Another Nail In The Coffin For The Bible?

[ck1]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451087/American-Bible-scholar-claims-ancient-confessions-prove-story-Jesus-Christ-entirely-fabricated-Roman-aristocrats.html

[grasscarp]

Hardly. It is sensationalist and would not even be reported if it wasnt a quiet news day. It says "But bible academic Professor James Crossley, from the University of Sheffield, compared Mr Atwill's theory to a Dan Brown fiction book. He told Mail Online: 'These types of theories are very common outside the academic world and are usually reserved for sensationalist literature.
'They are virtually non-existent in the non-academic world.'

[vulcan42]

As a famous person once said"well he would would't he?".

[grasscarp]

Joseph Atwill wrote his book in 2005 and another in 2011 and is over in UK giving a presentation. So no new revelations and not taken very seriously by anybody. Earns him some money though.

[beso]

It is as big a load of bollockks as the Bible itself.

[naomi24]

I think if we disregard the supernatural, there's a lot of history in the bible. This man has gone rather too far in his assumptions, but there's no doubt that much of what the New Testament contains is fabricated to suit the culture of the day.

[FredPuli43]

This fabrication didn't convince Jews, though, did it? To this day, Jews are waiting for the true Messiah. And the idea that you could either invent a character, or take a real person, and persuade Jews in a small country that this was a Messiah. or a philosopher whose ideas they should accept , does not bear scrutiny.

[naomi24]

Fred, it wasn't intended for Jews. It demonises Jews.

[jim360]

Jesus was a Jew. Paul saw himself as a Jew. The book doesn't specifically demonise Jews. Indeed does Paul not talk about there being "no difference between Jew and Gentile... we are all equal in God's sight," ?

It's still wrong, but the idea of it being a Roman fabrication strikes me as bizarre. What would the Romans have to gain by making it all up? They spent three centuries or so trying to suppress Christianity, after all.

[FredPuli43]

According to the author, Naomi, this fabrication was aimed specifically at Jews.

[naomi24]

Fred, I'm not talking about this author. I'm talking about the New Testament.

[mibn2cweus]

naomi24
Fred, it wasn't intended for Jews. It demonises Jews.
13:39 Thu 10th Oct 2013

It demonises all of humanity from cover to cover, portraying the only human 'virtue' as that of a sacrificial animal.

[Wharton]

beso - You've misspelt 'botox' :-)

[FredPuli43]

Let's hear it for the NT. Who could fail to be enthralled by stories of a man driving out devils from someone and into nearby pigs? Or turning water into wine, or feeding a multitude with about one picnic basket's worth of food? Verily, I say unto you, Dan Brown couldn't write stuff like that and make it credible.

[jomifl]

It's all academic really, whether jesus existed is irrelevant as god doesn't (and never did) exist. So that's the fox shot :o)

[beso]

I misspelled it to prevent the profanity police changing it.

[atalanta]

Utter twaddle. If it was by Roman aristocrats ( there weren't any, by the way) why didn't they write the New Testament in Latin instead of Greek ?
There were men of senatorial rank, but that would have been far from being "an aristocracy". This "scholar" doesn't seem to know much about Roman society in the early years of the Empire.