Was Jesus the product of rape by a Roman soldier

Blaspheme! Blaspheme!

[quote]Jesus had four other brothers and some sisters

That Mary was hot to trot!

So he was adopted twice?

Link archive ffs it's the NYT.

Or Mary was just a strumpet giving it away like candy, then blamed it on God.

Christians, ignore this unfortunate report by St. Mark.

It will ruin our narrative and we can't have that.

A somebody gives birth without sex, a man who spontaneously comes back to life and pushes a huge rock away to come back to the people, sure Jan.

Was Mary raped by a Roman soldier?

Well, at first yes.

Interesting article! It says that Jesus didn’t seem to have a father in the Mark Gospel. To cover up for that embarrassing fact, the other gospels, particularly Luke, created Joseph and came him with the whole “virgin birth” story.

The Messiah, according to the Old Testament, was to be born of a virgin. But the gospel writers mistranslated Virgin to mean someone who hadn’t had sex. The Old Testament meaning was young.

How do I read the article without a paywall?

I've heard this theory. Heard it in college when I took a comparative religion course. Either rape or a young Mary was "dating" a Roman soldier.

Someone* archived it yesterday here, R10:

*presumably not the OP, who's a 'tard.

[quote]Mary was "dating" a Roman soldier

I also "dated" 50 guys one weekend a few years ago, and you bitches won't leave me alone about it.

OP doesn’t have special access to archive sites . It’s not his responsibility to provide an archive link.

[quote] I also "dated" 50 guys one weekend a few years ago, and you bitches won't leave me alone about it.

Miss Lindzebelle, you sure have slowed down now at age 69. Still, an average of nine gentleman callers per weekend at Mar-a-Lago remains impressive.

I think it's pointless to argue about people and events that are most likely fictional.

We all seem to understand that the Greek, Roman and Egyptian pantheons were bunk.

This is the same thing.

I'm on the fence about Jesus literally existing at all, but even if he did, almost certainly his "father" Joseph didn't. He was almost certainly invented to cover up an embarrassing fact that Jesus seems to have had no known father, even if local people knew his mother and brothers and sisters. I'm sure some Roman soldier was also invented, much later, by Jews laughing at Christians and saying they were stupid to be worshiping some guy whose real father was some asshole oppressing everybody and raping Jesus' mother.

It's actually pretty weird that the anonymous writer we call Matthew bothers to go through some whole big stupid genealogy just to get to Joseph, who was at best Jesus' stepfather, but it's a reminder that early Christians had their own crazy shit going on and their own idiotic obsessions that we can't always understand.

Anyone who believes Mary was a virgin and that Jesus walked on water is a gullible idiot, who doesn't want their world rocked by having to question other things they were told. They are black and white people who want to be given instructions and not think for themselves.

The Gospels of the different apostles were all written way after Jesus and the actual apostles themselves were dead. Of course the Gospel of Thomas and of Judas just weren't included at all - particularly because Judas's contradicted the others.

It's all horseshit. It's unbelievable what people can believe in without questioning.

SEX

In the city

[quote] OP doesn’t have special access to archive sites . It’s not his responsibility to provide an archive link.

Every word in this post is idiotic. You don't need special access to the archive site and 'responsibility' isn't the issue, it's being a twat. If you want posters to read your article that you think is so interesting you had to start a thread, then let them READ IT.

Slut!

His birthday is Wednesday!

The absurdity of attempting to craft biographical information from a complex and heavily edited fiction (Mark) and its parallel-and-descendant canonical gospels, tied together with the unrelated Pauline tracts comprising "authentic" and forged epistles and the sloppy attempts to create a Church "history" with Acts, shows how little the needle of rationality has moved over the last 1650 years.

There is no evidence of a historical Jesus found in any biblical source or other extant references, period. The stories do not align. They are constructs based on the Tanach, Greek and other literature, other mystery religions and a healthy dose of second-hand legend. Period.

So jabber away, but if you trust ANY Xtian apologist, you trust to nothing trustworthy. There is more to the "Blessed are they who believe and have not seen" than divinity. It is how cults shame their adherents from trusting their intellects when confronting mythic tales with little connection to real events.

Did these disciples and scribes carry their writings with them on all their journeys? On papyrus or something?

As far as Pagels, she has held a university position paid for by orthodox Xtian sources and therefore, as the rest of the scholars in such positions, she will not wander too far from the games that still keep the many-headed cultus in ascendancy. Few independent scholars achieve publication, position, or a place on the payroll without holding to various absurdities. They do not question their own biases.

Pagels is okay as far as she goes, but her calling one book on non-canonical gospel sources "The Gnostic Gospels" shows the problem. The texts are NOT gnostic, and were pilfered from and/or disposed of for many reasons, all part of the complex canon development that went on over three hundred years and more. Gnosticism, and Docetism, for that matter, did not exist in the first century CE in the way she describes.

"Mary did you know?"

"No."

"Case closed!"

You are not the father.

Mary came up with quite a story to explain away getting knocked up from her husband.

Did Paul invent Jesus? Was Jesus a cult of personality that formed in Judea around the story of Julius Caesar(Judas/Brutus…Both JC…birth / origin stories are both unique).

Wasn’t the whole virgin birth not even in the original text? Doesn’t that story come from other mythology. I think they also have it in Asian tales. Christians and Jews ripped off other cultures. Sorta like the Grimm Brothers.

For R27 -

R30 - I believe it's from Zoroastrianism and Mithra.

Mithra was also born of virgin birth and had 3 wise men visit him.

Both were also born on Dec. 25th, had Sunday has a holy day and had baptisms as part of the induction to the faith.

Mary, the original Harlot of Babylon.

According to modern day MAGA evangelicals, the virgin mother of the current spiritual leader of the masses who has divine attributes is Mary Anne Trump MacLeod Trump. The father, Fred, was the humble son of German immigrants

R25 I read Pagels a looong time ago so bear with me. The 52 texts she is writing about are not 'gnostic' since gnosticism predates Christianity?

not his responsibility

Stupid straight fucking mommy cunt statement, goo FF the shitty bitch

Elaine, just stop writing about it and immediately inform Olivia Benson! Crime is bad enough without having rogue centurions raping underaged Judean virgins.

Mary was more than likely raped by a male family member who had repeated access to her.

Father, uncle, grandfather, male siblings, etc.

That’s why she had to run far away in order to give birth.

Sure, it could also be a Roman soldier.

She was impregnated by someone, & his name wasn’t GOD, Angel, or Holy Spirit.

She was visited by The Holy Ghost. She was a virgin.

The problem is r38 evert single story is invented about Mary much later. There is no good reason to believe that she HAD to run away in order to give birth. That's an idiotic story invented by a couple of anonymous writers we call Matthew and Luke. There is no reason in the world that any historical Mary would have to run down to Bethlehem to give birth if she lived in Nazareth, and it almost certainly never happened. 100 years after some birth, some goober decided that Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem cause reasons, and then two different people came up with two different stories about how that could happen. Much more likely Mary got knocked up from some local doofus who disappeared for whatever reason or simply didn't give a shit that he had some bastard, gave birth to a son, and then her son much later turned out to have a more interesting life and a whole lot of stories were invented about him and his mother.

For R39

Here's the testimony - I had sex with a horny ghost!

Religion exists to serve 3 purposes:

1) Eases the fear of death

2) Keep people in line; punishment is a great deterrent

3) Controls the masses via a shared belief in something

When I was 10 in Sunday school, I asked who did Cain and Abel marry. I also asked how all those magical things happened in the Bible but no longer happen. I also asked a religious Aunt why God is real, but ghosts aren't. By 11, I pretty much had it figured that it was all a bunch of hooey.

How old was Mary when she was supposedly raped by god? 12?

R42 - yes and the fact that at some point a political figure CHOSE the religion the people in his kingdom were going to follow.

Stupid Christians act like their ancestors heard the gospel of Jesus and just converted. No they didn't. They were forced to - at the threat of death or exile.

Then if they challenged it - again with the death and punishment. Blasphemy is a made-up law of control.

Religion has been a tool of terror just as much as the whole love thy neighbor thing.

I'll see you at the baths, Mary.

But was it RAPE rape?

Does it matter? It all boils down to treating your fellow man with respect.

[quote]Does it matter? It all boils down to treating your fellow man with respect.

It does matter because it invades every aspect of our lives whether we want it to or not.

It does not, r47. You’re obviously illiterate.

... just like Olivia Benson

"I think it's pointless to argue about people and events that are most likely fictional.

We all seem to understand that the Greek, Roman and Egyptian pantheons were bunk.

This is the same thing."

It's not the same thing, though. "Jesus" is not like any of the other Gods, and the contemporaneous accounts of him that intersect with historical events don't make any sense if he's not a real person in some way. And I'm an atheist.

Well, that's what makes it a little complicated r51. There are zero, none, nada, not a one written during the life of Jesus about Jesus. Nothing, we got nothing. So, okay, maybe within a generation or two of his death, we get some accurate memories. Maybe, but honestly maybe not. People seemed awfully eager to tell wildly exaggerated tales about him, even within a few generations. And even worse, people seemed awfully eager to take those tales and shape them and reshape them and warp them and change them for generations after that. We simply don't at this point have any clearly "original" tales and biographies to go on. In fact, it's hard to say if anybody at all was interested in telling purely fact-based stories about Jesus.

And on top of that, you have people like Paul and his followers going on and on about what the risen Christ is telling them in visions.

[quote]R47: Does it matter? It all boils down to treating your fellow man with respect.

"And if he fails to listen to them, 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ. And if he fails to listen to even to the Church, let him be to you as the foreigner and the tax collector" - that is, anathema, or damned. The casual hostility towards foreigners is breathtaking; little wonder the Christian world was historically murderous towards any who were different.

Doesn't sound much like respect to me. And that's without even addressing misogyny in the New Testament.

[quote]R51: It's not the same thing, though. "Jesus" is not like any of the other Gods, and the contemporaneous accounts of him that intersect with historical events don't make any sense if he's not a real person in some way. And I'm an atheist.

I see Bootsie-Gumdrop is still with us, with yet another sock, still carrying water for the supposed historical Jesus.

"Contemporaneous accounts of him that intersect with historical events don't make any sense" regardless. The New Testament gets them irreparably wrong, inventing 'events' that never happened (like the 'census of the entire world'), and lists others in the non-consecutive order in which they appear in later records (such as Acts 5:36-37 following the order of events as enumerated in Josephus).

How very Peyton Place.

I'm thinking more Harper Valley PTA.

The British press has been all over this story a day or two ago about a box that supposedly contains the bones of one of Jesus' brothers.

THE BRITS FOUND THE BONERS OF JESUS'S BROTHERS?

I like Stephen Collins' take in the Guardian

Can you imagine having Jesus for a brother?

Mom: Why can't you be more like your brother!?

Me: Because he's the fucking Messiah???

[quote]R29: Did Paul invent Jesus?

Who invented Paul?

[quote]R38: Mary was more than likely raped by a male family member who had repeated access to her... She was impregnated by someone, & his name wasn’t GOD, Angel, or Holy Spirit.

Before going to the effort of explaining something, first establish that something happened that needs explaining.

Well, if there was ever something that needed splainin, a virgin birth tops the list.

[quote] Golen said he bought the James Ossuary when he was a student in Israel, studying engineering.

[quote] He said he "didnt recognize its importance at all".

Hey, Golen, you know that ossuary you bought as an engineering student (cause, um, why)? Do you think it might, like, be something? Hey, can we go to your Ossuary Garage and check it out? It might be a thing.

I don’t understand why anyone who believes that Jesus is the son of God is concerned about the details of his creation.

The bones were just lost in the British Museum on a shelf, isn't everything found in the British Museum? Except a pyramid, even that was too much.

Hindu God Krishna also had a virgin birth. And Krishna sounds awfully close to Christ

[Quote] The British press has been all over this story a day or two ago about a box that supposedly contains the bones of one of Jesus' brothers.

Stories like this pop up all the time and then suddenly disappear when someone figures out the bones were from centuries later

Technically a lot of gods, or demigods really, had "virgin births" but not really. What it usually comes down to is some god fucked some human woman, and yeah, sometimes in some weird form like a swan or a "golden shower" (hee), and out came a babe sometime later. I will say the Jesus story is different, although of course it's trying to shove an intangible, "platonic" GOD OF ALL CREATION into a more mundane Greek mythological idea.

At the time of Jesus, there were tons of people claiming to be the Jewish messiah because it was widely believed it was End Times.

John the Baptist was one too and he had a following.

Jesus’ cult gained supremacy mainly when the Roman Empire mandated Christianity as the state religion.

The moments like John the Baptist being baptized by Jesus and Moses defeating the Pharaoh’s priests’ magic were typical stories where one religion illustrated supremacy over another in its origin tales.

You have to hand it to the Xtians. They took all the greatest hits from other religions/beliefs, mixed them all together, and voila, something similar but different and called it brand new.

In fairness, everyone did that r69. It's looking more and more that Judaism was heavily influenced by the surrounding Greek culture in the 2nd century BCE, and may not even have existed as a full, widespread religion before then. And of course pagans did that all the time, and were pretty upfront about it. People were always finding the "Egyptian Zeus" and the "Syrian Dionysus" and constantly mixing and matching to define, and redefine, and readjust their own gods.

The old idea that Judaism was some hothouse flower, carefully nurtured and protected from all these terrible "outside influences" is looking very doubtful. Some even speculate that the whole Old Testament was compiled, and largely written, in the Library of Alexandria, though maybe that's overstating things. Not sure.

Imagine if your biological brother was actually Jesus. You would never measure up and talk about parents playing favorites where do we start?

R69 - and they threw in dinosaurs for good measure.

Christianity is in fact Judaism heavily influenced by Greco-Roman culture.

Marriage as one man and one woman is actually a Greco-Roman custom, not a Jewish one.

Having a boy on the side before he's a man is also Greco-Roman, what happened to that part?

[Quote] Having a boy on the side before he's a man is also Greco-Roman, what happened to that part?

Catholics priests have continued that tradition

Another reason they emphasized demigod exceptionalism was to reign in every rambunctious, unemployed Christ follower sent out to preach. Part of the deal is that the sacrifice was made and would not be repeated.

Life of Brian claims this too, OP.

R77, see R8.

Mary might have been a virgin when the seed was going in but she sure didn’t stay a virgin when Jesus popped out

R79, ever heard of The Protoevangelion of James?

The idea that she remained a virgin is attested quite early in the development of Christianity.

(I'm not endorsing the notion; merely noting that it exists.)

Poor Mary! Raped by God, then spent the rest of her life a dried up virgin.

Was Jesus the product of a Ponzi scheme?

fixed for OP

Forget the old ways.

The second coming arrived!

We really don’t talk enough about how insane it is that so many people believe in this

[quote] The idea that she remained a virgin is attested quite early in the development of Christianity.

There is such obsession in Christianity to link purity with virginity. Mind boggling for anyone who sees the religion from outside.

Well, it's because Xtians think that the highest state of bliss should be achieved through communion with their God, and that sex distracts. I actually don't think it's one of the worst things about them. I've known both Hindu and Muslim fanatics, and I'm more disturbed by how the mainstream interpretations of both of those religions try to administer over and commodify sex.

It is interesting that constant virginity would become such a huge part of Christian ideals. They definitely don't get that from Judaism or the Greco-Roman religions. I know Romans had the Vestal Virgins, and I'm sure there were little cults that did weird things around virginity, but they were never central to the whole religion. Christianity does seem to have invented that.

OP, Jesus has no mortal father. That is all.

[quote] Well, it's because Xtians think that the highest state of bliss should be achieved through communion with their God, and that sex distracts.

It's really because Christianity emerged from a desert, tribal religion. Everyone lived close together so fidelity was rare. Christianity went overboard of the "sex is evil" stuff

That is all? THAT IS ALL??? Guy has no mortal father, and hey, no fuss, no muss, nothing to see here?

Mary got poked with God’s enormous schlong

My mommy spread her legs for the king of the sky faeries, like you wouldn't do the same.

Actually it was through the ear r92, which now that I think about it is somehow even weirder. Damn, my life was a mess, but hey, now I get to be Queen of Heaven!

That change of perspective must have been a shock. From the Jewish perspective this was a hellenized Jew from a prosperous town. From a converted Roman’s perspective he’s a non-citizen from a trouble-prone ICE hotspot somewhere that you don’t stop unless necessary.