Jeffrey Gibson

What's obvious is that you can't read Greek and wouldn't know a quotation of a biblical book by a Father if it rose up and bit you on the butt.

Jeffrey

mountainman

I regard the assertions of the event of the "christian" Synod of Ancyra, and the assertions of the existence of "christian" bishops outside of Constantine's military dominion (such as at Ancyra and at Galatia, until the year 324 CE) as fraudulent.

The letter is represented by the later preserving christian historians to have been sent to the attendees whom Constantine summoned to Nicaea. As far as I am aware, the translation purports to be the full letter



Best wishes


Pete Brown

Ben C Smith

I repeat, aa5874: Were you even aware of To Autolycus 2.22.2 when you wrote that Theophilus does not refer to John?

Ben.

mountainman

It is also at least equally obvious that there is no reason to expect a small, persecuted and fictitious sect to leave behind "hard archaeological evidence.

The fact of the matter is that there is no evidence which bites us on the backside for the unambiguous confirmation of the existence of christianity prior to its explosion in the archaeological and carbon-dating citations of the fourth century. This is what the evidence is saying.

The argument to best explanation for this statistical distribution of evidence is that whoever invented the christian literature in the fourth century tendered with it a fraudulent pseudo-history. From this specific vantage point on the theories of ancient history which define our cognition of that period in antiquity, the output of Eusebius is simply deemed fiction.

The onus of the argument then becomes the task of providing an adequate and natural explication of any and all recognised and often referenced "christian archaeological citations" in the pre-Nicaean epoch, which I have completed in at least draft form here.

I do not see the theories of ancient history which involve the HJ as being able to have any argument of best explanation superior to the explanatory power of the above, since it additionally explains:

1) the appearance of the "christian NT apochrypha" as reactionary seditious polemic and parody against the "canonical crew" of the ministry of Jesus and the Twelve Apostles --- period from 324 CE onwards, under the leadership in the resistance to Constantine (and christianity) of Arius of Alexandria, a pagan ascetic in whose simple words rest the Arian COntroversy.

2) The Arian controversy (THERE WAS AN AGE WHEN JESUS WAS NOT)
3) The INVECTIVES of the Emperor Julian "Against the Galilaeans" (FICTION)
4) Analyses of the public opinion via the ANATHEMAS of christian "councils".
5) The mass migration of pagans to the deserts of Egypt and eslewhere during the fourth century as refugees from The Boss, including Pachomius (and thus Nag Hammadi implications)
6) The Nestorian Controversy of the 5th century.
7) The Origeniust COntroversy of the 4th/5th centuries.



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

FICTION. These are entirely recognisable by their Eusebian teethmarks. Everyone should know their Eusebius by heart. This appeared the motto of the extensive analyses of the German scholarship of earlier centuries. The author was employed to do a job by the Boss, for which he was well looked after by the Boss.

As an aside, advances in the understanding of ancient history have made inroads recently (ie: in the last 150 years) from the Coptic and the Syriac sources which were "underground" to the Greek and the Latin (readers, and "christian eyes")in the fourth century. Greek pundits have had to take the back-seat on many of these recent discoveries.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

In the first instance to "miracle" ...

On 28 October 312 the Christians
suddenly and unexpectedly
found themselves victorious.
The victory was a miracle -
though opinions differed
as to the nature of the sign
vouchsafed to Constantine.

Here I think M uses the word miracle to describe the state of suddenness and unexpectedness in which the christians found themselves associated to Constantine's military victory.

In the second instance ....

“The revolution of the fourth century,
carrying with it a new historiography
will not be understood if we underrate
the determination, almost the fierceness,
with which the Christians appreciated and exploited
the miracle that had transformed Constantine
into a supporter, a protector, and later a legislator
of the Christian church.”

Here I think M uses the word "miracle" to describe Constantine's transformation into becoming a supporter, a protector, and later a legislator of the Christian church. Notably, Constantine is not a christian. He is a supporter, a protector, and later a legislator of the Christian church.



Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Amaleq13

Suddenly you can't remember your own position? It must not have been very well thought out, then. Your original assertion was here.

You asserted an expectation of a "relatively large" body of "hard archaeological evidence" but, apparently, can do nothing to support that expectation except try to shift the burden to anyone asking for the basis of it.:huh:

aa5874

Who wrote gJohn 1.1? And when? And who is the John in "To Autolycus"? Were you aware that Eusebius claimed that there were more than one person named John?

mountainman

The references to chrestos are ambiguous and I think that this ambiguity was exploited at time the name christos was implemented at the state level of christianity with Constantine. The actual story of the references to the term chrestos is one of unentaglement IMO.


It would appear that Esuebius, who is our sole preserver of Athenagoras, and of the whole host of the Fathers (bless their cotton sox) needed to present some form of primitive precursors to the full blown belief in the fourth century orthodoxy which was then established. He also needed to establish precursors to the heresies of the fourth century. Enter the forgery of the author Celsus and the author Porphyry, and ultimately via the forgery of Tertullian to the author Leucius.

The CANON is one side of the christian literary evidence. On the flip-side to the canon is the apocrypha. Sooner or later we'll examine a theory of origins which attempts to explain both sides of this coinage, and with a time stamp on the actual minting of the christian solidus.

And yes, there were a legion of Johns in antiquity.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

On the contrary, as I recall, we already have a very large body of "hard archaeological evidence" drawn from the ground of the first three centuries, but, apparently, it contains nothing of great unambiguous note, and does nothing to support the "conjecture and expectation" that christianity existed.

The HJ is a conjecture - an unexamined postulate. Unexamined because we have no evidence by which to examine the conjecture. Hence the fiction conjecture may have more success in understanding the evidence.


Best wishes,


Pete Brown