Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries • Hacker News Board

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#41

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:41 AM UTC

Hondor wrote: post #35

alsetmusic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> saw people outright crying coming out of the Sepulchre This sort of reaction is deeply troubling to me because I see it as evidence of the overwhelming grip that religions have on (some of) their followers. It reminds me of videos of teenagers crying at the sight of Michael Jackson or the Beatles at live performances. It is unnecessary. My mother, for example, is unable to laugh at even the most trivial of jokes ab…

Not just religion. People cried when Princess Diana died. They cried on the anniversary of 9/11. And on 9/11 itself. People develop personal feelings towards popular people/events/concepts. That's just how we are, automatically forming emotional relationships, even when they're one-directional like in all these cases.

I wonder if people cried during Apple keynotes / events. Can't deny that people get an emotional response from that.

People aren't robots.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#42

Post by danieltillett » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #40

danieltillett wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josephus was not contemporary of Jesus. There is also the slight problem that the passages about Jesus in Josephus look to be later Christian interpolations [1]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

From that article: "Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17] Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter…

Jesus was a very common name at the time and Josephus mention at least 4 other Jesus's. I do agree that everything about the historicity of Jesus is very hazy.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#43

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:45 AM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #29

gadders wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an atheist, but I don't think Jesus was a fictional character.

Why? What evidence is there?

I wonder if it actually matters if he was real or not, or whether he did what the major religions claim he did. What matters is that billions of people believe it, and he's an example to billions of people, giving them a moral example to strive towards.

You know, like superheroes in the US. They don't exist (which is factually verifiable still), but people are fans of them. What if in 2000 years people forget or lose the origins but the story of e.g. Star Wars is passed on through the ages? It's not proven to be real, but it provides a moral example, a distinction of good vs evil, and a code to live by.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#44

Post by azernik » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:46 AM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #29

gadders wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an atheist, but I don't think Jesus was a fictional character.

Why? What evidence is there?

Historical Jesus research is an interesting and deep subject. If you're interested, I'd recommend this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_dOhg-Fpu0

Short version of the evidence is these two (rather thin) things:

1. The Biblical texts include many theologically inconvenient details. A purely fictional character would just not have been written with them.

2. A near-contemporary mention, before the rise of Christianity, in a source (Josephus) without an agenda in promoting Jesus's story. (This is complicated by the fact that later Christian redactors added in extra references with more theologically convenient bits.)

This looks quite thin, but note that in this part of history sources are always hard to find - there are Roman emperors that we have much more tenuous direct evidence for! But it does mean that we can't really say much about this figure.

EDIT: On re-viewing - note Dr. Martin's interesting philosophical cartwheels trying to not look (to himself even) like he's going against articles of Christian faith.

EDIT 2: For the interested - skip to 27:00 after he's done hemming and hawing about theology vs. history and gets to actual information.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#45

Post by rolal » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:48 AM UTC

A lot of the National Geographic societys work these days seems to have a strong appeal to religous people. They are owned by the FOX corporation and I wonder if this religious market is something that FOX is pushing them to focus on.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#46

Post by gliptic » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:56 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #40

danieltillett wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josephus was not contemporary of Jesus. There is also the slight problem that the passages about Jesus in Josephus look to be later Christian interpolations [1]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

From that article: "Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17] Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter…

The whole field is mired in methods that don't work. A counterpoint is the book 'On the Historicity of Jesus' and 'Proving History' by Richard Carrier. It's not as easy to dismiss as many suppose.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#47

Post by salimmadjd » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 11:05 AM UTC

Illniyar wrote: post #36

salimmadjd wrote: post #33

Article is misleading. "Restorers working in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Israel uncover stone slab venerated as the resting place of Jesus Christ" But it looks like the church is actually in the Palestinian lands [1]. Is there political motivation here? [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7724981,35.2362521,15z

The old city is technically part of the area taken in the 67 war, which is the areas which are usually talked about when refereing to palastine. But unlike the west bank, it was formally annexed by israel, it contains jewish holy sites such as the west wall, it is not currently part of the PA and I doubt anyone is seriously expecting it to be part of a future palastinian state (in a two state solution at least).

Thanks for clarifying

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#48

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 11:18 AM UTC

gliptic wrote: post #46

azernik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that article: "Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17] Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter…

The whole field is mired in methods that don't work. A counterpoint is the book 'On the Historicity of Jesus' and 'Proving History' by Richard Carrier. It's not as easy to dismiss as many suppose.

People like Carrier who deny the historicity of Christ are the equivalent of creationists/ID-ists/climate change deniers in history. They are regarded as crackpots in history and biblical studies.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#49

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 11:18 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #42

azernik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that article: "Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17] Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter…

Jesus was a very common name at the time and Josephus mention at least 4 other Jesus's. I do agree that everything about the historicity of Jesus is very hazy.

As the above poster said, its a very mainstream view that some Josephus mentions are valid, some obviously not.

Re: Tomb venerated as burial place of Christ exposed for first time in centuries

#50

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 11:19 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #40

danieltillett wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josephus was not contemporary of Jesus. There is also the slight problem that the passages about Jesus in Josephus look to be later Christian interpolations [1]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

From that article: "Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17] Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter…

He also mentioned John the Baptist.