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Old 07-11-2012, 12:49 AM   #41
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For those who care:

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This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death. 2 He said:

“The Lord came from Sinai
and dawned over them from Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
He came with[a] myriads of holy ones
from the south, from his mountain slopes.[b]
3 Surely it is you who love the people;
all the holy ones are in your hand.
At your feet they all bow down,
and from you receive instruction,
4 the law that Moses gave us,
the possession of the assembly of Jacob.
5 He was king over Jeshurun[c]
when the leaders of the people assembled,
along with the tribes of Israel.
6 “Let Reuben live and not die,
nor[d] his people be few.”

7 And this belongs to Judah:

“Hear, Lord, the cry of Judah;
bring him to his people.
With his own hands he defends his cause.
Oh, be his help against his foes!”
Notice the first word of the verse. Why does it say “And this is for Judah” [Luke 23:38] or “And this belongs to Judah” at the start of the verse? None of the others starts like this. The first word refers back to the first word of v. 1, which refers to the second word. The words “And this is the blessing” refer to ALL that follows. But if it is a blessing, it must refer to the future. But the words lie before the telling of the giving of the first Torah and the assumption of kingship by Moses. In other words, this prophesy could have been used to support the idea that the messiah would be named Judas.

ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων οὗτος.
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Old 07-11-2012, 05:25 AM   #42
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Originally Posted by stephan huller
Nevertheless as I just mentioned I think it is possible the historical reality of the crucifixion might actually uphold the substitution myths of various gnostic cultures and currently believed by over a billion Muslims.
I wonder how many among that billion believe in geocentrism, too.

If 350 million citizens of USA believed that aliens landed in Roswell, NM, would that make it true?

We know that the Romans crucified many people. That's an historical reality. Inserting this fact into a work of fiction, doesn't invalidate the assessment of the gospels as fiction.

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Old 07-11-2012, 06:58 AM   #43
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For those who care:

Quote:
This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death. 2 He said:

“The Lord came from Sinai
and dawned over them from Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
He came with[a] myriads of holy ones
from the south, from his mountain slopes.[b]
3 Surely it is you who love the people;
all the holy ones are in your hand.
At your feet they all bow down,
and from you receive instruction,
4 the law that Moses gave us,
the possession of the assembly of Jacob.
5 He was king over Jeshurun[c]
when the leaders of the people assembled,
along with the tribes of Israel.
6 “Let Reuben live and not die,
nor[d] his people be few.”

7 And this belongs to Judah:

“Hear, Lord, the cry of Judah;
bring him to his people.
With his own hands he defends his cause.
Oh, be his help against his foes!”
Notice the first word of the verse. Why does it say “And this is for Judah” [Luke 23:38] or “And this belongs to Judah” at the start of the verse? None of the others starts like this. The first word refers back to the first word of v. 1, which refers to the second word. The words “And this is the blessing” refer to ALL that follows. But if it is a blessing, it must refer to the future. But the words lie before the telling of the giving of the first Torah and the assumption of kingship by Moses. In other words, this prophesy could have been used to support the idea that the messiah would be named Judas.

ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων οὗτος.
Quote:
7 And this belongs to Judah:
Moses is blessing the tribes arrayed in front of him. Following the model of other blessings, the speaker is addressing the tribes in the singular, as if they were individual sons. (JSB)
The tribe of Judah in trouble because of an unnamed adversary, should be helped by other tribes. (JSB)

7--And he said of Judah:



Hear, O LORD, the voice of Judah

and restore him to his people.

Make his hands strong for him,

help him against his foes.

The Jewish Study Bible (JSB)

Commentary by Rashi on
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_...showrashi/true

May this [also be] for Judah: He juxtaposed Judah to Reuben, because they both confessed to the wrong they had done, as it is said, “that wise men have told… to them alone… and no stranger passed between them” (Job 15:18-19). [This verse alludes to the confession of Reuben and Judah (“that wise men have told”), and how they were consequently blessed here together (“them alone”); although Levi was next in line chronologically to Reuben, nevertheless here, in the context of this blessing, Levi did not come between them (“no stranger came between them”), but rather, he was blessed immediately afterwards (verses 8-11).]- [see Rashi Job 15: 19] Our Rabbis further explained that during the entire forty years that Israel was in the desert, Judah’s bones were rolling in his coffin, because of the excommunication which he had accepted upon himself [when he took responsibility for Benjamin], as it is said, “If I will not bring him to you… then I have sinned against you all of the days” (Gen. 43:9). [So], Moses said, “Who caused Reuben to [publicly] confess his sin? It was Judah…”(see Sotah 7b) [and thus, by placing Judah together with Reuben, Moses alluded to this merit of Judah, and, in effect,“May the Lord listen to Judah’s voice,” is a prayer that Judah’s bones would finally come to rest].
O Lord, hearken to Judah’s voice: [I.e., Also, hear the prayer of Judah’s descendants:] The prayer of David and Solomon, and the prayer of Asa because of the Ethiopians, and that of Jehoshaphat on account of the Ammonites, and that of Hezekiah because of Sennacherib. — [see Sifrei 33:7] שמע ה' קול יהודה: תפלת דוד ושלמה ואסא מפני הכושים, ויהושפט מפני העמונים, וחזקיה מפני סנחריב:
and bring him to his people: in peace, from war............................................... .........
.................................................. .
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Old 07-11-2012, 04:01 PM   #44
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Oops! A Duplicate. Revision to come.
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Old 07-11-2012, 05:18 PM   #45
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Originally Posted by DCHindley View Post
If Pilate followed protocol, yes he would have recorded the facts of the trial, and this would be forwarded up the bureaucracy if it was noteworthy.
What "protocol"?
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As I thought I had indicated, the Christian tradition assumed that the deeds attributed to Jesus in the Gospels would have been reported solely on the basis that the deeds would have been miraculous, requiring a report.
Again, why? Why would it "require" a report?
I hate to cite Eisler (he is admittedly kind of kooky, although he sure brings up a good many points that usually get glossed over), but he says:
[13] The alleged insignificance of the case of Jesus of Nazareth,(13n2) even if it were true, would never satisfactorily explain this silence of all official sources. We know better from the Egyptian papyri, the so called 'Pagan acts of martyrs,' the habits and usages of the Roman bureaucracy, which kept a running index of even the smallest incidents of their official life as they came up. Such notices were collected so as to form the official diary (commentarii) of the governor, copies of which were kept in provincial and central archives, whilst extracts were regularly sent to the Emperor in Rome. Furthermore, the governors themselves would have duplicates of certain acts placarded for public cognizance,(13n3) and in cases which were of a nature to interest larger circles extracts of the official judicial proceedings were made and distributed by the partisans of the accused or condemned,(13n4) a method which in those [14] days had to replace the modern newspaper with its regular accounts of sensational 'cases.' The so-called acta sincera, i.e. the genuine acts of Christian martyrs is are nothing but the edifying reworkings of just such pamphlets, based on the original protocols as composed by the official notarii or exceptores. Such excerpts could be made with perfect legality whenever the authorities granted the facultas inspiciendi et describendi commentarios,(14n1) i.e. permitted an examination of the court acts. If that permission was refused, recourse was had to bribery of the state police officials, the so-called speculatores. As a matter of fact, such acta sincera are not lacking in the case of a number of infinitely less important trials in connexion with certain early Christian martyrs. For example, 200 denarii are stated to have been the exact cost to the Christians of a copy of the acts of Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus.(14n2)

Under these circumstances we understand perfectly how Justinus(14n3) and Tertullian(14n4) can take it for granted that such records about the trial of Jesus were to be found in the state archives. Further, in the acta of the three martyrs just quoted the governor tells one of the accused: 'Non seis, quem invocas, Christum hominem, quem reum fuisse factum sub custodia Ponti Pilati et punitum constat cuius extant acta passionis.' This significant phrase [i.e., a technical legal phrase] may well be derived from the genuine official acta of these martyrs, who suffered under Diocletian.

At all events, no capital cases in the Roman State were ever tried without due documentary records being kept,(14n5) any more than such a disorderly procedure would be permissible in our time in any of the modern civilized countries, Once read in court and approved by the judge, such documents could not be altered after the close of the affair, and the officials were compelled by law to deposit one copy in the archive of the governor or whoever else had the supreme authority in a given region.(14n6)
13n1) ἐν τοῖς ἀρχείοις. Ignatii Epislula ad Philadelphenos, viii. 2. On the variant reading ἐν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις, see App. V.
13n2) See above, p. 3, the words quoted from Anatole France and Johannes Weiss.
13n3) See App. 1., Pl. 1.
13n4) O. Schulthess, Wochenschrift für klass. Philologie, xvi., 1899, 1055 f. A. Neppi Modona, Protocolli giudiziarii o romanzo storico? Raccolta in onore di Gio. Lumbroso, pp. 407-38. See App. vi.
14n1) Max Memelsdorff, De archinis imperatorum, Diss. Hall., 1890, p. 50, n.5.
14n2) See App. vi.
14n3) Apolog., xxxv. and xlviii.
14n4) Apolog., xxi.
14n5) E. Le Blant, Suppl. to Ruinart's Acta Sincera, Paris, 1882, p. 15. Rambaud, Le droit criminel romain dans les Actes des martyrs, Lyon, 1885. P. Monceaux, Revue Archéol, iiie série, t. xxxviii., 1901, pp. 240-71
14n6) Cf. Apuleius, floridorum libri iv. 9, 30f., p. 11, ed. Helm: 'proconsulis autem tabella sententia est, quae semel lecta neque augeri littera una neque autem minui potest, sed uteumque recitata est, ita provinciae instrumento refertur.'
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Executing someone who was charged with claiming to be "king of the Judeans" would, I think, be noteworthy, and make Pilate look as though he was diligantly doing his job of keeping nationalistic ambitions in check.
According to Josephus and Philo, Pilate wasn't the sort to care about killing and executing those under his rule (limited though it was supposed to be), and in any event he was answerable not to Rome but Syria. Finally, as he was the last of his kind (Marullus was more or less an intermediary whose actual status is unclear, and after him Agrippa I was made ruler of Judea), he likely had more power than the procurators who followed Agrippa I. Not only did none of these last anywhere near as long as Gratus or Pilate, they were responsible for a now quite troublesome place. If Josephus and Philo are to be trusted at all, then it seems that one good reason for the trouble was Pilate himself. I have a hard time imagining a guy who was so ruthless Rome replaced him so quickly they didn't even send more than an intermediary, followed by a King for the first time since Herod, filed regular reports or even reports of his executions.
So, Pilate is in charge 10 years, doing what he wants with impunity, and sends acta to the Legate of Syria saying "all is fine, nothing interesting happened here" and the upper managemen just let it pass?

You will note that Pilate's modus apparendi, when he met organized resistance to one of his new policies, was to have soldiers infiltrate the crowd in local garb and club or stab to death folks in the crowd (probably concentrating on the ringleaders), or swoop down in any organized group who met in alarming numbers anywhere and kill large numbers.

When Philo says he "constantly repeated executions without trial," he is saying, IMHO, that he did not swoop in and disperse the crowd, then arrest the ringleaders and subject them to a trial. In other words, Pilate was prone to take military action which kills innocent bystanders, much like the US military constantly fires on news crews in Iraq and wedding parties in Afghanistan because they looked "suspicious."

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That is not to say, though, that such a report ever saw the light of day outside of some storage room.
Only Eusebius knows about it. And Roman record keeping wasn't exactly the kind of thing that lasted for decades if it lasted at all.
Since you keep pushing me to cite evidence that the Romans had a bureaucracy with record keeping, perhaps I should turn the question around and ask you what evidence there is that Roman recordkeeping was lax and not kept very long?

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Just as Christians were wishful in their thinking about the things such a repoort might say, so may have been the imaginations of Maximinus' subjects who sought to garner his favor by circulating these reports.
I'm confused. Is this a forgery or not? If not, then we have a record from Pilate about Jesus.
I don't know. That was the purpose of the OPs - to discuss the issues pro and con.

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That being said, the next step in the bureaucracy above Pilate may have been the legate of Syria, and if so there could have been a copy still in storage, although I'd be surprised if it was kept 250 years.
I would be suprised if it was ever written, and far more that it kept for so long.
Well, that is very convenient.

DCH
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Old 07-11-2012, 06:06 PM   #46
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Default More of Eisler, but pertinant nevertheless

Furthuring the question whether Christians ever attempted to retrieve a genuine copy of the acta of the trial, Eisler has this to say (reformatted a bit and with annotations):
[14] ... Granting this, as we may without the slightest hesitation, and [15] considering furthermore the comparative case with which copies of such documents could be procured and circulated in abridged form, it is certainly a remarkable fact that the accounts of the trial of Jesus in the Gospels are not based on anything like an extract from the acts of the trial. They resemble in no way the acta martyrum sincera [the official acts of trials of Christian martyrs], with their abundant correct detail about the legal procedure, beginning with the date of the trial and ending with the correct formula of the judgment pronounced.

On the contrary, they [the Gospel accounts of Jesus' trial] are full of legal impossibilities which have forever puzzled all the numerous specialists dealing with this tragical case. Similarly, the [Christian] Acta Pilati and the report of Pilate to Tiberius mentioned by Justinus and Tertullian are obvious forgeries, for no genuine acts or reports could contain anything like the details for which they are quoted. Rather do they resemble certain mediaeval legends of martyrs, freely invented and almost without any basic truth. [This is the inverse form of my earlier statement about the miracles of earthquakes and darkness "requiring" a report to the boss - it was tongue-in-cheek]

It is certainly curious, then, to see that the Christians never took the trouble to procure for their own libraries these documents, which should have been most precious to them — in other words, that they failed to do for Jesus what they commonly did, and at great expense, for various martyrs of the early Church. And yet there can be no doubt whatever that the genuine Acta Pilati were kept in the files of the Emperor’s correspondence in Rome, among the commentarii principis (above, p. 13).

Still more peculiar: in the latter part of the first century — just about the time when Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome — two members of the reigning dynasty, Flavius Clemens and Domitilla, had been converted to the Christian faith, and through them, if not through a humble servus librarius of the procurator ab epistulis — one of those Christians 'that are of Caesar's household'(15n1) — a copy of the genuine Acta Pilati could easily have been obtained from the tabularium principis. Why, one asks, was no effort ever made in this direction? [I personally do not give credit to the theory that the superstition that resulted in the execution of Flavius Clemens and Domitilla was Christianity - I am inclined to think that it was rather Judaism]

Was it really, as many would have it [he is referring to the myth theories of Alb. Kalthoff and Bruno Bauer], because no such acts could ever have existed, since no such trial ever took place under Pilate?

We can only say that precisely the contrary is true, for we have definite proofs of the existence of genuine Acta Pilati [including the one of the trial of Jesus]. The reason why the Christians did not choose to avail themselves of this document was simply that these Acta contained κατὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ βλασφημίας,(15n2) [blashphemies concerning Christ] that is, material highly offensive to them and hence of no use for missionary purposes.

That such must necessarily have been the case will be fairly obvious from the following considerations. Those Acta must have contained the justification of the capital sentence passed on Jesus — his guilt, that [16] is, or what in Roman eyes constituted his guilt.

Such a document could obviously be of use only to all anti-Christian polemists, who on this basis could attempt to prove that Jesus had indeed been a magician, a demagogue and what not, and its publication could only be extremely embarrassing to the Christians, who of course considered the documents in question as full of blasphemies against the founder of their religion.

Indeed, it is pertinent to ask, What else could we expect to find in the protocols of a trial obviously intended to establish that Jesus was not a prophet or son of God, but a mere man, a wizard, and a pretender to the throne of David, and to the crown of the world-ruler?

Would not witnesses have been summoned to determine whether Jesus was of royal blood, a 'son of David' or a mere impostor of humble origin, claiming to belong to a still extant family(16n1) which, no doubt, took great pains to disclaim any such relationship?
15n1) Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians, iv. 22.
15n2) Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., ix. 5, 7.
16n1) See below, p. 322 n. 1.
Obviously, Eisler is inclined to the hypothesis that Jesus was a royal claimant, a hypothesis that I tend to favor myself. But this type of Jesus is not well received it seems. Certainly not by those Christians who had developed the higher Christology, who in time wrote Gospels specifically to take that rough edge off of Jesus in defense of their cult before the Roman public (this is why I consider them "apologies" for why they rever a man crucified as a rebel).

What thinkest thou, Simon?

DCH

PS: These excerpts are from Robert Eisler's Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist (Methuen, 1931) which as far as I can tell by looking at the 1959 copyright renewals (where it is not mentioned) is out of US copyright.
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Old 07-11-2012, 06:39 PM   #47
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Again for me the question isn't just whether the hypomnema of Pilate was forged in the third century but why if it was such an obvious forgery did Christians think it was important to forge their own version of the text. It is impossible to prove the answer definitively either way but my suspicion is that the claim is more likely to have a kernel of truth to it than for it to be completely made up.

Indeed (again this is by no means a definitive 'proof' either) why is it so important for Christians to prove that Pilate became a believer? Showing that Pilate really came to believe in Jesus presupposes that there was this other body of evidence which showed him 'deny' the divinity of Jesus. The Ethiopic claim that Pilate was a saint is only the most exaggerated example of this phenomenon.

Origen's 2nd century Homilies on Matthew suggest that she became a Christian. The feast day of St Pilate and Procula is June 25 which is the day after John the Baptist day (very important in Quebec - national holiday)

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Old 07-11-2012, 06:56 PM   #48
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From the Ethiopian Synaxarium for Senne 25 (July 02) On this day also died Pilate, the confessor. Salutation to Pilate who washed his hands of the Blood of Jesus Christ. http://www.stmichaeleoc.org/Synaxarium/Senne_25.htm

also the feast day of Peter and Paul:

And the doctors of the Church had decreed that on this day Christians shall celebrate the festival of Peter and Paul, that they may bless the entrance of the winter season. Salutation to Peter and to Paul, [and to] the sequence of the winter. [Wanting in the Bodleian MS.]

The Roman date for the feast day of Peter and Paul is June 29
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Old 07-12-2012, 02:38 AM   #49
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Originally Posted by LegionOnomaMoi View Post

What "protocol"?


I hate to cite Eisler (he is admittedly kind of kooky, although he sure brings up a good many points that usually get glossed over), but he says:
Yes, but this is the same guy who is the lone voice arguing that Eusebius' "forged" document was authentic. When one views such forgeries as official, it becomes a lot easier to argue that such official documents were frequent. The problem is he's just about the only one arguing this. Of course, the Romans did keep records, but the reason so few have survived (even as fragments within other texts which quote them) has less to do with the fact that most sources don't survice as with the fact that cross-culturally, such records in the ancient world were not deemded necessary to keep, and often even to make. Many of our sources for ancient records exist only thanks to cities being burned, and thus clay tablets which were intended to be re-usable records were hardened as if in a kiln. Unfortunately, this is also why we lack such records for Athens. The reuse of material didn't end with clay. Cartonnage was used for "book"-making. "Official" receipts were recycled or the blank side was simply used. Finally, there's a reason that virtually all of our papyri were recovered from ancient trash/dump sites.



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So, Pilate is in charge 10 years, doing what he wants with impunity, and sends acta to the Legate of Syria saying "all is fine, nothing interesting happened here" and the upper managemen just let it pass?
No, I doubt he sent much of anything, and as for impunity, remember that he was "fired". Also, as has been pointed out many times before, he seems to have allied himself with the Jewish elite, especially the high priest, which better explains both their lengthy careers than the idea that Pilate regularly reported those he executed.


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You will note that Pilate's modus apparendi, when he met organized resistance to one of his new policies, was to have soldiers infiltrate the crowd in local garb and club or stab to death folks in the crowd (probably concentrating on the ringleaders), or swoop down in any organized group who met in alarming numbers anywhere and kill large numbers.
We don't know what his modus operandi was. Merely that he had a reputation for cruelty, and as the best exemplar of this is the massacres you note above rather than a list of executed individuals, that is (for the most part) what we have. But sending in soldiers to beat and kill indiscriminately (unless human psychology radically differed in that particular period, even mobs which initially had a leader or leaders ceased to operate under the control of anyone but rather almost as a single organism) during a period of unrest is much more of a career killer than executing a single person without sending some official documentation. In fact, if our sources are to be believed, it was this use of soldiers which led to his removal from Judea.



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Since you keep pushing me to cite evidence that the Romans had a bureaucracy with record keeping, perhaps I should turn the question around and ask you what evidence there is that Roman recordkeeping was lax and not kept very long?
See above. But if you want references, see e.g. Sickinger's Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens, Millar's Rome, the Greek World, and the East, Volume 2 : Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire (edited by Cotton & Rogers) Bagnall's Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East, Casson's Libraries of the Ancient World. Also, there is a nice summary of the issues in one of the blackwell companion issues: A Companion to the Roman Empire, chap. 3: Documents.
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Old 07-12-2012, 03:05 AM   #50
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So:

1) Early JC historicists referred to something called Acts of Pilate.
2) Eusebius mentions Acts of Pilate in a negative light - labels it a forgery. It deals with a "passion"/crucifixion of JC in the 7th year of Tiberius.
3) Later JC historicists have another Acts of Pilate. Now contained within the Gospel of Nicodemus.
We actually don't know what the relationship between our "acts of pilate" (the extant version) and the references to a document like this or by this name in sources earlier than Eusebius. We don't really know if there was only one spurious "christian" Acts of Pilate with different versions, or if there were multiple texts purporting to be documentary evidence of Jesus' trial written by Pilate which were "pro-christian." All we do know is that the document Eusebius calls a forgery is not any of these.

How do we all know for sure that the document Eusebius calls a forgery is not the extant text before us?

I would be obliged if you could please cite the evidence for this (mainstream) claim. Thanks.
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