mountainman

The most powerful thing in the minds of the people of the Roman Empire for the three decades immediately prior to the year 312 CE, when Eusebius in known to have commenced his, shall we say "research", was the tetrarchy - the leadership of Four People. The tetrarchy of gospels was modelled on the unquestionable popularity and authority of 'b]"the leadership of Four People"[/b].


Examine any four independent eye witness accounts written within a day of the events. Examine any four independent eye witness accounts written within a year of the events. Examine any four independent eye witness accounts written within a decade of the events. Examine any four independent eye witness accounts written within a century of the events. In all of these, investigators must expect both contradictions and inconsistencies. Eusebius helps the investigators, by publishing the "Eusebian or Ammonian Canon Tables", which uniquely specifies what is common between 4 authors, between 3, between 2 and unque to 1.

The four gospels could not be 4 identicial copies. If the tetrarchy of gospels were written according to the mode of the authors of the "Gospel of Nicodemus", mentioned in this non canonical gospel, then we would have four identical word-for-word accounts. (when the narrators/authors Leucius and Karinus put their pens down the two separate accounts are identical !!!!!). This alternative is an absurdity.



In the year 312 CE, when Eusebius commenced his research, there were at least two sets of extremely well known collections of letters in the empire, authored by two separate well known historical figures, either or both of which may have inspired the fabrication of these "Pauline Letters". The first was Apollonius of Tyana who was well studied by Eusebius becuse we have an extremely lengthy anti-Apollonius polemic written by Eusebius. The second was the Persian sage Mani, who's Holy Canon of Books, which included his "Gospel", were preserved by his fleeing apostles, along with a collection of his "Epistles", as is being revealed by contemporary archaeological finds.

There are probably others.


Paul is a fake source. Marcion is a fake source invented to disagree with Paul. Precisely this same modus operandi of the invention of fake sources, and the invention of other sources to disagree with them, is clearly exibited in the "Historia Augusta".



I am not trying to be deliberately obscure. In my own mind, I can conceptualize all of the available evidence involved with this "mystery of Christian origins" as though it existed in some future series of databases, which may be joined together in a referential manner so as to optimise the analysis of the evidence. We can already see many databases (eg: inscriptions, papyri, coins, etc) -- its just that they are not all presently amenable to reporting over the lot of them at once.


But, you yourself refer to this poll in your STICKY: Has mountainman's theory re Constantine's invention of christianity been falsified?. Not everyone supports the interpretation of Dura Europa that you and spin support.



That's a good question Toto. My best answer to it at the moment is provided by Arnaldo Momigliano, whom I have accepted as my guide to date.

mountainman

Logically it does not make sense (to you, and others as well) because you reject the hypothetical IF statement at the beginning of the above construction. You dont need to read anything further. Nothing follows because the initial "IF" claim has been rejected out of hand.

Hypothetically however, just for entertainment value alone if necessary, if you were to agree --- for one fleeting hypothetical moment - that the NT Canon was literally fabricated in the early 4th century, then it is logical that Christian history itelf cannot have commenced any earlier than this invention, namely, it occurred with the Council of Nicaea and the words of Arius (about Jesus and Christianity).



The past of Arius of Alexandria that I hypothetically sketch a revision of is ubiquitously pagan, without the glimmer of the new testament. I see the lineage of Arius, whom Constantine point blank calls a "Porphyrian", as involved with neo-Platonic lineage Porphyry and Plotinus. Arius calls his father "Ammonias" - the spiritual master of Plotinus.

And yet this is precisely what modern scholarship seems to be saying ....

stephan huller

But getting back to spin's original point - there is ABSOLUTELY NO evidence to support this claim. Why not make the argument that Arius was Chinese? Why not throw in that Arius liked chocolate ice cream? That his favorite actor was George Clooney? Or that his favorite historian was Pete Brown Australian champion surfer?

You can't just say that Arius was something when all the evidence contradicts this assumption. All the evidence says that Arius was a Christian who acknowledged and carried forward the Origenist tradition in the city. I don't know what to make of someone who makes an unsupported and unsupportable claim about Arius merely based on the fact that the real Arius of history contradicts and disproves his own theory about the origins of Christianity.

You did the same thing with Arius but how do you justify that two separate historical individuals were pagans WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THAT CLAIM. That's dangerously unscrupulous and methodologically unsound.

mountainman

There is substantial evidence that the Council of Nicaea represented a failed attempt by Constantine to have the manuscripts of the New testament, which were somehow in his possession or "safe-keeping", "canonized". The eventual "canonization" c.367 CE had to ride out 42 years of intervening controversies, despite the fact that all the 4th century writers extoll the undisputable authority of the 318 Nicaean "Fathers". The earliest known Greek New Testament codices to have been widely published in the Roman Empire seem to be the products, or copies of products, of Constantian scriptoria. There may have been earlier manuscripts. There is also a chance that there may not have been earlier manuscripts.

The evidence is that Emperor Constantine was the earliest widespread publisher of the New Testament ("proto-type"). What were his motives? Why did Constantine publish the NT Canon (and the supporting "historical thesis" and literature of Eusebius)? Why did he concurrently destroy, prohibit and plunder the Graeco-Roman religious culture with his army? Was Constantine a "Christian"? If Constantine was not a Christian then why did he legislate that "Religious privileges are reserved for Christians"? Did Constantine have any concern for the traditional religious culture? If he did not, is he qualified to be an integrous authority on religious history?

The substantive evidence for the whole thing is that Constantine, the earliest widespread publisher of the new testament, appears to have been a military supremacist and malevolent despot, at least during the last third of his rule (ie: 324 to 337 CE).

stephan huller

But this is an abuse of the historical evidence:

How do you pull this rabbit out of the hat? They are saying (1) the Alexandrian tradition was always a mix of Platonism and Christianity and (2) that in order to explain some of Arius's ideas you have to go deeper into the well of neo-Platonism than is evident in the surviving writings of Origen. I don't necessarily agree with Kannengeisser's assessment (I haven't actually read it beyond what Williams says about it) but the point again is that this is not helpful to your theory.

I am really am trying to avoid attacking the way you 'surf' through material - staying on the surface of the texts and picking out what you want from the argument. The point again is that Williams and everyone else who has ever written anything about Arius HAS TO ASSUME that Arius comes from a native Alexandrian tradition which is Origenist.

You get stuck on the idea of the use of Plato and try to twist this into an argument for Arius being a pagan. What am I supposed to do with this? Your lack of knowledge of Alexandrian Judaism and Alexandrian Christianity and their natural development from a pre-existent Jewish interest in Plato is the problem.

You simply don't know enough about the fundamentals of Alexandrianism to have developed your opinions. Your ignorance has led to the manufacture of a silly theory. Better stick to water sports.

Toto

This does not explain anything, any more than Irenaeus' four points of the compass.


This is a modern explanation for the variations. It does not reflect the thinking of the fourth century.

This explains nothing. Why are the Pauline letters and the Acts of the Apostles so much at variance?


Except that Marcion does not disagree with most of Paul.

This is where I have to wonder - can you be serious?!? Referential integrity is a requirement for relational databases, which were invented in the last part of the 20th century to allow large institutions to keep customer phone numbers and addresses and billing data in the most efficient manner possible. It makes no sense for the sort of data that ancient historian deal with.

Kapyong

Gday,

So, your 'substantive evidence' is just your opinion that he 'appears to have been' a military supremacist and malevolent despot ?

That's IT ?


K.

stephan huller

Yes K that is all there ever was to this kooky theory. By the same logic ANY crime could be applied to ANY dictator in history even if it took place two centuries before said dictator. Its so embarrassing I sometimes wonder if the theory and its relentless promotion was the brainchild of some evangelical dysinformation effort to discredit mythicists ...

mountainman

If you do not think that it is rather strange that the New Testament's first official publisher had the mentality of a gangster is not sufficient cause to be contemplative, there was more listed Kapyong. I discussed the evidence that Emperor Constantine was the earliest widespread publisher of the New Testament. I discussed the evidence that the Council of Nicaea represented a failed attempt by Constantine to have the manuscripts of the New testament hurriedly "canonized".

I could continue with other evidence such as Robin Lane-Fox's analysis of Constantine's "Oration to the Saints" at Antioch reveals the Emperor as making a series of fraudulent misrepresentations of history, such as Roman poets in the period BCE writing of the Sybil's prediction of the birth of the New testament Canon Jesus. Or the evidence that after summoning attendees to Nicaea, and requesting written petitions, collected these written petitions and in the presence of the summoned attendees, ceremoniously burnt them - for the sake of ......, ..... "harmony".

What sort of evidence are you impressed with?
Does C14 rank anywhere?

mountainman

It provides the political context for the year 312 CE.
The year we know Eusebius took up his mighty pen.




This is not rocket science. Fourth century and far earlier investigators it is argued would also naturally expect both contradictions and inconsistencies between eye witness accounts. This is not new phenomenom, but ancient.

Ask these same questions of the "Historia Augusta".
What answers do you arrive at?


I disagree with this in entirety as a completely simplistic assessment. I have elsewhere written A Brief History of the RDBMS, after 20 years in the field. This is all over a tangent term "referential integrity". I have used it to mean something like "inter-corroboration of evidence".

Loosely, it can be applied to the state of the evidence as a collection. If the referential integrity is good, then the underlying data is most likely in a satisfactory state. If the referential integrity is bad, then the underlying data is most likely not in a satisfactory state, and all sorts of exceptions are appearing on the surface. The converse also normally applies.

At the end of the day, if there was some corroboration - some "referential integrity" - between the story of Eusebius for the period before 324 CE, and the evidence available in all the myriad fields of ancient history, which I have elsewhere exhaustively tried to list, then I would not be here. The problem I have is that when I examine the external corroboration for the mainstream "In Eusebius We Trust" postulate, I find nothing of any great certainty or probability. All I find is a mass of contradictions, a fact noted by many people, one of whom was convinced that "Eusebius was the most thoroughly dishonest historian in antiquity".