Dargo

Do the Orthodox churches also believe in Mary's perpertual virginity?

Ben C Smith

Hi, Pete.

True, that is an inference of my statement. Is it your hypothesis, then, that Eusebius actually penned the five books of Irenaeus and at least some of the extant fragments of Papias?

Ben.

ETA: And Philip of Side postdates Eusebius, so no, Eusebius cannot be Philip.

funinspace

Ben, thanks for the info and the link. I'll have to peruse thru it later. Patriot7, True Believer at large, threw out this list of 17 names without comment as extra-biblical contemporary evidence in GRD of Christ the Messiah. So a few of us were working to provide the beginnings of context as part of an originating debate/discussion. I make no claims to have great knowledge in this area, I'll have to check out the book where I think I remembered that from. I probably infused the "only" portion….into my remembrance. The book probably agrees with you.

mountainman

G'Day Ben,

Yes, I am presently spending time pursuing the consistency
of this hypothesis that all literature containing references to
"the tribe of christians" prior to Eusebius, is actually Eusebius,
who so wishes us to make this specific inference.

FWIW I think it is possible that Constantine wanted to implement
a new and strange religion, but in an indirect and arm's length
transaction. He needed to be able to appear independent of
the new religion, and so have people voluntarily signing themselves
up for his imperial religion of the empire.

Thus the prime Eusebian objective was to provide a mass of
literature, only achieved by the perversion of earlier writers
and/or the use of unknown non de plumes, which provided
sufficient impetus for an independent inference that the new
and strange religion of Constantine was in fact 300 years old.


Thanks for that correction Ben, I should have remembered he was
one of the at least seven authors of antiquity to try and take up
the Eusebian pen in terms of Ecclesiastical History after Eusebius
sets it down. It is remarkable that the Nicaean council marks the
boundary of the Eusebian history, and all other histories.

In consistency with the above hypothesis, we view the Arian
controversy (ie: the words of Arius) against which Constantine
moved in calling the Council of Nicaea, as the reaction of the
pre-existent (neo-platonic and neo-pythagoraean millieu) empire
against the implementation of christianity.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Ben C Smith

That would seem to be a very steep hill to climb, my friend.

Two questions for you:

1. If Eusebius really did forge that mass of literature from centuries I through III, why do you suppose historians since, even modern critical scholars, have uniformly regarded that literature (Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, and many others) as largely authentic? What are they missing that you have picked up on?

2. What is to prevent your big-bang theory from being applied to other aspects of world literature? Is it possible that all Greek literature was forged en masse in the late Hellenistic period? Or that all Roman literature was forged after the sack of Rome?

Thanks.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

I was wondering what the definition of 'contemporary' is, and why we would ignore testimony from antiquity that wasn't?

To give a practical and (I hope) uncontroversial example, the only account of what happened in Britain following the death of Theodosius the Great in 396 is in Zosimus, writing in the early-mid 6th century in Constantinople, well after Roman Britain had ceased to exist. Do we disregard his testimony -- which leaves us completely in the dark, and if so why?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Well, I don't know whether I qualify, but I don't agree with a good few of them.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

TomboyMom

It's not a question of ignoring, but of credibility. The closer in time and opportunity to observe, the more credible. There are other issues as well, such as access to the original documents, bias, etc. Different readers can do different things with these factors, but I think it's worthwhile to be clear about what the source is. For example, if someone says that the gospels are eye-witness accounts, they got some provin' to do.

Other factors include the plausibility of the event described, whether it is of such a nature and the situation is such that a record is expected, and so forth.

For example, if China were flooded around after the dynasties there began to keep records, it would be expected that such an event would be recorded. The absence of such a reference logically leads one to conclude that it was not.

funinspace

This works for me: Yahoo Dictionary: (1) Belonging to the same period of time: a fact documented by two contemporary sources. (2) Of about the same age.

The point wasn't about disregarding testimony that wasn't contemporary. The discussion was about Josh McDowell's usage of the Trilema (lunatic, liar, or Lord), and is it a reasonable apologetic. I was making the point that a Jewish heretical sage, that was rebuilt into the Jesus we all know today as within the Gospels, is also another reasonable/plausible POV that is ignored by McDowell's apologetic. I spoke of many things, including the scarcity of contemporary extra-Biblical sources for the Christ/Messiah, vice simply a mention of the existance of a new cult/sect. We were never able to even get to considering the value of later documents, what impact the distance of age has on our consideration of any document, or even the value of oral tradition. It's seams verbal games and shifting goal posts were preferred to discussion...

Dean Anderson

The list appears to have been copied straight out of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands A Verdict, in case that helps you determine the answer to your question...