3DJay

Contra Celsum is a total forgery? Cite?


Peace

mountainman

As a separate and distinct issue from the hypothetical reconstruction
of the two second century forgeries, yes. I agree with the author's
assessment of the forgery. I do not have to agree with all issues.


Good question. I dont know at present.


Before the age of carbon dating technology, the "art" of
handwriting analysis was all there was around. Times change.



A couple of things ...

1) See my comments on maintaining a distinction between
"conspiracies" and what if generally known about the
rise to power of maleovolent despots, and dictators,
and other military supremacists. The thread is this:
Constantine's Bible: "conspiracy theories" vs "absolute political power"


2) An example 100 years before Nicaea, with the King of Kings
Ardashir, who created the nation of Iran, and a rebadged
monotheistic Zoroastrian religion out of an ancient hymn,
and who destroyed the record of the previous civilisation
(the Parthian). Deathbed advice to son:

“Consider the Fire Altar
and the Throne as inseparable
as to sustain each other."

Further data here

mountainman

Did Constantine Invent Christianity?

I dont think you'll find a citation for Celsus being
a total Eusebian forgery outside of the above.

mountainman

I use it loosely to represent "our selection". I dont know that
this necessarily implies a singularity. I am aware that research
presents further data that must be integrated into the picture.
So the theory is altered in accordance to the evidence. In some
cases, the hypotheses may need to be revised.

In my case I only have one hypothesis, as explained: Eusebius
was ordered to write a fiction and a pseudo-history.

J-D

Then you haven't thought the point through carefully enough. If you use the phrase 'our selection', it implies a reference to the (single) out of a number that has been selected. And you have still not explained why you select this one hypothesis out of all the possibilities.You haven't yet explained how you integrate all the existing data into your theory. For example, how do you explain, in your theoretical framework, the inconsistencies between the Gospel accounts? Just to repeat the one example I already mentioned, how do you explain, on your hypothesis, the existence of inconsistent genealogies for Jesus in Matthew and Luke? Doesn't this 'falsify' your hypothesis?

mountainman

On the contrary, you have not understood what I intended to outline
in my previous post with the example concerning Porphyry. The hypothesis
being explored is single: "Eusebius was ordered to fabricate fiction".

Eusebius, and others inform us that Porphyry wrote Against the
Christians. If the hypothesis being explored is logically correct,
then either Porphyry wrote this text after the rise of Constantine's
new religion with effect from 312 CE at Rome, or he did not ever do
so, and it was forged at Constantine's command so that he could
righteously condemn the pagan Porphyry, and edict for the
destruction of the writings of the leading academic of the empire,
to be replaced by Constantine's own selection of texts: the
Constantine "Bible".

The hypothesis is single, but the implications and possibilities that
are contingent upon this (or any one) hypothesis, are multiple.
For example, we know Porphyry was born c.234 CE. Now, it is
possible that he lived long enough to have met Constantine face
to face in Rome 312 CE. He would have been 78 years old in this
case. We are told by Eunapius, wrt Porphyry:
No other ancient historian seems to have reported how or when
Porphyry departed from life. This is amazing. Go and search this
issue out. However we have Constantine saying (c.325) that:

As therefore Porphyry,
who was an enemy of the fear of God,
and wrote wicked and unlawful writings
against the religion of Christians,
found the reward which befitted him,
that he might be a reproach to all generations after,
because he fully and insatiably used base fame;
so that on this account his writings
were righteously destroyed;

It begs examination.

Constantine wanted four independent accounts of "The Life of God".
He knew he was writing a fiction, but he also knew that there was a
great social memory in the empire of the 1st century neopythagorean
sage, author and miracle-worker Apollonius of Tyana. He wanted to
eradicate this memory, and so he fabricated the gospel accounts.

He understood they could not be identical accounts. They had to
disagree in certain things, but they had to agree in certain things.
He had the actual truth of 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries before him,
but he confounded the historical accounts, by omitting reference
to Apollonius, and by having his sponsored minister of propaganda
and literature, Eusebius, write a long treatise against Apollonius.

The hypothesis "Eusebius was ordered to write fiction" is single, but
how we are to explain the extact mechanism and series of steps by
which this was enacted involves a number of possibilities to be
selected and examined.

At present I am inclined to consider that they simply used the Eusebian
canon tables in reverse. In other words, knowing they were trying to
create a fabrication of four independent accounts which had to differ
in a reasonable statistical distribution of issues, they understood there
would be agreement on certain issues between the four authors, and
on other issues only three authors would agree, on other issues only
two of the authors would agree, and lastly, there remained a set of
issues presented only by one of the four authors.

Therefore, the creation of the four accounts essentially simply depended
upon which of these issues (meaning events, sayings and people) would
fall into the above categories (ie: agreed by 4, by 3, by 2 or only one).

The Eusebian canon tables reveal a distinct and finite set of these issues
that are categorized as I have described above. They are claimed to have
been a product of research into the text, but they could just as easily
been used to generate the four gospels from a list of events, people
and sayings. Database/spreadsheet technology was available for this
task in the form of Origen's hexapla technology.

J-D

Exactly. I understand that perfectly well. And that is the basis for my objection to your whole approach: you have no justification for restricting your exploration to a single hypothesis.Indeed. If the hypothesis being explored is correct, highly implausible conclusions follow. The rational move is to explore other hypotheses without such implausible implications.Yes. So what? What is your point here?Is it? I don't see why. Do you expect ancient historians to record the time and circumstances of death of everybody they mention? Why? I wouldn't.What makes you think this quotation is pertinent? It does not advance the investigation in any way I can see.That doesn't explain why it is the only one you examine. Don't other hypotheses beg examination?You have no evidence for any of these assertions. They are all just ex post facto special pleading.You have no evidence for any of these assertions. They are all just ex post facto special pleading.What this means is that in order to cling to the position you have arbitrarily taken you need to make more arbitrary and unjustifed assumptions: more special pleading.You have no evidence for any of these assertions. They are all just ex post facto special pleading.You have no evidence for any of these assertions. They are all just ex post facto special pleading.Do you have any evidence for the pre-existence of these canon tables, or is that just another arbitrary assumption?

mountainman

But who are you to tell me what questions I should
and/or should not ask of ancient history?


The author of the canon tables is usually given
as "Eusebius and/or Ammonius". My single hypothesis
allows me to consider Eusebius manufactured the
gospels out of an atomic "quelle" of over 600 source
sayings, events and references, by using these
canon tables as described.

J-D

Who said I'm trying to tell you what questions to ask? I'm not. You can ask what you like, say what you like, and (within the board's rules) post what you like to this board. And so can I. I can evaluate your methodology and point out the fatal flaws in it. And that is what I have done.That your assumption supports your conclusion is unsurprising, and does not change the fact that they are both unjustified.

mountainman

Neither the assumption nor its conclusion are unjustified
with respect to the known evidentiary citations of ancient
history (which is a separate field to "Biblical History" and/or
Eccesiastical History").

They may appear to be unjustified with respect to the
notion of "Ecclesiastical History", but the problem with
this position is that "Ecclesiastical History" has no
evidentiary basis earlier than its inventor Eusebius.

We know that Eusebius wrote the abomination during
the years 312 to 324 CE, which unhappily matches the
rise to supreme power of a miltary supremacist, Constantine,
who lo and behold publishes the very first bible.

How do you explain the coincidence?