For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[EGross]

There are other conjectures as well. But if you look up Rabbi Eliezer on Wikipedia, you see that the lack ofscholarship causes Christians to believe that Rabbi Eliezer was a secret Christian, while ignoring that he openly disputed and denounced them in other places.

Is this Eliezer ben Hurcanos? The only mention of Christianity I could find is in the section about him being charged for heresy.

At last he remembered that once, while at Sepphoris, he had met a Christian who communicated to him a singular halakhah in the name of Ben Pandera, (Jesus) that he had approved of the halakhah and had really enjoyed hearing it, and, he added, "Thereby I transgressed the injunction,[33] 'Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house,' which the Rabbis apply to sectarianism as well as to heresy".[34][35]

Yes, that is the right Rabbi Eliezer.

And he was not charged with Herasy, but it was a Roman judge who was charging him with teaching Torah in public, which was a state crime. (the aramaic word for Judge used only applies to Roman prefects, and the person who posted this obviously didn't read the original). And when trying to figure out why he had been charged in the first place (his theology of the time believed that any suffering was caused by a sin) caused him to look many years in the past to see why God was punishing him. (In a few decades later, that theology would change).

It is obvious that that entry was posted by someone who did not have the text hand as I do. There is no "Ben Pandera", in the pre or post censored versions (that was a name in a much later "Toldot Yeshu" story that would come centuries later), but either "min" or "Talmid Yeshu". The use of the incorrect name would indicate a merging of sources by the author(s).

It was also not a "halachah" (a legalistic ruling) in the story, but the person in question was making a comment about how the Saducean priesthood were deserving to be reduced because of their ways, which Rabbi Eliezer says that he found amusing. And the quote at the end was based on a previous story on the same page that refers to a Jew who would serve a creation as a harlot, and that one should avoid being even near her doorway.

So it was a nice segway.

As far as Rabbi Eliezer and his excommunication (cherem) he received that for trying to influence the Jews to go to war with Rome after repeated being warned to shut up about it. He refused and he was silenced. After his death, cherem was removed, and he was honored.

Stupid Wikipedia!

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I am not an expert Bible scholar or historian but there is plenty written to rebut many of these claims. A lot of the Bible criticism methodology is very shaky and speculative. Look up Bruce Metzger or NT Wright.

There are spologists who work full time on coming up with interesting stories. I have read a great number of them over my lifetime, but the arguments they bring up are rarely new (there are some new ones, such as the Jewish Sripture that exists is not the original one, and so all of the misquotes are based on the real one that only the Christians knew about, and therefore Christian Scripture is true, while that which they once had to rely on is a sham).

The core problem is that nobody wrote about the guy, and the false ones who actually existed at the time, we have their names and other details because the historians of that time, who recorded everything they could, noted their existance.

As I said before, don't you think that an army of zombies walking around in Jerusalem would have merited a sentence in the book of history? One answer "Well, they thought it was too weird to write down." Or that Jews would never have menioned that thousands of their baby boys were massacred when they write of other disasters with dirges from that same period?

Or that the Church finally wised up and gave up looking for evidence, saying that an empty tomb (they cannot agree where that is) proves he rose up and it is a matter of faith. In other words, they gave up looking for proof, because there is none. For the same reason that God has kept his mouth shut for the past 2000 years, because he doesn't want to force you to believe, but you should anyhow.

Josephus quote? Discovered to be a fake when an earlier verion popped up. The Talmud? Nope, just a bit of polemic there. His birth place? Well, not really 100% certain.

Just one piece of certainty that doesn't crumble when held up to the light is all that we are asking. Something other than "well you cannot disprove that it didn't happen". I cannot disprove that the universe is not in a soap bubble held by a giant child who may pop it at any second. And the lack of evidence is not proof. Evidence is proof. And that is what is being mocked here.

One item that is true is being requested, something that can be proven. Even a Bar Mitzvah invitation by Mary an Joseph. Something! (By the way, bar Mitzvah's began a long time later, so if you find one, it's a fake!) Even the SHROUD that was tested by a Catholic who wanted to believe it turned out to be a painting.

One bit of proof, and not another "you cannot disprove", which is what the majority of apologists fall back on.