Re: Who is Jesus?

Arny Krueger wrote:
"Roger Pearse" <roger.pearse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message
news:29bc099a-15dd-4a49-aa60-7bab4c5121a9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 14 Jun, 17:39, Don Pearce <nos...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Gareth Magennis wrote:
"Ian Thompson-Bell" <ruffreco...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:g30m1o$2lkq$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
y_a_...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The Church recognizes the Bible as the primary source
of knowledge about God and Jesus.
No, the Bible was created *by* the church to further
its own version of what Christianity should be and to
extend and strengthen its power.
Well, not really. The people who founded the churches
left them
various books and letters which (somewhat naturally) came
to enjoy a
special status. One reason why the canon of the NT
didn't close until
the fourth century was that no-one could actually make a
decision
about what was scripture. So it sort of drifted into
agreement
naturally.

Yep, the Bible contains only some of the available
scriptures.
I'm afraid that this is mistaken. All texts that had any
claim to be
in the New Testament -- that is, to originate from the
apostolic
circle -- ended up in it. There are certainly
apocryphal texts which
were composed or forged later. But then people were
still inventing
gospels of Jesus in India in the 19th century. It
probably still goes
on, indeed.

In other words, the Bible has been selectively compiled
and edited (and quite possibly forged, altered,
mistranslated or otherwise creatively managed in the
process).
Sorry, but this is not so. Whether or not the books in
it are telling
the truth, they haven't gone through that process since
compilation.
The idea that they have is merely a bit of disinformation
put out
online (unless it has some other origin?).

Not all Christians take the Bible literally, mostly just
the Fundamentalists.
Well, I think St. Francis, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine
held that
view. In fact it's a bit difficult to find any
mainstream Christian
of days gone by who didn't. All fundamentalists, of
course. :-)

And of course the Jesus myth is just a plagiarism
ofMithras- same
provenance and life story, almost to the letter.
This is mistaken, I'm afraid, although I know what you're
getting at.
But there is no evidence of connection -- never mind
derivation. The
only real parallel is that both had a ritual meal. But
half the cults
of antiquity did that.

As for Mithras, the most exaggerated statements get made
online about
him, but they are nearly all factually false. By that I
mean that
they don't appear in any ancient source. In fact I got
suspicious a
year or two back and went and researched all the ancient
literary
evidence, and put it here:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras

As you'll quickly see, the fairy-tales don't appear in
it. I've seen
online, for instance, the idea that Mithras was born of a
virgin
(actually born from a rock) on 25 December (no text
records any such
thing) which was the solstice (actually 22 December, as
Julian the
apostate tells us) and which was a Roman public holiday
of Mithras
(which it wasn't; the Chronography of 354 alone records a
festival,
that of Sol Invictus).

These stories must have been invented by some scumbag who
wanted to
poison the hive mind. Let's be sceptical.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Nice job!



Last time someone used the debating trick of poisoning the well, you pulled them up on it quite sharply. This time because they support your view, you declare it a "nice job". Make your mind up on how you want to play this or lose all credibility; George Orwell is watching you!

d
.

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