mountainman

Dear Kapyong,

I will tender two items of evidence in support of eccles' claim
that the Emperor Constantine the Great (Fascist) ordered the
fabrication of the new testament.

(1) The sophisms of Arius, which are recorded by the historians and which are used in the 200-300 year Arian Controversy are indicative of fiction. These sophisms are as follows:

There was time when He was not.
Before He was born He was not.
He was made out of nothing existing.
He is/was from another subsistence/substance.
He is subject to alteration or change.

They have been presumed to be treated as comments upon theology.
That is, comments by Arius of Alexandria on theological issues.
However they may also be treated as historical comments
on the appearance of Jesus around the year 324/325 CE.
"JESUS WAS MADE OUT OF NOTHING EXISTING".
This is a political comment implying Jesus is a fiction.

(2) Emperor Julian's writings "Against the Christians"

It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced that
the fabrication of the Christians
is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

Though it has in it nothing divine,
by making full use of that part of the soul
which loves fable and is childish and foolish,
it has induced men to believe
that the monstrous tale is truth.

Here Julian says it all, less than 40 years after Nicaea.
The fabrication of the christians is of course the new testament,

Julian probably formally implicated Constantine and Eusebius,
however his writings were burnt by the christians and Cyril
then wrote a refutation of Julian's Three Books, in which
it is clear that much was censored in order to attempt to
reclaim lost authenticity issues.

Toto

You have tendered these before, and they have been universally rejected as not meaning what you claim they mean.

FWIW He and his father Constantius are usually claimed to be of Illyrian (modern Albania) origin.

mountainman

There is not one person in this forum who has not been taught
by the authority vested in the church of today from the church
of yesterday that the sophisms of Arius are universally accepted by
the Universal Church as being theological in content.

That when Arius said "There was time when Jesus was not" that
Arius was talking about the theological jesus, and not the historical
jesus. That when Arius said "Before Jesus was born before Jesus
was not" that Arius was talking about the theological jesus, and not
the historical jesus. That when Arius said "Jesus was made out of
nothing existing" that Arius was talking about the theological jesus,
and not the historical jesus. etc

The only problem with this argument by the universal authority of
the universal church, by which everyone believes that the sophisms
of Arius are supposed to be interpretted as theological and not
as historical commentary upon the appearance of Jesus is that
the centuries long Arian controversy -- which participants championed
these sophisms -- thus represents a very unique epoch in humanity.

An age of many centuries where the people ceased to discuss the
issues of immediate politics, and instead discussed the issues of a
three hundred year old theological nuance. I dont buy this.

The universal rejection of these sophisms of Arius as theological
it to be expected by people who have been taught and spoon-fed
to accept the theology of the universal church as the church has
presented it for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

Kapyong

Gday,

Sorry.
We've heard it all before.
No-one agrees with you.


K.

mountainman

No-one agrees with anyone as to what constituted the Arian controversy. Do any two people in this forum agree over what this massive controversy was about? What do you think, for example, the 300 years of Arian controversy was about? And will anyone agree with you?

History or Theology of Bilbo Baggins ?

There was time when Bilbo Baggins was not.
Before Bilbo Baggins was born Bilbo Baggins was not.
Bilbo Baggins was made out of nothing existing.
Bilbo Baggins is/was from another subsistence/substance.
Bilbo Baggins is subject to alteration or change.

Toto

Pete:

Please discuss the scholarly disagreement over the Arian controversy.

Please explain why Arian's statement means that Jesus was a fiction created by Constantine whether his statement was theological or historical.

mountainman

The original OP "Jesus never existed" was further specified by eccles in that "Jesus never existed because Constantine invented him. You can clearly see that this is so below. A poster then stated that eccles had not produced one bit of evidence for eccles' claim that Constantine invented the NT, and it was at this point I provided evidence -- for rational discussion -- in the form of the reactionary words of Arius and Julian in response to Constantine's Jesus. This was directly related to the original OP. So now you have two threads which resolve to the same claim that Constantine invented the christian religion and the new testament.

Nevertheless I will prepare a response to your questions above.

mountainman

We have the apperance of the new testament canonical literaure and its eventual widespread adoption and publication under Constantine. These are two separate phases of "Early Christianity". Its authorship and its centralised preservation. For those people who are by one argument or another reasonably convinced that the new testament is a fabrication and fiction of an author or authors who were not named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul, then it becomes quite obvious that the new testament canon was fabricated sometime between the second century and the early fourth.

I think we should be allowed to freely explore this date range, on the basis that all the extant corroborating external (to the church, eg: archaeological) evidence is exceedingly weak, meagre and distinctly ambiguous. This leads us to testing the boundary condition that the NT authorship actually occurred during the same epoch in which we know it was widely published - that is under the rule of Constantine.

If we objectively entertain and meditate on the notion that the NT was authored as late as this epoch --- as a fiction or a mythological work --- then we must ask what evidence is there in the reception of christinianity and does this evidence suggest anything to us in regard to an analysis of the historical commentary on the real political nature of the historical jesus.

It appears that if Jesus surfaced in history around the time of the Council of Nicaea, then he surfaced attached with Arius' comments attached to him, and the risen Jesus then had a great battle trying to throw off the words of Arius throughout hundreds of years of momentous social and political controversy. Anyone attempting to separate theology and politics in the fourth century does not understand how inexpricablly they have been bound together by the victorious christian historians at the end of the fourth century and the early fifth - especially Cyril of Alexandria, who anathemetised left, right and center until the empire was "cleansed".

The words of Arius represent the resistance to the reception of the historical jesus and those who work within the "church of jesus" would have us believe that this Arius was politically and religiously one of your standard Eusebian classified "christians". The victors downplayed the controversy. The christians just kept inventing their own history.

Historical Comments on the Historical Jesus by Arius

There was time when the Historical Jesus was not.
Before the Historical Jesus was born the Historical Jesus was not.
The Historical Jesus was made out of nothing existing.
The Historical Jesus is/was from another subsistence/substance.
The Historical Jesus is subject to alteration or change.

George Washington is a reasonably historical figure who lived almost 300 years ago. If someone today commenced a popular mantra about George Washington using the following terminology, what should we be able to say (if anything) about the relationship between the author X of the mantra and what he thought about George Washington ....

Historical Comments on George Washington by Author X

There was time when George Washington was not.
Before George Washington was born George Washington was not.
George Washington was made out of nothing existing.
George Washington is/was from another subsistence/substance.
George Washington is subject to alteration or change.

Does Author X think that George Washington is an historial figure?
Does Author X think that George Washington is fictional figure?

Toto

Pete: the standard view from those who read the texts is that the disagreement between Arius and the trinitarians was that Arius held that Jesus was not the same as god. Arius was more like those today who believe in a historical Jesus who was born, developed, and acted on the world.

The proto-orthodox held that Jesus existed from the beginning of time, and Arius argued against this by saying that there was a time when he "was not." This does not mean that he was invented as a fictional character, merely that he was born at a particular time and did not exist before that time.

George Washington was born and died. Before he was born he "was not."

Why do you reject this common understanding?

Susan2

There was time when He was not (yours).

Before He was born He was not (mine).

He was made out of nothing existing (ours).

He is/was from another subsistence/substance (theirs).

He is subject to alteration or change (Who am I).