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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| nemesis8 wrote: | | This is a clearish example of Christ=Ceasar....The pirates made the mistake of not believing him..... |
Please explain precisely how.
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Well, first things first.
The style of story telling is similar.
The Jesus Christ story is basically a blank sheet until his last years.
His attempt to pass on his message "the kingdom is imminent" was a failure.
He travels around surrounded by disciples who basically don't understand his message.
It's similar to the role of the followers in the Odysseus story. Who consistently have their doubts, bungle things.
Odysseus/Jesus then travel back home. Ceasar is captured before returning.
Odysseus is in disguise. Jesus is not recognised. It's the same in the pirate story, they don't realise who Ceasar is, the pirates are "non believers"
Odysseus/Jesus/Ceasar are then in their own way "resurrected", suddenly all becomes clear.
I reckon if I unpick it you will find that the masts of the pirates ships will equal the cross.
At a first view it's really all variants of the "same" story.
I am not sure if it's in Scottie's link. I thought I would just take a bit of the Caesar story and see if it matched the common myths of the time.
Did this happen to Ceasar?
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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Surely the weirdest thing about this Jesus/Caesar business is the calendars. Jesus was born about 2000 years ago, the Julian calendar started about 2000 years ago. What are the odds on two calendars starting at the same time? Both centred on Rome?
Maybe if a few centuries of dark age history have went missing this is the place to look. It all looks a bit dodgy to me. I came across this on one site.
How did Dionysius [Exiguus] date Christ's birth?....Dionysius' original task was to calculate an Easter table. In the Julian calendar, the dates for Easter repeat every 532 years. The first year in Dionysius' Easter tables is C.E. 532. Is it a coincidence that the number 532 appears twice here? Or did Dionysius perhaps fix Jesus' birthyear so that his own Easter tables would start exactly at the beginning of the second Easter cycle after Jesus' birth?
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Also, our old friend Bede pops up again.
Dionysius is best known as the inventor of the Anno Domini era....The Anno Domini era became dominant in Western Europe only after it was used by the Venerable Bede to date the events in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731.
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I'm guessing you lot have probably been over a lot of this dating stuff before. Am I barking up the wrong tree here or is there something to it?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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No, no, you're right on the ball. Whose ball, can't tell.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| N R Scott wrote: | | Surely the weirdest thing about this Jesus/Caesar business is the calendars. Jesus was born about 2000 years ago, the Julian calendar started about 2000 years ago. What are the odds on two calendars starting at the same time? Both centred on Rome? |
Err, astronomic/don't know, which tells you it's the "same" calendar with minor alterations.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is correct. The Romans didn't adopt the Birth of Christ as their Year Zero (I think it was the start of the Olympic Games in seven seven something BC wasn't it ... worth a look-up). On the other hand the Christians did adopt the Julian Calendar. So there is no coincidence on this score.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Of course the Birth of Christ did coincide with the last major alteration of the Julian Calendar (the insertion of August after July, ie Augustus Caesar after Julius Caesar) so that makes a smallish coincidence.
However, on a wider note, this was the end of the Moon Goddess calendar of alternating 30 day months and 31 day months. You can still just about see it
March 31, April 30, May 31, June 30, July 31
but then Augustus couldn't be less than Julius so August was given 31 as well
September 30, October 31, November 30, December 31,
then since the last month February couldn't go down below the 28 days of the lunar cycle January had to be given 31.
This is taken from Alan Butler's The Goddess, the Grail and the Lodge [report later] and while it may or may not be significant in itself, it is interesting that such a familiar 'pattern' has to be pointed out to us before we notice it.
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | | Err, astronomic/don't know, which tells you it's the "same" calendar with minor alterations. |
But surely the fact that they could adopt it, with as you say minor alterations, suggests there's some degree of coincidence. If Jesus had been born two hundred years later or two hundred years earlier they wouldn't have been able to do it. So if you're running Rome and you want to adopt Christianity, but keep using the same calendar, you'd have to either have a calendar that said that the reign of Caesar was more epochal than the birth of Christ or you'd have to invent a few centuries of history to make them fit.
I'm not necessarily saying this happened but it's hard to resist the temptation. Imagine if the Synod of Whitby was more than just about the date of Easter. Imagine it was about the date full stop.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| If Jesus had been born two hundred years later or two hundred years earlier they wouldn't have been able to do it. |
Clearly they couldn't if they had been earlier but why couldn't they just adopt the Julian calendar in 200 AD which they would then call 1 AD. After all, this is precisely what they did do since it was fifty years after Julius dunnit. I think you're confusing a calendrical system with a Year Zero system.
| you'd have to either have a calendar that said that the reign of Caesar was more epochal than the birth of Christ or you'd have to invent a few centuries of history to make them fit. |
Isn't this what they did? Julius has a month but Jesus doesn't.
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | why couldn't they just adopt the Julian calendar in 200 AD which they would then call 1 AD. |
But they could only do this if everyone agreed to it and the adoption of Christianity was probably a gradual thing.
Imagine if lots of British people suddenly started converting to Islam. It then reached a point where Britain virtually became an Islamic state. After a while you might get people saying "why are we still using the Christian calendar, shouldn't we start using the Muslim one?" But even if they changed it they'd still get people clinging to the old system. How do get people to stop thinking it's 2011?
Or maybe there simply might have been two different strands of Christianity. Maybe the Celtic one and the Roman one. One believing it was, say, 500 years since the birth of Christ the other thinking it was, say, 600. If you're trying to unify the church or an empire how do you get round this problem?
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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P.S. I concede the point that I'm confusing the year zero with the calender system. I only started thinking about all this a few days ago so I'm kind of arguing on the fly here.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| nemesis8 wrote: | | He travels around surrounded by disciples who basically don't understand his message....Odysseus/Jesus then travel back home. Ceasar is captured before returning....Jesus is not recognized. It's the same in the pirate story, they don't realise who Ceasar is, the pirates are "non believers". |
Brilliant!
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N R Scott
In: Middlesbrough
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I'll have another go at explaining all this calendar stuff as I think I was garbling things earlier on. Plus I've actually made the effort to do a bit of reading this time.
Mick, you're absolutely correct in saying that the Romans never considered the beginning of the Julian calendar as Year Zero. However the point is that the beginning of the Julian calendar is Year Zero in regards that it's the first time the calendar actually works i.e. that it's sufficiently synchronished with the seasons (and easy enough to use) that it doesn't get too out of whack. Before the adoption of it things were a bit problematic.
So you if you wanted an accurate calendar the julian one would be a good one to use - no doubt why the Christians adopted it. And the most natural place to start it from would either be when Caesar started it (45 BC) or when Augustus remedied the slight leap year error ('AD 8 at the latest').
So in that sense it is something of a coincidence that our saviour was born in this general era. Although, granted, it would be a lot more of a coincidence if he was actually born in 45 BC.
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