That is true. The Sabbath is Saturday, and the authorities among the Sanhedrin did not want an execution to be carried out on that day (especially as it was the beginning of Passover). The Romans probably did not care, but didn't want to cause any more friction with the local religious establishment. The men crucified with him had their legs broken to speed their deaths, but when they came to Chrsit they saw that he was already dead. To be sure that he was dead they thrust a spear in his side.

That, I think leaves us at item #2 being fairly certain as well.

Jesus of Nazareth suffered and died upon the cross.

leading us to what happened next.

Jumping ahead.....approx 380 years Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This proves nothing in and of itself, but it does supprot the idea that a lot of dedicated people sacrificed an awful lot to get this movement started.

Jesus was just a hippie, not the Son of God, he was a revolutionary, just as the early Christians were. Only the Bible extends this idea for the purpose of creating a complex theological system with which to enforce rule and order.

a very successful hippie... but then times were different.

@ otto
Upon what do you base that assumption otto?

A) Jesus was just a hippie and not the Son of God

B) The Holy Bible extends the idea that Jesus was the Son of God in order to create a complex system with which to enforce rule and order.

@ orathaic

If you consider being executed before your 34th birthday as very successful from a hippie's perspective.

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if you consider the message you gave your life for still being around 2000 years later, then yeah.

Sorry, it's already late. I'll have to get your response another time. Have fun in the live game.

@ orathaic

point taken.

I'm surprised you didn't pick up on that concept before Orthaic spelled it out, even I recognized the significance of an ideology paired with martyrdom. In fact, martyrs fueled Christianity, similar to how Moslem fundamentalists fuel radical Islam today (different connotation it seems but the enthusiasm is there for sure)

A) I already said God doesn't exist, ergo Jesus could not have been "The Son of God" however using this title will sure push any leader of a movement over the top with his followers. while the romans practiced "pacification" (ie imperialism) he practiced peace by healing the blind and helping the poor, yada yada yada, he challenged the authority of the romans (pontius pilate) by claiming that he was sent from a higher power (this is B if you haven't noticed). it's all about legitemacy or an illusion thereof.

@otto

Two problems with that scenario as I see it.

A) You seem to base the assumption that Jesus was not the Son of God solely on another assumption; that there is no God. This is an argument from faith, and one that isn't based on any evidence that I've seen from your argument as of yet. However, whether Jesus is the Son of God isn't the question, so we can avoid another fruitless discussion of whether or not God exists as it isn't central to the argument at hand.

B) The Bible (at least the New Testament) didn't exist at the time of Pontius Pilate. Also Christ was not a threat to Pilate anyway. Pilate saw no crime in him, and sent him back to Herod. Pilate even tried to have him released, but Barrabas was called for instead. It was the Sanhedrin he challenged, and that lead to his crucifixion. The Holy Bible in it's present form was not compiled until much later and could not be a factor in the formation of the early Church.

I agree that martydom fueled the early Christian Church to some extent. I'm glad that you mentioned radical Islam, as a very important difference between the two scenarios will become evident soon.

B) Either way he challenged local government and was thus put out of the way. I know the New Testament was written after his death, how else would Christianity have worked? Jesus is the poster child of Christianity, martyrs make good poster children. Plain and Simple. Whatever the people who compiled the New Testament were after they used a pathetic argument (pathos=emotion) to do it. They certainly were not just in it to proclaim to the world their religious views, they had underlying motives, just as Jesus did, they wanted a fundamental change in the Roman lifestyle which they sought to supplant with a powerful new religion.

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Certainly, but martyrdom alone will not assure the success of any cause (ex. The kamikaze in WWII).

Again upon what do you base the assumption that Jesus and the early Christians had ulterior motives? You're assertion is in direct opposition to the evidence that we have. It wasn't until nearly 400 years later that Christianity became the official religion of Rome. There was no power for that early church for 400 years. The Roman emperor was the ultimate authority until 545 A.D. All the early Christians could look forward to was a rather grisly death in short order for 400 years. That suggests commitment to the cause, but not a grasp for power.

**grisly deaths dealt out for approx 309 years. With some sporadic persecution thereafter, so it wasn't a full 400 years.***

You get my point though, I'm sure.

I don't think your kamikaze example is very efficacious for your argument, you do realize the japanese only stopped the war after two atomic bombs were dropped on their major cities. right? they would have fought to the death. what is the cause that they were pushing in your opinion, how exactly and what evidence do you have that contradicts my theory of ulterior motive. you certainly haven't substantiated your claim reasonably yet either...

Yet the kamikazes still stopped and to take the point further it took the word of a god (in their eyes) to make them do so. Still there is little to suggest that Japan would have won merely through martyrdom. They simply did not have the resources (just like the early Christians) to maintain the war.

My evidence that ulterior motive was not present is the Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles, and all of Paul's letters. That is the main record of the events about which we are speaking. Your theory of ulterior motives goes against that record. So, what evidence do you have to the contrary?

how do you interpret those records?

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Still we have the problem of motive. The early Christians (even the leadership) had little hope of any political power for over 300 years (and remember that they didn't know that it would only be three hundred years; it could have been forever as far as they knew).

The first of them would have been eye-witnesses to the resurrection. Add to their dilemma, that they would have known it to be a lie. That is if it did not happen the way they said. They would have been adding blasphemy to list of their woes. Hence the outlook was not good even after the lions were done. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that these people were atheists in any way. They would not be likely to shrug off the notion of their afterlife.

You're right. you started responding and I stayed up later than I should have. Good luck with the game, I do have to log off now. Good night.

of course it didn't happen the way they said it did!!! do you understand how ideas are internalized whether or not they are actually real? of course they believed in a god, in that time most people were polytheists even (even more insane). there were other polytheistic cults that believed in an afterlife, christians were not that unique, only their oppression as a symbol really helped along the religion as no other system at that time could. there are motives for everything, but i love how you think christianity is an exception to this, it's almost funny...

How did you even pull out the fact that I might have thought these people atheists? Motives can be subtle you know. They exist everywhere. Regardless if they wanted power for the sake of power or for the absence of it, they got what they wanted in this system, which is too full of arrogant assumptions to be safe.

really otto, a letter written by an apostle to the romans or anyone else isn't that hard to interpret. This is not genisis he's talking about.

They do talk about how to treat other people, and i'm sure it was part of the message that got people to join them. There is little other historical evidence which i'm aware of, apart from Roman treatment of one of their minorities, which i'm sure is chronicled.

@ otto

"of course it didn't happen the way they said it did!!! do you understand how ideas are internalized whether or not they are actually real?"

Sounds a bit like you're acknowleging that the ideas presented by the apostles may indeed have been real. However if this statement was intended to refute the New Testament's record of events surrounding the early Church then upon what do you base it? Skepticism is not enough. Once one says "Okay it might not have happened that way" then the search for evidence upon which to base a counter claim is only logical.
What evidence have you found to back up the notion that things did not happen as they are recorded in the Holy Bible.

As I recall, you at least, acknowleged that some of the Holy Bible was historically accurate. Why is it suddenly this part of the historical record that is suspect? I'm not asserting that they performed miracles; only that they were sincere. There is evidence to this effect in the letters I cited. Upon what do you base a counter claim?

@ otto

We seem to have gotten side tracked on motives; which are pertinent, but not to this particular item.

Item 1: There was a historically verifiable man named Jesus of Nazareth.
Item 2: He was crucified by Roman authorities.
Item 3: By A.D. 380 Christianity had grown from a fringe sect to the official religion of Rome. This shows that people were dedicated to the cause and sacrificed much to further it, but says nothing about it's truthfulness.

So far the first two items went by with little argument & the third has gone tangential with a dispute that Jesus was not the Son of God (I believe that he is but I have not asserted for the purposes of this argument). The three items above mentioned above are the only assertions that I've made; do you dispute them or any part of them?