h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Gospels were not written in Hebrew.

It occurred to me that if the Romans hanged people rather than nailed them up on a big "T" shaped bit of carpentry, would chistians be wearing a bloke with his head in a noose, tongue hanging out and eyes popping on a chain round their necks?

And what if the Romans were a little more advanced and had the electric chair?

How do you know?

Whoops! Hoe do you know the gospels weren't written in hebrew?

It's well known. For a start, nobody spoke Hebrew at the time of Christ. The common people spoke Aramaic. The educated people who were able to write spoke Greek. The gospels were all written in Greek.

Dr. Rodge,
The cross is an ancient symbol - far older than Christianity. The horizontal line stands for time. The verticle line stands for eternity. Where the lines cross is now. Christians would therefore most probably still wear a cross even if Jesus had been murdered in the strange way you describe.
Hope this information is of help to you.

If the Romans killed people by hanging, then yes, Christians would wear an image of Christ being hanged. The cross is intended to be a representation of a gruesome death. That's why expensive crosses have a little guy nailed to them.

Not Really. I thought it had been determined that the Romans tied criminals to a 'T' shaped structure, a lot cheaper to make and fit for purpose. And what's so strange about murdering people by hanging, apart from it not being very nice? JHC's followers have done far worse to really innocent people.

Dr Rodge, the point about the cross symbol is that it's older than Christinaity and Christians found it useful to adopt it for their own use as they did also with many of the ancient pagan festivals.
The idea of nailing Jesus to the cross has to do with metaphor and where those lines of time and eternity cross. The actual wooden cross may well have been T-shaped. To concentrate on the wooden cross is to miss the point of the cross as a symbol almost entirely.

>>And what's so strange about murdering people by hanging

There's nothing strange about hanging. It was the preferred method of executing criminals in Britain up until recently. The point is not that Christ died by an unusual method, but that he died at all.

It's interesting, though, that normally people who were crucified lived on for a few days. The purpose of putting people up on crosses was to make a show of them, so it suited the Romans to keep them alive for a while. Christ died after only a few hours, and it's not clear what he died of.

Terminal boredom of all the bogus stories invented about him I expect, that's if he actually existed!

"How did the wise men know where to find JHC? Er... they followed a star. Oh!
These angel things you say came down from heaven, 'ow did they manage that then? Er... they had er, wings. Really!
Them 5000 people what went to listen to JHC, who did the caterin'? Well JHC had a few loaves and fishes and gave 'em all a bit. You're makin' it up!
So how did he get across the sea? He walked! Now come on!
You say that JHC wasn't just the son of big g, he was big g! Yep! So when the romans killed him, they actually killed big g? Yep! Dead? Yep!
So big g is dead? Nope! How come? He was resurrected. Who resurrected him then? Errr..........."

If this is based on a real conversation DrRodge, then whomever you were talking to must have been a stupid sort of Christian.
A. The point is not that the wise men knew how to find Jesus, it's that they did (at least in the story). The wise men are more of a symbol with their little gifts that one might put on a body for embalming and the gold. We give Jesus our sins (francinsince and myrhh)-I probably spelled those wrong- and our faith (gold) and he bears our burdens. Also, the wise-guys are important because it was them who informed Herod of the little king. This is what made Mary, Joseph, and Jesus flee to Egypt for a time. Purhaps God meant it this way because, for some reason not recorded in the Bible, they were supposed to be in Egypt.
B. Angels are celestial being from a higher field. Don't forget, God makes all the rules, so under the definition of God he can make angels fly, if only in our dimension. Angels are like an imprint of a higher being in our dimentsional playing field, like the mice in H2G2.
C. The two stories of the loaves and fishes are about miracles don't forget. Would anyone have believed Jesus if he just walked around saying he was the Christ without performing a few miracles? No.
D. Again, walking on water is a miracle. Jesus operates by different rules and can do anything.
E. This part may be hard for you to understand but please, keep an open mind. God created everything so he is not confined to the laws of time and space-he is outside of them. Think of Jesus as God penetrating our relm. If there were living 2-dimensional beings on a sheet of paper and you placed your finger on it, all they could see of you would be the tip of your finger. Jesus is just the tip of God's finger in our 3-dimensional world. That is how he could be fully God and fully human. Also, for this reason he could be resurrected. Whoever told you that God died when Jesus did was ignorant. This, again, is a miracle and God knew more people would believe if Jesus was resurected.

Also, I think Jesus may have died of sadness from bearing the burdens of everyone's sins.

Ahem, frankincense and myrrh our sins? I think not. They were worth more than the gold.

Any interpretatin is an extintion of the interpreter.
(i.e. I interpret it one way because that's the way I feel.)
So Gnomon, what would you say-how would you interpret it?

I think a lot of things can be explained away by saying they are miracles.

Most of what you have given there, Athena, is the traditional Christian view. I don't see a lot of problems with it as long as you accept a single God who cares about us.

But I don't follow that particular line of belief personally.

That's cool. We're all meant to have different veiws of life, the universe and everything--it makes us individuals.

OK you'll need to look this one up, but apparently the Chinese recorded a "guest" star, nova/supernova, in the right area of sky at the approximate time of the birth the description was given as "like a bamboo mat in the sky". We know that Chinese civilisation was advanced enough at this time to be able to believe the records.
Some other points, apparently the shepherds brought a new born lamb as an offering. Where did they get a lamb born in midwinter? this suggests a later date for the birth. Has anyone with an astronomy programme run it back to see what major conjunctions were available as candidates 25 years either side of the birth date?
As to confusion about the date of the crucifixion this is dead easy, extrapolate the dates of solar eclipses back for total eclipses in Jerusalem and you get the date and time. Do remember that the calendar in use, the Julian, became the Gregorian in 1582 in order to fix the vernal equinox around March 21 to enable Easter to happen at a regular(ish) point in the calendar. It also started riots when March 25th became April the 6th with the poorer populace believing that 11 days had been subtracted from their lives.
As far as the earthquake goes then remember that a combined gravitational pull of the sun and moon would possibly be enough to trigger an earthquake on a tectonic plate fracture zone which is where Jerusalem and surrounds are. The date could still be false since the records were not written down immediately and the eclipse/earthquake would be a powerful symbol.

Like the 500 year recurring asteroid. Anyone got a spare slot on Hubble?
Have fun guys

There's nothing in the Bible about the shepherds bringing a new-born lamb. That was added later, probably in the 19th Century.

I stand corrected.
Mind you I have a bit of a problem with God as a good shepherd 'cause a shepherd either wants to fleece his flock or produce lamb & mutton.
Have fun Gnomon.

Gnomon, I did a bit of further research and came up with some interesting results. First I used Google earth to establish the approx Lat & Long of Jerusalem (31deg 46min N, 35deg 13.5min E). It's hard to be exact since I have no idea of the triangulation point used as the centre of the city or even where the city was in biblical times.
Then I went to www.hermit.org/Eclipse and asked for a list of solar eclipses from 25AD to 35AD and got none in the area of Jerusalem.
A solar eclipse is a limited phenomenon as far as geograpic area goes but I have no exact measure of how limited. So I assume that since in the last solar eclipse in the UK, which covers 10 degrees of latitude, Cornwall got the full benefit and Yorkshire only got a partial the phenomena is limited to 10 degrees of latitude in total. Therefore I needed a hit 5degrees of latitude either side of 32Degrees N.
Not even a sniff. Is it worth trying for later/earlier dates?