mountainman

Dear Philosopher Jay,

The Nag Hammadi codices, the new testament apochryphal literature corpus (ie: all the books which were not bound into the "library of the bible") and the C14 citations for these -- represent additional evidence over and above "the books of the bible". We are not going to get any (more?) clear answers (about the NT canon) until we start asking some questions about the evidence in our possession which although it is only indirectly related to the NT canon, must nevertheless be somehow explicated, and in the fullness of time, answered in such a manner so that the complete picture of "early christian origins and the bible" emerges. I think you'd agree that the general focus is not too sharp on some of the more important details.

First bound together and published (in its amassed state) by Constantine c.331 CE.

Best wishes,


Pete

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

I agree that we have a serious problem establishing criteria for dating most of the material.

In most cases, our interpretation of narrative material depends on what we know about the time and methods of production. For example, let us say that I do not know if Spiderman is a fictional or non-fictional character. If I am watching a movie about Spiderman, I might carefully observe the buildings and then look in architecture books to match the buildings. Based on that investigation, I can say that Spiderman probably lived at such and such a time and was in such and such a place. When asked about my certainty of time and place, I can then point to my architecture books and point to the scenes in the movie as evidence for where and when Spiderman lived.

Of course, my evidence won't convince anybody because they know or can quickly find out that the first time the Spiderman character appeared was in a comic-book called Amazing Fantasy in 1962. They know that comic-books were not produced to be reports of real events, but rather for reasons of pleasure. Reading about adventures of super-heroes brings pleasure. We have significant information about the dating and production of comic-books, which keeps us from mistaking comic-book superheroes from actual historical characters.

For a real example, yesterday, I watched a rather romantic and beautiful movie about Robert E. Howard, the inventor of Conan the Barbarian character, called "The Whole Wide World." I was not sure how accurate certain events were in the movie. Did he really live in a small town in Texas all his life and did he really die the way the movie indicated he died? I looked it up on Wikipedia and found the movie representation to be quite accurate.

Our problem is that we cannot do this with most of the Biblical texts. We really do not know the dates and conditions of their production. We may argue that this is because of the persecution of early Christianity, or because of the lack of interest in tracking and giving information about the production of fictional material, or because of deliberate fraud on the part of the early Churches.

What we really need are objective criteria by which we may obtain significant information about the dates and conditions of production of the text.

For many centuries, people, trying to demonstrate the historical nature of Jesus, have used information given from works of Eusebius to bolster the historical case. It is possible that he gave accurate information. It is also possible, as you indicate, that Eusebius simply started from scratch and virtually invented the whole thing.

My opinion is that Eusebius did not invent, but significantly distorted the history of Christianity.

Still, without any real trustworthy alternative source for information about the dates and conditions of production, it is difficult to prove any of the three hypotheses. Perhaps refocusing on the role of Eusebius will provide us with a better, if not definitive, understanding of the dates and conditions of production of the Jesus literature.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Doug Shaver

I don't consider "no history" to be logically equivalent to "no facts."

avi

I suspect that we have no clear data to indicate, persuasively, whether or not Eusebius, or any other fourth century author, distorted history, deliberately, invented history, deliberately, or honestly endeavored to transmit accurately as many details of the ancient record as he could.
Where is the evidence that he "distorted the history"? My personal belief is that he probably did distort history, but I write that in ignorance, not knowledge, of the data regarding Eusebius' record as a historian.

Roger Pearse

Good call. The anti-Eusebius stuff is rubbish as a rule.

Huon

Eusebius Church History (Book VIII Chapter 2) :

wordy

The purpose of these text are to create a social construct, a lived social reality not as reality is but how the religious text want it to be. The text create a religious world to live in, a kind of "Live Role Play" they submit to. A kind of "Political Correctness" but within a religious context. Still for political purposes to have control over everybody and all in life.

Not a description but a prescription on how to live.

Tammuz

There is no "official atheist view". Atheists simply do not belive in any god. It' nothing else.

Though it's probably rare, it is nothing inconsistent with an atheist believing that the Bible is the pinnacle of morality.

Roger Pearse

Seems OK to me, in the introduction to the Martyrs of Palestine. Your point?

It's always best to make an argument explicitly, rather than rely on insinuation.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Huon

My post #26 is an answer to the question of avi. There is no insinuation at all.