Dad4Justice WILL YOU PLEASE stop hogging the forum :)
You just talk toooo much mate.

Pericles 'ABSOLUTELY' none ? come come.

The early church was not huge, and it was hunted down mercilessly, it was not a MILitary group and as such would not have attracted the kind of attention you describe.
Finally..they KILLED Jesus, after only 3 yrs, and as far as Rome is concerned, they probably thought 'problem solved'.

Your problem is that you are looking at Jesus in 'earthly political' terms. Just as some of His disciples did.
The Gospel did not spread by mass rallies, but by word of mouth and quality of life. Small groups meeting in homes. No weapons, no agitation against the government...and Paul even 'sucking up' some might say advocating obedience to earthly authorities.

What's to hate or worry about in that ?

Please read this link for extra Biblical sources about Jesus/Christians.

http://www.probe.org/content/view/18/77/

It lists them quite well and does not dodge the critical questions.

I really don't understand why Christians continually bleast on about the non-biblical historicity of Christ. There is not a single text that has managed to passed intellectual scrutiny wrt to the existence of Christ yet Christians refuse to accept the jury's verdict and, in fact, ignore that a verdict has been handed down.

They continually ignore the evidence that the writings attributed to people such as Josephus and Tacitus that refer to Christ are fraudulent.

Why do they do it? Why can't they simply incorporate into their faith (belief without proof) that God decided to hide the evidence.

Lets have a look at some facts about Joshua. Firstly, he is born in somewhere in Gallilee. The historical records tell us that Gallilee was a hotbed of clans that had constantly rebelled againts Rome. His cousin, the good book tells us, is executed by the Roman appointed King, Herod. We will assume that none of this had any impact on his development. We are told in various historical records that Israel was in forment at the time of Joshua's birth. There was a widespread belief that the end days were just around the corner and that the blasphemy of Roman occupation was confirming certain old testament prophecy. Again, we will asume that Joshua, a talmud scholar, just ignored these events - after all, he was concerned only with saving the known and unknown world.
We know from Jewish records that the Jewish faith was undergoing a major theological split along the lines of those that collaborated with the Romans, those that rebelled or regarded Roman occupation as a abomination and other extremist groups such as the Essene's who followed a view that they were all dead meat unless they lived like them in isolation and prepared for armageddon (not unlike right wing christians today). We will assume that none of this effected Joshua's view of his world and that he wandered around chatting to God and preparing the foundations for a church for gentiles, that he clearly loathed.
The passover was a time of great sensitivity to the Romans, as the large crowds who descended on Jerusalem, always had the potential to become rebellious. The Romans always brought in a legion, just to be sure that they could deal with any uprsings at this time.
To enter Jerusalem, at this time to the acclaim of the locals as "king" was either a political act designed to create or forment revolution, the act of someone who has lived in complete isolation of reality or the act of a religious fanatic intent on their own self destruction.

Surely radio presenters would know how to use the vocative and address Brutulus as Brutule.

Oh well perhaps he works for a commercial station sacrificing all forms of respect and propriety in the hunt for ratings. If the article went on a bit longer we could have seen the real power behind the farce from it sponsors. Fast chariots with its horses arranged in a revolutionary V shape. Temple supplies, autumn special Ariadne statues. Followed by a promo for early evening current affairs "Shocking truth Cleopatra had Cabala text tattoed on her back".

Once upon a time, I used to accept these stories as well.

>>The early church was not huge, and it was hunted down mercilessly<<

It's good propaganda, but doesn't stand up to a great deal of scrutiny.

As far as I can tell, the "early church" was actually a motley bunch of factions, each with "their own histories, views, attitudes and mix of peoples . . . . Each writing has a different view of Jesus, a particular attitude toward Judaism, its own concept of the Kingdom of God, a peculiar notion of salvation, and so on", according to Burton Mack. The fact that a few of them appeared to be subversive terrorists and had their lives shortened by the governments that they upset, doesn't altogether come as a surprise.

>>it was not a MILitary group and as such would not have attracted the kind of attention you describe<<

But hang on a minute, sharkfin tells us "Jesus was killed because he had become a leader and was developing a huge following"

Which is right? Was he a significant force in society in his own time, or was this attributed to him later by some of the religious factions?

>>Your problem is that you are looking at Jesus in 'earthly political' terms. Just as some of His disciples did.<<

Well, of course I am. That is surely the likeliest place to find real evidence that not only did Jesus exist, but also that he was all the things that were later written about him. Instead, all we have is a set of documents of questionable provenance that have absolutely no (I repeat) no support in contemporary writings.

This, to me, begs some serious questions.

You, along with others on this forum, have no problem setting aside these questions, in favour of a blind faith that it all happened, just like the Bible said it did.

Faith is, of course, all you need to have a religion that keeps you warm at night.

Which is fine and dandy, but please don't confuse faith with reality.

Lets cut to that awful day; Joshua is on the cross. How he got there is open to as many interpretations as there are gospels but we'll put that aside. We know that the Romans reserved execution by the cross for those that had committed the most serious crime, that is treason or sedition. Joshua has above his cross 'King of the Jews' - clearly defining the political crime for which he is suffering this barbaric form of death. Now, lets expand on the scene. Beside him are two other criminals which we are told or not told depending on the gospel you are reading, were petty thieves /petty criminals. Why would these thieves or petty criminals be suffering this form of execution? The Romans did not use this form of execution for any other crime other than sedition or treason. There is only three explanations for this anomoly; either these two were also guilty of sedition / treason, they did not exist or the testaments have untidily covered up some uncomfortable issue regarding that day.

It is an abuse of a normal intellect to expect anyone with the slightest ability to critically think, to accept this constructed myth as anything more than a wonderful story supporting an established religion. However, it also denigrates a real man, of courage and conviction who lost his life in his cause.