Josephus references James Tabor's the chap. Nice looking bloke too. ;D
• a Judaean fisherman, a married Jew and the designated ‘apostle of the circumcision’ Is that why he had to put his wife in the pumpkin shell?