mountainman

I have attempted to discuss this citations register without luck.
Essentially the register attempts to represent all occassions in
the purported rise of christianity over the first three centuries
where information about christianity is clearly and openly said
to be evident to the administration and/or citizens of the Roman
empire.

The citation you question above is one of a group of citations
which relate to the supposed "christian persecutions" under
Roman emperors. They either happened or they didn't.

It is expected that each and every citation listed on this register
will be shown to have the same historical integrity as is now
possessed by all such citations on the same register from the
first century. (ie: they are fraudulent, or forgeries, etc).

At the end of the day, in all honesty and seriousness that is
due to an examination of history, we must return to the
possibility that Constantine may have created christianity,
and tendered a pseudo-history in his "Constantine Bibles",
supported by the appropriate editorial presentations of
Eusebius, in lavish and expensive, but despotic, grandeur.

J-D

If we look at what you say, and forget about what you don't say, then this is strictly and indefeasibly true. 'It is expected' you say. And you are right: it is expected.

What you don't say is that it is expected by you. There is no evidence that anybody else shares your expectation.

mountainman

They operate under different hypotheses.
Namely, the hypothesis that there exists
some forms of "historical data". Well, all
I have done is to list the external citation
data in a register.

The data is either able to be listed or it isnt.
Deal with the reality of the hypothesis.

J-D

Sorry, you've lost me. I don't understand what you're talking about. Are you rejecting the whole concept of 'historical data'? Or what?

Toto

OK mountainman, what is your objection to the anti-Christian literature, especially Lucian's parody and Celsus? Were those also forged by Eusebius? You're turning him into a genius. How did he keep track of everything?


2nd - 169 - Lucian (Life of Peregrine)
...
2nd - 175 - Celsus

mountainman

The postulate is that Lucian's 2 works were interpolated
to introduce "christians" instead of another "social group".

Celsus, and Origen (re: new testament) are postulated
to be Eusebius writing in the fourth century. The writings
of Celsus, Hierocles and Porphyry "Against the Christians"
are all postulated to be Eusebius. All this has been put
forward in other threads.

The claim is that Eusebius forged "Against the Christians"
by Porphyry, so that Constantine could rightly condemn
the writings of Porphyry, and edict for their destruction,
which we know that he did.


The hypothesis being examined in that Eusebius was ordered
by Constantine to write a new fiction for the empire, which
stayed close to the truth of history (ie: there was once a
wise and good man who lived in the 1st century, who is
considered to have performed miracles, etc, etc).

In parallel, also take into account the treatise of Eusebius
against Hierocles, in which he (successfully) attempts to
calumnify both Apollonius of Tyana, and his very very
historic biographer, Philostratus.


Fourth century database technology found applied by
Origen to works of the Hebrew scriptures, and other
texts. I think that Origen may have been a real non-
ficitious author who wrote volumninously on all the things
he is purported to have written upon, with the exception
of all related "new testament" material. This, according
to the postulate, was Eusebius.

The Origenist - like controversy, stated by Rufinius for
example, occurred because not all of the orignal works
of Origen, which were about god and divinity and philosophy,
etc, etc were contained by Constantine. It was found
that Origen therefore wrote some non-traditional type
of writings, which had nothing to do with (NT-Style)
christianity.

The database technology discovered by Origen and
inherited by Eusebius was the multi-column spreadsheet.
The Hexapla and other inventions, enabling multiple things
being tracked concurrently. Thus he was able to weave
a complicated and intricate web of a pseudo-history for
a newly found "tribe of christians" according to the
command of his soon-to-be-supreme warlord.

mountainman

I am rejecting the notion that there necessarily had to be
in existence a tribe of christians before the rise of Constantine.
The list of citations are purported events related to "christianity"
before the time of Constantine. But are they historical events?

The events listed on the register for the first century, plus others
which have not yet been listed (such as the fraudulent correspondence
between Senecca and Paul), are now known to have no integrity.


These first century events "probably did not happen" is the reasonable
finding of many people in the world today, not just myself.

All I am asking is for the same objectivity to be applied to the
citations in the prenicene epoch, just in case we have been
sold a lemon by bullneck.

J-D

It is reasonable to ask whether a document can be shown to be fraudulent. But asking whether a document can be shown to be fraudulent is not the same as showing that it is fraudulent. You have suspicion and you rely on it as if it is proof. It isn't.

mountainman

Is it also reasonable to ask whether a series or a corpus
of documents can be shown to be fraudulent?

The series of documents (and documented events) in the index
of citations presented for the first century have already been
shown to be fraudulent. Namely these:

1st - 032 - Letter of King Agbar & Jesus' Rescript
1st - 030? - Letter from Herod Antipas
1st - 030 - letter of Publius Lentulus
1st - 032? - Letters of Caiaphas
1st - 050 - Letters of Pilate
1st - 050 - Confession of Pilate,
1st - 064 - Nero fire references (Tacit.Annals XV written 109.CE)
1st - 075 - Domitian (emp:069-079) "Persecution"
1st - 091 - Josephus Flavius (Refs in Antiquity of the Jews)

That is, it is generally viewed that these citations have very little
if any historical integrity. This is not my opinion, but the
consensus of most "infidels".

I have the hypothesis that Eusebius was ordered to write fiction
by his imperial master in the fourth century, and complied lavishly.

There is no physical archeological evidence to prevent this hypothesis
from being possible, and a range of academic opinion provides weight to
the view that Mr. Eusebius was not your average "historian".

One of the logical implications of the hypothesis is that
there were (in ancient history) no christians before the
rise of Constantine.

I do not rely on the hypothesis as proof, but as a means
to develop an alternative theory for the history of antiquity
consistent with all available evidence, and emminently
falsifiable (a la Popper) with the proper citation.

However, although I see "disproof" arising with one appropriate
citation, the "proof" I assert for any theory of history is not existent
in any one single thing or fact or event, rather a consistency
of all the data available. If you get the drift.

J-D

And you have given no disproof of rival hypotheses, and you have given no reason for anybody to prefer your hypothesis to rival hypotheses. You haven't even given a clear indication that you understand what a rival hypothesis is.