fortran12:


Evidence from Roman sources:
Cornelius Tactius in his Annals, XV 44: Christus ... Was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontious Pilate

Lucian of Samosata: Christ was the man who was crucified in Palestine.

Tacitus lived about 117 AD and Samasota about 120 AD. So, none of your source is a first hand witness but just comments about something that presumably happened more than 100 year before them！

However, Christus just means ''savior'' because Jewish book made them expect one. Like in my previous response, there were thousands of fanatics proactively claiming to be the savior and wishing to fulfil their prophecy. But none of them was born by a virgin, resurrected from the dead or walked on water.

If you want to prove there was a Jesus who died and resurrected, you have to provide proof from people who lived during his time, not mere comments from people after hundred years of the supposed event.

Were there historians and authors living at the same time Jesus was said to have lived?

Yes. But you would be disappointed none of them wrote anything about him.

Below are historians that lived at the same time Jesus was supposed to have lived.

Livy
Born: 59 BC
Died: 17 AD
Profession: Historian
Full name: Titus Livius
Nationality: Roman

Philo
Born: 25 BC (Egypt)
Died: 50 AD
Full name: Philo Judaeus
Profession: Philosopher & author
Nephews: Tiberius Julius Alexander, Marcus Julius Alexander
Siblings: Alexander the Alabarch
Nationality: Egypt

Seneca
Born 4 BC
Died AD 65 (aged 68–69)
Profession: philosopher & poet
Nationality: Roman

Elder Pliny
Born: 23 AD
Died: August 25th, 79 AD
Full name: Gaius Plinius Secundus
Nationality: Roman
Children: Pliny the Younger

There are many of such great philosophers, poets, historians, leaders; being cited in history as living during the same time Jesus was supposed to have lived. Yet, none of them mentioned Jesus or a Messiah throughout their writings. These authors were like the newspapers of their day and they recorded every important event, but none of them said anything about Jesus. Just think about it.

MyVILLAGEpeople:


Another brainwashed negro.

See mindflushed entity. Why are we dodging the issues raised. You mentioned the time and I encouraged it.

musicwriter:
.

So, you're giving me a quora link？But quora is just a forum like Nairaland！Yet, same you rejected a youtube documentary.

Between a post on quora and a researched documentary, which is more credible？

Again, Constantine continued to be head of the pagan Roman belief system which at that time was morphed with many other beliefs to create Christianity, headed by the pope. In fact, Constantine is still the pope today, but with a different name.

Constantine, a die-hard pagan and a tyrant continued to be seen as God after making Christianity legal. He was a cold blooded murderer even after making Christianity legal.

Do you know Constantine killed his son？

Do you know Constantine killed his wife？

Do you know Constantine killed his inlaws？

He did all that less than a year after making Christianity legal in Rome！Why will you believe in a God given you by a murderer？

I said START YOUR RESEARCH THERE! Instead of starting with YouTube lunatic fringe stuff. Also look at the credentials of the commenters - BA in Christian history, long time student of Christian history, etc.

Constantine was a warrior emperor who had his hands full all his 57 years fighting adversaries, he had no time to be inventing religions. People around him became true Christians- his wife, mother, head of army. He himself had witnessed persecution of Christians as a child and also believed the Christian emblem helped him win a major battle but he was regarded a god himself - it would be rather foolish for a god to convert to another religion, don’t u think? So he didn’t get himself baptized till he was about to die and is buried in a church.

Saying he committed atrocities means absolutely nothing. Didn’t OBJ commit atrocities and had people executed and still a Christian? Warrior leaders commit atrocities, Christian or not.

READ HISTORY, STOP READING FRINGE STUFF!

CanadaOrBust:


I said START YOUR RESEARCH THERE! Instead of starting with YouTube lunatic fringe stuff. Also look at the credentials of the commenters - BA in Christian history, long time student of Christian history, etc.

Constantine was a warrior emperor who had his hands full all his 57 years fighting adversaries, he had no time to be inventing religions. People around him became true Christians- his wife, mother, head of army. He himself had witnessed persecution of Christians as a child and also believed the Christian emblem helped him win a major battle but he was regarded a god himself - it would be rather foolish for a god to convert to another religion, don’t u think? So he didn’t get himself baptized till he was about to die and is buried in a church.

Saying he committed atrocities means absolutely nothing. Didn’t OBJ commit atrocities and had people executed and still a Christian? Warrior leaders commit atrocities, Christian or not.

READ HISTORY, STOP READING FRINGE STUFF!

You see nothing about a murderer giving you a God？ But on the other thread you lashed out at African spirituality as being barbaric. Do you see how your mind has been messed up by Christianity？

Any belief system is evil that took away your rational mind and made you demean your ancestors but exalt someone else.

My advise to you is to open up your critical thinking mind. Question Christiqnity, research it and free yourself from a belief system givem to you by your slave master. Once you understand you're a slave who don't know he is a slave, you'll free yourself.

I am out....

ritzyvic1:
Of all the areas of academic research, it's witchcraft that appealed to the organisers
Will witchcraft improve our economy or solve any of the problems of Nigeria

how are we going to know if there is no study?

ritzyvic1:
Of all the areas of academic research, it's witchcraft that appealed to the organisers
Will witchcraft improve our economy or solve any of the problems of Nigeria

AS PRAYERS AND ADVICE NO WORK, MAYBE D WITCHCRAFT N WIZARDARY IS THE WAY FORWARD MIND U ITS JST A LECTURE NOT SM KIND OF POWER SHOW MEETING

musicwriter:


Whites didn't bring any enlightenment to Africa or to any other land they conquered. What they did was destroy us and imposed what you now accept as enlightenment. But by 16th century in Britain it was also normal to burn women alive on the street calling them witch. In 1563 or thereabout, in Italy, Corpenicus was burnt alive for believing the earth is round. But they didn't tell you that.

Indeed, it is Christianity and Islam that prevents having a rational mind to question the Gods. This thread is here because shortsighted Christians are scared of research into witches. How do we give up witches if a study don't disprove it？

Ignorance. Copernucus actually died of a stroke on May 24 1543 and was buried in a church. He was about position of the earth in the universe not it’s shape!

musicwriter:


You see nothing about a murderer giving you a God？ But on the other thread you lashed out at African spirituality as being barbaric. Do you see how your mind has been messed up by Christianity？

Any belief system is evil that took away your rational mind and made you demean your ancestors but exalt someone else.

My advise to you is to open up your critical thinking mind. Question Christiqnity, research it and free yourself from a belief system givem to you by your slave master. Once you understand you're a slave who don't know he is a slave, you'll free yourself.

I am out....

CONSTANTINE DID NOT GIVE ANYBODY ANY RELIGION.
He was too busy fighting wars to even understand Christianity himself. When question of Christ’s deity was going to tear the church apart, he convened a conference of all the bishops that held in Niacea to vote and decide which belief the church should adopt. If he understood Christianity he would have had strong opinion of his own which he would have imposed - he was the emperor.

You still haven’t answered the question:

WHY WOULD CONSTANTINE INVENT A RELIGION THAT DENOTES HIM A COMMON SINNER, FAR FROM BEING ANY KIND OF GOD??!! AND WHY WOULD HE WRITE A BOOK THAT CASTS HIS OWN EMPIRE IN VERY BAD LIGHT??!!

Yet....the christians can hold their religious activities which has nothing academic in it

CanadaOrBust:


Ignorance. Copernucus actually died of a stroke on May 24 1543 and was buried in a church. He was about position of the earth in the universe not it’s shape!

Sorry, that was Giordano Bruno, a student of Copenicus, not Copernicus himself. One would think your Jesus would have you be civil while talking to people.

Temptee101:


Lost soul

E pain am, truth hurts!

Ytgud:
I hate nonsense, something I plan never to miss. It's a study about witche craft not a training about witch craft.

Have you shown such zeal to study about Holiness and righteousness?

Oxtertee:


Which university of Ibadan conference center?

What's the name of that huge and beautiful conference center beside it when you are coming from Ojoo?

musicwriter:


Sorry, that was Giordano Bruno, a student of Copenicus, not Copernicus himself. One would think your Jesus would have you be civil while talking to people.

I did not insult u, I only said your statement was ignorant, which u have admitted it was. Copernicus never taught Bruno, who was never about shape of the earth but it’s position in the universe

CanadaOrBust:


I did not insult u, I only said your statement was ignorant, which u have admitted it was. Copernicus never taught Bruno, who was never about shape of the earth but it’s position in the universe

That wasn't ignorance but a mixup, just like you mix up a comment in a speech by mistake.

I never said he taught Bruno, so stop googling and coming back to tell me what you've found. I probably have more than 5000 historical figures on my head and was not quoting anybody but writing from my head on the go.

musicwriter:


That wasn't ignorance but a mixup, just like you mix up a comment in a speech by mistake.

I never said he taught Bruno, so stop googling and coming back to tell me what you've found. I probably have more than 5000 historical figures on my head and was not quoting anybody but writing from my head on the go.

The STATEMENT was ignorant not u. If I say now it is unnecessary to have 5000 figures in your head, you’d say I called u unnecessary. U should free your head for thinking not for storage of historical figures - which may explain why u couldn’t figure out that saying Constantine invented Christianity is like saying Amadioha invented Christianity and foisted it on the Igbos - a toatally ridiculous and stupid statement (the STATEMENT, not u)

CanadaOrBust:


The STATEMENT was ignorant not u. If I say now it is unnecessary to have 5000 figures in your head, you’d say I called u unnecessary. U should free your head for thinking not for storage of historical figures - which may explain why u couldn’t figure out that saying Constantine invented Christianity is like saying Amadioha invented Christianity and foisted it on the Igbos - a toatally ridiculous and stupid statement (the STATEMENT, not u)

Yes, Constantine invented Christianity. Google ''the Nicea creed'' and you'll discover the communique issued after the Nicea conference was what established your Jesus as a God. Before then it was what the Gnostitcs believed, unfortunately, Constantine sent them into extinction and imposed a lie to the world instead.

The Nicene creed- 325 AD.

musicwriter:


Yes, Constantine invented Christianity. Google ''the Nicea creed'' and you'll discover the communique issued after the Nicea conference was what established your Jesus as a God. Before then it was what the Gnostitcs believed, unfortunately, Constantine sent them into extinction and imposed a lie to the world instead.

It is the Nicene creed not “Nicea creed” and we recite it in church every Sunday. It basically summarizes what the Bisjops agreed to at the conference.

I don’t know how a seemingly intelligent person like u can believe nonsense. It’s a mystery to me. Christianity was much more than Constantine or any one person. Before he came to power over 5% of Roman Empire were already Christians including his own mother.
Read the screenshot below. It is HISTORY. LEAVE LUNATIC FRINGE ALONE!!!

CanadaOrBust:


It is the Nicene creed not “Nicea creed” and we recite it in church every Sunday. It basically summarizes what the Bisjops agreed to at the conference.

I don’t know how a seemingly intelligent person like u can believe nonsense. It’s a mystery to me. Christianity was much more than Constantine or any one person. Before he came to power over 5% of Roman Empire were already Christians including his own mother.
Read the screenshot below. It is HISTORY. LEAVE LUNATIC FRINGE ALONE!!!

Now I know you're a church goer trying to convert me back to what I used to believe when I was a fool. But I already told you it was't called Christianity. Otherwise, if Christianity was already an established religion, why the comminique at the Nicea conference？

musicwriter:


Now I know you're a church goer trying to convert me back to what I used to believe when I was a fool. But I already told you it was't called Christianity. Otherwise, if Christianity was already an established religion, why the comminique at the Nicea conference？

See the story of the Nicene creed below:

First Council of Nicaea, (325), the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting in ancient Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey). It was called by the emperor Constantine I, an unbaptized catechumen, who presided over the opening session and took part in the discussions. He hoped a general council of the church would solve the problem created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by Arius of Alexandria that affirmed that Christ is not divine but a created being. Pope Sylvester I did not attend the council but was represented by legates.

The council condemned Arius and, with reluctance on the part of some, incorporated the nonscriptural word homoousios (“of one substance”) into a creed to signify the absolute equality of the Son with the Father. The emperor then exiled Arius, an act that, while manifesting a solidarity of church and state, underscored the importance of secular patronage in ecclesiastical affairs. By BB

The council attempted but failed to establish a uniform date for Easter. It issued decrees on many other matters, including the proper method of consecrating bishops, a condemnation of lending money at interest by clerics, and a refusal to allow bishops, priests, and deacons to move from one church to another. It also confirmed the primacy of Alexandria and Jerusalem over other sees in their respective areas. Socrates Scholasticus, a 5th-century Byzantine historian, said that the council intended to make a canon enforcing celibacy of the clergy, but it failed to do so when some objected.

CanadaOrBust:


See the story of the Nicene creed below:

First Council of Nicaea, (325), the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting in ancient Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey). It was called by the emperor Constantine I, an unbaptized catechumen, who presided over the opening session and took part in the discussions. He hoped a general council of the church would solve the problem created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by Arius of Alexandria that affirmed that Christ is not divine but a created being. Pope Sylvester I did not attend the council but was represented by legates.

The council condemned Arius and, with reluctance on the part of some, incorporated the nonscriptural word homoousios (“of one substance”) into a creed to signify the absolute equality of the Son with the Father. The emperor then exiled Arius, an act that, while manifesting a solidarity of church and state, underscored the importance of secular patronage in ecclesiastical affairs. By BB

The council attempted but failed to establish a uniform date for Easter. It issued decrees on many other matters, including the proper method of consecrating bishops, a condemnation of lending money at interest by clerics, and a refusal to allow bishops, priests, and deacons to move from one church to another. It also confirmed the primacy of Alexandria and Jerusalem over other sees in their respective areas. Socrates Scholasticus, a 5th-century Byzantine historian, said that the council intended to make a canon enforcing celibacy of the clergy, but it failed to do so when some objected.

Wherever or whoever you copied that from didn't answer the question.

To understand what the so called Christians believed before Constantine came along, just read the sentences in the creed line by line in opposite. Replace ''we believe'' with ''we do not believe'' and you'll discover what Gnostics like Arius believed before the Nicae council.

FrLukas:
Why would they do that?

Christians are intolerable people.

Anyway, they should go and use the University of Ibadan conference center. They are most welcome in Ibadan.

For a mind that knows is a mind that's truly free

musicwriter:


Tacitus lived about 117 AD and Samasota about 120 AD. So, none of your source is a first hand witness but just comments about something that presumably happened more than 100 year before them！

However, Christus just means ''savior'' because Jewish book made them expect one. Like in my previous response, there were thousands of fanatics proactively claiming to be the savior and wishing to fulfil their prophecy. But none of them was born by a virgin, resurrected from the dead or walked on water.

If you want to prove there was a Jesus who died and resurrected, you have to provide proof from people who lived during his time, not mere comments from people after hundred years of the supposed event.

Were there historians and authors living at the same time Jesus was said to have lived?

Yes. But you would be disappointed none of them wrote anything about him.

Below are historians that lived at the same time Jesus was supposed to have lived.

Livy
Born: 59 BC
Died: 17 AD
Profession: Historian
Full name: Titus Livius
Nationality: Roman

Philo
Born: 25 BC (Egypt)
Died: 50 AD
Full name: Philo Judaeus
Profession: Philosopher & author
Nephews: Tiberius Julius Alexander, Marcus Julius Alexander
Siblings: Alexander the Alabarch
Nationality: Egypt

Seneca
Born 4 BC
Died AD 65 (aged 68–69)
Profession: philosopher & poet
Nationality: Roman

Elder Pliny
Born: 23 AD
Died: August 25th, 79 AD
Full name: Gaius Plinius Secundus
Nationality: Roman
Children: Pliny the Younger

There are many of such great philosophers, poets, historians, leaders; being cited in history as living during the same time Jesus was supposed to have lived. Yet, none of them mentioned Jesus or a Messiah throughout their writings. These authors were like the newspapers of their day and they recorded every important event, but none of them said anything about Jesus. Just think about it.

So because a handful of selected people you mentioned means he did not exist. What of Flavius Josephus he wrote about the Jewish revolt and he mentions about Jesus. Pliny the Younger also mentions about him. Only if you want to claim these people's works are false.

musicwriter:


A Yeshua simply means ''god saves'' and it could have been talking about anybody because it was the most common male child name in Palestine at that time. There were many thousand Yeshuas. Many Yeshuas died in the hand of Rome.

You can't dispute this claim, so you try to hide under "it could have been anybody". Am sure it is about the real Jesus that is why it was mentioned. The period of death was mentioned which means it was important and this agrees with the biblical timeline of Jesus death.
So it can't be "it could have been anyone"

musicwriter:


Wherever or whoever you copied that from didn't answer the question.

To understand what the so called Christians believed before Constantine came along, just read the sentences in the creed line by line in opposite. Replace ''we believe'' with ''we do not believe'' and you'll discover what Gnostics like Arius believed before the Nicae council.

Bros, forget fringe stuff u read for a minute and THINK FOR YOURSELF:

Council of Nicea was attended by about 318 well read, learned bishops in 325 AD. They all had access to the scriptures. Constantine DIED 12 years later in 337 AD. Do u really think anybody is capable of forcing such a group to sustainably adopt something they don’t agree with as being SCRIPTURAL??Talk less of someone who shortly died. The authority of the council were the scriptures and NOT Constantine that’s why it did not crumble after his death, and has been sustained to this day.

Constantine did not care either way, he did not understand Christianity well. He simply desired UNITY within his empire and wanted the bishops to come up with something EVERYONE must follow. (That’s the answer to your question, which is so obvious I assumed u weren’t really asking a question)

musicwriter:


Now I know you're a church goer trying to convert me back to what I used to believe when I was a fool. But I already told you it was't called Christianity. Otherwise, if Christianity was already an established religion, why the comminique at the Nicea conference？

Yes, I want u to accept the gift of salvation - that Christ died for your sins, instead of baseless arguments predicated on LINATIC FRINGE STUFF!!

I just confirmed it...you are one of them

KingAzubuike:
If religion exist and pastors and imams allowed to roam freely , so should witchcraft, witches and wizards.

This is a very ignorant move. Witchcraft is supposed to be studied, I have a feeling that major breakthroughs in science was made possible through the application of something astral... Witchcraft is an aspect of the astral.

fortran12:

So because a handful of selected people you mentioned means he did not exist. What of Flavius Josephus he wrote about the Jewish revolt and he mentions about Jesus. Pliny the Younger also mentions about him. Only if you want to claim these people's works are false.

Josephus was living in the house of the Roman Emperor and was only writing was he was told to write. Some of the things he wrote, like where he said ''by this time there was a man if he could be called a man..........'' That has already been proved as a fraud a long time ago. Its a pity you're not aware of that and still citing the Josephus fraud.

ritzyvic1:
Of all the areas of academic research, it's witchcraft that appealed to the organisers
Will witchcraft improve our economy or solve any of the problems of Nigeria

.
you are too myopic

fortran12:


You can't dispute this claim, so you try to hide under "it could have been anybody". Am sure it is about the real Jesus that is why it was mentioned. The period of death was mentioned which means it was important and this agrees with the biblical timeline of Jesus death.
So it can't be "it could have been anyone"

Again, there were so many JesusES because that was the most popular male child name in Palestine at that time. Yes, many of them were killed but none of them was born by a virgin, walked on water, resurrected from dead. The Jesus that was born by a virgin, walked on water, resurrected from dead, it pure literature.

Below is how historian, Kenneth Humphreys, answered the question of many JesusES in his book; Jesus never existed:

Was there a Jesus? Of course there was a Jesus – many!

The archetypal Jewish hero was Joshua (the successor of Moses) otherwise known as Yehoshua (Yeshua) bin Nun (‘Jesus of the fish’). Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Iesous in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘saviour’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’) probably every band in the Jewish resistance had its own hero figure sporting this moniker, among others.

Josephus, the first century Jewish historian mentions no fewer than nineteen different Yeshuas/Jesii, about half of them contemporaries of the supposed Christ! In his Antiquities, of the twenty-eight high priests who held office from the reign of Herod the Great to the fall of the Temple, no fewer than four bore the name Jesus: Jesus ben Phiabi, Jesus ben Sec, Jesus ben Damneus and Jesus ben Gamaliel. Even Saint Paul makes reference to a rival magician, preaching ‘another Jesus’ (2 Corinthians 11,4). The surfeit of early Jesuses includes:

Jesus ben Sirach.
This Jesus was reputedly the author of the Book of Sirach (aka 'Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach'), part of Old Testament Apocrypha. Ben Sirach, writing in Greek about 180 BC, brought together Jewish 'wisdom' and Homeric-style heroes.

Jesus ben Pandira.
A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophecy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree – and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect.

Jesus ben Ananias.
Beginning in 62AD, this Jesus had caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of ‘Woe to the city’. He prophesied rather vaguely:

"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people."

– Josephus, Wars 6.3.

Arrested and flogged by the Romans, Jesus ben Ananias was released as nothing more dangerous than a mad man. He died during the siege of Jerusalem from a rock hurled by a Roman catapult.

Jesus ben Saphat.
In the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee, this Jesus had led the rebels in Tiberias ("the leader of a seditious tumult of mariners and poor people" – Josephus, Life 12.66). When the city was about to fall to Vespasian’s legionaries he fled north to Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus ben Gamala.
During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by ‘James and John, sons of Susa’). It did him no good. When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds.

Jesus ben Thebuth.
A priest who, in the final capitulation of the upper city in 69AD, saved his own skin by surrendering the treasures of the Temple, which included two holy candlesticks, goblets of pure gold, sacred curtains and robes of the high priests. The booty figured prominently in the Triumph held for Vespasian and his son Titus.

But was there a crucified Jesus?

Certainly. Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew. And given the scale that Roman retribution could reach – at the height of the siege of Jerusalem the Romans were crucifying upwards of five hundred captives a day before the city walls – dead heroes called Jesus would (quite literally) have been thick on the ground. Not one merits a full-stop in the great universal history.

But then with so many Jesuses could there not have been a Jesus of Nazareth?

The problem for this notion is that absolutely nothing at all corroborates the sacred biography and yet this 'greatest story' is peppered with numerous anachronisms, contradictions and absurdities. For example, at the time that Joseph and the pregnant Mary are said to have gone off to Bethlehem for a supposed Roman census, Galilee (unlike Judaea) was not a Roman province and therefore ma and pa would have had no reason to make the journey. Even if Galilee had been imperial territory, history knows of no ‘universal census’ ordered by Augustus (nor any other emperor) – and Roman taxes were based on property ownership not on a head count. Then again, we now know that Nazareth did not exist before the second century.

It is mentioned not at all in the Old Testament nor by Josephus, who waged war across the length and breadth of Galilee (a territory about the size of Greater London) and yet Josephus records the names of dozens of other towns. In fact most of the ‘Jesus-action’ takes place in towns of equally doubtful provenance, in hamlets so small only partisan Christians know of their existence (yet well attested pagan cities, with extant ruins, failed to make the Jesus itinerary).

What should alert us to wholesale fakery here is that practically all the events of Jesus’s supposed life appear in the lives of mythical figures of far more ancient origin. Whether we speak of miraculous birth, prodigious youth, miracles or wondrous healings – all such 'signs' had been ascribed to other gods, centuries before any Jewish holy man strolled about. Jesus’s supposed utterances and wisdom statements are equally common place, being variously drawn from Jewish scripture, neo-Platonic philosophy or commentaries made by Stoic and Cynic sages.''