adepeter26:
Some Christians will take you to be devil sir @bold.

I love your posts. Following

Sarassin:
Thanks, you're probably right!

Sarassin:

Even if we allow for the fact that Jesus’ ministry was short-lived, and it was, lasting no more than a year or two at the most, and the fact that his ministry was mostly subsumed within the Messianic movement of John the Baptist, it is not unreasonable to expect that contemporary secular historians would have made extraordinary attempts to place on record an historical account of a man who’s teachings were to so irretrievably change the world.

Those who doubt the existence of Jesus point to this paucity of historical accounts as evidence that Jesus never lived, those who believe in him point to the gospel accounts and the few extant secular sources such as Josephus, as evidence that Jesus did indeed live. Surely the view of a disinterested observer cannot be anything other than that, verifiable evidence provided so far, for or against the historicity of Jesus is simply insufficient. Personally, I accept that the Messiah lived and died but I do not agree with either side that the secular evidence provided so far is sufficient enough to substantiate a conclusion either way.

The question therefore remains to be asked; Apart from Gospel writers and early Church leaders who had an inherent bias (not necessarily a bad thing) in presenting Jesus of Nazareth in a particular light, what exactly do we know for a fact, about Jesus?


Greetings

I have been keenly followeing your writings on this forum with much admiration and interest, I must commend you for your philosophical and spritual insights. Religion is something I don't really like to discuss although I am more slanting towards spiritual ideas exchange.
Concerning your write up above, I have few comments that I would like to make and these will represent my personal opinion and experience.

Firstly, there is ample evidence that Jesus of Nazareth did live on this planet earth before eventually ascending to the heavens.
Secondly, I attest to the fact that Jesus does possess all the powers attributed to him both in folklore and written religious texts.
Thirdly, I subscribe to the viewpoint that Religious and secular accounts of Jesus' life are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Fourthly, that the true Jews to which race Jesus belonged are what we refer to in modern age as "Africans".

I can be contacted if these points listed above are deemed worthy of further discussions.

Keep up the good work, my friend

Peace

Tampinu:
Greetings

I have been keenly followeing your writings on this forum with much admiration and interest, I must commend you for your philosophical and spritual insights. Religion is something I don't really like to discuss although I am more slanting towards spiritual ideas exchange.
Concerning your write up above, I have few comments that I would like to make and these will represent my personal opinion and experience.

Firstly, there is ample evidence that Jesus of Nazareth did live on this planet earth before eventually ascending to the heavens.
Secondly, I attest to the fact that Jesus does possess all the powers attributed to him both in folklore and written religious texts.
Thirdly, I subscribe to the viewpoint that Religious and secular accounts of Jesus' life are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Fourthly, that the true Jews to which race Jesus belonged are what we refer to in modern age as "Africans".

I can be contacted if these points listed above are deemed worthy of further discussions.

Keep up the good work, my friend

Peace

Sarassin:


Thank you for your kind words. I do agree with you that discussion about religion can be fraught, people’s sensitivities have to be carefully considered, but I am always open to an exchange of spiritual ideas.

I agree broadly with your first point, I would say that there is some historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth lived. But for me the issue of ascension (bodily) is problematic and more a question of belief.

On your second point, you attest to the fact that Jesus indeed had all the powers attributed to him, In my view going forward with historical sources we can be certain that Jesus was regarded as a great teacher or Rabbi of his day and that to some degree he performed healings and miracles, to what extent is impossible to determine. We can demonstrate that some miracles supposedly performed by Jesus could not have occurred in his life-span, for instance in the story of the miracle of the "coin in the mouth of the fish" we can establish that the setting for that story could not be earlier than the reign of the Emperor Domitian who was Roman Emperor from 81CE to 96CE long after the passing of Jesus.

There is the possibility that the miracles Jesus was said to have wrought were a compendium of miracles performed by others and then later attributed to Jesus, there are parallels for instance between the stories of Onias otherwise known as Honias the circle drawer. Onias was widely believed by people of his day to have performed at least one amazing miracle and to have the ability to perform more, he was a man of peace and was killed in Jerusalem at Passover. Consider the following statement from the Mishnah;

"Honi speaks to God as a son to a father this behaviour angers a person in power, who wants to punish him."

There were others too, Apollonius of Tyana was a first century CE teacher (Paul referred to him as Apollos) who had a miraculous birth, gathered disciples, taught wisdom, performed miracles, healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. After his death he was worshipped as a God. The story of Simon the Magus is completely misrepresented in biblical scripture.

Regarding your third point, there is a dearth of secular accounts of the life of Jesus but from the little we know it becomes clear that the Jesus of Nazareth that likely lived is largely unrecognisable from the Jesus portrayed in the gospels.

With respect to your fourth point, I would be interested to see your reasoning for your assertion.

Tampinu:


Thanks for the dept of your response, as well as the prompness of your reply.


“The temple of the most high begins with the body which houses our life, the essence of our existence. Africans are in bondage today because they approach spirituality through religion provided by foreign invaders and conquerors. We must stop confusing religion and spirituality. Religion is a set of rules, regulations and rituals created by humans, which was suppose to help people grow spiritually. Due to human imperfection religion has become corrupt, political, divisive and a tool for power struggle. Spirituality is not theology or ideology. It is simply a way of life, pure and original as was given by the Most High of Creation. Spirituality is a network linking us to the Most High, the universe, and each other…”

― Haile Selassie I

Sarassin:


Thank you for your reply. Who can argue with the words of the “Lion of Judah”?
Perhaps you can open another thread to discuss this and related issues. I am keen to keep this thread as an historical dissertation on Jesus of Nazareth.

Sarassin:
Yet Philo does not say a word about Jesus, Christianity nor any of the events described in the New Testament. In all of his work, Philo does not make a single reference to his contemporary Jesus Christ who supposedly was up and down the Levant, exorcising demons, and raising the dead.

With his close connection to the house of Herod, one might reasonably expect that the miraculous escape from a royal prison of a gang of apostles (Acts 5:18,40), or the second, angel-assisted, flight of Peter, even though chained between soldiers and guarded by four squads of troops (Acts 12:2,7) might have gotten the odd mention. But not a murmur. Nothing even about the killing of "James brother of John" with the sword (Acts 12:1,2).

But perhaps in a manner of speaking, he did. In Flaccus VI (Works of Philo Judaeus) Philo wrote about the harassment of a mentally-deficient man named "Carabas." His tormentors put a purple robe on, made him a crown of leaves, saluted him and called him "King of the Jews." Philo's words are embarrassingly similar to the account of Jesus' harassment in the Gospel of Mark to be eventually copied by the authors of Matthew and Luke. Maybe Philo did write about Jesus. Perhaps the author of Mark got the inspiration for his account of the crucifixion from the works of Philo.

Sarassin:
As it happens, we have an excellent witness to events in Judaea and the Jewish diaspora in the first half of the first century CE. It is of course Philo of Alexandria (25 BCE-47 CE).

Philo was already an old man when he led an embassy from the Jews to the court of Emperor Gaius Caligula. The year was 39-40 CE. Philo clearly, lived at precisely the time that Jesus of Nazareth would have enthralled the multitudes by performing miracles, and his eventual death.

He was also in the right place to give testimony of a messianic contender. He was a Jewish aristocrat and leader of the large Jewish community of Alexandria, we know that Philo spent time in Jerusalem where he had connections with the royal house of Judaea. His brother, Alexander the chief tax official, was one of the richest men in the east, in charge of collecting levies on imports into Roman Egypt. Alexander's great wealth financed the silver and gold sheathing which adorned the doors of the Temple (Josephus, War 5.205)

One of Alexander's sons, and Philo's nephews, Marcus, was married to Berenice, daughter of Herod Agrippa, tetrarch of Galilee. Another nephew was the "apostate" Julius Alexander Tiberius, Prefect of Egypt and also Procurator of Judaea itself (46-48 AD).
Philo wrote extensive apologetics on the Jewish religion and commentaries on contemporary politics. About thirty manuscripts and at least 850,000 words survive. Philo offers commentary on all the major characters of the Pentateuch and, as we might expect, mentions Moses more than a thousand times.

ScienceWatch:
Could you please expand your views of the following ;

1)You say, "As it happens, we have an excellent witness to events in Judea."
I seriously doubt this view. Philo's writings was biased by his strong political and religious connections with the Romans, Jews and Greeks who all saw Christianity as a threat to their established beliefs.

ScienceWatch:
Could you please expand your views of the following ;
2) You said, "Philo was also in the right place to give testimony of a messianic contender."
This could be the closest Philo Alexandria got to revealing his awareness of the Christ when he said, "The Logos is the first-begotten Son of the Uncreated Father: "For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he [Moses] calls the first-born; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns" (Conf. 63). This picture is somewhat confusing because we learn that in the final analysis the Creative Power is also identified with the Logos. The Creative Power is logically prior to the Regent Power since it is conceptually older."

mekkfreshboy:
@ Sarassin.. are you Jewish?