Alternatives to the crucifixion story

There are a million things more likely than Jesus rising from the dead. For instance, someone took his body. Or it never really disappeared (there's no evidence it did).

 

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Thought to be a later addition (forgery).

 

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Crucifixion was reserved for political prisoners, not common criminals. The idea that he was crucified with common criminals would have been inconsistent with Roman tradition.

 

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Possibly so. Which would mean the others were also 'seditionists' "The Jews knew of crucifixions even before Roman rule, for around 87 B.C. the Jewish king Alexander Janneus had 800 rebellious Pharisees crucified. Josephus, who witnessed the crucifixion of his fellow Jews during the siege of Jerusalem (A.D. 66-70), called it "the most wretched of deaths." It continued to be the punishment for high crimes until the time of Emperor Constantine, when it was finally abolished." http://www.ucg.org/jesus-christ/bible-and-archaeology-jesus-christs-arrest-trial-and-crucifixion/

 

Ugg,

At the risk of entering a religion forum I will say I thought you meant "Alternatives to the crucifixion story" based on so many different alternative tales. The bible is full of contradictions and is why it should not be taken seriously. Their fact checkers needed to be fired.

THERE ARE 4 Accounts of the Crucifixion. NONE THE SAME.
from
http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/Crucifixion.htm

from
http://atheism.about.com/od/gospelcontradictions/p/Crucifixion.htm

Google any Bible passage above to verify they were the gibberish they are.

So these are all "Alternatives to the Crucifixion story". These alternatives are so mixed up they border on hilarious. The bible is filled with hundreds and hundreds more of these incongruities. It is amazing a single person ever took the bible seriously.

This is the third page of this thread, yet these alternatives have not been mentioned yet they were strong in my mind the moment I saw the thread title.

Note: Now I do believe in God/Universe/All that is/etc., but I think Jesus was just a guy who studied at Egypts Universities

and taught what we now refer to as Law of attraction.

Christianity also knows "the secret." The Secret even quotes the King James Version of Mark 11:24 as an example of how to use the law of attraction (47ff., 54). This biblical passage reads, "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9j6CvRPO4Y

[video=youtube;vJN5Fmkjk-8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJN5Fmkjk-8[/video]

 

Maybe I should have said 'An Alternative to the Cruxifixion Story'. And this is not a religion thread, it's a comparative religion thread, so there is no chance that you'll catch the virus.

I would say that most religionists are brought up in the religion of their parents, and are stuffed up with it while they are too young to know better. Very few would be convinced by the bible if they came upon it at an age of majority, so it merely serves as a buffer against rational thought, and the incongruities - good choice of word - really don't matter.

 

Hi everybody! Life is fun isn't it? Why spoil it with all this bad feeling?
I have to admit first that I was a choirboy in church and was disturbed by the man on the cross thing. Blood sacrifice and all that, wasn't it sinful? Apparently not. Very confusing for a 10 year old.
Jesus was, by all accounts, only on the cross for six or nine hours rather than the usual three days. Not enough to ensure death anyway. A sympathetic Roman soldier allowed his removal. His wounds were pretty bad but not mortal and he recovered. It was not a good idea to hang around when he was supposed to be dead so he went back to Kashmir, where he had spent some time in his youth (between age 12 and 18). He lived a full and productive life and is buried in a tomb there (check it out).
what? No miracles? Jesus never says that he came to earth to die for our sins. That's a Roman invention to link it in to the extant Mithraic religion. The Council of Nicea was a politically inspired gathering. It posits more questions than it answers. It does Jesus a great dis-service. Jesus was cool. Jesus was way cool, but it got messed up big time by the powermongers.
Discuss.

 

I'm OK until Kashmir. That's a long way on a donkey. Explain.

 

that was news to me, too. here are links: http://www.tombofjesus.com/index.php/en/
http://www.kashmirfirst.com/articles/other/080217_myth_jesus_kashmir.htm

 

Well found, Walter.

I doubt Jesus went on a donkey. People were walking all over the place back then and thought nothing of spending a year or two travelling to see someone and then a year or two back again. No hurry.
I will have to retract the Mithraic comparison though, academic research has moved on since I first heard the idea. Mithras did ascend to heaven in a vehicle of some kind, but that concept is pretty common. The golden Barque of the Sun comes to mind.
It is such an attractive idea though, that after upsetting the priests and being a bit too precocious, it was only natural that Jesus's parents sent him off to a retreat. He may have gone to Persia first. It's possible that the three Wise Men were Zoroastrian priests so it would make sense for him to be sent there. Then on to Kashmir to study at a monastery. Where next? Egypt is likely, the family had connections there. Jesus may have studied the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
What I think is clear is that if he had hung around in the Holy Land it would have been reported in at least one of the many Gospels. Not a word.
So if Jesus did survive the crucifixion where did the sacrificial aspect so central to Western Christianity first come in? Was there a precedent?

 

Thanks for the links. I honestly didn't read them right through.

The first seems to be some kind of a dedicated site, and the second casts doubt on the theory. I think I'll pass.

 

Oh, OK, I get it. He didn't go to heaven, he went to Kashmir instead. On foot, or on a donkey. Heaven would be more likely, imho.

 

You don't like Kashmir? Why not? It could be a contender for the title of 'Garden of God', and was certainly a spiritual centre at the time. OK how about Britain, which had been a place of pilgrimage for a couple of thousand years before then, for some reason. 'And did those feet..' and all that. It's possible but not likely. Where then?

The resurrection idea appears in many ancient beliefs and legends. Didn't Osiris get chopped up and put back together? There seems to be a need to validate the great by attributing miracles to them. It just doesn't seem to fit in with the teachings that Jesus was trying to impart, hard though it is to figure them out now.

As to other examples of sacrifice on trees, I can only think of Odin who was sacrificed to himself. The irony wasn't lost on him. Any other examples out there?

 

I had a look at the map, and as far as I can make out Kashmir is about 3800 miles from Palestine, and you have to go through Iraq, Iran and Afghan to get there. Not good on a donkey. For Britain you have to go the other way, plus a boat. Where? Heaven, I suppose.

I don't suppose that the christian idea was the first time anyone thought of it, why should it be?

Crucifixion was the obvious idea since it was in vogue at the time, on account of the Romans.

 

Enough with the donkeys already! OK, OK a hypothetical donkey. Though I'd suggest it would be more of a hindrance in the long run. I don't see what you have against the notion of travelling such large distances. I'm suggesting that Jesus may have continued his spiritual teachings elsewhere. You seem to need to believe that Jesus went to Heaven. I don't want to tread on your beliefs but what's wrong with the idea with him going later rather than sooner? In other words, why did you start this thread? My suggestions are reasonable enough. Why insist that he died on the cross?

As to the journey to Britain, it was a regular trading route by boat up the west coast of Europe. Stopping at Faro,Lisboa, and all ports north. It's just another suggestion. After all, he was out to spread the teachings of peace, love and the Kingdom of Heaven within, so he could have gone anywhere.

As regards other examples of sacrifice, it was only because this is, as you pointed out, the comparative religion forum. I mentioned Osiris because I have an inkling that there was some specifically sacrificial nature to his death, for the sake of humanity. I think it's more to do with the spreading of agricultural knowledge. His body parts were spread over the land, if I remember correctly, to fertilise the fields. But perhaps that's a digression.

Could you explain why you don't like the ideas of Jesus surviving and living to the ripe old age of 83 with a big family and lots of adventures to tell his grandchildren?

 

I really don't have any particular issue with it all. BTW I'm not relgious. I started the thread to see what people might think about an alternative to the crucifixion story as stated in the bible, since it seemed to me that if you take the facts as reported (big if) there is a perfectly rational explanation for the events which does not involve coming back to life.

Certainly you can dismiss the entire crucifixion story, in fact you could say that Jesus never existed, but that wasn't the point of the thread. I don't mind discussing it though.

 

What's more likely is that he was crucified and stayed dead. Pious embellishment from broken hearted supporters ensued. "Likely" in this case appealing to everyone else who dies and stays dead...all of them, combined with examples of known misunderstandings or outright fraud involved when dealing with old reports of fantastic things.

The standard story that he came back to life, did miracles, walked one water, multiplied fish...etc...does not indicate that Jesus is God, either. Assume all of those things happen exactly as described and you can also have an Evil God screwing with people's hopes and dreams, providing religions as fuel for war and discord, and giving humanity the bare minimum amount of hope needed to sustain suffering for as long as possible.

Or, a powerful magician.

Or, aliens.

Or...anything.

 

I suppose, since this is a science forum, that you'd look for logical interpretations first and then only if they failed, would you invoke aliens (which there probably aren't any). So staying dead and his followers inventing the rest is certainly reasonable.

Erm, your second point is clearly ironic, since both gods are the same.

Magicians, aliens, anythings? Nah.

 

I'm digging the thread, man. Signed up on this forum because of it. Lots of good contributions (and examples of who to immediately add to my ignore list).

I've had the same wonderment many times, about the crucifixion as well as other "tall" bible stories (e.g. Parting of the Red Sea being typhoon winds, or tides, or melting glaciers/shifting seas). No doubt the stories have their roots in reality, though, and I often wonder what the truth of those roots are. Easy to understand the embellishment over time, I think.

In my own mind, it makes sense that he wasn't dead, and came to later. I didn't know until this thread about him only being on the cross for 9 hours instead of 3 days. Interesting.

+1 on Jesus being just another dude, that got himself between a rock and a hard place with his teachings & preachings and pissed off the wrong people. I too believe in a higher power, but I don't think Jesus was any more (or less) important than anybody else, he just became a lightning rod for being in the right place at the right time.

 

I've seen some possible rational solutions for some of the bible stories. There was a TV program which explained the plagues in Egypt quite well, and of course there are flood stories in many cultures, probably because they happen all the time - tsunamis, anyone? I think it is useful to look for mundane solutions before giving credence to the supernatural.

Oh, and welcome to this forum.

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