My brother and I once invented a pseudo science that we called "wackyoloyg." We had a serious theory about why people go in for things like Elvis has risen, or never died, Bigfoot, UFO's so on. Those all sound so tame now. This was late 70s early 80s. Those were some of the major wacky ideas floating around at the time. We concocted Wackyology to not only keep track of these cultural abrasions but to parody them and it became a comedy routine with us. Now I find is a corner of the atheist world that is wacky it makes wackyology look serious. We need a Wackyoloigcal analysis of the atheist world. I found an atheist site that desreves to mocked and I began following it.
The major argument on the page I found is far too idiotic to be taken seriously, thus need serious refutation. That is the Joseph Atwill thesis that the Roman emperors made up Jesus and Christianity in an attempt to pacify the Jews. Yes, that's what I said. Romans made up Jesus then persecuted their own peole for follwing him a couple of decades latter. They did to pacify the Jews? So they made up a guy who pissed of the Jews by not being enough of a Pharasey and who was so threning to the Sanhedrin that the had to be crucfied, who was cruvieid by the Romans (who made him up) to Pacify the Jews who they wouldn't hate the Raomans and give them trouble (they made up this popular hero and had him be supppossedly killed by them so the Jews would be pancified in their hatred of the Romans? were they retorted?).
Well stepping around that for the moment, the thesis is just like one brought out in the 90s by a guy named Pisso who said the very same kind of thing. It was a big deal for about a year then was never heard form again. If one wants or needs refutation of this insanity see: "No Jo Atwill Rome did not Invent Jesus." On a blog by a real historian, Thomas Vernna.
But let's excavate the site that pushes this tripe, just to see what we find. There's one called: "Bible Schoalr Claims Christianity Invented...as part of Roman psy ops campaign," (By Travis Gettys) One of the more interesting oddities of these guys, it never occurs to them that the term "psychological" didn't exist in Jesus say. He assumes they instigated psychological warfare by inventing Christianity. Most of the Roman efforts of psychological warfare (they didn't call it that) were about terrifying people, like crucifying thousands in front fo the city. They Romans were not big on subtlety.
Notice they have also taken to calling Joesph Atwill a "bible schoalr" like he really is an academic, he's a computer guy. He studied no theology. He doubted himself a Bible scholars becuase he supposedly figured out this secret code in Josephus. The big deep dark secret is that Josephus' record of the Roman military campaign in Palestine parallels the places of Jesus ministry.
Verna quotes the ignorance of Atill:
As Verna himself points out, this assumes the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in the first century. The were were spread out over several centuries. They didn't actually have much materiel form the first which was the end of their era.The Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish texts discovered in caves in Israel in 1947, give a different picture than the idyllic first century Holy Land of the Gospels. From year one, there were battles and confrontations between the Romans and the Jews, the Scrolls note, and there was no turning of the other cheek by the likes of rebel leader Judah of Galilee. And there was nary a mention in the Scrolls of the peaceable prophet Jesus Christ.“This is where I came into Christian scholarship,” says Atwill, 63, an investor who lives by the proceeds of a dot-com sell off in the 1990s. “There was supposedly this character, Jesus, wandering around in Galilee. Nobody knew anything about him. Galilee is only 30 miles long. Jesus and other historical figures of the time would have known each other.”Atwill, an admittedly bookish man, dived in headfirst, digging out whatever historical records he could find, studying the Scrolls, and reading Roman accounts, notably that of a family member of the Flavian dynasty of Caesars named Josephus. He found no historical Jesus in any of those writings. But there were some uncanny connections between the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels and the family of Roman emperors who took power after Nero was forced to commit suicide following a coup d’état.
Vernna:
Let’s start with the blurb itself. Just the little snippet above should put anyone off from even considering this hypothesis.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls were not all written in the first century, but spread out over many. There are more than 200 years of texts here, from the terminus a quo of the earliest manuscript to the terminus ad quem of the latest (3rd Century BCE – 1st Century CE). So no, Atwill, you’re not going to find a match to the Gospels because these were written after the Dead Sea Scrolls had been hidden away in the caves of Qumran. In fact the site was probably destroyed by Romans during the First Jewish War–prior to when it is generally believed Mark wrote the first Gospel around 70 CE.
- The Gospels follow a pattern of what is called ‘Biblical Rewriting’ which was a common Jewish practice, just as ‘Homeric rewriting’ was common with Greek and Roman writers. So actually the Gospels fit quite well within the scribal framework of the Jewish community at the time.
- Why would the Dead Sea Scrolls mention Jesus when the settlement where these scrolls were probably written is over 130km (80 miles) away from Galilee? That is the distance between New York City and Philadelphia. Additionally, the sect at Qumran seems to have kept to themselves, living strict pious lives of obedience to god and to their laws. I do not believe them to have been Essenes–though probably quite close to them.
- Who else would have mentioned him? We have no contemporary attestation to anything from the 30′s CE from Galilee beyond archaeological finds (coins, epigraphical evidence, etc…). But that does not mean to suggest none existed from the region. Between the Jewish wars, the passing of time, we’re lucky we have anything from the region. This is a weak argument from silence.
- If you’re coming ‘into Christian scholarship’ from this position, you’re doing it wrong.
- Your argument that “Nobody knew anything about him” is incredible (Fixed!) since we have Gospels and epistles probably dating to the First Century CE. These may not have been accounts of what Jesus said and did, but they certainly demonstrate that a figure of Jesus was well-known to at least some people in the First Century.
- If you’re claiming to have ‘dived headfirst’ into the sources, does that mean you have a grasp of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabataean, and Hebrew? What about just Greek–since you predominately use Josephus? I suspect that, given your book only has something like 7 footnotes and almost all of them are from Josephus, you haven’t quite managed to take into account all the sources. (ibid).
This is a page of links, here just a few of the treasures they have:
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Christianity - Extraterrestrial Religion?
- Reflections on Von Daniken and
Biblical UFOlogy
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Desintoxicando el Auto-Engaño
- Se Puede Probar Que Jesucristo Nunca Existió
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The first there is the Atwill theory that Jesus was made up by the Romans. Further down the true birth of Jesus ("A true Account of Jesus' birth") is information that makes Jesus out be a real figure but places the son of Mary and Joseph as a guy who was taken to be Jesus but was not him. This true son of Mary was named Jeshewua.how do they know this? Their explanation of that is quite insane.
Energy patterns of perception and understanding relating to qualities and higher perception are being filtered off and diverted, bringing about a programmed mind with fixed thinking and subject to thought control. An objective mind without the subjective link being recognized will simulate more a machine or robot.A civilization operating on objective understanding only, will consider itself advanced, in particular, since nearly all its knowledge is at the objectively-provable level and anything outside this spectrum is not perceived and is considered nonexistent. Any knowledge outside this establishment territory is ignored or ridiculed. The inner-workings of life and true knowledge can be experiential with an expanded and balanced consciousness.
This dumbing down of qualitative perceptions, which are direct, and involve resonance and expansion of consciousness, prevents us today from detecting phenomena outside the objectively enforced band of frequencies, and common knowledge (from periods of ancient history), such as Earth portals, are not recognized today.The Earth apparently has countless such electromagnetic or etheric gateways which lead to Inner Earth. This is not hollow Earth, but a frequency modulation zone between our Earth and its anti-universe pair, referred to as parallel Earth or antiparticle Earth, forming a separate ’Inner’ Earth.
What the hell are they talking about? Your guess is as good as mine. Now let's try to find the major site this is on. The link on the bottom of that page is about a guy Noel Huntly, I guess it's his page. He has such topics as:
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cosmic maps as seen by advanced ET's?
The Huntly page has a sattment about Huntly:
Primarily a truth seeker, pushing out the frontiers of knowing has been a lifelong passion of Dr. Huntley; even taking precedence over his remarkable talents as a painter and musician. Amongst many areas of extensive study, Noel Huntley has investigated UFO and ET reports, channeling and spiritual phenomena. With a background in physics from Leeds University and formerly employed at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston, he later acquired further doctorates externally in psychology and parapsychology and has developed the foundations for a higher-dimensional physics that embraces life, mind, the universe, and the spirit.
This, he considers, will reconcile physics and religion into a spiritual science, in addition to aligning the viewpoints of the atheist and the religionist. While a dedicated scientist, he dares to cross the line between objective investigation and subjective investigation. His contention being that scientific investigation must not be confined to the material and that which is exterior to self.He has written technical manuals and numerous books, articles and papers. Studies also included many other subjects, attaining qualifications in art, music, metaphysics and computers. In addition, research has been conducted in the field of physical mobility, coordination and skills with an evaluation of the true scientific principles involved.
Bottom of the page, his book:
that goes to Amazon page where his book is described:
Humanity’s extraterrestrial connections go back a long way. The book covers the main ETs directly involved with Earth and the human evolutionary purpose, including continued interferences from unenlightened ETs. In the latter category there are aliens who have for millions of years been
Remember a woman who argues for Jesus as fictional, a Jesus myther named Ashyra S? She also claimed that her mission was given her by aliens. A lot of atheists refused to believe that at one time. But she subsequently came out with a huge website that talks about it. Apparently this is all hooked together. the Jesus myther movement has connections, although I'm not saying all Jesus mythers, with, what shall we say? Let's say people whose grasp on reality is dubious.
I'm not saying that all Jesus myther types are talking to aliens. There does seem to be a growing faction that pretend that they are. I think it's appropriate that they choose as their focal point of exigence the most technologically scientific sort of image we have, the advanced scientific civilization form another star. They cast the whole soteriological drama in terms of a struggle between factions of advanced scientific types. They are just filtering their innate need for God and religious faith through their cultural construct of scientism and science worship.
Originally Posted by Metacrock