₦airaland Forum

pinky lady:
Ignorant is your greatest problem, i hope your understanding gets open someday so that you come of this problem great problem

I suppose you claim to have better understanding of this material. OK - share with us your understanding. Why would Jesus condemn a woman for adultery that is being divorce by her husband? Why would a man marry such a woman commiting adultery? You silly christians have lost your minds and you just take anything pushed down your throat.

Bastage:
Go read up about Endogenous retroviruses.

It's not that you won't catch my lies. It's that you are a dumb fool and probably won't understand the subject matter.

In fact, Bastage, don't even proceed any further with this subject (ie evolution) until you have agree about what biological evolution is as defined by biological scientist. From experience, when you corner him, he will begin to talk about a "religious" form of evolution which is a far cry from biological evolution.

In a previous thread, I asked him to come up with the definition of biological evolution as accepted by scientists, and unsurprisingly, he was unable to.

Bastage:
Go read up about Endogenous retroviruses.

It's not that you won't catch my lies. It's that you are a dumb fool and probably won't understand the subject matter.

Don't mention ERV. He is incapable of understanding such things.

Bastage:
Hey you plagiarists!!! That's what I said!!!

Interesting!! Where is the plagiarism?

davidylan:
BB says the universe appeared by a big bang . . . pls explain. The rest above is an irrelevant but calculated attempt to avoid facing your own incredulity.

Well for your information, there is a different theory that explains the formation of the solar system and the earth and the other planets.   Why would we expect BB to account for the formation of the solar system.

Just as BB does not deal with cell theory, or plate tectonic, or quantum theory, so BB does NOT account for the formation of the solar system.  If you expect BB to account for the formation of the solar system, you MUST by implication also expect BB to account for cell theory and germ theory of diseases.

davidylan:
What a hypocritical turd. You say science but NOT God is responsible for the creation of the universe (including the earth, idiots) . . . then HOW did this happen? Can science pls explain it instead of trying so hard to go round it and forcing the question back to us?

The onus for creationism AND BB cannot be on us alone . . .

Where did the earth come from? Who formed germs, cells and complex life forms? Did they appear from thin air?

Now that is the challenge before the atheist . . . pls address it.

You are being dishonest, yet again.  Where did I make such a claim?   Can you show me?

davidylan:
yeah and you have shown complete mastery of the subject.

What an absolute tool . . . lets go through your own claims.

You said - The Big Bang theory does not address the creation of the Earth.

Then you said - It is only concerned with the creation of the Universe.

But what is the "universe"? - The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.

So that means the earth is PART of the universe no?

Then how come the BB does NOT address the creation of the earth BUT addresses the creation of the universe?   Can science explain the creation of the body without explaining the creation of the heart?

Since life exists ONLY on earth . . . why would the BB be more concerned with the creation of the stars than on the planet we live in?

Back to the 2 questions you are struggling desperately to avoid:

1. HOW did the earth get here?
2. WHERE ARE the alleged genetic evidence for evolution?

Over to our resident scientists who comtinue to make a mockery of common sense.

Does BB theory address the theory of gravity,  cell theory, germ theory, plate tectonic, quantum theory, atomic theory?

davidylan:
Lets look at what you said we shld notice:

It talks of "development" of the universe - now does the theory propose that the ingredients for "developing" the universe already existed? Where did they come from?

Initial conditions - Just what were these conditions and did they just appear suddenly by magic?

Well, by your line of reasoning the BB theory should also explain Cell theory, Germ theory,  plate tectonic theory, etc, etc.  In fact, every theory there is should be explanable in terms of the BB, because all the ingredients of the universe resulted from the BB.

Your challenge is  now is to explain to us why the BB should account for the formation of the earth and also account for germs and cell?

davidylan:
why then did the high priests arrest Jesus and bring Him to Pilate? why didnt they just take Him and kill Him themselves?

Yet again, you are taking the gospels literally and uncritically.  Modern historian of this period and subject are almost in unanimous agreement that this could not have happen as presented in the gospel.  There are just too many inconsistencies in the account and how it relates to the culture, customs, laws and tradition to have been true.  See the following list of inconsistencies below:

Laws of the Sanhedrin Regarding Trials:

1. There was to be no arrest by religious authorities that was effected by a bribe Ex. 23:8
2. There were to be no steps of criminal proceedings after sunset.
3. Judges or Sanhedrin members were not allowed to participate in the arrest.
4. There were to be no trials before the morning sacrifice.
5. There were to be no secret trials, only public.
6. Sanhedrin trials could only be conducted in the Hall of Judgment of the Temple Compound.
7. The procedure was to be first the defense and then the accusation.
8. All may agree in favor of acquittal, but all may not argue in favor of conviction.
9. There were to be two or three witness and their testimony had to agree in every detail. Deu. 19:15.
10. There was to be no allowance for the accused to testify against himself.
11. The High Priest was forbidden to rent his garments. Leviticus 21:10
12. Charges could not originate with the judges; they could only investigate charges brought to them.
13. The accusation of blasphemy was only valid if the name, of G-d, itself was pronounced (and heard by 2 witnesses).
14. A person could not be condemned on the basis of his own words alone.
15. The verdict could not be announced at night, only in the daytime.
16. In cases of capital punishment, the trial and guilty verdict could not occur at the same time but must be separated by at least 24 hours.
17. Voting for he death penalty had to be done by individual count beginning with the youngest so the young would not be influenced by the elders.
18. A unanimous decision for guilt shows innocence since it is impossible for 23-71 men to agree without plotting.
19. The sentence could only be pronounced three days after the guilty verdict.
20. Judges were to be humane and kind.
21. A person condemned to death was not to be scourged or beaten beforehand.
22. No trials are allowed on the eve of the Sabbath or on a feast day.

davidylan:
That is simply NOT true. Peter was also crucified for blasphemy, others were beheaded, marooned on islands or boiled in hot oil.

Examples. Surprising that many of them including the most popular at that time - john the baptist, escaped being killed for so long?

No.

Yet again you accept christian tradition uncritically.   I thought Christian tradition says Peter died in Rome, at the hands of the Romans.  If Peter was crucified for blasphemywhile in Rome, then he could not have been blaspheming againgst the Jewish religion, could he?

davidylan:
what then does it address? Here is wikipedia's entry - The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific evidence and observation.[1][2] As used by cosmologists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day.

If the big bang does not address the formation of the earth then HOW did the earth get here?

I think this definition is a good working definition of the BB.  Notice what it says - initial condition and development of the universe.  

Now does the BB explain the Theory of Gravity, Quantum Theory, Germ Theory,  Cell Theory?   If it doesn't, why not?

davidylan:
More hubris whenever you folks are challenged with the incredulity of your "questions".
If asking for proof of the formation of the earth is a "non-proposition", how is that different from asking me for proof that God created the earth? You dont have any alternative for how the earth appeared here . . . so how are you 100% sure God had no hand in it?

I'm not jumping about . . . the big bang theory is the only slightly credulous theory on how the earth was formed which is why i brought it up. A 5 yr old knows that. Stop dodging.

This again is gross dishonest misrepresentation. The BB does NOT address the formation of the earth. You have to learn to discuss with facts and I await to see a scientific expositions that claims the BB explains how the earth was form.

You keep insisting on ascribing this falsehood to the BB just so you can undermine it. But am afraid, that is sheer dishonesty.

Davidylan,

Nice to see you back here, but don't foget that you made some really specious claims earlier about roman/jewish law early, which you are now failing to take responsibility for.  You may want to go back and address.

davidylan:
There is a serious problem with this hubris . . . Israel at that time was a colony of Rome. The penalty for blasphemy (crucifiction) was exclusively Roman jurisdiction, that is why the high priests (essentially the Jewish leaders of that time) had to bring Christ before Pilate.

You may be excused for NOT knowing, which is acceptable, but this is NOT true. The Romans, as colonial administrators of the regions allowed local Jewish law to preside over the affairs of the Jews, in religious and civil matters.  One of the few areas in which the Romans would intervene was where there was risk of civil disorder or riots.

Blasphemy as a religious affair and was entirely within the jurisdiction of the Jewish authorities.  This was one of the deals the Jews had with the Romans in order to maintain friendly relations - the Romans would stay out of their religion while the Jew would in turn be less troublesome.  History records a number of instances where the Romans heavyhandedly stepped into the religious domain, much to the chagrin of the Jews, resulting in riots.

The penalty for blasphemy was not crucifixion but stoning.  Crucifixion was a Roman form of punishment and they were notorious for cricifying sometimes hundreds at a time and leaving the corpses to dry out in the sun along one of the major road in the regions - I think it was called Via Apiah.

davidylan:
This is again daft. If this were true, the jews would not have been so fixated on killing Jesus rather than other "hundreds of prophets". Why did they largely ignore John the Baptist?

Again daft . . . how could Peter have had a vote to convict or acquit? As a follower of Christ he was just as liable to be killed as his master.

Problem is  - you take the gospel account too literally and uncritically.  The "prophets" were being killed all the time,  some of whom have been recorded in contemporary extra-biblical sources.  Bizarrely, the killing of Jesus is NOT recorded contemporaneously in any extra-biblical sources.  

Does the gospels record John the Baptist as blaspheming against the Jewish law?

davidylan:
and you think asking for physical proof that God exists is a testable and verifiable proposition? Your hypocrisy stinks.

The question remains . . . where did the earth come from? The big bang? Where is the concrete proof?

enough of you hypocrites hiding behind double speak.

Your thinking is neither here nor there. You started off by asking for proof of a non-proposition and I pointed that out to you. And you start jumping about like a demented grasshooper. Are we talking about the earth or about Big Bang? What sort or argumentation is this?

You want to talk about the earth, let's talk about the earth. You wanna talk about Big Bang, let's talk about Big Bang. Jumping about just looks really bad on your part.

davidylan:
Its in black and white - how did the earth suddenly appear and where did we come from?

Is this what you call a provable or testable or verifiable proposition? Let me give you examples of testable propositions:

1) The entire earth was cover by a massive icesheet about 1 billion years ago

2) The sun is made of 90% cheese, 5% elephant dung, 2% turtle tears and 3% silicon.

3) There is molten iron at the earth's core.

naijacutee:
Why the pre-assumption that the questions are hard? I'm a christian and they aren't difficult questions to answer - I'm slightly puzzled as to what your point is, but here goes :-

1. Simply put, Jesus was executed for blasphemy. He, on many occasions insinuated that he was, or was equal to God - a claim which is blasphemy by Jewish standards.

There are two problems with this charge of blasphemy. A charge of blasphemy would have been the sole jurisdiction of the Jewish authorities and NOT the Romans. Secondly, the penalty for blasphemy would have been stoning to death and NOT crucifixion. This suggest that there must have been other issues beside blasphemy.

naijacutee:
2. Yes and No. According to Jewish laws, they were right to execute any odd person who claims to be God. However, in the light of the evidence provided by the gospels, Jesus ticked all the boxes to back up all his claims - Including fulfilling age-old prophecies over which he had no control.

In Jesus time there would have been prophets by the hundreds all claiming to fulfil this and that prophecies. Jesus would not have stood out as different and his "proof" of authenticity would not have been any more convincing than the next prophet.

naijacutee:
3. If I was living in Jerusalem at the time, Who knows? I probably would have joined in stoning him.

Now, imagine you were one of the 12, say Peter. And you had a casting vote. Would you have voted for his exoneration or would you have convicted him?

davidylan:
Forget about christianity for a second, lets just talk on a secular level . . . where is YOUR proof of how the earth was formed? Simple question, forget any reference to God . . . lets both agree he doesnt exist.

Can anyone pls provide answers?

So what is the proposition that requires a proof?

Bastage:
And I am simply asking guilty or innocent of what crime and based on what evidence?
Your question cannot be answered until you've given a reply.

interesting. The gospels records the charge against him as either blasphemy or sedition or both. Here is how it is presented in matthew 27:

10 And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

11 And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest.

12 And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.

13 Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?




and in Luke 23:



2 And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.

3 And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.

4 Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.


They may also have been a charge in relation to the commotion Jesus caused at the Temple by overturning the tables of the money dealers.


Also interesting you said earlier that these charges were trumped up charges. If we follow you line of reason and you knew then that these were trumped up charges, what verdict would you have given? Guilty or Not Guilty?

[size=16pt]BARABBAS - JEWISH AND ROMAN LAW[/size]

Taken from here

I will present you a few facts about Jewish and Roman law in the days of Jesus, and how these facts render the gospel stories to be inaccurate at the very least.

According to Matthew, each year on Passover the Roman procurator (in this case Pontius Pilate}, offered the Jews gathered in Jerusalem the opportunity to save the life of a prisoner condemned to death. That year, the choice was between a brigand and anti-Roman revolutionary named Barabbas and Jesus.

According to Matthew, the Jews without exception chose Barabbas and shouted concerning Jesus, “Let him be crucified.” (Mat 27:22-23) Obviously it was important to Matthew that ALL the Jews shouted this response, that way, all their descendants could be implicated in their ancestors' supposed crime of causing "deicide.” Do Christians truly believe this is logical? If they would just think about it, instead of acting upon their emotions they would see that every element in this story {Matt 27:11-26}, including the mob's cry, can be shown to be full of historical inaccuracies and unthinkable acts.

First, Matthew asserts that although Pilate offered the Jews a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, his own desire was to spare Jesus. In that case, as asked by the late Israeli Supreme Court Justice Chaim Cohn in The Trial and Death of Jesus, "Why then did he [Pilate] not pardon him [Jesus]? Pilate functioned in Judea as a dictator with his power only limited by the Roman Emperor himself. Had he chosen, he could have simply released Jesus. Even if the Jews had the privilege of demanding the release of one prisoner, they certainly had no right to demand the execution of a man that Pilate wished to save.

Justice Cohn also asks: "Even if such a choice existed, why was the choice limited to only Jesus and Barabbas?" Limiting the choice to two people is an effective literary technique that heightens dramatic tension in a story, magnifies the idea that the Jews are evil and helps to focus on the event or events portrayed.

Since the New Testament (NT) shows that Barabbas is a brigand, an instigator of a large riot and a murderer {Luke 23;19}, the Jews choice of him over Jesus is the perfect retinue to portray the Jews as evil. Author Hyam Maccoby discusses this point in his book Revolution in Judea. After a long study of the Barabbas story, Professor S.G.F. Brandon, a Christian historian of the rise in Christianity, concluded that this incident never happened. To cite just one of the incongruities that convinced him that the story is fiction: "The outcome of Pilate's amazing conduct was that he sentenced to death one he knew was innocent, and released a popular resistance fighter, probably a Zealot who had just proved how dangerous he could be." ( Jesus and the Zealots, page 262)

Given that the Barabbas story contradicts what we know historically about the actions of Rome on conquered territories, what purpose does this story have? There appear to be two purposes here:

First, to prove to Roman leaders that, although they had executed Jesus, he was no enemy of Rome. The Roman procurator wished to exonerate him {Jesus}. Therefore, Jesus was only executed because the Jews "forced" Pilate to do so.

Second, by showing that the Jews were the betrayers of Jesus, the early church could more justifiably argue that the Jews had caused God to be "killed" therefore losing their place as being chosen of God and that Christianity now replaced Judaism. For this reason, the story has ALL the Jews clamoring for Jesus' blood. It would have been much less dramatic to only have the high priest and a few elders responsible.

Furthermore, do you know that Barabbas means: Son of the Father (from the Aramaic Bar abbas), and that his first name was Jesus !!! His real name is even still to be found in the first editions of the NT in the 4th century C.E., but was removed later on so people would not know this fact. (Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine by Audustinus Merk, edited in 1933 by the Istituto Biblico Pontificio, page 101)

So:

· Jesus, the SON of the Father, (Barabbas) was freed (according to NT)

· Jesus, the King of the Jews, was executed (according to the NT)

Since the latter was a politically dangerous stand which would provoke rebellion for which the Romans would not permit. Ypu should see this is all theology and not a real description of the events. None of these NT events was ever recorded by a single contemporary historian.

Historically, there was NEVER a habit of freeing a prisoner before Passover. Furthermore Pilate was a very cruel man (see Flavius Josephus, and Philo on this), who NEVER listened to anybody, but himself. For a Roman procurator to wash his hands of responsibility for carrying out imperial policy is not only illogical, it is absurd, particularly given that Roman records indicate that Pilate was removed as procurator partially for excessive cruelty. Also historically, there was no established Jewish or Roman custom at the time of giving up a condemned state criminal to a mob.

But the gospel writer had to set Pilate free of guilt, for in Rome where the first gospel was written about 71 C.E, this was the only way to tell about such an execution without alienating the Romans. The Romans could live with a mystical spiritual "Son of the Father" entity, but could NOT live with killing a real person messiah King, who would bring rebellion among the Jewish masses against the Romans.

To address the issue of the trial and crucifixion, we need to recognize a few things. First, that Jewish law was in force at the time as long as it did not conflict with Roman rights. When we read about Jesus going into the Temple and overturning the tables of the moneychangers, two things must be remembered. First, that the moneychangers were there for a sacred purpose―to exchange ritually unusable roman coins for Jewish tokens and to facilitate the purchase of animals and other offerings for sacrifice. This act instigated both the Romans and the Sadducee hierarchy against him for motivating political unrest.

How do we know in the NT story that the Romans considered Jesus dangerous? Well, the original Greek term used for the unit which arrested him in gethsemane is “cohortes.” It has been variously translated as group, company, squad, etc. Some Christians guess that it would number no more than a couple of dozen soldiers and perhaps Sadducee temple guards. However, the word ”cohorts” has a very specific meaning to historians of ancient military. Roman nomenclature for military units included in ascending order the maniple, century, cohort, and legion. At the time of the crucifixion, the size of a cohort in provincial service was at least 700 roman soldiers. In a place with unrest like Judea, it would have been larger, and would also have included another 300 to 700 local or mercenary auxiliaries. There is evidence of this magnitude throughout Caesar's The Conquest of Gaul and many other contemporary Roman sources.

One is left with the question―Why did the garrison commander of Jerusalem (whose headquarters was at the Acra Fortress, Northwest of the temple mount and near gethsemane) send upwards of one thousand legionaries (a large and significant fraction of the city's garrison) to arrest a supposedly peaceful man and a few of his supporters? They were probably afraid of the 'popular' support Jesus had―a lot of people looked to him as a Messianic figure, and the Romans probably wanted to make sure they'd be able to put down any spontaneous unrest Jesus' arrest might lead to. Considering that the Romans saw him as a threat, and had more than enough reasons to deal with him, it becomes clear that the story as reported in the gospels about a Jewish trial is surely added to make the story political acceptable in Rome.

Why can we say that the Jewish trial of Jesus as described in the gospels never happened? Well for one: Roman law was permissive of national legal authorities as long as they did not interfere with imperial affairs. In fact such legal systems were encouraged during the PAX ROMANA from the time of Augustus until the advent of Vespasian. Any court, had they in fact convened and convicted someone of a crime mandating the death penalty, would have been permitted, even encouraged to carry out the penalty, unless the accused was a Roman citizen.

So if Jesus would have been brought before a Jewish court and would have been found guilty, then the sentence would have been executed by the Jewish court, a Sanhedrin could have had him killed, had they actually tried him. But we read nothing of the sort. The gospels tell us he was crucified. And, crucifixion was a particularly Roman punishment for crimes against the empire.

When a Jew looks at existing Jewish history and law, he will see no basis for the NT account in any practical sense, but he will in fact see evidence that the writer or redactor was wholly IGNORANT of Jewish law and custom, and even of Roman history and law of the period.

There is no alternative but to reject this account not only for its odious “assumption” of responsibility by the Jews. By the way, despite all of the collected protestations to the contrary, the NT specifies Jews as a whole, not Pharisees or Sadducees and not all peoples of the world either. But this NT account should be rejected because it is incompatible with existing law, custom and history of the period.

Laws of the Sanhedrin Regarding Trials:

1. There was to be no arrest by religious authorities that was effected by a bribe Ex. 23:8
2. There were to be no steps of criminal proceedings after sunset.
3. Judges or Sanhedrin members were not allowed to participate in the arrest.
4. There were to be no trials before the morning sacrifice.
5. There were to be no secret trials, only public.
6. Sanhedrin trials could only be conducted in the Hall of Judgment of the Temple Compound.
7. The procedure was to be first the defense and then the accusation.
8. All may agree in favor of acquittal, but all may not argue in favor of conviction.
9. There were to be two or three witness and their testimony had to agree in every detail. Deu. 19:15.
10. There was to be no allowance for the accused to testify against himself.
11. The High Priest was forbidden to rent his garments. Leviticus 21:10
12. Charges could not originate with the judges; they could only investigate charges brought to them.
13. The accusation of blasphemy was only valid if the name, of G-d, itself was pronounced (and heard by 2 witnesses).
14. A person could not be condemned on the basis of his own words alone.
15. The verdict could not be announced at night, only in the daytime.
16. In cases of capital punishment, the trial and guilty verdict could not occur at the same time but must be separated by at least 24 hours.
17. Voting for he death penalty had to be done by individual count beginning with the youngest so the young would not be influenced by the elders.
18. A unanimous decision for guilt shows innocence since it is impossible for 23-71 men to agree without plotting.
19. The sentence could only be pronounced three days after the guilty verdict.
20. Judges were to be humane and kind.
21. A person condemned to death was not to be scourged or beaten beforehand.
22. No trials are allowed on the eve of the Sabbath or on a feast day.

As Chaim H. Cohn (at that time justice of the supreme Court of Israel) wrote in his Reflections on the Trial and death of Jesus: "Such wholesale violation of all the rules of law and procedure is not only highly improbable, but, in view of the rigorous and formalistic exactitude for which the Pharisees were notorious, rather inconceivable."

Also the High Priest would NEVER ask if he was "the Son of G-d, the Messiah, ” The whole 'son of G-d' idea was a pagan idea of sons of gods. In Judaism in those days a son of G-d was a Jew who lived according to Torah, so such a qualification was not to be a ground for conviction of anything, or even to be tried for! It has no connection to Moshiach, apart from the fact that Moshiach of course also is a son of G-d in the Jewish sense.

All of the above makes abundantly clear that a Jewish trial as described in the NT, and meant to accuse the Jewish people, NEVER happened.

I hope you are willing to open your eyes and to start to realize that Jews are viciously portrayed to be responsible for killing Jesus, by means of made-up stories that are inconsistent and incompatible with Jewish and Roman history and practice of those days.

Remember, yetzias Mitzraim, which was done for the Jews, ONLY, to come to Sinai, where we accepted the most beautiful gift a people could possibly ask for, TORAH.

Jews are set before the choice as Moshe tells us in Devarim (28-30), to do as G-d has commanded us and keep His Torah, or to (chas ve sholom) turn away from it, to follow foreign deities.

Make the right choice.
--Kochav

Sources:
Chaim H. Cohn Reflections on the trial and death of Jesus
H. Maccoby Revolution in Judea
David Donnini Fake Trial
Arieh

davidylan:
Your "questions" make no sense at all. Its like asking what a nuclear bomb looked like during the persian empire. Trying to force modern law into an event that occured 2000 yrs ago is a sign that its your mind that has the problem not the religious mind.

What notion from the 21st century have I tried to forced into the law of 2000 years ago?   Have I made any points of law?   I suppose 2000 years ago there had some form of law and within such law (however different it might be from ours today)  they would have had the notions of guilty, innocent, witnesses, wrongful charge. In fact, the bible says as much.

So where are the 21st points of law that I have used?

davidylan:
This is frankly stupid. We could not use 21st century laws to influence ancient roman and judaic laws. There are stark differences between how they interpreted the law then as against now.

For example - it was custom/law then that the Roman governor could do prisoner exchanges i.e. barnabas released so Jesus could be taken even though the same pilate found no fault with him.
They didnt have courts like we have today, no jury, no defence or prosecution lawyers to plead their case . . . so just what is the essence of your "question"?

They may not have had courts as we do today, but in some courts (Roman courts) they definitely had defense laywers ans some of the transcript from cases and personal accounts of these defense lawyers survive to this day.  Have you heard of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE - 43 CE) was a very well respected barrister in Rome and many of his legal speeches survive.  Right here on my desk, I have got transcript of some of his trial in the book, Defence Speeches.  It is actually quite a good read.

In fact, you have been fooled by the rubbish from the bible about prisoner exchange.  There is NO record of such exchange anywhere in Roman or Jewish tradition.  The narrative in the gospel is a theological device introduced in the story to promote a certain agenda.

I challenge you to show me where prisoner exchange is recorded in Jewish/Roman law outside of the bible.


The mechanism of the courts then might have been different from ours today, but I am sure they their courts where involve in the business of deciding on the guilt or innocents of defendants and making reparations where necessary.  In order words, they were in the business of issue verdicts on cases.   How different is that from today's courts.

All I am saying is that with respect to the verdict, there were two (maybe three) options  1)  Guilty   2) Innocent.   Are you sayying that their courts did not have these notions?
If they did not, then what is the point of having recourse to law?

Now, if the options these courts for have decide were guilty or innocent, what would have been the consequences of each decision?

Bastage:
@ Huxley.

As far as I am aware it was just guilty or innocent - there was no leave to abstain under Roman Law.

And I stick to my guns here - it is impossible to know if someone is innocent or guilty unless you know what crime they are charged with.

I am simply asking you to play out both scenarios - 1) guilty 2) Innocent


1) Guilty - If he was guilty as charged, what are the consequences of a guilty verdict?

2) Innocent - similarly, what are the consequences of a exoneration from such charges?

davidylan:
all the above twaddle are products of the 21st century mind taking advantage of modern law. No such terminologies and judicial intricacies existed 2000 yrs ago. Find something else to blab about.

Just what I predicted - that a mind addled by religion has been handicapped for ever to deal with questions regarding the very same religion.

If you posit a god to have created the universe, you have not solved the problem. You have simply multiplied it. For you have also got to answer the question - "Who created God? " Can you give that a stab?

Bastage:
I totally disagree. The Biblical account gives nowhere near enough information to be able to make a judgement.
In fact, it looks in places to be in error - Jesus was tried by the Romans over a matter that had nothing to do with them, ie: Jesus screwing with Jewish law. The Sanhedrin would have been responsible for the trial and execution if the Biblical account were true.
How can one make a judgement when one doesn't have the facts?

Tell me. What would have been your verdict and on what basis?

While I agree that the gospel account is very scanty as far as details are concerned, it is still possible to know apriori what the consequences of the various options would have been. We have three possible outcomes, which I list above (and here below);

i) Voted for conviction - If you voted for conviction, it means that you have been convinced by the case of the prosecution, ie, that Jesus was a seditionist and posed a threat to public order. OR, you are not convinced, BUT maliciously voted for conviction anyway, just to eliminate what you consider a threat to public order, hence not really doing justice to the case.

ii) Voted for exoneration - If you voted for exoneration, it means that you are not convinced by the case of the prosecution and you believe that the charges have been wrongly applied and that conviction under such charges would amount to a travesty of justice.

iii) Abstain - You were not convinced you were given sufficient information to correctly assess the quilt/innocence or perhaps were not competent to make a judgment.



Can you think of any other outcomes besides these three?

Now, consider yourself one of his followers, say, Peter. Peter would have had exactly the same options as I have listed above. What are the implications for each of the options, should any have been chosen by Peter?

DeReloaded:
how come atheist are more obsessed with Christianity than any other religion?

How come christians are not capable of answering simple questions about their religion but are wont to just follow stuff from books written by barbaric people many thousands of years ago?

May kelly:
Be proud of your identity as one who belongs to Jesus! He wasn’t ashamed to be publicly crucified for you, so you ought to stand up and be counted as a true, ardent uncompromising believer in Christ.

You have proved my point abundantly. Religion and christianity has drained away all the grey matter in your head, leaving a vast emptiness that only resonates to the sounds of Jesus and Christ.

Bastage:
I don't see them as hard questions (although the 3rd doesn't really have an answer).

1) Probably trumped up charges of treason and sedition against the Roman state. Crucifixion was reserved for these crimes.

2) No. But then I don't see the Gospels as concentrating that much on the legal aspects of the trial.

3) That's unanswerable. But not for the reasons you are insinuating. Nobody can say unless they actually lived in those times and through the event. All we can do is give an answer as to what we would do now based on our present experiences thus making the question irrelevant.

Questions 1 & 2 are just meant as scene-setters for the main question, which is the third one.   For question 3, you have three options i) vote for conviction ii) vote for exoneration iii) abstain.

i)  Voted for conviction  - If you voted for conviction, it means that you have been convinced by the case of the prosecution, ie, that Jesus was a seditionist and posed a threat to public order. OR, you are not convinced, BUT maliciously voted for conviction anyway, just to eliminate what you consider a threat to public order, hence not really doing justice to the case.

ii)  Voted for exoneration  - If you voted for exoneration, it means that you are not convinced by the case of the prosecution and you believe that the charges have been wrongly applied and that conviction under such charges would amount to a travesty of justice.

iii)  Abstain - You were not convinced you were given sufficient information to correctly assess the quilt/innocence or perhaps were not competent to make a judgment.

Although you were not there at the time, it is not hard to visualise the nature of the trial and the sides taken by followers of Jesus.  Jesus had possibly a few hundreds of followers who may have witnessed the trial firsthand or were close enough to the trial to know what was happening.  Now, imagine you were one of such followers,  say Peter, or James?

If Peter or James or yourself had the casting vote, how do you think they would have voted? Would they (or you) have voted to free their beloved leader  or would they (you) have voted to convict him (to vote to convict him means you believe the case of the prosecution or you don't believe the case but convict anyway to eliminate a dangerous seditionist).  How would you vote?

pinky lady:
@ POSTER

If not for Jesus they wouldn't have been a second chance for sinners, hell has already be in existence and meant
for sinners which was the reason he came to this world, he came to save mankind from hell, and here you are saying
he introduced the concept of hell. i pray that your understanding would open some day onorder for you to
really know the magnitude of this post and ask him for forgiveness.

Before Jesus came about, the concept of hell existed simply as a place where the dead go for a long repose. But when Jesus came about he converted hell into a place of everlasting punishment. So basically according to Jesus's redesign of hell people, from the aborted foetus, infants, stillborns, to all types of adults, who do not believe in him will roast in hell. Now, are these the works of a loving and merciful man/god?

Imagine if Jesus had not been crucified - Christian would not have benefited from his blood of salvation. So the blood of Jesus was important for the souls of the christians.

So who are the people instrumental in ensuring that Jesus shed his blood for Christians? I think there are God, Jesus, Judas, Jewish Priests, Pilate, Roman Soldiers, etc, etc. I submit that these individuals should occupy a special place in the hearts of Christians for ensuring that Jesus's blood was shed for them.

Now, imagine if Judas had not performed his role so perfectly. The roman soldiers would have been unable to identify the real Jesus and may have picked up someone else, say Peter, and crucified him instead. Would the blood of Peter have had the same salvadic powers that of Jesus?

Interesting how my critics on this post lack the intellectual mettle to deal with the facts I have presented. Instead, they are attacking me or want to preach to me. It's obvious that their slavish attachment to this dangerous and maniacal ignoramus called Jesus has damaged their thinking ability, hence their inability to deal with the facts of the thread.