toxicTom: Are your trying to get me angry here? I studied five years of ancient history and philosphy. At universities, Dresden and Leipzig, to be precise. You've heard about the library at Leipzig? Where every book ever published in German is available? What are your credentials? (I usually don't ask this, but claim my source was "Da Vinci Code" is a provocation).
I'm sorry, I was not trying to get you angry, but the things you've said so far about the Bible are on par with Zeitgeist or Da Vinci Code. No other work in history has anywhere near the wealth of manuscripts and Gospels have details in them that would only be found in high quality eyewitness accounts.
toxicTom: You do know that the ancient Egyptians, probably knew about elictricity, that they maybe had light bulbs, that they knew about steam power (but had no steel to make a proper steam engine). That they could perfom brain surgery on living subjects? And all that hundreds or thousands (depending on the dating, that is not that easy with Egypt) of years before the OT was even written down.
I'm aware that Egyptians having light bulbs is yet another conspiracy theory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpwzQPecNN8 The earliest I can find about steam power is Hero's steam engine, but that dates to the 1st century. I'm also aware that there are a number of instances of ancients surviving brain surgery, but I don't see what that has to do with the OT.
toxicTom: You also know that important parts of the OT have been "disproved" to have taken place as stated (i.e. the jewish tribe did this or that). That they probably were just accounts of other people that were incoporated into "official" history?
I'm aware that a number of events in the OT have been considered to have been "disproved" but archaeology continues to overturn that.
toxicTom: I'm not saying and have never said, that the Bible is without truth and wisdom. It's an account of how people saw the world when is was narrated (thousands of years(!)) later written down. It's a merit in itself and a great human achievement that this was at all possible. But the people who narrated the stories over this incomprehesible amount of time (think only thousand years back!), and the people who wrote it finally down were just humans and so susceptible to human fallacies, influenced by personal motivations, misunderstandings, pressures from the powers above (leaders, priests) and what not. Stories like the Great Flood have been traced back to the city of Uruk (that's ca. 4000 BCE) and they were old back then. They just involved a different pantheon, but are very similar.
Most modern Assyriologists don't trance the Great Flood to the city of Uruk. There are superficial similarities, but there are significant differences and no cases of borrowing.
http://christianthinktank.com/gilgymess.html toxicTom: If your want to be blind, so be it. You claim you "want to know", but you really don't.
"The symbolism has nothing in common." I image you sitting there putting your hand to your ears singing "lalala" just because you don't want to hear.
Superficial details do not establish that one was borrowed from the other. I'm all ears if you want to make your case.
toxicTom: Well. The story of Adonis (including his death) was written down 600 BCE. As I said, take any number of messianic gods. BCE. If you concentrate on the details you can always say "they're not like Jesus". If you don't want to see, keep your eyes shut. "Snow White", "Frau Hulda", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Little Red Riding Hood" also have common themes (Rites of Passage), but are very different fairytales.
I made a mistake, so I'm willing to grant that his death was known earlier. Still, it's not just that the details are different, but that the themes completely different as well.
toxicTom: Does not cause major blood loss.
Matthew 27:27-30 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.
The thorns would have been around 1-2 inches ling and being struck on the head again and again would have caused severe bleeding.
toxicTom: Source? The Romans had no intention to kill him.
All four Gospels accounts report that he was scourged. The Greek is 1 Peter 2:24 describes it as being particularly harsh. They weren't trying to kill him...yet, but he was in no condition to carry his cross.
toxicTom: No. The breaking of legs was done immediately after putting them to the cross. The Romans were no monsters. It was done immediately to the two criminals that were crucified with Jesus. It was not done to Jesus at his request or one of the bystander (gotta check my literature here).
It's odd that you would say they had a practice of nailing someones hands and feet to a cross, but that they weren't monsters.
John 9:31-33 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
It doesn't take very long for someone to die on a cross after their legs were broken, and they had already been on the cross for hours, so it was not done immediately, but because they were taking too long to die.
toxicTom: They prepared the body for burial, but then they needed more "spices" than usual. You would presume, that, when they were were dealing with a dead body, they would know what they're doing. (Mk.16:1-2; Lk.24:1.). Myrrh is expicitely stated and served as blood-moving (anti-arthritic) and anti-septic. Perfect for someone who is a) wounded and b) was fixed in a position for a prolonged time.
Myrrh was a standard spice in Jewish burial practices and the number of pounds was not unusual for someone that was royal or being honored. For instance, Onkelos used eighty pounds of spices at Gamaliel's death.
Soyeong: It does not test as well in explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, level of ad hocness, and illumination.
toxicTom: ??
Those are methods historians use to test competing hypotheses.
toxicTom: They did things wrong, because they were human. Does that term ring any bells?
It's not that they got a few things wrong, but that nearly everything wrong, any few of which would have been a strong hindrance against Christianity surviving its inception, but taken together would have made it next to impossible. For instance, having women discover the empty tomb would have been an embarrassing detail that they could have changed if they trying to give credibility to their new religion. The main reason to include embarrassing details is if they were trying to be truthful, so historians give strong credibility to them.
toxicTom: Also, the death of the Messiah is part of the ritual. That's the ultimate Symbol. How would you start a religion other than that? (If you mean it).
The death of a Messiah was generally taken to be proof that they were a false Messiah, not a validation of them being one. The "ultimate Symbol" is pretty much as vague as it gets.
toxicTom: You don't know a lot about the Roman empire, do you? I won't read the history books to you.
It doesn't take a Roman historian to tell you that persecution is not motivating factor to join a group.
toxicTom: I already answered that. Romans != Roman establishement. You really have a "Us-and-Them" problem. "I'm individual but they're all alike."
I'm aware of that, I was speaking generally.
toxicTom: The econonmy declined from 50 BCE on. That was being felt by most people. The society declined from the days of Julius Caesar that's even before Christ. The end of the Pax Romana was a symptom of the progressing "fall", not the reason. May I repeat that you know nothing about Roman history?
I don't claim to be a Roman historian, but most of what I've read indicates that the Pax Romana was the height of the Roman Empire. Reasons for the decline are generally attributes to emperors or events that were much later than 50 BCE. Some even attribute Christianity as part of the cause of the decline, but Christianity had already been established at that point.
