More to the point it's already been done. Wolfie just has a thing for the Roman Catholic Church. It's a "yank his change" topic. Whisper "Catholic!" and he barks. The canon of the Christian Bible is cemented in stone. It has already been debated to death and definitively defined on two fronts simultaneously: decision by a Council ratified by later Councils, and acceptanace through practice of the entire global body of church-going people. To change the canon you have to change it on both prongs. Both. That ain't going to happen. The whole world knows this, including the so-called "scholars" who pretend to wonder if a new book should be added. They're disingenuous. If, as is claimed, these so-called "gospels" of Mary and Thomas and so on existed in those first couple centuries after Jesus, then they were debated and placed into circulation and, obviously, discarded. If they didn't, then they no more belong in the canon than does the recent novel The Shack. QED, done. The entire world knows this. It's really a boring topic.
The gospel of Mary isn't threatening your male superiority is it Mac? So anyway. About Jesus. Any references to him outside the Bible? I mean you'd think someone who performed miracles and walked on water would get a fairly significant mention in history. Right?
Tacitus refers to Christ being executed by Pontius Pilate, though he does not use the name Jesus. Pliny the Younger speaks about Christ as if he were a real person, too, but again does not use the name Jesus. Both use the word "Christ" to indicate that he is the central figure of Christianity, not to endorse his divinity.
No more than The Shack, where both the Father and the Holy Spirit are women. I don't understand why you're not championing that book for the canon. First, that's a bogus question. The Bible is a compilation of separate, distinct writings. The NT alone was written by what, 8 or 9 different people? It's a compilation. Second, you established the non-canolical writings as authoritative. That gives us yet more witnesses.
Haven't read that one. I meant any mention of Jesus outside Christian circles? I mean there were a good number of historians around at the time of Jesus and soon after. Yet apart from Christian texts, there seems to be no mention of the man. Why?
I tend to think that it's because that time was full of "Messiahs", most of whom were zealots trying to free the Hebrews from Roman rule. Jesus was no revolutionary; unless you believe he was a divine figure on a divine mission, a few short years of teaching and healing aren't really anything special at that turbulent point in history.
You don't think walking into the temple and wrecking the money changers stalls and tables and calling them a bunch of greedy scheming thieves was revolutionary? He'd have lived longer if he mooned the emperor of Rome. Mixing with the outcasts was also anti-establishment. And well claiming to be the son of God? Not just a god but THE God. That's pretty damn bold for the time. Guaranteed to get you crucified.
Sure, but the Romans crucified thousands of criminals, many of whom claimed to be Messiahs with divine authority. And no, I don't think the episode in the temple is the kind of revolutionary act that warrants a historical record of the sort that survives for 2,000 years. I must admit, though, that none of this amounts to anything like evidence. I can make a pretty good case that Jesus could have escaped the kind of historical attention you're talking about, but that's a far cry from providing any kind of evidence for his existence.
Jesus supposedly raised the dead! Cured leprosy. Walked on water. We're not just talking about some fruit loop. We're talking about a guy who's followers claimed he had real power. Aside from that. The Romans took a census of the population back then. Jesus isn't on it under any of the names we know him by.
Whoa, remember the casket that was found a few years ago? Supposedly the casket of the Jesus? And then belatedly the newspapers admitted that "Jesus" was a very common name? Remember that? "Jesus" was a popular name. That's why so many apostles were running around into the four corners of the globe, criss-crossing every which way. I don't even want to count all the names in the NT epistles. There are too many names. "Say hello to him, and greet him, and greet her, and she was a great help to us, and he was a great help to us," and all that. Saint Paul had tons of contacts. Then add the people known to all the other apostles -- lots of people. Big network. Big.
http://www.chrismoore.com/lamb.html Excellent book. Top author - I haven't read a duff one by him yet.
It still is a popular name in the middle east and Brazil. Ah yes Jesus like Madonna only had one name. He would have appeared on the census as Jesus of Nazareth or some such. Not simply just Jesus. Casket? Nope never heard of it. I'll have to look that up. So given that he was the pop-star of the day then there would be some kind of record beyond the Bible?
Remember there was no mass media back then. Nowadays, when something unbelievable happens, we watch it on the news or YouTube. But in those days, it makes perfect sense that a dozen people might see a miracle, half of them might dismiss it as a trick, and the other half run home to tell their neighbors, only to be told to lay off the wine.
I like to think that Jesus was an unusually well-behaved, but otherwise normal child, spending his youth doing things kids do and being taught carpentry by Joseph. There are plenty of people who claim to have proof that Jesus did all kinds of things during these "lost years": learned magic in Egypt, studied under Buddhist masters in Tibet, whatever. Since there's no real proof that Jesus existed at all, I have a hard time buying any of it.
Yeah. Don't buy that as an excuse. We have all sorts of ancient legends about gods and men with bulls heads and all sorts of strange creatures. But nobody is going to pay attention to Jesus even though he reportedly drew massive crowds. Which is actually what supposedly got him in trouble with the authorities in the first place. So, so what if half a dozen people dismissed it and another half dozen were told to lay off the wine. Jesus supposedly drew massive crowds or hundreds or thousands of people. Such a person would have been noticed by history if he existed.
There are two faults with this: (1) You put fantastic stories up as evidence that fantastic things get noticed, but refuse to acknowledge Christianity's fantastic stories as evidence of more of the same. We don't have any real historical evidence of the stuff you mention, either. (2) You seem to be assuming that Jesus is the only man of his time who drew crowds. As I said before, that period of history was full of Messiahs, and we don't have historical specifics on more than half of them. As I said before, nothing I've said constitutes anything like evidence for Jesus, but I don't think it makes sense to assume that nothing extraordinary could have ever occurred for which historical records have not survived 2,000 years.
We have versions of these fantastic stories from multiple sources. They are cited by multiple historians and not just in one book. No. It's not drawing a crowed that's important. It's the size of the crowds and the miracles he performed in front of the crowds he drew that cannot simply be dismissed. If there were a dozen other people just like Jesus. What makes him so special? It's entirely possible that those historical records did not survive. However given that we do have historical accounts from the time and the Roman empire is renowned for being meticulous at record keeping. I would argue that we should have discovered by now some sort of non-biblical, non-Christian account of a man call Jesus who performed miracles, raised the dead etc. The fact is Jesus is conspicuous by his absence in the chronicles of history.
