mountainman

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm202.html

Where was Constantine buried?

Duvduv

But then there's no evidence for such a centralized scriptorium OR for such an extremely sophisticated conspiracy. Nor does this evidence appear in the texts themselves.
And of course, why would Gnostic texts emerge far from the imperial center but the canonical texts could not? And why would these gnostics want to adopt the imperial cult anyway?!

sotto voce

... there was no-one left, according to surviving record, who believed as Christians believe. They had all been eliminated, by one means or another.

Of course, people who cannot find anything wrong in the Old Testament (except by turning themselves into fundies) may have to pretend that this was not so. People who cannot deal with the New Testament (except by inventing Platonism in it, when the NT is diametrically opposed to Platonism) may have to pretend that this was not so. That is, if they are so afraid of Christians who, having no human authority to corral them, challenge their way of life. They prefer sheep-like Catholics, whose behaviour is no different from their own; except for an hour, once in seven days! And people cannot find anything significantly wrong in OT or NT.

Likewise, and even more significantly, people in the first century and later could not find the Bible erroneous in any meaningful way; so they were 'forced' to make their own cardboard cut-out version, with a thousand novelties that, after a period of enforcement, they called 'tradition'. Which would be comical if it did not have atrocities associated. But the compelling nature of the biblical challenge is so strong that people are willing to sacrifice their intellectual reputations, and moral reputations, too. They are willing to associate their names, not just with foolish novelties, but with atrocities, knowing that, being in the majority, they will not be prosecuted; though of course, that may change.

So is Christianity is a democratic theocracy? Or a theocratic democracy? These questions cannot be answered by reference to people whose actions could result in criminal convictions, even executions. There must be reference to apostolic times, and/or to modern times, when Christianity is accepted as lawful belief and practice, in democratic countries; where people believe that 'two or three' who meet peacefully in the name of Christ form as valid a church as any. To attempt to deny their validity is to confess that their belief is the truth.

mountainman

See Fifty Bibles of Constantine

It is not difficult to imagine that the Pontifex Maximus did not have direct access to any scriptorium in the empire.



What is overly sophisticated in the idea of a ruler fabricating a "Holy Writ"?

See Ardashir's Avesta for the Zoroastrian Holy Writ, or later, the Quranic complilers with the Islamic Holy Writ.



Duvduv you appear to be misunderstanding the sequence of claims:

1) The imperial center fabricated the canonical texts.

2) They legalised these texts as the Holy Writ of the Graeco-Roman empire

3) Then as a reaction dissident Greek literate gnostics created alternative stories about the Jesus character and his Apostolic boneheads which were very popular with the common people. There was much book burning of these unofficial stories and many executions of their preservers. Here is what Eusebius says:

"the sacred matters of inspired teaching
were exposed to the most shameful ridicule
in the very theaters of the unbelievers.

4) Nag Hammadi many hundreds of miles up the Nile from the Christian/Imperial/Army controlled city of Alexandria seemed a safe place for Pachomius.


I dont think they adopted it, they lampooned it. They adopted the imperial story of Jesus and the Apostles and then wrote their own Gnostic Gospels and Gnostic Acts. One may call this mimicry or parody or in some instances satire. In Eusebius's assessment these people were blasphemous and heretical. These gnostics may well have been educated pagan academics voicing their literary skills against the monstrous tale that the Emperor was trying to pass off as non fiction.

Eusebius acts as the editor in chief of the Constantine Bibles and also sets himself up as the master heresiologist by commencing what became known as the INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM. At the head of the list of probibited books just after Nicaea were the gnostic acts and gospels authored by someone who would later become known as Leucius Charinus.

mountainman

Did the apostles attend Hogwarts School?

Sheshbazzar

Or, perhaps some really believed that they had a better or more authentic set of writings and doctrines than those selected by Bullneck & Co.

Just like the JW's of today sincerely believe that their organization and its 'version' of the NT is superior and more authentic than what has came out of Rome and her daughters.
They are very serious, and their writings are not intended as being parody, satire, or mockery of 'traditional' or 'mainstream' christianity. But simply reflect a legitimately different and opposing set of deeply held beliefs.
Gnostics simply and honestly held religious views, ideas, and doctrines that were significantly and fundamentally different from the ones which 'Catholicism' wished to force upon everyone.

Chili

I like it, and hither and thither they go and all the priest needs to know is that hither and thither they go, once a week as you say, and for the rest they can go and play.

It takes 6 years of proper indoctrination that should end in grade 6, and from there they are free to go to a different school (most often trade school), and a Catholic they will always be. Kind of much like Voodoo that is deeply ingrained in the blood and not Christian for sure as you know it to be.

I think we used to have 5000, or maybe 10.000 in our parish, I don't really know, with 1 pastor and 1 priest to run 6 masses on Sunday and 1 each day of the week. In total we had about 600 kids in gradeschool from grade 1 to 6, with 52 (all boys) in the biggest class I ever was.

sotto voce

The castle dates from the 9th or 10 century, which was, appropriately enough, in the Dark Age, when apostolic teaching was completely buried under a massive pile of 'tradition'. But there must be reference to apostolic times, and/or to modern times. Hogwarts is now seen as harmless enough precisely because of democracy— that was stimulated largely by Christianity, though also of course by a natural human desire for freedoms.

Duvduv

Mountainman, why do you believe the evidence that gnostic writings were NOT created by the imperial regime is more pursuasive than the argument that all the gospels were not created by the imperial regime?

Again, what internal evidence (either in terms of content, context or Greek language) do you believe exists which suggests the gospels were all written by a central scriptorium authority?

Duvduv

Mountainman, isn't it also fair to suggest that we cannot even know whether the first versions of the four gospels in the fourth century were as dissimilar as they are now, and how much were even altered as time passed over the years. I suppose you could argue that they may have been more similar than the current versions, especially if a GMark was the boilerplate. Of course this would stretch the dating of the paleography of fragments and codices quite a bit more. What do you think?