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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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February 28, 2004
Did Jesus exist?
Jesus may or may not have ever existed. I consider this an open question. Obviously there's no reasonable basis for claiming that he was God. He may, however, have lived as a common itinerant preacher.
There seems to be scant evidence of his existence. At least with Santa Claus, we know there really was a Saint Nicholas on whom all the later wild stories are based. We can't be so sure with Jesus.
There seems to have been little or no mention of Jesus at the time. The Biblical texts seem to be the only "contemporary" mentions of Jesus. At that, "contemporary" seems to be pushing the point of credibility, as the Biblical gospels appear to have been written somewhere around a century after the supposed time of Jesus.
Given this paucity of documentation, some Christian scholars put a great deal of stock in a passage from Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote Jewish Antiquities. [ORIGINAL GREEK TEXT] [ENGLISH TEXT]
Here is the complete Josephus passage, the only near contemporary supposed reference to Jesus I've found:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
- Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3
From what I was ever able to make of it, the Josephus reference looks like an obvious fraud, inserted by some Christian long after the fact.
Josephus wrote a long and exhaustive history of the Jews, yet Jesus gets just this one paragraph. In one quick paragraph in the middle of a thousand pages we come up with something to the effect of, 'oh and there was this guy Jesus who was the son of God come to save humanity, was crucified and rose from the dead.' Then it was on to the next thing.
If this were REALLY part of Josephus' book, he'd have had more than one paragraph. If he thought Jesus was the savior, he'd have come up with more than one paragraph. It doesn't fit in or add up with the rest of the book. Thus, the conclusion that this was a forgery inserted into the document perhaps centuries later.
So far as I know, this spurious Josephus reference is the only near contemporary reference to Jesus outside of the Bible itself.
Thus, I continue to doubt not just the divinity of Jesus, but the actual historical existence of even a mortal man corresponding to the mythology.Labels: god, julie andrews
posted by Al at 2/28/2004 09:24:00 PM
February 27, 2004
Mel Gibson takes it easy on the Jews
Let's have one more bite at the apple with this Mel Gibson and the Jews thing. In the run-up to the release of The Passion of the Christ, I wrote about the general issue of anti-Semitism in the New Testament of the Bible. Now that the movie is out, we can look see what Gibson actually did with the source material.
In fact, based on what is actually on the screen, Mel Gibson clearly went out of his way to minimize the culpability of Jews in general- within the context of remaining true to scripture. As a Bible believing Christian, Gibson could not just change the plot points of the Book when making the movie. In the book, the characters- good, bad and mixed- were mostly Jews. He couldn't very well just pretend that the Jews had left the room when all this was happening.
However, he went out of his way to show different reactions among the Jews. Besides the obvious fact that Jesus himself, his mother, and the disciples were Jews, he emphasized dissent among the Sanhedrin.
Caiaphus, the high priest, was the principle bad Jew here, but even he left some doubt. You could watch this and think that he was deluded, and thought he really was taking out a bad guy. What exactly was he thinking?
Yes, Caiaphus whipped up a lot of the Jews into a mob frenzy as per the book. You couldn't very well tell this story without that. Again, however, as per the book Jesus judged that they merited forgiveness because they didn't understand what they were doing.
Gibson played up one somewhat marginal character in particular from the Book which emphasized that not all Jews were behind this action: Simon of Cyrene. Simon was the guy drafted on the road to help Jesus carry the cross.
Gibson depicts him as a mere bystander reluctantly drafted for duty. Soon, however, Simon is actively defending Jesus. He stands up to the extremely sadistic Romans, bravely insisting that they lay off the scourging of Jesus or he will not carry the cross one more step. "I don't care what you do to me." One of the Romans mocks him with the word "Jew" as an epitaph, and orders him to move on. How do you get anti-Semitic from Gibson out of all that?
In the movie- as per the book- the ROMANS killed Jesus, not the Jews. Gibson made a point of it being his own hands shown driving the nails into Jesus' hands- not those of a Jew.
Not only that, but the Romans were shown as being sadistic well above and beyond the call of duty. The Jews slapped Jesus around a bit in the process of initially taking him in, but it was Romans who were shown doing 99% of the violence. Caiaphus whipped up a mob to demand Jesus' execution, but they were not at Golgotha cheering the torture. The sadism was shown coming pretty much all from the Romans.
In short, Gibson could not have made an honest presentation of the source material that showed the Jews more favorably than what he did. I appreciate the fears of Jews about this material. However, the problem is the Bible, not Gibson.
I object to the dishonesty of the attacks on Gibson. For example, Tom Friedman, movie reviewer for the Fox News website, was on FNC denouncing the movie as horribly anti-Semitic, promoting Jewish stereotypes. Specifically, he objected to Gibson showing Judas betraying Jesus for money, taking 30 pieces of silver- as if Gibson had somehow made this up to smear the Jews.
Was Friedman somehow unaware that this was in the Book? How was Gibson supposed to tell this story without that part?
People need to quit pretending that Gibson just made stuff up to smear the Jews. Look, if you want to argue that the New Testament is "anti-Semitic," go ahead. But don't be trying to blame Mel Gibson.
posted by Al at 2/27/2004 12:04:00 PM
February 26, 2004
Fats Domino's birthday
Antoine Domino was born in New Orleans February 26, 1928. Happy #76 to Fats Domino.
Fats doesn't really get the full credit he deserves. All in all, he rates as one of the top three or four architects of the rock music tradition. He's definitely the leader of the New Orleans contingent. He personally went a good ways toward putting the roll in rock and roll.
He had more hits than Little Richard and Chuck Berry combined. He was a songwriting, piano playing, singing fool. Surely even silly non-music listening young Britney Spears fans know several of his songs. He's had something over 100 chart singles.
A quick roll call of a few of his classics:
Blueberry Hill
I'm Walkin'
Walkin' to New Orleans
Lady Madonna
Fat Man
Ain't That a Shame
I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday
Blue Monday
I Want to Walk You Home
He doesn't get much attention today, though. There's no movie about his life, or tribute albums that I know of. Silly ol' Pat Boone gets more notoriety.
Fats messed up by living right. He was never arrested that I know of. He was straight and clean living. I've never heard of any hint of scandal about him. He didn't marry a cousin. He wasn't even gay. What kind of rock star is that?
He's just had to settle for being one of the most accomplished and biggest selling singers and songwriters of the rock tradition. Oh, well.
posted by Al at 2/26/2004 10:19:00 PM
February 25, 2004
Richard Thompson live
I have a review of Richard Thompson's February '04 show in Indianapolis. READ IT HERE.
posted by Al at 2/25/2004 02:02:00 AM
February 24, 2004
Mel Gibson and Christians and Christ-killers, oh my!
Lot of good hype rolling around for this new Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ.
Much of this movie promotion has built from the charges and fears of anti-Semitism. I have a whole separate page addressing these issues of Christians and Jews. CLICK HERE.
posted by Al at 2/24/2004 12:09:00 AM
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