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The Historical Jesus

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S-word

Well-Known Member
By isolating Jesus from the historical times in which he lived, is to see him outside the context of the reality that he was. this is a compilation of many historical and religious scholars.

Herod the Great was the Roman backed King of Judea from 37 BC , to when he died at Jericho in March or April of the year of 4 BC following an unsuccessful suicide attempt shortly after the big riots in which so many families lost their lives, in which riots the magnificent Hellenistic city of Sepphorus suffered extensive damage around the same time that Herod had ordered the slaughter of all the boys who were two years and below in the district of Northern Bethlehem, Nazareth and Sepphorus, where Jesus, who had been born in southern Bethlehem over a year earlier, then lived with his mother Mary and her husband Joseph the son of Jacob, who was the step father of Jesus. This Joseph whose genealogy is recorded in Matthew, should not be confused with the Joseph, who is the son of ‘Heli’, who is also the father of Mary. See the Genealogy recorded in Luke 3: 23, which is not that of Joseph the son of Jacob who had descended from Solomon the son of David and Bath-Sheba.

Although a practicing Jew, Herod was an Arab, the son of an Edomite named Antipater and whose mother was the daughter of a nobleman from Petra the capital of the rising Nabataean Kingdom. In 63 BC, Antipater sided with Rome when Pompey invaded Palestine and in 47 BC Julius Caesar whose mistress Cleopatra was to later bear to him a son ‘Caesarion,’ appointed Antipater procurator of Judea and bestowed Roman citizenship upon him, an honour that was inherited by ‘Herod the Great’ and his sons.

At the age of 16, Herod met his life long friend Mark Antony to who, in the year of 40 BC, on the 25TH December (An important date to remember) Cleopatra bore to Mark Antony, the twins whose names are Cleopatra Selene (Moon) and Alexander Helios (Sun) or Heli.
In 37 BC, the Roman senate nominated Herod as the King of Judea, a position he held for 32 years. Even after the defeat by Octavian, (who was to be known as the Emperor Augustus,) over his good friend Mark Antony at Actium (A promontory and ancient town of western Greece the ancient Hittite nation) in 31 BC in their struggle for the throne of the assassinated Julius Caesar. Octavian who knew of Herod’s love and earlier support for his now deceased friend Mark Antony, never the less knew that Herod was the one who would best rule Palestine as he himself would want it to be ruled, and Herod and Augustus were to later become close friends.

During his reign, Herod the Great built many massive fortresses and splendid cities, amphitheatres, and hippodromes for the Grecian games inaugurated in honour of Augustus, but his most grandiose creation was the Temple in Jerusalem, which he wholly built from the cornerstone up. Not only did he patronize the Olympic games, as did his sons, he was to become the president of those games, which, after his death continued to enjoy the support of his sons, Archelaus, Antipas and his brother Philip from Bethsaida, who was very popular and accessible to the Greeks, who came looking for Jesus.

Tetrarch, in Greek, means ‘Ruler of a quarter’, I wonder who the fourth Tetrarch of Israel was? Nathanael who was introduced to Jesus by Phillip, lived in the town of Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle at the insistence of his mother, who it would appear, had some hand in the organization of the wedding.
Herod’s descendants were not only the temporal rulers, but also the spiritual rulers of Palestine, or parts thereof during the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus. In his youth, Herod had married a woman named Doris, the mother of his first born son “Antipater’ who he later disinherited and killed.

Because he was an Idumaean and hated by the Jews, he attempted to appease them by marrying a Jewess, Mariamne a descendant of the Maccabees family of Jewish patriots, whom he actually loved. Mariamne, who had insisted that her brother be appointed high priest, was the daughter of Salome=Alexandra an heir from the old ruling Hasmonaean line and she is not to be confused with the niece of Herod Antipas, whose name is thought to be ‘Salome,’ the daughter of Herodias the wife of Philip 1, who is considered by some scholars to be one and the same as Philip of Bethsaida, the half brother to Herod Antipas.

With the support of the Queen of Egypt ‘Cleopatra’, a close friend of the Jewess Salome/ Alexandra, (the should have been queen) of the Hasmonaean line which was defeated by Pompey, Salome attempted to have Herod ousted in favour of her grand sons, finally ‘Herod the Great,’ had Mariamne, her brother and her two sons, plus her mother and grand father all killed, although one of Mariamne’s grand sons, ‘Herod Agrippa 1’ survived to rule in Palestine from about the late 41 AD to 44 AD.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britt, ‘Philip the son of ‘Herod the Great’ was born in 20 BC of a young woman by the name of ‘Cleopatra’ not Cleopatra the Queen of Egypt who died in 30 BC, 10 years after the birth of her twins, and 20 years before the birth of Philip who was about 14 years older than ‘Jesus’ who was born around 6 BC as the grandson of Heli, and the son of Mary from the tribe of Levi (Moses) whose cousin was Elizabeth, of the daughters of Levi.

Philip was given control of southern Lebanon and modern Syria, to the east of the Lake Galilee and Philip was a model ruler of whom almost nothing is known except for the fact that he ruled (throughout the life of Jesus) the district in which Jesus spent much of his ministerial time, and in which he worked most of his miracles. Matthew 11: 20-21, “The people in the towns where Jesus performed MOST of his MIGHTY MIRACLES,” did not turn from their sins, so he reproached those towns on the eastern side of the lake, “How terrible it will be for you, Chorazin! How terrible for you too, Bethsaida etc.” It was out side the walls of ‘Bethsaida Julias’ that had been rebuilt by Philip in 2 BC that Jesus healed a blind man, See Mark 8: 22-26......... To Be Continued
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
By isolating Jesus from the historical times in which he lived, is to see him outside the context of the reality that he was. this is a compilation of many historical and religious scholars.

it was in Caesarea Philippi a city rebuilt by Philip, that Jesus asked his disciples ‘who people were saying he was.’ It was in this district that Philip from Bethsaida played a part in the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes and in medieval art Philips symbol was loaves, See John 6: 1-7 where Jesus puts Philip to the test.
The last Testament of Herod the Great which was approved by Augustus, provided that Archelaus receive ruler ship of Judea, with Philip and Antipas ruling two of the remaining tetrarch’s. The reason why Joseph, when returning from Egypt with his wife Mary and her child Jesus after the death of Herod the Great, was afraid to live in Judea was because this cruel, depraved and despised Herod Archelaus was ruling there. Archelaus was later recalled to Rome and banished because he had antagonized the entire population of Judea and Samaria. Judea then became a Roman province and the Herod who was in Jerusalem at the time of Passover when Jesus was being tried by Pontius Pilate, was Herod Antipas who ruled from Jericho, who had John the Baptist beheaded at the request of Herodias the wife of Philip and mother of Philip’s daughter.

In 34 AD, shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Philips reign came to an end and in 36 AD, Herod Agrippa 1, the grandson of Herod the Great and nephew of Philip and Antipas, received the tetrarch of Batanaera and Trachonitis to the east of the sea of Galilee, formerly held by his uncle Philip. When Herod Antipas and Herodias tried to discredit Agrippa 1, who was in favour with the Emperor Caligula, they themselves were banished, Antipas’ tetrarch passing on to Agrippa 1 in AD 39. Then in 41 AD and after the assassination of Caligula, Agrippa’s support for Claudius was rewarded with the government of Judea, which had, since the banishment of Herod Archelaus, been ruled by Roman procurators for about 30 years.

It was this Herod who enjoyed the support and adoration of the Jewish authorities, who did all in his power to crush the infant Jewish Apostolic Church. It was he who executed James the son Zebedee whose mother, the wife of Zebedee, was Salome, a close friend of Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s minister of finances and one of the women who supported Jesus using their own resources.

Agrippa would have killed Peter also, had he not have escaped from prison. Agrippa’s sudden death in 44 AD is recorded in Acts 12: 21-23. Bethsaida on the eastern side of the Jordan where it enters Lake Galilee, was the birth place of Peter and his brother Andrew who was a close friend of Philip who with Andrew, were the two men to who John the Baptist pointed out his cousin Jesus as the one whom the light of man had chosen as the man through who he would reveal himself to the world; the man that he had promised Moses in Deuteronomy 18: 18; that he would in the future raise up from among the Israelites, the one who would come in the name of the Lord, ‘Who I Am’ and speak only that which he was commanded to say by his indwelling spirit that had descended upon him in the form of a dove.

Paul’s first letter to Timothy 1: the Lord God is our saviour and to be one in the ruling body of Jesus is our hope. When Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well and she said to him that she knew that the Messiah would come and reveal all things, he answered, “The one who speaks to you is He.” These were not the words of Jesus but those of our indwelling ancestral Father, who spoke to her through Jesus.

The words that Jesus spoke were not his words but were given for him to speak by our Father who sent him and who said, he who believes on me even though his is dead, yet shall he live again, but he who believes on me and lives, will never die. Death had absolutely no power over Jesus, but in order that the world should believe that he ‘The only Son of God’ who has made himself manifest in Jesus his servant and physical image that was to be lifted up in the same manner as Moses lifted up the image of the serpent, loves our father and does everything that he is commanded to do, he was obedient even unto death, proving to the world that even though you are dead, if you truly believe, yet shall you live again, but there is one among us, even now, who will prove to the world that he who believes and lives, will never die, but shall, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, be translated from a body of corruptible matter into an incorruptible body of light? Spontaneous combustion is a belief not only found in the bible, but also in the eastern religions. This I believe.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
By isolating Jesus from the historical times in which he lived, is to see him outside the context of the reality that he was. this is a compilation of many historical and religious scholars.

Herod the Great was the Roman backed King of Judea from 37 BC , to when he died at Jericho in March or April of the year of 4 BC following an unsuccessful suicide attempt shortly after the big riots in which so many families lost their lives, in which riots the magnificent Hellenistic city of Sepphorus suffered extensive damage around the same time that Herod had ordered the slaughter of all the boys who were two years and below in the district of Northern Bethlehem, Nazareth and Sepphorus, where Jesus, who had been born in southern Bethlehem over a year earlier, then lived with his mother Mary and her husband Joseph the son of Jacob, who was the step father of Jesus. This Joseph whose genealogy is recorded in Matthew, should not be confused with the Joseph, who is the son of ‘Heli’, who is also the father of Mary. See the Genealogy recorded in Luke 3: 23, which is not that of Joseph the son of Jacob who had descended from Solomon the son of David and Bath-Sheba.
This is as far as I got. First, there is no evidence that Herod killed or ordered to have killed all of the Jewish males who were 2 years old or younger. There is first no historical evidence (no literary sources or archeological sources). We only see it mentioned in one of the Gospels, while being completely left out of the other birth story.

Second, we can assume that if this was true, that Herod had a infant males killed, the Jewish population would have revolted. However, this simply did not happen. The first major revolt we see under Roman control was after Herod had died. The simple fact, that event, the massacre of the innocents, never happened.

Second, no historian or scholar support your idea of their being two Josephs who had a relationship with Mary. Simply, there is no evidence, no scholar or historian would support it, and it's based on faulty reasoning. Simply, it's untrue.

I had to go no further than that. The premise that what you are writing is based on a compilation of many historical and religious scholars simply is either a lie, or you a misrepresentation, as the two points that I covered, for your stance, have no credible backing by scholars.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
This is as far as I got. First, there is no evidence that Herod killed or ordered to have killed all of the Jewish males who were 2 years old or younger. There is first no historical evidence (no literary sources or archeological sources). We only see it mentioned in one of the Gospels, while being completely left out of the other birth story.

Second, we can assume that if this was true, that Herod had a infant males killed, the Jewish population would have revolted. However, this simply did not happen. The first major revolt we see under Roman control was after Herod had died. The simple fact, that event, the massacre of the innocents, never happened.

Second, no historian or scholar support your idea of their being two Josephs who had a relationship with Mary. Simply, there is no evidence, no scholar or historian would support it, and it's based on faulty reasoning. Simply, it's untrue.

I had to go no further than that.

Even within the section you quoted, other errors could easily be added (e.g. most scholars don't think Jesus was born in bethlehem, or the accuracy of the geneologies in the gospels, etc).


The premise that what you are writing is based on a compilation of many historical and religious scholars simply is either a lie...

I'd go with that.
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
This is as far as I got. First, there is no evidence that Herod killed or ordered to have killed all of the Jewish males who were 2 years old or younger. There is first no historical evidence (no literary sources or archeological sources). We only see it mentioned in one of the Gospels, while being completely left out of the other birth story.

Second, we can assume that if this was true, that Herod had a infant males killed, the Jewish population would have revolted. However, this simply did not happen. The first major revolt we see under Roman control was after Herod had died. The simple fact, that event, the massacre of the innocents, never happened.

Second, no historian or scholar support your idea of their being two Josephs who had a relationship with Mary. Simply, there is no evidence, no scholar or historian would support it, and it's based on faulty reasoning. Simply, it's untrue.

I had to go no further than that. The premise that what you are writing is based on a compilation of many historical and religious scholars simply is either a lie, or you a misrepresentation, as the two points that I covered, for your stance, have no credible backing by scholars.

Its quite obvious that you come to your ridiculous conclusions after reading only a small section of what anyone writes.
 
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Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
Its quite obvious that you come to your ridiculous conclusions after reading a small section of what anyone says.

Sometimes that's all it takes. If I saw a multi-paragraph post that began with, "Jesus was from Alpha-Centori and I have his moon-boots in my garage" I would probably stop there.
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
Even within the section you quoted, other errors could easily be added (e.g. most scholars don't think Jesus was born in bethlehem, or the accuracy of the geneologies in the gospels, etc).




I'd go with that.

If the scholars to whom you refer, believe that Jesus did exist, then they are forced to accept that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, as that is the only record of his birth from which they can source that evidence. If on the other hand, they don't believe that Jesus existed, then they don't believe he was born at all, let alone in the town of Bethlehem of Judaea.
 

logician

Well-Known Member
".g. most scholars don't think Jesus was born in bethlehem, or the accuracy of the geneologies in the gospels, etc"

i.e. the "biblical" Jesus never existed.
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
".g. most scholars don't think Jesus was born in bethlehem, or the accuracy of the geneologies in the gospels, etc"

i.e. the "biblical" Jesus never existed.

According to all atheist and agnostic scholars, who obviousely don't beleive he was born in any town, let alone Bethlehem of Judaea.
 

Oberon

Well-Known Member
If the scholars to whom you refer, believe that Jesus did exist, then they are forced to accept that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, as that is the only record of his birth from which they can source that evidence.

Ancient historical works contain plenty of errors (so do modern ones, actually). The genre of ancient history was not held to modern standards. As such, historians take a skeptical approach to them.

Luke and Matthew identify Jesus as being born in Bethlehem. Everywhere else he is "Jesus of Nazareth." The evangalists, or their sources, had good reason to invent the Bethlehem story.
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
Ancient historical works contain plenty of errors (so do modern ones, actually). The genre of ancient history was not held to modern standards. As such, historians take a skeptical approach to them.

Luke and Matthew identify Jesus as being born in Bethlehem. Everywhere else he is "Jesus of Nazareth." The evangalists, or their sources, had good reason to invent the Bethlehem story.

Luke 4: 2; "Joseph went from the town of Nazareth," I'll just repeat that for you, "Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the towm of Bethlehem of Judaea, with the pregnant unmarried woman to who he was engaged, and would not consummate that union until she had given birth to the son of her half brother Joseph, who is the son of Heli from the tribe of Levi. Nazareth is only about two kilometres from the Bethleham of Galilee, which town today, is called Beitlahm. it was in that district that the riots which had caused so much damage to the Hellenistic city of Sepporhus, around the time of Herods failed sucicide attempt just following his death in 4 B.C., which city was restored in 3 B.C., by his son and heir.
 
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Oberon

Well-Known Member
Luke 4: 2; "Joseph went from the town of Nazareth," I'll just repeat that for you, "Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the towm of Bethlehem of Judaea, with the pregnant unmarried woman to who he was engaged, and would not consummate that union until she had given birth to the son of her half brother Joseph, who is the son of Heli from the tribe of Levi. Nazareth is only about two kilometres from the Bethleham of Galilee, which town today, is called Beitlahm.

I've read the gospels (in Greek actually). I know what they say. I am also very familiar with ancient history in general and with Jesus scholarship. So I know that it is possible to say that the gospels record some things fairly accurately, and others they do not. One criterion (one of many) for historicity is whether or not some piece information is TOO convenient. The whole move to bethlehem for a census which didn't happen (especially given the wrong date for the governer) was invented to conform to the expectations of the messiah. Which is why it is only in the highly ficticious birth narratives that we find this.
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
You have zero credibility as a source and, if your current efforts are any indication, little chance of improving your status. :facepalm:

Show to me where any of the historical quotes are incorrect and perhaps I will look at your objections to those historical records, and make a judgment as to whether your objections are credible or just the ramblings of a delusional mind.

Herod the Great was the Roman backed King of Judea from 37 BC , to when he died at Jericho in March or April of the year of 4 BC following an unsuccessful suicide attempt shortly after the big riots in which so many families lost their live in which riots the magnificent Hellenistic city of Sepphorus suffered extensive damage.

Is this correct or incorrect?

Although a practicing Jew, Herod was an Arab, the son of an Edomite named Antipater and whose mother was the daughter of a nobleman from Petra the capital of the rising Nabataean Kingdom. In 63 BC, Antipater sided with Rome when Pompey invaded Palestine and in 47 BC Julius Caesar whose mistress Cleopatra was to later bear to him a son ‘Caesarion,’ appointed Antipater procurator of Judea and bestowed Roman citizenship upon him, an honour that was inherited by ‘Herod the Great’ and his sons.

At the age of 16, Herod met his life long friend Mark Antony to who, in the year of 40 BC, on the 25TH December (An important date to remember) Cleopatra bore to mark Antony, the twins whose names are Cleopatra Selene (Moon) and Alexander Helios (Sun)

In 37 BC, the Roman senate nominated Herod as the King of Judea, a position he held for 32 years. Even after the defeat by Octavian, (who was to be known as the Emperor Augustus,) over his good friend Mark Antony at Actium (A promontory and ancient town of western Greece the ancient Hittite nation) in 31 BC in their struggle for the throne of the assassinated Julius Caesar, Octavian who knew of Herod’s love and earlier support for his now deceased friend Mark Antony, never the less knew that Herod was the one who would best rule Palestine as he himself would want it to be ruled and Herod and Augustus were to later become close friends.

During his reign, Herod the Great built many massive fortresses and splendid cities, amphitheatres, and hippodromes for the Grecian games inaugurated in honour of Augustus, but his most grandiose creation was the Temple in Jerusalem, which he wholly built from the cornerstone up. Not only did he patronize the Olympic games, as did his sons, he was to become the president of those games, which, after his death continued to enjoy the support of his sons, Archelaus, Antipas and his brother Philip

Is this correct or incorrect?

Herod’s descendants were not only the temporal rulers but also the spiritual rulers of Palestine or parts thereof during the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus. In his youth, Herod had married a woman named Doris, the mother of his first born son “Antipater’ who he later disinherited and killed. Because he was an Idumaean and hated by the Jews, he attempted to appease them by marrying a Jewess, Mariamne a descendant of the Maccabees family of Jewish patriots, whom he actually loved. Mariamne, who had insisted that her brother be appointed high priest, was the daughter of Salome=Alexandra an heir from the old ruling Hasmonaean line and she is not to be confused with the niece of Herod Antipas, whose name is thought to be ‘Salome,’ the daughter of Herodias the wife of Philip 1, who is considered by some scholars to be one and the same as Philip of Bethsaida, the half brother to Herod Antipas.

With the support of the Queen of Egypt ‘Cleopatra’, a close friend of the Jewess Salome/ Alexandra, (the should have been queen) of the Hasmonaean line which was defeated by Pompey, Salome attempted to have Herod ousted in favour of her grand sons, finally ‘Herod the Great,’ had Mariamne, her brother and her two sons, plus her mother and grand father all killed, although one of Mariamne’s grand sons, ‘Herod Agrippa 1’ survived to rule in Palestine from about the late 41 AD to 44 AD.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britt, ‘Philip the son of ‘Herod the Great’ was born in 20 BC of a young woman by the name of ‘Cleopatra’ not Cleopatra the Queen of Egypt who died in 30 BC, 10 years after the birth of her twins and 20 years before the birth of Philip

Is this correct or incorrect?

Well that will do for starters, when you have provided your evidence, I will look at it and Judge if your evidence proves that there is no credability in my statements.
 
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fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
According to all atheist and agnostic scholars, who obviousely don't beleive he was born in any town, let alone Bethlehem of Judaea.
That's not true at all. Bart D. Ehrman, who is an agnostic, believes in a historical Jesus. Actually most scholars, theist or not, believe there was a historical Jesus. So really, that is just a dismissal on your part for the sole purpose to try to discredit those who believe differently.
 

S-word

Well-Known Member
That's not true at all. Bart D. Ehrman, who is an agnostic, believes in a historical Jesus. Actually most scholars, theist or not, believe there was a historical Jesus. So really, that is just a dismissal on your part for the sole purpose to try to discredit those who believe differently.

And from where did they get the evidence that Jesus is a living historical figure?
 
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