For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

Well,l they don't call it "The Passion" for nothing (rile up their passions)

Many British saints had boring lives but the story of Saint Mildred was obviously inspired by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego surviving the fiery furnace.

A young nobleman, related to the Abbess of Chelles, entreated her to arrange that he might marry this English princess. The abbess tried to persuade her, but Mildred said her mother had sent her there to be taught, not to be married, and all the abbess's advice, threats and blows failed to persuade her to accept the alliance offered to her. At last the abbess shut her up in an oven in which she had made a great fire; but after three hours, when she expected to find not only her flesh but her very bones burnt to ashes, the young saint came out unhurt and radiant with joy and beauty.

She eventually returned home.

With her mother's consent, Mildred joined her at her foundation of Minster-in-Thanet.

She continued to be an extremely popular saint, eclipsing the fame of St. Augustine, in the immediate neighbourhood of her monastery, where the place that used to be proudly pointed out as that of his landing came to be better known as "St Mildred's Rock."

A good tourist attraction until she became too popular.

In 1033, St. Mildred was translated to St. Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury and minor relics also passed from here to Deventer in Holland

There was, however, a rival set of relics which were said to have been hidden at Lyming, with those of her sister, Milgitha, during the Viking devastation. These were given to the Religious Hospital of St. Gregory in Canterbury, by Archbishop Lanfranc in 1085.

I love the idea of a rival set of relics.

I know this has wandered off the original point of the topic but it does relate to the funding of churches and abbeys. The stories of Mildred and Winifred suggest that competition for pilgrims resulted in some places trying to outdo everyone else with their saints - "You've only got a martyr who stayed dead. We've got a saint who miraculously survived."

[EGross]

I think they stole that from the Midrash of Abraham

You are just bandying words,’ Nimrod exclaimed; ‘we will worship nought but the fire. Behold, I will cast you into it, and let your God whom you adore come and save you from it.’ Now Haran was standing there undecided. If Abram is victorious, [thought he], I will say that I am of Abram's belief, while if Nimrod is victorious I will say that I am on Nimrod's side. When Abram descended into the fiery furnace and was saved, he [Nimrod] asked him, ‘Of whose belief are you?’ ‘Of Abram's,’ he replied. Thereupon he seized and cast him into the fire; his inwards were scorched and he died in his father's presence. Hence it is written, AND HARAN DIED IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FATHER TERAH "

Lots of other fire stories as well. One of these is that Abraham is sitting by the entrance to Gehinnom, and when uncircumcized Jewish infants begin to enter, he takes their foreskin away (a quick brit) and sends them off to a safer place. But when circumsized Jewish male who married gentile women who had children with her tries to pass by Abraham he grabs the guy, puts a foreskin on from the ones he collected, and tosses the guy into the fire! (A not-so-subtle anti-intermarriage story).

[Confused Ape]

I think they stole that from the Midrash of Abraham

Would people in 7th Century England have known about interpretation of texts in Judaism, though?

Thereupon he seized and cast him into the fire; his inwards were scorched and he died in his father's presence. Hence it is written, AND HARAN DIED IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FATHER TERAH "

Mildred, however, came out of the oven unharmed.

I found a google book edition of A Companion To Middle English Hagiography where there is an in-depth analysis of what elements in the story mean. I'm not entirely convinced that they did mean anything, though, because the story could have just been invented to make a tourist attraction.

But when circumsized Jewish male who married gentile women who had children with her tries to pass by Abraham he grabs the guy, puts a foreskin on from the ones he collected, and tosses the guy into the fire! (A not-so-subtle anti-intermarriage story).

When did that story first appear? Was it at a time when there was a lot of intermarriage going on?

[ThomM]

While they may not have listed every criminal (well, they did note the most nortorious ones), there is no record that they had ever had a tradition to release a Jewish prisoner on Passover, and the Christian texts calls it a normal thing. The Jews make no mention of such a thing ever happening (they do list the horrible things that Pilate did), nor do the Romans who finally called him in and took him to task for the troubles that he was making.

That story was obviously made up to put the blame for Jesus's execution on the Jews.

Jewish Deicide

Jewish deicide is a belief that places the responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole. This deicide accusation is expressed in the ethnoreligious slur "Christ-killer." As a part of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued a declaration which repudiated the belief in the collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus.

The church also forgave Galileo for his HERESY - when he claimed the earth orbited the sun - and spun on its axis.

The fact is - the church has said many things - and changed them to suit themselves at time - that they repudiated the Jewish Guilt is worthless - when the christ is a fictional being anyway.

No one is guilty of the crucifixion - it never happened because the christ is NOT real. There are simply too many impossibilities for him to have existed in any way.

Example - in those time - the thought was that the man supplied a seed from which the whole baby grew - and the mother was ONLY the dirt the seed was planted in - they knew the baby had its own blood. Of course - we know that is NOT the case today. But a god should have known that one too. Why make up another story about it?

[Confused Ape]

The fact is - the church has said many things - and changed them to suit themselves at time - that they repudiated the Jewish Guilt is worthless - when the christ is a fictional being anyway.

Whether Jesus existed or not is irrelevant here. Have you ever considered how the story affected Christians' attitude towards Jews over the centuries?

Barabbas

The story of Barabbas has special social significances, because it has historically been used to lay the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus on the Jews,and to justify anti-Semitism—an interpretation, known as Jewish deicide

Christian-Jewish Reconcilliation

Reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism refers to the efforts that are being made to improve understanding of the Jewish people and of Judaism, to do away with Christian antisemitism and anti-Judaism. There has been significant progress in reconciliation in recent years, especially by the Catholic Church, but also by other Christian groups.

The Second Vatican Council, commonly known as Vatican II, which closed in 1965, was instrumental in producing the document called Nostra Aetate, which read in part:

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ. Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.

[Minimalist]

I was wondering if the Romans kept records of criminals but it seems that they didn't where the lower classes were concerned

Whether they did or didn't - and probably in the case of Roman citizens they did - is irrelevant. The issue is why would scribes take the time to preserve those records across the centuries? If archaeology has shown us anything it is that, monumental inscriptions aside, the preservation of ancient trade records and tax receipts is a matter of chance. There are thousands of cuneiform texts on clay tablets which were baked in fires when the palaces they were located in burned. This is why we have them.
The climate in desert areas such as Egypt or Qumran has fortuitously allowed us to recover documents from thousands of years ago which would not have survived in Italy or Spain or France just because of humidity.

Now with preserved documents - documents which someone made a conscious decision to copy and re-copy across the ages it must be understood that this is a laborious process and the documents which were selected for preservation had to meet the agenda of those doing the copying. I am fully with the group which sees Josephus' Testimoniam Flavianum as a 4th century fraud perpetrated by Eusebius. But it must be understood that without it we would probably not have Josephus' works at all. The xtian monks who copied Josephus
did so thinking they were preserving the words of a man who validated the existence of their "god." In contrast a contemporary of Josephus, Justus of Tiberias ( in Galilee) also wrote a history of the jews. We have the comment of Photius, a 9th century Patriarch of Constantinople who tells us that he has read Justus' work and that he makes "no reference to the appearance of christ." As a result, Justus' work was not preserved. You can bet your ass that if someone had found a reference to the godboy in it we would copies of Justus' work coming out of our asses.

[Confused Ape]

If archaeology has shown us anything it is that, monumental inscriptions aside, the preservation of ancient trade records and tax receipts is a matter of chance.

Even when it's a matter of chance it's likely that fragments of records about lower class criminals would have turned up by now if the Romans had kept any. And I wasn't talking about anything to do with Jesus - see further on in this post.

The climate in desert areas such as Egypt or Qumran has fortuitously allowed us to recover documents from thousands of years ago which would not have survived in Italy or Spain or France just because of humidity.

You'd be surprised what can survive outside Egypt and Qumram. Vindolanda Tablets

The Vindolanda tablets are the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain. They are also probably the best source of information about life on Hadrian's Wall.[1][2] Written on fragments of thin, post-card sized wooden leaf-tablets with carbon-based ink, the tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (roughly contemporary with Hadrian's Wall).

Wooden tablets have been found at twenty Roman settlements in Britain.[18] However, most of these sites did not yield the type of tablet found at Vindolanda, but rather "stylus tablets", marked with pointed metal styli. A significant number of ink tablets have been identified at Carlisle (also on Hadrian's Wall)[19]

You can bet your ass that if someone had found a reference to the godboy in it we would copies of Justus' work coming out of our asses.

What's that got to do with what I said in Post ~287?

we'll never know the names and crimes of people who were executed in the arenas. Maybe the real truth is on the lines of one loony Christian plus 19 ordinary criminals and the Christian writers recorded it as 20 Christians.

This has nothing to do with Jesus because the Bible doesn't say he was executed in an arena. The lack of records makes it impossible to know the real number of Christians who were thrown to the lions as opposed to the number that the Christian writers wanted people to believe had been martyred.

I did a quick search for the word criminal and executed on the Vindolanda Tablets site but nothing came up. (It's running very slowly at the moment.) The tablets did reveal a lot of interesting things about life in a Hadrian's Wall fort, though.

One of the tablets confirms that Roman soldiers wore underpants (subligaria),[12][13]

There are only scant references to the indigenous Britons. Until the discovery of the tablets, historians could only speculate on whether the Romans had a nickname for the Britons. Brittunculi (diminutive of Britto; hence 'little Britons') found on one of the Vindolanda tablets, is now known to be a derogatory, or patronizing, term used by the Roman garrisons that were based in Northern Britain to describe the locals.[14]

[Minimalist]

Even when it's a matter of chance it's likely that fragments of records about lower class criminals would have turned up by now if the Romans had kept any.

What possible reason would someone have to go through the time and expense to copy old execution records? I'm sure there were plenty of fresh executions going on.

Vindolanda Tablets

Another fine example of the chance nature of what archaeology turns up. The survival of those tablets is attributed to the anaeobic conditions in the ground. People also wrote on broken pottery shards and there the shard itself does not biodegrade but the writing on them assuredly does.

What's that got to do with what I said in Post ~287?

Nothing, except I do agree that there was a sudden need for heroes/heroines and relics of all kinds in the 4th century.

The lack of records makes it impossible to know the real number of Christians who were thrown to the lions as opposed to the number that the Christian writers wanted people to believe had been martyred.

We will see what Moss has to say on that subject. Thanks for reminding me. I have to go order that book.

[Confused Ape]

Tablets Another fine example of the chance nature of what archaeology turns up. The survival of those tablets is attributed to the anaeobic conditions in the ground. People also wrote on broken pottery shards and there the shard itself does not biodegrade but the writing on them assuredly does.

Here's another writing tablet which survived.

Oldest writing found in the Netherlands

Leyden papyrologist Klaas Worp, who compared the inscription with other Roman era documents, discovered that the Roman text dated from February 23, 29 AD, and that it actually acknowledges a debt payable to the slave Carus or his heir.

It's just annoying that the stuff which has survived has nothing to do with criminals executed in arenas. It was a popular form of entertainment all over the empire so there would have been thousands of lists if they'd kept such records.

[Minimalist]

You keep giving "miraculous" examples of original writings which were accidentally preserved - entire bodies have been pulled from the peat bogs of northern Europe and studied.

But what you are looking for is more akin to a scorecard at a modern ball game.

"Bout #6 - Crispus the murderer v. Sextus the rapist in a duel to the death. Action starts as soon as the loser of Bout #5 is carted off!"

I don't think you'll see that sort of thing. Most of the Roman mob was not literate enough to read it.

Would someone bother to copy out such a form 40-60 years later to preserve it for posterity?