Who is Jesus to you?

a reply to: ltrz2025

If there were no Jews and no Israel, how did Jesus exist? Jesus was an orthodox Jew from the Essene community. That's a fact. The evidence is overwhelming.

I think you're just trying to rewrite history to your own political agenda. What's amazing is you think you can get away with it.

originally posted by: NorthOfStuff
a reply to: ltrz2025

Am I missing something? Because I must be missing something.

Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship. He became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the city's pillaging and the looting and destruction of Herod's Temple (Second Temple) soon followed.

Josephus recorded the First Jewish–Roman War (66–70 AD), including the siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War (c. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94).[5] The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience.

en.wikipedia.org...

Your first miss resides in using wikipedia. Get rid of that, or torture yourself with propaganda. As you wish.

Your second miss resides on the fact that what you think "we know" about Flavius Josephus and his "books" are historical facts, when they are not. They are written accounts, and the oldest copies we have of these "books" are at least a millennia away from the time when Josephus allegedly would have lived. We have no actual documents from Josephus' times. So, there is no way to confirm that these books are really Josephus' books or writings. Forgeries are everywhere in this field.

In fact, many of the statements found in Josephus' alleged books have already been dismissed as fake by archeology. These documents are not HARD and REAL evidence of anything, on the contrary, they are full of red flags.

And please, don't believe me, check for yourself. Google: Flavius Josephus + Fake + Reliable + Forgery. Then read. Honest scholars have been questioning and actually disproving these fake written documents constantly during the last 40+ years. But the media (of course, pro-zionist and pro-bible) never reports it... the show must go on for the masses, and wars and divisions must keep going...

originally posted by: Phantom423
If there were no Jews and no Israel, how did Jesus exist? Jesus was an orthodox Jew from the Essene community. That's a fact. The evidence is overwhelming.

I think you're just trying to rewrite history to your own political agenda. What's amazing is you think you can get away with it.

Ok, then. Shut me up and show me the "overwhelming evidence" of such "fact" about Jesus being an Essene and all that. I'll read it.

PS 1: I'm not trying to rewrite anything, I'm actually already tired of writing today. My political agenda, if I have such a thing, is peace and truth. What I've told you are simple FACTS about archeology, whether you like them or not, facts don't change.

PS 2: Some people also claim that Santa Claus doesn't exist, and it's amazing that they think that they can get away with it too, right?... what a world!....

Night.

Gonna beat a dead horse why not?

Israel", "Hebrews", "Jews", "David", "Solomon", are just legends from a fictional mythological kingdom that never existed

Do you live in the same alternate reality Joe Biden lives in?

Forgive the use of Wikipedia but there are really old Canaanite and Egyptian artifacts that makes reference to The Kingdom of Israel. Oldest being dated to 1208 BCE.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

en.m.wikipedia.org...

en.m.wikipedia.org...

I'm all for iconoclastic positions but you picked one that is just ridiculous. All you've said is there isn't archaeological evidence, and you discount writing artifacts. Writing in stone dated to antiquity. Writing translated to say things like "Israel" and "House of David". Also the settlement artifacts like pottery, which have been dated to the correct time and are consistent with culture uncovered at the temple mount. That's pretty definitive. About the closest evidence for a constantly displaced people you're ever going to get.

Their existence was recorded by the Canaanite, Egyptians, and Romans. Especially the Romans. There are EPIC DESCIPTIONS about the first Jewish-Roman war (as pointed out) that detail the destruction of the Herod's (The Second) Temple. Down to breaching each of the walls, the standoff that ensued, and burning of the temple itself.

That's a hell of a complex conspiracy to force academia to falsely translate ancient texts to validate a made up Empire and give false narrative to substantiate a lineage, kingdom, and temples that never existed.

There's not much evidence for Philista either (far less than Israel actually) and you're not kicking up a fuss about that. It's oddly anti-Judaism specific. And probably why I keep feeling compelled to respond.

Something about a "fictional mythological kingdom".

It's offensive. It's you're right to be offensive, but I can't help but be offended and internally compelled to continuously rejoin.

a reply to: ltrz2025

You think the absence of something proves its non-existence? It only proves for certain that it may not exist but may yet be found. Or more famously "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" according to whoever first coined that which seems to be in dispute.

Agnostics are honest as nobody can say for certain and produce absolute proof. Others who claim absolute knowledge of anything to do with this are not honest.

To be 100% honest is to admit that if you were not there at the time, you do not know for certain.

a reply to: Degradation33

You'll make me repeat my words. I think I'm starting to regret telling you that I considered you a smart person. You see, we all make mistakes.

As I have already explained to you, one or two pieces of stone that are found here or there, that SOME people believe means SOMETHING, while many OTHERS, with solid arguments, consider to be NOTHING and even a forgery, does NOT constitute evidence. Is this really that hard to understand? Is it that difficult for you to differentiate something that is objective and subjective?... Anyway.

Although you keep believing that these few artifacts are evidence of some kind, and act blindly to the fact that even the same wikipedia articles that you've shared are telling you that many scholars with solid arguments don't agree with those views, you still claim that these things are hard evidence. They are not, be honest. You want to subjectively believe that? Ok, fine with that. But don't lie and say that these things are FACTS, when they are not. A historian would laugh at your face after reading your post. Try to be a bit more serious. At the end, by being this irrational, you are helping my position. C'mon, I know you can give a better debate than this.

Then, what you consider "ridiculous", or "a complex conspiracy theory" (btw, have you noticed the major genocide that is occurring today with the mRNA clot-shots?), or "offensive", is just a product of your own opinions and/or emotional disbalance and, again, DOES NOT CONSTITUTE evidence of any kind for the ancient Kingdom of Israel. These remarks are not even relevant, but well, if you want to vent off, go ahead. Not going to stop you from that, poor soul.

Two last things:

1. Lesson for your life: Power is the FORCE that shapes history. And power can ONLY be achieved via conspiracies. There is no way around it. Time for you to wake up to this, otherwise you will always be abused and manipulated. You're welcome.

2. A written document dated only 800 years ago (like in the case of the The Bologna Torah Scroll, which the OLDEST Torah we have on record), cannot be treated as a historical artifact to prove something that allegedly happened 3.000 years ago. It's just a piece of paper, don't be silly. You're better than this.

Who is Jesus to you?

a reply to: kwakakev

Anyway, this is my brief current take on the Jesus thing. So what is yours?

originally posted by: Blaine91555
You think the absence of something proves its non-existence? It only proves for certain that it may not exist but may yet be found. Or more famously "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" according to whoever first coined that which seems to be in dispute.

I understand what you say and agree in full. Thanks for your good counter-point observation. This was needed, the exchange was becoming too irrational.

That being said, when it comes to the ancient Kingdom of Israel myth, you need to understand that probably no other myth/legend has received so much effort of confirmation like this one. Well, maybe the Jesus story received as many attempts, but that myth is connected to Israel as well. So, it's a two birds - one shot scenario.

People in the western world, during the last 2.000 years, have been researching, studying, digging under ground, debating, analyzing, doing all sorts of things you can imagine, losing millions of dollars in total, thousands of lives lost in science expeditions, etc. to confirm the existence of the kingdom of Israel, or the biblical accounts in general. After all this time, we have absolutely nothing that resembles to hard evidence.

After these 2.000 years of sweat and blood, we only have speculations contradicting each other all the time. In fact, the things WE DO FIND, in 99% of the cases, point into the opposite way: that there was no Kingdom of Israel, and that there was no Jesus of Nazareth. We have records of hundreds of nations and cultures, some even super small that were exterminated or died 5.000 years ago, but nothing about this "Kingdom of Israel", which would have been at the very center of the civilized world during the late Bronze Age.

Moreover, according to the Bible, these "alleged" Hebrews were a sort of Chuck Norrises of the Levant, who went, in a matter of months, from wandering in the desert with no water or food, to form magnificent and super well-armed armies that killed every empire that crossed their path... All these amazing warriors didn't even leave a bone behind... And this is not an opinion, these are facts. Don't believe me, check my words.

If you apply the real professional historical method, there is no question about it. The Kingdom of Israel is a myth that falls on itself due to the absolute absence of real hard evidence and the fact that a lot of the evidence collected show a completely different thing, such as: there was no "paleo-hebrew" as many believed, it is Phoenician alphabet, created at least 1.000 years before any "alleged" Hebrew walked any "alleged" mythical land.

And I could spend days enumerating all the refutations that archeology has already achieved regarding the biblical accounts. Don't believe me, look by yourself. Red flags are all over the place. I mean, even the stories of the Old Testament are clear rip-offs of Sumerians and Babylonian myths. That's there! They were not even original when inventing this legend, they directly copied from someone else.

Now, leaving the professional historical method aside, which can be strict, and talking like two human beings trying to find a common point. How much more would you need to consider the possibility there was no kingdom of Israel like the biblical accounts tell? Which is your limit?... Maybe you have a wider range of tolerance for speculations, and that's fine, I'm not discussing what people chose to believe. But, speculations are not facts, that's all I'm saying.

Yes, and you can say that my opinion about the kingdom of Israel being a legend is ALSO an speculation, sure, I accept that. But, the evidence is on my side. Maybe we need to dig for 2.000 years more... and we'll find something... I doubt that.

best,

a reply to: kwakakev

He is the person that died for me so I am able to get to heaven. I owe him everything, and if I am ever called to reciprocate the favor, I will.

originally posted by: ltrz2025
...
But, if you claim that I'm lying, do it simple, friend: If you have the archeological evidence that Romans talked about "Hebrews", "Israelites", or "Jews". Bring it on.

That's funny, a request for evidence of something people "talked about" yet it can't be something written (as explained later on regarding the term "archaeological"). Is this a riddle?

Uncountable amounts of archeologists have been digging for that evidence over 200 years (in the Levant and in Italy) and never found it. Maybe you did and no one realized! :-D

How does one 'dig'* for non-written evidence for something people talked about? (*: expecting any other result than failure) Another riddle? Or basically the same riddle?

.. very funny, thanks for the laugh.

Right back at ya, and thanks for the mind-boggling braintwister.

a reply to: whereislogic

Incredible how far small minds can go on something so little like a word they cherrypick and twist to their own convenience, pretending it to be a real argument. Yeez... life is a box of chocolates after all, Forest Gump was right.

Ok, you don't understand or like the word "talk", change it for "knew". Happy?


Then, regarding your lack of understanding on how written documents misplaced in time cannot be taken as hard evidence, let me explain it to you in simpler terms, so you get it.

Let's say that I tell you that gnomes from Mars arrived on the North Pole 6 millions years ago and had a huge orgy that ended up in the creation of humankind. You'll probably think that I'm delusional, or just escaped from a mental institution. Now, if I take a week to write down a book, saying that such thing happen, and I give you the book (a written document as proof), does that make my claim more believable or verifiable?... Be careful what you'll answer, don't damage yourself please!...

a reply to: ltrz2025

If you refuse to acknowledge the hard evidence I can't make you. Call whatever you want facts.

One last try? Let's reverse positions. I'll ask questions.

Who was King Herod if not the Roman Senate appointed King of Judea?
What was Judea?
Judea is the roman word for Judah. Judah cant be made up. But if it is, why would the romans use it as a title for an official satellite state?
Can Judah have existed with Israel still being a lie?
What was his official court biographer writing about?
What temple did he rebuild into the "Temple of Herod"?
What is that annexed kingdom's real name and religious lineage if not Judaism?
Finally, where is the evidence for the alternative?

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Your first sentence belies the fact that you have absolutely no idea who Jesus is or why He came...

I got some ideas, but as for a clear, solid picture there is a lot still in the gray zone. Growing up in a christian culture I have been presented with a lot of what the Bible is about.

The state of the world describe in the Old Testament sounds like a rough place / time to have lived. The Ten Commandments was a fantastic direction to help build a stable community. Jesus helped build on this with his values of compassion.

The Bible has been a strong unifying force of decency and morality, giving the community a strong respectful standard of community. With the way neural networks operate, they learn from making mistakes, we are all sinners. But there is hope we can overcome these challenges and become more.

In looking for Jesus, I did meet some Jehovah Witnesses a while back that recommended I start praying to receive him. I tried it for a while, then I did hear a voice come into my head. It freaked me out, the voice sounded like some 50 year old white male Mormon. I don't want to live with hearing voices in my head, so I shut it all down. I don't know what this alter was about and I was not prepared to risk going down the crazy train to find out.

At another time when stuck in a really dark place, I started to call out to Jesus. There was no quick fix and took time to climb out of. It did help take the edge of some of the psychological torment going on at the time. Know that things like compassion does exist somewhere gave me hope. A very valuable thing when things do look hopeless.

Ok, I can agree with you about Wikipedia, but then directing me to Google and telling me the Media is pro-Bible is a bit of a stretch.

Since your stance is what would be considered pseudo historical the onus is on you to provide evidence, which frankly, I haven’t seen.

You present a theory, of which there are many.

To say this artifact is fake, this text is forged, these people never existed, and the last 2000 years of western civilization is a lie requires as much proof as the accepted view does.

You may present your evidence for your view as I may present evidence for mine. However, you are as far or further away from providing proof of your view as I am.

I admit that my view involves a measure of faith. Will you admit the same?



a reply to: ltrz2025

a reply to: redchad

If you’re going to ask a question like this shouldn’t you first prove that JC existed?

Well it seams like you know who I am talking about. While much has been buried by the sands of time or burnt through endless wars as this thread does show, at least the concept of Jesus Christ is something that is still alive and strong today.

originally posted by: Degradation33
a reply to: ltrz2025

If you refuse to acknowledge the hard evidence I can't make you. Call whatever you want facts.

One last try? Let's reverse positions. I'll ask questions.

Who was King Herod if not the Roman Senate appointed King of Judea? What was Judea? Why call it Judea, is it a made up name completely unrelated to the Jews? If so, why would the romans use it? What was his official court biographer writing about? What temple did he rebuild into the "Temple of Herod"? What is that kingdom's real name? (Other than Herodian Kingdom of Judea) What is their religious lineage if not Judaism? Finally, where is the evidence for the alternative?

The fact that you call your wikipedia links "hard evidence", when they are clearly not and are (as the same wikipedia links state) highly disputed, already shows that you have lost all intellectual dignity and honesty. So sad to see people selling their most important spiritual traits for silly stubbornness. But well, that's how far cognitive dissonance can go, I guess... Anyway, you still can, one day, recover your dignity and honesty, and I really wish you can, I really do. Not tonight, of course, you are clearly too "bugged off".

Then, this silly attempt of trying to "reverse position" (which is not exactly what you are doing) doesn't work as an argument at all on the exchange that we were having. In logics, what you are doing, is called a fallacy of relevance. This simply doesn't serve the debate we are having at all. Plus, most of your questions come from written document accounts, and we already stablished how flimsy they are as evidence, I'll not get in there and defend any written account that I cannot back up with hard evidence. I know, my honesty probably "bugs you off", I get that.

Look, you can make yourself all the impossible to answer questions you want about anything, it's your right to do so, and your time. But none of those questions you ask yourself will fabricate the evidence that is simply not there. Just because you can come up with doubts here and there (which I applaud, because skepticism should be your compass) about Herod, that doesn't magically makes the mythical kingdom of Israel real... it doesn't work like that. That someone else is wrong or off about Herod on something, doesn't make the mythological kingdom of Israel real. Be logical. These questions are pointless to our debate.

This is just an attempt to change the axis of the conversation into a place where you might feel less irrational, I get it. But your problem is that I don't have a dog in Herod's or Rome's fight neither. If I addressed those questions, I would probably tell you pretty much the same things that I told you regarding the Israel myth: archeological evidence is simply not there in many cases and written documents are far from being hard evidence, they are just pieces of paper that almost all the time end up being fake or questioned with good arguments.

Last: there is no "alternative", at least not from my side. The evidence is the evidence we found regarding what was there. Period. We have Greeks, Phoenicians, diverse cultures of Canaanites, records of armies invading and leaving, that's all. No "Israel", no "Hebrews", no "Jews", no "David", no "Solomon". If I started speculating on evidence that it's not there, I wouldn't be doing anything different from you, and I would just be wasting my time pushing a belief that I cannot confirm. Not a fan of that.

Have a good one!

originally posted by: NorthOfStuff
Ok, I can agree with you about Wikipedia, but then directing me to Google and telling me the Media is pro-Bible is a bit of a stretch.

Since your stance is what would be considered pseudo historical the onus is on you to provide evidence, which frankly, I haven’t seen.

You present a theory, of which there are many.

To say this artifact is fake, this text is forged, these people never existed, and the last 2000 years of western civilization is a lie requires as much proof as the accepted view does.

You may present your evidence for your view as I may present evidence for mine. However, you are as far or further away from providing proof of your view as I am.

I admit that my view involves a measure of faith. Will you admit the same?

a reply to: ltrz2025

Sorry mate, I think you are totally confused. I sent you to Google for you to see that there are scholars questioning and refuting things that you seem to give for granted: the Josephus many lies. That's a fact, no stretch.

Second: How do you expect me to provide evidence of something that didn't exist?... You probably don't believe that purple giraffes with red dots exists, right? Can you provide evidence of their non-existence?... It's illogical.

Third: What theory I'm presenting? The last couple of pages of the thread I simply been analyzing evidence, and showing that there is no one piece of real hard archeological evidence of the existence of the ancient kingdom of Israel. And that much of what the Bible says has been disproven, or most of the "Hebrew's chronicles" (like the myth of Noah and the Flood), are myths clearly and confirmable stolen from older cultures; they are proven forgeries. Those are facts, not theories.

Fourth: I have no faith, brother. I reject it with all my strength. In my opinion, faith means ignorance. I know what I know, what I don't know I don't know. No need of faith at all.

a reply to: ltrz2025

Please answer the question that contradicts official Roman accounts of the annexation of Judah and may help validate the Jews never existing in antiquity.

That's not answering my question. That's avoiding them not so artfully in favor of stubborness or belligerence. We've been playing your game so far.

Extraordinary claims. It would go a long way to making a valid argument if you answered the questions. You say they never existed and I would like the simple answer for why the hell Rome would refer to The Kingdom of Judah (Romanized as Judea). Obviously this was a kingdom that existed to be annexed repeatedly by different empires.

What is the history that removes the Jews from Judah? Isn't that the name derived from one of those mythical tribes of Israel? Why would they acknowledge a lineage that never existed or make reference to it?

What is the history of Judah that removes the Tribe of Judah?

What makes this a false statement:

The Kingdom of Judah (Hebrew מַלְכוּת יְהוּדָה, Standard Hebrew Malkut Yəhuda) was the nation formed from the territories of the tribes of Judah, Simon, and Benjamin after the United Kingdom of Israel was divided.

Your making the incredible claim. I want the incredible answer to my questions.

originally posted by: ltrz2025

originally posted by: NorthOfStuff
Ok, I can agree with you about Wikipedia, but then directing me to Google and telling me the Media is pro-Bible is a bit of a stretch.

Since your stance is what would be considered pseudo historical the onus is on you to provide evidence, which frankly, I haven’t seen.

You present a theory, of which there are many.

To say this artifact is fake, this text is forged, these people never existed, and the last 2000 years of western civilization is a lie requires as much proof as the accepted view does.

You may present your evidence for your view as I may present evidence for mine. However, you are as far or further away from providing proof of your view as I am.

I admit that my view involves a measure of faith. Will you admit the same?

a reply to: ltrz2025

Sorry mate, I think you are totally confused. I sent you to Google for you to see that there are scholars questioning things that you seem to give for granted. That's a fact, no stretch.

No argument there. You are evidence that people question.

How do you expect me to provide evidence of something that didn't exist?... You probably don't believe that purple giraffes with red dots exists, right? Can you provide evidence of their non-existence?... It's illogical.

Ok, so you have no evidence. We agree on this as well.

Why theory I'm presenting? The last couple of pages of the thread I simply been analyzing evidence, and showing, clearly, that there is no real hard evidence of the existence of the ancient kingdom of Israel and that much of what the Bible says has been disproven, or most of the "Hebrew's chronicles", like the myth of Noah and the Flood, are myths stolen from older cultures, forgeries. Those are facts, not theories.

Your theory is that history is incorrect in this instance.

My theory is that history is correct in this instance.

I could counter your facts with my own but I suspect I’d be wasting my time and yours.

I have no faith, brother. I reject it with all my strength. To me, faith means ignorance.

So you were there and observed and touched these facts? Or do you have faith in your “Scholars”?

Those who reject faith can not know the benefits of what having faith can bring. So to that mindset it is already a zero sum gain endeavor, and so is rejected, but their ill gotten pride remains as a reward that all who have faith are ignorant fools. So who is the fool in the end.

Having faith in the word of God being true is rule number one. If you want to know the truth of your own soul, and know it will have a good destiny, then faith must be the beginning of that quest.

Rejecting that is an individual choice. Rewarding oneself with pride of being oh so smart for rejecting faith as an avenue to spiritual understanding is a false reward. Idolizing self in that respect is a sad choice.

Jesus Christ is VERY real and loves all of mankind, the sinner and the faithful. Everyone is welcome to come to him with your heart in your hands and a willingness to become his own.