avi

a. forgery is "natural";

b. why assume that the task is too difficult? Why not test the hypothesis, with living students at a university? Say 40 students, each writing a chapter in a fictional text, ostensibly history. Event approximately 200 years before present. Characters defined by Instructor, but with instruction to include new characters as they wish. Text of students to be garnished with sufficient local color from the era 200 years previous, to give the impression to any naive evaluator, that the chapter was written 200 years earlier. "Instructor" then need only collate, proofread, and expand on interesting chapters. Final version to be submitted to a jury of historians, as an original document authored by Joe Blfstk (no vowels in his family name). 100% fiction, but I bet more than one member of the jury will buy it as authentic....

avi

stephan huller

Neither of you have read Irenaeus so to make a statement like 'it's a forgery' is pointless. If you guys said 'I had this idea that maybe everything was forged' you wouldn't get into the trouble you do. If you haven't read Irenaeus you can't say it is a forgery. I bet you haven't read a single book on this list, let alone the New Testament material, from end to end. Therefore you can't make this crazy assertion because it all sounds, well ... crazy and unproductive.

Irenaeus is the first systematic commentary on the New Testament and as Harvey notes, his collection of scripture come from a Syriac source not a Latin or Greek collection. As such this is only one of a hundred and fifty reasons why you can't make this fit within your wacky theory. The next reason as I said is that Irenaeus is so inhumanly boring that it has to be the product of a really boring person not an artificial conspiracy. No one could be that boring artificially. Crime is by nature ... interesting and exciting.

Toto

It hardly explains the facts as well as the standard hypothesis that the church was an underground organization, and much material was destroyed by the Diocletian persecution or lost due to the normal forces of history.

In addition, from the Livius link,

As long ago as 1889, it has been suggested that the work was composed by one single author. (This idea was proposed by the great German Altertumswissenschaftler Hermann Dessau in a classic essay "Über Zeit und Persönlichkeit der Scriptor Historiae Augustae", in the journal Hermes.) A more recent stylistic analysis using computer techniques has confirmed this hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt.

On the contrary, Biblical analysis continually suggests more than one author for the NT, sometimes for single books in the NT - not to mention the variety in the Patristic material.

Why is there any merit to the idea that an author was instructed to prepare a pseudo-history? Is there any indication of this, as opposed to the idea that an author took it on his own to write this?

stephan huller

But because you haven't read Irenaeus or any scholarship on the development of his five books you don't realize how stupid the suggestion is that the whole thing was fabricated from scratch is. Internal evidence makes this impossible. Each book in the series was written after a period of time had elapsed since the last book has been published. You simply don't know what you are talking about. You should have read the books you date to the fourth century before dating them to the fourth century, don't you think?

Toto

This is all veering off into fantasy land. Do you think that any foundation would provide a grant for this study? That any subjects could be found who would take it seriously enough to participate?

It may be theoretically possible to pull off this conspiracy, but what is the likelihood of your scenario? And why would anyone go to this amount of effort, when it is much easier to found a new religion based on a charismatic bipolar preacher?

stephan huller

Exactly Toto,

The real lunacy which gets lost in the daily struggle with these madmen is why start a religion set almost 300 years before Nicaea and have to do all the work of establishing a hundred boring authors to fill in the gap between now and 30 CE? Boring authors and individuals like:

Simon Magus (0-50), Jude (0-60), Barnabas (0-61), Paul (20-65), Matthew (0-70), Mark (0-70), Luke (0-70), John (0-70), Peter (0-70), Clement of Rome (18-98), Ignatius of Antioch (40-117), Aristides the Philosopher (70-134), Basilides (120-140), Marcion (130-140), Papias (110-140), Quadratus (70-140), Agrippa Castor (90-145), Aquila of Sinope (of Pontus) (90-150), Aristo of Pella (130-150), Polycarp (110-155), Valentinus (120-160), Epiphanes (130-160), Marcion of Sinope (110-160), Justin Martyr (150-160), Isidore (140-160), Carpocrates of Alexandria (80-160), Minucius Felix (140-170), Melito of Sardis (165-175), Dionysius of Corinth (165-175), Excerpts of Theodotus (150-180), Athenagoras of Athens (175-180), Apelles (160-180), Apollinaris Claudius (120-180), Julius Cassianus (160-180), Hegesippus (110-180), Heracleon (150-180), Ptolemy (140-180), Pinytus of Crete (130-180), Rhodon (175-185), Theophilus of Caesarea (175-185), Tatian (135-185), Theophilus of Antioch (180-185), Irenaeus of Lyons (175-185), Apollonius (136-186), Anonymous Anti-Montanist (193-193), Maximus of Jerusalem (185-195), Polycrates of Ephesus (130-196), Victor I (189-199), Mathetes (130-200), Diognetus (130-200), Clement of Alexandria (182-202), Apollonius (200-210), Pantaenus (190-210), Serapion of Antioch (200-210), Tertullian (197-220), Bardesanes (180-220), Caius (200-220), Hippolytus of Rome (180-230), Ammonius Saccas (155-245), Octavius of Minucius Felix (160-250), Alexander (of Cappadocia,Jerusalem) (150-250), Cornelius (of Rome) (200-253), Cyprian of Carthage (200-258), Novatian (201-258), Dionysius (of Alexandria) the Great (200-264), Dionysius of Rome (210-268), Gregory Thaumaturgus (212-275), Paul of Samosata (200-275), Hermias (210-280), Malchion (of Antioch) (220-290), Anatolius of Laodicea in Syria (222-290) Victorinus (bishop) of Petau (240-303), Arnobius (245-305), Phileas (Bishop) of Thmuis (250-307), Pamphilus (250-309), Peter of Alexandria (250-311), Methodius (250-311), Miltiades (Pope 311-314)

It's crazy. Why not start with Mani who was a much more recent phenomenon?

spin

Why not with the syncretizing Bardaisan (who Porphyry briefly mentions as Bardesanes, "On Abstinence...", 4.17f), the fore-runner to Mani?

stephan huller

But of course we can already predict the dingbat response of our colleagues. "Bardesanes was mentioned but not as a Christian. He was only made a Christian later.". To even entertain the idea that there were all these little conspiracies and conspiracies within conspiracies is so ludicrous it defies logic. It is like sitting down at a blackjack table and EXPECTING to hit Blackjack (a black Jack and an ace) thirty times in a row. This has never happened in the history of gaming, nor did the fourth century conspiracy in the history of Christianity.

spin

That would explain why it is the Syriac writing Ephrem of Nisibis who has to take on the task of dealing with Barsaisan's followers, a situation unrelated to the Greek world of Constantinople, wouldn't it?


spin

avi

Well, I may, or may not, qualify as a bat, (they are quite intelligent animals, and my sonar skills have subsided of late,), but, I certainly can claim, without fear of boasting of undue, and discretely imperceptible, brilliance, the mantle of dingbat.

The problem I see, with citing Bardesanes, is that he is a presumed Christian. Mani was not a Christian. He was a Buddhist, or a Zoroastrian, but not a Christian, in my opinion.

That is why I so vigorously oppose the notion that Mani claimed to be "The Paraclete", a nonsensical term, in Buddhism/Zoroastrianism.

The idea that someone would claim to be The Paraclete, makes sense only in Judaism, a religion of people all puffed up in themselves, the sort of folks who imagine themselves superior to all others. Mohammed, the Camel drover and thief, was the sort of person who would make such a claim, not Mani.

Mani would not have succeeded in building the biggest religion of the third century, by running around proclaiming himself "The Paraclete", (to people who have no idea what that means), and labeling detractors "dingbats".

Study a bit of Buddhism, and then you will see why Eusebius' characterization of Mani, in Historia Ecclesiastica is so laughable.

avi