Once again we have Mr. Keyes making his declaration that the existence of Jesus was a complete and total fabrication, then again, he doesn’t have any evidence to show other then his beliefs. If such, then why are there other sources written about him? Are they attempting to make up stories to disprove a non existent individual? First of all, the issue of Jesus and some non biblical sources that mentions him. Some of which I’ve mentioned before however will do so again.

Cornelius Tacitus-a roman historian who wrote about the events in Rome and Great Britain during the years from 15ad to 70ad. In his Annals 15:44 he writes “But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration [fire of Rome] was the result of an order [of the Emperor]. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired…." Does this actually mention Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, with 12 disciples who was rumored to have raised the dead, healed the sick, walked on water, fed the masses and rose from the dead on the 3^rd day? No, however how many people (that started a new religion) did Pontius Pilatus make to suffer the extreme penalty?

Mara Bar-Serapion-a Syrian who wrote a letter to his son, Serapion, He encourages him to emulate the wise men of history who died for what they believed in, such as Socrates, Pythagoras, and the wise King the Jews executed. Once again, how many people during this time frame were executed for being the king of the Jews?

Josephus-a Jewish historian. There are 2 versions of the following passage, one Latin and one Arabic. The differences between the two are the Arabic version doesn’t contain the underlined passages. "Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, - a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and then ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."  Jesus might have been a popular name at the time but how many of them did Pilate have crucified? In yet another article Antiquities 20:9:1 relates that Ananus brought before the Sanhedrin “a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned them to be stoned to death.” Once again how many Jesus’ were there that were also called “the Christ?”

Lucian of Samosata-who was a second century satirist, wrote "…the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world….Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws." Another question-how many people in this time frame both introduced a new cult and were crucified for it?

Pliny the Younger-who was the a governor of Bithynia, in a letter to Emperor Trajan in 112 A.D asking if it was ok to continue to kill the men, women and children for refusing to worship the statue of the emperor. “they affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.”

     So, why would they invent an individual especially in the very place that he supposedly was from and so soon? If you were living a lie wouldn’t it make more since to wait a few years before you go off preaching the good news or go to a completely different country? It seems to be the height of stupidity to start preaching about a fictitious individual in the same region where you invented the story and not expect anyone to question you claims. Even your supposed invented story proves that coming up with a new religion right in the middle of the Jewish religion was a sure fire way to get you killed. So, what drove these people to invite death to spread the story?

     You have the early disciples turned apostles. The day before the resurrection they were demoralized and in hiding, figuring that they were next. Within hours of seeing the resurrected Jesus, they were out and fearlessly telling everyone they could meet about the good news, and not only just the 12 disciples but the other followers of Jesus as well.  If they had invented the story of Jesus, they why didn’t one of the early Christians admit that it was all a hoax, especially when faced with certain death? Why did they dedicate their entire lives to the cause of Christ and all of them but one die a horrible death as a martyr if the cause they were working for was known to them to be a lie? What purpose would it serve? Power, not a good idea since you were still in the middle of the Jewish nation and the fact that you were subjects of Rome and you knew Rome wasn’t going to put up with any foolishness. Money, not an option since the money collected went to the poor, besides the fact that what your teaching is to give everything up and follow Jesus.

     Why would the apostles make up such a story and paint themselves in such a bad way? Peter denied Christ 3 times and the rest of the followers took off and hid as soon as Jesus was arrested. They were still hiding 3 days later. Where is the heroism? Why wasn’t the story written that the 12 apostles were fearlessly awaiting Jesus to rise from the dead because he said he would?  Why was it a woman that first met the resurrected Jesus, especially for that time period? Why aren’t these people lawyers, doctors and business owners? Pillars of the community and well respected by everyone. If you’re going to invent a story, why just invent part of it? If the early Christians invented the story of Jesus somewhere around 100ad, then why didn’t the Jews or Pagans that opposed Christianity deny or question it?

     This same rule applies to the Old Testament. If it’s all a myth, then why does the Jewish race make themselves out the way they do. How many times have they been conquered and made slaves? How stupid do they make themselves out to be?  As an example, a slave race for 400 years to Egypt and then God uses Moses to gain their freedom. God shows them miracle after miracle and even after that, how long does it take them to go back to worshipping a false idol?  Even if you don’t believe in the plagues or the parting of the red sea, the fact that they wrote it down and then almost instantly go to worshipping a false idol after everything they’ve seen shows the idiocy. How many people, if they’d actually seen what took place in Egypt would risk something like that? If they’re making the whole thing up, then why make yourselves out to be that way. Why would you make up lies and in those lies tell everyone that you’ve been pretty much detested by every nation you’ve ever ran across, physically kicked out of virtually every land you’ve ever called your own and if you weren’t kick out, you were conquered and made slaves.  If a nation does let you settle somewhere, you invariable do something stupid and get your butt kicked again. Through out the whole lying history that you’ve invented for yourself, you have also seen that a powerful God will take care of you if you’ll follow a few simple rules but yet you can’t even seem to do that for more then a few decades. Throughout Israel’s Old Testament history God repeatedly tells Israel, if you do what I tell you, I’ll protect you, if you don’t I’m letting you get roughed up. Israel never seems to learn the lesson, so I ask the simple question, why would you invent this sort of history about yourselves?

     So why didn’t Saint Paul mention any of the things that Mr. Keyes mentioned in his article “St Paul: Missionary or Mountebank” Saint Paul letters are dealing with specific problems that are not related to the life of Jesus. Other then that, I don’t have an answer however, I’ll be sure to ask him when we meet.

     Why are the Gospels written so differently from each other? Well for one thing, different writers have different styles of writing. Four people can witness the same events and when writing about them, you’ll have different versions but the main part of the story remains the same. Watch the news reporting on the same event. Different reporters place an emphasis on different parts of the story.  I’m positive that if the Gospels were alike and reported exactly the same events, then you’d have people screaming that they had to have been made up because all of them were exactly alike.

      Then in an article directed more or less at me, he comes with some guarded insults about my intelligence (yet again). His claims that I copied half an article which what I used was the definitions much like someone uses a definition from a dictionary.  Also, it wasn’t Darwin’s decision to add the word if he’d had actually understood the article, then he would have noticed “later editions.” Since he had made up his mind earlier that the Josephus article is invalid because of additions made to that manuscript, then additions made to the Darwin book should have invalidated that also. Then , from the pot calling the kettle black, we have Mr. Keyes last few articles, “magnetic permeability” “the coulomb force and permittivity” ect, without acknowledgment of  who actually discovered them, although he does mention it in part 2.  The sour grapes attitude of not winning writer of the year, the insulting behavior of anyone that doesn’t agree with him. The last behavior doesn’t bother me as much as I have a teen-age step son that exhibits the same behavior when everyone doesn’t see things his way.  I will however thank Mr. Keyes for pointing out that I didn’t acknowledge “wikipedia” as my source for the definitions and vow not to make that mistake again.

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Email Tracey Stevens: phoque62@hotmail.com

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