Jesus Is Legend, Simon bar Kokhba Has Coins!

Yeah, you love your coins. And can´t quite get "legend, myth, and propaganda" in proper perspective. You rail against "ignorance and superstition," but your hatred and raging condemns you to coins of a three year Republic cut down brutally. "Jesus didn´t leave any coins!" Just some letters by Paul, Peter, and "James," and Josephus´ reference to James, and indirect corroborationsin archeology, and the rest psychosocial inferences and the basic explosive spread of a religion and its components. Ah, but your raging against the majority of scholars dating the NT texts is very sad. The guy just salivating against "legend, myth, and propaganda" and "ignorance and superstititon" can´t accept majority scholarship about the accepted dates of the NT texts. I just repeated that because it frames the intensity of your denialism and your zealotry. That is likely to mean that you are fixated on fundamentalism, and acting out of some related trauma. So, in your deluded mindset, I´m not really writing to you and your traumatized shuffle. I´m enjoying exploring the subject, however. Whether “any religionist actually offers any contradiction to Ehrman” is a statement that you make in terms of your own lack of credibility. As for Ehrman´s literalist background, that clearly correlates with his narrowminded and clumsy confusion of knowledge domains, and thinking ability with an appropriate range of philosophical accuracy and empirical methodology. Your own obtuseness to fallacy, indulgence in unjustified and frenzied hateful bias and ad hom, and consequent crass preference for and dependence on non-Christian Rabbinic literature for legitimacy defines you at the present time. And só in the Freedom of Speech and Religion of modern University-based society in Jesus´ legacy, nothing is stopping you from persisting in that. Thus, you reason around the premise that “Jesus was a famous celebrity”, which is a possible modern and follower´s potential hope. You say Jesus was “NOT an anonymous nobody with no sense of the defining of contexts. You seem unable to address the alternative points of view involved in an event of that time. In modern times alone, Milton Erickson MD was a revolutionary psychotherapist who influenced work that has made Anthony Robbins só effective and well known as a life coach. Yet, Milton Erickson MD is clearly not a “family name,” as they say. Another example is James Warbasse, the first president of the US NCBA for co-op biz. He wrote some books as a co-op biz advocate, and may have been in circles familiar with FD Roosevelt, elected president around 1932. I know of Warbasse because of my interest and research. Few people in the general public will know of him, or Erickson, no matter how much applause they received in conferences and talks they gave. And that is in modern times. Even King Herod of the Jews is primarily known through Josephus. JR Rubenstein addresses an alternative Rabbinic verion of Herod´s life, and identifies Persian influences that correlate with it. Josephus´ at least has no compromise of its integrity in that way. Pontius Pilate, for example, is only described as having contact as the scheming of the religious leaders proceeded at a specific point. The NT texts, however, are the source until the first generation after the Apostles, termed the Apostolic Fathers. The texts do not claim that Jesus met Pontius Pilate and whoever the Jewish King-type was. Jesus was famous among some group of common people and whatever odd higher ups were interested. I believe a member of the Jewish royal circle was involved. Meanwhile, Josephus is a source for talk about King Herod, and Herod´s father Antipater (Antipater I the Idumaean), who is described as having good connections with Julius Caesar and getting appointed as leader of Judea. Josephus follows Herod´s rise to power with reference to his contact with governor Sextus Caesar. Events unfolded, só that Herod fled to Rome, where two sources give differing years for the Senate declaring that Herod was King of the Jews, ca 39 BC/E. In fact, Josephus, at ca 94 AD/CE, refers to Jesus, the Christ whose brother was James. He reports that he was stoned to death by order of the High Priest. The information of context has to be correlated with other related information to establish the year of ca 64 of the cited event. That seems outside your demonstrated capacity to reason, however. Too bad for you. You then resort to referring to evidence of other historical characters as “diversion” based on your ideological preconceptions without demonstrating competence in empirical historiography. If an otherwise unknown historical figure of high status like Pontius Pilate is mentioned in the text, that text has specific corroboration. Ascribing “invalid” to the rest of the text is not justified, but ideological distortion and bias. Your including ad homs clarifies your own lack of control, emotional awareness, and the presence of psychological issues. Not the invalidity of correlated text material. You then resort to accusations of “lies” about the dating of NT texts. With no justification, except your personal bias. Amidst your flurry of ideological antagonism, you finally articulate a date range from 8 AD/CE to 140 AD/CE, falling back on Simon bar Kokhba. You refer to “Rabbinical circles”, citing your own apparent preference for information. Rabbi MJ Cook says information around Jesus´ time is inconclusive, but that later views hardly reconcile Jesus´ critiques and message with Jewish religious approval: “Mindful that some Jews had indeed been lured into Christian ranks, the rabbis denounced Jesus himself for having attempted to "entice and lead Israel astray," i.e., into apostasy and idolatry.” Otherwise, in addition to the SOTER square material from Pompey in the 70s AD, there is the Jericho Cave, where Y Peleg has found carvings of early crosses with Roman army symbols, dating possibly to ca 70 AD/CE. Y Tepper found a Roman army temple dedicated to “the God Jesus Christ, probably pre-200 AD. The Pompey reference is bolstered by a Cherem curse at the Procolo bakery/home, cross, and covering up of Roman sexual images. More interesting and more basic are the Apostolic fathers. Clement of Rome´s first Epistle is dated between 70 and 140 AD. The Didache is considered pre-100 AD. The Epistle of Barnabas from 70 to 132 AD. Simon bar Kochba´s achievement of a 3 year Jewish state is noteworthy in its span from 132 to 135 AD. It´s cost of a “scorched earth policy, or Cassius Dio´s tally of close to 600,000 lives is, as well. The Nahal Hever Cave of Letters Yet, what is noteworthy is your materialist criteria, and bias. What´s noteworthy is your inability to understand the variable nature of empirical historical evidence, as ironic as the value of Apostle Paul´s, Peter´s, and the epistle of James (65-85 AD) and the need to understand logical inferences. You demonstrate a dependence on Rabbinical sources, and an aversion to University-based scholarship and its insights só hostile it verges on a zealous frenzy. The logic there is raging and hateful emotions, not philosophical lucidity of empirical truth. “Religionism and shamanism was invented and flourished in a world filled with ignorance and superstition. Education and peaceful free secular democracy is rapidly eliminating such things from the developed world and beyond.” Shamanism is a behavior that potentially, and in many cases skillfully, demonstrates a form of intelligence and insight in psychosocial and transpersonal relations. Psychology has developed a key form of modern philosophical understanding shaman abilities, and in multidisciplinary study like anthropology, medical anthropology, creative arts, and comparative religious studies, even further. It is thus that Sigmund Freud´s observations of pain without organic causes in fact had psychological causes and involved neuropsychological conversion. He engaged in psychotherapeutic approaches that revealed talk therapy techniques, abreaction (emotional connection), and catharsis. That alone makes for an interesting comparative study with spiritual traditions like Christian monasticism and Buddhism. Jungian psychology became transpersonal, referring to a Higher Self, and more. “Ignorance and superstition” are terms normally associated with judgments based on scientific materialism. Evaluating their use by materialists and rationalists has resulted in various scholarly insights that amply clarify and debunk their use based on knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. An R Awaad MD of Stanford advises, “Psychiatrists...should be willing to work with leaders/members of faith communities, chaplains and pastoral workers...” and used data like “•9 out of 10 of American adults say thatthey prayand 58% pray daily•Approximately two-‐thirds are members of churches orsynagogues” (Pew, 2012) Also, “The reality is that the statistical majority of our patients and the world consider spirituality very important when it comes to mental health,” session chair Harvard Med School´s David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., A.B.P.P., told Psychiatric News. Religion will demonstrate mixtures depending on whether institutions or scholarly disciplines are being referred to. As for “education and peaceful free democracy”, those are non-scientific subjects, and as various studies show, are promoting primarily individual spiritual seeking, not hateful, rationalist anti-religious ideologues. One relevant field is the Psychology of Religion, and observations include, “In one survey study of college students undergoing religious/spiritual struggles, when asked to indicate whether they had grown and/or declined through their struggles, almost half reported that they had grown and not declined and only 3% felt that they had declined and not grown (Desai and Pargament, 2015). “ Yet, as empirical scholars, they also observe studies that show that “not growing from religious/spiritual struggles” can be a study result. Thus, they can frame studies that define and begin to examine those variables, “Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that growth following religious/spiritual struggles is not inevitable. Rather, whether religious/spiritual struggles lead to growth or decline may depend on moderating variables. A few studies have begun to identify some of the factors that may foster growth and reduce distress among those who experience religious/spiritual struggles. These include an accepting attitude toward religious/spiritual struggles (Dworsky, Pargament, Wong, and Exline, 2016), reframing religious/spiritual struggles as an opportunity for positive change (Saritoprak and Exline, in press), finding a sense of meaning through religious/spiritual struggles (Wilt et al., 2016), drawing on religious/spiritual coping resources (Wilt et al., 2019), and having a sense of ultimate hope (Abu Raiya et al., 2016). “ It is literacy in those kind of knowledge domains that reflects insight into the phenomena domains they study, “Hundreds of studies have shown significant links between health and various facets of religion/spirituality—from prayer and meditation to participation in rituals and religious services (e.g., Koenig, King, and Carlson, 2012). “ Thus, it is recommended for clinicians to evaluate people whether they, “Accept the reality of spiritual and transpersonal experiences.” Clearly, people like yourself don´t, and thus live with the consequences.