mountainman

Jay Raskin has published some analysis in regard to the identification
of certain "Eusebian Tells", or nuances, or writer's quirk, contained in
the writings of Eusebius, where Eusebius tells us he is writing for himself.

Jay Raskin also claims there exist the same trade mark tell-tale textual
phrases also appearing in the authors Eusebius is apparently quoting,
such as Tertullion. The implication is that Eusebius is quoting himself,
and is in fact simply interpolating these authors of antiquity.

Jay Raskin's book is called "The Evolutionn of Christs and Christianities",
and the relevant section is Section One: headed Eusebius: the master
forger.


We take the view that this alternative hypothesis should be explored.
While on the surface it may not appear to be consistent with what
we know about history, the hypothesis has not yet been dealt a death
blow by the presentation of any strong scientific evidence to the contrary.

Some of the Qumram texts, such as all the OT related texts, and
The Book of Enoch, have (IMO) absolutely nothing to do with (the
fiction called) christianity.


I do not see Nag Hammadi as predominantly associated with
"the tribe of christians" but instead evidence of another history
in which christianity did not appear on the planet until the 4th C.

Behind Eusebius was the prime mover Constantine.
Constantine did not work for Eusebius IMO.
Eusebius worked for the head mafia man Constantine.

Constantine may have had many literacists working on the project.
Eusebius could have been given the task of harmonisation.
Eusebius could have been under duress from Constantine.
(Read the Life of Secundus the Philosopher under Hadrian)


Finally, your comments about fossils are inapplicable to the issue
of ancient manuscripts. Fossils get buried once and for all, and
then remain undisturbed until found. OTOH, manuscripts until
the yeat 1500 needed to be reviewed and hand-copied by a
scribe manually in order that they be preserved.

Constantine had imperial access to the libraries of the empire,
containing all the ancient texts used by Eusebius (eg: Josephus)
for over three decades.

What Eusebius and Constantine wished us to call "fossil literature"
may be a mass of fiction fabricated in the fourth century, by the
direct perversion of these ancient documents to which Constantine
had supreme imperial access, and total control.



Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/index.htm

gstafleu

Two things. First, finding that analysis shows that there are passages that have Euseby's quirks is different from finding that the whole work fits his profile. It may be a start, unless the second thing is true: If Raskin has found that certain passages distinguish themselves from the surrounding text by showing the quirks, then that would imply that Euseby did not write the whole work, just some interpolations. I'm not sure if that is what you are saying, though.

That's fine, as long as you don't loose sight of the fact that that gets you out of the starting blocks only. To get closer to the finish line you need evidence that what you say happened, not just a lack of evidence that it didn't happen (the latter is known as "doing a Baigent" ).


NH has the Gospel of Thomas, plus that fragment where Jesus kisses Mary Magdalene. I would say that that shows that Jesus, plus some of the surrounding cast like MM, was not an invention of Euseby.


If so, there should be some evidence of that.

Yes, could... Without more than could the distance between your heels and the starting blocks remains rather small.

I was making an analogy. Fossils are traces of how life developed. Similarly, we find traces of how the NT developed. If Euseby wrote the whole thing, then he must have written the traces into it. Which would show a lot of foresight.

Take Q as another example. Euseby wrote the whole thing such that elaborate text analysis could come up with Q...?

To sum up, there are three things you can do to help your hypothesis.

1) A text analysis that shows that the whole NT fits the profile of one author. You could get around that by claiming the thing was written by a group around Euseby, but you would be starting to move in the direction of special pleading.

2) Give a good explanation for all the traces of development found in the NT. Whence Q? How come Doherty can come up with a development path. Did Price and Eisenman just get fooled by Euseby's ingenuity? Why did Euseby open the door to the Argument from Silence by not having Paul use a Christ more like the one from the gospels? Etc.

3) Present evidence that what you are hypothesizing actually happened.

Maybe all that is doable, i certainly wish you good luck.

mountainman

So long as the dating of the traditionally accepted Gospel of Thomas
in which every one of the sayings is prefaced with "Jesus said:", is
accepted as post Nicaean (which it is according to C14 results) the
Nag Hamadi material does not preclude christianity being a fourth
century fiction imposed upon the Roman empire by Constantine.

I believe Doherty somewhere argues for the Thomas sayings to have
once existed without the "Jesus said" prefixes, and this is how I see
things in regard to the Gospel of Thomas.

Finally this "fragment where Jesus kisses Mary Magdalene" you mention
above, can you point me at a reference somewhere. Is this the same
fragment, purported by someone to be of John, but highly disputed?


To have built evolution of thought into successive patristic writers
simply implies he needed to keep things tabulated, and the invention
of tabulation had been perfected in the Caesarea library by Origen.

That scholars infer the existence of Q supports the notion that Eusebius
would have needed to have behind the scenes, a number of concordance
documents, and a number of textual sources manuscripts.

It is possible that the central figure which will emerge from a textual
analysis was neither an author or a scribe but a supreme imperial sponsor
overflowing with the ideas of a new and strange religion by which his
future empire would be partially administrated, taxed and regulated.

Our thesis is that Constantine sponsored the fabrication of the
Galilaeans, not that he was attracted to anything pre-existing.

The Ecclesiastical History, and In Preparation of the gospels, By Eusebius
map out what is to be found in the texts. It is likely that, if he was
coerced by Constantine, Eusbius would have utilised project master
tabulations in which the evolution of ideas, from the gospels, to the
acts of the apostles, to the letters, to the philosophies (gnostics vs
pythagoraeans, etc). As mentioned above, Origen had developed
such "technology" which was existent and locally available in
Eusebius' own library in Caesarea.

We believe the concordance of evolution being read into the NT by
the biblical scholars is an indication that the NT was in fact prepared
(or to be be more precise, in the words of Emperor Julian fabricated)
with such meta-information in the background tabulations of Eusebius.

3) Present evidence that what you are hypothesizing actually happened.

Julian, Against the Galilaeans:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene...Galilaeans.htm

Thanks very much for the objective stance on this issue.
And best wishes,



Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/namaste_2006.htm
NAMASTE: “The spirit in me honours the spirit in you”