Historicity Of Jesus

Shambhu · 10-22-2007, 09:09 AM

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By Titus! Joe Atwill seems to be trying to make a movie of Caesar's Messiah.

http://110559.aceboard.net/110559-971-4356...ll-interest.htm

This thread is from Nov 2006.

Wonder what happened...

**acharya** · 10-22-2007, 10:07 PM

QUOTE(Husky @ Oct 20 2007, 03:32 PM)
(2) #156:
Acharya, that user-like review you pasted on Joseph Atwill's book seems to be something from Amazon. Any books in Amazon critical of jesus, or the gospels or a historical christ tend to attract a bunch of christian spammers who say a lot but turn out never to have read the book in question. Seems like such a fellow, albeit initially more sensible-sounding. Am with Shambhu in his assessment of this. Sounds like the user-reviewer pulled a Richard Carrier.



We have to answer every critic because this discussion is for the Indians who dont have any idea of the past history and debate about the historicity of Jesus.

We need to answer all of these questions since it will bring out the truth when they are trying to propogate and destroy all the other cultures.

Shambhu · 10-24-2007, 12:57 AM

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I went on the CM forum. Joe Atwill says he will answer any questions..lets see about post #156 above

http://110559.aceboard.net/110559-971-4306...hallenge.htm#vb

(My handle over there is "Indic")

Shambhu · 10-24-2007, 01:03 AM

Acharya, what is the source of the stuff you posted in 156? Joe might come here sometime to answer..

dhu · (This post was last modified: 10-24-2007, 08:44 AM by dhu.)

It is a rather pedestrian review from Amazon. Atwill has shown that the gospels, when read intertextually with Wars, accrue an additional layer of satirical meaning. This leads to a dramatic anti-climax for the christian religion, something which the entire gamut of western intelligentsia has been trying to manufacture for heathen traditions since centuries.

We have here the greatest psy-ops of all encoded directly into the western religion. This level of sophisticated crassness (essence of western psy-ops) is beyond the understanding of regular heathens but will be immediately recognizable to Abrahamics who engage in this stuff on a daily basis. However, The analysis will initially neutralize "Liberation theology" which is the cornerstone of the western plan against remaining heathens.

**acharya** · 10-24-2007, 08:13 AM

QUOTE(Shambhu @ Oct 23 2007, 07:33 AM)Acharya, what is the source of the stuff you posted in 156? Joe might come here sometime to answer..
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It is from Amazon

dhu · (This post was last modified: 10-24-2007, 11:18 AM by dhu.)

QUOTESikhSpectrum.com QuarterlyÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Issue No.26, November 2006

7.Â Before I introduce the final participant, allow me to express a few words. I have been involved for more than two decades trying to unfold the mystery surrounding Jesus. Largely because of the Bible, Jesus has been portrayed in numerous images to include: as a Messiah, as a Teacher, as a Revolutionary, as a Heretic, as a Magician, as an Exorcist, as a Gnostic, as an Essene, as a Zealot, as a Spirit Person, as a Jewish Reformer, as a Myth, as a Composite Figure, and as a Rabbi. This list is not exhaustive.

Every one of these portrayed images had its roots in the Bible and they are convincing only to a point while failing to account for something more concrete. Recognizing Jesus as a committed Jew, I couldnât understand why New Testament was so anti-Jewish. The answers put forth were not fully convincing. Moreover, it has been difficult to account for a sect called Christianity ultimately triumphed and replaced the powerful Roman Empire. Answers were not forthcoming to the point where I felt comfortable with the research dating back to mid 1800s. All along I felt something crucial was missing and only persistent research in the future could shed a new light. And that ânew lightâ surfaced recently in a person named Joseph Atwill.

Joseph is the author of Caesarâs Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus. He claims that Flavius Titus is Jesus, and it were the imperial Romans who fabricated the Gospel accounts for their own political and religious purposes. I recognize this theory will have its own set of believers and non-believers, and the future ongoing research will one day lay validity to this theory provided the evidence and the methodology adopted by Atwill gains credence. At this early stage of investigating Atwillâs thesis, I will say that he has touched the core questions that have been festering around me for years.

- G.B. Singh

ramana · 10-25-2007, 01:31 AM

Dhu, A chance remark on Phoenicians and ancient Greece etc.

QUOTE
Edinburgh- At age 16, I recall being told that the Myceneans (pre-Doric invasions) of Crete were somewhat âpre-Greekâ (of the âlinear Bâ language), different from other people of the Eastern Mediterranean. It hit me that there was something strange about the insistence on the nonsemitic aspect of Crete. Why would the Spanish seaboard be Semitic, i.e., âPhoenicianâ (Cartagena, Malaga), not Crete next door?

In my native language, rather one of my native languages, the (Northern) Lebanese dialect (a cross between the Western Aramaic spoken by Jesus Christ & classical Arabic), the root ×× ×¡Â produces the verb Kns, which means to gather, so Knnss is still used âto collect dust in one placeâ, i.e., to sweep (ÙÙØ³), Knisseh = church ÙÙÙØ³, in Hebrew ×× ×¡×ªÂ Knesseth= gathering. In Arabic KnissÂ = synagogue (the masculine for church). It can also mean settlement (Mikniss)!

Is much of Greek history dominated with this 19th Century âpan-Aryanâ desire to de-semiticize Europe and set Greece apart from Babylon, the Levant, and Asia minor? 

Taleb on Randomness

Shambhu · 10-27-2007, 09:16 AM

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Just to keep the Raju Thomas and Cedric Prakash types sober:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/fabrication.html

..the early clues pointing to a massive fabrication.

dhu · 10-27-2007, 09:58 AM

QUOTEQuintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian, (ca. 155â230) was a church leader and prolific author of Early Christianity. He also was a notable early Christian apologist. Tertullian, a Romanized African,[1] was born, lived and died in Carthage, in what is today Tunisia.

dhu · 10-27-2007, 10:08 AM

Ramana

there was an engineered conflict between (Northern) Canaan and (Southern) "Jews" with martial race theory, AIT Invasions, accusations of blood libel, invention of multiple exiles, all aiming to rent the Phoenician society asunder. Yes they tried to break away from acknowledging their antecedents in Persia and farther East.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 11-09-2007, 10:43 AM by dhu.)

QUOTEApartheid and the Promised Land

Afrikaners and the "Great Trek"

Â Â But see! the world becomes wilder;
Â Â the fierce vermin worsen,

Â Â stark naked black hordes,
Â Â following tyrants.

Â Â How the handful of trekkers suffer,
Â Â the freedom seekers, creators of a People.

Â Â Just like another Israel,
Â Â by enemies surrounded, lost in the veld,

Â Â but for another Canaan elected,
Â Â led forward by God' plan.

ramana · (This post was last modified: 11-14-2007, 11:19 PM by ramana.)

Dhu, The holidays are coming up. Could you start putting together a few ppt slides that tell the story so far?

Shambhu · (This post was last modified: 11-20-2007, 03:22 AM by Shambhu.)

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/b_cowboy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='b_cowboy.gif' />
A You Tube video on yet another character, 1000 yrs before Jeebus, who had the exact same attributes as Mankind's Most Succesful Hoax.

Video quality could be better, but the bullet points are to the point. Please share (with unlimited love) with any Friendly Neighborhood Missionary/Psec/Xtian apologist....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB1Q1aUHO...re=related

11-20-2007, 08:09 AM

QUOTEHollywood takes action hero Jesus to India

Film based on Aquarian Gospel to cover years left out of New Testament

Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Monday November 19, 2007
The Guardian

Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system.
Film producers have delved deep into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus's life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the recognised gospels.

The result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity's eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.

The film's producers say the movie will be shot using actors and computer animation like 300, the retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, and will follow the travels of Yeshua, believed to be the name for Jesus in Aramaic, from the Middle East to India. Casting for suitable Bollywood and Hollywood actors has begun.
"The Bible devotes just seven words to the most formative years of Yeshua's life saying: 'The boy grew in wisdom and stature'. The [film] will follow Christ's journey to the east where he encounters other traditions, and discovers the principles that are the bedrock of all the world's great religions," said Drew Heriot, the film's director, whose credits include the cult hit The Secret.

The film, which is due for release in 2009, sets out to be a fantasy action adventure account of Jesus's life with the three wise men as his mentors. Although the producers say the film will feature a "young and beautiful" princess, it is not clear whether Jesus is to have a love interest.

The producers say they are hoping for commercial and spiritual gains. "We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ's thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonised gospels to the 'lost' gospels," said William Sees Keenan, the producer, who is currently making Lindsay Lohan's Poor Things.

"We are looking at new themes. In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables [in India] and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas [Hindu holy books]," said Mr Keenan, a "lapsed Catholic".

The theory that Jesus's teachings had roots in Indian traditions has been around for more than a century. In 1894 a Russian doctor, Nicholas Notovitch, published a book called The Unknown Life of Christ, in which he claimed that while recovering from a broken leg in a Tibetan monastery in the Ladakh region, close to Kashmir, he had been shown evidence of Christ's Indian wanderings. He said he was shown a scroll recording a visit by Jesus to India and Tibet as a young man. Indian experts claim that documentary proof remains of this Himalayan visit.

"I have seen the scrolls which show Buddhist monks talking about Jesus's visits. There are also coins from that period which show Yuzu or have the legend Issa on them, referring to Jesus from that period," said Fida Hassnain, former director of archaeology at the University of Srinagar. {So what is Jesus called in Bauddha parlance, MF Hussain's sister?}

Hassnain, who has written books on the legend of Jesus in India, points out that there was extensive traffic between the Mediterranean and India around the time of Jesus's life. The academic pointed out that in Srinagar a tomb of Issa is still venerated. "It is the Catholic church which has closed its mind on the subject. Historians have not."

More dramatic are the claims that Buddhism had prompted the move from the "eye for an eye" ideology of the Old Testament to "love thy neighbour" in the New Testament.

In 1995 a German religious expert, Holger Kersten, claimed that Jesus had been schooled by Buddhist monks to believe in non-violence and to challenge the priesthood. Kersten's book remains a bestseller in India.

The Catholic church in India dismisses the film as just "Hollywood filmmakers in search of a new audience rather than the truth". Aware that religious passions are easily inflamed, after the Da Vinci Code film sparked protests among Indian Christians, its spokesman said that a movie about Jesus in India was plainly "fantasy and fiction".

"I have personally investigated many of these claims and they remain what they first seem: fiction," said John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union which represents 16 million churchgoers. "I am sure it will make money but I do not think it will displace thousands of years of biblical thought."

Alternative theories

In 1935 a Shinto priest claimed that instead of being crucified, Jesus had fled to Japan where he lived to be 112. He married a Japanese woman, had three daughters and became a respected teacher and prophet

Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 80m copies, suggests that the church suppressed Jesus's real story and that he had a family of his own. A central character in modern times discovers she is a direct descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who fled to what is now France after the crucifixion

The Lost Gospel of Judas is based on a manuscript found in the Egyptian desert in 1970 and claims Jesus enlisted a beloved and heroic Judas to betray him as part of a divine plan

Titanic director James Cameron's film about the lost tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem suggests that graves containing the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were discovered in 1980

film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2213087,00.html

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 11-20-2007, 10:09 PM by acharya.)

The concept of caste system and untouchables as we see today was never there thousands years ago. There is no mention or record of the caste system in those period.

The current caste system is only a 200 year old institution due to British colonization

THey are creating fantasy and myths about caste system and Indian history.

**acharya** · 11-21-2007, 01:00 PM

QUOTE(dhu @ Oct 26 2007, 04:38 PM)Ramana

there was an engineered conflict between (Northern) Canaan and (Southern) "Jews" with martial race theory, AIT Invasions, accusations of blood libel, invention of multiple exiles, all aiming to rent the Phoenician society asunder.Â Yes they tried to break away from acknowledging their antecedents in Persia and farther East.
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970 BC: King David dies

950: King Solomon builds the Temple in Jerusalem.

722: Assyrians under Shalmaneser V and later Sargon II conquered the northern kingdom of Israel (in conflict with Judah). Number of Jews deported to Medea/Khorasan. Area repopulated by peoples from Babylon and Arabia who intermarry with remaining Israelites and become âSamaritansâ.

597: Temple ransacked, and leading people of Judah deported to Babylon.

587: Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon/Chaldea destroys the Temple in response to uprising and deported large numbers to Mesopotamia/Babylon.

582: Further deportations to Babylon. Adoption of the Hebrew script over the Israelite script. Beginning of the process of canonising the Torah/Tanakh.

539: Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon. Permits return of the Hebrews to their lands and rebuild the temple. Babylonian Jewish community remains and thrives â heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism.

515: Second Temple consecrated.

330: Alexander conquers the Levant, and the conquest paves the way for Hellenic culture, although Jews are left with full cultural and religious autonomy.

Alexandria in Egypt becomes a major Jewish centre, particularly of Jewish-Hellenic thought.

319: Beginning of long struggle between the inheritors of Alexander â Ptolemaics of Egypt and Seleucids of Syria.

198: Seleucids (based in Antioch) wrests Palestine from Ptolemies for the final time. Rise of Hellenisation. Counter-movement are the Pharisees, predecessor of Rabbinic Judaism.

175: Hellenised Jason becomes High Priest. Converts Jerusalem in to a Greek-style Polis complete with gymnasium and ephebeion.

167: Antiochus IV, Seleucid ruler sacks Jerusalem, massacring large numbers of Jews and desecrating the temple. Leads to revolt of the Maccabees/Hasmoneans and the Hasidim against Seleucids and Hellenised Jews. Celebrated as Hanukah.

164: Antiochus IV dies.

139: Jews banished from Rome

63: Pompey takes Jerusalem and enters the Holy of Holies. Hasmonean kingdom forced to pay tribute to Rome. Hasmonean King placed under the authority of the Roman governor of Syria.

40: Parthian/Persian invasion of the Roman Empire with Hasmonean contender. Babylonian Jews support these efforts as do anti-Hellenistic Jews.

40: Roman Senate designates Herod âKing of the Jewsâ thanks to the backing of Mark Antony.

37: Herod takes power.

31: Great earthquake. Herod responds with a massive building programme.

20: Herod the Great begins massive rebuilding and expansion of the Temple, which involved the elevation of Temple Mount.

4 BC: Herod dies.

6 AD: Kingdom of Judah is now ruled by a Roman Procurator; pace of Hellenisation is no longer in Jewish hands, and a smaller percentage of tax revenues are spent in Judah.

19: Jews banished from Rome by Claudius.

66: Jewish Revolt begins. Largely over loss of control over pace of Hellenisation and influence over how tax monies are directed.

68: Death of Nero. Civil war delays Roman campaign. Jews take it as a sign of divine intervention.

69: Vespasian takes the throne. Josephus chronicles his campaign in Palestine.

70: Revolt suppressed by the Romans led by Titus. Temple destroyed. Large numbers of Jews leave Palestine, and many move north from Judea to Galilee. Jews continue to pay taxes, which go to the Roman state rather than the Temple.

131: Hadrian builds entirely pagan city of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem.

Jews excluded on the pain of death, but keep up secret pilgrimages. Jewish access to the city is not fully restored until defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917.

132: Bar Kochba launches second Jewish revolt, establishes state of Israel. Jewish Army annihilates Roman legion. Bar Kochba Christians to join in, but they demur*. Bar Kochba's movement like much of the Roman is not only anti-Roman in a political sense, it is anti-Hellenistic in a cultural sense

135: Bar Kochbaâs state conquered by the Romans. Hadrian consolidates Judaea, Galilee and Samaria in to the new province of Palestine.

POST WAR: The people undergo an enormous transformation. From landed people to landless diaspora. The belief in the futility of military response becomes ingrained. The religion changes from one based around temple rituals in Jerusalem to one based on congregational worship and scripture.

*NOTE: the worse the Romans persecute Jews, the more Christians (until then a Jewish sect) begin to disassociate themselves from other Jews. When Roman persecution shifts to Christians, Jews return the favour. Roman adoption of Christianity in the 4th and 5th centuries AD *without* similar lifting of state discrimination against Jews turns the split between Jews and Christians truly unpleasant.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 11-22-2007, 05:18 AM by Husky.)

Broken up into two posts:
QUOTE(Bodhi @ Nov 20 2007, 08:09 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEHollywood takes action hero Jesus to India
Film based on Aquarian Gospel to cover years left out of New Testament

Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Monday November 19, 2007
The Guardian

Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system.[right][snapback]75432[/snapback][/right]</div>They are so pathetic. And pathetically desperate for converts they'll go to any lengths:
QUOTEThe result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity's eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.
Christianism back to its old deceptions again. A century old book now becomes the basis for a movie on "christian truth" or, at least, truth for the unconverted. While the rest of the gullible catholic church in India cries hoarse against it because "it's heresy", the Pope probably secretly gave it the thumbs up. Anything is fair when it comes to christian conversion, even the church dropping its own principles like "sticking to actual biblical myth" and, instead, propagating very modern fictions about biblical characters that are contrary to the canonical gospels.

But a book aimed at a particular population - in this case, India's Hindus - is nothing new. Christianity gave rise to many bibles, gospels and chapters meant specifically for different peoples: to make them into future sheep. So there were gospels and chapters for ("of") the Egyptians, for ("of") the Hebrews, a chapter for the Romans, a bible or gospel for the Persians (Manichaens), one or more gospels for the Gnostics (so they would become gnostic christians), and more such. http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2b.htm#EarlyBiblesGospels
Not all of them actually wrote the stuff attributed to them, some were merely on the receiving end. I read somewhere that many of these - rather than having been written by the people in question as they purport to be - were written to be intended for them. (No idea now where I read it, will have to come back to this. Can't believe me until I find the proof to back up the statement.)

ADDED: Here's something on the canonical ones, though. It's not what I'm referring to, but still:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/fabrication.html
QUOTE"Matthew": A Gospel for Messianic Jews
"Luke": A Gospel for Credulous Pagans
"John": A Gospel to Silence the GnosticsAnd Mark according to here even had jesus scoring a non-point against the Jewish Pharisees:
QUOTE"That a Palestinian Jesus should floor Orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely."

Back to the odious upcoming movie again:
QUOTE"We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ's thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonised gospels to the 'lost' gospels," said William Sees KeenanBuddhism is an Indian religion, so why write "Indian religions and Buddhism"? But never mind that.
Meditation does not exist in christianity, nowhere in the canonical gospels does jeebus meditate (other than in the English meaning of the word: to think).
Meditation in the meaning of the above excerpt refers to a form of Yoga - it's a deeply "pagan" religious practise of the "pagan polytheistic Hindoos". Yes, "idolatrous polytheists" - people whom jehovallah (non-existent jeebus' gawd) hates above everything else and whose practises he denounces. So even had jeebus existed and even had he gone to India, he would never - and I mean never - have practised meditation or spoken with Buddhists (more pagans of a different religion who did not recognise the petty creation that is jehovallah).

QUOTE"We are looking at new themes. In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables [in India] and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas [Hindu holy books]," said Mr Keenan, a "lapsed Catholic".New themes, very true. But "looking at new themes" is a falsehood. They are making up new themes: fictions which to jeebus - as per the canonical gospels, where he never uttered a word against the existing slavery - would be entirely alien.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B3c.htm#AncientSlavery
QUOTEThroughout the Bible slavery is as cheerfully and leniently assumed as are war, poverty, and royalty. In the English Bible there is frequent mention, especially in the parables, of "servants." The Greek word is generally "slaves."
Jesus talks about them as coolly as we talk about our housemaids or nurses. Naturally, he would say that we must love them: we must love all men (unless they reject our ideas). But there is not a syllable of condemnation of the institution of slavery. Fornication is a shuddering thing; but the slavery of fifty or sixty million human beings is not a matter for strong language.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabePointing to the sermon on the mount's "the meek shall inherit the earth" is fruitless, it wasn't there in the original bible.

But what do the moviemakers' mean with the "In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables and he defended them with his life" from above? With his life? What, now's he died/was murdered in India? <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /> What next: the evil Hindoos crucified jeebus for his telling "the untouchables" about the 20th century christian invention that is "dalit theology"? (EDITED: 20th century)
Oh, no wait. It says he told them that everyone could read the Vedas. So did he read the Vedas? I doubt it. Not only because I doubt Hindus of that time would have ever let a non-Hindu (especially the non-existent jeebus) have access to our texts; not only because I doubt a half-literate (if that) jeebus could have learnt to read Samskritam and happened to come across the Vedas in his local Walmart; but rather because, according to the babble, the non-existent jeebus of the gospels held up the Ten Commandments of his phather the gawd. Especially the first and foremost: Thou shalt have no other Gods before jehovallah. And the Vedas, had non-existent jeebus read it (or the nit-twits making this movie), is full of Gods and the Brahman underlying all. None of these Hindu Gods are in any way the same as jehovallah - the jehovallah who, as per the babble, recognises the existence of other Gods but doesn't want his flock to recognise them. So I AM SURE that non-existent jeebus-who-never-went-to-India nor anywhere thereabouts, WOULD NEVER HAVE TOLD anyone - "the untouchables" or otherwise - to go read the Vedas.
Who comes up with this ridiculous plotline anyway? And do they think India is peopled with half-wits? They seem to give their target audience no credit at all. Oh but I forgot - that's what "dalit theology" is all about: they condescendingly look down on their victims' intelligence.

Next to that, why would anyone think christianity's non-existent jeebus would have been sincere in his grand "caring about 'the untouchables'", when he demanded this of all his followers:
QUOTE(Luke 14:26) If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.Not the caring sort of person, is he. Why would such a guy - who wanted people to hate their own family - care about unrelated people? Had he existed, what an ingrate he must have been; and worse, to teach other people to be ingrates too!

QUOTEThe producers say they are hoping for commercial and spiritual gains.No kidding. Of course, they're hoping for converts (spiritual gains) and money (commercial gains). Where the former will become an eternal source of the latter for them.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 11-22-2007, 05:25 AM by Husky.)

Part 2 - again about the film mentioned in post 175 (Bodhi):

I have one question. When they are so ready to jump on a mere one-century-old book that is not even an apocryphal gospel, why don't they instead opt for an actual apocryphal one instead? One of those authentic, real, original fictions called 'gospels' in other words - that mass 'literature' that was written by the gospel scribbling people during the centuries of gospel scribbling.
All the gospels of the early centuries are frauds and forgeries of course (not written by any of the 4 Gospelers, or Thomas; nor were they even written in the alleged jeebus' time), as major scholars and historians have documented - but then, so is jeebus. But filming the original gospel frauds certainly wouldn't infringe on the moviemakers' conscience.

So why not make a movie on that "Gospel of Infancy of Jesus" - the one where charming young jeebus goes around striking other kids dead:
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/...4/4devol94.html via
QUOTEAs a boy, Jesus was playing on a river bank on the Sabbath. Another boy came along and saw young Jesus making fish pools and became righteously indignant over Jesus' breaking of the Sabbath laws. The boy set about destroying the pools, whereupon Jesus struck him dead. In the same chapter, Jesus struck another boy dead for bumping into him while running in the street (I Infancy 19).They should really film this gospel, which - going by its early age - is far and away more 'authentic' than the one-century-old aquarian gawdspell. Can you imagine how audiences would emote with the boyhood jeebus and his 'benevolent' antics towards other kids? It would certainly start making sense to them how his homicidal non-existent boyhood led to his non-existent adulthood and how that led to the very real homicidal historic record of christianism.

http://www.cygnus-study.com/pageinf.html has the original translated:
QUOTE"The Gospel of Infancy Thomas" - as translated by Harold Attridge & Ronald F. Hock in the book
The Complete Gospels, Harper Collins, Â©1992This is the source from which India's Syrian christians always told their story of "jesus clapped his hands and the birds he had drawn flew away". Well it has other stories too, not just those of random acts of healing and bringing to life (common motifs in that region in those days), but also of jesus suddenly striking down people with death (rather like jehovallah's whimsical is-he-a-friend-or-foe routine with gawd smiting people and populations down left and right):
QUOTE3 The son of Annas the scholar, standing there with Jesus, took a willow branch and drained the water Jesus had collected. (2)Jesus, however, saw what had happened and became angry, saying to him, "Damn you, you irreverent fool! What harm did the ponds of water do to you? From this moment you, too, will dry up like a tree, and you'll never produce leaves or root or bear fruit."
(3) In an instant the boy had completely withered away. Then Jesus departed and left for the house of Joseph. (4)The parents of the boy who had withered away picked him up and were carrying him out, sad because he was so young. And they came to Joseph and accused him: "It's your fault - your boy did this."
4 Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, "You won't continue your journey." (2)And all of a sudden, he fell down and died.
(3)Some people saw what had happened and said, "Where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly!"
(4)The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him saying, "Because you have such a boy, you can't live with us in the village, or else teach him to bless and not curse. He's killing our children!"Isn't that a beautiful bed-time story? "Homicide-Boy Jeebus will come and get you, My Pretty... Good night, sleep tight."

And here's jesus, staunchly remaining illiterate:QUOTE14 When Joseph saw the child's aptitude, and his great intelligence for his age, he again resolved that Jesus should not remain illiterate. So he took him and handed him over to another teacher. (2)The teacher said to Joseph, "First I'll teach him Greek, then Hebrew." This teacher, of course, knew of the child's previous experience (with a teacher) and was afraid of him. Still, he wrote out the alphabet and instructed him for quite a while, though Jesus was unresponsive.
(3)Then Jesus spoke: "If you're really a teacher, and if you know the letters well, tell me the meaning of the letter alpha, and I'll tell you the meaning of beta."
(4)The teacher became exasperated and hit him on the head. Jesus got angry and cursed him, and the teacher immediately lost consciousness and fell facedown on the ground.
(5)The Child returned to Joseph's house. But Joseph was upset and gave instruction to his mother: "Don't let him go outside, because those who annoy him end up dead."
15 After some time another teacher, a close friend of Joseph, said to him, "Send the child to my schoolroom. Perhaps with some flattery I can teach him his letters."
(2)Joseph replied, "If you can muster the courage, brother, take him with you." And so he took him along with much fear and trepidation, but the child was happy to go.
(3)Jesus strode boldly into the schoolroom and found a book lying on the desk. He took the book but did not read the letters in it. Rather, he opened his mouth and spoke by (the power of) the holy spirit and taught the law to those standing there.
(4)A large crowd gathered and stood listening to him, and they marveled at the maturity of his teaching and his readiness of speech - a mere child able to say such things.
(5)When Joseph heard about this he feared the worst and ran to the schoolroom, imagining that this teacher was having trouble with Jesus.
(6)But the teacher said to Joseph, "Brother, please know that I accepted this child as a student, but already he's full of grace and wisdom. So I'm asking you, brother, to take him back home."
(7)When the child heard this, he immediately smiled at him and said, "Because you have spoken and testified rightly, that other teacher who was struck down will be healed." And right away he was. Joseph took his child and went home.Bold bits above:
(1) Why did they want to teach Greek then Hebrew? Interesting. Probably because the people who penned this apocryphal nonsense were either late Greek christians or christians living in Hellenised lands.
(2) So in this gospel, non-existent boy jeebus memorised the OT's confusion on "Jewish Law" and just regurgitated it to them. (Freethought Mecca calls this sort of behaviour Divine Parroting, I believe.) And he remained proudly illiterate. If neither non-existentent jeebus nor any of his apostles could read, why would he want anyone to read the Vedas? But christians never stop fictionising, and so too these filmmakers.

Anyway, it's perhaps right that these moviemakers feel a bit trepidatious about the "Gospel of Infancy of Jesus" credited to "Thomas". After all,
- It involves infant jeebus going about murdering children.
- And the source - like the accepted canon - is "more authentic" because it's far more ancient than the just-one-century-old Aquarian gawdspell.
That would make it a particularly nasty combination for jeebus' PR on the cinema screens. No, no. We must find something better.

Oooh, how about this one: Morton Smith's alleged discovery of "The Secret Gospel of Mark" in the 1950s or something. Some (especially christian) scholars accuse the author (Professor Smith) of having forged it himself. (But that needn't detain the filmmakers either, because it is known the Aquarian gospel nonsense was written but a century back and they're eager to film that!) Other scholars, though, believe the Secret Gospel of Mark which Morton Smith found in the ME is actually authentic - these scholars include Gnostic Gospels expert Elaine Pagels who wrote the foreword to Smith's book on it, and Scott G. Brown (whose written for Biblical Archaeological Review and other biblical journals).
So there is some significant scholarly support for this Gospel. (The discovered/disputed text (quite short) is at http://www.cygnus-study.com/pagesecm.html )According to the accepted interpretation of this gospel: Jeebus is gay here. In any case, in spite of the church having always been so severely against the particular sexual orientation non-existent jeebus reveals in this entry, I just know a movie about this gospel would most definitely endear the christian church and its flock to jeebus. Don't you?

On that note, look what I found! Hysterical:
"Was Jesus Gay", part of "Pat Condell's Godless Comedy"
- mp3 version of it at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/
- video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYfDlIa-Z8
(from the mp3 listing there, he does a lot on islam and christianity - he's even got one funnily titled as "United States of Jesus")

dhu · 11-22-2007, 12:24 AM

QUOTE(Husky @ Nov 21 2007, 07:07 PM)But a book aimed at a particular population - in this case, India's Hindus - is nothing new. Christianity gave rise to many bibles, gospels and chapters meant specifically for different peoples: to make them into future sheep. So there were gospels and chapters for ("of") the Egyptians, for ("of") the Hebrews, a chapter for the Romans, a bible or gospel for the Persians (Manichaens), one or more gospels for the Gnostics (so they would become gnostic christians), and more such. 

http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2b.htm#EarlyBiblesGospels
Not all of them actually wrote the stuff attributed to them, some were merely on the receiving end. I read somewhere that many of these - rather than having been written by the people in question as they purport to be - were written to be intended for them. (No idea now where I read it, will have to come back to this. Can't believe me until I find the proof to back up the statement.)

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