Ancient Confession Found: "We invented Jesus Christ"

[Jack]

We do not actually know if anyone wrote anything down, and can make no assertions one way or the other -- two thousand years is a long time for written records to survive.

The gospels may have been written 50 to 60 years after the crucifixion.
But scholars date the Pauline Epistles to within 20 years of the death of Jesus.

Many have pointed out that nothing had been written in the Lifetime of Jesus. That's kind of a Red Flag.

[kudzu]

- About Josephus' Mention of "Jesus" - and other NT characters


- Alias Identities In Ancient History - How and Why they were Used


- Bush-Windsor-Piso Bloodline Chart


- Flavius Josephus Was Really Arrius Piso


- Josephus' Deliberate Deception


- Harvard's 1st Century History


- The Synthesis of Christianity - How and Why Ancient Rulers Needed to Create a Universal Religion

- Who Wrote The New Testament

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/e...iopol_piso.htm

[Jack]

I think it pretty shocking to even make such a claim.

Evidently Josephus and his family wrote the gospels?????

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/e...iopol_piso.htm

"The New Testament, the Church, and Christianity, were all the creation of the Calpurnius Piso family,
who were Roman aristocrats.
The New Testament and all the characters in it - Jesus, all the Josephs, all the Marys, all the disciples, apostles,
Paul, and John the Baptist - are all fictional."

Don't know, Don't care. Christianity appears to be a 'Slaves' religion. The philosophy doesn't work for me.

[ThatOwlWoman]

These same libs that claim Christianity is fake will assert that Islam is 100% truth.

All religions are "fake." As a lib I don't see any difference between Islam, Christianity, Shintoism, or what the indigenous ppls of the world believe. They are every single one human attempts to explain the world, to comfort each other, to impose rules of behavior, as an excuse to attack other humans for being the wrong religion, to reassure that death isn't permanent, etc. But nice try attempting to excuse the zealous idiots on your side by making up shit about the left.

[Guno צְבִי]

Josephus – The Jew

Given that we know Josephus remained a devout Jew for the entire span of his life, we should take a quick look at the Jewish belief regarding the coming messiah. Judaism, whether pharisaic or orthodox, rejects the notion that the Christian’s Jesus was the Messiah/Christ. A prominent Jewish website enunciates the Jewish belief regarding the future arrival of the messiah, saying:

“Belief in the eventual coming of the ‘moshiach’ (messiah)… is part of the minimum requirements of Jewish belief. In the ‘Shemoneh Esrei’ prayer, recited three times daily, we pray for all of the elements of the coming of the moshiach: gathering of the exiles; restoration of the religious courts of justice; an end of wickedness, sin, and heresy; reward to the righteous; rebuilding of Jerusalem; restoration of the line of King David; and restoration of Temple service.”(1)

Furthermore, Judaism has certain scriptural requirements for the coming messiah which have yet to be fulfilled. What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Hebrew Bible says that he will:

Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says; “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore.”(Isaiah 2:4)
Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one: “God will be King over all the world on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One”(Zechariah 14:9).
If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, he cannot be regarded as the Messiah. Because no one has ever fulfilled the Bible’s description of this fictitious future King, Jews still await, in vain, the coming of the Messiah – even though Josephus referred to the Roman Emperor Vespasian as the messiah. (2)

Now that we have established that Josephus’ beliefs prevented him from viewing the Christian Jesus as the messiah, let’s have a look at the two alleged references to Jesus in the ‘Antiquity of the Jews’, beginning with the most famous one found within what is known as the ‘Testamonium Flavianum’.

The Rev. Dr. Giles, of the Established Church of England, says:

“Those who are best acquainted with the character of Josephus, and the style of his writings, have no hesitation in condemning this passage as a forgery..(Christian Records, p. 30).” (9)

The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his Lost and Hostile Gospels, says:

“This passage is first quoted by Eusebius (fl . A.D. 315) in two places (Hist. Eccl., lib. i, c. xi; Demonst. Evang., lib. iii); but it was unknown to Justin Martyr (fl . A.D. 140), Clement of Alexandria (fl . A.D. 192), Tertullian (fl . A.D. 193), and Origen (fl . A.D. 230). Such a testimony would certainly have been produced by Justin in his apology or in his controversy with Trypho the Jew, had it existed in the copies of Josephus at his time. The silence of Origen is still more significant. Celsus, in his book against Christianity, introduces a Jew. Origen attacks the argument of Celsus and his Jew. He could not have failed to quote the words of Josephus, whose writings he knew, had the passage existed in the genuine text. He, indeed, distinctly affirms that Josephus did not believe in Christ (Contr. Cels. i).” (10)

[MAGA MAN]

All religions are "fake." As a lib I don't see any difference between Islam, Christianity, Shintoism, or what the indigenous ppls of the world believe. They are every single one human attempts to explain the world, to comfort each other, to impose rules of behavior, as an excuse to attack other humans for being the wrong religion, to reassure that death isn't permanent, etc. But nice try attempting to excuse the zealous idiots on your side by making up shit about the left.

Your religion, atheism, is fake.

[Cypress]

Many have pointed out that nothing had been written in the Lifetime of Jesus. That's kind of a Red Flag.

You are thinking about this from the perspective of modern bias.

Writing and record keeping in antiquity cannot be compared to the modern world-- and oral tradition held sway for much of human history. Writing was secondary to oral tradition for thousands of years.

We do not have a single word written by Homer. But we are reasonably sure that the Iliad and the Odessy, which were written hundreds of years after the Trojan War, are attributable to a Greek poet named Homer.

Socrates never wrote a single word. We only know about him posthumously through the dialogues of Plato, years after the execution of Socrates. But I am confident that professional scholars consider Socrates of Athens a real person based on the weight of evidence. I do not believe there is a serious scholar who does not believe Socrates was real.

We do not have a single word written by Confucious or anyone during his lifetime. I believe the Annelects of Confucious were written a couple hundred years after he died, by students and disciples that had maintained the oral tradition of his teachings. I do not think any serious scholar doubts that a Chinese philosopher named Confucious actually existed.

[kudzu]

The Josephus Testimonium: Let’s Just Admit It’s Fake Already

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7437

Thanks.. That's a good piece. I think he made the case, don't you?

[ThatOwlWoman]

Your religion, atheism, is fake.

1) I'm not an atheist, and 2) atheism is not a religion by definition, despite your thirst to believe in the stupid.

[kudzu]

Don't know, Don't care. Christianity appears to be a 'Slaves' religion. The philosophy doesn't work for me.

The Josephus Testimonium: Let’s Just Admit It’s Fake Already.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7437

[Jack]

Real people do real things.
Mythological Beings do Magic. You'd think someone might have jotted that down.

You are thinking about this from the perspective of modern bias.

Writing and record keeping in antiquity cannot be compared to the modern world-- and oral tradition held sway for much of human history. Writing was secondary to oral tradition for thousands of years.

We do not have a single word written by Homer. But we are reasonably sure that the Iliad and the Odessy, which were written hundreds of years after the Trojan War, are attributable to a Greek poet named Homer.

Socrates never wrote a single word. We only know about him posthumously through the dialogues of Plato, years after the execution of Socrates. But I am confident that professional scholars consider Socrates of Athens a real person based on the weight of evidence. I do not believe there is a serious scholar who does not believe Socrates was real.

We do not have a single word written by Confucious or anyone during his lifetime. I believe the Annelects of Confucious were written a couple hundred years after he died, by students and disciples that had maintained the oral tradition of his teachings. I do not think any serious scholar doubts that a Chinese philosopher named Confucious actually existed.

[Jack]

The Josephus Testimonium: Let’s Just Admit It’s Fake Already.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7437

Direct that towards Cypress, he's the Believer.

[Cypress]

Real people do real things.
Mythological Beings do Magic. You'd think someone might have jotted that down.

I just think the point is that before we express "shock" that we have no written records mentioning Jesus during his lifetime, we need to take a step back and realize the exact same thing can be said of Homer, Confucious, and Siddhārtha. And yet, most serious scholars will agree that Homer, Confucious. Jesus, and Buddha are avatars at a minimum for real people that acutally existed.

People in antiquity tended to transmit information by oral tradition. Not only was writing not that common - it would be incredibly unlikely in general for writing to survive 2,000 years and make it into our hands.

[Jack]

It seems like a Red Flag to me so little outside the Bible is written about Jesus. Either way, the Philosophy is not for me. (I can forgive the magic stuff, ... up until Jesus becomes a Man-God, then it becomes ridiculous)

I just think the point is that before we express "shock" that we have no written records mentioning Jesus during his lifetime, we need to take a step back and realize the exact same thing can be said of Homer, Confucious, and Siddhārtha. And yet, most serious scholars will agree that Homer, Confucious. Jesus, and Buddha are avatars at a minimum for real people that acutally existed.

People in antiquity tended to transmit information by oral tradition. Not only was writing not that common - it would be incredibly unlikely in general for writing to survive 2,000 years and make it into our hands.

[Cypress]

There's the rub.. Josephus and Tacitus were members of the Piso family along with Vespasian.

I have no idea how much of that is true, but it is worth noting there are more sources confirming the historicity of Jesus, including Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor who mentions Jesus in a letter to the Emperor in the first century AD.

I believe there are almost no serious religious scholars who do deny the historicity of Jesus. I am going to come down on the side on the consensus of experts unless and until there is a compelling case that changes the minds of international experts and scholars. Claims about vast conspiracies requires extraordinary evidence to support the claims.

On a related tangent, I personally find Biblical scholarship to be fascinating, probably because it appeals to the armchair historian in me. Man, I love this kind of stuff!

Jesus is mentioned in the first century Jewish historiographical work 'The Antiquities'.

The briefer of the two references indicates that he was called by some the messiah and that he had a brother named James.

The longer reference gives more detail, indicating that Jesus was known to be a wise man, who did spectacular deeds and had a following among both Jews and Gentiles. He was brought up on charges by the Jewish leaders, appeared before Pontius Pilate, and was crucified. His followers formed a community that continued to thrive, first in Judea, then elsewhere, even in Rome.

Source credit - Professor Bart D. Ehrman, University of North Carolina
"The Historical Jesus" course guidbook