There was no census when Jesus was born

[Brian37]

If he existed, is such a stupid postulation. We know an actor played Harry Potter in a movie, a REAL person. But that never will mean boys fly around on brooms.

There is no such thing as godsperm or zombie gods. The two most important stories in that comic book are defeated by science.

The only thing real about Christianity is that a splinter sect of Jews didn't like the old ways, split off, and created a new cult. It would not surprise me if a man or series of events of staged illusions and cons lead to people following and promoting this new cult.

There however, has never been a magic man or god/man, or even oracle or prophet, by any name. There are simply con artists and people who like the comforting con.

[Minimalist]

We actually have a pretty good idea of the career of Publius Sulpicius Quirinius. As all up-and-coming Roman leaders were expected to follow the cursus honorum his youth and early magistrates are fairly routine. He was elected consul in 12 BC and when his term was up Augustus appointed him to the governorship of Galatia and Pamphyllia in Turkey. While in Pamphyllia between 5 and 3 BC he defeated a rebel tribe the Homonadenses and was awarded a triumph in 3 BC. He next turns up as a member of the staff of Augustus' grandson, Gaius Caesar, who was Governor of Syria in 1 AD and who died as a result of wounds sustained in a minor skirmish. He was a comrade in arms of Tiberius who became emperor upon Augustus' death.

Alas, there is no room for Quirinius to have been governor of Syria twice. He was a busy man.

[Watchman]

This is going to sound a bit patronising ,but its not meant to be .... just got to say "what a brilliant thread guys" ... cogent ,educational ,entertaining ,informative and source supported.

Definitely in the best tradition.

Thank you ...

[ThomM]

Jesus is a MYTH - and legend put together by a group of ancient people -= in order to control others.

THere may have been a human upon which the MYTH of the christ was started - but the actual christ of the bible NEVER actually existed - and those things simply NEVER happened.

The christ - the myth itself - fails to fulfill the actual predictions of the messiah that were in the bible itself. But - since the NEED for a messiah requires the belief in the Garden and Eden and an Original sin - and we know that the garden of eden story is fiction - as is most of the old testament - that is no reason or need to be saved to begin with.

[Cyberman]

If the star was a fact, don't you think the other gospels would have mentioned it?

Never mind the other gospels; what about all the other astrologers in the part of the world able to see it? Someone else would have mentioned it, even if only in passing. This 'star', whether it was supposed to be an actual star or some other astrological conjunction, was allegedly impressive enough to motivate a party of peripatetic Persians hundreds of miles across the desert - yet nobody else could be bothered even to pack a thermos?

It's just like the rest of the JC myth. Somebody or something that was so important and caused such a stir that the whole world turned upon it, yet at the same time so low-key that nobody noticed until it got written down years after the major players had left the stage for one reason or another.

[Minimalist]

Never mind the other gospels

Fuck that. What about the planet that was destroyed when the star pranced along ahead of them leading them to fucking Bethlehem because Matty didn't know shit from shinola about the prophecy he was trying to fulfill with this absurd story?.

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

These primitive goat fuckers thought stars were just lights in the sky.

[ThomM]

Hey, that's a nice chip on your shoulder.

Yeah, okay, I'm being a bit of a dick, but I've been reading both Christian and Atheist web sites to make sure I'm seeing both sides of the coin. I haven't read any excessively rude statements from atheists, but I read this on a Christian web site:

"If evolution were correct, and humans evolved from monkeys, then why are monkeys still around today? There is really no explanation for this, yet this heathen ideal is still taught in our schools. No doubt thanks to the agenda"s being pushed by gays and their liberal co-conspirators to destroy our youth and convert the nation to communism."

WTF? Now who sounds more like a jerk, me or that Christian? Say what you will, I'm just tired of being told I'm wrong all the time, and never seeing an ounce of proof to explain why.

Actually - there is NOT a single mention of the christ in ANY document that we have - that can be dated to his supposed time - NONE AT ALL _ religious or otherwise. When confronted with this TRUTH - xtians will point to the bible - but we have NO copies of any part of the bible that can be dated to the time of the christ - none. And they will deny that - but they cannot prove otherwise.

WHy ask about the story - when we already know that the bible is a bunch of fairy tales. THE christ is a MYTH - even if there was a human upon which the EMBELLISHMENT and EXAGGERATION was heaped.

[Bad Writer]

Getting the Xtians to stop believing in the Bible is like trying to get your girlfriend to stop believing she's fat.

[Minimalist]

The problem there, Thom, as every more rational person from Thomas Jefferson to Bart Ehrman has run into is this.

We have no evidence at all for any "jesus" who was not the supposed son of fucking god or whatever and who we are supposed to believe walked out of a tomb because it was found empty. THAT is the only story we have and, of course, it is flat out fucking absurd. But there is no evidence at all for a lesser jesus.

Suppose I were to assert that in The Iliad, Menelaus was not the King of Sparta but was instead just the janitor who mopped up the palace? I have no more evidence for that than any of these "jesus shrinkers" have for their stuff.

We can see how stories grew up around George Washington and Apollonius of Tyana after their deaths but the men existed first. As you say, there is no indication of jesus anywhere in the ANE in the first century AD.

There is no evidence to sustain Jefferson's non-miraculous bible or Ehrman's "Historical" jesus.

We have only one story.

And its a load of shit.

[MindForgedManacle]

Even the idea that Jesus was God's son/God incarnate would've been/was seen as nonsense by the Jews of the time. The idea of a man being the incarnation/aspect of a god was foreign to the Jews, but very much a staple of Roman and Greek mythologies.

That's not to say I think the usual Jesus-Myth hypotheses have much if any merit, since they're generally bad comparisons. But there is some clear cultural cross-pollination of religious ideas.