yoel-
Well Walt, it amazes all of us how to squirm around obvious Bible
contradictions, avoid certain issues, dissappear then return...
But to the issue: your above sentence has a number of problems:
1) The majority isn't always right.
2) The masses often bad taste. Yes, trailer-park-christo-trash (and others)
may believe in your version of Jesus, but, then, they teach their children
to believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy.
3) The majority of people on this planet, Walt- DO NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS!!!!
4) You have yet to prove that a majority of UNBIASED scholars believe in Jesus
5) You are ignoring the fact that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of the culture
that Jesus supposedly sprung from either rejected him or are unaware of him
and disinterested in him.
6) Jews believe in an historical Jesus. In fact, a number of Jesuses- the
primary one being Yeshu Hanotsri (Jesus the Nazarene) The article below,
which your letter was in reference to, teaches an historical Jesus. *I*
believe in an historical Jesus- Walt! I just dont accept YOUR VERSION of an
historical Jesus. Having studied false messiahs, I tend to think that the
NT composite Jesus theory (which is grounded in the Talmud and external
works) mixed with pagan imagery is very compelling.
By the way, below is just the beginning (and most boring part) of the
excellent 5 page of the Jesus Myth posting (part 1). (not mine) Some people
didn't receive the entire posting and requested missing parts. Some people
didn't receive any of it. If anyone wants it sent, just e-mail me and I'll
send you the full text.
yoel
At 09:12 AM 3/21/97 -0700, you wrote:
>PART 1: THE MYTH OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS
>by Hayyim ben Yehoshua
>
>Much concern has been expressed in the Jewish media regarding the activity
>of "Jews for Jesus" and other missionary organizations who go out of their
>way to convert Jews to Christianity. Unfortunately, many Jews are
>ill-equipped to deal with Christian missionaries and their arguments.
>Hopefully this article will contribute to remedying this situation.
>
>When countering Christian missionaries it is important to base one's
>arguments on correct facts. Arguments based on incorrect facts can easily
>backfire and end up strengthening the arguments of the missionaries.
>
>It is rather unfortunate that many well meaning Jewish Studies teachers
>have unwittingly aided missionaries by teaching Jewish pupils incorrect
>information about the origins of Christianity. I can recall being taught
>the following story about Jesus at the Jewish day school which I attended:
>
>
>"Jesus was a famous first century rabbi whose Hebrew name was Rabbi
>Yehoshua. His father was a carpenter
>named Joseph and his mother's name was Mary. Mary became pregnant before
>she married Joseph. Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem during a Roman
>census. Jesus grew up in Nazareth and became a learned rabbi. He
>travelled all over Israel preaching that people should love one another.
>Some people thought that he was the Messiah and he did not deny this which
>made the other rabbis very angry. He caused so much controversy that the
>Roman governor Pontius Pilate had him crucified. He was buried in a tomb
>and later his body was found to be missing since it had probably been
>stolen by his disciples."
>
>A few years after being taught this seemingly innocent story, I became
>interested in the origins of Christianity and
>decided to do some further reading on the "famous Rabbi Yehoshua." Much to
>my dismay, I discovered that there was no historical evidence of this Rabbi
>Yehoshua. The claim that Jesus was a rabbi named Yehoshua and the claim
>that his body was probably stolen both turned out to be pure conjecture.
>The rest of the story was nothing more than a watered down version of the
>story which Christians believe as part of the Christian religion
>but which is not supported by any legitimate historical source. There was
>absolutely no historical evidence that Jesus, Joseph or Mary ever existed,
>let alone that Joseph was a carpenter or that Jesus was born in Bethlehem
>and lived in Nazareth.
>
>Despite the lack of evidence for Jesus's existence many Jews have made the
>tragic mistake of assuming that the New Testament story is largely correct
>and have tried to refute Christianity by attempting to rationalize the
>various miracles that allegedly occured during Jesus's life and after his
>death. Numerous books have been written which take this approach to
>Christianity. This approach however is hopelessly flawed and is in fact
>dangerous since it encourages belief in the New Testament.
>
>When the Israelites were confronted with the worship of Baal they did not
>blindly accept the ancient West Semitic myths as history. When the
>Maccabees were confronted with Greek religion they did not blindly accept
>Greek mythology as history. Why do so many modern Jews blindly accept
>Christian mythology? The answer to this question seems to be that many
>Christians do not know themselves where the distinction between established
>history and Christian belief lies and they have passed their confusion on
>to the Jewish community. Browsing through the religion section of a local
>bookshop, I recently came across a book which claimed to be an objective
>biography of Jesus. It turned out to be nothing more than a summary of the
>usual New Testament story. It even included claims that Jesus's miracles
>had been witnessed but that rational explanations for them might exist.
>Many history books written by Christians take a similar approach. Some
>Christian authors will suggest that perhaps the
>miracles are not completely historical but they nevertheless follow the
>general New Testament story. The idea that there was a real historical
>Jesus has thus become entrenched in Christian society and Jews living in
>the Christian world have come to blindly accept this belief because they
>have never seen it seriously challenged.
>
>Despite the widespread belief in Jesus the fact remains that there is no
>historical Jesus. In order to understand what is meant by an "historical
>Jesus," consider King Midas in Greek mythology. The story that King Midas
>turned everything he touched into gold is clearly nonsense, yet despite
>this we know that there was a real King Midas. Archaeologists have
>excavated his tomb and found his skeletal remains. The Greeks who told the
>story of Midas and his golden touch clearly intended people to identify him
>with the real Midas. So although the story of the golden touch is
>fictional, the story is about a person whose existence is known as a fact -
>the "historical Midas." In the
>case of Jesus, their is however, no single person whose existence is known
>as a fact and who is also intended to be the subject of the Jesus stories,
>i.e. there is no historical Jesus.
>
>When confronted by a Christian missionary, one should immediately point out
>that *the very existence of Jesus has not been proven*. When missionaries
>argue they usually appeal to emotions rather than to reason and they will
>attempt to make you feel embarrassed about denying the historicity of
>Jesus. The usual response is something like _"Isn't denying the existence
>of Jesus just as silly as denying the existence of Julius Caesar or Queen
>Elizabeth?"_. A popular variation of this response used especially against
>Jews is _"Isn't denying the existence of Jesus like denying the
>Holocaust?"_ One should then point out that there are ample historical
>sources confirming the existence of Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabeth or
>whoever else is named, while there is no corresponding evidence for Jesus.
>
>To be perfectly thorough you should take time to do some research on the
>historical personalities mentioned by the
>missionaries and present hard evidence of their existence. At the same
>time you should challenge the missionaries to provide similar evidence of
>Jesus's existence. You should point out that although the existence of
>Julius Caesar or Queen Elizabeth etc, is accepted worldwide, the same is
>not true of Jesus. In the Far East where the major religions are Buddhism,
>Shintoism, Taoism and Confucism, Jesus is considered to be just another
>character in Western religious mythology, on a par with Thor, Zeus and
>Osiris. Most Hindus do not believe in Jesus, but those
>who do consider him to be one of the many avatars of the Hindu god Vishnu.
>Muslims certainly believe in Jesus but they reject the New Testament story
>and consider him to be a prophet who announced the coming of Muhammed.
>They explicitly deny that he was ever crucified.
>
>To sum up, there is no story of Jesus which is uniformly accepted
>worldwide. It is this fact which puts Jesus on a
>different level to established historical personalities. If the
>missionaries use the "Holocaust reply," you should point out that the
>Holocaust is well-documented and that there are numerous eyewitness
>reports. It should be pointed out that most of the people who deny the
>Holocaust have turned out to be antisemitic hate-mongers with fraudulent
>credentials. On the other hand, millions of honest people in Asia, who make
>up the majority of the world's population, have failed to be convinced by
>the Christian story of Jesus since there is no compelling evidence for its
>authenticity. The missionaries will insist that the story of Jesus is a
>well-established fact and will argue that there is "plenty of evidence
>supporting it"_. One should then insist on seeing this evidence and refuse
>to listen any further until they produce it.
>
>If Jesus was not an historical person, where did the whole New Testament
>story come from in the first place? The
>Hebrew name for Christians has always been _Notzrim_. This name is derived
>from the Hebrew word _neitzer_ which means a shoot or sprout - an obvious
>Messianic symbol. There were already people called Notzrim at the time of
>Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah (c. 100 B.C.E.). Although modern Christians
>claim that Christianity only started in the first century C.E., it is clear
>that the first century Christians in Israel considered themselves to be a
>continuation of the Notzri movement which had been in existence for about
>150 years. One of the the most notorious Notzrim was Yeshu ben Pandeira,
>also known as Yeshu ha-Notzri. Talmudic scholars have always maintained
>that the story of Jesus began with Yeshu. The Hebrew name for Jesus has
>always been Yeshu and the Hebrew for
>
>yoel
>
>But I'm buddhist, darling.
> Edina Monsoon
>
>
>