Jesus Never Existed Com

[Mudhammam]

And: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Romans

[Minimalist]

Read it closely:

The traditional date for Clement's epistle, which has been elicited by the Epistle to the Hebrews's call for leadership from the church in Rome and is permeated with the earlier letter's influence,[3] is at the end of the reign of Domitian, or c. 96 AD

Somewhere around here there is a discussion of this epistle and the alleged persecution of Domitian...which did not happen. When I get the time I'll go looking for it.

The very fact that it makes an assertion of a persecution by Domitian suggests that this is simply a much later forgery when this whole "oh-poor-persecuted-us" shit had gotten started.

BTW, there is also no evidence for any group of xtians in first century Rome. There are jewish catacombs from the first century...but not xtian.

[Mudhammam]

Read it closely:

The traditional date for Clement's epistle, which has been elicited by the Epistle to the Hebrews's call for leadership from the church in Rome and is permeated with the earlier letter's influence,[3] is at the end of the reign of Domitian, or c. 96 AD

Somewhere around here there is a discussion of this epistle and the alleged persecution of Domitian...which did not happen. When I get the time I'll go looking for it.

The very fact that it makes an assertion of a persecution by Domitian suggests that this is simply a much later forgery when this whole "oh-poor-persecuted-us" shit had gotten started.

BTW, there is also no evidence for any group of xtians in first century Rome. There are jewish catacombs from the first century...but not xtian.

I'll look more into it. But why would we expect to find archeological evidence of a group that was so small and insignificant? (explained, of course, by the fact that it's central claims were not literal or historical events).

---

Well, Wiki says this about Dominion: "In addition to exercising absolute political power, Domitian believed the Emperor's role encompassed every aspect of daily life, guiding the Roman people as a cultural and moral authority."

Considering that many modern Christians believe Obama is the anti-Christ and there is a war on Christmas, I see nothing remarkable about their claims of political persecution in the 1st century.

[Confused Ape]

Simply put, you're incorrect: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Clement

From further on in the article -

Sources

Though known from antiquity, the first document to contain the Epistle of Clement and to be studied by Western scholars was found in 1628, having been included with an ancient Greek Bible given by the Patriarch Cyril of Jerusalem to King Charles I of England.[7] The first complete copy of 1 Clement was rediscovered in 1873, some four hundred years after the Fall of Constantinople, when Philotheos Bryennios found it in the Greek Codex Hierosolymitanus, written in 1056. This work, written in Greek, was translated into at least three languages in ancient times: a Latin translation from the 2nd or 3rd century was found in an 11th-century manuscript in the seminary library of Namur, Belgium, and published by Germain Morin in 1894; a Syriac manuscript, now at Cambridge University, was found by Robert Lubbock Bensly in 1876, and translated by him into English in 1899; and a Coptic translation has survived in two papyrus copies, one published by C. Schmidt in 1908 and the other by F. Rösch in 1910.

The Namur Latin translation reveals its early date in several ways. Its early date is attested to by not being combined with the pseudepigraphic later Second Epistle of Clement, as all the other translations are found, and by showing no knowledge of the church terminology that became current later — for example, translating Greek presbyteroi as seniores rather than transliterating to presbyteri.

Looks like the original document didn't survive so we can't be 100% certain that the text wasn't tampered with. On the other hand, maybe Paul was invented earlier than Marcion's time by a group of Christians who didn't want to follow Jewish rules.

I had a lot of fun inventing a conspiracy theory about this hypothetical faction which included Clement of Rome when he was a young man.

When the Corinthians were told to “Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle” they were puzzled.

Corinthians: What epistle? Nobody here has heard of it.

Clement: I know he sent you one. It must have got lost in the post.


I wouldn't write a book about it and try to get it published as a serious theory, though. After all, we can't be certain that Clement really existed. Even if he did, we can't be certain that he wrote the epistle which has been attributed to him.

[Minimalist]

The "jews" were small and insignificant, too. Yet we have evidence of them. Avoid the Great Xtian Paradox. "Jesus was so important and so dangerous and had multitudes of followers that they had to break every rule in their book to try and crucify him on passover. But, at the same time he was so insignificant that no one in power took any fucking notice of him at all."


Anyway, I found the earlier link.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-21936-po...#pid541977


Scroll up a bit to read Rev. Ogden's discussion on "Domitian's Persecution."

I also highly recommend Candida Moss' The Myth of Persecution.

[Mudhammam]

The "jews" were small and insignificant, too. Yet we have evidence of them. Avoid the Great Xtian Paradox. "Jesus was so important and so dangerous and had multitudes of followers that they had to break every rule in their book to try and crucify him on passover. But, at the same time he was so insignificant that no one in power took any fucking notice of him at all."

Don't forget that thousands of criminals were crucified. Jesus just happened to have a devoted following whose beliefs proved self-sustaining (exemplified by the martyr complex). I think you run equal risk by pushing the origins of Christianity into the second century. Now the question of what made it so successful becomes more legitimate (versus it remaining a virtually unknown cult for its first 100-150 years).

Also, Jews were far more significant than Christians, though the two groups were largely indistinguishable until perhaps the 60s A.D.

[Minimalist]

though the two groups were largely indistinguishable until perhaps the 60s A.D.

Or the 130's AD.

No Greek, Roman or Jewish writer knows fuckall about any "Jesus" in the first century. In the early 2d century Suetonius and Pliny mention "christians*" but no "jesus." Tacitus, living at the same time, is probably a much later forgery but even that disputed passage only mentions "Christ" not "jesus." Why it is almost as if that part of the story wasn't written yet!


* Suetonius did, in one case mention Chrestus, and in another the word used is Christians. Pliny speaks of christians only. The simple fact is that in both cases they may well have written "Chrestians" because that seems to be the earliest form usage. If a later copyist changed Chrestian to Christian it could not even be considered forgery. They probably thought they were correcting the spelling of the earlier scribe.

Even the early xtian writer, Epiphanius, notes that the change took a while.

Epiphanius (315-403 c.e.), Panarion 29


1:2 For this group did not name themselves after Christ or with Jesus’ own name, but "Natzraya." 1:3 However, at that time all Christians [Chrestians] were called Natzraya in the same way. They also came to be called "Jessaeans'' for a short while, before the disciples began to be called "Christians" [Chrestians] at Antioch. 6:5 And no wonder the apostle admitted to being a Natzar! In those days everyone called Christians this because of the city of Natzrat there was no other usage of the name then. People thus gave the name of Natzraya to believers in Christ, of whom it is written, "He shall be called a Natzar." 7:1 But these sectarians whom I am now sketching disregarded the name of Jesus, and did not call themselves Jessaeans, keep the name of Jews, or term themselves Christians but [rather] Natzraya from the place-name, Natzrat, if you please! However they are simply completed Jews.

[Mudhammam]

So the rumor that Christians were responsible for the great fire in Rome in 64 A.D. was itself a baseless rumor that emerged sometime after the first century?

[Minimalist]

So the rumor that Christians were responsible for the great fire in Rome in 64 A.D. was itself a baseless rumor that emerged sometime after the first century?

No one in antiquity, Greco-Roman or Xtian, seems to know anything at all about that passage. Nor, does anyone other than Tacitus - allegedly - attribute any indication that Nero persecuted xtians because of the fire. It is curious.

A watered down variant of it appears in the 5th century work, Chronica, by Sulpicius Severus.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PATRISTC/PII11-5.TXT

Part 2

CHAPTER XXIX.

Is the meantime, the number of the Christians being now very large, it happened that Rome was destroyed by fire, while Nero was stationed at Antium. But the opinion of all cast the odium of causing the fire upon the emperor, and he was believed in this way to have sought for the glory of building a new city. And in fact, Nero could not by any means he tried escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders. He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent. Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night. In this way, cruelty tint began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterwards, too, their religion was prohibited by laws which were enacted; and by edicts openly set forth it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian.

As you can see it does not match fully with what later emerged as Tacitus' Annales but neither does Severus credit Tacitus as his source, either.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Min I learn something Everytime you get into this sort of topic. Kudos to you, man.