Gibson's Passion

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Redwolf
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Post by Redwolf »

missy wrote:ok - I have to post, since I'm one of "those" musicians at Mass.

Our "contemporary" group consists of 2 - 12 string guitars, 1 - 6 string, 1 - electric bass, me on dulcimer (and whistle or bodhran if appropriate), an electric keyboard, some drums, and at least 4 other singers besides those playing. We have two excellent sopranos.
We have practice once a week for the following Sunday.

BUT -

all of us do this on a volunteer basis, no pay. It's our way of giving back to the Church. So - if you don't like the music at YOUR church, see about starting a group up. But be advised that you'll have to work "within" the existing sound system (which is usually NOT set up for acoustic instruments, much less a whistle) you'll have to play whatever is in the hymnal set that your church has purchased (and you'll probably not have a say it that, either), and, of course, you need to stick to what's appropriate for the calendar at that time.

I mean, common, this is a MUSIC board! Who better to help with the music than someone posting on here???!

Missy
I've been a volunteer musician in churches for most of my life. I've sung in church choirs since I was nine years old. Where I come from, we refer to our musicianship as an offering to God, not as a "way to give back to the church." And, as an offering, it should be the very best one has to offer. Not music thrown together on Sunday morning with no rehearsal. Not a cantor who can't get the words of the Psalm right because he never even bothered to look at them before Mass. Not guitars played without any regard to at least TRYING to get them in tune. Not the same bloody processional and recessional for two weeks because one set of musicians won't communicate with the other.

And...hello...you don't just walk into a congregation and say "I'm here to help you fix your music" either.

I'm not interested in playing whistle in church, and if I had my say, we wouldn't use a sound system either. There's no need for it. Heck, this is the first time I've attended a church in my life that even HAD a microphone. I'm a chorister and a cantor, and what I was bemoaning was the throwing away of the Catholic Church's marvelous musical tradition which, at least out here in California, is now only preserved in Episcopal Churches and traditionalist Latin Rite Churches...despite the expression on the part of the Second Vatican Council that "Gregorian Chant should be given pride of place." Try to form a proper choir out here to sing Palestrina or Bach and see how far you get. Try even suggesting that the parts of the Mass should be chanted. At this point, however, I'd settle for a folk group that was willing to rehearse and to give of their best to God.

I'm totally in favor of "making a joyful noise." In my NC parish, two of my favorite people...the two who ALWAYS sang during Mass...were deaf. They sang from their hearts, and their singing was beautiful because of that, even if they were lucky if they hit one correct note in 10. But what I'm hearing now doesn't come from the heart. The "musicians" evidently don't even have enough passion to bother to practice or tune their instruments (helpful hint...until you can tune it properly, don't play it in public). It's not a "joyful noise," it's just plain noise.

Redwolf
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Post by missy »

redwolf - I hope that wasn't a "critque" of my playing at church. We DO have practices, as I said, one a week for the following Sunday. When it comes time for Christmas and Easter, we have several extra for the extra songs involved.
We all own tuners and are in tune. Two of the guitar players are music teachers, as is one of the singers. Two of us are "semi" professional musicians. We just don't get paid for playing at church. I don't sing, because I am not good at it, but, we have a classically trained soprano. Believe me, when Stormy sings "Ave Maria" with only piano accompaniment, well, it's a very beautiful expression of faith.

Whistle works quite well on some songs we do - "Now the Green Blade Rises", "All the Ends of the Earth", and "Sing of the Lord's Goodness" are a few that come to mind.

I'm old enough to remember Latin mass, chapel veils and such. I can appreciate a high mass (when the celebrant has a good voice) but the incense kills me!

If you are ever in my neck of the woods, come to 11:00 mass!
Missy

"When facts are few, experts are many"

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Post by missy »

oh - and as to sound system - even if it was just an organist and cantor - our church is built in such a way that without a sound system, no one would be able to hear the singing, or the priest or reading, for that matter.
Missy

"When facts are few, experts are many"

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Post by Jon-M »

[quote="DaleWisely So, I do wish people would quit complaining about OT threads. [/quote]
And I wish Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses would stop trying to convert me. And I wish that this would just be a music site. And I also wish that I could get a good cup of coffee for 50 cents and that I could find a house that I could afford. And yet, so much of what we wish for seems unlikely to happen. If people want to put up these highly-charged topics in a public forum, they'd best be prepared to deal with all kinds of feedback including a wish on each side that the other would be quiet.
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Post by Redwolf »

missy wrote:redwolf - I hope that wasn't a "critque" of my playing at church. We DO have practices, as I said, one a week for the following Sunday. When it comes time for Christmas and Easter, we have several extra for the extra songs involved.
We all own tuners and are in tune. Two of the guitar players are music teachers, as is one of the singers. Two of us are "semi" professional musicians. We just don't get paid for playing at church. I don't sing, because I am not good at it, but, we have a classically trained soprano. Believe me, when Stormy sings "Ave Maria" with only piano accompaniment, well, it's a very beautiful expression of faith.

Whistle works quite well on some songs we do - "Now the Green Blade Rises", "All the Ends of the Earth", and "Sing of the Lord's Goodness" are a few that come to mind.

I'm old enough to remember Latin mass, chapel veils and such. I can appreciate a high mass (when the celebrant has a good voice) but the incense kills me!

If you are ever in my neck of the woods, come to 11:00 mass!
No, it was a response to YOUR response to my post about the crappy music in my parish...and, in fact, in pretty much all the Catholic parishes in this part of the country.

I really don't care for folk masses at all, though a well-rehearsed one is better than what we have. I think they should be the exception, rather than the rule, in most Catholic Churches. Unfortunately, just the opposite is true, at least here in the Western U.S. You won't find a high mass out here (again, outside of an Episcopal or Traditionalist parish). Most of the churches have even trashed their beautiful pipe organs...all because a few bishops decided that Vatican II gave them carte blanche to change how Catholics have worshipped for centuries...which I find rather sad.

Redwolf
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elendil
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Post by elendil »

Daniel wrote:
What amazes me is how many of Christianity knows very little of the Jewish roots.
I very much agree with that. Most of the Christian faith takes on deeper meaning when understood in its proper historical context. And that goes not only for the Gospels, but also for the other Christian scriptures. Much of what Paul writes, or the letter to the Hebrews, takes on new life when the background is explained.

And this may be a problem with Gibson's movie. After all, how much can actually be explained in a film? For those who are well prepared, the experience may be quite meaningful.

BTW, your remarks hold true for Judaism, as well. Most modern Jews read Rabbinic Judaism back into the Hebrew Scriptures, which is in some ways as anachronistic as modern Christians reading their own modern outlook back into the Christian Scriptures. There's a quite well known rabbi--whose name I can't place right now. Last I knew he taught Judaism at Brown University. Anyway, his claim to fame is that he is the pioneer in historical-critical studies of the Talmud and its relations to the Scriptures. His work has also been of great importance for New Testament studies, as well.
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Post by Caj »

jim stone wrote:I read a moving and extraordinary essay by John Sacks,
a Jew who was invited to speak at the Holocaust 'Revisionists'
yearly convention in California. He went and spent
several days with them. They were pretty normal people,
he concluded, and not at all anti-Semitic.
That's a daft conclusion, as holocaust deniers run the gamut of belief and have differing motivations. Plenty of them are very clearly motivated by anti-semitism, which you'd know if you actually tried to spar with them online. Indeed, deniers don't restrict themselves to the Holcaust, but often attempt to deny the Jews out of history altogether---a sort of metaphysical extension of the Holcaust, if you will.

People need to remember that deniers try to portray themselves to the outside world as dispassionate scholars and skeptics---hence the euphemistic name of the IHR and their "journal." I have seen them use these tactics before, politely insinuating their arguments into various discussion fora; usually someone is smart enough to do a Google Groups search on the denier's name, and dig up Usenet articles showing the guy ranting about Jews.
As we know
they admit that there were concentration camps
in which hundreds of thousands of Jews died
due to disease and neglect, and there were massacres,
that it was appaling and wrong; what they deny is that
there was a deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews.
We definitely do not know this about holocaust deniers. Only a few of them actually admit the whole thing happened, and merely deny a plan. Many deniers admit the Holocaust sorta happened, but with smaller numbers. Many more deny that anything happened at all.

There are all sorts of articles in which deniers juggle numbers, in hopes of tricking people into thinking that gas chambers were impossible, or that there was no time or fuel to incinerate all the victims. They definitely do deny these things, although sometimes they are careful to roll out their claims gradually to newcomers. Again, beware that false scholarly air.

By the way, I've found that one of the ultimate resources for dealing with deniers is "The Case for Auschwitz," by Van Pelt and Van Pelt. It documents the effort to organize the huge mass of Holocaust evidence in order to mount a legal defense against a Holocaust denier, who sued one of his critics in England a few years back.

I'd also sorta recommend Michael Shermer's book "Denying History," but to be honest I expected something more from that book.

Caj
elendil
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Post by elendil »

Hi Caj. Are you going to Gibson's movie? I've sorta decided against it, after thinking about it half the day. Unless my wife really wants to--which she doesn't, right now.
elendil
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Post by ciberspiff »

I'd like to strongly recommend this thread moves off the Holocaust and keep the focus on Gibson's movie, which is where it started.

[/rant on]
And for the record Elendil. When you have lost 90% of your family in the Holocaust, have parents with tattoo's, have listened to them screaming in their sleep from the memories, then, and only them, will your opinion on this topic mean anything to anyone other than yourself. Until then, shut the f*#k up and stick to things you know about.
[/rant off]
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Post by jim stone »

Caj wrote:
jim stone wrote:I read a moving and extraordinary essay by John Sacks,
a Jew who was invited to speak at the Holocaust 'Revisionists'
yearly convention in California. He went and spent
several days with them. They were pretty normal people,
he concluded, and not at all anti-Semitic.
That's a daft conclusion, as holocaust deniers run the gamut of belief and have differing motivations. Plenty of them are very clearly motivated by anti-semitism, which you'd know if you actually tried to spar with them online. Indeed, deniers don't restrict themselves to the Holcaust, but often attempt to deny the Jews out of history altogether---a sort of metaphysical extension of the Holcaust, if you will.

People need to remember that deniers try to portray themselves to the outside world as dispassionate scholars and skeptics---hence the euphemistic name of the IHR and their "journal." I have seen them use these tactics before, politely insinuating their arguments into various discussion fora; usually someone is smart enough to do a Google Groups search on the denier's name, and dig up Usenet articles showing the guy ranting about Jews.
As we know
they admit that there were concentration camps
in which hundreds of thousands of Jews died
due to disease and neglect, and there were massacres,
that it was appaling and wrong; what they deny is that
there was a deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews.
We definitely do not know this about holocaust deniers. Only a few of them actually admit the whole thing happened, and merely deny a plan. Many deniers admit the Holocaust sorta happened, but with smaller numbers. Many more deny that anything happened at all.

There are all sorts of articles in which deniers juggle numbers, in hopes of tricking people into thinking that gas chambers were impossible, or that there was no time or fuel to incinerate all the victims. They definitely do deny these things, although sometimes they are careful to roll out their claims gradually to newcomers. Again, beware that false scholarly air.

By the way, I've found that one of the ultimate resources for dealing with deniers is "The Case for Auschwitz," by Van Pelt and Van Pelt. It documents the effort to organize the huge mass of Holocaust evidence in order to mount a legal defense against a Holocaust denier, who sued one of his critics in England a few years back.

I'd also sorta recommend Michael Shermer's book "Denying History," but to be honest I expected something more from that book.

Caj
I did not realize what I was getting into when I posted
this, obviously. I meant to provoke nobody.
The connection to the Gibson film, in case anybody
doesn't know, is that Gibson's father is a denier.
The point about deniers allowing that there were
concentrations camps in which many Jews died--but
denying that the Nazis meant to exterminate the Jews--
is actually relevant, because Gibson, when asked if
the Holocaust happened by Sawyer, I believe,
responded that of course there were concentration
camps in which many Jews died. The difficulty is that
this doesn't separate him from the deniers, at least
not on the accounts I read, and this has in fact been
pointed out widely. (You're quite right, of course,
that they deny the numbers; according to Sack
they say that many of the Jews who were never
seen again were sent to the Soviet Union,
and chose to stay there, etc.) Dale, you recall, said one of the
reasons he was hesitating seeing the film was
Gibson's father. In a sense my account of the deniers is less
forgiving than yours--it's harder on my account
not to be a denier..

The first I ever really thought about this was when
I read the Sack article in The Best American Essays 2002.
The piece is beautifully written and, given this extremely
prestigious venue, and the fact (I believe it's a fact)
that Stephen Jay Gould was a Jew, and that Sack is
a Jew, I took it seriously. I don't think I did a very
good job of synopsizing. Sack writes that he's
sure that many anti-Semites say the Holocaust
didn't happen, even as they delight in the fact
that it actually did--but he didn't think the people
he met at the convention were anti-Semites.

The British historian, David Irving, whom you mention,
I believe, is at the convention, and Sack describes how
Irving's principal claim that the gas chambers weren't
really gas chambers is demolished.
I won't go into details, but I was moved by the apparent
fact that Sack, a Jew, who thought the denier's
views looney, could manage to view them with
apparent compassion, and spoke to
them, trying to persuade them of the truth.

But as to the real truth of all of this, I don't know it;
of course I must agree with ciberspiff's assertion--
these people, whatever they are or aren't in
their hearts, are apologizing for the most
evil thing that ever happened. Thanks for your post.
elendil
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Post by elendil »

ciberspiff wrote:
And for the record Elendil. When you have lost 90% of your family in the Holocaust, have parents with tattoo's, have listened to them screaming in their sleep from the memories, then, and only them, will your opinion on this topic mean anything to anyone other than yourself. Until then, shut the f*#k up and stick to things you know about.
1. While I try to be obliging, I won't be able to "shut the f*#k up"--as I had occasion to mention earlier to Peter, who wanted me to "feck off," I'm feckless, so I can't do that.

2. I wasn't aware that I was speaking about the Holocaust in this thread. I have spoken about it at some length in past threads, and if I've displayed ignorance I'd appreciate it if you would bring that to my attention. It's not a topic on which I would wish to display ignorance.

3. Not that it matters that much, but I have to admit to some curiousity about what you know about me and my family, and why you think that what you know about us disqualifies me or them from speaking about any topic in particular.

4. I disagree with the argument that emotional involvement is a necessary precondition for making an intelligent contribution to an issue--and, I'm sorry, shouting at me won't change my mind about that.
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Post by blackhawk »

Lorenzo wrote: But I'm thankful for studies in good history. That will probably help stabilize me from falling for this most convincing version of "The Greatest Story Ever Told." I will be reminded of the strong probablility, and evidence, that this story originated with the death of Chrishna Zeus, (some spell it Christna Zesus) hundreds of years earlier, who was born of a virgin, performed miracles, used some of the same parables as Christ, healed the sick, died for the sins of many, and was nailed to a tree and crucified for the salvation of mankind.

I will think of the parallels between the two human-gods and how the later story of Christ came to be more dramatic than that of Christna, having in all likelihood been improved and intellectualized by more modern writers. But I may be thinking more of Chritna's suffering. Surely it was dramatic and deserves some credit for the existence of this story.
I'm really curious about this. When I first became a Christian 3 years ago, after being an atheist most of my adult life (I'm fifty years old now), I read something of this in an Irish newspaper online. I tried doing internet searches for all the different names in the article but had no luck coming up with any further information of any depth. Shortly thereafter, a good friend of mine (an atheist and one of the most intelligent guys I've ever known) gave me two books that would "show me the light" that Christianity was based on a bunch of lies, that the whole religion had been created by the Apostle Paul, that Jesus had actually been executed for leading an armed uprising against Rome. I read both of the books and neither were even close to credible. One never cited a single reference to back up his claims (we were just supposed to take the author's word for everything), and the first page of the other book made the claim that if Jesus was so important, why hadn't any of his contemporaries written the story of his life? I guess the author had never heard of Matthew or John, but thought he was himself well versed on Jesus to write a book renouncing him. Since then I have read up on the Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas and the G. of Phillip, neither of which were accepted as authentic by folks who lived back when they surfaced. Since these things usually turn out to be just smoke and mirrors, my first inclination is to suspect that this Christna Zesus who was born of a virgin will pan out the same way, but I'd like to know more. If Christianity is valid, as I truly believe, it can stand this kind of scrutiny.
Last edited by blackhawk on Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known--Montaigne

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light
--Plato
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Redwolf
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Post by Redwolf »

jim stone wrote:
Caj wrote:
jim stone wrote:I read a moving and extraordinary essay by John Sacks,
a Jew who was invited to speak at the Holocaust 'Revisionists'
yearly convention in California. He went and spent
several days with them. They were pretty normal people,
he concluded, and not at all anti-Semitic.
That's a daft conclusion, as holocaust deniers run the gamut of belief and have differing motivations. Plenty of them are very clearly motivated by anti-semitism, which you'd know if you actually tried to spar with them online. Indeed, deniers don't restrict themselves to the Holcaust, but often attempt to deny the Jews out of history altogether---a sort of metaphysical extension of the Holcaust, if you will.

People need to remember that deniers try to portray themselves to the outside world as dispassionate scholars and skeptics---hence the euphemistic name of the IHR and their "journal." I have seen them use these tactics before, politely insinuating their arguments into various discussion fora; usually someone is smart enough to do a Google Groups search on the denier's name, and dig up Usenet articles showing the guy ranting about Jews.
As we know
they admit that there were concentration camps
in which hundreds of thousands of Jews died
due to disease and neglect, and there were massacres,
that it was appaling and wrong; what they deny is that
there was a deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews.
We definitely do not know this about holocaust deniers. Only a few of them actually admit the whole thing happened, and merely deny a plan. Many deniers admit the Holocaust sorta happened, but with smaller numbers. Many more deny that anything happened at all.

There are all sorts of articles in which deniers juggle numbers, in hopes of tricking people into thinking that gas chambers were impossible, or that there was no time or fuel to incinerate all the victims. They definitely do deny these things, although sometimes they are careful to roll out their claims gradually to newcomers. Again, beware that false scholarly air.

By the way, I've found that one of the ultimate resources for dealing with deniers is "The Case for Auschwitz," by Van Pelt and Van Pelt. It documents the effort to organize the huge mass of Holocaust evidence in order to mount a legal defense against a Holocaust denier, who sued one of his critics in England a few years back.

I'd also sorta recommend Michael Shermer's book "Denying History," but to be honest I expected something more from that book.

Caj
I did not realize what I was getting into when I posted
this, obviously. I meant to provoke nobody.
The connection to the Gibson film, in case anybody
doesn't know, is that Gibson's father is a denier.
The point about deniers allowing that there were
concentrations camps in which many Jews died--but
denying that the Nazis meant to exterminate the Jews--
is actually relevant, because Gibson, when asked if
the Holocaust happened by Sawyer, I believe,
responded that of course there were concentration
camps in which many Jews died. The difficulty is that
this doesn't separate him from the deniers, at least
not on the accounts I read, and this has in fact been
pointed out widely. (You're quite right, of course,
that they deny the numbers; according to Sack
they say that many of the Jews who were never
seen again were sent to the Soviet Union,
and chose to stay there, etc.) Dale, you recall, said one of the
reasons he was hesitating seeing the film was
Gibson's father. In a sense my account of the deniers is less
forgiving than yours--it's harder on my account
not to be a denier..

The first I ever really thought about this was when
I read the Sack article in The Best American Essays 2002.
The piece is beautifully written and, given this extremely
prestigious venue, and the fact (I believe it's a fact)
that Stephen Jay Gould was a Jew, and that Sack is
a Jew, I took it seriously. I don't think I did a very
good job of synopsizing. Sack writes that he's
sure that many anti-Semites say the Holocaust
didn't happen, even as they delight in the fact
that it actually did--but he didn't think the people
he met at the convention were anti-Semites.

The British historian, David Irving, whom you mention,
I believe, is at the convention, and Sack describes how
Irving's principal claim that the gas chambers weren't
really gas chambers is demolished.
I won't go into details, but I was moved by the apparent
fact that Sack, a Jew, who thought the denier's
views looney, could manage to view them with
apparent compassion, and spoke to
them, trying to persuade them of the truth.

But as to the real truth of all of this, I don't know it;
of course I must agree with ciberspiff's assertion--
these people, whatever they are or aren't in
their hearts, are apologizing for the most
evil thing that ever happened. Thanks for your post.
Actually, when he was interviewed by Diane Sawyer, he not only stated that the Holocaust happened, but that it was an utter atrocity and that Hitler was a monster. I got the same impression from an interview with him in Reader's Digest. His father may be a denier, but there's little evidence that Mel Gibson is...in fact, quite the contrary.

I'd sure hate to be judged by things MY father has said. He is a racist of the most obnoxious sort, who embarrassed me throughout my childhood by the very public remarks he'd make about people of other races. I am not, and never have been, a racist of any sort. The views of the father aren't always...or even, necessarily, often...the views of the child.

Redwolf
...agus déanfaidh mé do mholadh ar an gcruit a Dhia, a Dhia liom!
jim stone
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Post by jim stone »

Actually, when he was interviewed by Diane Sawyer, he not only stated that the Holocaust happened, but that it was an utter atrocity and that Hitler was a monster. I got the same impression from an interview with him in Reader's Digest. His father may be a denier, but there's little evidence that Mel Gibson is...in fact, quite the contrary.

The quotations I read never used the word 'Holocaust.'
The claim that what happened to the Jews was an utter
atrocity--(the camps, hundreds of thousands of
people dying through neglect and disease) and that
Hitler was a monster is consistent
with denial. In the quotations I read he seemed
to shrink from saying that the plan
was genocide. This is why it's of some importance
to know what deniers do say. Gibson has
also said, I believe, that his father is
his greatest teacher.
I don't mean to make much of it, maybe
my source was contaminated, and I read only that one.
You're quite right that nobody should be judged
by what his father says, and I've outrun
what I know. Certainly nothing follows one way
or another about the movie.


Here's what I can find tonight, FWIW:

From: 'Mel Gibson's father says Holocaust exaggerated'


In a television interview with Diane Sawyer that was broadcast Monday on the ABC network, Mel Gibson accused the Times of taking advantage of his father, and he warned Sawyer against broaching the subject again.

"He's my father. Gotta leave it alone Diane. Gotta leave it alone," Gibson said, while offering his own perspective on the Holocaust.

"Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenseless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do; absolutely," he said. "It was an atrocity of monumental proportion."
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blackhawk
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Post by blackhawk »

Lorenzo wrote:
The biblical account makes it sound like a HUGE deal in Jerusalem, but no Roman records even mention it, all historians seem ignorant of it, and there's not even the slightest evidence to point to, other than the biblical account, the first being the book of Mark, which was written about 30 years after Christ's death.
Yes, historians seem ignorant of it, except for...

#1: Tacitus, writing in A.D. 115 mentioned Christus who "suffered the extreme penalty...at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate..."

#2: Pliny the Younger, who wrote of the people known as Christians, who "met regularly before dawn...to chant...in honor of Christ as if to a god...and also to bind themselves by oath...to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery..."

#3: The Greek author Phlegon, who writing in A.D. 137, reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (33 A.D.) there was "it became night in the sixth hour of the day so that the stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia and many things were overturned in Nicaea." This corresponds with the darkness and earthquakes written about in the Gospels.

#4: The Talmud, which referred to Jesus as a false messiah who practiced magic and was justly condemned to death. I find this one particularly fascinating, because they didn't deny his miracles at all. Evidently those were common knowledge, so they could only criticize Jesus as having practiced magic, not as having faked miracles.

Makes one wonder who really is the smarter of the two--those who believe or those who don't.
I was thinking the same thing. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight."
Last edited by blackhawk on Sun Feb 22, 2004 2:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known--Montaigne

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light
--Plato
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