(February 11, 2013 at 1:16 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: I didn't mean to hit any hot buttons by my use of the word. Hope you understand what I was trying to say earlier about their motives to look for their "promised kingdom" in a "higher world" and hence how JC was born in their imaginations.
End-timers and doom-criers abounded at that time and Yeshua was a common name. A mortal JC could have been almost anybody. Maybe there were several.
So let's take this as being the basis for your urban legend idea. Back to Tacitus -
Quote:Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome,
Some possibilities here -
1: Could Tacitus have believed in the urban legend of someone being executed during the time when Pilate was prefect of Judea? Was there no way of checking if someone called Jeshua had been executed?
2: Is it possible that somebody called Jeshua had been executed and Tacitus assumed it was the person the Christians were talking about even though it wasn't? After all, Jeshua was a very common name at the time.
3: The urban legend Messiah didn't acquire a name and background until later. Tacitus had no way of checking records for somebody who was just referred to as Christus.
I think we can safely say that most people in Judea didn't believe in the urban legend because it didn't really take off as a religion until somebody like Paul decided to do his own thing.
Where are the snake and mushroom smilies?
