Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00135)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> Nazarenes existed before Jesus was supposed to have.

You are confusing Nazarene with Nazarite, a common and understandable 
error.

> It is said that one of the people writing under the name of "Paul"
> tried to become a Pharisee, and was refused. He got revenge by, when
> working on the compilations of the New Testament, 
changing "Sadducees"
> to "Pharisees" in many places.

The Sadducees controlled the courts, so they would have been the ones 
to put anyone on trial. But the Romane, who were slowly encroaching 
on the sovereignty of Judea, stripped the Sanhedrin of the power to 
put a man to death. So the historical fact is that, whereas the 
SADDUCEES (not Pharisees) may very well have condemned Jesus and 
beaucoups of other people, it was the ROMANS who arogated to 
themselves the exclusive prerogative of putting people to death.

> > then, the Gospels, the life of Jesus of Nazareth? Has it not
> > been repeatedly stated that no human, mortal brain could have
> > invented the life of the Jewish Reformer, followed by the awful
> > drama on Calvary?

The fact that the gospels exist disproves this statement.

> Also note that Blavatsky lived in a time when non-Christians were 
still
> put to death for the crime of being who they were.

She may have been born in such a time, but the Inquiition was 
defanged for good by Victor Emmanuel in 1870 and its last prisoners 
released. The real life Abbe who is familiar to connoisseurs of 
French literature as the inspiration for Dr. Johannes in Huysmans' 
novel LA BAS, was one of the prisoners freed. Its continuing 
existence disturbed the sleep of Disraeli but the Law of Guarantees, 
which the pope was forced to sign, strips the Vatican of the power to 
imprison, torture, and kill people. That is why that joker who tried 
to kill the pope a few years abo was tried by an Italian court, and 
not a Vatican court. Even before 1870 they only had power in Rome 
and the papal states. They trapped their victims by summoning them 
to Rome on some pretext or another, but only priests and a few fools 
such as Cagliostro paid that sort of summons any mind. Today they 
can condemn people like Hans Kung, but nobody much cares. The 
current prefect (an office that used to be called Grand Inquisitor) 
has suggested non-Catholics are in some sort of peril, but that is a 
threat for punishment after death, and not a threat of being racked 
and burned at Rome.

Laws still exist in England I believe which could be used for purpses 
such as you describe, but they have no teeth, all of their dentures 
having fallen out before the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
Sir Walter Scott wrote about that.