Jesus is Caesar deified

[outhouse]

It's the same god, and they are the same histories,

Really, so all these gods are static and the concept never evolves.


And what time period are you dealing with exactly? It surely is not the first husdred years we are dealing with here in context.

In context, they are not the same gods by definition. That was not defined until Constantine.


Their histories are night and day different unless you take them out of context.

[Jay]

There are other problems with the supposed chicken ban: e.g. The Tosefta for Baba Qamma reads (8:9)

They do not rear chickens in Jerusalem on account of the holy things [But} if [one provided} for them a garden or a dung-heap, lo this is permitted.

Which is actually quite funny, because gardens and dung-heaps were forbidden in Jerusalem. I've got an old note here that says so, referring to Baba Qamma 82b w/ Tosefta Nega'im 6:2 (edited by Zuckermandel).

[Jay]

Here is another way to approach "Jesus was Caesar": if Jesus was Caesar, then I think it would follow that the Christian god was Jupiter. So is it true that the Christian god was Jupiter?

Caesar became the new Jupiter. (They didn't use "divus" for nothing.) Explicit references to the old Jupiter may have been extinguished from the Gospel text. For example: the night before his assassination Caesar prays to Jupiter who also comes to him in a dream, taking his hand, guiding him above the clouds into heaven, foreshadowing his death and ascension. Christ in the garden isn't visited by the father, but by an angel, which would be the substitute. But the prayer to the father is still in there, which is still a good hint at the origin. (Gospel of Luke, I believe.)

In iconography it's very clear though; cf. Christ's ascension with the hand of the "father" in the clouds: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... 400_AD.jpg

[Jay]

Here is another way to approach "Jesus was Caesar": if Jesus was Caesar, then I think it would follow that the Christian god was Jupiter. So is it true that the Christian god was Jupiter?

I thought Julius Caesar's patron family deity was Venus.

She was actually Caesar's mum. We tend to dilute the ancient beliefs and say that she was just the family deity of the Julians, that Venus Genetrix was the mother of all Romans etc., but she was more than that. Mother of God.

[Jay]

There is one monumental influence.

Judaism is the foundation of Christianity. So much so it is the vast majority of Christiaity.


The one all powerful Jewish god still is the one true god of Christianity, It took 400 years for the trinity to become mainstream and Jesus to be viwed as an equal.

That's just your faith speaking. (Or, if you're an atheist, you're perpetuating the faith of others.)

[Jay]

Really, so all these gods are static and the concept never evolves.

That's the idea. You really think God is a flip-flopper? And I believed you were the guy with the faith here. Scriptures change, humans change, interpretations change, God doesn't.

And what time period are you dealing with exactly? It surely is not the first husdred years we are dealing with here in context.

You can look that up in Wikpedia: life of Caesar, Roman chronology, writing of the first major Gospel version etc.

In context, they are not the same gods by definition. That was not defined until Constantine.

Which context? In the context of the Jesus-Caesar-theory it's the same god. (Of course it is!) Constantine only cemented an existing and rather prominent social-religious reality.

Their histories are night and day different unless you take them out of context.

There is only one context: diegetic transposition. If you believe that the itinerant preacher from Galilee called Yeshua (or something) is a historical reality, then I'm sorry, I can't help you there.

[Jay]

I have a QUESTION for you, something that is only tangentially related to the Jesus-Caesar theory, but it's something I've been thinking about again and again.

When was the name Ἰησοῦς (Jesus) created for the Christian god and the character in the Gospel?

This may sound like a stupid question, but actually the name "Jesus" is not contained in the NT, i.e. in the earliest manuscripts. There we only find the nomen sacrum IC (with the overdash), i.e. iota and the lunate sigma, latinized I and S, the first and the last letter of the name. In the Jesus-Caesar theory this would likely stand for Ioulios, of course, but regardless of that: when was this sacred abbreviation IC first interpreted as "Jesus", which means written out? Which source (biblical, non-biblical), what year (or age), which author, which language (Greek, Latin, Coptic), which manuscript (ancient, late ancient, mediaeval)? I've asked experts, but this question had never even crossed their mind.

Like them and like me you may not know either, but for me it's kind of intriguing & I wanted to share. So this is not about the why, but the when, where, by whom etc.

[MrMacSon]

When was the name Ἰησοῦς (Jesus) created for the Christian god and the character in the Gospel?

... the name "Jesus" is not contained in the NT, i.e. in the earliest manuscripts. There we only find the nomen sacrum IC (with the overdash), i.e. iota and the lunate sigma, latinized I and S, the first and the last letter of the name. In the Jesus-Caesar theory this would likely stand for Ioulios, of course, but regardless of that: when was this sacred abbreviation IC first interpreted as "Jesus", which means written out? Which source (biblical, non-biblical), what year (or age), which author, which language (Greek, Latin, Coptic), which manuscript (ancient, late ancient, mediaeval)? I've asked experts, but this question had never even crossed their mind.

Like them and like me you may not know either, but for me it's kind of intriguing & I wanted to share. So this is not about the why, but the when, where, by whom etc.

I have wondered the same thing.

when was this sacred abbreviation IC first interpreted as "Jesus"? ...

... Which source (biblical, non-biblical), what year (or age), which author, which language (Greek, Latin, Coptic), which manuscript (ancient, late ancient, mediaeval)?

.

[andrewcriddle]

There are other problems with the supposed chicken ban: e.g. The Tosefta for Baba Qamma reads (8:9)

They do not rear chickens in Jerusalem on account of the holy things [But} if [one provided} for them a garden or a dung-heap, lo this is permitted.

Which is actually quite funny, because gardens and dung-heaps were forbidden in Jerusalem. I've got an old note here that says so, referring to Baba Qamma 82b w/ Tosefta Nega'im 6:2 (edited by Zuckermandel).

The underlying issue is that the various rabbinic passages about the special status of Jerusalem are difficult to reconcile. Various Jewish scholars e.g. Guttmann Studies in Rabbinic Judaism do not regard these passages as historical evidence about pre-70 CE Jerusalem. Guttmann says

t is unlikely that the prohibition of raising chickens existed at the time of the Temple. Had this been an established law, the Tosefta Nega'im list certainly would have included it ...

These traditions may have developed in the second century to emphasise the specialness and sacredness of lost Jerusalem.

Andrew Criddle

[MrMacSon]

These traditions may have developed in the second century to emphasise the specialness and sacredness of lost Jerusalem.

Andrew Criddle

Interesting.