mountainman

Let's get back to discussing the evidence, and its interpretation(s) and identifying any assumptions being made either explicitly or implicitly. Every day has fresh beginnings.

I must admit that I can see where stephan and most modern scholarship is coming from on this unusual question as to "Did Mani actually mention "Jesus"?". Stephan has provided his side of the argument from the following source, which essentially substantiates stephans quite valid mainstream position on these three questions about the Buddhist-like Mani. Thanks for the reference.


You see the bit I bolded above, in the quote from "Manichaean texts from the Roman Empire" By Iain Gardner, Samuel N. C. Lieu? That bit quoted, and I will repeat it to be very specific .....

this is an additional assumption which goes beyond the 4th century evidence itself. Certainly, YES - in order to hold off peoples' immediately protestations - it may be correct! However the question arises does it necessarily have to be correct, and even what if it is not the correct assumption?

To summarise, these and many other manistream authors are making the assertion that the recent Manichaean manucript finds at Kellis are the faithul copies of the Syriac writings penned by Mani in the 3rd century. This is certainly possible, but it is an additional assumption yet to be ratified by further more ancient evidence.

My position is that this assumption (which is essentially unstated and implied) may not be correct on the basis of a number of counts, which I have mentioned and detailed above. I am not arguing that my position is necessarily correct. I am simply questioning the mainstream assumption.

Two reasons why the Manichaean Canon perhaps was not preserved "PERFECTLY"
as it was originally authored by Mani in the 3rd CE, but underwent Manichaean redaction, interpolation, etc

(1) The Council of Nicaea falls between the evidence date 400 CE and the death of Mani 277 CE. The Manichaean literature was being preserved not in the Persian empire, but in the Roman Empire, and under the surveilance of the Roman Emperor's Religious Agenda. Constantine sought conformity and adaption to his own "Canon" of New Testament. It may have been expedient for the post Nicaean Manichaeans to add a few references to Constantine's Jesus, in the Canon of Mani. That is the Manichaeans themselves may have added bits and pieves to Mani's canon, as if to have Mani acknowledge himself to be in some conformity with the religion of the Christians and the name of Jesus. A second bit of evidence substantiates this position.

(2) Two notable anachronisms in the earliest two separate orthodox hagiographies of Mani (early 4th century works) exhibit lucid conformity to the notion that the claim that Mani was the Paraclete, despite what appears to be in the later evidence that we have, first only appeared in the fourth century, after Nicaea. The authors both state that Manichaean claim that Mani was the Paraclete was made "Three hundred years after Jesus". This IMO is no "coincidence".

An Aside on Nag Hammadi

Lets look at the mainstream assumption for the Manichaean material again ...

Interested readers will immediately perceive that the very same type of assumption is being continually made with respect to all the Gnostic Christian material which has been discovered here and there in the last few centuries. Here is a paraphrase


The classic parallel case are the manuscripts which are in the NHC dated mid 4th century. Most mainstream academics currently (in parallel with the Manichaean material) think that these documents are copies of stuff authored in the 3rd or the 2nd or in some extreme scholarly arguments in the 1st century.

I just thought to add this diversion, because it reveals an exact parallel in modus operandi of assumptions.

mountainman

It is a mixture of manuscripts and we need to be careful in not mixing them together, but examining them under categories. The major two categories of the evidence are:

(1) Manucripts authored by "orthodox christians" (eg: Hegemonius "AA", Ephrem, "AM"). I have already provided recent academic treatment which sees these documents as quite fictional anti-Manichaean polemics. Until the 20th century however, these accounts were assumed to represent history.

(2) Manuscripts authored in remote locations by Manichaeans. (eg: Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis, the Turfin material from China, the newly discovered material from Kellis, etc)

Toto

The Manichaean literature discussed in Manichaean Texts From the Roman Empire was not preserved by officials of the Roman Empire or the Catholic Church. From p. 37, some key finds were papyrus codices hidden by Manichaean missionaries.

These are not anachronisms. They are mistakes. And you still have no reason for anyone to invent this claim.

Sheshbazzar

I'd point out that as the Manichaeans (and possibly Mani himself) eagerly syncretised, adopted and adapted 'Jesus' to their own peculiar form of Christianity, they were just as much 'Christians' as the group that eventually became the dominant power. Indeed in many areas the Manichean form of Christianity was the dominant and accepted form for many generations.
As such, the surviving writings of Manichaean Christians are just as much 'Christian', and of the Christian heritage, and were as authoritative to their adherents, as any 'catholic' Patristic teachings or writings were to their adherents.

The Holy Roman Catholic Church (along with the ancient worlds other 'catholic' churches) has from the inception of the Christian religion, attempted to discredit, to marginalize, to demonize, and to deny the 'Christianity' of all competing Christian factions, such as the Arians, the Montanists, the Manichaeans. and many others that embraced Jesus as they understood him to be.

Truth be told these outcast Christian sects were just as much 'Christians' as anything that came latter.
In conduct the bloodthirsty savages that hunted these Christians down, flayed them, beheaded them, burned them, and boiled them alive, were the ones whom by their hatreds, and by their violent actions against the welfare of their fellow man did not, do not qualify to bear the name.

Thus, whatever documents Mani and the Manichaeans may have written, they are just as much Pataristic Christian Church writings as any of the 'Catholic' Pataristic writing preserved by the Catholic Churches.

It was an internal Christian battle, Christian against Christian, the ones that murdered the most became the victors, and wrote their fudged and smudged, fabricated 'Christian history'.

mountainman

Yes I was aware that recent discoveries at Kellis yielded manuscript evidence that was hidden by Manichaean heretics within the "Christian-Roman Empire". My point was that they were within the ROman Empire, not the ROman Church orthodoxy.


The authors of the books I cited called these things "anachronisms".
Did you miss the post?
Do you want me to repeat it?


Citation please. Which academic author examines these two "anachronisms" and calls them "mistakes". Not just one, but two independent separate unrelated and coincidental "mistakes"? What is your source for these two "anachronisms" as being "mistakes". Maybe your are right, but I am not going to simply take your word for this on the basis that you might be simply making a guess. I'd like a reference.

stephan huller

Shesh acknowledges that Mani probably identified himself as the Paraclete of Jesus. Avi couldn't distinguish between a Paraclete and a Parakeet. Trans says that he couldn't care less what Mani did or didn't say. That means we are left with just Pete and we all know that Pete is not capable of evaluating evidence without the 'fourth century conspiracy' lens. I think it is safe to say that Pete will never acknowledge any point of view which contradicts his established historical dogma.

The issue is pretty much settled unless we want to continue to split hairs.

Transient

Then Stephi you may leave - don't bang the door on your way out. Others will continue the discussion in your absence.
Just for the record, I would be interested in what Mani says about himself, just dubious about what others say about him.

Sheshbazzar

Post # 234 above, I chose my word carefully, not 'probably' but '-possibly-' There is a big difference.

That difference allowing for the -possibility- that Mani himself may not have made any such claim, but that his enthusiastic syncretizing disciples may have made the claim outside of his knowledge or acknowledgment, or even posthumously.
IF so then Mani would have been 'Christianized' -by his own disciples.
Sans any writing that can be proven to be a genuine autograph directly from Mani's hand, anything more than '-possibly-' remains an unsupportable assumption.

Toto

OK, but they were not preserved by the Catholic Church or the Church Fathers. Any comments about Catholic forgeries are not applicable.

Transient

Well actually it is of interest whether religious groups of any kind tended to re-do their writings,forge or whatever, because it adds weight to the doubts about the reliability of the writings of other religious groups, including those of Mani, and would show the need to access the earliest documents possible and view with scepticism later writings or copies.