mountainman

It is certainly not, according to Momigliano, an impossible scenario,
that the scriptores of the Historia Augusta may have been on
the payroll of what, in todays political terminology be called, a
malevolent despot.

But what difference do the number of scribe farms make?
Was Pamphilus martryed for the cause of Constantine's fiction?
Was Constantine's son, and wife, and associated innocents
also martyred for the cause of a malevolent despot's fiction?

"And remember,
where you have a concentration
of power in a few hands,
all too frequently men with the
mentality of gangsters get control.

History has proven that.
All power corrupts;
absolute power corrupts absolutely."

-- Acton

Peter Kirby

Don't be sloppy. Explain your theory on who wrote these texts.

mountainman

Occam might reply to this with the assertion that the
theory operates perfectly well on:

* an unspecified number of nameless and expendable scribes,
* one editor and
* one out of control military supremacist who's brigandage
provided plenty of gold for all sorts of construction projects.

susfubb

With Apologies to Mr. Kirby (whom I have 'met' through another member in Yahoo's achristianvsatheist debate club in its heyday, back when it was worth posting there), and renowned others here whom I have only read:

Given: I am way out of my scholarship league with Mr. Kirby & mentioned others, but I've done my searching within 9 public college courses, studied/ debated within private groups, as well as having read OT & NT at least a dozen times, including 8 deliberate cover-to-cover "marathons" in 5 translations: Douay, King James, New KJ, NASB, NIV.

So, please accept my "contribution" at face value - from an ordinary American who has spent a great deal of time and effort seeking "answers" to our human reality. I went through years in my early adult life trying to come to grips with what I found to be not only contradictions in Bible texts, but cruelty and vengeance beyond the worst of human traits - events and emotions that only the most egotistical, sadistic, and perverted of HUMAN minds could encompass. Yes, there were passages containing some graciousness and foresight, but nothing beyond the caring and empathy that any wise and well-experienced person could write today, or has not, in fact, been trumped a multitude of times by such wise mortals throughout our species' known history.


It seems to me that the most damage that could be done to organized Christianity (denominations in the US, anyway) is that the known history of how the Bible came to be in its current forms became widespread knowledge.

This wouldn't be that difficult to accomplish. The promises of honest Christian ministers/ missionaries should bear up under scrutiny. When ETERNAL salvation is offered, those so offering should be proud to be held to a similar sort of 'truth in advertising' to which, say, medical providers are held when they proffer (or suggest) life-changing results. (yeah, when pigs fly...)

Let those offering eternity be proud to tell the unembellished truth of how the written OT came to be. let them admonish any seeking their offer of a forever of forgiveness/ redemption/ salvation/ rebirth/ heaven/ paradise/ etc. that they MUST know the entire history of: the applicable denomination/ sect, the Judeo/Christian Church (from 800 BCE to present is appropriate), religions/ practices/ beliefs/ politics preceeding & accompanying the above, and - especially - of the Bible and how it came to be as we know it today.

So, in my humble opinion, the most dire threat to present-day organized Christianity (& any other organized religion), is education and truth. Please allow me to add a heartfelt AMEN, So Be It. ~jill

Peter Kirby

Occam turns, I'm sure.

Where did these "nameless and expendable" scribes come from?

I shouldn't have to ask these questions, of course. If you had slightly more than a half-assed idea of what you are proposing, all of this should have been thought through already.

By the way, you do know the difference between the abilities of a scribe and the abilities of an author, do you not? Most scribes could not be authors, and most authors chose not to be scribes.

mountainman

Does it really matter.
Occam has the thumbs down.
They were hired by the boss.
If they performed ...

All that is critical to the theory has been repeatedly
assessed against incoming citations.

Occam has the thumbs down.

Money speaks louder than the abilities of either.
And it is common knowledge that the threat of
death also pushes inspiration and production.

Peter Kirby

Dude, if you want your theory to be taken seriously, the first step is to start taking it seriously yourself.

Let's take a single example, three of the works--Protrepticus, Paedagogus, Stromata--attributed to Clement of Alexandria. Explain who is supposed to have written them, by what procedure was the composition, and what role Eusebius had in them. As much as possible, connect your answer to the text of the Protrepticus, Paedagogus, and Stromata.

If you can't do that, you're not taking your own theory seriously. And if you can't take it seriously, and work out its implications, how is anyone going to be able to take you seriously enough to put an effort into the refutation you keep asking for?

"I don't wanna waste my time." -- Sum 41

Peter Kirby

Thank you for this.

I would contend that people like Pete Brown (and Dan Brown!) are counterproductive to 'the cause', because they use argument from ignorance, spread misinformation and halftruth, and generally rely on their reader to be even less versed in the subject matter than they themselves are. Then, when the inevitable refutations to the likes of Dan Brown come in (sorry, Pete hasn't gotten a bestseller yet for his own brand of nonsense), people feel rather contentented that their own bucket of balogna has been preserved.

The only worthwhile way to fight error and nonsense is with "education and truth," as you say, which is approximated by careful study of argument and evidence with as fair a mind free of precomittments as can be had, and communicated through the works of men and women such as Crossan, Ehrman, Armstrong, and Pagels. These people are the ones actually on the front lines of defense against errorism, certainly not those who peddle their cobbled-together grand unifying theories on Usenet and web boards. These last should probably have stuck to alt.surfing and saved everyone some grief.

mountainman

The possibility that Eusebius wrote this trilogy of texts in the
fourth century, and then fraudulently presented it as an historical
work by an historical author needs to be examined with care.

Here is is a summary of the three works:

In the Protrepticus he exhorts the pagans to abandon their errors, - then he will convert them (προτρεπων);
in the Paedagogus he will teach him how to lead an honest Christian life (παιδαγογων);
finally, in a third work he will instruct him in the dogmas of the Catholic faith and will explain to him the speculative truths of his new religion (επι πασιν εκδιδασκων). It was therefore a complete theology, - apologetical, moral and dogmatic, - that Clement purposed to write.

From the perspective of ancient history it is not impossible
that in fact this trilogy of works was written by Eusebius.

It is simply a rehash and summary of the material he had
already gathered in other works which are attributed to
Eusebius, such as HE and In preparation.

He assembled the prenicene christian ecclesiastical history,
and its texts, such as these, as part of the fabrication of
the Galilaeans -- a massive literatire campaign by the
military supremacist Constantine, which was crowned by
the publication of the Constantine Bible c.331 CE.

mountainman

Dan Brown and most MJers (along with the JH crowd)
are infatuated with the pseudo-history tendered by
Eusebius.

Ecclesiastical history was an invention of the fourth
century under the regime of Constantine, and it is by
no means impossible that the invention was tendered
with a pseudo-history.

I separate myself from Dan Brown, and most MJ and
all HJ "theorists" because the postulate and theory
that I am putting forward for discussion is based in
the field of ancient history, not ecclesiastical
history.


The logical implication of the postulate that Eusebius wrote
a bag of fiction is that all the entire prenicene christian texts
(including the gospels) were fabricated in the fourth century.

The Historia Augusta was an attempt to fabricate a
political history, and it is not impossible that Eusebius and
the scriptores of this very sorry work, were known to each other.

What grief exists in logic?