mountainman

Dear Spin,

You are assuming we have evidence that there were believers in the new testament canon before 312 CE. What evidence are you going to cite to support that assumption? One frescoe at Dura-Europa, now at Yale Divinity College, and one Diatesseron fragment also from Dura, on the Persian frontier? Do you play poker spin? This sounds like a bluff.

Best wishes,


Pete

Sheshbazzar

To state my position yet another way, The Greco-Roman religion of the Gentiles, fabricated under the pseudonym of "Paul" and called "Christian" was NOT the same religion held by the Jerusalem Apostles.
No, I do not believe that the Dura evidence counts against Pete's theory, as a NAZARENE synagogue is aJEWISH synagogue.
Nazarenes were Jews, and JEWISH, not "Jewish-christians". a misnomer and anachronism.
Their religion, theology and practices remained distinctively Jewish, and they rejected the innovations of Pauline created "christianity".
Pete's theory is great for pointing out that Eusebian "christian History" is a total fraud, and that "christianity did not at all exist as it is described by the christian churches and uncritical secular history.
The weakness of Pete's theory is its total denial of the existence of pre-Constantine, pagan-Gentile "ChrEstians". and "christians", who did exist and practiced a different religion derived from the Jewish Nazarene religion.

spamandham

I don't think we'll come to agreement on this, but I do see it as relevant, it just isn't very compelling.

mountainman

Dear Sheshbazzar,

Thanks for the restatement of your position. I would just like to comment that IMO the Pauline Letters were all fourth century forgeries, so that when you speak of Pauline "innovations", I count that as happening at the time the rest of the new testament canon was fabricated. The letters of Paul, IMO, in principal were written in to the new testament canon because it was common knowledge that important philosophically and "religiously admired historical figures" who were renown authors of books and of letters to other well known philosophers, such as Apollonius of Tyana, had their letters collected after their death -- by Roman emperors.


On this matter I would like to state that although the canonical new testament did not exist prior to the fourth century there did exist an entire milieu of different collegiately, and academically networked in the cities of the empire, and its various far flung dominions, and which wisdoms sayings, and lists of inspiring sayings, and instructional parables and allegories, abounded.

One of the only supporters of the idea I found earlier and reported was the author who published under the name Dr. R. W. Bernard (1964) a book entitled Apollonius of Tyana - the Nazarene, which has been available on the net for some time. The link provided here is to the entire book. It makes a very interesting read, but the critical section dealing with the advent of Constantine and specifically the military councils of Antioch and Nicaea are dealt with in the following manner:

I am therefore in no manner disputing the existence of pre-Constantine, pagan-Gentile "ChrEstians", who did exist and practiced a different religion derived from the Jewish Nazarene religion. However I see the Jewish Nazarene as a subsiduary religion in terms of scale and thus popularity within the Roman empire when compared to the very popular religion associated with the Greek and Egyptian gods of Apollo, and though him Asclepius the Healing God. The dominant philosophical, mathematical and scientific technologies were fostered in the empire from the time of Pythagoras by the greek academies of Plato et al through an unbroken chain which included Apollonius of Tyana through to Porphyry of Tyre and Iamblichus and Sopater (and probably Arius of Alexandria) through to the rise of Constantine, who cut this branch off.

The ancient greek civilisation of the eastern empire was a milieu of the Egyptian and the Greek and the Roman and the Persian and the African and the Celtic and the Jewish and the Hebrew and the Parthian and even the Indian --- we have shiva relics in Italy. It should be stated that the role of the Pontifex Maximus included the coordination of all the pontiffs (heads) of all the various religious cults at special events, such as midwinter and midsummer, etc, etc.

The operative words (in the pre-Nicene religious milieu) here I wish to stress are cooperative and collegiate and tolerance. Constantine ripped this apart. He was not cooperative but instead a malevolent despot. He was not collegiate, but rather insanely authority driven, as if the absolute power had gone to his head due to his successes, as indicated by his executions immediately following the Council of Nicaea. And he was not tolerant, but excessively intolerant of any and all opposition to his despotic initiatives.

The key to understanding the religious cults of the first three centuries is more than just the literature, since much of its did not survive. It is very important IMO to additionally review the monumental evidence and citations available in the archaeological fields, and it is for this reason that I have assembled a collation nof references to substantiate the undisputable ubiquitous nature of the ancient archaeological citations supporting this greek and then Roman Healing god, whose name serviced the public hospital system for the period 500 BCE to 500 CE. The Therapeutae of Asclepius were the temple and shrine assistants, who in a custodial fashion manned the ancient structures which Constantine utterly destroyed, and prohibited standard business-as-usual use of.

There as an interruption in services for perhaps a millenium, in which two bogus fraudulent fictional and totally inept christian saints were tendered as replacements. But the people of the Rennaisance woke up to the reality of the need for proper medical skills and knowledge which was not to be had in the authority of the churches patron saints --- somehow the miracles just did not seem to happen after the apostles left the planet. Who knows why? The symbol of Asclepius and his staff with the snake entwined around it returned to the medical profession (of Europe) and today --- statistically --- the emblem of Asclepius is used by the medical profession.


Best wishes,


Pete

spin

Perhaps you can outline any of this... this evidence that you imagine. I've only seen such things as a woefully misunderstanding of Julian, a denial of all evidence against the theory, an ignorance of the Arian dispute, a failure to account for the literary tradition, and a lack of sociological nous in dealing with the bizarre notion of the whole of the Roman empire suddenly being forced to take on the hypothetically new religion. This lunatic theory has been dealt with over and over again in all its inadequacy.

So, what substantive evidence do you see, be it compelling or not, in favour of the mountainman Eusebius created christianity theory??


spin

mountainman

Dear J-D,

The Father had always been with the Greek academics. The Son in the fourth century was treated as something new to make all sorts of weird comments about llike the one you mention above. The Son and the Father were two gods. All this is indications of common satire against this new son of the new Constantinian Testament, and its rapid adoption to state-level action plan A - all systems go, go, go and tax-exemptions at the ready.

However at the head of all these opinions concerning the wrong way to say things about Jesus in the fourth century, remained in the top place of the charts of heresies, a star performer every decade from the third right through until Cyril appeared to clean up christological thinking once and for all, were the words of Arius of Alexandria. Why did the generations retain these words? How important do you think they were, if they were theological? And if they were in fact political words, how important do you think they were?

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear Pat,

As this is a very critical question I thought I'd add a few more resources for discussion which I have prepared along the way.

(1) Draft Specification of the Eusebian Fiction Postulate. (2008)

This is a treatment of the available and extant literature at the summary level of the authors of the literature. Although the claims are in respect of the documents supposedly authored (or not, as the case may be) by these people, I have not listed the documents themselves in the same exhaustive fashion that I have presented the authors. The authors are then categorised as follows:

(2) The Authors of Antiquity

This document may appeal to those who like color coding. RED for Bishops, GREEN for the pagans, PURPLE for the Roman Emperors, etc, and it attempts to present a gradually exhaustive list of anyone whom we know every wrote anything, or perhaps wrote something, in the literature of antiquity (and more recently for some).

(3) Statement of the Eusebian Fiction Postulate

This article uses a diagram to explain the chronology of the authors discussed above, and contains a number of diagrams showing how the fiction was assembled, and thrust upon the empire at Nicaea.


(4) The NON CANONIC as PAGAN POLEMIC

After the year 324 CE by my thesis, the new testament apochryphal literature was authored by the greek speaking academic, logician and ascetic, perhaps priest of Asclepius at Alexandria, Arius. The core set of non canonical acts are attributed to one shadowy author called Leutius Charinus. I think that this is Arius of Alexandria, and Arius wrote at least the following tractates:

* The Acts of John
* The Acts of Peter
* The Acts of Paul
* The Acts of Andrew
* The Acts of Thomas (enbedding in it the Hymn of the Pearl, an ancient gnostic ascetic text, perhaps of the 1st century CE)
* The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles (NHC 6.1) ............ TAOPATTA)
* The Gospel of Nicodemus (including the Acts of Pontius Pilate)

I present these documents as being evidence of satire, parody and burlesque directed squarely against the Constantinian Canonical characters. In each and every one of the above, I am prepared to argue there exists humorous satire. The context of the satire (which needs to be understood first) is the politics of the fourth century, and the suppression of the greeks by the Constantinian regime and its new testament canon.

These documents have explicitly been referred to, by at least one academic commentator, as a textual critics nightmare. My contention is that they were written by an author who's cleverness exceeded that of Eusebius, and who was a true (Hellenic civilisation) gnostic, and an ascetic, and on the surface apparently very docetic --- the operative message being that Jesus only seemed to (historically) exist. And for the sake of posterity, in the case of the coptic TAOPATTA, that the figure of Lithargoel is to be associated with Jesus is the superficial treatment of that text. Lithargoel is to be associated with Asclepius. (In my opinion, which I am prepared to defend by debate - Doubting Thomasis please feel free to open a thread)


Best wishes,


Pete

Sheshbazzar

Then we are in agreement.
I am content that the JEWISH sect of The Nazarene faith constiuted a minute fraction of a percent of pre-Constantinian believers, even if were it as little as "two or three are gathered together in" That Name (The "Watchword"), which Miriam actually bestowed upon her son. (hint; not the much more popular "JC" name of "christian" lore and fame.)
So with that little caveat, I say it again, give 'em hell Pete, 'cause we both know at the end of the day it will be evident how thoroughly they have been blinded and deceived by the lies of christianity.

spamandham

You're filling in the blanks with the canonical gospels. We don't know that's valid in regard to the Dura fragment.

I already provided it. That's what started this present exchange.

spin

I haven't filled in anything. You're pretending that if you close your eyes tightly enough you can make the obvious christian content go away.

As I gathered: nothing.


spin