mountainman

I was looking for the punic literature and histories.
A city and its culture is not a pile of clay bricks.
What did the Romans leave of the literature?

Why does the author of this parody have the
wind blowing straight at Carthage at over
one hundred miles per hour?

Were the ROmans now burning the Greek literature?
Hello? Fourth century burning.

How would you like to be bound
by your two big toes to the top
of a mast and sail by an aggressive
Christian angel at the bidding of
an inept, stupid and illiterate Apostle,
while the sailing ship was averaging
over 100 miles per hour between
Caesarea and Carthage?




Best wishes,


Pete Brown

figuer

MM, your methods of historical analysis are impressive.*

I suppose it's just a matter of days before every Biblical scholar accepts your "theory" concerning the Thug-Constantinian invention of Christianity.

*Impressively absurd.

mountainman

Hi Toto,

In case I am not making myself clear.
Your comments cannot be allowed to
stand without some form of consensus.


Let me paint the picture,
step by step -- again.

1) Philip is shown to be illiterate.
2) Philip is shown to be annoying.
3) Philip orders the captain around.
4) Philip prays to peace for big winds.
5) Philip faces the wrong way for the wind he wants.
6) Philip, the Christian Apostle, not the Jew
-- in a nutshell -- is inept.

So far before we then read the situation
in which the innocent bystander - the
Jew Ananias, finds himself ...

Why should be be ordered around by
a person with the above 6 characteristics?



The Jew's "blasphemy" summoned the wind.
It was the power of the Jew Anianus
by which the wind was summoned.

So the Christian is painted as illiterate,
annoying, bossy, and grossly inept, and
in the first introduction to the Jew we
find he is presented with the power to
summon the wind.

DO you take my point that this is in fact definitely
not a text in which the joke is being on the
Christians -- the Christians, through their apostle
are the subject of the joke.

It is nothing of the kind Toto.
It is a parody of the "christian ministry"
of the fourth century. The early christian
ministry of state -- we know for a start --
were tax-exempt. But they were also
illiterate, annoying, bossy, and grossly inept.


The Jew had ancient knowledge.
He knew the truth --- of the fiction.

Notice the use of the present tense


What's changed?

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

mountainman

Well there would be one sub-thesis by which
some of the Biblical scholars might sit up
and take notice, involving the solution to
an outstanding cryptographic problem.

However, as I cannot obtain the necessary data
on this problem, I cannot presently envisage me
even understanding the problem, let alone any
acts of contribution towards the resolution of
the problem.

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

* Sorry, no footnotes

mountainman

Continuing through the text ....

One thousand miles in a day ...
The Caesarea to carthage run,
powered by the blashemy of
Ananias.


Ananias had already suffered at the hands
of the aggressive Christian angel, and had
felt its power. He displays fore-knowledge
of the narrative (to be shown following).

Ananias is wise.
Philip is illiterate.



Philip dismisses the 495 men and all the
other passengers who had booked their
fare on this boat from Caesarea to Carthage.

What an annoying habit!

I wonder how the captain took to his confirming?
Would he say, for a second time, to Philip ..

Do not annoy me!



Not only is Philip inept, illiterate and stupid,
he is also very superstitious.




What opposition is this?
Will Philip prevail against such darstedly odds?
Will our conquering idiot-hero prevail?





Stay tuned for the answer ...
A infidels tale of christmas.

mountainman

Continuing with the text ...


Oh how cool is that!

Philip says fall after the ruler had fell.
Is Philip speaking in Aramaic?
(We know its not Latin or Greek)
Does the ruler understand his language?

Such is the power of "crossing yourself".
But did the ruler understand Philip's words?
Philip was not speaking Latin or Greek.
He was an annoying inept imbecile.


Oh the power of the Christian gospel!
The ruler of Satan in Carthage
has been overthrown.

Time for Christianity to move
into the business for itself...


Just as Annias had predicted.
Annias is prescient.
Philip is stupid and powerful


Now that Philip had driven out
the ruler of Satan (at Carthage)
the city was his. He could now
preach Christianity.


He did nothing to alay their fears.
He performed no healing of the sick.
He did not offer any comfort to the poor.
He did not take any interest in the people.
He simply went back to the ship.

They must have heard about the enormous wind,
and the fact that he was bound by an aggressive
christian angel, by his toes, to the top of the sail,
and that he had caused the wind to blow by his
sotto voiced blasphemy.

They were a curious crew
in that synogogue.

Ananias had had the wind put up him
by an agressive Christian angel.
How would you like to be tied to the top
of the sail in a hundred mile an hour cyclone?


Stephen didn't like the Jews?


The fate of the Jewish elders is gradually
extended to rediculous lengths ...

We are building into a climax.
Notably again ... Ananias does not get
to the enumeration of Jewish history
relevant to the New Testament Jesus.



The climax of the Christian faithful:
a jewish martry of christ standing
in the jewish synogogue, angelic ...

Oh my goodness!
How fucking cool!

Go you wonderful wonderful person!
Like an angel! Did you hear that?
This has got to be a top story.

Ananius has some guts!
Our angel Ananias ...


Oh My God !!!!



They did what to this poor
innocent angelic man?

What a fucking joke!
Kung Fu in the synogogue?

What sort of martial artist priest was this?

And why in heavens name would a synogogue
full of Jews bury an unknown man, possibly a
heretic, and possibly a convert to christianity,
in their holy synogogue, or indeed anywhere
on its grounds? Why wouldn't they simply
bury him outside of the town walls like usual?



More later ....

mountainman

Toto,

Did you see my response to this here?

The joke is certainly and without ambiguity on the christians.
An aggressive Christian "angel" may certainly have bound a
Jew by the toes to the top of the sail for his blasphemy against
the name of Jesus Christ, at the bidding of Philip, but the Jew
was simply telling the truth (from a non-christian viewpoint).

The appearance of the wind driving the entire ship arrived with
the blasphemy of the Jew.

This "revenge fantasy" as an explanation
is entirely without merit or support in the
text, taken as a whole.



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

ApostateAbe

If you want to make the case that the manuscript is a parody, perhaps you should do a study of parody. I figure that good parodies have the following characteristics:

• Parody is meant to ridicule original.
• There are exaggerations of the ridiculous points of the original.
• There is lack of content on the persuasive points of the original.
• Every passage of the parody is meant to ridicule original, with no wasted content containing normal passages.
• The parody is subjectively funny.

See if the Acts of Phillip meet such a list of criteria.

Toto

How could I miss it?

I think you are misreading it. Philip prays for wind, the Jew blasphemes, and then the wind appears - but it was as a result of the prayer, not the blasphemy. The Jew's blasphemy results in the angel supsending him by his toes.

Obviously we disagree. Philip had adventures in which supernatural agents punish his opponents. It looks silly to 21st century readers, but you have to read in by its own terms, for a fairly unsophisticated time.

mountainman

How do you know this?

The narrative reads:
1) Philip prays in the wrong direction for wind.
2) The Jew blashemes against Jesus Christ.
3) The wind fills the sails.
4) The aggressive Christian angel binds the Jew
by his two big toes to the top of the mast.

By what inference or postulate do you assert
contrary to the narrative, that the author intended
that Philip's prayer (in the wrong direction to the
gods of peace) would cause the wind?

But can we identify the cause of our disagreement?

And do others want to make a comment?
Either this is humorous or it is not.


That's a nice backhander for the fourth century writers.
Do you see yourself as "more sophisticated" than they?
Obviously.

Perhaps this is one cause of our disagreement.
I do not make this assumption that the fourth,
third, second, first, etc authors of antiquity were
an unsophisticated crew of commentators.

Perhaps you need to expand your reading outside
of the purported Christian writers of this period.
Have you ever studied ancient history Toto?
What are your criteria for "sophistication"?

Best wishes,



Pete Brown