RE: R. G. Price - On the Mythic Jesus
May 13, 2011 at 3:41 pm
(This post was last modified: May 13, 2011 at 4:28 pm by Zenith.)
(May 12, 2011 at 7:42 pm)Minimalist Wrote:
I've taken a quick look into it. And I want to say my view upon it:
1. I believe that an honest skeptic would rather believe that Jesus Christ existed, but that people started to combine his story with lots of magical fairytales. Consider:
a) In the period of time when Jesus lived (before Jesus and after Him, perhaps up to 70 AD) the Jews were fanatically waiting for the Messiah (which means, anointed, as the kings were anointed, and this anointed king was supposed to be a descendant of David and in the Old Testament was supposed to finally come to save the Jews from their enemies and ensure everlasting peace). There were many in that time that claimed to be the Messiah. And this makes Jesus Christ a likely existing claimant, no matter the stories.
b) I do believe that people are rather to take a historical person and fill him with fairytales, rather than creating one from scratch. Even the god of wine and parties of the greeks, Dionysus, might had been a man that liked parties and had a lot of vines, which would have remained in history, and finally transformed into a god.
c) The Christianity was born as a heresy of Judaism. That put it in a strange position of being hated and despised by it, while later was persecuted by the romans. If all was from 100% fairytale, and there never existed ANY Jesus Christ, then all of it would have lasted only a few years, and most surely developed as a sect, in a secluded single place, rather than everywhere throughout the empire. Think about it: if you invented a story from scratch about a Jesus Christ, would you keep it even if it threatens your life? Or if you were a convert in Greece and found out from Judea that there was actually no claimant of Messiah, would you keep your beliefs to death? (and yes, people did travel in that time, and the jews throughout the empire were traveling to Jerusalem at least once a year - one or some celebrations that needed to be held in Jerusalem)
2. "Like many other religious figures, "Jesus Christ" began as a theological concept, was later used as a character in allegorical stories, and was then historicized as someone whom people believed really existed. " - there is no evidence to such a claim. It is only a speculation. And about the "historicized", it's quite foolish (my opinion): for pagans, the stories of the pagan gods were real ("history"), so how could the stories about Jesus Christ be to His adepts?
3. It is obvious that most of what is written in the gospels are written in the Old Testament. And the Jews were expecting the messiah to be as he is described throughout the old testament. If the stories (whether real or not) of Jesus Christ and what is written in the Old Testament would have not matched at all, perhaps no one would have ever become a follower of Jesus, or believe that He was the Messiah!
4. About the Sanhedrin and Mishnah: the Mishnah was written in the early 3rd century AD. The Talmud (which includes the Mishnah) are traditions of the Jews and teachings, along with any other commandments that were imposed by their clergy. It is possible that the traditions and teachings, etc. of the early 3rd century Judaism not to reflect exactly the early 1st century (besides of the fact that, as Christianity spread, Judaism and Christianity became increasingly separated, which would have influenced both to teach against the other, in order to try to protect their followers from converting to the other).
Now I'm not going to study carefully if indeed the Mishnah teaches so, anyway, some of them:
"1) No criminal session was allowed at night." - I believe it was in the early morning exactly. Remember Peter and the rooster?
"5) No one could be found guilty on his own confession." - well, everybody accused him, I don't get it.
"6) No blasphemy charge could be sustained unless the accused pronounced the name of God in front of witnesses." - Didn't Jesus do that when being judged?
"7) The Sanhedrin were allowed to execute people on their own and did not need the Romans to do so for them." - It is possible for them not to be allowed to execute anybody in that day (if it was a holy day or something), so to ask this from the romans. It is likewise possible that the Jewish clergy not to want to be blamed by the people of killing Jesus (that might have caused the people that believed Jesus to despise their clergy). On the other side, they got in the background by sending him to the romans.
(May 13, 2011 at 7:31 am)theVOID Wrote: Zeitgeist, especially the part on religion, is complete bullshit.
Here's a reputable account of Zeitgeist:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/zeitgeist-refuted/
THANK GOODNESS I HEAR THIS!!
You have no idea how many still blindly believe it! And it gets more frightening when you see people around (in real life) that you know, that if you say it's bullshit, they look at you as if they want to kill you or something, for saying that! (or simply call you an idiot for not seeing what EVERYBODY is seeing)
The same with everything that is called "Zeitgeist". e.g. there are people that hate America and see it as the source of all evil, for what they've seen in Zeitgeist. I've even been told that America actually doesn't produce anything, doesn't export anything, but only lives of money that does not actually exist, that it's all the "BANKS", which are always corrupted always doing evil. And it's interesting that if you find a source like wikipedia that shows about how things are going, or anything else, they call it a LIE! - like everything is a lie, except what that documentary said.
