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Who Killed Jesus?

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youkrst

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Hi DWill

my comment "ditch literalism if you want to enjoy life" was directed more at literalist believers who may suffer acutely trying to make a literalist interpretation actually work as a viable belief system. It's just a paraphrase of two bible verses.

the letter (literalism) kills but the spirit (metaphoric reference) gives life

and

if the blind follow the blind will they not both fall into a ditch

many have fallen into that ditch of literalism and it is not a pretty sight let alone a life affirming experience.
so to the christian i meant to say if you want to enjoy life more then ditch literalism and study the origins of your faith.

but that was not so much what you were saying so please let me address that, you said
DWill wrote:Can you name anything comparable in mythology, where the god has a complete life as a human and gets involved in society in the way Jesus is shown to do?
i think it will suffice to stop short with the question

Can you name anything comparable in mythology

i know that was not your question but indeed comparative mythology will unravel the whole confusing jesus mess.

the egyptians had the krst then the hindus have Krishna then we have the Christ of christianity then the Christ of the gnostics and the buddhists have the buddha

so if we study side by side krishna buddha christ and horus (just these four for starters) we find absolutely striking parallels

moreover if we then examine how the gnostics mythical christ who was a metaphoric reference to the transcendant within became literalised into the "literal historical christ" we then begin to see how this whole blunder got started.

then if we study mithra, attis, apis, tamuz, etc etc etc then mystery religions etc etc it all becomes clear that orthodox doctrine citing a literal historic christ is a perversion of an ancient doctrine that was pre-extant thousands of years before the supposed literal historic christ was even said to exist.

i've studied and lived this subject for getting on to 30 years and it wasnt until i got to comparative mythology and comparative religion that i began to untangle the unholy mess of literalism

not just christian literalism, there is buddhist literalism, hindu literalism, islamic literalism, jewish literalism etc etc etc

then there is understanding the metaphors

ok, if you insist on a literal jesus, prove it... (if you will)

a guy walks on water (literally) but no-one outside the bible mentions it hmmmmmm could it be jesus walking on the water is a metaphor for the christ (transcendant within) triumphing over adversity in matter (your body).

ok, what about the story of the slaughter of the infants

we read in hindu mythology that an evil King heard that the eighth child of a woman would be his undoing so he killed babies to prevent the prophecy from coming true, to no avail, the baby was hidden from him and indeed was his undoing...

here is a link to the story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQBH1UoyyLI

this mythological motif is also echoed in the story of moses

so we have a major motif attributed to the historical jesus that was told many many years before the supposed historical christ was even supposed to have been born

the only reason literalism survives is because people do not know the sheer volume of parallels in the various ancient mythologies

go looking for the evidence for an historical jesus and you may just catch my point. Everyone just assumes that the case is open shut and that is a big mistake that a con-man will often use to advantage, people used to assume the earth was flat, another blunder.

after reading much material from many many authors it soon becomes obvious that the jesus of orthodox belief is a literalisation of the mythical christ who is a metaphor whose reference is to the immanent divine within us.

the bible itself is full of gnostic doctrine that predates the historical christ

christ in you the hope of glory
the kingdom is within
i am the vine you are the branches

so on and so forth

i know this subject well and i am convinced that once comparative religion and comparative mythology are studied for awhile only a willfully ignorant imbecile will fail to see the blindingly obvious.

to all those who insist on a literal historic jesus without having taken any time to know the subject in the histories and origins of the christian faith i can only hope that one day they will look and see for themselves that orthodox christianity can be reconstructed from materials that pre-date it by sometimes thousands of years.
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DWill

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Thanks, youkrst, for taking the time to reply. On at least one point, I don't think you answered the question I addressed, which was whether you could name gods whose lives as humans are chronicled the way Jesus' life is. This seems to me a very important difference, one that indicates to me that we have a person here getting the ball rolling. We wouldn't have these four looks at who this person was, so full of social and political conflict very similar to what we see every day, if these stories were written as enactments of mythic motifs. What gets into the stories as they develop over the years from the core of a person having made an impression of some kind, is a different matter. Then you can talk about what influenced the myth of Jesus. Viewing the New Testament as solely mythical tends to cover up the real and convincing historical facts and conflicts we see within those writings.
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stahrwe

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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DWill wrote: I, personally, don't feel negatively toward the Jews and Pharisees reading those texts, any more than I feel negatively toward Pharaoh when reading Genesis.
The bad 'Pharoah' is not mentioned in Genesis. He shows up in Exodus. The Pharoah in Genesis is friendly toward the Jews.
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DWill

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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stahrwe wrote:
DWill wrote: I, personally, don't feel negatively toward the Jews and Pharisees reading those texts, any more than I feel negatively toward Pharaoh when reading Genesis.
The bad 'Pharoah' is not mentioned in Genesis. He shows up in Exodus. The Pharoah in Genesis is friendly toward the Jews.
Sorreee!
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Chris OConnor

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Stahrwe wrote:In fact He raised several from the dead.
Thank you for making my morning coffee so much more enjoyable. I don't know why I find the concept of Jesus raising people up from the dead so funny, but I almost spit my coffee on my laptop as I read your words. I can see you believing this if you were 5 - 11 years old, but hearing a grown man say something so silly is humorous.
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stahrwe

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Chris OConnor wrote: I can see you believing this if you were 5 - 11 years old, but hearing a grown man say something so silly is humorous.
I will be happy to provide you with a list adult men of high intellect who have believed this.

Why do you find it so silly?
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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Stahrwe wrote:
Dwill wrote:The scarcity of written accounts in parallel with the Bible doesn't mean that the Bible must be accurate by default. A "source" can also be considered archaeological, and such sources have sometimes cast doubt on the Bible's history.


We have been through this over and over and over, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Within the context of this "absence of evidence", you are considering the bible true by default. What reason do you have to consider the bible true when there is an absence of evidence? DWill wasn't claiming that it was false, he was asking you why you believed it was true. This is especially the case when there is evidence that contradicts what the bible says, as he pointed out.
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stahrwe

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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There is not a lack of evidence in support of the Bible, what there is is an automatic rejection of any evidence in support of the Bible. We have been over this in the Epistemology discussion. Evidence was not even considered before being rejected.
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Chris OConnor

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Stahrwe wrote:Why do you find it so silly?
Because it clearly never happened.
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stahrwe

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Re: Who Killed Jesus?

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Chrsi,

That's your explanation?
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