The Man From Earth/Fridge

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So John's name and myth got corrupted into Jesus over hundreds of years. Okay, but then how did the guys who knew him personally AND wrote the books on him get it wrong, embellishment aside?

• • Actually, none of the books of the New Testament were written by anyone who actually knew Jesus first-hand. Scholars believe that the earliest of the Gospels were written about 30-50 years after Jesus died and are second- and third-hand accounts.
  • Maybe because they were some primitive screwheads who watched him walk out of his fucking tomb. Not to mention the embellishment by their descendants probably did the most embellishing.
  • But how did they miss his name? Big old phonetic difference between "Jahn" and "Gee-zuss,"especially since they wrote it down.
    • What, you think the name John was around some thousands of years ago? Obviously the guy would have to change his name occasionally.
    • New testament. Fourth book. The gospel according to John. Yeah, the name was around.
      • The person who wrote the gospel was called Iohannes, not "John" as it's written in the English bible. And John explicitly says his name was always pronounced John, not Iohannes like gospel John's name. The closest Greek pronunciation of John is Dion, which means God.
    • Yeshua was the Aramaic proper name of Jesus. Yeshua was the name "Joshua," as we know it now. So it's not a stretch to go from Joshua to John over years.
  • On another note, why would the Romans make an exception for John and not nail him to a cross? It's standard Roman procedure to use nails, and then to use a spear to pierce the lungs, in order to see the victim has drowned in their own bodily fluids yet. There appears no reason for the Romans to go kind on him.
    • John himself debunks this, saying that the Romans actually tied their victims to the crosses, and that the nails and blood just made for better religious art work.
  • Maybe Jesus is his chosen surname or he decided to have a rest and use some creative names. John Jesus sounds pretty normal for a 1st century name...
  • A bit of a stretch here, but John claims that he was trying to bring Buddhism from the East as Jesus. Gnosticism does have much in common with Buddhism and other Eastern religions. Who's to say the Gnostics weren't John's actual followers as Jesus? Basically, not only did he ended up having to fake his death but his actual followers got killed by people who completely missed the point.
  • I feel like people are commenting here that didn't actually watch the movie. The entire transition from John to Jesus is explained by John in the movie. Allow me to reemphasize: This whole explanation for the name Jesus is IN THE MOVIE. I can't find the direct paragraph long quote, but it's a couple of corruptions along with some honorifics thrown on.
    • Seriously. He explicitly says that he went by John not only at the time, but since the beginning of his life, and that the whole Jesus thing was a completely external corruption that happened years after his "death"/"resurrection".

• Okay, so if John laments having to always eventually leave the women he's married to and the children he's fathered, why does he keep doing it?
  • It gets lonely...
  • He's a person. Every now and again he's going to do things that he knows might not be wise, like we all do, and he has a lot of time to do them in.