The Passion of the Christ

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Hmmmm...I guess I would be more concerned, for authenticity sake, over what was said rather than what language it was said in

Most historians have come to the consensus that Christ (and most Jews) read and wrote in Greek but spoke in Aramaic.

From my standpoint, as far as the movie goes...it doesn't really matter. Gibson is not billing this movie as a documentary...he has spoken of it as a dramatic portrayal of the last 12 hours of Jesus' life...AS HE SEES IT (and most Catholics, too).

Mild inaccuracies are irrelevant in the face of the films intent to inspire, touch and challenge the viewers to gain a new connection with the Passion of the man who is God.

 

Wouldn't Pilate be considered one of the elite though? And wasn't he making an official decree in ordering the execution?

That's just funny. I believe you, but that's a piece of trivia that most people wouldn't know. Most people (myself included) would assume that a Roman centurion, would speak ... well Latin naturally.

 

All of these oft cited historical references to Jesus are mere reiterations of commonly held beliefs of the day, basically saying "Jesus existed and was the son of God". We get no real accounts of anyone named Jesus doing anything specific. The Romans were meticulous record-keepers. They kept records ona number of "prophets" and messiahs who preached montheism, peace, love, healed the sick and fed the hungry and were tried and convicted of sedition and crucified(re: Apollynus of Tyanna for example).

If Jesus was so important to history you'd think the we would havve as much info on him as we do for Pontius Pilate! You'd think he would be mentioned SOMEWHERE in Roman history beyond the sktchy and likely fraudulent insertions we find in Josephus' works and the like.

We have no credible historical references for Arthur and we have none for Jesus. I say they are about even. Bother are likely based on real people who existed(minus the magic and miracles).

 

Especially historical references made by those who didn't believe in the God in question, in the first place

You have two possibilities:

1. Take my word.
2. Check the sources and compare.

You don't have to do either, but you cannot make a valid claim of falsehood of my claim without any logical basis for that. Sorry, but your gut isn't enough.

Which basically implies that they existed. And what you were referring to was the sole fact of existence of Jesus. Therefore, you prove yourself wrong using this argument. If you claim that he existed you can't claim he didn't at the same time

Pilate was Roman procurator for Iudea. Procurator is a governour of a province appointed by the Emperor, as opposed to Senate's proconsules and propraetores. To become a propraetor a person needed to be a Roman equite (eques - rider - basically something like knight). It was possible for a Roman citizen with a Roman name to be not so good with Latin, but contact with Latin was unavoidable, therefore learning at least some basics was unavoidable for a citizen. Let alone an equite (a rank below nobiles - senators and other aristocrats). One would not become a province governour without knowing Latin well, at any rate.

On day to day basis they spoke Greek more often than Latin. That's because the people of the Eastern lands of the Empire spoke Greek rather than Latin. Soldiers of lower ranks needed not be Romans. They could even rise to the rank of centurion (commander of a hundred - well, more like 80 in fact). However, Pontius Pilate was a province governour and not a mere centurion.

Another thing is that nothing barred a Roman citizen from joining the Roman army. Joining the Roman army would not magically make anyone forget the Latin he knew

There are also records of Christ using Hebrew. There are no records of Christ ever writing anything.

Indeed. Only the elite, like merchants, priests, some higher clerks.

That Jews didn't typically have long hair doesn't mean that Jesus couldn't. This argument looks like:

1. Roughly 50% people are female.
2. There's 50% of chevalier being female.
3. Let's roll 1d2. 1 is female, 2 is male.
4. 1
5. Wow, chev, what a nice pair!

Basically, that something is typical of a group doesn't make it true for all members of the group. If 99% Jews had short hair, Jesus could still be in the 1%.

Besides, not having your hair cut had a special mystical meaning in Judaism. Check the story of Samson, for example. And the Essenians, Essenites, or however you call them.

Like there had ever been a uniform way of pronouncing ancient Greek

Like we had a certain source of knowledge as to how ancient Greek should be pronounced, anyway.

That they screwed it up in the movie is very likely, though They always do.

Especially in Samson.

And where in Nine Hells did they get the idea of long hair being Roman???!!!!

Having short hair and being shaved like a baby bottom was in the centre of Roman culture. They typically looked like grunts as far as haircut is considered.

First, Jesus wasn't a mindless law-abider. He saw further than the letter of the Law, which is recorded in the Gospel (the Sabath passage). He also looked that far as the purpose of Law (the divorce passage).

At any rate, if He is God, He doesn't really have to learn any languages...

 

As Mel Gibson said in an interview - It is meant to be a war movie, not a biblical film or a documentary. Treat it as such. Just because it has this subject matter and was made by Mel Gibson doesn't mean that it is going to be 100% accurate.
He also said that the non-English languages were used to get people into the mood and help them suspend disbelief - not for authenticy.

 

Jesus knew the Law and followed it doesn't mean irrationality. How many Jewish people who have moved to Israel from around the world teach Hebrew to their children for religious reasons eventhough their first language may not be?

Jesus called Peter "Cephas" that is Aramaic. The quotes in the Gospels out of Greek are Aramaic. The simple fishermen and farmers that followed him spoke Aramaic, the common man in Judea spoke Aramaic. Jesus said, I am sent to the lost of the House of Israel, most of whom spoke Aramaic. How is it that he spole Greek word for word as the Gospels? The gospels are hardly quotes of his speech anyway. There is an Aramaic Gospel available even till today, and it is highly interesting to read.

Just because the official language of an Empire is Latin or Greek proves little. The Moguls had Persian and the common Indian spoke Hindi. The Britons under Roman rule still spoke British and Despite the fact that the English Empire was pretty big, doesn't change the fact that local languages were and still are used.

If Jesus as he claimed needed to talk to the common man who knew no Greek or Latin spoke to them in those languages he would not have had much of an audience.

 

What are you trying to say CHev'? It didn't matter whether the historians whose writings we find these insertions believed or not. The fact is at the time of said writings it had become sort of "common wisdom" that somebody named Jesus was crucified by the Romans for being the son of God. Much as it is the "common wisdom" of today that some shadowy conspiracy was responsible for the death of JFK(though all indepedent evidence suggests LHO acted alone). 2,000 years ago it would have been that much easier to include such bits as we find in the aforementioned writings. No one would likely challenge them(including the historians doing the scribing).

I have done #2 and that is how I am able to conclude that there is no credible historical evidence that someone named Jesus was crucified by the Romans 2,000 years ago. If you disagree then present your evidence but if you have no evidence then I am sorry to say, your "gut" is not enough to convince me otherwise.

I never claimed he existed?!? What the **** are you talking about? I said we have detailed historical records left by our friends, the Romans concerning people such as Apollynus and others, but we have NONE for Jesus.

 

Khazraj,
One point where Jesus said to the Farizees(whatever it's spelled) "I am" which means "I am God" which was the greatest blasphemy you can think off(in the eyes of the Jews), well maybe saying "that supper was good enough for Jehovah" is worse , so the Farizees grabbed their stones and grind and Jesus fled.
Jesus maybe had a problem with dying without giving people a feeling of guilt.

So he didn't follow "the Law", what law did Jesus follow then, his own probably, but then he isn't better than any of us, not in my book..

[ February 28, 2004, 14:16: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

The Law of God as opposed to the law made by the Farizees.

And now please show me how it is against the Law to say you're God if you are.

BTW, Iahveh refers to God, not necessarily God the Father in particular. It was used by Jesus and also with reference to Him.

What are you going to prove by this? First, it's true what you say. Second, no one claims contrary.

I'm sorry, but that has already been explained. That commoners used their native tongues has no bearing on the possibility of the elite learning Greek and the elite of the elite learning Latin too. I don't see where this point leads, though.

He spoke Aramaic most of the time.

I mean that someone who doesn't believe in a god in question will not refer to a person as a son of the god in the question but rather a claimant. Therefore, Romans wouldn't say "Jesus was son of God" if they believed in the Roman religion as did the sources I mentioned. Flavius, Plinius, Suetonius and Tacite were actually not Christian in case it escapes someone.

Let's make it clear:

1. You have not read anything carefully if you really believe that there's no mention of a historical person called Jesus in there.

2. If you had ever read, let's say, Tacite, you would know that he referred to Jesus as a man of great wisdom.

3. Credible is a very subjective category.

4. Flipping won't work. I'm in no way obliged to present any evidence until you are convinced in a situation where you clearly refuse to acknowledge the validity of any other evidence than your deep inside feeling.

5. Your excuses give the impression that you didn't frame your claims carefully. That's OK for opinions but not for claims. Claims need to be crystal clear and consistent.

Anything else than shouting totally escapes me in this passage.

How far is Greece or Asia Minor from Rome? And how far is Judea from either? What was the level of importance of Judea compared to Greece or Asia Minor in the Roman Empire? Political influence, literacy level, trade contacts... hmmm? Just plain straightforward importance.

Plus, Judaism was an exotic religion, marginal in the eyes of Rome. I'm guessing that Apollinus guy, whoever he was, followed the easily understood by Romans Greek religion?

 

Concerning Jesus with long hair...

It was entirely possible for *any* male Jew to have long hair. It's called the Nazarite Vow. It's orginiates in Numbers 6:3-7. It was an oath to abstain from certain worldy influences and to consecrate oneself to God. Nazarites expressed their dedication to God by (1) abstaining from all intoxicating drikns and grape products,(2) refusing to cut their hair, (3) avoiding contact with the dead, (4) refusing to eat food regarded as unclean.

Again, the option was available to all Jews, and could be taken for a short period or for life. Chev already mentioned Samson. Samuel is another. His mother dedicated him to the vow before he was even born. John the Baptist was most likely one given descriptions of him. And the idead of Jesus taking the vow for periods of time is not a stretch by any means. He probably had both long and short hair throughout his life.

Concerning depictions of Pontius Pilate...
The Passion has stirred up the controversy of what Pilate was like. While the New Testament gives a portrait of Pilate as being a leader who submits to the mob, secular historians described Pilate as a much more ruthless leader that would never do such a thing. But as often the case, if you dig past skin deep, you find the truth...
It is accepted that Sejanus fell from power in A.D. 31 because he was plotting against the emperor. Pilate was very close with Sejanus. This loss would have weakened Pilate's position considerably. So it is quite understandable that Pilate would have been reluctant to offend the Jews at the time and get in further trouble with the emperor.

Concering extra-biblical accounts of Jesus...

Given the historical evidence that I will go over shortly, we can conclude the following:
1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher
2) Many people believed he performed healings and exorcisms
3) Some people believed he was the Messiah
4) He was rejected by the Jewish leaders
5) He was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius
6) Despite his shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64
7) All kinds of people from the cities and countryside-men and women, slave and free - worshipped him as God.

Now let's take a look at the source material for those conclusions.

We'll get the "sketchy" historian out of the way first. Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian who sided with the Romans over committing suicide during the Jewish Roman War (A.D. 66 to 74). He was born A.D. 37 and wrote most of his works at the end of the first century.

In The Antiquities, Josephus describes how a high priest Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus (who is also mentioned in the New Testament) in order to have James, the brother of Jesus, killed. Josephus wrote:

He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them to be stoned.

So here you have a reference to the James, the brother of Jesus that corroborates the fact that some people considered Jesus to be Christ, which means "the Anointed One" or "Messiah."

But the most controversial of Josephus' works is this:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats 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 Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored in life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Now, the red flag has been raised on this passage and it has been scrutinized carefully. There is good reason to believe that the orignal passage has been tampered with. By studying Josephus' writing style and such, it is reasonable that there are three and only three additions to Josephus' original passage.

The three parts that are suspect are:
1)"if indeed one ought to call him a man."
2) "He was the Christ" vs. how Josephus refers to him in The Antiquities "called the Christ" So a distinction between was and called is the issue here. Either way, he was referred to as the Christ.
3) "On the third day he appeared to them restored in life" Josephus probably did not recognize the Resurrection, or at least did not want to take sides over it, remaining neutral. This is most likely an addition.

But even without those three additions, the rest of it checks out with Josephus' style and his other works.

Josephus also mentions John the Baptist in his works and in greater detail. The reason for this: Josephus made it clear his interests were in politics and the struggles with Rome, so for him John the Baptist was more important because he seemed to pose a greater political threat to Rome than Jesus. If you'll recall from the New Testament, when confronted with the coin and the issue of Rome, Jesus never says don't give Caesar anything. He says, give to God what is God's and give to Caesar what is Caesar.

Now, can we trust Josephus as a historian? Oh yeah. His accounts of the Jewish War have proved to be very accurate, corrorobated by archaelogy and other historians, such as Tacitus.

But we don't need just Josephus, there's other historians whose works have no reason to be interpreted as having been tampered with.

Let's move onto Tacitus and an important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament:

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 Pilate, and a most mischievous supestition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of evil, but even in Rome...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.

Consider this: cruxifiction was at the top of awful fates, and the fact that there was a movement based on a crucified man had to be explained. It's not culturally sound. There had to be an explanation.

"How can you explain the spread of a religion based on the worhsip of a man who suffered the mist ignominious death possible? Of course, the Christian answer is that he was resurrected." - Edwin Yamauchi concludes.

Read it again folks, it's an important testimony by an unsympathetic witness to the success and spread of Christianity, based on a historical figure, Jesus, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Wow.

Now let's look at Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithyania in Turkey, and his works...

I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them away to execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubborness and unshakable obstinancy ought not to go unpunished...

They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, nor for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery...

This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they called deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagent lengths.

This reference has been dated to A.D. 111, and it attests to the rapid spread of Christianity, from cities and rural areas, and among every class of persons, slave women as well as Roman citizens (since he also says that he sends Christians who are Roman citizens to Rome for trial). And it talks about the unshakable worship of Jesus as God.

Pretty powerful movement for a dead guy. Unless, he wasn't really dead.

Then you have accounts from other Jewish sources. Accounts that do not deny that Jesus was not a miracle worker. Accounts that do deny the tomb was empty. They do however, try to offer other explanations. There's a few passages in the Talmud that mention Jesus, calling him a false messiah who practiced magic and who was justly condemned to death.

Bonus Material
And that's not all. You know the outlandish claim in the Bible that says the sky went dark in the afternoon when Jesus was crucified? It's corroborated by other historical works.

Julius Africanus' writings in A.D. 221 refer to the writings of Thallus in A.D. 52 that make reference to the darkness episode that the Gospels record. Thallas tries to explain it away as an eclipse of the sun, but Julius Africanus compares times of eclipses and the Cruxifiction and they don't match.

Phlegon, a Greek author, reported in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (aka 33 A.D.) there was the "greatest eclipse of the sun" and that it "became night in the sixth hour of the day so that the stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicae."

Conclusion
So, if you might be wondering why there aren't more extra-biblical accounts of Jesus (because you just can't get enough )you have to remember the context of things.

1. Not all documents that were written have survived unitl today.

2. It is clear the movement of Christianity was more rapid than the Romans had ever seen. They weren't going to fuel the fire anymore than they had to. You're not going to find too many accounts about Jesus by non-Christians, for this obvious reason. You do however, have several accounts about him in the New Testament.

So if you won't accept that, you'll have to settle for Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, etc.

But let me leave you with this...
Why would disciples openly promote and witness to Christ's resurrection and his teachings, if they were a lie?

How many people do you know would willingly commit their lives, and ultimately die for what they knew to be a lie?

I'm sorry, but that doesn't jive.

They knew it to be true. They were willing to die for it. And their hardwork at witnessing led to a remarkably fast and geographically wide spread of Christianity.

 

Big B, there are people today willing to swear their lives on both this and that cult leaders miracle works. That someone is convinced of something, even to the point that they are convinced they have seen it with their own eyes doesnt make it true. It is *very* easy to make people believe pretty much everything and anything.

 

Remember that such stubborness of belief works both ways. I have always found it ironic that non-believers work themselves into such a frenzy attmepting to disprove something that seems obvious to others. And then accuse believers of being overly zealous. What's up with that?

 

Well, we are all more or less convinced that we subscribe to something that it more true than other things. Whether that subscribtion is unbelief or belief it is still somekind of conviction.

Secondly I for one have never seen one good argument in support of any religion. Everyone who has faith starts their argumentation with an assumption which for an unbeliever is a huge illogical leap of faith.

Thirdly, I cannot stand what I perceive to be falsehoods. Even a cruel and harsh reality is to prefer to a beautiful illusion.

 

I see, so in someway not being religious (I use my terms very loosely here) is a religion. It is forming a doctrine of nonbelief, for the sake of zealous argument, all in the name of the Truth. Or is it fair to say, the true Reality. That sounds familiar.

 

Ah, it is very familiar. The main difference is that atleast I keep an opening for the unlikely. I reason from probability of truth, not *truth* itself. What is more likely, that UFO cult leader X has been on a spaceship from the planet Y and been proclaimed emissary or that he hasnt? There is always a chance that even the wildest story is true, but most often that isnt the case.

The UFO cultis, the bishop, the iman, the wiccan know for a fact that their belives are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. All I know for a fact is that it is highly imporbable that what they proclaim as the truth actually is the truth.

 

Ah, OK, I understand now. I had thought that Big B had shown good reason for his beliefs and that you were dismissing him because, "people will believe what they want to no matter what and to the point of seeing only what they want to see." But it seemed as if you were engaging in the same type of argument. I am paraphrasing your earlier post, of course, but that is a little different than keeping an open mind to other possibilities, even the possibility that Big B may be right.

 

I thought joacqin was responding to this:

Big B said the apostles wouldn't have done what they did unless they KNEW it was true. He said that people don't die for a cause they knew was a lie but from there leaped to 'therefore it must be true.' (see the 2nd and 4th quoted paragraph).

I took Joacqin to be responding to this assertion by saying essentially, 'I agree they wouldn't have been willing to die for something they knew was a lie but all that shows is that the apostles believed it to be true, not that it was true.'

So, I didn't think he was being dismissive of Big B, I thought he was responding to specific assertions within Big B's argument.

I think you guys may be talking past each other. YMMV.

 

Yes, as I said, I understand what he is saying now.

There is Conviction - with a capital C - and then there is "some kind" of conviction. Pick and choose yours.

 

Jesus H. Christ; The Passion, Mel Gibson's Bloody Mess

Schlock, Yes; Awe, No; Fascism, Probably. The Flogging Mel Gibson Demands

Heard the first on NPR, stumbled across the second looking at it. Thought I'd link 'em, I can't seem to get worked up about it one way or the other.

 

What Laches said.