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Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Guest - 06-12-2008
Oh by the way, I never said that the hagiographies were "pretty".
However if you read closely what people like Aquinas and Augustine have written you will see that beyond the noise there are some very real subversive questions being asked.
Also Shambhu I am glad that you understand that there is no point in continuing to harp on the problems and see the world go by.
My aim is not to engage the missionary but the ordinary Christian , who doesn't have an agenda like the former. Not everybody is a ChistianoIslamocommunist. the ground realities are very different . And I am speaking from the ground up only.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Guest - 06-12-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-Sauravjha+Jun 12 2008, 10:27 AM-->QUOTE(Sauravjha @ Jun 12 2008, 10:27 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->My aim is not to engage the missionary but the ordinary Christian , who doesn't have an agenda like the former. Not everybody is a ChistianoIslamocommunist. the ground realities are very different . And I am speaking from the ground up only.
[right][snapback]82723[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I had similar views when I first joined the forum.
But there is another aspect. Engaging common hindus. The unwarnished truth needs to be told to hindus. To tell them something sweetened, for whatever reasons, puts them on a disadvantage in a very asymmetrical conflict of ideas. Where christian ideologues are allowed to retain their exclusivist doctrines that hold hinduism worthy of contempt and elimination, while hindu ideologues are expected to be all sweet, all inclusivist type and refrain from pointing out or even acknowledging the great flaws and weaknesses in christian doctrines.
There may be advantages in "enageging" common christians. and for that sweetened pill may be useful. But what about engaging common hindus? If they aren't even aware of any faults of an ideology that comes to convert them while loaded with propaganda against their native religion, then don't they stand in a disadvantaged position? Current climate in India is that hinduism can be criticized by one and all, but christianity can't, in the name of secularism. This asymmetry needs to be removed.
So, this thread is not really about engaging christians. But about engaging hindus.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Guest - 06-12-2008
the schools being run by various dharmic organizations, that I mentioned are not just educating Christian kids but a lot of under privileged Hindu kids as well, especially from socially backward denominations.
I totally agree that awareness about Abrahamic doctrines warts and all needs to be built up. however the awareness builder must understand the audience while doing so and must keep his objectivity at all times. Also it is a question of creating bridges and not gaps.
We have looked inward for a long time , it is time we looked outward and reached out to others who are languishing in ghettos under the vice like grip of maulvis/evangelicals etc.
Secularists have followed a two part strategy thus far - fear mongering with intermittent appeasement. It is therefore necessary that nationalist forces understand the age old game and shake it down with a novel strategy.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 06-12-2008
Post 136 (Ramana):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The immediate threat is the American Baptist evangelicals who are on a Wahabaization drive to bring about rapture.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->They are threats to individual Hindus and to small-scale communities. The threat to Hindu Dharma is catholicism and to a lesser extent older forms of Protestantism (even when they are presented as more psecular than catholicism) such as what I call "BBC anglicanism".
The American baptist cult will not bring down Hindu Dharma. For one thing, they are so mad that they keep losing their own kind. (But they are very adept at genociding smaller communities of Natural Traditionalists in the world, including massacring small communities of Dharmics in the subcontinent.)
But catholicism has long been trying out all techniques and practising them in order to perfect the art of bringing down entire civilisations at a time. The colonial protestant outfits also learnt a lot of the same.
The media matters, the psecularisation (which is alienation from Hindu Dharma or even the creation of anti-Hinduism) of a large part of the Hindu/Dharmic population matters. Such antibody 'Hindus' will be used as the tool to take down the rest of the Hindu population with. The fact that Hindus don't even register the real threats posed by catholicism (of course, everyone has learnt to recognise the overt threats of outright murder) is a sign that they've ducked in under the radar.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 06-12-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Oh by the way, I never said that the hagiographies were "pretty".<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The hagiographies can be "pretty", "ugly" or "unpleasant". That's immaterial (for the record, they were ugly and unpleasant, wallowing in fake and far-stretched - to say the least - martyrdoms).
The fact is, they were LIES. Fake history: history rewriting to make the villains the heroes. The grand christian tradition of lying about history still continues in christoterrorism and communism today.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Religion, regardless of all the missionaries and jehadis out there does not play an overarching role in the lives of most people.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->No Taoist or Buddhist (or Hindu) I know would ever say such a thing. Not the Shintoist I know either. Their Gods/way of life are an intrinsic part of their everyday life.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I think you need to study the lives of Chaitanya and Ramkrishna more closely before you can pass a judgement on them.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I'm neither a judge nor a christian, I don't do "passing judgement". How about you not be hasty.
I said they were the typical goody-two-shoes Hindus (of whom I have known many in the older generations. They could not know in their times those things that are open to us now about christoislamism's worldwide terrorism). They will attain moksha even when trapped in a pit, because their minds will be free and can see good in everything.
What's not a problem for them, however, is still a problem for the rest of us (that is, for most of Dharmic population): we can't attain moksha from within the tortuous mental prisons of christoislamism - in fact, most of the world can never break free from christoislamism once the various peoples of the planet are in its jaws.
What country has actually, truly broken free of christianism? None. What country has regained its former traditions? None.
Hindus in huge numbers keep apologising for christianism. And that is exactly what signifies that christianism is doing well. Once they have won defenders amongst the heathen population - who will defend it and foolishly try to separate some notion of a theoretical 'benevolent essence' from its completely violent reality - you know they have the upper hand.
People will never allow one to state the fact that christianism is the same as nazism, though it is in all but name - in fact, it's far worse. You can see it everywhere: for every Hindu who finally takes a stand, 20 others will come to say "oh, but you need to see the difference between 'evil' people who merely called themselves christians and the true believers/christ/the bible/the religion" and the other story of "Some people have given christianism a bad name". Failing that, the next excuse is labelling the unnameable threat as "evanjihadis", thus ignoring the problem once more. Again, only people - and a particular group at that - are identified here as the trouble. Finally you will have the remaining excuses "yes, christianism is bad, but we have many bad things too" or an outright "all religions are bad" (equal-equal, 'let's start again' routine), or my all-time favourite: "yes, it may all be true, but we can't speak the facts - even amongst ourselves - about their religion because it will hurt their sentiments". Wow, love the logic: 'don't tell the truth because it will hurt nazis.' Many an Indian has been christo-conditioned in this way: to the extent that the Indian can be made an apologist/defender of christianism, christianism will use him to voice one of these diversionary kinds of arguments in favour of it.
(Noteworthy is that even the few who recognise islamism for what it is will still defend christianism - which is why christianism is 10 steps ahead of islamism in the game. Christianism has had lots of time to become good at PR/propaganda. Hindu Gods are myths - says the (mis)educated, modern Hindu, and then simultaneously speaks about what jesus 'the teacher' said and taught.)
People either investigate and realise that christianism is a huge threat, or they don't bother.
Debating niceties about trying to make 'regular, average christians' realise that their #1 commandment may be "just slightly" bigoted - which shows huge ignorance of the fact that the christian ideology is <i>founded and hinges</i> on this commandment and no christian in their right mind would ever distance themselves from the absoluteness of #1 - are very nice exercises: on par with with trying to drain a well using a bucket with no bottom (as happened in a narrative from the Greek tradition).
When one side doesn't/won't see that a war is on and in full-swing, that's when you know beforehand who's going to win. India actually lost decisively a little over a decade ago, though it went by so quietly that some people don't seem to have picked it up. What remains to our generation is damage control, ending christianism before it eats other peoples and finishes of other traditional ways of life in the world, and preventing slavery of our own population as has befallen all zombified populations in christianised countries. When I say we will (or rather can) overcome christianism, I never meant we would escape unscathed. It's just too late for that: the damage was done, and ruinously so.
At least the Greco-Romans put up a big fight, with their educated pulling almost proportionally-equal weight. But Hindus' "educated" self-appointed representatives unwittingly become mouthpieces for christianism, just as was its intention. They will always magnanimously choose to dialogue, when all that was asked of them was to ignore the topic of christoislamism and rather help strengthen knowledge in our population about our own way of life: to create our own media, our own channels that express who we are and were. But no, they are too fond of playing pseculars, with each passing decade bringing more ruin by their unthinking actions that support psecularism, and then whine when those more psecular than them accuse them of Hindoooootva.
And when they do finally speak with some passion, it is always directed as a sermon towards us on how we are supposed to identify only 'strands' of christianism (islamism) as dangerous and not the reality which is the whole ideology. Never mind that we can already get that and much more on the christo channels and in the commie newspapers.
While other peoples - from the ancient Greco-Romans, to the 500+ year long fight of the native Americans, to the Africans in our time - have only succumbed due to violence, our 'intellectuals' will procure a wonderful spot in history for us: that we will merely succumb due to stupidity -> inaction.
Fortunately for Dharmics, there are some real rolemodels: there's always the Korean Buddhists, the Taiwanese and the indomitable Japanese. The Africans are just as able: many comparably tiny communities are making valiant stands defying christianism (and islamism too) - at times, to their death even. The media maintains a religious silence on them, pretends they never existed.
(Of course none of these other populations suffered from English mal-education instituted by the christoBritish, but even the Indians that talk about "mental colonisation" have still not made any efforts to get out of it - I think the excuse is invalidated when they realise that mental colonisation exists.)
All we have is people who make speeches about why we should negotiate with the ideology of christianism (all while Hindus in the NE and supposedly less-violent Kerala are terrorised and murdered). Presumably, because in >~1500 years of negotiation with christianism, heathen peoples have made huge strides. I mean, just look at the effect this dialogue had on the #1 commandment after all this time - wait, it's still at "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me". Hmmm, less success than anticipated. Ooh, I wonder why that is.
All this dialoguing is really very secular of our would-be intelligentsia. They're so forebearing: overlooking the deaths of Dharmics in NE and Kerala (in other words, the deaths of other people) while defending the greater 'good' of psecularism. It's one thing to not be able to prevent a murder, but it's another to play defense attorney for a known murderer. The dead Dharmics are very much indebted to their efforts, else wouldn't they protest pseculars' assumption that their silence means acquiescence?
<b>ADDED:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I totally agree that awareness about Abrahamic doctrines warts and all needs to be built up. however the awareness builder must understand the audience while doing so and must keep his objectivity at all times. Also it is a question of creating bridges and not gaps.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Abrahamic? <b>What problem do you have against Judaism?</b> Though you don't seem to mind the terrorism of christianism, but Judaism hasn't bothered us and yet it has immediately made your list of warty stuff. <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> Psecularism always has the same arguments: Equal-equal.
"keep his objectivity at all times." Of course, which is stating FACTS about christianism. Objectivity is NOT pretending that evangelism is the root or sum total of the problem. That would be known as deception (aka lying).
"Also it is a question of creating bridges and not gaps" Their religion creates the gaps (which is important in making them feel special, saved, chosen) and refuses real bridges (there's no bridge between the heaven where the saved go and the hell to where the unsaved kaffirs are condemned), allowing/facilitating/encouraging only insincere invitations for "dialogue" aka Hindu-bashing like on Indian TV discussions on Hinduism.
We merely let them keep their cherished gaps (as is their right, since they cling to it so) and ignore them until they see sanity and wander over to our side.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->there is no point in continuing to harp on the problems<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->You're quite right, the aatmaas of the (continuing) victims of christian murder and terrorism in NE of India (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/717775.stm "Church backing Tripura rebels" 2000) have no right to cry out for justice. Why do they keep harping on their misfortunes again and again. Really, you must get tired of hearing about it. Why don't they just learn to live with it. I mean, look how swell you are able to get along with christianism just by developing your own view of it - why won't they do the same?
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 06-12-2008
Post 137 (Shambhu):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Let things go slowly.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I have made strongly nationalist people to whom hindutva was anathema take a good look at real islam. At first the y laugh at you, but if you go slow, they will see the light and start reading about real islam. It all has to go slow otherwise we will be sitting here talking amongst ourselves while the rest of the world walks by..<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Your results are impressive, but your timing (though it's not your fault that you were born only now) is poor.
Shambhu, it's far too late for us to start now with small steps. We have to say an outright No to christianism <i>now</i>. Not a weak "maybe later" and postpone the full-blown refutations to some future time: it's too late for dawdling, because the question left to us is not whether we can win, but How Much we are willing to lose. And that is seriously dependent on time and of course effort.
Our generation - absolutely no later - has to make the stand and make it significant.
And in that way, whatever may be left to salvage for the remaining Hindu population in Bharatam may be preserved with some effort. That "No" means countering christianist propaganda with facts about christianism: mostly directed towards Hindus.
We may have lost the battle that concerned us, however christianism need never win the war. So if our gen does this right, it means other peoples can win and be left standing in the end. And if even only one of the Natural Traditions were to survive completely intact and with no threat against it in the future, I think we'd have succeeded better than most could wish for.
Romans would have pounced on all the information on christianism available to us. But Indians only know self-censorship to prevent offending (with facts) the sensibilities of christianism, while christianism has no such reservations on offending everyone else with its lies. We've tried treading softly around christianism though it never deserved it, now it's time to ignore it (no negotiation, no dialogue - it BADLY wants dialogue, that's what it looks for in countries where the majority is not christoislamicommunist) and just focus on telling our own people the facts.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Guest - 06-12-2008
People in India can openly question whether Sri Rama was real or not.
But have you ever heard that question about Jesus Christ? Most are completely unaware that many controversies about Christianity's origins and Jesus Christs' reality have been raised in the western countries which form an active and lively debate there, while in India they are unknown or suppressed by psecularism.
On the question of self inflicted wounds, it is quite tiring to hear about Sri Krishna's exploits with the Gopis in Vrindavan, and people passing moral judgements on that. The medieval poets created a nonsense out of an innocent story. If any one thought about it for a while with "facts" known, one would never ever fall for this.
The "fact" is that, as can be had from Srimad Bhagavata or other accounts of Sri Krishna's life, is that <b>Sri Krishna was 10 years old when he left Vrindavan permanently to go to Mathura to kill the demon Kansa</b>.
So, all the stories about Krishna and the gopis are about a boy younger than 10 years of age. It is also well known that gopis like Radha were older than Krishna. We are talking about innocent love of the gopis for a child Krishna here.
If people are looking for perversion, they should read the Hadiths, not Bhagavat.
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/e.../bl-krishna.htm
P.S.
Husky, Nice set of posts!
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Shambhu - 06-12-2008
Husky,
I am all for a full blown counter to the missionaries. And to the common non-dharmic too. But the problem with countering the common non-dharmic (unless they are openly converting/abusing Dharma/lobbying for christo schools etc) is that they can come back with a "whoa! why are you against me?" And then our time is spent on them, giving them a series of reasons which they do not directly indulge in. So:
1. Concentrate on missionary kinds
2. Do not engage (rather, do not seek confrontation with) common christians (unless they are openly converting/abusing Dharma/lobbying for christo schools etc) but once they start going down that path (and they will) then go all out with the counter.
The environment in India is bad enough for people like us. If is was different, an all out counter to everyone would be the thing to do. But as things are now, it is easy for psecs to label RSS etc, as terrorists. This label is even more credible to young people when they do not see any overt moral law-breaking by the un-dharmics.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Shambhu - 06-12-2008
Saurav:
Knowledge on Islam and Christianism starts with the unparalleled killing, plunder, and rape they engaged in, all with the full blessings of their God. Other kinds of knowledge is just parroting what these books say. Now that kind of thing is important when making converts from undecided people like Chaitanyamahaprabhu did, but looking at the cold hard reality of the spread of Islam and Xtianism is more what we need. My hero Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had this latter kind of knowledge. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Shambhu - 06-12-2008
Following up on my own post (147):
I am all for going all out on the christocult if and when our actions don't end up doing more harm to our young Hindus. Right now the environment is sso poisonous to Dharma that you cannot go against anyone but the overt offenders in tha cult.
What I have seen with Islam in India is that unless knowledge about the basics of Islam is out and is common, going against the common muslim only backfires. That is why I have tried my best, over the years, to introduce the basic homicidal nature of islam through spreading websites but mainly through humour.
I have talked to hindus who don't have a clue about islam and christianity, but see these cults as "hindu religion in a different time, different place, and with different names". I know how easily these people tune out if you don't go slow. What is worse, once they tune out, you lose credibility, and though you approach them with loads of verifiable facts, they will not listen. (Its like showing someone a picture of the earth from the moon, and they still think the earth is flat). Now if this is the case with hindus, what will it be with followers of these desert cults for whom the cult is an intergral part of their identity?
In my heart agree thoroughly that we need an outright no to christoislamism, but the question is how are you going to get hindus to say that "no"? I personally can't eat even if a little booklet from these damn killer cults is present in the house. I can de-brainwash any (non-committed psec) hindu *one-on-one*. But when it comes to the public, the losses are far bigger than the gains. Luckily, these days, at every social gathering I have had a sprinkilng of hindus who have seen the light. These people are like gems, they allow you to keep credibility with groups. But its all a balance. That is why I like to spread the word to those that will listen, so that the propotion of gems will increase, and than we can really go for it...
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Guest - 06-13-2008
Anyway,
Chaitanya and Shivaji were two sides of the same verse, both did their Dharma . the lives of both should inspire our work. that is all i would say.
Cheers.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - Husky - 06-13-2008
Shambhu (#150), your efforts are just awesome. Do your thing. It's better than what the rest of us (and I don't mean IF, I just mean Hindus) are doing.
What we need is for all Hindus who've woken up to the threat to be doing this, so that they spread the awareness further and wake up more people - as you said.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 06-23-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> By: Nithin Sridhar
March 16, 2007
Views expressed here are authorâs own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is at the bottom.
Feedback
(My Intention is not to hurt the beliefs or the feelings of the Christian community. My article is just to show to the world that the claim on which the Christian Missionaries are forcibly converting people is falsehood and hence they have no moral authority to convert people forcibly)
âThe question which has so much exercised the minds of men â whether Jesus was the historic Christ (= Messiah) â is answered in the sense that everything that is said of Him, everything that is known of Him, belongs to the world of imagination, that is, of the imagination of the Christian community, and therefore has nothing to do with any man who belongs to the real world.â
This has been said by Bauer in 1850-51.
Jesus of Nazareth also known as Jesus Christ is the central figure in the Christianity. Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on Jesus of Nazareth and his life, death, resurrection, and teachings as presented in the New Testament. Christianity is based on a belief that Jesus is the Son Of God and the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.
The main sources of information regarding Jesus" life and teachings are the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The historicity of Jesus Christ as described in the gospels has been for a long time one of the principal dogmas of all Christian denominations.
The scope of this article is to analyze the historicity of the Jesus of Nazareth. Jewish historians, who lived and wrote during the same period or a little later, fail to notice him as well as the religion supposed to have been founded by him. It may be Philo, who wrote a history of the Jews, Justus of Tiberius, or Flavius Josephus who lived from AD 36 or 37 to 99 or 100 knows no Jesus Christ and no Christians. The Greeks and Romans have left to posterity a vast historical and philosophical literature written in or referring to the time-bracket when Jesus is supposed to have lived. But it is unaware of him. Seneca (2 BC-66 AD), Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), Martial (40-102 AD), Plutarch(45-125 AD), Juvenal (55-140 AD), Apuleius (d. 170 AD), Pausanius(d. 185 AD), and Dio Casius (155-240 AD) do not mention any Jesus or Christ. Referring to Jesus Christ of the Gospels, Sita Ram Goel, noted scholar and historian writes-â All languages which have been influenced by Christianity contain the expression, âgospel truthâ. But truth is exactly what we find completely missing from the gospels when it comes to the life and teaching of their hero â Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, the gospels violate one of the Ten Commandments â thou shalt not bear false witness â and can be easily caught in the act.â.
When we analyze the different gospels we see that there is contradicting data relating to the year, date and the place of birth of Jesus, his genealogy and parentage. Luke places the birth of Jesus to 2BC.Where as John places at 22-15 BC. Eusebius placeshis death in 22 AD, which takes his birth to 9 BC if he was 30 when he died, to 12 BC if he was 33, and to 28 BC if he was nearing 50. Theyear 1 AD as the year of his birth was assumed by the sixth century Romanmonk, Dionysius Exiguus. Christmas, the day of the birth of Jesus is celebrated on 25th December. Referring to the inconsistency of this date of Christmas, Sita Ram Goel writes-âAs for the date of Christmas, the chances are no better than 1 in 365 that Jesusâ birthday fell on 25 December. A number of different dates have contended for the title â including 20 May, 19 April, 17 November, 28 March, 25 March and 6 January â and it took nearly five hundred years before 25 December came to be generally accepted The reason for the choice of this date owes nothing to historical evidence but a great deal to the influence of other religions. It was no accident that 25 December happened to be the birthday of the Unconquered Sunâ(Sol Invictus), the chief festival of the Mithraic cult, a popular mystery religion of the late Roman Empire which shared quite a number of elements with Christianity, notably its emphasis on rebirth and salvation.â About the place of birth Goel asks-â Was Jesus really born in Bethlehem? Unfortunately, even the Christian scriptures disagree among themselves. Matthew and Luke both say yes, while John (7: 41-2) and Mark (1:9 ; 6:1) give the impression of never even having heard of Jesusâ supposed birth at Bethlehem but assume that his birthplace was Nazareth, a small town in the northern region of Galilee, at the opposite end of the country from Bethlehem.â He continues-â Nazareth fares no better as the place of Jesusâ birth. There is no positive proof that this place existed at the time when he is supposed to have been born. It does not occur in any Roman maps, records or documents relating to that time. It is not mentioned in the Talmud. It is not associated with Jesus in any of the writings of Paul. Josephus who commanded troops in Galilee does not mention it. It appears for the first time in Jewish records of the seventh centuryâ. In clears words Goel demonstrates that even if we assume that Jesus was a historical Character and not a myth there are only few evidences about the time and place of birth of Jesus which are contradictory among themselves.
Mathew and Luke try to trace Jesus back to King David. But here also both differ in facts and figures. Matthew accommodates 28 and Luke 41 generations of Jesusâ ancestors in the same span of time. There are only three names that are common in the two family trees. Even the name of Josephâs father and Jesusâ grandfather is not the same. About Virgin Mary, Goel quotes Ian Stephens- âTamar was a temple prostitute; Rahab was the madam of a brothel; Ruth, the most moral, indulged in some pretty shameless sexual exploitation; and Bathsheba committed adultery with King David. Was the author of the Matthew genealogy implying something about the only other woman mentioned, Mary herself?â. Further, Goel quotes Michael Arnheim -â The real reason for floating the myth of virgin birth seems to be that âthere had always been a question mark hanging over Maryâs sexual moralityâ and that âit was clearly a subject which caused the early Christians acute embarrassmentâ. In fact, there has been a long-standing tradition among the Jews that Jesus was the fruit of an adulterous union between Mary and a Roman soldier named antheraâ. These are beautifully summarized by Will Durant when he says-âThe virgin birth is not mentioned by Paul or John, and Matthew and Luke trace Jesus back to David through Joseph by conflicting genealogies; apparently the belief in the virgin birth rose later than in the Davidic descent.â
When the Gospels are studied in the light of the prevalent Jewish laws and administration in Palestine, some difficulties arises in the story of Gospels. Goel quotes Paul Winter-â Jewish scholars have examined the gospel accounts in the light of Jewish laws and administration prevailing in Palestine at the time Jesus is supposed to have been tried by the Jewish authorities. They have come to the conclusion that the whole story of Jesus being tried by the Jewish authorities for blasphemy sounds spurious.
Firstly, they hold that in terms of the Jewish law it was not blasphemy for any Jew to claim to be the Messiah or the Son of God. Secondly, they point out that sessions of the Sanhedrin could not be held at the times and in the ways mentioned in the three gospels. Finally, they maintain that if Jesus had been found guilty of blasphemy for saying something which is not mentioned in the gospels, the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem were quite competent to get him stoned to death, the penalty prescribed by Jewish law, and were not at all called upon to hand him over to the Roman governor for getting him crucified. The very fact that Jesus was crucified and not stoned to death goes to prove that he must have violated a Roman and not a Jewish lawâ. We can further recognize the contradictions among the Gospels about the details of Crucifixion. Regarding Resurrection Goel writes-â We are entitled to dismiss the gospel stories of Resurrection like the rest of Jesusâ miracles. We are entitled not to treat it as history at all. But as Resurrection happens to be the core of the Christian creed, we will better see what sort of puerile invention it is.â According to scholars, Jesusâ appearance after his death formed no part of the original gospel of Mark and has been appended to it later. Now Mark being one of the four Gospels, which is written about thirty years after Jesusâ death, it is impossible to imagine that Mark had failed to recognize this, if Jesus really had appeared after his death. The accounts of Resurrection of all the four Gospels differ in their details. Goel writes-ââThere seems even less prospect,â observes James P. Mackey, âof arriving at a concordant account of the details of the appearances of Jesus than there is in the case of the empty tomb stories, when at least Mary Magdalene is consistently a principal character. That has to be recognized at the very outset. Apart from the major discrepancy amongst the gospels as to whether the appearances of Jesus took place in Galilee or in and around Jerusalem, all the appearance stories have different settings, details and messages. As Reumann, I think, it was, pointed out, there is not even, as in the case of passion narratives, an agreed framework for the appearance narratives within which discrepancies of detail occur and by comparison to which they could reasonably he counted as negligible...âFurther, the Jewish tradition confirms that the story of Resurrection and Ascension were created by the disciples.
Gospels claims to be the witness and the recorders of truth. But on closer observation we see that it had been distorted over the years and also that they contradict each other. Goel observes-âWe have, however, seen that the gospels contradict and cancel out each other when it comes to the salient features in the story of Jesus â the date and year and place of his birth, his ancestry and parentage, his ministry, his trial and death, and his resurrection. This claim on behalf the gospels, therefore, falls to the groundâ. Goel continues-â In fact, this claim was dismissed most forcefully by David Friedrich Strauss who published his two-volume work, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, in 1835-36. âBecause of the discrepancies he found, he cogently argued that none of the gospels could have been by eye-witnesses, but instead must have been the work of writers of a much later generation, freely constructing their material from probably garbled traditions about Jesus in circulation in the early Church.â
Will Durant, noted historian observes that-âMatthew relies more than the other evangelists on the miracles ascribed to Jesus, and is suspiciously eager to prove that many Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ... The Fourth Gospel does not pretend to be a biography of Jesus; it is a presentation of Christ from the theological point of view, as the divine Logos or Word, creator of the world and redeemer of mankind. It contradicts the synoptic gospels in a hundred details and in its general picture of Christ... In summary, it is clear that there are many contradictions between one gospel and another, many dubious statements of history, many suspicious resemblances to the legends told of pagan gods, many incidents apparently designed to prove the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, many passages possibly aiming to establish a historical basis for some later doctrine or ritual of the Church.â
On every points Gospels contradict themselves and no other evidences corroborated their stories. Gospels and its Jesus Christ had been proved to be a product of imagination and not of reality. Albert Schweitzer, the world famous theologian and missionary, has traced in a well-known book published in 1906 the progress of Christology from Hermann Samuel Reimarus, who wrote in the middle of the eighteenth century, to Wilhelm Wrede whose book on this subject was published in 1901. âThe study of the Life of Jesus,â he says, âhas had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour...â Coming to the âResultsâ, he mourns, âThere is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the Life of Jesus. The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence. This image has not been destroyed from without. It has fallen to pieces, cleft and disintegrated by the concrete historical problems which came to the surface one after another, and in spite of all the artifice, art, artificiality, and violence which was applied to them, refused to be planed down to fit the design on which Jesus of the theology of the last hundred and thirty years had been constructed and were no sooner covered over than they appeared again in a new form..â He concludes, âWe thought that it was for us to lead our time by the roundabout way through the historical Jesus, as we understood Him, in order to bring it to the Jesus who is a spiritual power in the present. This roundabout way has now been closed by genuine history.â
The basic foundation on which Christianity survived so long has been crushed. The Jesus of Nazareth or the so called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior, is no more a Historical Character, but the invention the followers of the monotheistic theology of Christianity. Today Christianity has been reduced to a hollow religion without any historical or philosophical foundation. This plight of Christianity is well explained by Michael Arnheim. He writes-ââBy the early twentieth century the so-called âquest for the historical Jesusâ was bogged down in negativism. The Gospels, according to an influential schools of Protestant theologians, were to be taken as theological rather than as historical documents, and they could yield no authentic information about the life and deeds, or even the sayings and teachings, of Jesus. Such a conclusion might have been expected to have a cataclysmic effect upon Christianity. For, after all, there could surely be no Christianity without Christ, and there could be no Christ without Jesus? But if Jesus were so shadowy a figure as to belong more to the realm of myth and legend than to that of history and fact, the whole edifice of Christianity must surely crumble?â
Today, the Church and the Christians who for centuries had been committing atrocities against people of other religions in the name of Jesus, who had been proselytizing people in order to save them has no justification. There is no Christianity without Jesus and Jesus has been proved a myth. Hence Christianity can no longer claim to be the Only True Religion.
Bibliography, Jesus Christ, An Artifice for Aggression
Sita Ram Goel, VOICE OF INDIA
Nithin Sridhar <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 06-25-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hitler's Theological Language
John W. DavisÂ
<i>
Ohne Juda, ohne Rom, wird gebaut Germanienâs Dom! Heil!
Without Jews, without Rome, we shall build Germanyâs cathedral! Heil!</i>
Adolf Hitler, traditional conclusion to speeches, Menâs Asylum, Vienna, Austria, 1910-1913
The modern viewer observes the Hermann O. Hoyer painting, âIn the Beginning Was the Wordâ with nothing less than shock. What is so shocking about a dark picture that represents a man speaking to a small, attentive audience in a Gasthaus? Perhaps the image of Adolf Hitler, dressed in benign civilian attire as he addresses a diverse gathering of Germans, conveys a specific blasphemy. The title of the artwork, after all, alludes to the opening verse of Johnâs Gospel. Perhaps the direct parallel of Hitlerâs arms, bent in mirror image of the Nazi swastika on the flag which hangs directly behind him, conveys a subtle image of the crucified Christ. Maybe it is the transfixed attention of the listeners who are enlightened, both literally by the only ambient light depicted in the painting, and symbolically, by the message of the speaker from whom the light seems to issue.
Since the painting was made in depression era Germany, the contemporary viewer would immediately, even unconsciously, infuse a lifetime of learned Christian symbolism to the rendering. Here was the savior bearing a message of hope in those dark days of inflation, unemployment, and social chaos. He was the new Messiah, this Adolf Hitler. The artist wanted to show that Hitler was the redeemer of fallen Germany, the savior who would liberate them from the evil Versailles Treaty brought about by the lies and betrayals of the satanic Jews, none of whom is visible in this picture. Indeed, the mysterious origin of the paintingâs light over the listeners suggests Pentecost. That is the moment traditionally portrayed by symbolic âflames of enlightenmentâ, as if to show the truth of Christ shining on the apostles, who then went forth to spread the word. The paintingâs listeners would be so enlightened and spread Hitlerâs new truth.
The Nazi genius for propaganda allowed them to shamelessly usurp for their own ends symbols and terminology found in the Jewish and Christian writings of Tanak and New Testament. These symbols and words were ingrained in a German population through years of religious instruction, literary usage, and social convention. Even a secular German could not escape a language suffused with originally religious terminology.
This essay will consider Nazi usage and the context in which it flourished. I will demonstrate how one German-American Catholic priest, Monsignor Martin Hellriegel, in the spirit of a Papal encyclical of the time, countered such manipulation with truth, and brought back honest usage to words shamelessly exploited by the neo-pagans. Hellriegel saw in Nazi blasphemy the insidious twisting of the meaning of words which, Pied Piper like, led the listener away from the truth and into a dark forest of confusion and evil.
Adolf Hitler saw the world with a distinctly âreligiousâ viewpoint. That is to say his worldview was clearly bound up in a fall from grace, resurrection, and victory schematic. He specifically introduced this idea in Mein Kampf, and restated it in virtually every public utterance thereafter.
In the beginning was the Edenic German past, the great victorious Reich of Franco-Prussian War days. Was it not thunderous German cannon and proud soldiery which brought about this triumphal era? The wholesome Germanic stock prevailed in a sort of Darwinian triumph against lesser Europeans. This past was further characterized by a virtuous Germanic racial pride, a Volkish culture of simple honesty, hard work, communal integrity and physical wholesomeness.
Into this Eden came the evil serpent; into Eden came the Jew. Attached to the integrated Volkish host, the parasitical Jew leeched it of life. The Jew attained inclusion not through virtuous action and social harmony. Rather by blandishment, money, and exploitation of human frailty he affixed himself to the living body of the German people. The Jew, as characterized by his Talmudic philosophy, created a false trope to protect himself from expulsion from the alien body, the concept that the weakest must be protected. He spread his false doctrine through the liberal press, his servile politicians, and his religion. His philosophy was âunnaturalâ for it flew in the face of simple biology. To suggest that human dignity was not manifested in the triumph of the strong, (as proven by the victorious 1870 Reich), but rather in how the strong treated the weakest among them, was an insidious means of debilitating the otherwise powerful German race. âTo protect the weak, the outsider,â was a lie that could be traced back even to its cunning insinuation into the Christian concept of the Beatitudes or the Good Samaritan. How to expose this racial cancer, this contagious tuberculosis injected into Germanic culture? Consider, Hitler argued, what this cancer had already done.
The young Hitler, after some three years on World War I frontlines, wounded in the face by shrapnel, felled by a bullet to the thigh, recovered near wartime Berlin. During recuperation he traveled there to find it a nest of complaints and defeatism. This attitude prevailed even though Russia had collapsed in revolution and the French were in disarray. As Hitler later wrote it was obvious why Germany lost the war which by all observable accounts it was winning. Germany was betrayed. The November criminals sabotaged Germany and so stabbed the Fatherland in the back. They did so in thousands of cowardly ways. Their Marxist unions fought a common steadfastness on the home front. The inconstant Churches subverted the war effort by religious softness, while the worthless, lying politicians deceived the simple Volk. Behind them all was the wire pulling Jew. The Versailles Treaty brought them to power, a power totally unearned, totally corrupt, and totally alien to the German way.
The bourgeois liberals, the Marxists, and the Church, the Catholic Church in particular, militated against the Germanic race. Each in its own way brought about Germanyâs downfall. Philosophically, they all sought universality and converts to party, class, or religion respectively. Conversely, one was born into the German Herrenvolk. In any case, each had in its way brought about the downfall of Germany. Hitler would save the Germanic race from the crest of oblivion to which it had been brought. He would do so by excising from the land that very parasite which brought it to this end, the Jew, the manipulator behind each of these entities.
So it was that Hitler applied one of the lessons he learned best in the trenches of Belgium: propaganda. He would co-opt the strengths of his enemies to his own ends.
Religious language suffused the Third Reich. They Nazis turned the benign concepts about God to their own ends by subtle means. They were wolves in sheepâs clothing.
This distortion was exposed by the 1937 Vatican Encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge, (With Burning Anxiety), uniquely published originally in the German language. It excoriated the consistent Nazi dismantling of the Concordat between Rome and Berlin. Not only had the Nazis broken virtually every component, among which were provisions for religious education, public practice of religion, and social activities, it had even begun to subvert the truths behind the language of the Christian religion.
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculationâ¦Our God is the Personal God, supernatural,â¦who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.
Mit Brennender Sorge, Pius XI, Encyclical, 1937
The poison spread not only throughout Germany, but to Germans in America as well. The faux religion of Nazism, or at least the apparent acceptance of religion by the Hitler state, deceived millions. For example, by substituting apparently wholesome Hitler Youth activities for Confirmation ceremonies, or inserting Nazi themes into apparent prayers, or even creating National ceremonies to replace religious rituals, the cultural religiosity of the country was co-opted and believers duped into slowly accepting Nazi beliefs.
Let us examine one example of how this usurpation of language was identified, and how, in the spirit of Mit Brennender Sorge, it was countered in a most unlikely way. This example will demonstrate how the insidious influence of appropriated language was deftly and simply countered, so that Nazismâs influence was blunted among German- Americans before our entry into the war.
In night's darkest hour every November 9th, to commemorate the Nazi coup d'etat of 1923, a mystical midnight oath-taking ceremony took place in a sacred hall under the eyes of Adolf Hitler. There the SS, Hitler's special troops, took an oath of personal loyalty to him. One remembers, " Splendid young men, serious of face, exemplary of bearing and turnout. An elite. Tears came to my eyes when, by the light of the torches, thousands of Voices repeated the oath in chorus. It was like a prayer."
During their rise to power, the Nazis usurped virtually all traditions, symbols, and words of pious German Christianity. Indeed, the most egregious was to call Adolf Hitler the Savior. Perhaps this extract from the SS catechism characterizes this subtle transference best: The question, 'Whom must we primarily serve?' required the response, 'The people and our Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler'. 'Why do we believe in Germany and the Fuhrer?' ' Because we believe in God,...and in the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, whom He has sent us."
Indeed, by 1941 the Hitler's successes appeared Providential, as he claimed. He raised Germans from the shame of Depression joblessness and revived a beaten peoples' pride by giving them military victory. His rule extended to virtually every land and nation of Europe, North Africa, and Eurasia to Moscow. But in his dominion salvation required absolute obedience to Hitler's belief in racial supremacy and hatred of the 'race defilers', the Jews. Hitler's rule required a gradual but inevitable denial of a personal, loving God in favor of faith in racial victory. Far away in little Baden, an American community settled by Germans on the banks of the Mississippi, a parish priest was composing a song that would strike the Nazis a blow from which they would never recover. Father Martin Hellriegel, a German immigrant and pastor to several communities in the St. Louis, Missouri area, considered the rise of racial nationalism in his former homeland. As Hellriegel read in the l937 Papal Letter titled, With Burning Anxiety, (the only Encyclical written in the German language), the Pope outlined how Germans had lost their way. They had abandoned traditional Christianity in favor of a twisted racial Darwinism that called 'immortality' not survival of man after life on earth, but survival of the race; that maintained 'revelation' was not God's word to Man, but suggested the triumph of race and blood over lesser peoples. The Pope further noted that daring to suggest that even the greatest of men was on a par with Christ, our Savior from sin and death, would be to make the man a "Prophet of Nothingness."
Hellriegel knew his people. To defeat subtle Nazi usurpation of Christ's words and mission, he would restate the Christian message simply and clearly for all the world. The pastor knew what Christ intended when our yes should mean yes, our no mean no. Hellriegel found an energetic, almost martial tune in an old copy of the Mainz (Germany) Church music book. To the music from 1870, he wrote new lyrics. They are a point by point rebuttal of Nazi beliefs. He called the song "To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King" and he wrote it in l941 at the height of Nazi power.
Hellriegel's opening salvo was that Jesus, not Hitler, was "...our Sovereign King, who is the World's Salvation". If Jesus was sovereign, Hitler was not. If, as the Catholic Church proclaimed, all in the world could be saved, no claim of racial peculiarity could stand. "All praise and homage do we bring, and thanks and adoration." was a direct slap at the obsequious accolades offered Hitler for having brought Germans back into wealth, prestige, and power.
It is the refrain, "Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler, Christ Jesus Lord and Commander," which is the most powerful statement of faith. Hitler promised Sieg (victory), and was the Fuhrer (ruler), who rescued Germany from the hydra-headed oppressions of the Versailles Treaty, the traitorous Jews, the internationalist Church and Communists. At the very height of German battlefield victories Hellriegel declared not Hitler but Christ as the true Commander. (In later years, that intentional military term was changed to âredeemerâ.) Hellriegel's refrain, repeated over and over again, specifically denied each of Hitler's claims, just as had been done in the Papal Letter.
Indeed, "Thy reign extend, oh King, benigh, to every land and nation. For in thy Kingdom, Lord divine, alone we find salvation," contended that Christ's kingdom, not Hitler's empire, was where man would be saved. Even the very Hitler oath, required of every government and military official in Germany, was specifically attacked in this song. Not loyalty to Hitler; not, as the Hitler oath claimed, "I swear to thee, and to the superiors whom thou shall appoint, obedience unto death. So help me God.â, but rather as Hellriegel wrote, "To thee and to thy church great king, we pledge our hearts oblation, until before thy throne we sing, in endless jubilation."
The hymn âTo Jesus Christ our Sovereign Kingâ is sung even today. Hitler's claims lie long forgotten. The challenge this song threw at the apparent victor of Europe, at the height of his greatest power, was mighty. For, as each verse attested, there was a greater truth which stood in opposition to Hitlerism. There were other, more ancient meanings to the words usurped by the Nazis. Simple and clear, the hymn carried a power to change hearts by speaking the truth.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 06-27-2008
Syrian origin of the koran:
BOOK REVIEW of Christoph Luxenberg
[38] A central question that this investigation raises is the motivation of cUthmÄn in preparing his redaction of the QurâÄn. Luxenberg presents the two hadÄ«th traditions recounting how cUthmÄn came to possess the first manuscript. If Luxenbergâs analysis is even in broad outline correct, the content of the QurâÄn was substantially different at the time of Muhammad and cUthmÄnâs redaction played a part in the misreading of key passages. Were these misreadings intentional or not? The misreadings in general alter the QurâÄn from a book that is <b>more or less harmonious with the New Testament and Syriac Christian liturgy </b>and literature to one that is distinct, of independent origin.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - ramana - 06-28-2008
Dhu, There is book called"The Mohammedan Controversey" by Muir in the google books. Quite an interesting set of essays written in 1845. Looks like the English were separated in distance and time from Islam and started enquiring about it seropusly only after their consolidation in India and the start of their Enlightenment. This book first two essays examine the issues. Check page 19 for the Syrian connection to Mohammed.
The Mohammedean Controversey
Looks like William Muir was quite diligent in studying Islam and Christianity. No wonder he was head of the Intelligence Dept in India!
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 07-06-2008
another candidate genre for gospels:
Literary nonsense (wiki)
The Play of the Self (158)
"And yet this<b> antimimetic core</b> of literary nonsense is not predicated upon a rejection of narrative...."
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 07-09-2008
Muslims lost an opportunity
Sandhya Jain
Abrahamic faiths are vastly different from non-monotheistic traditions because they begin with a human founder at a specific point in history. He launches an exclusivist religious mission which involves the quest for a people and the conquest of an external (and ever-expanding) territory for those 'chosen' people. This necessarily involves the takeover of land peopled by others and the annihilation of the existing religion and culture; often, the original occupants of the land are simply exterminated en masse. The Old Testament testifies that this is what happened at Jericho, "land of milk and honey," when Moses' disciple Joshua set its walls tumbling down. The genocide of Native Americans in North and South America is another grim example of the logic that drives exclusivist religious traditions. In India, we have the Kashmiri Hindu story.
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 07-14-2008
BOOK REVIEW - Life and death in the Bible
by Spengler
Historicity of Jesus - 2 - dhu - 07-14-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Jun 28 2008, 12:50 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Jun 28 2008, 12:50 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->..This book first two essays examine the issues. Check page 19 for the Syrian connection to Mohammed.
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Why did the phoenician heartland of Syria succumb so easily to the Roman Imperialist project. If I remember correctly, the three divisions which participated in Titus' seige were Egypt, Syriac, and Macedonian. Is there a connection to the supposed Syriacs in Malabar. How did the Persian empire reconstitute itself after Alexander's depradations. If NT is of Roman provenance, then why the need to falsely project OT as Persian provenance, when the predecessors would "logically" be the hellenistic seleucids.
- added later -
Seleucids most closely approximate the missing Israel from history. As has been said, we do not have even a bust of Moshe from an era of rampant imperial narratives - pharoahs, caesars, homer, hannibal, etc etc.. The missing pieces cannot be "rationalised" away as an allergy to art.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>By 100 BC, the once formidable Seleucid Empire encompassed little more than Antioch and some Syrian cities. </b>Despite the clear collapse of their power, and the decline of their kingdom around them, nobles continued to play kingmakers on a regular basis, with occasional intervention from Ptolemaic Egypt and other outside powers. The Seleucids existed solely because no other nation wished to absorb them â seeing as they constituted a useful buffer between their other neighbours. In the wars in Anatolia between Mithridates VI of Pontus and Sulla of Rome, the Seleucids were largely left alone by both major combatants. link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
King of Kings applies to the 1. Persian Shahenshah, 2. Mithridates' vassal Tigranes, and 3. to the Christ Caesar in disguise.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In Judaism, "King of Kings" - in Hebrew Melech ha-M'lachim - is a euphemism to refer to God, whose name may not be said. It is usually rendered as <b>Melech Malchei Ha-M'lachim </b><b>(King of Kings of Kings), </b>to put it one step above the title by which Babylonian and Persian kings are referred to in the Bible (specifically in the Book of Daniel).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->