And yet here is Apollo in the Iliad....
Striding down from Mount Olympus and taking pot shots at the Greeks. A god and his deeds being depicted in an old book. I realize that you are deeply invested in your mythology but it is the same stuff. Just like Athena and Hera and Zeus and all the rest who happened to live in lands which had attained a degree of literacy.
We have the same kind of pious nonsense for all gods...including yours. But actual history? No where to be seen.
Now, I am not saying that there was no one named Yeshua bar Yosef in first century Palestine. There had to be a shitload of them because both names were exceedingly ordinary. But you would have a devil of a time tracking one down based on the gospel stories or the even more vague paul stuff.
But there are facts.
1- No Roman writer prior to Celsus in 185 mentions anyone named "jesus."
2- There apparently was a group called "Chrestians" in Rome itself in the early part of the first century. Suetonius mentions them and your pal Tacitus' only surviving manuscript shows that the word he used was Chrestianos (followers of Chrestus) not "Christianos" followers of christ until it was edited by some helpful scribe probably in the 9th century.
3- The most prolific mid second century xtian writer, Justin, never mentions any of those so-called gospels not does he seem to know anything about any "paul." He does know about Marcion, however.
4- There are no first-century xtian burial catacombs in Rome.
5- There is an inscription about the manumission of a slave by Antonia Minor which names Jucundus Chrestiani. Antonia Minor died in 37 AD which is a terminus ad quem for her doing much of anything! There are numerous inscriptions about Chrestians throughout the Roman Empire and we can't be certain when the proto-orthodox xtians decided to adopt the chrestians as the same thing....although the 4th century xtian writer Lactantius was still troubled by it.
I'll let you chew on those for a while. I have some stuff to do.
Quote:So he prayed, and Phoebus Apollo heard him. Down he came, in fury, from the heights of Olympus, with his bow and inlaid quiver at his back. The arrows rattled at his shoulder as the god descended like the night, in anger. He set down by the ships, and fired a shaft, with a fearful twang of his silver bow. First he attacked the mules, and the swift hounds, then loosed his vicious darts at the men; so the dense pyres for the dead burned endlessly.
Book I
Striding down from Mount Olympus and taking pot shots at the Greeks. A god and his deeds being depicted in an old book. I realize that you are deeply invested in your mythology but it is the same stuff. Just like Athena and Hera and Zeus and all the rest who happened to live in lands which had attained a degree of literacy.
We have the same kind of pious nonsense for all gods...including yours. But actual history? No where to be seen.
Now, I am not saying that there was no one named Yeshua bar Yosef in first century Palestine. There had to be a shitload of them because both names were exceedingly ordinary. But you would have a devil of a time tracking one down based on the gospel stories or the even more vague paul stuff.
But there are facts.
1- No Roman writer prior to Celsus in 185 mentions anyone named "jesus."
2- There apparently was a group called "Chrestians" in Rome itself in the early part of the first century. Suetonius mentions them and your pal Tacitus' only surviving manuscript shows that the word he used was Chrestianos (followers of Chrestus) not "Christianos" followers of christ until it was edited by some helpful scribe probably in the 9th century.
3- The most prolific mid second century xtian writer, Justin, never mentions any of those so-called gospels not does he seem to know anything about any "paul." He does know about Marcion, however.
4- There are no first-century xtian burial catacombs in Rome.
5- There is an inscription about the manumission of a slave by Antonia Minor which names Jucundus Chrestiani. Antonia Minor died in 37 AD which is a terminus ad quem for her doing much of anything! There are numerous inscriptions about Chrestians throughout the Roman Empire and we can't be certain when the proto-orthodox xtians decided to adopt the chrestians as the same thing....although the 4th century xtian writer Lactantius was still troubled by it.
I'll let you chew on those for a while. I have some stuff to do.
