Why are other civilizations ignored in the Bible?

[Chad32]

Yeah, good old Jesus, claiming that thinking is as bad as doing. If you think about killing someone, you might as well do it.

[discipulus]

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DeistPaladin, do you agree with historians when they say that there are two events subject to "almost universal assent"? These two events being the baptism of Jesus by John and Jesus' crucifixion by the order of Pontius Pilate.

That is what I was asking.

Do you agree with their conclusions regarding those two events? Yes or no? We need to come to a consensus on this.

I'm not sure why we "need" to come to consensus in order to have a discussion. If by your "need", you mean to say that you want to know my views on the subject matter, I'll be happy to further elaborate.

I need to nail down what you or others mean by "baptism of Jesus by John (the Baptist)". There are a few elements to the story as related in the Gospels:

1. That John effectively knelt before Jesus, declaring himself merely a "forerunner" and that Jesus was the awaited messiah.
I reject this assertion for many reasons.

First, the accounts of John the Baptist's ministry detailed by Josephus indicate he had a significant following and there is NO mention of John telling anyone that he's merely the warm up act. There is NO mention in Josephus that John the Baptist pointed to anyone else, let alone Jesus.

Second, the followers of John the Baptist continued to be rivals of the early Christians, apparently not getting the memo that their leader told them under no uncertain terms that Jesus was the awaited messiah. In fact, John the Baptist has followers to this very day. This behavior makes no sense if the Gospel claim that he pointed to Jesus is true.

Third, the habit of incorporating and assimilating religious icons of rival religions is a fairly common practice. Muslims would later do this with Jesus, claiming that he told everyone he was a forerunner of Muhammad yet somehow Christians strangely refused to listen. When you understand why you reject Islamic claims about Jesus, you understand why I'm equally skeptical of Christian claims about John the Baptist.

Fourth, the put down of John the Baptist escalated notably with each successive Gospel account. In Mark, he declared himself to be just a forerunner. In Matthew, he at first refused to baptize Jesus as it was not his place but did so when ordered to by Jesus. In John, he never baptizes Jesus at all. This is exactly what we'd expect to see if the whole story was just religious propaganda to incorporate John the Baptist and thereby assimilate his followers.

2. That there was a booming voice from above, The Holy Spirit descended from on high, yatta yatta.
I reject these supernatural claims.

3. That John the Baptist may or may not have baptized Jesus along with many others.
OK. It may be so. I can't prove it didn't happen. What evidence is there that it did happen?

So you see, there is no "yes or no" on this question. You're asking complex questions about ancient history, our understanding of which with regard to Jesus is muddled by folklore and mythology.

And the other part of your claim is that Jesus was crucified by Pilate. Here you have some ground to stand on with what I consider the strongest piece of evidence that there is some sort of man behind the myths:

This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.

There are a few reasons I have to be skeptical but I'm willing to let all that go for now. This is a 2nd century and oblique reference to Jesus, so much that it doesn't even mention him by name. "Christus" means "the anointed one" or "the Messiah".

For now, for the purpose of our discussion, I'm willing to accept that Jesus was crucified by Pilate.

Are you ready to debate something now?

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I did not ask you if you were willing to accept that Jesus was crucified for the sake of argument. I asked if you agreed with what historians say about those two events.

[DeistPaladin]

I did not ask you if you were willing to accept that Jesus was crucified for the sake of argument. I asked if you agreed with what historians say about those two events.

I believe I've answered you. John the Baptist, no. Crucifixion by Pilate, I accept it could have been so.

[Minimalist]

The odds are that the Tacitus passage is a (much) later interpolation.

[max-greece]

Jesus' moral teachings were good and original. Unfortunately, what was good wasn't original and what was original wasn't good.

I am so stealing that line. Brilliant!

We're so indoctrinated in our society, even those raised by atheists as I was, to see Jesus as the yardstick by which moral teaching may be measured. There were some obvious good parts, such as "do unto others" but most of it was simply terrible, even for the more primitive and barbaric time.

That was my guess too. I had the luxury of coming at it fresh. At school the last time I saw Mark's gospel in a divinity lesson I was 8.

I think it also helped to have a Jewish background as so much of the references were instantly recognisable and presumably wouldn't be for a Christian.

Gotta tell you though - one thing that did come through - whatever Jesus said, he was a lazy fucker. Every five minutes he's off having a rest, getting away from the crowd, hiding on a mountain. The only time he seemed to come into contact with anyone was whilst he was running his catering business.

Feeding the 5,000 - feeding the 4,000, berating the disciples for not keeping an eye on the left-overs.

Really I should have read it as a comedy - but I just got wrapped up in the shock of the whole thing and missed the obvious. That's why nobody's heard of me and the Monty Python team made Life of Brian.

[DeistPaladin]

The odds are that the Tacitus passage is a (much) later interpolation.

True and we have evidence of tampering, as we do know that Chrestians (the good ones) was changed to Christians. But I've decided I'm not even going there. My experience is you can spend hours riding the "scholars say..." merry-go-round talking about the details of Tacitus. I'm saving time with a simple, "fine, whatever, get on with it".

I'm sticking with a cross-examination of the Bible.

[discipulus]

I did not ask you if you were willing to accept that Jesus was crucified for the sake of argument. I asked if you agreed with what historians say about those two events.

I believe I've answered you. John the Baptist, no. Crucifixion by Pilate, I accept it could have been so.

So you agree with me that a man named Jesus who was called the Christ by His followers lived during the reign of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius Caesar and was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate.

I am sorry if I am being redundant, but I want to be sure you and I agree on this crucial matter.

[truthBtold]

I believe I've answered you. John the Baptist, no. Crucifixion by Pilate, I accept it could have been so.

So you agree with me that a man named Jesus who was called the Christ by His followers lived during the reign of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius Caesar and was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate.

I am sorry if I am being redundant, but I want to be sure you and I agree on this crucial matter.

Ur not being redundant. . Redundant. .redundant. ..redundant. .

[DeistPaladin]

So you agree with me that a man named Jesus who was called the Christ by His followers lived during the reign of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius Caesar and was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate.

I am sorry if I am being redundant, but I want to be sure you and I agree on this crucial matter.

To repeat myself and say the same thing again, I've already answered your question:

I won't argue against that assertion.

What we "believe" is not important. What we can prove is. Ready to go yet?

[discipulus]

So you agree with me that a man named Jesus who was called the Christ by His followers lived during the reign of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius Caesar and was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate.

I am sorry if I am being redundant, but I want to be sure you and I agree on this crucial matter.

To repeat myself and say the same thing again, I've already answered your question:

I won't argue against that assertion.

What we "believe" is not important. What we can prove is. Ready to go yet?

Excellent. Now as for the debate topic, do you want to discuss some of the things you had in mind so we can come to an agreement. Just let me know what you had in mind and we can talk about it and hopefully come to an agreement.