Ancient 'Jesus midwife' tomb to be excavated by archaeologists Associated Press

[magicarpet]

JERUSALEM – An ancient tomb traditionally associated with Jesus’s midwife is being excavated anew by archaeologists in the hills southwest of Jerusalem, the antiquities authority said Tuesday.

The intricately decorated Jewish burial cave complex dates to around the first century A.D., but it was later associated by local Christians with Salome, the midwife of Jesus in the Gospels. A Byzantine chapel was built at the site, which was a place of pilgrimage and veneration for centuries thereafter.

The cave was first found and excavated decades ago by an Israeli archaeologist. The cave's large forecourt is now under excavation by archaeologists as part of a heritage trail development project in the region.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/12/20/israeli-archaeologists-excavating-jesus-midwife-tomb/10929841002/

[LiberalFighter]

1. Wouldn't there be a dispute of there being a midwife?

With so called Mary giving birth in a manger?

[Irish_Dem]

2. It was a first birth, husband could have been rattled and rushed to seek help.

There were midwives in most villages.

I am not saying I buy the story, just that I think it is quite likely a husband
whose wife goes into labor would run for help.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. The story of a midwife is in an apocryphal gospel. And IIRC, the midwife's name isn't Salome;

Salome is a helper or apprentice of the midwife.

[milestogo]

8. The magi must have pushed her out of the Nativity scene.

[Iggo]

26. Dicks.

[milestogo]

28. We Three Dicks

[Iggo]

29. .

[Igel]

31. The magi showed up later.

How much later isn't said.

They visited a house, not a stable.

Most midwives don't hang around for weeks or months after the birth.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. There's literally no reliable evidence that the Bible's Jesus of Nazareth was anything but

a fictional character.

Interestingly, there are tons of writings (and even court documents) dated to the time and place he supposed lived that have been discovered and documented by scholars over the centuries.

Yet, there's literally not one contemporaneous account of his existence (i.e. written by someone who knew or saw him in real life) in all of those writings. And this guy was going around healing lepers and turning water into wine and walking on water, which really would've been pretty notable news at the time. I'd imagine there were no David Copperfield's, or Criss Angels at that time.

I'd also mention that the early Catholic Church spent CENTURIES looking for such writings that would confirm some verifiable fact of his life, and of any possession that could be confirmed to have belonged to him. They found nothing concrete whatsoever.

Jesus ... by normal academic standards on subjects of this kind, should be judged as almost certainly a fictional character (or at least, very largely fictional), and that's leaving aside the 'miraculous' shit he's claimed to have done (which he didn't because they're impossible). Just his existence period is unverifiable at best.

Sorry to rain on the Xmas parade and all ...

[Renew Deal]

5. I don't believe what you're saying is historically accurate.

I don't believe that the simple existence of Jesus is questioned by serious scholars. The questions are about whether the things that happened happened and whether he had connections to divinity.

"Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure,[note 1][note 2][4][5][6][7] although interpretations of a number of the events mentioned in the gospels (most notably his miracles and resurrection) vary and are a subject of debate"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

[Goodheart]

32. Wikipedia is wrong.

I can name four historical scholars of antiquity right off the bat who doubt the historicity of Jesus.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. KnR

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. There is a lot about his brother, James the Just, the head

of the church in Jerusalem. James lived to be in his '90s and was very well respected.

There's quite a bit known about his family. One of his sisters was named Salome. He came from a big family.

The question is not did he exist. The question is what was he.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

14. Pretty sure that if one cannot prove there was a Jesus, it logically follows one also

cannot prove that said Jesus had a brother named James the Just, nor a sister named Salome.

And I'm not saying there absolutely never was a dude who went by the name Jesus who at some point lived in Nazareth, preached, and perhaps had a group of devoted followers ... who lived around that time. But there is no actual proof there was. And certainly no proof of his purported miracle working.

Nothing about the Biblical character of Jesus ... can be backed by solid evidence, put it like that.

The best evidence would be writings that could be positively dated to the time he was alive, or shortly thereafter, written by someone who knew him or at least saw him in person, and gave an account of him.

But there are none, despite there being tons of records and writings from that time that persisted for at least some time, and were documented over the later centuries, or in some cases even preserved to this day.

Not saying I *know* either way, but there are solid reasons to speculate that he is, for all intents and purposes, a fictional character. Esp. the Bible's account of who/what he was.

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. There's a ton of information about those people.

It's mostly from outside the cannon. There are lots of early books that just weren't included when the new testament was put together. There's lots on the Essenes and the Desert Fathers and the Daily Bathers. There are many Gospels that weren't included but were very popular.

What people forget is that Rome was a constant presence so what we have are carefully written documents that wouldn't offend Rome.

There's a very good chance that Jesus and his disciples were actually revolutionaries. Those fishermen were not just fishermen.

The people that lived in those times were really interesting. They were mostly strict vegetarians and celibate. And very religious.

We probably never know who was who. There were a lot of kind of traveling Rabbis . And it was mostly word of mouth because most people didn't read or write. But it was a teaching that found it's place at the right time. It really caught fire.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

30. "There's a ton of information about those people."

Last edited Fri Dec 23, 2022, 04:22 PM - Edit history (2)

I'm not saying those two weren't real people.

However their existence does not mean Jesus existed.

Your argument essentially presupposes that he did exist, and these are his relatives.

One cannot prove a person existed by essentially waving ones hand and saying 'well these (real people) were his brothers and sisters ... ergo he must be real'.

See what I'm saying now?

This is an interesting theory:

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/american-scholar-claims-romans-made-up-the-character-of-jesus-227110891-237782671

This is from a description of a document made that illustrated the above-author's work.

The documentary begins with a brief history of the political and religious climate of Judea in the first century CE – the era during which Christianity emerged. Judea was occupied by the Roman Empire, which required them to worship Caesar as a god.

The Jews found this blasphemous, and they waged constant rebellions against the Empire. Their religious scriptures prophesied that a militaristic warrior Messiah would defeat the Romans and lead the Jews to liberation. A string of numerous Messiahs presented themselves to lead the people in war against Rome, only to be defeated and crucified – a customary Roman punishment for insurgents of the day.

However, the Roman government was growing weaker from over a century of increasingly corrupt rule by the Julio‐Claudian dynasty — the last emperor of this lineage being Nero, who was bankrupting the Empire with his self‐indulgence.

In their greatest victory, the messianic Jews finally succeeded in burning Rome and driving the Romans out of Judea. This caused Nero to call upon his best military men, the Flavians – Vespasian and his son Titus — to crush the rebellion for good. The Flavians succeeded not only in destroying the Jewish towns of Galilee and their temple in Jerusalem, but after Nero was deposed and committed suicide, they seized the throne through a military coup and took over reign of the Roman Empire itself.

Under the Flavians, the Empire flourished, and many great monuments were built including the famous Coliseum.

In order to pacify the Jewish rebellion, they captured and burned all the Jews’ scriptures. It is around this time that a new literature emerged with the story of a very different Jewish Messiah – one who preached “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, “turn the other cheek”, and “love your enemy”

To which I would also add "you should welcome strangers to your land" was part of his message per the Gospels.

Once you understand what was going on at the time, Roman occupation of Judea, etc, this collection of "Jesus' wisdom" takes on a bit of a new light. Possibility definitely exists that 'The Gospels' were a Roman creation, an attempt to create a new Jewish messiah that was friendly to them and their interests. And there's a lot more reason for suspecting that besides what I quoted here.

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

From the back cover of the above book by Atwill: ""Challenging and provocative. If what Joseph Atwill is saying is only partially true, we are looking into the abyss." -- Robert Eisenman, author of "James the Brother of Jesus""

From the notes about the author of this work:

He spent over a decade studying hundreds of books, among them, the works of Robert Eisenman and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Together with Eisenman, Atwill wrote a paper on the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls. While studying the two most prominent works of the 1st century - Josephus' "Wars of the Jews" and the Gospels - Atwill noticed a series of parallels occurring in sequence between the military campaign of the Roman Caesar Titus Flavius and the ministry of Jesus. His findings led him to a startling new conclusion about the origins of Christianity - that a Roman imperial family, the Flavians, had created Christianity to pacify the Jews' rebellion against Rome, and even more incredibly, they had placed a literary satire within the Gospels and "Wars of the Jews" to inform posterity of this fact.

[leftyladyfrommo]

41. That book on James is incredibly detailed and he

describes the people that lived in those times and their everyday lives probably better than anybody. He did come to a strange conclusion that Paul and Peter assassinated James. It is true that they didn't agree and they didn't get along but that's kind of way out there. James was a practicing Jew. And it sounds like he was an Essene. He was a daily bather, a strict vegetarian and a lifelong celebate. He wore white linen.

There is another Gospel called "Q" that predated the Bibical Gospels. They know it existed because the writers of the Biblical gospels used it as a source. They were able to reconstruct it.

There are many Gospels .

And then there is the Gospel of Thomas which is strictly a sayings gospel. It's just a list of things Christ said. And it was early. Some Biblical scholars think that Christ was Sayings Rabbi. That was kind of a popular thing back then. They traveled around and taught.

Interesting people.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Everybody knows that Jesus required NDAs of all the people he saved...

[Sympthsical]

11. It is accepted by historians that Jesus existed

I'm not religious, but I kind of moved past this stuff back in college. There is plenty of evidence he existed, and it isn't seriously disputed by historians.

As with any major topic, there are plenty of fringe theories about this stuff, but the historical record is pretty clear that he existed and had some kind of religious following.

Now, which stories in the Bible may or may not be true is a completely different kettle of fish.

But Jesus the person was an actual thing.

I tried to find a recentish short primer that DU would accept. There's this for the sake of simplicity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/14/what-is-the-historical-evidence-that-jesus-christ-lived-and-died

[Hugh_Lebowski]

16. And yet, the Epistles of St Paul, the 'earliest' time he's mentioned anywhere

Is at least many years after his supposed death.

Why is that?

Per Paulkovich, who kinda wrote the book on 'doubting Jesus was real'

Even in the Bible Paulkovich says Paul, often credited with spreading what would become Christianity, never refers to Jesus as a real person.

‘Paul is unaware of the virgin mother, and ignorant of Jesus' nativity, parentage, life events, ministry, miracles, apostles, betrayal, trial and harrowing passion,’ he writes.

‘Paul knows neither where nor when Jesus lived, and considers the crucifixion metaphorical.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2776194/Jesus-never-existed-Writer-finds-no-mention-Christ-126-historical-texts-says-mythical-character.html

I know it's the Daily Mail, but it's referencing a scholarly work.

So why is it that the 'closest to contemporaneous' mention of this Jesus character ... has almost NO details about the guys actual life? Shouldn't the closest one logically have the MOST details?

This part of the article you posted also involves some rhetorical slight of hand:

while the detailed biographical accounts of Jesus in the New Testament gospels date from around 40 years after he died. These all appeared within the lifetimes of numerous eyewitnesses, and provide descriptions that comport with the culture and geography of first-century Palestine

And yet ... there's no 'eyewitnesses' who actually wrote anything themselves, nor does the temporal coincidence of these 'biographical accounts' being written within the timeframe where there were possibly still eyewitnesses to Jesus still alive (though how many is 'numerous' I have questions ... 40 years was a long time back then) really prove anything. And an important question not answered there is ... did these biographical accounts have 'interviews' with these supposed 'eyewitnesses'? I don't think so, but even if they did, there's no way to know those aren't fabrications anyway.

I dunno ... there may've been a minor preacher who lived in Nazareth named Jesus who had some followers, but beyond that, I think the record is dubious at best.

[Sympthsical]

18. I'm super not interested in this debate.

Like, at all.

It'd be like spending a day off debating the Kennedy assassination. People will piece together what they will in order to create a mosaic narrative they find appealing, even when the weight of evidence points clearly in one direction.

It's just a hard pass for me to engage on it.

I got a history degree from Jesuits and spent a ton of time on this stuff back in the day during my more, uh, vigorous atheist phase. Nowadays, I'm not invested, so historical consensus by professionals is sound enough for me.

But I grant some are invested and they find this stuff interesting to slap around the table. That's cool. I like that recent archaeology guy on Netflix because it's just fun sandboxing.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

21. No problem

I doubt it, you doubt it much less than me, all good

And hell it's 2000 years ago. Very hard to be truly certain of a lot of things back then. Nor does it really much matter in the grand scheme of things.

Lastly I'll leave it at this: There may be a 'weight of evidence' as you suggest, but when you go looking for even one single, actual, conclusive piece ... none actually exists. Because NOBODY noted his existence during his lifetime (that's been found/documented) despite us having the works (or at least later documentation of) of 126 known historians from that era.

This suggests that if he indeed existed, he was basically a nobody during his lifetime.

[Goodheart]

33. Most historians? Yes. The historians who have studied the most? Nope.

[triron]

15. I sometimes lean in this direction myself.

But sometimes I wonder how so many people have this belief in what to me is just a myth. Why?

[Renew Deal]

20. I think the answer to your question splits in three parts.

1. I agree that it's hard to believe that this has carried on so long if he simply didn't exist.
2. We all know how stories and even myths live on. (9/11: "Let's roll" is a good example. That part of the 9/11 story will live a long time)
3. The nature of religion and faith.

[triron]

27. Perhaps it would be interesting to look into the persistence

Of other belief systems like buddhism or Hinduism which I believe are significantly older.

[Buckeyeblue]

22. It doesn't really matter if Jesus existed

I'm an atheist. But I do recognize that you can't undo 2 thousand years of Christianity with an existence argument. At this point it really doesn't matter. Christianity is a very big and important part of our culture. Christianity is real, even if it is based on myth.

My guess would be that Christianity was created by a group of people who wanted to break away from Jewish law and tradition. You can't really do that without the son of god showing up and proclaiming himself the messiah. He is both magical, mystical and a nice guy. Who wouldn't want to follow him. Stories get told, books get written. The idea gains traction. And suddenly you've got a new religion.

If the Trump debacle taught us anything, it's that people will believe what they want to believe. What excites them. What verifies them. I don't pretend to understand it but I've watched it play out over the last 7 years.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. A trenchant analysis, hell it even sounds like something I'd write nearly verbatim, thanks! (nt)

[Hugh_Lebowski]

25. Ever read this theory before?

Last edited Fri Dec 23, 2022, 03:19 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/american-scholar-claims-romans-made-up-the-character-of-jesus-227110891-237782671

Atwill asserts that Christianity did not really begin as a religion, but a sophisticated government project, a kind of propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire.

"Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century," he explains.

"When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

Was Jesus based on a real person from history? "The short answer is no," Atwill insists, "in fact he may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources. Once those sources are all laid bare, there's simply nothing left."

From http://www.covertmessiah.com/#film

In order to pacify the Jewish rebellion, they captured and burned all the Jews’ scriptures. It is around this time that a new literature emerged with the story of a very different Jewish Messiah – one who preached “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, “turn the other cheek”, and “love your enemy”.

...snip...

Through his study of the ancient Greek texts and his discovery of an antiquated Hebrew literary genre, he found dozens of parallels between the Jesus story and the war history that occurred in the exact same sequence. This shows that the events of Jesus’ life, which supposedly took place forty years earlier, were actually all dependent on the events in the military campaign of the Roman Caesar Titus Flavius. Ancient texts were much more allegorical, multi-layered and complex than today’s writing, and when you read the Gospels and the histories of Josephus side by side, a new meaning arises which reveals the authors of the Gospels to be the Roman Flavian Caesars, their co-conspirators, and their literary team.

[PlanetBev]

12. I believe there was a historical Jesus

But I’m not so sure about all that “Prince of Peace” stuff. He could have been a leader of a big time tax revolt against the Romans. The Romans didn’t give a rip about what religion you practiced, but they were merciless about everything else.

Wish I had heard about the old Lenny Bruce line when I was younger, and accused of killing Christ. He said “Yeah, we killed Jesus…..we killed him because he didn’t want to be a doctor.”

[NewHendoLib]

13. Calling Geraldo!

[Croney]

19. I've learned so much from this thread. Jesus had a midwife

and brothers and sisters whose names and lives we know.

I'd say "hogwash" but I'd better just say that I agree with Hugh_Lebowski.

I also agree with Matt Dillahunty: A god that does not manifest in reality is indistinguishable from a god that does not exist.

[Iggo]

23. Actually, it's his father's brother's cousin's former roommate.

Jesus’s midwife.

Come on, people.

[Goodheart]

34. The most important question when considering whether or not some man-god got sent down

to save the world:

If he was actually God why did he do such a lousy job? Two thousand years later and most of the world does not agree that he was our savior, and there's substantial doubt that he existed at all.

Jesus is fiction. Was there some man back then who's the basis of the Jesus story? Doesn't matter. The Jesus of the Bible is fiction.

[Dysfunctional]

35. There isn't any proof that Jesus or God is real or not real.

You can believe either but you can't prove either.

[triron]

36. Agreed.

But there is so much we don't know.

[LeftInTX]

37. Salome?? Wasn't she Herod's daughter??

She ordered the head of John the Baptist.

[leftyladyfrommo]

40. One of Jesus's sisters was named Salome.

It was one of the popular names back then.

[kskiska]

38. Mel Brooks' 2,000-Year-Old Man was asked,

"Did you know Jesus?"
His response was, "Yes! He was a young guy, very thin. He came in the store a lot. Never bought anything. Just asked for water, so I gave him water. He always had 12 guys with him. A shame what happened."

[edhopper]

39. It's becoming laughable

how every site from that time, they try to associate with a man whose every story is a myth.
The sites the attribute to him now were all from Helena getting hoodwinked in the 3rd century.