The Historicity of Jesus Christ

[Abramelin]

@Ajay0

Here a thread started by another 'enlightened master':

He never showed up again.

And I asked him:

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/364818-the-promised-saviourcont/#comment-7546746

 

Edited September 13, 2024 by Abramelin

[eight bits]

On 9/9/2024 at 3:38 AM, Ajay0 said:

Rather than investigating whether he existed or not,

Whether he existed or not is the topic of this thread.

Quote

the focus should be on attaining enlightenment oneself.

Perhaps you might start your own thread on that topic.

BTW, why do you presume your readers have not yet attained enlightenment? Seems cheeky just to assume something like that about people whom you've never met.

Quote

It is at the vantage point of enlightenment that one can really figure out whether such a one existed or not, as the teachings become an experential knowledge in itself and not mere intellectual knowledge.

No, he existed or he didn't. Your or my enlightenment or lingering in the heavy darkness doesn't matter a whit, and our appreciation of the distilled wisdom of Judaism placed in his mouth won't help either of us discern whether he was real, fictive, or a muddle of both.

[Ajay0]

12 hours ago, Abramelin said:

@Ajay0

Here a thread started by another 'enlightened master':

He never showed up again.

And I asked him:

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/364818-the-promised-saviourcont/#comment-7546746

 

I have read his thread !

How can you presume someone like him to be enlightened like the Buddha or Ramana or Rumi or Meher Baba or Anandamayi Ma !

This itself shows ignorance of the phenomenon of enlightenment in the west. 

And this could be one of the reasons why 'historicity' of Jesus is important rather than his teachings , which itself has been considerably editted in Romanized Christianity so as to render it incoherent and vague, and not a very reliable roadmap to enlightenment, as it used to be in the earlier versions of Christianity. Same goes for the later protestants who adopted a similar blueprint of scriptural dogma.

Edited September 14, 2024 by Ajay0

[Abramelin]

1 hour ago, Ajay0 said:

How can you presume someone like him to be enlightened like the Buddha or Ramana or Rumi or Meher Baba or Anandamayi Ma !

 

How can you presume Buddha, Ramana, Rumi, Meher Baba or anyone you ever posted about are enlightened masters?

[Ajay0]

2 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

How can you presume Buddha, Ramana, Rumi, Meher Baba or anyone you ever posted about are enlightened masters?

The Indian civilizational timeline is 5000 years and more. We had much more time to study these subjects in depth. The Hindu, Buddhist, Jain scriptures as well as later Sufi literature covers this subject a lot.

Western psychology, because of its relative infancy, is making ground but will still take some time to cover these areas. It has embarked on the study of the unconscious mind just a century back, but this has been studied deeply in eastern psychology for milleniums.  

[Abramelin]

12 minutes ago, Ajay0 said:

The Indian civilizational timeline is 5000 years and more. We had much more time to study these subjects in depth.

Would you agree that studying this subject doesn't necessarily mean that the Indian civilization is more advanced - spiritually speaking - than other civilizations?

Just look at India of the present moment. People living in the gutters by the many millions, ànd people sending rockets to the moon. And then the ancient caste system...

[Ajay0]

Just now, Abramelin said:

Would you agree that studying this subject doesn't necessarily mean that the Indian civilization is more advanced - spiritually speaking - than other civilizations?

Because it had more time on certain subjects it has had developed a certain expertise in them. If western civilization similarly attains a similar timeline, it would also experience the same level of advancement or even more.

Quote

Just look at India of the present moment. People living in the gutters by the many millions, ànd people sending rockets to the moon. And then the ancient caste system...

India was the richest nation along with China in the world for many milleniums as per economic historians. It unfortunately underwent through a phase of western colonialism which drained its wealth and rendered it poverty-stricken.

However it has emerged after independence to become the fastest growing economy on earth minting billionaires and millionaires with each passing day.

The caste system was a feudal system similar to that in europe, japan and korea. It enabled a certain specialization of disciplines which were relevant at that period of time. For example an accountant could teach his professional knowledge to his sons or nephews or other relatives and ensure the continuity of the technical knowledge involved within the same caste. Superior logistics and technology and universal availability of education at present has rendered it an obsolete system. It has no basis in the Vedas and is entirely man-made .

[jmccr8]

46 minutes ago, Ajay0 said:

Because it had more time on certain subjects it has had developed a certain expertise in them. If western civilization similarly attains a similar timeline, it would also experience the same level of advancement or even more.

India was the richest nation along with China in the world for many milleniums as per economic historians. It unfortunately underwent through a phase of western colonialism which drained its wealth and rendered it poverty-stricken.

However it has emerged after independence to become the fastest growing economy on earth minting billionaires and millionaires with each passing day.

The caste system was a feudal system similar to that in europe, japan and korea. It enabled a certain specialization of disciplines which were relevant at that period of time. For example an accountant could teach his professional knowledge to his sons or nephews or other relatives and ensure the continuity of the technical knowledge involved within the same caste. Superior logistics and technology and universal availability of education at present has rendered it an obsolete system. It has no basis in the Vedas and is entirely man-made .

HI Ajay 

You know walking behind an ox or a horse with a plow didn't require a whole lot of mental stimulation so an active and inquisitive mind of a whole brain species capable of multi-tasking like shaving and eating a drive through bacon, cheese, egg sandwich while driving and texting during face time meditated about may things like why am I in love with a woman I can't stand while looking at the sway of an ox's a$$. 

[+Hammerclaw]

Did the Buddha even exist?

[eight bits]

6 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

And this could be one of the reasons why 'historicity' of Jesus is important rather than his teachings , which itself has been considerably editted in Romanized Christianity so as to render it incoherent and vague, and not a very reliable roadmap to enlightenment, as it used to be in the earlier versions of Christianity. Same goes for the later protestants who adopted a similar blueprint of scriptural dogma.

You might wish to reflect on which argument you want to make in this thread::that  we should be studying his teachings, or instead that the available corpus of his teaching has been so "Romanized" as to render it "incoherent and vague."

The earliest version of Christianity we know anything about is Paul's, a Greek-speaking Jew who apparently never met Jesus and shows little or no interest in anything a flesh-and-blood Jesus might have said or done. And we know something else from his letters: Paul knew of other versions of Christianity, different from his own, versions we can only guess about.

How different? The gospel of Mark may have been written within 10-20 years of Paul's last surviving letter. In Mark, John the Baptist looms over the action throughout the gospel, as important a figure as Simon Peter, and the Baptist is Jesus's teacher. Extant Paul says not one word about John the Baptist, even when discussing baptism.

We cannot be certain, but the picture suggested by the facts of the previous paragraph is that among the very earliest Christians, some followed John the Baptist, just as they believed that Jesus had followed him, and other Christians ignored John completely.

[+Hammerclaw]

What is Enlightenment, other than a smug "ascetic" scarfing free services, free money and free meals off of ignorant peasants, in awe of his pretentious double-talk, wanting to reward him for his trials and tribulations and "enlightening" their pocketbooks.

[Piney]

5 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

The Indian civilizational timeline is 5000 years and more.

bull****. 

5000 years ago the Proto-Indo Europeans were all one little happy group of warlike nomads in the Ukraine. 

[Piney]

5 hours ago, Ajay0 said:

Because it had more time on certain subjects it has had developed a certain expertise in them. If western civilization similarly attains a similar timeline, it would also experience the same level of advancement or even more.

India was the richest nation along with China in the world for many milleniums as per economic historians. It unfortunately underwent through a phase of western colonialism which drained its wealth and rendered it poverty-stricken.

However it has emerged after independence to become the fastest growing economy on earth minting billionaires and millionaires with each passing day.

The caste system was a feudal system similar to that in europe, japan and korea. It enabled a certain specialization of disciplines which were relevant at that period of time. For example an accountant could teach his professional knowledge to his sons or nephews or other relatives and ensure the continuity of the technical knowledge involved within the same caste. Superior logistics and technology and universal availability of education at present has rendered it an obsolete system. It has no basis in the Vedas and is entirely man-made .

The Harrapans were Tamil, not Aryan and the Indo-Aryans always had a caste system.

[cormac mac airt]

52 minutes ago, Piney said:

The Harrapans were Tamil, not Aryan and the Indo-Aryans always had a caste system.

I have to wonder how a claim of Indian Civilization going back 5000 years isn’t considered cultural appropriation, at least to some degree, since the IVC actually originated in Pakistan and nothing distinctly Indian occurred until the IVC’s collapse and the migration of Aryans into the area. Even Sanskrit comes from the northwest about 1200 BC. 
 

cormac

[Ajay0]

3 hours ago, Piney said:

The Harrapans were Tamil, not Aryan and the Indo-Aryans always had a caste system.

You forget the case of Satyakama Jabala, a composer of major portions of the Vedas and who was the illegitimate son of a prostitute.  He was taken as a disciple by his Guru on account of his honesty, character and merit. He is revered in the Vedic religion as a great sage and scholar. There was no caste system back then which was a later social development .

You are living in the world of debunked history. 

The term Aryan is seldom used by modern historians, and 'Indo-european' is used instead.

The Arya in eastern Dhamic philosophy means the 'noble one' or one of noble character or conduct, characterised by higher states of consciousness.This is how it is defined in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

If you look into it, you can see that the Avatars Rama, Krishna as well as other prominent characters like Bharatha, Abhimanyu, Drona, Draupadi, Arjuna, Nakula, Pradyumna, Damayanti are considered to be dark-skinned in the ancient Hindu scriptures. Same goes for Vishnu who is considered to be an 'Aryan' god by historians of the older school and is characterized as dark-skinned as well.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Swami Chinmayananda and the Prajapita Brahmakumaris have also stated that the term Arya means one of noble character or conduct and is not a race related term.

Swami Ranganathananda has expounded on the term Arya in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita...

' Arya is not a race; Arya means a noble-minded person. The word Arya is often confused with a race. In the beginning, western historians propounded this theory of the Aryan race. That developed into Hitler's Aryan superiority. And when Hitler died, the Aryan race theory also died ! But the word Arya is used in sanskrit always for the noble-minded person.

Take any sanskrit drama. The person will address another character as 'My dear Arya,noble-minded person'. And Buddha spoke of his teachings as Arya-satyani, Noble Truths. Noble is the word for Arya there. The four Noble truths, Arya Satyani. So, the word Arya was used by Buddha, as also by earlier Vedic literature.

And this word, Arya is, therefore, a very great word in Sanskrit. Be an Aryan means, be noble-minded. Don't be petty, don't be small. ' ~ Swami Ranganathananda, commentary of the Bhagavad gita ( Volume 1,Chapter 2.88)

 

The Arya in eastern Dhamic philosophy means the 'noble one' or one of noble character or conduct, characterised by higher states of consciousness.

This is what the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophies teach in India. Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Anandamayi Ma can be seen as ideal Aryas.

The western interpretation of recent times is a perverted and deluded one with a racial tone denying or overlooking the eastern emphasis on consciousness and character, which has had disastrous consequences in the last century through the second world war and the resulting holocausts which killed over a hundred million people. This interpretation can be said to be focussing on body-consciousness as per eastern philosophy, which focusses on the body rather than the Self or Buddha nature within, fostering unconsciousness which sequences to inauspiciousness and self-destructive actions.

[Piney]

6 hours ago, cormac mac airt said:

I have to wonder how a claim of Indian Civilization going back 5000 years isn’t considered cultural appropriation, at least to some degree, since the IVC actually originated in Pakistan and nothing distinctly Indian occurred until the IVC’s collapse and the migration of Aryans into the area. Even Sanskrit comes from the northwest about 1200 BC. 
 

cormac

Hindutva...

[Abramelin]

Ok, back to the historic reality of Jesus. Thàt was the original topic.

Now, I have posted about an 'alternative' Jesus as portrayed in Donovan Joyce's book "The Jesus Scroll".

Piney questioned the existence of this scroll, and so did I.

Well, as I seem to be the only one who read the damn book (because I have the book), I will post some photos of the pages that are about where the scroll went.

Next some photos of the pages of the book, and I hope you all can read them...

Edited September 14, 2024 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

Ok, something went wrong.

My former post should show 4 photos.

 

[Piney]

7 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

Ok, back to the historic reality of Jesus. Thàt was the original topic.

Now, I have posted about an 'alternative' Jesus as portrayed in Donovan Joyce's book "The Jesus Scroll".

Piney questioned the existence of this scroll, and so did I.

Well, as I seem to be the only one who read the damn book (because I have the book), I will post some photos of the pages that are about where the book went.

Next some photos of the pages of the book, and I hope you all can read them...

Podgorny and Paul's meeting was about allowing the Catholic Church back into the Soviet Bloc. This whole scroll story seems like it was pulled from Joyce's ass. 

[cormac mac airt]

28 minutes ago, Piney said:

Podgorny and Paul's meeting was about allowing the Catholic Church back into the Soviet Bloc. This whole scroll story seems like it was pulled from Joyce's ass. 

Jews didn't change their names like that either, meaning Yeshua ben Yusef DIDN'T morph into Yeshua ben Ya’akob, two different fathers and therefore two different people. 

cormac

[Abramelin]

11 hours ago, cormac mac airt said:

Jews didn't change their names like that either, meaning Yeshua ben Yusef DIDN'T morph into Yeshua ben Ya’akob, two different fathers and therefore two different people. 

cormac

If you read the book, you'll know why Joyce came up with that. Or check what I already posted.

[eight bits]

56 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

If you read the book, you'll know why Joyce came up with that. Or check what I already posted.

Presumably this:

Quote

Moreover, just because Jeshua Ben Jacob says that he is the son of Jacob and not Joseph, this does not necessarily make his story unbelievable, because Joseph is not the father in the first place. Matthew and the rest of the gospel writers claim that the holy ghost is Jesus’ father. Since Jeshua Ben Jacob wrote his own autobio¬ graphy, he should have known his father more so than anybody.

Mark and John don't claim the Holy Spirit is Jesus's father. Luke handles the matter with a vague speech by the angel Gabriel to Mary, only Matthew  has the author assert divine parentage as a narrated fact while introducing a dreamt angel telling Joseph about Mary's affair with the Holy Spirit.

How would Joseph not being Jesus's father's name make Jesus's father's name be Jacob?

Jeshua ben Jacob knew his father more than anybody? Than his mother, to name one? Speaking personally, I identify my own father based on what I have been told by people who were around enough before I arrived to have timely knowledge about the question. My mother, to name one. Why was this man told his father's name was Jacob, but his followers came to think that the name was Joseph?

What is in the quote box is simply not an explanation.

Edited September 15, 2024 by eight bits

[Abramelin]

13 minutes ago, eight bits said:

What is in the quote box is simply not an explanation.

As soon as you read the book, search for "Alpheus".

[eight bits]

12 hours ago, Abramelin said:

As soon as you read the book, search for "Alpheus".

OK. Pulled up the book on internet archive and searched for alpheus. Joyce seems to think that the apostle "James/Jacob son of Alpheus" (Mark 3:18) is the same James whom Paul describes as a "brother of the Lord" (Galatians 1:18). Assuming that Paul was uncharacteristically referring to a kinship relation when using fraternal language, and if full brotherhood was meant, then Alpheus would be the father of both Jesus and James.

In contrast, I think Mark's James/Jacob son of Alphaeus is a different character than the James/Jacob whom the townsfolk know and whom they suspect is Jesus's brother, no father's name being mentioned (Mark 6:3). And looking past that would still leave the question about why Jesus would think his father is named Jacob/James while his followers thank that the father's name is Joseph and the real father's name is Alpheus.

[Alter2Ego]

 

Alter2Ego said:

PERSON #1:

Name and Occupation: Cornelius Tacitus, Roman Historian

DOB to Date of Death: A.D. 55 to A.D. 120

Attitude Towards Christianity: Hostile

What He Said: He confirmed that CHRISTUS (a common misspelling of Christ at the time) was executed by Pilate. 

  

On 9/2/2024 at 12:00 AM, Alchopwn said:

The problem is that the term Christus means "the anointed with oil"  and actually referred to the hybrid Egyptian god Serapis, long before it ever applied to Yeshua ben David.  Serapis was worshipped in Alexandria, and his high priests were called Bishops.  Alexandria was also where John the Baptist had his primary ministry, by which I mean the most converts.

Josephus is the best evidence for an historical Jesus.  A very old nobleman with the correct name is mentioned during the siege of Masada.  No doubt he suicided like the rest.

Calling someone a "God of the Christians" is far from suggesting this was a real person.

Shall we now address the case for the nagative?

Alchopwn:

So it's your understanding that the Roman Historian Tacitus was referring to an Egyptian god when he stated "Christus was executed by Pilate."  That's your understanding; correct?