Sparky Steals From His Betters:
Xtians really Paulists ——
“Jesus” Was Only A Whisper
Campaign Gone Horribly Wrong

"The conversion of Paul was no conversion at all: it was Paul who converted the religion that has raised one man above sin and death into a religion that delivered millions of men so completely into their dominion that their own common nature became a horror to them, and the religious life became a denial of life." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

I go farther than Hyam Maccoby in saying that Paul of Tarsus created the whisper campaign that spawned 'Jesus' as we know "him" today.



The events surrounding "Jesus" were supposed to have taken place within a certain time in history, normally taken to be around 4 BCE to 33 CE. A rudimentary knowledge of the history during that period is needed. The main information sources of Jesus' life are from the documents known as the gospels. It is important to note that there is no independent contemporaneous source, external to the gospels, that gives any reliable information about Jesus. Thus it becomes very important to know as much as we can about the background of these gospels: namely the authorship, date of composition and general reliability. Next we ask ourselves the obvious question, could documents written at least close to half a century after the death of its main character, by non-eyewitnesses, give reliable testimonies of that person's life. We ask whether the oral tradition gives us confidence in the gospels? The answer is a resounding "No." The elapsed period between the written account and the purported events certainly allow corruption of the stories.

For Example: The Nativity is 100% mythological with no basis in historical fact. Ironically, the best external support for this comes from an episode in the gospel of Mark.

1. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke contradict one another.
2. The Virgin Birth is based upon pagan myths and a mistranslation of Isaiah.
3. Despite what the Catholic Church teaches, Mary was no "perpetual virgin".
4. The stories relating to "Jesus'" birth in Bethlehem are not consistent.
5. The story of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, told in Matthew is a work of pure fiction.
6. The two stories in Matthew and Luke with respect to their (Joseph, Mary and "Jesus") settling in Nazareth are not compatible.
7. Matthew openly relies on Old Testament passages to construct his story of the nativity. In some cases he even twisted the Old Testament passages to fit his story.
8. Two historical events, the census of Quirinius and the death of Herod, separated from each other by a decade, were presented in the gospels as contemporaneous.
9. The Herod-Quirinius problem means that any attempt to date the birth of Jesus based on the gospel accounts, is predestined to fail.
10. Other elements of the Nativity can also be shown to be unreliable. These stories were most likely constructed from the ground up from Old Testament accounts and popular myths.

First rewriting Old Testament stories to make up new stories have little to do with dishonesty, at least in the way the first century evangelists see it. The key word here is midrash. It is a method used by the ancient Jewish theologians to interpret and expand the sacred scripture. It is the belief that current events are somehow tied to past sacred events in a very systematic way. That it is present in the Old Testament has been long known to theologians. Old Testament passages actually takes precedence over the evangelists other source documents. As example, Matthew copied extensively from Mark, and must have considered it to be a reasonably reliable source. Yet he would change Mark's account if it does not fit into what Matthew believed to be Old Testament prediction about "Jesus." The glaring example is the passage where Matthew had "Jesus" sitting on two donkeys at the same time during the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Secondly, we see above that Matthew did not faithfully record what the Old Testament verses said. He twisted and changed the passages to make them fit his theological preconceptions. So, far from proving the Bible prophecies, reliance on Old Testament passages tends to point towards the basic unhistoricity of the stories.

No reference whatsoever to "Jesus" from contemporaneous Jewish sources exists:

1. Philo of Alexandria: would have been a contemporary of "Jesus" — someone who maintained an active interest in the welfare of Israel and thus should have learnt of this Son of God — and in his writings there is no mention of "Jesus" or his followers.
2. Justus of Tiberias was a Jewish historian who was born in Galilee about the time of the claimed crucifixion. In his two great works, a history of the war of independence and a chronicle of events from Moses to Agrippa II (d. 100 CE), not a single reference was made to "Jesus."
3. Flavius Josephus was trained as a Pharisee and the passages attributed to him do not read true to this; It fails a standard test for authenticity, in that it contains vocabulary not used by Josephus per the Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus, ed. K. H. Rengstorf, 2002. Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West. Most scholars do not believe Josephus wrote the passages, but that it is a later addition by Christian scribes - Bishop Warburton denounced it as "a rank forgery and a very stupid one, too."
4. The Canonization of the Tenach occurred between 180 BCE through 200 CE. It does not mention 'Jesus' anywhere.

No independent historical testimony on "Jesus" from non-Christian sources exists either:

1. Cornelius Tacitus echoed popular opinion about "Jesus" and had no independent source of information. The passage in the Annals as written in 115 CE has no value as a historical evidence for "Jesus."
2. His contemporary Suetonius's erroneous single use of the title Chrestus as though it was a proper name indicates that he got his information from popular opinion and not independent historical testimony as he is talking of the period of 41 - 54 CE when Claudius is ruling Rome as Emperor. He also seems to imply that there was someone called Chrestus in Rome in 49CE when the expulsion occurred. This makes him a very dubious source indeed.

Missionaries lie ... and are ignorant of their own dogma. Lay persons are just displaying “magical thinking” ...

References
ISBN 0968601405 The Jesus Puzzle. Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?: Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus, Earl Doherty, Publisher: Canadian Humanist Pubns; 1st edition (October 19, 1999)
ISBN 085632096X The Jesus Hoax, Phyllis Graham, Publisher: Frewin; (1974)
ISBN 2226047298 Jesus, Charles Guignebert, Publisher: Albin Michel; (December 31, 1969)
ISBN 0879752564 An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, Gordon Stein, Publisher: Prometheus Books; (December 1, 1989)
ISBN 087975429X The Historical Evidence for Jesus, George A.Wells, Publisher: Prometheus Books; (January 1, 1988)
ISBN 089526239 Jesus: The Evidence, Ian Wilson, Publisher: Regnery Publishing; 1 edition (October 1, 2000)

Links:
* Did the Jews have the right to execute?"
* Rejection of Pascal's Wager: which strongly influenced the above...
* Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?
* Reasons Why Christians Suck


AMERICA's FAVORITE DATE RAPIST
SHOWING HIS SMOOTH APPROACH

Reagan Quote: Detail:
"Everything is falling into place. It can't be long now. Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean they'll be destroyed by nuclear weapons... Gog the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north... Gog must be Russia... now that Russia has set itself against God... it fits the description of Gog perfectly."
-- Rapist, Cad, Future President and Hollywood's Mafia pointman Ronald Reagan, in a speech delivered during a political function (1971) - From page 129 of The Bible Tells Me So: Uses and Abuses of Holy Scripture by Jim Hill and Rand Cheadle (Anchor Books, New York: 1996)

Next Sparky guest blog will tell you what to say to Christian Missionaries hopefully.
- 0&o - Sparky