Rooster

I appreciate the response, but I admit I am disappointed with the content. You realise the majority of what you said is as valid as my insistence that you read the Edda with faith in Odin and forget about evidence, don't you?

With regards to this:

If you were made aware of named cities in the Bible which did not exist at the time of the supposed event, how would you interpret that?

Johnny Skeptic

There is certainly nothing supernatural about the writers of false religious texts mentioning real places where they live and travel to. My word, no mentally competent person would write about cities that do not exist since that would immediately discredit their writings.

There is an ancient claim that Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot. Almost no one believes the claim, but almost everyone believes that Alexander existed.

Are you not aware that the Koran and some Hindu writings mention real places?

Johnny Skeptic

Yes, just like you would ask for evidence of evolution or Deism.

No, but my request is legitimate since many Christians claim that the Gospel writers were eyewitnesses as if that is impressive evidence. When Christians introduce something as evidence, it is reasonable for skeptics to ask them to corroborate the evidence.

Would you believe evidence against the global flood if it were presented? Would you believe evidence of interpolations if it were presented?

Do you believe what all religious books say without asking for independent verification? Are you suggesting that people should rubber stamp everything that the Bible says? Are you an inerrantist? If so, why?

mountainman

Can you or anyone else cite any corroborative evidence external to Eusebius for any event related to "Eyewitesses of Christianity" in the epoch prior to the 4th century? I put to you the argument that you cannot cite any item of unambiguous evidence to support the mainstream "belief" in Eusebius, and that therefore it is a case that "In Eusebius we have Faith".

spamandham

It's true that there is ambiguity in any given article of evidence, but that doesn't imply that the body of evidence is just as ambiguous.

When taken as a whole, you either have to conclude that Eusebius crafted a needlessly and amazingly complex forgery to include details like faking paleographic evidence before paleography even existed, and putting together an ambiguous early history of the church that looks like it was constructed from layers of redaction with evolving agendas and competing early factions...long before the analytical tools to discern such things were even conceived (except by Eusebius I suppose) - or we can conclude that Christianity really did evolve over the time prior to Eusebius.

Both ideas are a priori plausible, but when the details are examined, the Eusebius forgery idea is left wanting.

mountainman

Logically, the dismal state of affairs of corroborative evidence by itself does not imply that the entire body of presumed evidence - taken as a whole - is just as ambiguous.

However it does leaves room to ask the question.
And researching what the answer to that question may imply
Which is all I am doing

The religious cult implemented by the Emperor Constantine may not be wearing any authentic historical clothes. The evidence [b]

This claim seems to lack common sense. Handwriting analysis has existed since the invention of forgery, and we have examples of forgery as being regarded as a "fine art" in high places as early as the epoch BCE. Pytharorean writings were forged by people who commanded high prices from imperial collectors, such as Juba. These forgers and the people who were academics who preserved writings were not abysmally unconscious of different forms of writing styles, from scribes in the centuries past.

If the Hadrianic script is recogniseable and identifiable by academics of today, then it appears to me a very reasonable argument that academic scribes of the 4th century were also able to recognise it, and perhaps use it in order to add a certain element of "antiqueness" to the "suddenly found" canonical books of the "nation of christians".

Again, you must necessarily attempt to understand that the writings which we have under the name of "Eusebius" were themselves preserved by the successors and continuators of the epoch of Constantine. There has been plenty of time for internal "redaction to fit the dogma being presented by the imperially sponsored "christian scribes". Vatican redaction.

For classic examples see that post on the "Justinian Code". If the substance of the "Law Codes" was forged by 5th century imperially appointed scribes, then the same may well have been the case for the "religious codes" and the "Eusebian history".

Until we have some evidence for this, I see this as a conjecture and not a conclusion. It does not seem plausible to me to make conclusions in areas where we must admist we have no substantive corroborating evidence.

The details and citations to the "Forgery Mill" of the "orthodox church" are a huge mountain of citations which multiply as the centuries increase from the 4th century. That the "forgery or fabrication" of the new testament is a priori plausible then its about time we allocated a few resources in discussing its merits and detractions.

Prof

This thread is simultaneously enlightening (thanks to the more knowledgeable members) and hilarious (you-know-who).

Just so's ya'll know.

Prof.

spamandham

That's fine, call it a conjecture if you wish. As I've stated here several times before, your conjecture is certainly possible, and may even be reasonably plausible, but it nonetheless rests on several speculations for support, and is thus not the simplest position.

mountainman

While I am happy to immediately see that this conjecture rests on several speculations, what it is not often recognised is that it explains several other areas in a reasonable "completeness": (1) the origin of the canonical literature (as above). (2) the origins of the non canonical manuscript evidence - the "Gnostic gospels and Acts" and Nag Hammadi, syriac and coptic preservation, etc (3) the origins of various major "controversies" which characterise the first few centuries after the implementation of christianity in the 4th century, namely ---

a) Arian <<<===== MAJOR MAJOR,
b) Pachomian "diaspora/refuge" (???? nb: this is conjectural)
c) Origenist,
d) Emperor Julian's invectives.
e) Nestorian