Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 02-16-2008, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schilling.klaus

Quote:

Originally Posted by scotsmanmatt1

Do you similarly dismiss the Histories of Herodotus because it contains within it myth or fiction?

Herodot was a propagandist for some politician, exactly like Eusebius, and thus can't be trusted as historiography.

Klaus Schilling

Thanks for the info. However I am putting all my efforts into showing that Jesus, his disciples and Paul are fiction, as described in the NT. I have very little time to investigate this Herodotus.

Perhaps scostmanmatt1 can start a thread about Herodotus.

Toto · 02-16-2008, 03:34 PM

Herodotus was a bad example, because his histories are generally based on his own investigations. Josephus is a better example, because he was a propagandist, and included various supernatural events in his history of the Jewish War and his Antiquities.

I believe that aa5874 accepts Josephus as a reliable historical source.

aa5874's job then is to explain why he accepts Josephus as history but not the gospels (this can be done, but it is still a useful exercise.)

Then aa5874 needs to explain how he can tell from the texts that the "sole purpose" of the NT was "to distort history and fabricate a false god and religion called Christianity" - as opposed to some other motive, such as to provide a metaphorical explanation of an inner spiritual state, or a metaphoric description of Isreal as a nation.

mountainman · 02-16-2008, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casper

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newton's Cat

IESOUS CHRISTOS anagrams to OSIRIS SET CHOUS ('CHOUS' means "grave")

cf: The Egyptian myths of Osiris and Set in the underworld.

Further:

SIMWN PETROS anagrams to MORTWS PENIS (Latin, 'Mortuus penis', "dead penis")

cf: There is a variant of the OSIRIS SET myth that has OSIRIS being reassembled by his sister ISIS after being dismembered by SET ... with the exception of his penis.

Whoever started Christianity seems to have been something of a comedian.

Pete? This is right up your alley.

Did someone mention Poe's Law?

Appreciate the thought Casper. However it is in the tension
that exists between on the one hand the four Roman court
of law documents (gospels of 4 eyewitnesses) and their
quasi-historical "Acts", and on the other hand, the as yet
generally unperceived genre of the non canonical "Acts",
which needs to be first understood.

Most BC&H research, yakking and conjecture, is restricted
to the former set of (canonical) texts. The general bod
and the scholars both keep turning away from the second
set of texts.

The reason that they turn away, is because the noncanonix
are a textual critics nightmare, because they do not obey
the same conventions apparent in their equivalent canon
texts. They are weird stories. They are romance. They
contain in them something which is as yet alien to the
sensibilities of the "christian educated mind"......

That the "Acts of the Apostles"
are to be the subject of humour:
that they are to laughed at.

Shock horror! Alien! Alien!
What indeed is Poe's Law?

Best wishes

Pete Brown

mountainman · 02-16-2008, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Herodotus was a bad example, because his histories are generally based on his own investigations.

Momigliano directly compares Eusebius and Heroditus:

Quote:

Originally Posted by AM

The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography

The truth is of course that historians of the church are still divided on the
fundamental issue of the divine origin of the church. The number of professional
historians who take the Church as a divine intitution -- and can therefore be
considered to be the followers of Eusebius -- increased rather than decreased
in the years after the FIrst World War. On the other hand the historians who
study the history of the Church as that of a human institution have consolidated
their methods. They have been helped by the general adoption in historiography
of those standards of erudite research which at seems at one time to have been
confined to ecclesiastical historians and controversialists. We sometimes forget
that Eduard Meyer was, at least in Germany, the first non-theologian to write a
scholarly history of the origins of Christianity, and this happened only in 1921.

p.152
"Those who accept the notion of the Church as a divine institution
which is different from the other institutions
have to face the difficulty that the Church history reveals only too obviously
a continuous mixture of political and religious aspects:
hence the distinction frequently made by Church historians of the last two centuries
between internal and external history of the Church,
where internal means (more or less) religious
and external means (more or less) political.

p.152

"At the beginning of this imposing movement of research and controversy
there remains Eusebius of Caesarea. In 1834 Ferdinand Christian Baur
wrote in "Tubingen" a comparison between Eusebius and Herodotus:
Comparatur Eusebius Caesarensis historiae ecclesiasticae parens cum
parente historiarum Herodoto Halicarnassensi.

We can accept this comparison and meditate on his remark
that both Herodotus and Eusebius wrote under the inspiration
of a newly established freedom.

And as far as Josephus ....

Quote:

Josephus is a better example, because he was a propagandist, and included various supernatural events in his history of the Jewish War and his Antiquities.

The only and sole reason that Josephus is put forward
is because he was a Jewish Historian writing in the first
century of the CE, because Eusebius interpolated the
text at a particularly shameful hour in the 4th century,
and because later christian scribes preserved the work.

The Jews and their Greek Hebrew texts of 250 BCE are
an entire red herring with respect to the new testament,
which is best described as Constantine's Canon.

There is absolutely nothing common between the OT and
the NT except the glue that Constantine used to bind
them physically (religion = to bind) together.

Best wishes,

Pete Brown

Toto · 02-16-2008, 04:56 PM

Quote:

"At the beginning of this imposing movement of research and controversy there remains Eusebius of Caesarea. In 1834 Ferdinand Christian Baur wrote in "Tubingen" a comparison between Eusebius and Herodotus: Comparatur Eusebius Caesarensis historiae ecclesiasticae parens cum parente historiarum Herodoto Halicarnassensi.

We can accept this comparison and meditate on his remark that both Herodotus and Eusebius wrote under the inspiration of a newly established freedom.

When I google this, I only find quotes from you. This cite does not make a lot of sense. Are you aware that "Tubingen" is a city in Germany? Do you have a better cite for this work? What is it's relevance here?

aa5874 · 02-16-2008, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Herodotus was a bad example, because his histories are generally based on his own investigations. Josephus is a better example, because he was a propagandist, and included various supernatural events in his history of the Jewish War and his Antiquities.

I believe that aa5874 accepts Josephus as a reliable historical source.

aa5874's job then is to explain why he accepts Josephus as history but not the gospels (this can be done, but it is still a useful exercise.)

Then aa5874 needs to explain how he can tell from the texts that the "sole purpose" of the NT was "to distort history and fabricate a false god and religion called Christianity" - as opposed to some other motive, such as to provide a metaphorical explanation of an inner spiritual state, or a metaphoric description of Isreal as a nation.

First of all, if I am investigating the NT, then I cannot accept any of it's writings as true until my unvestigation is over. After I have declared that my investigation is complete, then I can make a determination if I will accept or reject the NT with respect to its veracity.

The simple explanation for using the writings of Josephus is that the Church fathers regarded Josephus as credible, even Eusebius in "Church History" quoted extensively from the writings of Josephus and secondly I am not investigating Josephus and also, Josephus was a Jew, a Pharisee, and at some time lived in Galilee.

In order to conclude that the authors of the NT sole purpose was to distort history and fabricate a false god and religion called Christianity, I had to take into account all that is written about Jesus in the NT whether or not they were miraculous, then compare this character called Jesus to other characters in the NT and even others who lived about the same time from non-apologetic sources.

Now when I compared Jesus to other characters in the NT and others from external sources, I came to the realisation that the Jesus of NT could have only survived and calculated his death if he was god. That is, once you remove the god from the man Jesus, his entire life, his reality collapses to dust, he cannot exist.

Once you begin to realize that Jesus could not have been human, then you would almost immediately see that his disciples would vanish with him and so would Paul.

Paul's conversion and ministry is tied to a god called Jesus Christ, without this god he has no revelations, he has no gospel, the gospel of the uncircumcision. Without this god, Jesus, he would not be able stand up to the original apostles and disciples, they were in contact with Jesus while he was earth, Paul needs the god to be equal to or surpass them.

But Paul's Jesus is not a god, Paul is really nothing, his conversion, his gospel, the gifts from gods, the gift of tongues,etc, never really happened.

The authors knew that Paul's conversion was fabricated, they knew his ministry, his history was fabricated. It was deliberate. The authors knew Jesus was not a god and never was. A religion was created from fiction.

mountainman · 02-16-2008, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

"At the beginning of this imposing movement of research and controversy there remains Eusebius of Caesarea. In 1834 Ferdinand Christian Baur wrote in "Tubingen" a comparison between Eusebius and Herodotus: Comparatur Eusebius Caesarensis historiae ecclesiasticae parens cum parente historiarum Herodoto Halicarnassensi.

We can accept this comparison and meditate on his remark that both Herodotus and Eusebius wrote under the inspiration of a newly established freedom.

When I google this, I only find quotes from you. This cite does not make a lot of sense. Are you aware that "Tubingen" is a city in Germany?

Ferdinand Christian Baur

Quote:

German theologian and leader of the Tübingen school of theology (named for University of Tübingen).

Quote:

Do you have a better cite for this work? What is it's relevance here?

I dont know the specific work Momigliano was referring
to of Baur's, if that's what you seek. It relevance was
due to the comparing of Herotodus and Eusebius.

Best wishes,

Pete Brown

scotsmanmatt1 · 02-17-2008, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scotsmanmatt1

Granting arguendo that these two events are to be regarded as fiction how would your main objective logically follow that:

"My main objective is to show that the NT has no real credibilty, that the books it contains do not reflect the true history of the period. It is, in effect, just fiction using the Jews, known historical figures and the name of the God of the Jews to propagate a pack of lies about characters called Jesus, the 12 disciples and Paul."?

Do you similarly dismiss the Histories of Herodotus because it contains within it myth or fiction?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Who is this Herodotus? Did he have 12 so-called disciples and an apostle supposedly named "Paul" who it is claimed was converted to Christianity because he was blinded by a bright light?

Can you answer my primary question:

Granting arguendo that these two events are to be regarded as fiction how would your main objective logically follow that:

"My main objective is to show that the NT has no real credibilty, that the books it contains do not reflect the true history of the period. It is, in effect, just fiction using the Jews, known historical figures and the name of the God of the Jews to propagate a pack of lies about characters called Jesus, the 12 disciples and Paul."?

Since you are not aware of Herodotus let me rephrase the question thus:

Are you setting up a standard for all ancient works purporting to be some sort of history that if they are found to contain within them elements of myth and/or fiction that the whole work is to be dismissed as ficticious?

aa5874 · 02-17-2008, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

"My main objective is to show that the NT has no real credibilty, that the books it contains do not reflect the true history of the period. It is, in effect, just fiction using the Jews, known historical figures and the name of the God of the Jews to propagate a pack of lies about characters called Jesus, the 12 disciples and Paul."

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottsmanmatt1

Since you are not aware of Herodotus let me rephrase the question thus:

Are you setting up a standard for all ancient works purporting to be some sort of history that if they are found to contain within them elements of myth and/or fiction that the whole work is to be dismissed as ficticious?

I am not setting up any standard for ancient works at all, that is definirely not my objective.

I have examined the NT, the writings of Church fathers and other non-apologetic writers and historians and found Jesus, his disciples and Paul to be fiction. I see no fundamental difference between Jesus and Achilles, and declaring Achilles a myth or fiction does not require the setting up of any standard for ancient works.

Jesus is described as both god and man who did or was believed to have done many miracles, in essence, there was no man like him in the history of the Jews, according to the NT and the Church fathers, but no historian or non-apologetic writer has written a single word about this god-man or man, his doctrine, the effect of his doctrine on Judaism, his thousands followers, or his disciples.

There is zero about Jesus of Nazareth, not even an anecdote or a rumor. I conclude Jesus, his disciples and Paul are fiction.

scotsmanmatt1 · 02-17-2008, 05:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

"My main objective is to show that the NT has no real credibilty, that the books it contains do not reflect the true history of the period. It is, in effect, just fiction using the Jews, known historical figures and the name of the God of the Jews to propagate a pack of lies about characters called Jesus, the 12 disciples and Paul."

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottsmanmatt1

Since you are not aware of Herodotus let me rephrase the question thus:

Are you setting up a standard for all ancient works purporting to be some sort of history that if they are found to contain within them elements of myth and/or fiction that the whole work is to be dismissed as ficticious?

I am not setting up any standard for ancient works at all, that is definirely not my objective.

I have examined the NT, the writings of Church fathers and other non-apologetic writers and historians and found Jesus, his disciples and Paul to be fiction. I see no fundamental difference between Jesus and Achilles, and declaring Achilles a myth or fiction does not require the setting up of any standard for ancient works.

Jesus is described as both god and man who did or was believed to have done many miracles, in essence, there was no man like him in the history of the Jews, according to the NT and the Church fathers, but no historian or non-apologetic writer has written a single word about this god-man or man, his doctrine, the effect of his doctrine on Judaism, his thousands followers, or his disciples.

There is zero about Jesus of Nazareth, not even an anecdote or a rumor. I conclude Jesus, his disciples and Paul are fiction.

I conclude that you have no good, persuasive evidence or substantiation for your grandiose claims.

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02-16-2008, 03:34 PM	#52
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Herodotus was a bad example, because his histories are generally based on his own investigations. Josephus is a better example, because he was a propagandist, and included various supernatural events in his history of the Jewish War and his Antiquities. I believe that aa5874 accepts Josephus as a reliable historical source. aa5874's job then is to explain why he accepts Josephus as history but not the gospels (this can be done, but it is still a useful exercise.) Then aa5874 needs to explain how he can tell from the texts that the "sole purpose" of the NT was "to distort history and fabricate a false god and religion called Christianity" - as opposed to some other motive, such as to provide a metaphorical explanation of an inner spiritual state, or a metaphoric description of Isreal as a nation.

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