Look at the propaganda:

[fshrink]

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mymod/hdln/z/afrsc/sty/SIG=1383pqmnc/EXP=1118321300;_ylt=AjWdVfeWX_LzHkOpH_WpBRwE1vAI/*http%3A//story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20050608/sc_nm/jesus_dc

The use of the word "Jesus" implicitly validates the xian assumptions in a scientific journal, relayed by the news agency to th4e whole world and to me at my breakfast table this morning... Of course the "research" bears on what is likely to happen to people who get crucified, although we don't do that any longer and the scientific range of such "research" is rather bizarre, but what comes out is 80% pure religious propaganda in the form of a fake autopsy report. I will terminate Reuters as my science news provider.

[qnr]

1. This one?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20050608/sc_nm/jesus_dc

[YankeyMCC]

2. Will they print my story that

Isildur actually died of cardiac arrest when he jumped into the river to escape the Orcs, contrary to the popular acceptance that he bled to death or drowned due to blood loss from an Orc arrow hit?

[Bill McBlueState]

3. relic

I'm surprised the Holy Blood Clot hasn't surfaced as a relic sometime in the past 200 years.

[beam me up scottie]

7. You could put pieces of it for sale on Ebay.

Just grab some blood sausage from your local butcher and you're in business!

[beam me up scottie]

4. Just what we need.

More kool-aid for the already intoxicated masses.
I heard on NPR yesterday that a lot more pharmacists are now refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills but that there were still relatively few compared the the number of licensed pharmacists.
The fact that they are doing this AT ALL horrifies and sickens me.
But I suppose they can do whatever they want to now.
They've been given permission.

[onager]

5. Now let's hear a legal expert...

...analyze the Buy-bull story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion. That should cause some Fundie thromboses.

The story has Jesus crucified between two thieves to fulfill a Biblical prophecy.

But we know a hell of a lot about Roman law, since we're still using its basics today. And thieves weren't crucified under Roman law. Theft was a petty crime, just as it is in most legal systems today.

Before that, we have one of the most bizarre trials in history. Pontius Pilate, a Roman government official, listens to the evidence and declares Jesus innocent.

So what does he do next? Why naturally, in the Bizzarro World of the Buy-bull, Pilate hands down a death sentence.

As some cranky atheist legal experts have noted, Pilate wouldn't have done such a thing any more than a modern American judge would. It would have been a flagrant violation of his office, for one thing, and he would have lost his job.

And you know how the Fundies are always quacking about "Jesus is mentioned by the famous historian Flavius Josephus?" Josephus also mentions the way Pontius Pilate handled rioting crowds and uppity Messiahs: he called out the troops and cracked down immediately with extreme force and brutality.

The idea that this guy caved in to a crowd and ordered the crucifixion of an innocent prisoner is just laughable.

[beam me up scottie]

6. Hey!

Don't make fun of history, man!

[Modem Butterfly]

8. The Egyptians didn't keep slaves, either

Hebrew or otherwise. Mention this to a fundie and watch them puke pea soup!

[DavidDvorkin]

9. Isn't the Josephus reference considered bogus?

Interpolated later by Roman Catholic priests?

[onager]

10. Yes it is!

That's the famous "Testimonium Flavinium." The most likely suspect for forging it is the fourth-century Xian scholar Eusebius.

As they say on the crime shows, Eusebius had both motive and opportunity. He wrote that lying to advance the cause of Xianity was a good thing, and he was in charge of transcribing ancient texts (including Flavius Josephus).

Other evidence: the "Church Fathers" before Eusebius, like Tertullian, were familiar with Josephus' works and often quoted him. It seems unlikely they would have missed a direct reference to their Messiah.

Probably the best evidence is just the weirdness of the "Testimonium." It consists of one long paragraph, sandwiched between an account of Pontius Pilate quelling a riot and some juicy gossip about Roman Jews visiting the Temple Of Isis. Totally out of context and stylistically bizarre.

[trotsky]

12. You know your Josephus, onager!

Not to mention the pure absurdity of a devoted Jew, who remained a Jew, writing a section on Jesus and calling him "the Messiah!" :eyes:

[fshrink]

11. Reminds me of Brian's Life's

Pilatus with his pronunciation defect that everyone if laughing at...

[trotsky]

13. Wewease Wodewick!

Life of Brian is one of the top 3 best movies ever.

[onager]

14. Incontinentia Buttocks!

Thanks for the laugh, guys! I watch "Brian" every Xmas, along with another blasphemous classic--"Black Adder Xmas Carol."

("Tell us a Xmas story! But not that boring yarn with the fellow who's born in a stable and goes around shooting off his mouth about everything under the sun. And who finally comes a cropper hanging between the two rumcoves in Jolly Arab-Land...")

Trotsky, I probably don't know as much about Josephus as a "professional." But I got SO tired of Fundies (mis)quoting him, I bought his collected works and read the whole thing. (An edited version, I admit. Josephus wrote something like 30 volumes.)

I've also read some good books about him, like Michael Grant's "The Ancient Historians." Grant identifies himself as a Xian, and even he says the Testimonium Flavinium is a forgery.

[trotsky]

15. "But WHAT have the Romans ever done for US?"

Josephus wrote entire chapters on minor kings. Pages devoted to common thieves. But the man he supposedly identifies as "the Messiah" gets a couple of paragraphs??? It's so riotously funny, you wouldn't think anyone with half a brain cell would still try to pass it off as authentic. But yet how many times have YOU seen it used, even right here on DU? Grrrr...

[fshrink]

16. We need to keep in mind

that all ancient texts, without exception, have been re-written numerous times, most of them by monks centuries later. The mechanical reproduction of documents (XV th century, Gutemberg, earlier in China)) happened way later. So that what we have, most of the time, and depending on the topic, the time etc... is a compound of a large number of edited version... Sometimes even from an oral source. Believers are very uncomfortable with such fact, because they need an unbroken, simple continuity to run all the way their pyramidal conception of the world. If you ask me, this is the major reason why critical thinking is so systematically discouraged: it's not about "faith" versus reason, it's really about the knowledge that all solid, palpable evidence would spontaneously and rapidly crumble into the vacuum that sits at their core.