Posted on 01/02/2006 4:30:26 PM PST by InvisibleChurch
AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.
The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.
Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.
Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was “abusing popular credulity”.
Signor Cascioli’s contention — echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites — is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.
Signor Cascioli’s one-man campaign came to a head at a court hearing last April when he lodged his accusations of “abuse of popular credulity” and “impersonation”, both offences under the Italian penal code. He argued that all claims for the existence of Jesus from sources other than the Bible stem from authors who lived “after the time of the hypothetical Jesus” and were therefore not reliable witnesses.
Signor Cascioli maintains that early Christian writers confused Jesus with John of Gamala, an anti-Roman Jewish insurgent in 1st-century Palestine. Church authorities were therefore guilty of “substitution of persons”.
The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius mention a “Christus” or “Chrestus”, but were writing “well after the life of the purported Jesus” and were relying on hearsay.
Father Righi said there was overwhelming testimony to Christ’s existence in religious and secular texts. Millions had in any case believed in Christ as both man and Son of God for 2,000 years.
“If Cascioli does not see the sun in the sky at midday, he cannot sue me because I see it and he does not,” Father Righi said.
Signor Cascioli said that the Gospels themselves were full of inconsistencies and did not agree on the names of the 12 apostles. He said that he would withdraw his legal action if Father Righi came up with irrefutable proof of Christ’s existence by the end of the month.
The Vatican has so far declined to comment.
THE EVIDENCE
The Gospels say that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, preached and performed miracles in Galilee and died on the Cross in Jerusalem
In his Antiquities of the Jews at the end of the 1st century, Josephus, the Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as “a wise man, a doer of wonderful works” who “drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles”
Muslims believe Jesus was a great prophet. Many Jewish theologians regard Jesus as an itinerant rabbi who popularised many of the beliefs of liberal Jews. Neither Muslims nor Jews believe he was the Messiah and Son of God
Tacitus, the Roman historian who lived from 55 to 120, mentions “Christus” in his Annals. In about 120 Suetonius, author of The Lives of the Caesars, says: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, Emperor Claudius expelled them from Rome.”
It is actually possible that a fragment of the Gospel of Matthew--written for a Jewish audience--was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was from the center of a page and contained parts of 2 sentances and the word "Gesseneret" (Sea of Galalee). Someone was able to locate a passage in Matthew that contained the few words in the appropriate passage. The article that I read suggested, that If true, and Matthew followed Mark, then it is possible that Mark was written as early as 45 AD.
However,(and this is REALLY cool!) When you go to the gospel of Luke, it bears the marks of a well educated, proper speaking person who was well versed in Greek....., in the first chapter (what you would expect from a physician... educated, right?). The second chapter lapses back into what I call "pidgin" Greek, and reads more like John, or Mark. Then, after the events of the nativity, the styliltic, classically influenced Greek picks up (I took a year of classical Greek in undergrad, and about 4 years more Koine Gk. in grad school). My own theory is that Luke, who spoke very good greek, was "transcribing" word for word the events of the nativity from someone. Who better to give the details, and who better to know some of the more intimate details of Mary's heart revealed there, than Mary herself? She would have been old by this time, but still just a Hebrew peasant, whose Greek would have been stammering and poor. Look at the Christmas story in Luke, look at the personal details that only would have been know my Mary, and then visualize someone "switching on" a foreign voice with bad grammar and uneducated style being quoted directly. I think we got Mary's direct story That is my theory of the lapse into "bad" Greek for Luke 2, anyway. It is a cool theory, even if unprovable.
I wondered the same thing myself.
Actually Mark was the first Gospel written, according to most NT Scholars, conservative or no.
I like your reply #144 and it really is a cool theory. I guess we'll know for sure someday.....
200 AD? I thought I warned you against taking that acid before you went into our ancient near east history class!!!! Hint: this ain't the skeptic tank over here. People tend to be a little better informed than that.
That is a great idea that Luke was transcribing the oral testimony of an eyewitness -- and we do know from one of the early Church Fathers (Irenaeus?) that Mary survived to quite an old age.
(I used to give my ECUSA rector fits, because he couldn't read word one of any kind of Greek at all - no Greek requirement for graduation any more, apparently. I can't do that now that I'm a Catholic, because our rector is excessively fluent in both Latin and Greek and can even hold an intelligent oral conversation in Latin (he went to seminary back in the days when all the courses were taught in Latin!))
I don't understand how any seminary worthy of the name would fail to educate its students in the languages the Bible was written in. I'd expect at least Greek and Hebrew, and Latin ideally for the Vulgate and all the early Fathers . . .
I'm am in agreement with you there.
They could exhume the body......except for the resurrection.
They could incorrectly believe it's the truth. 9/11 does not prove that Wahabbist Islam is the one true faith.
Too bad he's not sitting in Palermo.
Sicilians have their own "unique" way of dealing with trouble-making idiot judges.
Anyway... I'd tell the judge "prove Jesus does not exist" and then enter evidence of photos of folks going to church (along the lines of what happened in the movie "Micacle on 42nd St." [I think that's name of the movie] where Santa Claus' defense submitted sacks of letters from kids to Santa... proving there is in deed a Santa).
Trajan88... Roman emperor... of Texas ;-)
The difference between the apostles and the 9/11 terrorists is that the terrorists died in faithful belief of something that someone else told them, while the apostles died for something they personally knew to be true or false. The apostles sincerely believed in the physical appearance to them of the risen Jesus. This is what they preached from the beginning and they went to their deaths proclaiming the Resurrection.
The fact of Jesus' death by crucifixion and the sincere belief of the apostles in Jesus' post-death appearances may be added to the following facts:
*The converstion of the church persecutor, Paul;
*The conversion of the skeptic, James (Jesus' brother);
*The empty tomb
to create a compelling argument for the historical fact of Jesus' resurrection. The opposing theories of skeptics cannot adequately account for the known historical data. The resurrection of Jesus is the most plausible explanation.
Did God Create Evil?
A university professor challenged his students with this question:
Did God create everything that exists? "
A student bravely replied "Yes, he did!"
"God created everything?" the professor asked.
"Yes sir," the student replied.
The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil." The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"
"Of course," replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"
The professor replied "Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?"
The students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.
The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does."
The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."
Finally the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence we see everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."
The professor sat down.
The young man's name --- Albert Einstein.
thanks
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