Doug Shaver

Maybe. To me it looks like a desperate apologetic attempt to convince skeptics that the gospels all tell essentially the same story. All that work would have been quite unnecessary if they had in fact all told the same story.

I've already addressed this point. You are confusing consistency with identity.

Yeah, right.

mountainman

Dear Doug,

The desperation started with the epoch of Constantine. We might say the same thing about the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Eusebius. We are dealing with the genre of fiction IMO.


Are you calling people like Porphyry, who preserves Euclid, stupid? Please be more specific in your apparent denigration of the capabilities (or otherwise) of the people in antiquity.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Andrew,

There was a war going on. The commander of the western Roman forces was trying to smash the commander of the eastern Roman forces and thereby acquire supreme military control of the empire. Thousands and thousands of people were being killed, and the toll was rising every day. I find it difficult sometimes to understand how little this means to theology.


Arius' views appear to be ...... ?

The words of Arius (via Socrates Scholasticus et al) were:

What evidence do we have about the NT and Jesus before 325 CE? If such evidence is not forthcoming then we have the option of interpreting each of these brief statements from Arius as Arius' historical comment on the historical jesus: namely, that Jesus was Constantine's fiction.


Theological expert? He might be a theological expert in the field of "Biblical History" (whatever this term means) however in the sense of the field of ancient history Ossius was no bishop in the strict sense, since he presided over military councils and was Constantine's most trusted agent for this purpose. Ossius presided over the council of Antioch and was the first to sign the oath to Constantine at Nicaea --- have alook what Robin Lane-Fox writes about Ossius. As Constantine's chief military agent, Ossius interviewed and screened all the people to be attending these councils. Ossius needs to be regarded as Constantine's chief lieutenant. We have no churches, no church-houses and one suspect "house-church" at Yale --- thus we have no bishops. That christian bishops were in the eastern empire is an assertion of the Eusebian christian history. We will find no other evidence for this assertion.



The separate strands of theology and war need to be separated and examined. I suspect there are very few here who are capable of performing this task. To be specific what about the pagan priests and head physicians (ie: doctors) whom Constantine ordered executed prior to Nicaea? The dead ones no longer had the opportunity to be hostile to anyone. Arius's specific WORDS which are preserved are historical commentary on the sudden appearance of the historical Jesus from the midst of Constantine's army when it became supreme c.324 CE in the eastern Roman empire. To be succinct, the words of Arius are a response to Constantine's Oration to the eastern greek academic priests at the Council of Antioch, at which Constantine pushed forward the reluctant Jesus as the new Roman state military god.


Have you studied Constantine's Oration at Antioch? Do you know what you are dealing with? See the recent account provided by the ancient historian Robin Lane-Fox in his book Pagans and Christians. We are dealing with fraud according to Fox.



Best wishes,



Pete

Toto

Hi Pete - you must know something of the history of mathematics. When was the branch of mathematics known as "statistics" developed? Who first used the terms "statistical distribution" or a similar concept?

J-D

The great mathematicians of antiquity did no work on statistics. It is entirely a modern field.

J-D

Arius's views appear to be that: Jesus was not of one substance with the Father and that there had been a time before he existed; God the Father and the Son did not exist together eternally; the pre-incarnate Jesus was a divine being created by (and possibly inferior to) the Father at some point, before which the Son did not exist; God the Father ("unbegotten"), always existing, was separate from the lesser Jesus Christ ("only-begotten"), born before time began and creator of the world; the Father, working through the Son, created the Holy Spirit, who was subservient to the Son as the Son was to the Father; the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten and does not derive his subsistence from any matter but by his own will and counsel subsisted before time and before ages as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before he was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, he was not; the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning.You can, of course, dream up whatever fantasy you like. But you have no evidence to support it.You have no evidence that Ossius was a military agent or that the councils he was involved with were military councils.

mountainman

Dear J-D,

Have you read the book written by the ancient historian Robin Lane-Fox ("Pagans and Christians") to which I have numerously referred? In addition to the evidence, it is necessary that the evidence be examined.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Toto and J-D,

The term and the notion of four parts in five is ancient. It is capable of being understood by any farmer, goat-herder (Constantine was the granson of a goat-herder from the Danube lands according to one ancient source), cabbage grower, market gardiner, merchant, soldier , commander or musician. The concept of four parts in five may not have been associated with the concept of 80% until recently. The laws of gravity were not written and the ancient were still using balisticas. Perhaps I used the wrong term when I said 80% --- if so, I will retract it. I will restate it this way - the concept of four parts in five with respect to the relative corroboration of a series of independent witnesses to a series of events should not be considered beyond simple common sense. This is not rocket science, it is just the basics. All I am arguing is that the ancients had these basics (ie: intelligence quotas) in abundance, especially the academics who preserved whatever formalities the modern mathematcis was founded upon (such as the formalisms of Euclid for example).

Best wishes,


Pete

J-D

No, I have not read that book. Please tell me what sort of evidence it provides that Ossius was a military agent or that the councils he was involved with were military councils.

('The evidence in addition to the evidence'? What does that mean?)

J-D

I have studied statistics (a little), and although I don't remember all I learned, I am confident that it is not a basic concept in statistics of 'four parts in five' 'with respect to the relative corroboration of a series of independent witnesses to a series of events'. Not only is it not clear to me that it is true, it is not clear to me that it is meaningful. I don't see any way you could put an objective quantitative value on the extent to which witnesses corroborate each other. As far as I can tell, you're making all this stuff up.