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- From: avi@seal.imagen.com
- Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
- Subject: Re: What did Judas betray?
- Message-ID: <1992Nov13.020453.3520@imagen.com>
- Date: 13 Nov 92 02:04:53 GMT
- References: <1992Nov7.200723.17356@hfsi.uucp> <1992Nov9.015251.13517@newsroom.utas.edu.au> <1992Nov9.181421.11697@netcom.com> <1992Nov11.020311.1270@hfsi.uucp> <1992Nov12.014504.9573@newsroom.utas.edu.au>
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- Reply-To: avi@seal.imagen.com
- Organization: none
- Lines: 39
-
- >(i) The gospel-fictions tie themselves into bizarre knots to get the Romans off
- > the hook and put the blame for Yeshua's execution on the jews. The one point
- > that they couldn't deny was that Yeshua was crucified, so they came up with
- > this elaborate story about how the jews couldn't execute him themselves so
- > they presurred poor weak little Pilate into doing it, a story which is
- > demonstrable nonsense on several grounds. If, as the Talmud claims, Yeshua
- > *was* executed by the Jews using a jewish method (ie stoning) then they would
- > not have had to go to such lengths to make it look like the jews were
- > responsible for his execution by a Roman method. Indeed, they wouldn't
- > have mentioned crucifixion at all.
-
- I agree, which means he was crucified, and by the Romans, leaving the Jews out
- of the story all together. While the Jews saw Jesus' death as the surest and most
- convincing sign that he was NOT the messiah (since he did NOT achieve any of the
- requirements prior to his death such as world peace), they surely had nothing to
- do with bringing death upon Jesus. The fiction in the gospels, tying the Jews to
- Jesus' crucifixion, was inserted later, because the Roman Empire adopted
- Christianity and was faced with a terrible dilema: How to promote Christianity and
- the Roman Empire, when the Roman Empire is reponsible for executing their own
- God ? (answer: find a scapegoat and blame it on them, i.e. the Jews)
-
- >(ii) The gospel version of the story was written far closer to the time of the
- > events narrated than the Talmud. By the time the Talmud was written
- > Christianity was considered a dangerous heresy by the jews and 'Yeshua ben
- > Pantera' was a wicked and blasphemous magician. I find it difficult to
- > believe that the Talmud's account, biased and remote in time as it is, can
- > be relied on in this instance.
-
- The actual date when the Talmud was first WRITTEN is irrelevant. The Talmud is
- a continuation of the ORAL LAW, starting from Moses and kept alive (memorized)
- by people of enormous mental capabailities and supreme memory, who were
- specifically chosen for this task. So, writing it down simply preserved it
- on paper - but it was NOT changed before, during or after.
-
- On the other hand - 3 out of 4 gospels were written MANY years after Jesus'
- death, by people who did not know him personally. Virtually, ALL the gospels were
- rewritten in different times to accomodate historical "facts" that suited the
- political goals of the contemporary "Truth Keepers", at the time.
- I can't see how that could be accepted as a reliable historical source.
-