Toto

What follows does not demonstrate that there is any evidence for your thoery.

Assumption and speculation.

Does not produce any evidence


So far, no evidence, just a question. (Unless you want to pretend that the date of a manuscript indicates the date of composition.)

Duvduv

Toto, why are questions and speculation in favor of an earlier Christian religion entitled to more leeway than those in favor of a later emergence of Christianity??

Toto

The house church at Dura Europas is proof enough for most people.

Most historians would consider the hypothesis that Christianity was invented by Constantine and Eusebius to be improbable. An invented religious would not have the contradictions and evidence of historical development that Christianity shows.

I have previously tried to explain to Pete that it is radical enough to posit that Christianity dates to the second century. And if he wanted to claim that Constantine made major changes to the religion, and that the Christianity of the fourth century differed in significant ways from the Christianity of the second and third centuries, that he would be in good company. But no - Pete insists on going out on a limb and claiming that the NT was written by Eusebius under Constantine's direction as a deliberate creation of a new religion that was arbitrarily forced on poor innocent pagans and Greek intellectuals.

We've been around and around on this, and Pete has tried his theory out on several different message boards and email lists. It's gotten no where. It doesn't make sense to anyone and it doesn't explain anything that alternative theories can't explain.

Toto

They are not. Why would you think so?

There are some topics that have been raised so often that it does not seem to be production to devote any more forum space to them.

mountainman

In the above post #29 I have for the sake of the argument thrown my theory out the window and assumed Christianity to have been extant in the earlier centuries. Did you miss this allowance?

The question becomes whether the gnostic authors who composed the gnostic gospels and acts historically existed prior to Nicaea.


I therefore don't understand any of this reply ...

Toto

The first paragraph that you cited was an aside to Duvduv, who asked a different question.

The reply below that does not depend on whether or not you will concede that Christianity existed before Constantine. You just have no evidence that Gnostics did not exist along with orthodox Christianity before Constantine. You seem to think that if you can cast doubt on the dates of the manuscripts, that this supports a late date for the contents. It doesn't.

mountainman

There are also many of these which are dated to the 4th century. For example the Church Historian Eusebius complains bitterly about the blasphemous "Acts of Pilate" appearing in the 4th century. Many of the texts are not mentioned until after Nicaea. Eusebius himself in many cases is the first witness to some of these gnostic texts. Beside a few palaeographically dated Greek fragments, the earliest manuscripts - in Coptic and Syriac and Latin - are 4th century or later.


The general problem is that it is the reserved right and modus operandi of "Biblical Scholars" to try and push the authorship of anything related to Christianity - orthodox or gnostic - into the earlier centuries. This essentially translates to a perceived reliance upon Eusebius - the master heresiologist - for the history of the gnostic opposition to orthodox Christianity.

Would Eusebius have lied about his historical enemies?

mountainman

The only evidence we have (aside from the palaeographical dating of a very few Greek fragments) is from the heresiologist Eusebius.



The manuscript tradition provides a starting point in the 4th century.

It is only the propaganda of the heresiologists that suggests an earlier dating.

It seems logical to question the reports of the heresiologists on their enemies.

We know they wrote pseudo-historical polemic and not history against the Manichaeans.

Toto

Not exactly. Orthodox or other believing Biblical scholars try to push the gospels and Paul as early as possible, but they tend to push the non-canonical material to a later date, to fit their idea that there was an early Jesus movement, and later Christians turned the historical Jesus into a spiritual figure and invented all those wild stories about him.

You can see this with the Gospel of Thomas. The Jesus Seminar would like it to be early, going back to the historical Jesus. Conservatives try to push it to the second century or later.

I don't see a motive for Eusebius to make the gnostic authors early. He would be more inclined to emphasize their late arrival on the scene, and therefore their unreliability, compared to the canon.

stephan huller

Unless Eusebius was preparing for the heralding of Pete as the messiah. Laying obscure references which only the true Australian gnostic redeemer could figure out. Like an ancient episode of Batman and the Riddler, only with an almost two thousand year lag.