
By: LARRY SITES
Re: Christian lies 1

LS> Constantine was the first Roman emperor to make christianity
LS> the defacto  state religion. In today's posts you can see
LS> how he was lied to, fed false  pagan Sibyl oracles, told
LS> that Pilate recorded Jesus resurrection in Roman  archives,
LS> shown the miraculous origin of the Septugant scriptures, and
LS>  entrusted the production of state bibles to a man who

MK> Jesus's resurrection has been documented, I suggest you find it.

If it was so well documented, why only 300 years later, did christianities
founders find it necessary to lie by forging accounts of this
"resurrection" and falsely attributing them to Pilate and claiming the
originals were in the Roman archives?

Why did they need to tamper with what little evidence there was?

                     FORGERY IN CHRISTIANITY

               JOSEPHUS FORGERY TESTIFIES OF JESUS

     So many confessed Christian forgeries in Pagan and Christian
names having been wrought to testify to Jesus Christ, it was, "one
naturally expects," says CE., that a Jewish "writer so well
informed as Josephus" must know and tell about Jesus; "one
naturally expects, therefore, a notice about Jesus Christ in
Josephus." And with pride it pursues: "Antiquities, VIII, iii, 3,
seems to satisfy this expectation." It proceeds to quote the
passage, which differeth only as one translation naturally differs
from another, from that in the Whitson translation; so I follow CE.
In Chapter iii Josephus treats of "Sedition of the Jews against
Pontius Pilate"; in section 1. he relates the cause and the
suppression of the mutiny, the ensigns of the army displaying the
idolatrous Roman Eagle, brought into the Holy City; in section 2.
he tells of the action of Pilate in bringing "a current of water to
Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money," thus again arousing
a clash with the fanatics; "there were great numbers of them slain
by this means." Passing for the moment the notorious section 3,
Josephus the Jew begins section 4: "About the same time, also,
another sad calamity put the Jews in disorder," which he proceeds
to relate, ending the long chapter. Note that these section numbers
were not put in by Josephus, but are modern editor's devices to
facilitate citation, like the chapters and verses in the Bible. And
now for the much-debated section, sandwiched, in a whole chapter on
"Seditions of the Jews," between the accounts of two massacres of
his countrymen and "another sad calamity"; and thus we read -- note
the parentheses of CE. (viii, 376): --

     "About this time," quotes CE., "appeared Jesus, a wise man (if
indeed it is right to call Him a man; for He was a worker of
astonishing deeds, a teacher of such men an receive the truth with
joy), and He drew to Himself many Jews (and many also of the
Greeks. This was the Christ). And when Pilate, at the denunciation
of those that are foremost among us, had condemned Him to the
cross, those who had first loved Him did not abandon Him. (For He
appeared to them alive on the third day, the holy prophets having
foretold this and countless other marvels about Him.) The tribe of
Christians named after Him did not cease to this day." (see. 3.)

     About this time, also "another sad calamity [?] put the Jews
into disorder," (sec. 4). continues Josephus. CE. devotes over
three long columns to the task of trying to prove that this section
3, or at least "the portions not in parentheses," -- is genuine,
and was written, sometime before his death in 94 A.D., by the
Jewish Pharisee, Josephus. "A testimony so important," well says
CE., "could not escape the critics," -- and it has not. We cannot
follow the lengthy and labored arguments; the simple reading or the
section, in its bizarre context, and a moment's reflection, condemn
it as a pious Christian forgery. If the Pharisee Josephus wrote
that paragraph, he must have believed that Jesus was the Prophesied
Messiah of his people -- "This was the Christ." Josephus is made to
aver, he must then needs have been of "the tribe of Christians
named after Him." But whatever Josephus may have said about Jesus
is, indeed, not "a testimony so important" -- when we remember what
he did aver that he saw with his own eyes; the pillar of salt into
which Mrs. Lot was turned; and Eleazar the magician drawing the
devil by a ring and Solomonic incantations, through the nose of one
possessed, before Vespasian and all his army. If Josephus had
written that he knew Jesus the Christ personally, and had
personally seen him ascend into heaven through the roof of the room
in Jerusalem (Mk. xvi, 19, 20), or from the open countryside by
Bethany (Lk. xxiv, 50, 51), or "on the mount called Olivet" (Acts
i, 9, 12), -- we should remember that pillar of salt and that
devil-doctor, and smile.

     But, when and how did this famous passage get into The
Antiquities of the Jews? it, is pertinent to ask. The first mention
ever made of this passage, and its text, are in the Church History
of that "very dishonest writer," Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth
century, -- he who forged the Letters between Abgar and Jesus,
falsely declaring that he had found the original documents in the
official archives, whence he had copied and translated them into
his Ecclesiastical History. CE. admits, and I have the Contra
Celsum here before me, -- that "the above cited passage was not
known to Origen and the earlier patristic writers," -- though they
copied from Josephus the forged tale of the Letter of Aristeas
about the translating of the Septuagint; and "its very place in the
Josephan text is uncertain, since Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, vi)
must have found it before the notices concerning Pilate, while it
now stands after them" (HE. I, ii, p. 63); and it makes the curious
argument, which implies a confession: "But the spuriousness of the
disputed Josephan passage does not imply the historian's ignorance
of the facts connected with Jesus Christ"! For a wonder, that "a
writer so well informed as Josephus" should not, perhaps, know by
hearsay, sixty years after Jesus Christ, some of the remarkable
things circulated about him in current country-side gossip -- (if,
indeed, it were then current). But the fact is, that with the
exception of this one incongruous forged passage, section 3, the
wonder-mongering Josephus makes not the slightest mention of his
wonder-working fellow-countryman, Jesus the Christ, -- though some
score of other Joshuas, or Jesuses, are recorded by him, nor does
he mention any of his transcendent wonders, But, as CE. and I were
saying, none of the Fathers, before Eusebius (about 324), knew or
could find a word in the works of Josephus, of this momentous
"testimony to Jesus," over a century after Origen. That it did not
exist in the time of Origen is explicit by his own words; he cites
the supposed references by Josephus to John the Baptist and to
James, and expressly says that Josephus ought to have spoken of
Jesus instead of James; though Origen does not correctly describe
the reference to James; and the James passage, if not that also
about John, has a suspicious savor of interpolation.

     For a clear understanding of this, I will quote the passage of
Origen in his work against Celsus; it completely refutes the claim
that Josephus wrote the disputed and forged section 3. Origen says:

     "I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew
accepting John somehow as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the
existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins,
is related by one who lived no great time after John and Jesus. For
in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears
witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising
purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer,
although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the
cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple
[said that it was 'to avenge James the Just'], whereas he ought to
have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these
calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ,
who was a prophet, says nevertheless -- being, although against his
will, not far from the truth -- that these disasters happened to
the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was
a brother of Jesus (called Christ), -- the Jews having put him to
death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice."
(Origen, Contra Celsum, I, xlvii; ANF. iv, 416.)

     Josephus is thus quoted as bearing witness to John the
Baptist, not as the Heaven-sent "forerunner" of the Christ, but
simply as a Jewish religious teacher and baptizer on his own
account; and not a word by Josephus about the Christ, in whom it is
admitted that he did not believe as such, nor even mentions as the
most illustrious of those baptized by John, to the wondrous
accompaniment of a voice from Heaven and the Holy Ghost in dove-
like descent upon his head as he came up from the water. But
Origen, in his effort to get some Christian testimony from him,
misquotes Josephus and makes him say that John was baptizing "for
the remission of sins," whereas Josephus expressly says that the
efficacy of John's baptism was not for remission of sin but for the
purification of the body, as any washing would be. To vindicate
Josephus against Origen, the former's words are quoted. Josephus
recounts the defeat of Herod by Aretas, king of Arabia Petrea; and
goes on to say: --

          "Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of
     Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a
     punishment of what he did against John, that was called the
     Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded
     the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness toward
     one another, and piety toward God, and so to come to baptism;
     for that the washing would be acceptable to him, if they made
     use of it, not in order to the putting away of some sins, but
     for the purification of the body: supposing still that the
     soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now,
     when many others came in crowds about him, for they were
     greatly moved by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the
     great influence John had over the people might put it into his
     power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed
     ready to do anything he should advise,) thought it best, by
     putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause,
     and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who
     might make him repent of it when it should be too late.
     Accordingly, he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious
     temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was
     there put to death." (Josephus, Antiq. Jews, Bk. XVIII, v, 2.)

     Beginning in section 4. of the same Book, and at length in
various chapters, Josephus goes into details regarding Salome; but
never a word of the famous dance-act and of the head of John the
Baptist being brought in on a charger to gratify her murderous
whim: the historical reason for the murder of John was political,
not amorous or jealous, as related by Gospel-truth.

     Father Origen again falls into error in citing Josephus, this
time in the dubious passage where Josephus, who does not believe in
the Christ, yet gives him that title in speaking of the death of
James. With typical clerical bent Father Origen imputes the fall of
Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple to the sin of the Jews
in crucifying the Christ; and says that Josephus, in seeking the
cause of the disasters which befell the Holy City and people,
attributes them to the killing of the Christ's brother. The Holy
City and temple were destroyed in 70 A.D., which was well after the
time of the supposititious James, as his demise is recorded in the
suspected passage of Josephus. He related the death of Festus,
which was in 62 A.D., the appointment by Nero of Albinus as his
successor, and the murder of James at the instigation of the high
priest Ananus, before Albinus can arrive. this sentence is to be
read in the text of Josephus:

          "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road;
     so he (Ananus) assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought
     before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose
     name was James, and some others; and when he had formulated an
     accusation against them all breakers of the law, he delivered
     them to be stoned." (Jos., Antiq. Jews, Bk. XX, ix, i.)

     Bishop Eusebius cannot pass over this chance to turn another
Jewish testimony for his Christ; he says that "The wiser part of
the Jews were of the opinion that this -- (the killing of James) --
was the cause of the immediate siege of Jerusalem ... Josephus also
has not hesitated to superadd his testimony in his works. "These
things,' he says, 'happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just,
who was the brother of him that is called Christ, and whom the Jews
had slain, notwithstanding his preeminent justice.'" (Euseb. Hist.
Eccles. Bk. II, ch. 23.)

     The reader may judge of the integrity of these pretended
Jewish testimonies to the Baptist and to the brother of the Christ,
both suspicious per se, and both falsely cited by Father Origen,
who in all this could not find the famous section 3, first found a
century later by Bishop Eusebius; and which Origen makes it
positive Josephus had not written and could not have written. Is it
a violent suspicion, and uncharitable, to suggest that the holy
Bishop who forged the Letter of his Christ, and lied about finding
it in the Edessa archives, really "found," in the sense of
invented, or forged, the Josephus passages first heard of in his
Church History?

     But Bishop Eusebius, with a sort of "stop thief" forethought,
himself imputes forgery to those who would question or discredit
his own pious inventions, while with unctuous fervor pretended
truth he appeals to the wonderful "testimonies of Josephus," which
he has just fabricated. After quoting and misquoting Josephus with
respect to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, he thur solemnly
couches for their false witness: "When such testimony as this is
transmitted to us by an historian who sprung from the Hebrews
themselves, both respecting John the Baptist and our Savior, what
subterfuge can be left, to prevent those from being convicted
destitute of all shame, who have forged the acts against them?"
(Eusebius, HE. I, xi.) The Bishop justly pronounces his own
condemnation. This, says Gibbon, "is an example of no vulgar
forgery." (Chap. xvi.) In view of the convicting circumstances, and
of his notoriously bad record, it, is not uncharitable to impute
this Josephus forgery to Bishop Eusebius.

 Larry Sites <LGSites@connectnet.com> JC's Fireman: Luke 12:49
 Freq FORGERY.ZIP, Falisfy Fundi father fakery
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