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Re: Funny anti-religious Internet pics
Don't remember if this has been posted:
Don't remember if this has been posted:
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You forgot to mention the most important part: that a very sizeable of the records, let's say (being generous) like three quarters of all records of Western Classical Antiquity, went the way of all poop down the sewer of history, so we should be asking the works of the couple dozen ancient authors preserved to care to make mention, somewhere among their description and analysis of the fights among powerful politicians and nations of the time, about a particular obscure tabloid fact that would be of sacred interest to a given geeky wacko sect and their descendants a few centuries after Mediterranean kings and emperors ceased ruling Western history.
1. That is very true. Somewhere I heard that we have only an inth of that total literature that was produced in the ancient world. But one point interests me: the 3rd and 4th century Christians worked very hard to preserve as much of their literature as they possibly could. Some books, like THE ACTS OF PAUL AND THECLA, were unpopular with Christian intellectuals, but still survive in abundance. Even copies of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius all survived simply because they mention Jesus. Yet despite their efforts, NO LITERATURE predating Paul's letters survived.
2. There was a contemporary of Jesus who should have mentioned him: Philo of Alexandria. He was Jewish and would have been fascinated with a Messianic prophet. He lived in Alexandria and spent much time in Jerusalem, yet he makes no reference to Jesus in his surviving literature.
3. Forget contemporaries, the first few Pagan writers (because they're not all historians) that mention Jesus, make no reference to the above miracles either. I admittedly have no read all of Josephus, but I'm pretty sure that the authentic references to Jesus make no notice of said miracles either.
1. They worked equally hard to destroy all traces of those books they considered heretic, and that's where we know about the lost and the apocryphal evangiles of X and Y, which is the reason why you talk of all the hard work of preserving them. And works of non-Christian authors were not preserved merely because of some possible reference to JC: a canon was made of very few books that were used, following the Roman educational tradition, because of their philological and moral qualities, and then the content was interpreted to suit Christian fancies, like the famous case of Virgil's fourth eclogue, or that case of Suetoniius that you were referring to.
2. Philo's interest was in the traditional Jewish tradition and, although he was more Greek than Jewish in his intellectual training, you have to substantiate that claim about necessarily having been fascinated by a figure like JC who, for all the claims about continuing the old tradition, was in fact breaking with it in many fundamental points.
3. Of course they don't: you won't find any record of miracles by Joseph Smith in American history.
LMAO.
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1. a. Very true. But we're not talking about documents that would possibly be heretical.
b. I have a copy of Everyman Library's ANNALS and HISTORIES of Tacitus. And it states in the introduction that one of the main reasons that Tacitus was saved by Medieval monks was because ANNALS contains a reference to Jesus. If I can dig it up and quote it for you, I will.
2. Maybe fascinated isn't the right word. But it does some logical that he would have noted a major messianic claimant. I don't see why a break in fundamentalism would preclude Philo's interest.
3. Fantastic events and myths litter ancient histories. I don't quite get your point.
....Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed
1. a. Very true. But we're not talking about documents that would possibly be heretical.
b. I have a copy of Everyman Library's ANNALS and HISTORIES of Tacitus. And it states in the introduction that one of the main reasons that Tacitus was saved by Medieval monks was because ANNALS contains a reference to Jesus. If I can dig it up and quote it for you, I will.
2. Maybe fascinated isn't the right word. But it does some logical that he would have noted a major messianic claimant. I don't see why a break in fundamentalism would preclude Philo's interest.
3. Fantastic events and myths litter ancient histories. I don't quite get your point.
