mountainman

According to the letter of Constantine furnished by Andrew above Eusebius was assisted by "professional transcribers thoroughly practiced in their art." He was not some lone author but appears to have been the editor-in-chief of a number of Constantinian publications. It is likely that he oversighted an imperially sponsored scriptorium.

It's nice of you to attack my theory which was not being discussed. At the time what was being discussed was your comment "I certainly agree that Eusebius held to the view that Jesus Christ was a real human being, but such beliefs as that of Eusebius have nothing to do with history per se.".

This statement is confusing because Eusebius is considered to be an historian by all and sundry. Therefore the statements of belief found in the writings of Eusebius may be, and are being used, by ancient historians in their attempts to reconstruct the history of the 4th century, when the nation of Christians were no longer an underground green persecuted illegal minority, but were elevated to the supreme position of the favourite religious cult of a Roman Emperor.

Nice try spin, but you cant sweep the evidence furnished by Eusebius under the carpet just because - on technical grounds - he is not a modern source of data.




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

spin

Perhaps the notion of "transcription" has momentarily escaped you. You for some reason derived from these transcribers assert that Eusebius "was not some lone author but appears to have been the editor-in-chief of a number of Constantinian publications. It is likely that he oversighted an imperially sponsored scriptorium." This is pure invention on your part. It doesn't follow from what you claim it did.

And Eusebius is not in any modern sense a historian. He was the writer of the christian story.

In the phrase "only a historian can be guilty of forging evidence" from the passage that you cited from him, Momigliano was not referring to ancient historians but to contemporary historians, as can be seen by his previous statements in the present tense about historians (eg, "historians must be prepared to admit in any given case that they are unable to reach safe conclusions because the evidence is insufficient"). You were merely using it inappropriately in the context of Eusebius. He talks of Herodotus and Tacitus as historical texts in the sense that they are sources for historical research. Those who use and abuse them today are who Momigliano was writing about. Your choice of that passage in the context that you placed it reflects the bias of your conspiracy theory and does not reflect Momigliano's ideas.

Robert Tulip

spin, your comments here are a distraction from the question of the opening post about attitudes towards Jesus.

Toto asked why "the issue raises an amount of emotion that seems totally out of proportion." The "emotion" here is not primarily expressed by historians but by believers. The question of what historians think is a side issue, apart from the fact that many historians and archaeologists are intimidated by Christians into avoiding discussion of matters that touch on popular faith. Honest historians recognise that the evidence for Christ is far weaker than for real historical figures.

How do these attitudes about history stack up for Eusebius? He was an arch-dogmatist, of the type who say heretics (such as Docetists) should be murdered and all their books burnt. The dogmatists were able to entirely suppress discussion of Docetism. And why did Eusebius have such an emotionally hostile attitude towards those who questioned the historical existence of Jesus? Because he believed that the dogmatic "story" he propounded was actually true, historically true. The ancient lack of modern standards of historiography is irrelevant to the emotional debate about the historical Jesus which is primarily a question of the status of traditional Christian faith, and whether the saving power of Jesus is possible without the actual cross.

Modern standards of historiography are irrelevant for the debate over the historical Jesus. The emotional content of this story is a matter of faith, not reason.

Iskander

Why are you showing us you arsehole? <edit>

spin

Commenting on a statement after having ripped it out of its context is not a useful procedure. The statement was part of a discourse that was not addressed to you, but was quite relevant where it stood. I'm sorry you were distracted, but you should have been able to see that you didn't need to worry about it.

Well, obviously you're going to cook up a load in order to give a semblence of reason to the question tendentiously framed....

For fuck's sake, Robert Tulip, you make no effort other than to repeat your predeliction of not dealing with the problem of your retrojecting "historical" onto Eusebius. You were ok with propounding actual truth, but then, we know that you mean by "historical" here, exactly what you meant by "actually true" in the context, given your previous attempt to define it, so you have merely debased the term.

When Momigliano (On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Arnaldo Momigliano, p.7) uses the phrase "historical text" that should tell you that there is more to the term "historical" than your colloquial use covers.

You're basically assuming your conclusion in order to help you confuse the issue of the significance of "historical" to retroject "historical Jesus" onto Eusebius.

The naive use of terminology just helps to estrange people from the subject they are trying to deal with and come to wacky conclusions.

Without those modern standards of historiography the notion of a historical Jesus is meaningless, no matter how you wish to retroject the term into the ancient past. What you do instead is assume that the colloquial term is what is intended when new testament scholars talk of the historical Jesus. Do you honestly think that these scholars are using the term in the unscholarly colloquial way you want or is it you who are not taking notice of the context in which the subject is discussed?

Chili

But he was, and his prior name was Joseph as it happen to him who so became the first Christian with no -ity about him.

Maybe I should point out that history is made but does not exist.

Robert Tulip

The major problem is that modern standards of historiography find the notion of a historical Jesus to be meaningless, so this idea can only be considered as a theological statement of faith with roots in popular Christian dogma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_f...storical_Jesus provides an overview of the topic. The nineteenth century quest collapsed with Schweitzer's finding that the search for a historical Jesus was futile, with its exponents producing pale reflections of themselves or what they wanted to find through faith.

The whole criteriology of the so-called 'third quest' for the historical Jesus is a historiographical embarrassment, theology dressed up as history. It is pure apologetics, rationalisation of faith, failing to address Kähler's decisive 1896 argument that it is not possible to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith and that in any case the key goal of biblical analysis should be to better understand the Christ of faith who had influenced history.

The best historiography is Jesus Neither God Nor Man by Earl Doherty. This book provides a remorseless analysis of the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever for a real historical Jesus, and opens a path to explain the coherence of the theory of invention of Christ.

Horatio Parker

I get your point. Granted, Eusebius didn't know history as we think of it.

Which leads to: what then was Eusebius writing? In his mind, or in the mind of his contemporaries? Surely he realized he was writing about people who lived in the past.

Chili

Christ is just a name that is coined to identify that which is always was. It is not an invention but a name given to the word (that the Greeks called logos), giving a fixed form of the species man under God via the son (that they called genus identified now as Lord God in person by Jesus known as 'the' first Christ).

No invention, no fantasy, nothing new, except now riding two donkeys (of which one was the old and the other the new) into the Universal that they called Rome where now 'the new is ad hoc.' This points at an age of maturity that forcefully made its own entree this way, while the [parochial] New Jerusalem still is not yet for the Jew.

Jeffrey Gibson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5aW08ivHU