please nobody kill me but i would just like to say that its pretty ridicolous for jews to say its lies when christian people say that a group of jewish people killed jesus because thats what it says in the bible and if their calling the bible untrue well how can they claim that there is any truth in the torah? BTW i don't believe either one is true but just work with me.

the killing of jesus was the most famous lynching of a black man ever.

Let me clarify this for you. (and BTW I am a Jew)... King Herod and Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus' death. Herod was the King of The Jews and a Jew himself (obviously). Pilate was the ROman govenor residing over the areas we now call Palistine and Israel. So logically you could say that a jew and a non-Jew were responsible for Jesus' death. But it's a bit more complex than that.

During those times Jerusalem was an occupied terratory. A provence of the Roman Empire. Pontius Pilate was made Govenor of the area (called the Ludaea Provence back then) by order of Ceasar. Pilate installed Herod as his puppet King of the Jews. And, to solidify his power in the provence, Pilate had Herod appoint (by force of arms) the leaders of the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. You need to keep this in mind. All the players involved were pawns of the Romans, be they jewish or not.

Jesus started proclaiming he was the true king of the Jews, which he may very well have been, but that is not the point. See, in that time there were all sorts of lunatics running around the holy city proclaiming that they were the true King of the Jews and making trouble. It was an epidemic of messiahs. And how were the leaders of the Temple supposed to know which one of these wackos was really the messiah. They were in a tough situation. They did what they thought was right. They did what they thought would maintain the peace, satisfy their Roman rulers, and stop the endless procession of would be Kings.

Jesus came into the city and really made things a misery for the leaders of the Jewish Temple as is told in the bible. That pissed them off so they went to Herod and asked him to take care of the young upstart for them. Herod, seeing an opportunity to put an end to the endless challenges to his throne, agreed to oblige them.

So, the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem were also responsible for Jesus' death. But no more responsible then Herod himself, Pontius or Cesear for that matter.

I think the thing to remember here is that these people, be they Jew or not, lived 2000 years ago. Their actions were their own provoked by situations we cannot possibly hope to understand beyond what is written in the bible. And we must not mistake the actions of those ancient folk for the actions of todays Jewish population.

Truth be said, if you didn't figure this out already, Jesus was also responsible for his own death. And I think he meant it to be that way. He understood the power of martyrdom. All of his actions from the time he arrived in Jerusalem until the time of his death were designed specifically to lead him to his own end. He wanted to die for all of our sins, to absolve us all of them. It was his purpose, ultimately.

So, you can now see 3 different factions who were responsible for Jesus' death:

1) Cesear and The Roman Empire by backing Pilate's actions.
2) King Herod and The Leaders of The Jewish Temple by being Pilate's puppets
3) Jesus himself by actively seeking martyrdom.

So to say 'The Jews' were solely responsible for the Crucifixion is just an out and out lie. Certainly those ancient Jews had a part in the play, but it was not necessarily a leading roll. And let's not forget about Judas, surely there is some blame that lies upon his head. And he was one of the first Christians. So there, that makes 4!

Cheers.

Well-said, RW.

I think that this is a complex issue.

Mandela: There's been a lot of talk about the ethnicity of Jesus. Just curious here: what brings you to the conclusion he was black? I'm not saying he wasn't (there ARE black Jews after all), but I'm just saying: what's your reason?

You do realize, of course, that Jesus himself was a Jew?

Two remarks. It used to be my favourite archaeological area, that was some years ago before I chose to become a paleoanthropologist.

1) On the historicity of a man called Jesus.

Allow me to quote from my post #328978:

Gamaliel 1st was also known as Gamaliel the Elder, or Gamaliel the Great, and he was the grandson of Hillel the Great. He succeeded his father in the quality of Nasi.

Gamaliel 1st died 18 years before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans (AD 70) – to wit in AD 52.

Samuel the Little died before Gamaliel 1st, that is no later than AD 51. It was under the presidency of Gamaliel 1st that he composed the prayers against the traitors and the Apostates – and he did it no later than AD 50.
Who were these Apostates? Those that, since AD 40 in Antiochus, have been already named Chrestians – in other words those who disavowed and abjured Moses’ Laws.

Between AD 40 and AD 50 the Sanhedrin took liturgical sanctions against these Apostates – it’s a historical fact. Now, if Judaism took sanctions against the Jews who were the disciples of a man named Jesus – who was put to death some years before these sanctions were enacted – it is hard to admit that the said Jesus did not really exist.

A historical fact never mentioned by those who support the Mythist school.


2) On who killed ‘Jesus’?

The Jews had no legal rights of any kind to put someone to death under Roman occupation! It must be said and said and said again and again! Who killed Jesus, who put him to death? The Romans did full stop!

The answer is as terse and simple as that.

Wow, Allison, that's a really cool post: especially #1. I've been interested in archaeology for years, and even though I'm not a Christian (I don't deny Christ, but my idea of worship is pretty broad, so at best, I'm a heretic), I'm interested in biblical archaeology. I had never heard of this point before, but it's really interesting.

but didn't the jews cry "away with him, away with him" or am i reading a different book?

I think you need to look a little deeper then what you read in the bible. That bit you mentioned was just a very minor event compared to JEsus' whole jerasulem experience.

If I remember correctly (at the scene of the crux) there were 2 presented to the crowd. Jesus and Barabas. It was some type of holiday so Pilate agreed to spare one man from the cross. When he asked the crowd they replied 'save the son of God!'. But here's the mesed up part. The name Barabas literally translates into 'The Son of God', so he got spared. Besides if they had spared Jesus I'm not quite sure Christianity would even exist today. That goes back to the whole martydom thing.

RWT

I've read about the 'Barabas: son of God' problem before. It's very interesting.

Now, let's think hypothetically:
If Pilate had asked, not the crowd, but rather Jesus and Barabas: would the outcome have been different?

WWJD (What would Jesus do): If Pilate asked Jesus, "Who should be crucified, and who should be set free?" What would the outcome have been?

"save me, it's not my time"

Sorry Kirin that I didn’t respond sooner.

In an old manuscript (an old version of the Gospel according to Matthew), once in the possession of Origen, Jesus-bar-Aba can clearly be read.

The name of this Barabbas, which in the canonical Gospels is the name of an obscure brigand, breaks down necessarily in Hebrew in two parts – bar meaning son, or son of, and Aba with two different meanings.

Ut vere dicam, if we choose to write Aba with an aleph at the beginning of the word, we get Jesus-bar-Aba, meaning Jesus-son of the-Father. If we choose to write Aba with a ḫeith/ḫet we then get Jesus-son-hidden. This is rather enigmatic in both cases. But which of the two is the correct spelling? The one that appears in the oldest manuscript, that is the cheirographic one mentioned above. And in this old cheirogram we find the spelling ẖAba.

And so at this point, the question is – Who was this hidden son? Would he be not this mysterious twin brother, this Thomas that we find in numerous places in the Canonical Gospels and Apocryphal writings? As matter of fact, it would not be surprising that the anonymous scribes/copists, who composed the Gospels in the 4th Century AD, had imagined a large part of the Canonicals, a part under which laid a historical basis, which was very useful to them as the leading foundation of their eggregorical story.

Now we’ve to verify this assumption - without forgetting the mysterious brother who lived at Sidon under the nickname of Sidonios (Hippolytus of Thebes, Migne’s Patrology, CVI, 187).


(To be continued.)

Allison, you quote poetry AND you know an amazing amount about history. I love history, but biblical history is something I've studied very little of. What you're writing is really, really interesting.

You're very cool, Allison

Thank you soooooooooooo much, kirin...

(Continued from post #349010.)

To do that, we must delve into the second part of the Gospel according to Barthelemy, a Coptic manuscript from the 5th Century AD, the oldest and uncensored one. Here we find this most stupefying paragraph:

Nteumou etmmau afšbtf mpeumto ebol afouōnz eroou afšago nmau ntasre nxobraios ergō mmos ge gere pabpiskopos ettainu petros gere thōmas pameks-snau xnkhrs. …euasin oude au bis ebol ge afer pesmou nouešōt afzmos zikhem outōme afouōnz eroou. Nekhe petros mpešōt ge bis penkhobis amou nišage mmaf.

Translated orthodoxically it gives: While they were talking, Jesus stood there listening to their discussion. They did not know he was Jesus. At this moment, he revealed himself to them; he made himself known to them. He spoke in Aramaic and said to them: “Hello Peter, my venerable bishop! Hello Thomas, my second chrestos!”

Problem is a) they were no bishops at this period, and the names in the Coptic text aren’t first names at all. Given that Thomas is but a barbarism that is substituted for taoma, which in Hebrew is a common name meaning twin brother, we should adhere to facts and restore the original meaning of the sentence. And so here is another translation, one that is perfectly heterodox, but faithful to the Coptic cheirograph:

...He (Jesus) spoke to them in Aramaic, and said: “Good afternoon to you, Kephas, my supervisor! Good afternoon to you, my twin brother, second Christ...”

Then deductively crops up another question: What was the name of the real-life Thomas, then? According to Tatian, in his Diatessaron, and to Saint Ephrem, in his Hymns, his first name was Yehuda (Judas).

The plot thickens. That's really interesting (and saying so is an understatement of vast proportions). Thank you for sharing this. It's really great.

the bible is full o contradictions its over 2'000 years old.it is incomplete and has changed alot.you are better off reading the god delusion-richard dawkins.every holy scripture from the bible to the koran have similarities.was there no religion before jesus.

macdaddy you remind me of me about 10 months ago.

hi m8, could you elaborate....was your view changed?

That is blatantly false...and I do presume that you meant to say "there was no religion before jesus." If, however, you meant to ask 'was there no religion before jesus?' Then the answer is 'plenty'. Additionally, Jesus founded no religion. Jesus was a reformer of the Hebrew religion who may or may not have been a member of an unorthodox, gnostic sect called the Essenes. He may or may not have had contact with or been influenced by, whether through the Essenes or otherwise, Hindus. He may or may not have existed...though I lean toward the latter. It was the disciples of Jesus and the apostle Paul who founded Christianity after his death. All religions have similarities because they are all born out of universal archetypes.

I need to ask a question here. I read or heard some where that religion was founded on a way to control the masses? So, was there really a man named jesus? Is religion real or another way of control?

yes,i did mean 'was there religion before jesus'.