Two newsgroup postings responding to the Piso claims. I haven't seen more responses yet, probably because few are willing to invest much time in things so outlandish. That doesn't mean this is not answerable.
Subject: Origin of Christianity - LOL!
From: nebarry@netaxs.com (Barry Hofstetter)
Date: 1996/08/13
Message-Id: <4uqhik$epo@netsrv2.spss.com>
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian.bible-Study
I recently recieved the following in my mail box, and since it was a
public spam, I don't mind posting it here:
****************************************************************
"El Jesus de la Neuve Testamente eda desingnado por el senor Ario
Calpurnio Piso Flavio Josepos!!!"
Hello, we will be telling a lot of people about this information, but we
thought that you would be interested in knowing about this now,
among the first of those to hear about this. Actually, there are several
thousand persons who know about this, but they do not know about it
in the 'detail' that you will have available to you.
We are speaking of the facts that prove that the Roman Piso family
wrote the New Testament and invented 'Jesus'! Yes, it has been long
known by atheists and others that the NT and the bible in general was
written by MEN and not a god, but being able to find out just WHAT
MEN wrote it, was not even an imaginable prospect... something that
would be NEEDED if we were going to say for sure to Christians and
other believers that their religion is false. We have that now. It was
found by the use of many methods, the best and greatest of all methods
were used. Inductive and deductive logic, as incorporated by great
detectives, in conjunction with archeaology, genealogy, ancient texts in
the original language, psychology, the 'history' of the time, and by
finding
motive and opportunity. Information like this is like putting
Christianity on
trial in a court of law, as a wrong against humanity.
We found that there are several things to consider when examining ancient
history that do not apply to what we know of in our time, but are most
important to consider in those times. Though it is never really stated
outright
in any Roman history left to us, we can find evidence that there was a
long
ongoing WAR between the 'Jews' and the Romans. And the 'trick' to finding
out what had happened and how it happened, is in being able to define WHO
the 'Jews' are that we are speaking of, as well as knowing just what the
changes were in Rome at various times, i.e. the exchange of rule/power.
The
writers of the New Testament were egotistic and wanted to leave ways for
us
to be able to find out WHO they were! Their egos betray them time and
time
again. They made is so that in order to be able to find out WHO they
are/were,
that we would have to read EVERY available source from the time;
something
we figured we would have to do anyway! That includes the NT itself. We
found it most beneficial to isolate the NT from the rest of the bible and
to
examine it alone against the other sources of the time. Someday, others
can
tackle the rest of the bible by similar methods.
So, we would like to invite you to visit our site and see for yourself
what we
have found, we appreciate your time, interest and patience, as our page is
undergoing additions and alterations. Please excuse any typos as well. We
are trying to clear up as much of it as fast as we can.
http://www.widomaker.com/~kjuul/pisohome.htm
Hope to hear your thoughts regarding our work. Thank you.
D.D.
****************************************************************
Of course, I immediately checked out their web site. Initial
evaluation: high entertainment value, and that's all, folks. I have
rarely seen such a collection of unsupported assertions. I wrote a
response which indicated that I wasn't appalled because I was a
Christian (people attack Christianity all the time, and one develops a
thick skin after a while), but because the quality of the work was so
outrageously bad. I informed Mr. Duran that no reputable scholar,
atheist or theist, would find his work credible. He responded thus:
****************************************************************
Thank you for your reply and comments. The information that
we send out is not meant for Christians, scholars or not. It is
there as a public service to Athiests and Humanists. Sorry to
have sent this to you. It must have been because somehow
you had posted a message in an area that is for atheistic or
humanistic discussion. Our appologies.
D.D.
****************************************************************
So, is this meant to be some sort of secret file, the X-Files of the
Skeptics, that Christians are not privy to? At any rate, as I informed
Mr. Duran, this material is not a service to any atheist or humanist,
because if any atheist or humanist tries to use his disinformation in
any scholarly publication, either history, classics, biblical
studies/theology, etc., he is liable to be laughed at and ignored.
But, people, don't take my word for it. After all, I could be one of
those biased fundie Christians, right? By all means, check it out for
yourself. It's almost as good as your favorite comedy show.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
If it were true - as conceited shrewdness, proud of not being
deceived, thinks - that one should believe nothing which he
cannot see by means of his physical eyes, then first and foremost one
ought to give up believing in love.
- S. Kierkegaard
Subject: Re: Origin of Christianity - LOL! In article <4vaj46$4t8@netsrv2.spss.com>, gizmonic@cctrap.com (Justin) writes: nebarry@netaxs.com (Barry Hofstetter) wrote: >But, people, don't take my word for it. After all, I could be one of >those biased fundie Christians, right? By all means, check it out for >yourself. It's almost as good as your favorite comedy show. I went and checked it out. I was astounded. We are supposed to believe that in all these years, it took an *ELEVEN YEAR OLD* to figure this out? This kid started this research at 11, and of course, knew more than other historians who've personally been doing this stuff for over half a century, and thus made his finding and quit researching for years before picking it up again to fine tune it and offer us his web page. Sheesh. And "Inner-Circle" sounds like another word for Illuminati. That, and their web address http://www.widomaker.com/~kjuul/pisohome.htm that part that says "kjuul" immediatly brought to my mind the Spirit Guide (read demon) Djwhal Khul, who taught Alice A. Bailey (_the_ newager) that all Christians and Jews should be killed since our religion is keeping the planet's population from advancing to the next stage of evolution. Of course, the Muslims, Bhuddists, satanists, Wiccans, etc, are all fine. I'd be interested to know where the name kjuul comes from. In my opinion, the page looks like a pagan or satanic offering more than simply an atheistic one. But, that's just my opinion. I couldn't get very far, it was too ridiculous. In His Love, justin gizmonic@cctrap.com
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