To paraphrase "Princess Ann," "they're really just talking points, and it's not like they're written in stone!"
Yes, I'm fully aware of the rule...
Wait for it...
Mark
Posted on 10/12/2004 2:54:10 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Do you realise that there are some other references to Jesus of Nazareth written around that time, i.e. 33 ace apart from Josephus ?
It all depends how good your reference books are really.
And remember, politics back then were not much different. The empire was basically a familial based oligarchy, with competing family groups gaining control of the empire over the centuries.
It was not unusual at all when an overthrow took place to try to eradicate all evidence of preceding reigns.
There were over 700,000 texts lost when Alexandria burned.
We don't know yet what lies buried in the Vatican.
When they finally publish the Dead Sea scrolls, we might find out.
They'll love it in Lower Slobovia.
Not only that, all of this can survive for 2000 years.
If you saw a person walking down the street, how would you know if they had previously died (and many have)?
I've thought for a long time that the Vatican has stuff that they can't release because it conflicts with orthodox Catholicism.
Christians were not persecuted for their beliefs as much as they were persecuted to keep order. Considering that Christians were more orderly than even the Jews of the time, it leads one to a conclusion that defies logic.
To paraphrase "Princess Ann," "they're really just talking points, and it's not like they're written in stone!"
Yes, I'm fully aware of the rule...
Wait for it...
Mark
Might you name some?
There's no room for fence-sitting on the question of Jesus. It's as simple as this:
1. If Jesus spoke the truth, then He was/is the Son of the Living God of Abraham, Yaweh. The Messiah.
2. If Jesus was not the Son of the Living God (not to mention, God himself), then He was the greatest charlatan of all history, a man of deception, cunning, and evil.
There's no room in between. Those who say, "Jesus was a benevolent preacher" are flat out wrong. Either He was who He said He was, or He was Satan incarnate.
I feel sorry for these people on judgement day.
And I have no doubt this will thrill the producers of this tripe. They won't get a soul to go see that movie unless it appears it's offending someone. Aside from how offensive it will be to Christians, it sounds incredibly dumb.
Do a Google on "Dominus Flevit"
Note that these items date from 30-40 AD, predating the accepted dates of any of the gospels.
Of course, I know why it was not chosen instead. Those who wish to keep their heads about them...
*snrk*
You cant't use information contained in a fictitious document to prove its validity!
It's a miracle that religion exists at all with brainiacs like this one.
hate to tell you, but merely resurrecting the dead would not be proof of anything. Lots of "scholars" claimed that Jesus was merely "revived" by some expert in medicine...(one reason many of these same people got upset at Gibson's "bloody" film was that he showed the extent of Jesus' wounding, making their story of a fast "revival" improbably-- heck, even with modern antibiotics and an ICU you'd take more than 36 hours to get up and around with those wounds).
In Africa, a person in a coma might be considered "dead" and then buried (like Muslims, they buried by sunset the day of death). Then the person would wake up, and be considered "resurrected".
The point with Lazarus was that he was dead (and, as Martha pointed out, stinking i.e. decomposing) but then was publically resurrected. This astounded people. A similar miracle was the man "born blind" who regained his sight. Lots of people with psychological blindess or other blindness that could come and go (glaucoma, trachoma flaring up with corneal opacity) were cured all the time. But people knew that you just didn't cure a person born blind...
So if a lot of people "resurrected" with the earthquake, and some were alive, it would only "prove" they were prmaturely buried to skeptics. If they had been long dead, they would be considered "hallucinations" or fraud.
Romans were superstitious, but most were hard nosed skeptics...even Luke, a trained doctor, didn't take the "gospels" as proof: He checked the sources before writing about Jesus....
And the Gospel of John, written the last, has details of the city of Jerusalem that were lost to history until modern archeology, because Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD.
Ridiculing this one will have identical effect.
I still wonder why Islam wasn't picked on instead; It would be a smash hit, what with mayhem, murder, pedophilia, and universal raping going on all over the place...
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