So - lawyers for both the priest and the atheist have had their say, and a judge is now deliberating on whether the priest should stand trial for criminally misrepresenting a fictional Jesus.
Was Jesus of Nazareth actually John of Gamala? Intellectually, it’s a fascinating question, but it’s meaningless in the larger scheme of things.
How on earth can this matter to anyone? The only religions that should be in a tizzy are those that interpret the Bible literally (which has always confounded me). The Catholic Church has long-since admitted that the Bible was put together from a host of choices, selected for inclusion based on their own agenda. So this won’t be a problem for them.
Myself, I still see the entire situation as identical to ideological reactions to the Da Vinci Code. People are getting stuck in the details, and missing the larger message. If the point was to set a moral compass for society, does it really matter who said things?
Not to me - but it sure makes for some interesting discussions! I can’t help but feel sorry for the priest, though.
Very interesting thoughts!
John of Gamala is a fictitious person. He is found nowhere from any historical source, including the Talmud. He is found ONLY in a fictional book written in 1888. It is called “For The Temple” and was written by GA Henty, an English storyteller. How did the founders of Christianity get Jesus mixed up with someone who never existed? Also, if Jesus was a myth, then why didn’t an historian or rabbi from the first century say so? None did.
“Harold” is a fictional character from the movie “Harold and Maude” so obviously you don’t exist and I need not reply. But for everyone else…. To ask “how did the founders of Christianity get Jesus mixed up with someone who never eixsted” is a little like asking “how did all those little elves at the North Pole get mixed up with Santa Claus, given that he’s not real?” Cascioli’s book “The Fable of Christ” claims that Jesus is a composite character based in part on the son of “Jude the Galilean” who was a very real Jewish revolutionary character. Cascioli calls this person “John of Gamala”. John was a very common Jewish name and Gamala was the revolutionary stronghold where Jude the Galilean lived, so it would appear that Henty and Cascioli have drawn from the same historical sources. Whether or not Cascioli’s character was actually named “John” is completely irrelavent. If you read his book in it’s entirely (not just the selections found on-line) you will understand that Jesus was not “invented” as you would have it. He was a natural consequence in the evolution of Judaism that grew out the legends srrounding very real historical events. There were plenty of early historians who said that the Jesus of the Gospels didn’t exist. Most of their writings were destroyed. We know about them only from fragments quoted by the early Church Fathers in constant apologetic works as they tried to defend Christiantiy from it’s many critics.