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The Invention Of Jesus

When Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven relocated to LA in the 1980s, he joined the Jesus Seminar, "a collection mostly of scholars devoted to reconstructing the historical Jesus" and years later turned his findings into the book Jesus of Nazareth-
Paul Verhoeven disrobes the mythical Jesus to reveal a man who has much in common with other great political leaders throughout history—human beings who believed that change was coming in their lifetimes. Gone is the Jesus of the miracles, gone the son of God, gone the weaver of arcane parables whose meanings are obscure. In their place Verhoeven gives us his vision of Jesus as a complete man, someone who was changed by events, the leader of a political movement, and, perhaps most importantly, someone who, in his speeches and sayings, introduced a new ethic in which the embrace of human contradictions transcends the mechanics of value and worth that had defined the material world before Jesus.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/...s-translated-by-susan-massotty/9781609803483/

He always hoped to do the movie version, but the reaction to Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ put the kybosh on that!

jesus-of-nazareth-paul-verhoeven.gif
 
When Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven relocated to LA in the 1980s, he joined the Jesus Seminar, "a collection mostly of scholars devoted to reconstructing the historical Jesus" and years later turned his findings into the book Jesus of Nazareth...
That's really interesting.

"...always hoped to do the movie version, but the reaction to Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ put the kybosh on that!"...

Maybe someone could have reminded him, there is a precedent!

 
I'm not buying this contextualization of the matter ...
What does any of this have to do with contextualisation?

One online explanation: "Contextualising language tries to. give real communicative value to the language that learners meet".

You also wrote:

"It's akin to denying the facticity or the need to establish facticity of (e.g.) nuclear weapons and the Cold War because the steady state cosmological models that prevailed during their inception were overturned and effectively refuted during the 1960's".

It's nothing of the kind at all. You seem to be avoiding actually answering any of the questions I posed, instead continually coming up with this fundamentalist, religious diatribe.

Let's recap here; I wrote:

"Is not the debate, eternally simplified:
Either the Biblical story of creation is factual, or it is not.

As it's not factual, anything laid on that specious foundation - predominantly incorporating Jesus therein is inevitability fallacious.

If the Bible, especially Genesis, is comprehensively exposed as such, then why even remotely debate whether Jesus performed miracles...".

You added,

"The Genesis narrative is an exercise in the realm of cosmogony".

No, it isn't. That's abject nonsense.

Cosmogony means, "...a branch of science that deals with the origin of the universe, especially the solar system".

Did you notice the use of the word, 'science' there.

Finally, you proclaimed:

"The Jesus narrative is an exercise in the realm of spirituality and morals / ethics."

It's nothing of the sort - there's obviously no point in asking tha you just answer the question - Bible and Jesus literal truth or not, without any fudging.
 
Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling's take on the controversy, in conversation with Chris Morris. There's a preamble before the meat of the subject starts at 1min 20.

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Sorry to come in 7 years late on this thread, but if Rome "invented" Jesus, why exactly would they want do that?
I mean, Rome was a dominating warlike state bent on conquest and power, so if Jesus's idea of "loving your enemies" was to catch on, Roman soldiers would be laying down their arms in their thousands, and surely the Roman establishment wouldn't want that?
 
Sorry to come in 7 years late on this thread, but if Rome "invented" Jesus, why exactly would they want do that? I mean, Rome was a dominating warlike state bent on conquest and power, so if Jesus's idea of "loving your enemies" was to catch on, Roman soldiers would be laying down their arms in their thousands, and surely the Roman establishment wouldn't want that?

There are actually plausible reasons for the ideological shift Dropship. The first being that Rome during the time of the highly equivocal "alleged historical Jesus", was knee deep in fighting insurgencies in Palestine, which was far from ideal for the Empire. It is suggested that Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus was basically bullshit, and he was a Roman infiltrator. What made Christianity potentially useful to Roman authorities is that it might have been used to pacify Roman Palestine under Agent Saul/Paul's leadership, but he tried to parlay it into a sort-of Judaism lite for Goyim consumption, and ultimately outlived his usefulness. Had things gone differently, he might have been able to turn the militant zealots of Judaism into extremist pacifists, which could have been infinitely preferable for Rome.

Then there is the issue of the disorganized plethora of religions in the Empire, all claiming official sanction. There was a general growing notion due to the influence of Neo-Platonism (quite apart from the various monotheisms) that there was a single god-head from which all other god-heads emerge and from which they derive their power. Emperor Elagabalus had tried to unite the empire behind the single Sun cult of El Gabaal, who later became known as Sol Invictus, and as a result, technically El Gabaal was the first monotheist religion of Europe proper, not Christianity. There was also something of a push to regulate the various cults , and an increasing desire to create a single religious ideology shared by all, citizens and non-citizens alike.

Probably most importantly however, during the late Roman Empire, Rome was increasingly stretched. It wasn't able to properly maintain its borders with adequately supplied and paid troops, especially along the Limes. Its economy had taken multiple shocks, including a period of hyper-inflation where Rome turned into a proto-Communist state with a centralized economy and a huge reduction in free trade. There were also bad harvests brought on by mini-nuclear winters caused by volcanic eruptions that may have been the source for the story of the Holy Graal and "the sickness in the land". Then there were the barbarian incursions. The Romans quickly realised that their old gods were being neglected in favor of the new cults and under Constantine the Christians were made legal (they were previously seen as seditious cannibalistic orgiastic Judaic atheists, I will unpack this for you later if you want), then under Theodosius they became the official state religion. This was valuable to Rome as they knew that important Barbarian tribes had converted to Arian Christianity, and Christianity advocated peace (allegedly), consequently, it would be possible to hijack Christianity and turn it into a Roman state cult as a means of controlling the barbarians and bringing them to heel. In fact, the plan sort of worked. Sort of.
 
Sorry to come in 7 years late on this thread, but if Rome "invented" Jesus, why exactly would they want do that?
I mean, Rome was a dominating warlike state bent on conquest and power, so if Jesus's idea of "loving your enemies" was to catch on, Roman soldiers would be laying down their arms in their thousands, and surely the Roman establishment wouldn't want that?

You could say the same about the British Empire or the USA - yet both promote(d) Christianity rather heavily.

Christianity has always been used by the powers that be to get people to be nice and obedient at home, and fight "evil" elsewhere.

You will notice that the Bible contains enough material to promote both, as it were.
 
You could say the same about the British Empire or the USA - yet both promote(d) Christianity rather heavily.

Christianity has always been used by the powers that be to get people to be nice and obedient at home, and fight "evil" elsewhere.

You will notice that the Bible contains enough material to promote both, as it were.
Yet isn't this the case with many - most religions? Judaism, Islam, Hindu, etc. Sometimes the ones in power have little - to no spiritual motivation and there goal is simply power, influence and of course MONEY.
 
..You could say the same about the British Empire or the USA - yet both promote(d) Christianity rather heavily. ..

Because that way you can get the proles to police themselves. You only need to ensure that the ones at the top are in line. And you can do this by giving them the power of life or death over the people they 'shepherd'.

Radical Islam is the best example. But Christianity back in the Dark Ages was just as murderous and vicious.

Want someone who you don't like 'out of the way' ? A quite word to the local Priest and he will be off to have a meeting with the Inquisition. Or maybe the woman you are unsuccessfully pursuing ? Doesn't she have a couple of black cats and can be found brewing strange things in a pot at night ? Must be a witch.
Want to curry favour ? Who don't you like ? maybe at the next church meeting you could start a little rumor.

Organised religion is corrupt and vile.

INT21

(Just my own opinion, of course. Each to his/her own)
 
..You could say the same about the British Empire or the USA - yet both promote(d) Christianity rather heavily. ..

Because that way you can get the proles to police themselves. You only need to ensure that the ones at the top are in line. And you can do this by giving them the power of life or death over the people they 'shepherd'.

Radical Islam is the best example. But Christianity back in the Dark Ages was just as murderous and vicious.

Want someone who you don't like 'out of the way' ? A quite word to the local Priest and he will be off to have a meeting with the Inquisition. Or maybe the woman you are unsuccessfully pursuing ? Doesn't she have a couple of black cats and can be found brewing strange things in a pot at night ? Must be a witch.
Want to curry favour ? Who don't you like ? maybe at the next church meeting you could start a little rumor.

Organised religion is corrupt and vile.

INT21

(Just my own opinion, of course. Each to his/her own)
Yet even now Cristian fundamentalist sometimes brainwash devotees and via guilt - fear control there lives to quite an extent. Although this is much improved from the earlier examples you've quoted INT2. The good side I see is that certain churches, temples, etc. do aid the needy (which IMO) should be there primarily goal.
 
This was valuable to Rome as they knew that important Barbarian tribes had converted to Arian Christianity, and Christianity advocated peace (allegedly), consequently, it would be possible to hijack Christianity and turn it into a Roman state cult as a means of controlling the barbarians and bringing them to heel. In fact, the plan sort of worked. Sort of.

This is a very interesting post--much to consider.

A few days ago I began reading an essay on the influence of Hellenism on western Christianity (it was specifically on Greek Orthodoxy, but there was a lot of overlap with Roman Catholicism). In effect it was an answer to Tertullian's indignant demand, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" To which the answer, it transpires, is "an awful lot".

I recall walking around the Coptic museum in Cairo (almost deserted that day) and having a real Epiphany (sorry) with the realisation that Roman Christianity was very western--more so than I'd ever appreciated--and it could easily be (and indeed is) otherwise. On an intellectual level, I knew some of this, but seeing the texts, the relics and the artwork before my eyes really drove that thought home.

Will post more when I finish that essay.
 
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That's why Jesus reminded people to bypass it with- "You have ONE teacher, ME"..:)

Even if I accepted that there is only one path to spiritual fulfilment (and I don't ), there are still a lot of problems with that statement.

JC didn’t write anything down as far as we know. And the people that did never met him and didn't even speak the same language as him.

And then there is the thorny question of the contradictions in the Gospels. None of which inspire confidence in the authenticity of the accounts.
 
This is a very interesting post--much to consider
Exactly so

I began reading an essay on the influence of Hellenism on western Christianity

This is another key strand of Atwill's analysis. Classical Roman society was in effect a militarised version of Hellenic aspirations and concepts underpinned by imperial ambition and expediency (one might say, an early parallel in many ways of the USA).

The entire concept of a religion devised (or arrived at) to control and subsume militant Jewish terrorists, and to absorb competing coexisting religions makes the cheek-turning rewards-in-heaven construct of Christianity even more evidently what it is.

And remember that the proto- patchwork gospels were NOT written in Aramaic, but in an early form of Greek, prior to translation and edit/selection at the Council of Nicea.

It's no accident that the first Pope was a Caeser, and that the headquarters of conventional Christianity is an enclave within Rome even to this day. Render unto Caeser...
 
Dropship,

...That's why Jesus reminded people to bypass it with- "You have ONE teacher, ME". ..

So when that teacher dies, what happens ?

And, of course, there is always the threat in the background.

'if you don't do as I say, you will not go to heaven; better shape up'.

INT21.
 
(Apologies, I've recently had rather more of my offline trials and tribulations than is healthy, and therefore am somewhat behind in my extracts from "Caeser's Messiah". I shall resume this when I can. Meantime, please do watch this clip of the mighty Hitch expounding upon The True Core of the Jesus Myth)
 
(Apologies, I've recently had rather more of my offline trials and tribulations than is healthy, and therefore am somewhat behind in my extracts from "Caeser's Messiah". I shall resume this when I can. Meantime, please do watch this clip of the mighty Hitch expounding upon The True Core of the Jesus Myth)

Hope all is well Erm.

He's making an almost facetious point though as we have no idea what Jesus, (or the person he was based on), actually said.

Jesus might have said "f*ck all this, make your own minds up, reject religion, don't follow me" etc. We'll never know unless one of us gets a good look around the Vatican archive.

edit: sorry I wandered off and got distracted and he pretty much said what I said.

Hitch is always watchable, although I don't agree with some of what he says, but by god does he always looks ill.
 
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If it was the word of God, there'd be no contradictions. At all. It'd be flawless.

JC had to dumb himself down in the hope that people could grasp what he was telling them- "you hardly believe me when I tell you earthly things, so how would you believe me if I told you heavenly things?", but being mere humans they still struggled to get their heads round it, hence their differing accounts.
But at least having more than one account means they can all usefully cross-reference each other from various angles..:)
 
Which bit of this don't you like?-
God said through JC- "Love one another, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the destitute, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, look after the poor"

Jesus says hate your own family: If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children,and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

Now what does this say about Jesus' relationship with Joseph, Mary and God?

Jesus' Cult Leader nonsense: He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Mattew 10:37

Yeah, but he that demandeth that you betray your own family for the cult is not to be trusted, amirite?

Jesus' hypocrisy, just one example: He told his followers not to call anyone a fool. "Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Mattew 5:22
Yet he often called his critics and disciples fools. e.g. Ye fools and blind. Matthew 23:17 Ye fools. Luke 11:40 O fools, and slow of heart to believe. Luke 24:25

So much for walking a mile in another guys shoes or, y'know, actually being true to his own teachings.

Jesus encourages self mutilation: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off ... And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off ... And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Mark 9:43-48

Did Jesus really suggest you should self mutilate, y'know, like castrate yourself?

Jesus says castrate yourself: There are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12

If that wasn't clear enough and you though the message was somehow a metaphor for something else, Jesus wants you to chop your own dick off. I say all you good Christians should totally go for it , for your reward in heaven shall surely be the greater for this act of faith.

Jesus was a good Jew and totally demands that you follow all the Levitical Laws to the letter: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Matthew 5:17

Jesus says if you cuss at your parents you deserve the death penalty: God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. Matthew 15:14

Yeah, except you have to also hate your parents. Make up your mind Jesus. I think hatred and cussing go hand in hand myself.

Jesus endorses the capture, condemnation and eternal torture of everyone who disagrees with him: The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13:41-46

'Cause Jesus IS the kwisatz haderach... I mean the son of man and all that.

Jesus was a false prophet: Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Matthew 16:28. Mark 13:30. Luke 21:32.

Just to be clear this was all about all the stars falling from the sky at the end of the world. So that should have happened in th 1st Century AD, but it never ever did.

Jesus says war is cool: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

also...

He that is not with me is against me. Matthew 12:30. Now where have we heard that before? Hmm... pretty much every dictator ever.

Jesus sometimes utterly contradicts himself while being rude about people: O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? ... Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. Matthew 12:34-39

Yeah, so Jesus goes around performing miracles all the time to people who don't believe in him, then suddenly he says this? Remember that the Pharisees are the very same people who brought Jesus all those nice baby gifts too. What an ungrateful sod.

That whole take care of the poor stuff... sometimes Jesus wasn't so into it: Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Matthew 25:29

Distinct hint of nepotism and corruption about the whole deal. Not the work of a good and just totalitarian sky tyrant at all.

Jesus makes uncomfortable metaphors about how the Kingdom of heaven is basically a slave state and he's fine with that: The kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. Matthew 18:23-25

Of course the list could just go on and on and on and on and on.

I personally don't think Jesus was ever a real person, I think he is a literary fiction put together by a bunch of arseholes to justify whatever horrid crap they wanted to inflict on people. To quote Jesus again "You know them by the fruit they bear" Matthew 7:16, and Jesus' religion is just awful. It's teachings are awful, they can be used to justify the worst atrocities. It is a short trip from One God, One Chosen People, One Promised Land, One Messiah, to Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuherer.
 
Maybe we can just go back to discussing if JC actually existed?

The merits of Christianity (or lack thereof) have been debated over the centuries at length. I don't think we can ad much to that debate here.
 
Maybe we can just go back to discussing if JC actually existed?
sugestion
The merits of Christianity (or lack thereof) have been debated over the centuries at length. I don't think we can ad much to that debate here.
Excellent get back on point about all this.
 
So... thread closed?


Before closing the thread(!) I wondered whether anyone here knows anything about the 'Desposyni' - ie those 'belonging to the Lord' (ie. descendents; relatives / family members) of Jesus) being persecuted and killed off by the Catholic church? If there is evidence of this, then presumably, the Lord they were related to / descended from, also existed?
 
Before closing the thread(!) I wondered whether anyone here knows anything about the 'Desposyni' - ie those 'belonging to the Lord' (ie. descendents; relatives / family members) of Jesus) being persecuted and killed off by the Catholic church? If there is evidence of this, then presumably, the Lord they were related to / descended from, also existed?
I was just joking about the thread closing.
 
Yeah but wouldn't the fact of their existence mean that Jesus existed too? Just wondered what the evidence is for their existence.........In history?
 
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