From: avi@seal.imagen.com
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic
Subject: Re: What did Judas betray?
Date: 11 Nov 92 20:37:36 GMT
Reply-To: avi@seal.imagen.com
Organization: imagen

>Four parallel
>accounts of high consistancy (not necessarily complete agreement) should
>be considered more reliable than a single account.  After all, isn't
>there something in the Tanach which requires more than one witness to a
>crime to accept testamony as valid?  A single witness is not sufficient.
                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's exactly my point ! John is the only witness to Jesus since he was the
only one (out of the 4 gospels authors) who actually LIVED in his time. All the
3 other gospels authors did NOT know Jesus personally and lived years afterwards
(some as late as 120-150 years later!) and are thus NOT acceptable witnesses !!

>According to the New Testament they were concerned that some Jews were
>following Jesus.  It says that many false Messiahs will follow Jesus
>claiming to be him, where does it say that "there were MANY False
>Messiahs before Jesus and NONE was crucified"?

First and foremost, it is said in the New Testament (sorry can't remeber the 
chapter and verse number or even book, but you'd recognize it) that one of the
members of the Sanhedrin, quieted the others by saying something like: don't
worry about him there were others before him and they appeared and disapperaed
and teh Jewish people forgotten about them, so this will also be his fate.

As for his rate of success in convincing jews of his messianship (sp?) -
the New Testament is NOT a valid proof for the New Testament, now is it ?
We do not hear in either the Jewish or Roman sources any hint that Jesus was
successful in convincing anybody other than a handful of people about his
divinity or messiahneship, etc. On the contrary, until the Roman Empire adopted
the Christian religion, it was a minor movement even compared to Judaism (as far
as number of followers). As opposed to Shabtai Zvi who managed to unite almost ALL of the Jewish world behind him, or at least a very big portion.
No Roman source or Jewish source bothers to mention this "radical" man who
showed up and was immediately followed by many. As opposed to say Bar Kochva
who we hear of , quite alot and was even followed by VERY significant Rabbis
(such as rabbi Akiva). That goes to show 2 things:
1) The Talmud does NOT censor the truth. If somebody was a false messiah and
   had trapped people to follow him (such a Bar Kochva) we would know about it !
2) Since we hear no such thing, Jesus had NO such success, and he's just a minor
   false messiah (like many before and after him) who was taken seriously only 
   by a few, and if it wasn't for the Roman Empire which once adopted Christianity
   and enforced it as the Empire's official religion, Jesus' name wouldn't even
   be known to anybody but a handful of historians, because of his insignificance.


>I suspect that Bar Kochba(sp,?) would have been crucified along with his
>followers had they not commited suicide at Massada.  

Check your history sources. Bar Kochva, was very FAR from being crucified and
was actually endorsed by prominent contemporary Rabbis (such as Rabbi Akiva).
He did NOT commit suicide at Massada, but was bitten by a snake, while riding
his horse, and died. 

The fact by the way, that Bar Kochva died before achieveing what the Messiah is 
supposed to achieve (King of Israel, builder of the Temple restorer of daily
rituals there, and establisher of World peace !!! to name but a few) - 
PROVED to the jews at the time that he was NOT the prophesized messiah !!! 

This again proved that neither was Jesus: 
Jesus died before achieveing anything of this kind. Even to those who believe in
his ressurection, he did NOT achieve the above missions (and these are just a
PART of what the Messiah is supposed to do, no ifs, ands or buts about it) -
shows that he was just another false messiah like Bar Kochva before him or
Shabtai Zvi after him, except that he as was much LESS successful than both
these two.

>Since Shabtai Zvi
>was only around "300-400 years ago" I'd hardly expect him to have been a
>candidate for crucifiction.  =B^]  Are you saying that none of these
>false Messiahs suffered any sort of persecution from Jewish religious
>authorities?  I'd find that highly unlikely.

NO false messiah EVER died in the hands of fellow Jews, not even by those who 
opposed him for the simple reason, that his death BEFORE the completion of the
above missions (world peace, king of Israel, etc) would be a sufficient PROOF
that he is not the real messiah to those unfortunate few who believed he was.
Jesus was no exception, Nor was Bar Kochva or Shabtai Zvi, both of whom had 
both followers and opponents, yet none tried to kill or execute ANY
of them by any means !!!  It is ONLY the romans who had a STRONG motive to
execute Jesus as he was a potential defamor to the Roman Emperor by his mere
existence and claims. Once the Roman Empire adopted the Christian faith, they
were confronted by their OWN strong sense of embarassment since they executed
their own God !!!  A need to rewrite history had arisen, and a "scapegoat" was quickly found: the Jews, (since there was nobody else left, The Christians were
now the "good" guys and of course the Romans had to be the "good" guys all along, which leaves us with the Jews alone). A few passages (anti-semitic in nature)
were quickly added and/or rewritten to the Gospels to "Justify" the whole
thing in hindsight.  It is easy to spot this as virtaully ALL of the New Testament
is filled with Love to the people of Israel (the Jews) by Jesus, to the point
where he initially refused to heal the son of a non-Jewish woman, claiming to have
come ONLY for the Jews, and only after she said that the dogs get to eat the
crumbs of their masters tables, did he agree, or when he told the people NOT to
stone the sinner despite the ehavy sin (i.e. tolerance and forgiveness), not
to mention the famous "forgive them father" - YET yet John says "on the heads
of", etc. !!! (which is against the "christian" dogma of tolerance and 
forgivenenss, and indeed it is as it was "inserted" later on for purposes of
finding a scapegoat, and this served as basis for justifying Christian anti-semitism for almost 2,000 years !!!)

>Uh, Jesus taught that citizens were subject to their governments.  Give
>unto Caesar what is Caeser's, a slave should not seak to be free, etc.
>Each person serves God from the place they are in in life.  Nothing
>there for the Romans to have a problem with.

That's a common mistake, as you're judging the "potential threat" that Jesus
posed to the Romans from Jesus' point-of-view, not from the Romans' point of 
view !

To the Romans, a guy who is being followed and obeyed blindly - and is the
"King of the Jews" does not sit well with the DICTATORSHIP of the Roman
Emperor. Further, the Romans did not carefully listen nor care if his kingdom
was or was not of this world. To them, NO competetion should be for RULERSHIP
of a conquered country or its people. Further, the Romans, were highly suspicious
of any organized jewish gathering, as a forum for underground activity. It is
known that Jewish rebels gathered for purposes of overthrowing the Romans rule,
disgusing it as religious and social gatherings. Now, Jesus being an organizing
factor and perfect disguise for "religious" activities, was too much a risk to
take. Even if he was no real threat, it was safer to dispose of him than to 
take the risk. Remember, the romans crucified Jews daily by the hundreds if not by the thousands, no human rights were known or cared for by them and one more
or less dead jew, did not make any difference to them , especially if that meant
more peace and quiet and securing the Roman Emperor's grip on Israel.

The destruction of the 2nd temple occurred alsmost 40 years AFTER Jesus was
executed. It is NOT related to it at all, except that the Romans crushed the
Jewish rebel by destroying their spiritual center or people, during all
of their rule on Israel: before during and after Jesus.

>Where is it claimed that the Romans were involved, expect the implication
>that they carried out the wishes of the Sanhedrin in order to avoid
>possible civil unrest?

Where is claimed that the Jews were involved except in the New Testament ?
On the contrary, what we do have consensus of sources about (both Jewish
and Christian and maybe Romans) is that the Romans were the ones who executed
Jesus. To say that they did to satisfy the Sanhedrin is utterly ridiculous !!!
Since when does a brutal vicious dictator, try to SATISFY those that he's
trying to crush ?  It is MUCH more probable he will try to run to the ground
those who offer competition on his mere existence as a DICTATOR !!!
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