Roger Pearse

Aren't there some problems with this claim? E.g. Do we know that Eusebius had read Antiquities when he wrote Contra Hieroclem? Do we know why Eusebius "must" quote Josephus, in a book about Apollonius? Do we know that, whenever someone fails to quote something, this is evidence that it did not exist? Do we know that a similar argument wouldn't show a false positive for other writers?

But what is the logical connection of all of this with the TF? How does it show that Eusebius composed it? The subject matter for Contra Hieroclem is determined by the subject of Apollonius, and the fake biography of him invented by Hierocles as a counter to Jesus, preparatory to persecution.

But aren't claims of this kind invariably highly subjective? I'd want to see the evidence, the evidence that indicates that Eusebius alone uses these words -- is someone really claiming that Eusebius is the only Greek writer in all time to call someone "a wise man"?! -- and then I'd want to see some form of evidence that this wasn't speculative.

Not sure that I follow the logic, as it seems to be as follows. If I find a forged bank note, this not merely proves that the bank note is not evidence for the existence of dollars, it proves that dollars were invented on the planet Tharg by two-headed aliens? It does not, of course; there might be many explanations.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Solo

(FYI, the last name of Tenzing was Norgay; in contrast Norge is what natives of Oslo call their land.)

I have been accused here of being an inveterate eiseget, a closet moslem, a mormon missionary, ....but a cheese manufacturing town (!) in Himalayas ???

Are you sure ? This does not come out as an insult, you know ?

....snip rant

"....and is easily distinguished" or "the two are easily distinguished"....... I don't know why you think it's necessary to open up with mindless hystrionics but that's your choice. All I say is that your analysis misapprehends the cognitive content of the passage and nixes it by removing a critically important element.

You are offended by my reference to mind-states yet as far as I am concerned I am on solid ground textually. Paul says he preached gospel first because of an illness. God revealed Jesus in him. He carries in his body the marks of Jesus. He was in third heaven, in his body or out of it, God only knows. The devil gave him a thorn in the flesh to interfere with his revelations. He admits his mind is at times unfruiful. He says he has the mind of Christ. He is perplexed, afflicted. On occasion, he despairs of life itself. He refuses to have sex and thinks it's a gift from God.
It is evident from the above that Paul's uses 'kyrios' in an esoteric, self-pointing fashion. Therefore what "the lord" says to the Pharaoh, or to "my lord" is irrelevant. Applying an analysis of general uses of "kyrios" will not help you to grasp what Paul was referring to, as he proposes a shared experiential context for the term to his audience:

1 Th 5:2 For you yourselves know well that the day of the lord comes like a thief in the night.

So what does Paul and Paul's audience know "well" or "perfectly" about the lord's creeping up on them that you do not know ? Any ideas what Paul is referring to ? It would not be something that is happening in his head, and the heads of his correspondents, by any chance ?

Now imagine this, if you can get out of Kathmandu : there are dozens of people around Thessalonia and Corinth and Antioch in Paul's time suffering from a common disorder. (In the US today, between 2-4% of population answers to a common low-level bi-polarity profile, 0.3-0.8% rate at more severe or clinical levels.)

They are dissatsified, morose and restless. Then, suddenly (the mean age of b-p onset is thirty) they get excited and wildly euphoric, and lose their sleep. As they progressively become insomniac their perception of reality changes, and they become more and more drawn into a pleasant delusional phantasmagoria. And then in some of them, boom.....it happens. Somewhere in a middle of one sleepless night their bodies seem to fill with light and they pass briefly (when the brain becomes synasthesic) into this "state" often described as indescribable. Paradox intended - do not get excited ! When they get out of this heavenly peekaboo, their epiphany seems to evaporate quickly, and within days they are in a psychotic hell. Eventually, as they fight their devils, they fall into a depressed stupor. The intellectually astute among them will look for a frame of reference. Psychiatry is light years ahead so how about the ideas the Jews have ? Isn't my experience a bit like that of Adam from the Jewish scripture ? A paradise; a feeling of intimacy with God, and then suddenly eviction (from this mind-state :devil1 in a tremendously agonizing, torturous spell, in which the attempts to recapture the just-acquired positive intensity of life will be rebuffed in feverish madness. (Remember the seraphs with flaming swords ?) So this guy or gal mixes around the Jewish smart people in the city, and lo and behold, there is this talk of Jesus, who could make people experience all these things (that I have just been through) which are signs of the end of the world and a God's kingdom coming to earth. (Wow ! My psychosis sure felt that way, except in reverse order !) Amazing ! I am not alone: there are other people who have had this sort of trip. They appear just as derailed and puzzled about it as I am. Apparently, God is sending messengers to spread the news of the heavens collapsing. Makes sense. Except, the guy or gal may be a bit conservative in their tastes and these Jesus people seem a bit strange (and some rough) lower class types. Along comes Paul.

He knows what he is talking about. He's been through a lot himself. When the lord burns his body, he leaves him a tottering vegetable. But he has it right: The Lord does come like a thief in the night. Sure. The seizure occurs suddenly only with a brief, ditinctly unpleasant aura before passing into an "ineffable state of bliss" (Dostoyevsky of his mind-state :devil1: during a grand mal). The ordeal of psychosis after the peak is the preview of the day of judgment, God's warning to you to mend your ways. The torture, the suffering, you have experienced and the afflictions you carry, Paul teaches, is the cross of Christ which the other Jesus folks seek to suppress from memory. But Paul says that is your ticket. You came through hell to be a spiritual man/woman. You passed the test of faith. If you suffered a death like him, you should get a life like his (meaning the "peak" of the pleasant phantasmagoria).

Therapeutically speaking, what Paul did was to give new reference to common psi phenomena occurring in bipolars (and to a certain degree in other challenging health problems) and take the bottom out of the downside of the syndrome. The suffering you have is not meaningless: it's a part of God's plan and you are life-insured with Jesus Christ hanging on the cross for your sins. You will be rewarded (or so Pauls prays); your ecstasy will not be frustrated in the afterlife. The lord himself will descend (and pick you up) with a cry of command....do not believe it and you are in peril of relapsing into eschatological madness, and the hell will last forever.

You are attempting to box in Paul's use of "kyrios" into classical frames for the word but it won't get you far. It is roughly the equivalent of evaluating the semantics of L. Ron Hubbard's "Clear" by referencing it with standard usage of a common English adjective. Paul transparently and consistently uses the term lord (Jesus (Christ)) esoterically, as a secret of ages recently revealed (to his ministry). He still distinguishes lord Jesus from lord God (I started to inventory it but it looks like a chore) and considers him subordinate to God, but both types of references are consistently timeless. Paul does not recognize Jesus who walked on earth as a teacher, only the example of Jesus' sacrifice (from which issues his authority as the risen Lord). This may appear to cause problems with reference such as the one 1 Cr 2:8, which refers to an event Paul considered historic. But in Paul's schema of the dual nature of man, the Lord in that verse still has diachronic quality. It is the spiritual phenomena that Paul expounds, not the individual bundles of flesh that carry them. Bottom line, Paul adapts kyrios to his own purposes, carving out a new semantic niche for the term which assumes, and testifies to, the Lord's dwelling in man.


:constern01:

It still changes nothing on the matter at hand: the act of the rulers' in 1 Cr 2:8 has a purpose: it illustrates the difference between God's wisdom and that of men. They acted without God's guidance, and are therefore doomed ! Without the mention of it, the passage does not make sense: you might as well elucidate your point of view by dragging in yaks, cheese, and mountain climbers.

Jiri

mountainman

Even the partial interpolation of bank notes is considered to be fraud. If Scotland Yard finds a partially interpolated bank note they open a new file marked in big red letters "ANOTHER FRAUD". Unbiased Biblical Historians are expected to do exactly the same thing with such evidence, and manifestly have done just so in significant numbers since the age of enlightment. (See above for a list > 20).

aa5874

If you ignore the evidence, then you will always say that there is no evidence.

It is because there is evidence of forgery why the TF was declared to be a forgery.

It is NOT always necessary to actually see someone carry out an act to make a determination about their actions. In circumstantial cases, such determinations are made with good results.

When the writings of Josephus are taken as a whole in conjuction with other writings of antiquity, the TF ,Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3. and 20.9.1 are all forgeries.

spin

You didn't need to be so petty, but as you have been, you should know better than to correct a better phonetic transcription than a common though hokey English one. Check out the local transcription.

You'd be petty here.

Obviously you can't understand the problem of a term being used with two separate referents at the same time. Hence the un-understanding:

Further brainfart.

I'm not offended by your reference to mind-states. My problem is your missing the whole point of the linguistic issue.

Very interesting but doesn't at all touch on what I was talking about.

ETA: I let this baby go out with the bathwater:

You should know that the day of the lord is straight out of Isaiah and any Jewish audience would know that. Obviously Paul is referring to god.

/End of ETA.

Rubbish. The equivalent would be Hubbard using his special use of "clear" and the common use of the word within the same communication without necessarily giving you any context clues.

You can believe what you want, but you merely assume o kurios by itself reflects a reference to Jesus by the hand of Paul.

You've come back to expounding your own opinions. Here are most of the references to o kurios in Romans. Which one's do you think refer to Jesus, which ones don't, and how do you know?

Rom 4:8
Rom 9:28
Rom 9:29
Rom 10:13
Rom 11:34
Rom 12:11
Rom 12:19
Rom 14:6
Rom 14:8
Rom 14:11
Rom 15:11


You don't deal with the discourse at hand. Hence you are doing eisegesis. You don't deal with the linguistic issue, but that's understandable. If you can't understand the problem of my using the term Jiri with two different significances at once then you won't understand the linguistic issue. Your smilie best describes your state:

:constern01:


spin

Minimalist

Another vote for total forgery...although we'll never know if done by Eusebius' hand or some unknown scribe.

I can easily envision some flunky knocking on Eusebius' door and saying "Hey, boss....look what I just found. It's an answer to a prayer....heh-heh."

In a crime you follow the money and one has to ask who benefits from this forgery. Somehow, I keep coming back to the first guy to make use of it. Of course, I readily admit to being a suspicious old bastard.

mountainman

Connie: next

Eusebius: Prostrating; prostrating, prostrating.

Connie: Ah our chief historical researcher Eusebius!

Eusebius: Prostrating; "My Caesar! My God!"

Connie: I have yet to hear you read to me what I want to hear from the history of that Jewish historian, whatever his name is. Specifically what this author says about our man Jesus. Tomorrow morning at sunrise, after I address the troops, bring the book to the officers kitchen. You will read it openly in greek and then latin, and I'll get Orobasius to read the German and Gallic. Do you understand me Eusebius?

Eusebius: Prostrating; "My Caesar! My God!"

Connie: next

Roger Pearse

I can see that it is important to you to believe this particular untruth, regardless of the lack of evidence for it. I do not share this urgency, however; I simply refuse to ignore the evidence, or to believe things for which there isn't any. I believe that I have already addressed your comments above anyway.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

dog-on

You mean like, "who was called Christ", short?

Solo

That's what you talked yourself into.

The day of the lord is out of Isaiah, but its coming like a thief in the night is not. Obviously, Paul is transferring, or adapting a common locution to carry a new meaning in a new context. So your certainty that Paul in this refers to God begs the question. You should be asking does Paul refer to God directly (like Isaiah) or does he refer to God's agency that he names 'Lord Jesus Christ' (four times in 1 Thessalonians). I think contextually there is little doubt that it is to the latter. The "coming of the Lord" transparently refers to Jesus' parousia.


Funny that you should be saying that given that you can't read contexts.

First of all, I have never claimed that Paul uses the term lord exclusively to refer to Jesus. You know that because I told you that. So what do you hope to accomplish with this BS ?

Ok, good that you have picked up Romans, because it is a letter addressed to Judaic traditionalists who do not know Paul and therefore Paul deploys specific tactics:

Rom 4:8 - Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. Quote is from Psalm 32:1-2, i.e. reference is to God

Rom 9:28-29 Reference frame here is Hosea and Isaiah, i.e. the uses are traditional.

Rom 10:13: for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 'the name of the Lord' refers to Jesus. Again, it is given by the context of the passage. 10:9-12 sets up the statement. Paul shifts and an extends the theophanic address. 'lord is lord'. You profess lord Jesus as lord God's salvation.

Rom 11:34: 'mind of the Lord'. Reference is to God, whose mind is unknowable. Compare with 1 Cr 2:16 which contrasts Christ and the Lord (the Father).

Rom 12:11: Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. I would say this is Paul's ruse he sets up for 'saving his fellow Jews'. You serve the lord (God) by professing lord Jesus as your salvation. On the balance, I would say the reference is to Isaiah's terms of service.

Rom 12:19: The wrath is God's alone. Paul's Jesus is not wrathful (except when Paul is unaware, like in Galatians). There has been a thread going on the board on the meaning of Luke 19:27. The king in that parable (in Pauline terms) is of course not Jesus, but the sovereign God.

Rom 14:6: He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. That one's too easy !

Rom 14:8: Ditto

Rom 14:11: It is written: " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' " The lord here is Jesus, echoes Carmen Christi.

Rom 15:11: "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to him, all you peoples." Since 'lord is lord' and Paul was sent to preach the Junior to the juniors, my bet is Paul really means "praise the lord". How's that, spin ?

:constern01:

Hmmm...here is a really scarry thought, spin: 'what if Jiri and others can see that my vaunted linguistic expertise does not quite cover my naked confusion in matters to which I cannot relate to in a meaningful way ?'

Jiri