Who doesn't eat meat on good friday?

[Johno]

well 100\'s of years of romanization and they still spoke there native languages? i doubt they spoke nativley for awhile after being conquered.

Latin and Greek were 'cool', but for the most part people in those parts did what they\'d always done. People in Judea, for example, spoke Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew (using each language for a different job). A British farmer had little or no reason for speaking Latin, so why put in the effort to learn?

However, there was one influence - many people saw joining the Roman legion as a ticket out of their dead-end town, so they would learn Greek for that. And it was politically useful for Roman soldiers to learn at least a few key words of latin.

[Caesar15]

Latin and Greek were 'cool', but for the most part people in those parts did what they\'d always done. People in Judea, for example, spoke Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew (using each language for a different job). A British farmer had little or no reason for speaking Latin, so why put in the effort to learn?

However, there was one influence - many people saw joining the Roman legion as a ticket out of their dead-end town, so they would learn Greek for that. And it was politically useful for Roman soldiers to learn at least a few key words of latin.

Well israel is diffrent, they had 2 revolts agiasn the romans, you would tthink they would stil speak nativley.

[ping111]

Well israel is diffrent, they had 2 revolts agiasn the romans, you would tthink they would stil speak nativley.

Nah, but we have a HUGE Babylonian influence.

[Johno]

Judea was . . odd. Yes, they revolted. But at the same time, the Romans did a lot of good for the Jewish people.

Watch 'Life of Brian'. It\'s a comedy, but they got the relationship between the Romans and the Jews pretty much bang-on.

[Kryten]

So what about the Romans and the Greeks?

Well, largely they didn\'t go for the miraculous.

Ahem

[RedDwarfIV]

Judea was . . odd. Yes, they revolted. But at the same time, the Romans did a lot of good for the Jewish people.

Watch 'Life of Brian'. It\'s a comedy, but they got the relationship between the Romans and the Jews pretty much bang-on.

Heck yes. A Christian who has not outright proclaimed Life Of Brian to be a heresy. Welcome to the club - my Dad [a Christian] has the Monty Python box set.

Got to love that 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' scene.

[Sordid]

Therefore, from every possible viewpoint, a resurrection is not a likely thing for people to make up within the worldviews extant at the time. I\'m not saying it\'s impossible for someone to make it up, but it wouldn\'t be the sort of thing they would. Put simply, if it hadn\'t happened, where would such an outlandish idea come from?

Sorry, but I have to disagree with that. Various resurrection stories had been circulating for hundreds of years before Jesus, both inside and outside of Judaism, so clearly it wasn\'t so outlandish as you make it seem. As for where it came from, I think that\'s fairly obvious. Dying is the one thing nobody wants, so the idea that it\'s somehow reversible is very very attractive. And if there\'s one thing humans are good at, it\'s wishful thinking.

Not to mention that we do have documented cases of people waking up some time after being mistaken for dead, and that\'s with modern medical knowledge and technology. An iron age person would of course consider such an event miraculous.

Ultimately, saying that 'it\'s not likely anyone would make it up' doesn\'t really cut it IMO. Making things up or mistaking natural phenomena for miracles is possible, actually rising from the dead isn\'t. It may be unlikely, but it\'s still more likely than the alternative.

Rather what I want is for people to get their heads around the idea that religion does not equal stupid or gullible. I want people to understand that I am a highly intelligent adult, with sophisticated ideas and training - and to me the evidence for God\'s existence (and in my case the evidence for Christianity itself) is compelling.

I don\'t think religiosity has anything to do with a person\'s intelligence. There are some very intelligent believers and there are some very stupid ones, just like there are intelligent and stupid non-believers.

[Johno]

Ahem

I did say 'Largely'!

[Johno]

Sorry, but I have to disagree with that. Various resurrection stories had been circulating for hundreds of years before Jesus, both inside and outside of Judaism, so clearly it wasn\'t so outlandish as you make it seem.

Really? Name one.

Certainly the prophets allegedly occasionally brought a person back to life. However, this is rather a different matter, in that we\'re talking about a person who resurrects on his own power.

As for where it came from, I think that\'s fairly obvious. Dying is the one thing nobody wants, so the idea that it\'s somehow reversible is very very attractive. And if there\'s one thing humans are good at, it\'s wishful thinking.

I think you\'ve missed the main point of what I was saying - that for the people in the area at the time the idea of a resurrection would actually be OPPOSING their world views. Of course they\'d like to come back from the dead; who wouldn\'t (especially when you see a relative or friend dying in some premature and/or nasty way)? But if you were a Pharisee of that time, the idea of a person coming back from the dead before the end of the world wouldn\'t make sense with your worldview.

Not to mention that we do have documented cases of people waking up some time after being mistaken for dead, and that\'s with modern medical knowledge and technology. An iron age person would of course consider such an event miraculous.

Very true. However, we\'re not talking about a simple resuscitation here. A resurrection is something a little more complex. Resuscitation is when the person is clinically dead. If you have a heart attack and I give you a shot from a defibrillator, I can bring you back because you\'re NOT ACTUALLY DEAD. Despite the fact that you\'re not breathing and your pulse is absent, heart muscles are still twitching and your brain is still operating.

Once these life signs are gone (which are hard to detect with portable equipment, which is why these tests are normally carried out in a hospital), no resuscitation skills in the world can help you; you are biologically dead rather than clinically dead.

Jesus was not merely clinically dead; he was biologically dead. If you\'ve been clinically dead for more than 5 minutes (or 45 minutes in some extremely unusual circumstances), you\'re biologically dead, and no medical science has yet worked out a way to help you. The problem is that you\'re not just dead, you\'ve started to rot. Your blood has separated into cells and serum.

Ultimately, saying that 'it\'s not likely anyone would make it up' doesn\'t really cut it IMO. Making things up or mistaking natural phenomena for miracles is possible, actually rising from the dead isn\'t. It may be unlikely, but it\'s still more likely than the alternative.

I can respect this, but let\'s just make sure you (and our thousands of readers! ) understand - I\'m not merely saying it\'s unlikely that these people made this up. I\'m saying that it is nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which they would. Such an idea would oppose their worldviews to such a fundamental level.

I don\'t think religiosity has anything to do with a person\'s intelligence. There are some very intelligent believers and there are some very stupid ones, just like there are intelligent and stupid non-believers.

That\'s good, and I appreciate that. However, your thought process tends to be in a minority, sorry to say . . . .

[Kryten]

If it\'s so incredibly outside their world-view, what is that thing in my link?

[Johno]

A resuscitation - which differs from resurrection in that it doesn\'t require a complete cessation of life.

[Sordid]

Really? Name one.

-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection

From the Bible, there\'s a child raised God at the request Elijah. Elisha raised the son of a Shunammite woman and then posthumously raises another man after his corpse comes into contact with Elisha\'s bones.

There\'s a whole bunch of gods whose mythos features death and rebirth, such as Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Tammuz, Asclepius (who actually started out mortal), Krishna, Ra, Osiris, Dionysus, and Odin.

As for mortals, an interesting one is Aristeas of Proconnesus. According to Herodotus\'s Histories, his body disappeared from a locked room and later he appeared to have been resurrected and to have gained immortality.

Certainly the prophets allegedly occasionally brought a person back to life. However, this is rather a different matter, in that we\'re talking about a person who resurrects on his own power.

That rather depends on your view of Jesus and his relationship to God. Did Jesus raise himself, or did God raise him? Is there even a distinction between the two? It\'s this whole business of Jesus and God being separate yet at the same time somehow one and the same, which frankly makes no sense at all to me.

But that\'s beside the point. The point is that you said resurrection was inconceivable to people at the time, and clearly it wasn\'t.

I think you\'ve missed the main point of what I was saying - that for the people in the area at the time the idea of a resurrection would actually be OPPOSING their world views. Of course they\'d like to come back from the dead; who wouldn\'t (especially when you see a relative or friend dying in some premature and/or nasty way)? But if you were a Pharisee of that time, the idea of a person coming back from the dead before the end of the world wouldn\'t make sense with your worldview.

Hence why at the time Jesus\' resurrection was used by his followers as evidence that the end of the world was coming very soon.

However, we\'re not talking about a simple resuscitation here. A resurrection is something a little more complex. Resuscitation is when the person is clinically dead. If you have a heart attack and I give you a shot from a defibrillator, I can bring you back because you\'re NOT ACTUALLY DEAD. Despite the fact that you\'re not breathing and your pulse is absent, heart muscles are still twitching and your brain is still operating.

As I said, we know that now. Two thousand years ago? Not so much. At the time, not breathing = dead.

I\'m not merely saying it\'s unlikely that these people made this up. I\'m saying that it is nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which they would. Such an idea would oppose their worldviews to such a fundamental level.

I don\'t see how you can say that with such certainty. Guessing the motivations of people and what actions they might take is extremely difficult even when you\'re talking to them face to face, you\'re looking back two thousand years.

Your thought process tends to be in a minority, sorry to say . . . .

What exactly are you referring to?

[Kryten]

They went to find his body, and it wasn\'t there. Where have I heard that before?

[bandit4910]

They went to find his body, and it wasn\'t there. Where have I heard that before?

Um, I would think that if 'Jesus' WAS ever on this planet his body would of been burned.