The Jesus Trial

Just when you think things can’t get any more ridiculous, you get proven wrong. Reuters reports that a man in Italy by the name of Luigi Cascioli has brought charges against a parish priest, and by extension the Roman Catholic Church for what amounts to fraud.

Cascioli claims that two Italian laws are being violated because Jesus of Nazareth never existed. One law is intended to protect people against being swindled and the other against impersonation.

Reuters reports that Cascioli says "The Church constructed Christ upon the personality of John of Gamala," referring to a 1st century Jew who fought against the Roman army.

The defendant, Father Enrico Righi is confused over why Cascioli, despite the fact that the two were in seminary together way back when (both are over seventy), chose him as the defendant but is confident that there is plenty of evidence to support the existence of Jesus, including historical texts.

Actually, Righi is wrong. There is very little evidence and certainly no historical texts, with the possible exception of Josephus, that provide any independent evidence of Jesus’ existence. All of the historical texts so often quoted by Christian Apologists refer to Christians or Christianity. If they refer to Jesus at all it is simply as the founder of the sect and not by name. All of it is hearsay that could easily simply be the repeating of general knowledge. Hearsay is usually not admissible in a court of law.

The major exception is Josephus who mentions Jesus by name not once but twice. However there is significant disagreement among scholars as to whether the passages in Josephus are genuine, partial interpolations or complete interpolations. Not a lot of evidence to hang a verdict on if the trial wasn’t being held in Roman Catholic Italy.

A preliminary hearing will be held on January 27th to determine if the case has enough merit to go forward. I figure it has about as much chance of going forward as Dubyah has of bringing his IQ up over 95. In other words, zero.