Given that almost all major records were stored and copied in monasteries, many copies being made by scribes who were, in fact, illiterate and merely drawing what they saw, not writing it, and the lack of Spellcheck, any dependence on the ancients for truth is a gamble.
The whole “Old Believers” movement is a prime example of what can happen, i.e. after only a few hundred years the standard texts of the Russian Orthodox Church were filled with noticeable inaccuracies when they were compared with the older versions outside the country. The “Old Believers” held that the changes were true reflection of G-d’s Will and the corrections were Satan inspired. Hilarity ensued, i.e. entire congregations being herded into wooden churches which were then burned to the ground, because everyone knows that mass murder is the only effective answer to heresy – let G-d decide the matter.
History is written only by those who can write. For centuries that ability was primarily invested in the clerics, and if the “truth” wasn’t good enough, they embellished it for the “good of men’s souls”. Propaganda is older than the ability to write.
]]>In the case of Josephus, your translation of Josephus from the original Greek isn’t particularly good and you omit the fact that Josephus was born around the same time that the Nasarene cult’s “Jesus” died, i.e., he’s merely re-counting the amusing foundation myth of one of the myriad of Jewish doomsday cults of the day. It is also likely that Josephus has been “edited” over the years, given that our current texts’ of Josephus’s history were copied and re-copied by hand for centuries by Christian monks in monasteries rather than being handed down as intact contemporary manuscripts, but even without such conjecture it seems clear that Josephus was not present at the time of the supposed Crucifixion of Christ, the timelines simply do not work out, he wasn’t born yet or would have been a toddler at best. Note that Josephus himself never mentions a town named Nazareth. Joshua/Jeshua was a common name in ancient Israel, and the original Greek translates more as “Jeshua the Nasarene” rather than “Jesus of Nazareth”.
Also note that there is no evidence that there was ever a town named Nazareth during the time that Jesus was born. Contemporary Nazareth was founded in the 4th century AD by basically the equivalent of Florida swampland con artists based on the flimsiest of evidence that a town ever existed there in order to get tourist dollars, there is no archaeological evidence that there was a town there before that time other than some cave-graves in nearby hills that are commonly held up as “archaeological evidence” of a pre-4th-century Nazareth even though they’re nearly two miles away and uninhabitable for half the year. There are no pre-Roman artifacts, no artifacts from the Roman period prior the 2nd century AD, nothing of what you would expect (and are typically found) of a town that supposedly existed for centuries before the birth of Christ.
In short, blaming the Jews for crucifying Jesus is basically blaming the Jews for an event with no historical basis for believing ever happened. Josephus’s recounting of the amusing founding myth that happened before he was born doesn’t count as historical evidence any more than me recounting the myth surrounding a partially-completed church steeple in a cow pasture south of Bossier City, Louisiana. It would be nice to believe that this church steeple was being built by a wealthy planter for his daughter’s wedding and was never completed because the groom died. In reality, this church steeple was part of a historic church congregation on that planter’s plantation, and after the plantation failed, the congregation slowly faded away, the church was eventually abandoned and fell into ruin, and at some point the ruins burned down, leaving nothing but the brick church tower at the front, the top of which has crumbled over the years to make it look partially completed. But that’s me talking as a modern historian. If I were an ancient historian, I would have gladly written the story about the wealthy planter’s daughter’s wedding. It’s a better story, after all. Not so dull as an old church burning down.
– Badtux the History Penguin
]]>3.3 Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
Of course, as with all ancient historical texts, especially those often translated, there has been and continues to be great debate about what he wrote, if indeed he wrote it, and what he meant. That’s part of the fun of History! 😀 Some of the early translations do differ in some ways. Many believe that the Old Russian version of Josephus “Jewish War” are the more accurate and it include accounts of John the Baptist, Jesus ministry (along with his death and resurrection), and the activities of the early church.
It should be noted that Josephus was a Jew (in fact, a priest from Jerusalem), who fought the Romans in the First Jewish-Roman War as a Jewish military commander in Galilee. He was captured by Titus’s soldiers and became a Roman citizen and client of the ruling Flavian dynasty and is often referred to as Flavius Josephus. He mentions John the Baptist and Jesus in other of his works also.
Whether or not anyone wants to accept that Jesus was the Christ (which is a title, not a name, meaning ‘The anointed one’) and the Son of God (or G-d as many Jews prefer it spelled *shrug*) or just a wise man or Prophet (as many Jews have acknowledged) or even just a man is immaterial. The Jewish leaders at the time believed he was dangerous to them and their belief’s and (according to historical evidence) had him executed, as they did with John the Baptist. There is plenty of supporting evidence for the accusation. 🙂
I never once mentioned ‘Religion’. 🙂 The Jews were just a tribe, and the ‘Christians’ were mostly Jews who believed that Jesus was the Christ. And the Jews all did what they did. 🙂 The Bible is simply another historical document, as is the Tanakh and the Koran etc. *shrug* Whatever else people want them to be, is up to the individual. 🙂
I wonder in a thousand years (assuming anyone is left then) what people will believe about the USA and in particular the past decade? 🙂 I’m sure there will be many conflicting accounts.
As always, people believe what they want to believe, and some people will want to rewrite history for whatever reason. Such as many of the current Bush Administration and the Bush followers. 🙂
*shrug* Way it is.
]]>– Badtux the Ethnic Penguin
]]>John (Ch. 11):
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.
46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.
48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all!
50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation,
52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.
53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.John (Ch. 12):
9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well,
11 for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.
I could go on (quite a lot actually, right up to recent times). It seems they have a penchant for murder and plotting and certainly a great skill at revisionist history. 🙂
And… The USA is a Christian Nation right? But supports the people who murdered many of their leaders, and indeed, the head of their entire faith. 🙂 Aha… right. Makes perfect sense to me. 🙂 LOL I do so love irony (and hypocrisy)! 😀
]]>As you say, Badtux, they are acting against their own best interests in blocking the Palestinians, and the Global Recession will strike their already weakened economy forcibly. They are committing national suicide and refuse to acknowledge their position in the real world.
The US can’t afford to continue to prop them up, as we have problems of our own, and Olmert didn’t do the Israeli people any favors, claiming to have changed the US vote at the Security Council. That was an example of hubris that won’t be forgotten. They are losing support among American Jews with their actions, and their constant claims of threats has long since lost its effect.
I’m afraid that Israel is failing the conditions imposed when Lot attempted to save Sodom – there are too few righteous people left.
]]>It will only change either when it finally implodes (as Budtux said) or the USA stops supporting them and leads the international community to deal with them.
I won’t hold my breath.
]]>A *lot* of the sane Israelis have fled the country, leaving behind the crazies. I probably work with more Israelis here in the Silicon Valley than I work with in Israel, even though our major supplier is Israeli. One of them who got his U.S. citizenship three years ago told me, on the day he went to take the oath, that he was relieved to no longer be in Israel. “All that Likkudnik madness,” he said. He used the word “madness” repeatedly.
In the end, all that the Palestinians need to do is wait. Israel is imploding, imploding from its own madness, which has destroyed its economy by slamming the borders shut and keeping out its primary work force, all the people who built Israel’s infrastructure and picked Israel’s crops and otherwise made Israel’s economy work, i.e. the Palestinians, imploding from its own toxic political system, imploding from the inherent contradictions between the lofty goals of its founding and the current actions of the Israeli state and the need to always invent persecutions in order for politicians to say, “I am the one who will save the Jewish people from persecution!”, imploding due to its own demographic contradictions where some Jews are more equal than others in the daily life of the Israeli people. By the time I retire twenty years from now, I doubt there will be an Israel, at least not one in its current form. The only problem with heavily-armed failed states is that their failure tends to be violent, and tends to result in a lot of dead bodies as the politicians in charge of said failed state flail around looking for excuses for the failure of their state. Thus Gaza. But that does not change the outcome, in the end.
-Badtux the Long-term Penguin
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